Faith Tidbit #35

So, if we can't obey the Ten Commandments which we must obey in order to have the life that only God gives, what good are they anyway? The Ten Commandments have three main functions. First, they act as a hedge on the behaviors and activities even of those who don't believe in God. The Bible says that the law is written on human hearts. Even those who regularly flout belief in God and believe that they have the right to do whatever they want will, at the moment they feel others have crossed them, appeal to some notions of right and wrong that somehow justify their sense of being wronged. Even in societies that have little or no experience of the God revealed to Israel--and in Jesus Christ, the Ten Commandments written on all human hearts will be appealed to, both by the victims of lovelessness and by the perpetrators anxious to prove that their violations of God's law are in some way justified. The Ten Commandments are a hedge against human lovelessness. The second function of the Ten Commandments tomorrow.