Dear Christian friends:

For the second time Cecil B. DeMille's great motion picture the "The Ten Commandments" is showing in our city and for that matter in many other cities though out our nation. And without a doubt it is one of the longest and greatest films ever produced.

Much time and great sums of money were spent in scholarly research to make this movie as accurate as possible. Even the gaps of sacred and secular history which were filled in by the deductions and imaginations of the play-writes, seem to be quite plausible and in harmony with the abbreviated Scriptural account.

While this great film may do much good for the millions who see it, we wonder if it has the power to do all that Mr. DeMille claims for it. Especially when he says that the Ten Commandments can be the power to keep men free from tyranny and social and political enslavement we raise a big question mark in our minds.

Are the Ten Commandments really the hope of civilization and of free men everywhere? What are we to think when we see this film and hear and read such claims of its power for good?

I believe that the current interest in Moses and the Ten Commandments stirred up by this film affords the evangelical Christian Churches a golden opportunity to witness to the Real Power that frees and unites men of all races and nations.

Our text tells us in John 1:17, "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." And so on the basis of this text and with the help of God's Holy Spirit let us impress upon our hearts and minds that sacred truth that:


Allow me to show you that the Ten Commandments are powerless to do this and how the Gospel alone is able to do it and what this should move us to do.

Our text tells us: "The law was given by Moses." Our text does not say that the Law produced grace and truth. It says grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. So it infers that the law was unable to make men gracious and truthful, really good and righteous. And we know from Scripture that it makes men just the exact opposite. It makes hypocrites of them just as it did with the Scribes and Pharisees of Jesus' day.

Man in his natural depravity and pride thinks that if he does the outward works of the law he is good and has done all that is required. But Jesus warned those who boasted of the outward works of the law, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness." (Matthew 23:27)

Man in his natural condition is sinful as Martin Luther pointed out: "We are not sinners, because we lie, cheat, steal and hate, but we lie, steal, cheat and hate because we are sinners and can do nothing else but deep down inside us." And so we rightly confess in the morning communion service: "God be merciful to me a poor, sinful being."

And so commanding a sinful being to be gracious, and truthful is like commanding a turtle to become a dog. So no matter how many times you commanded and no matter how loud you yelled and threatened you couldn't make the turtle change into a dog. And even though you cursed, and whipped and beat that turtle and smashed it to bits it still wouldn't be a dog.

And so it is somewhat like that with sinful men. No matter how much you teach and command and threaten a man not to lust he still will lust anyway. In fact the more you teach and command the more stubborn and sinful he becomes. While he may behave outwardly when the whip is at hand he smolders and curses inwardly.

This also St. Paul supports when he says: "I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead.
Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died."
(Romans 7:7-9) And so the commandments act as a catalytic agent in the corrupt heart of men.

This not mean that the commandments themselves are sin. They are holy and good and just and right. But we whom they command are carnal in bondage to sin by nature. They cannot make us righteous through and through. Indeed, they help to check the more violent outward acts of sin by threat of punishment or by the promise of reward, but they do not change the essence of sinful men.

As Jesus said in Matthew 17:7, "a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit." Now you can hinder a bad tree from producing fruit by clipping its blossoms and pruning its branches, but you cannot change a bad tree into a good tree by that operation. And so the law or Commandments helps to keep the outward decency among men, but they cannot make men really truthful and gracious. The history of Israel after they received the law from Moses is a good case in point.

So actually and really the Commandments make men hypocrites like the scribes and Pharisees or else it makes them despairing hopeless wrecks as Cain, Esau, King Saul, Judas and others.

Well you may argue: "Why did God give the law through Moses if that's all it does?" The law was given by Moses to help us understand in a measure how sinful we really are, so that we might learn to pray with the publican and really mean it: "God be merciful to me a sinner." (Luke 18:13) And thus humbled and stripped of all shame and outward righteousness we might cry as in the Hymn, "Rock of Ages".

Nothing in my hand I bring,
simply to the cross I cling;
naked, come to thee for dress;
helpless, look to thee for grace;
foul, I to the fountain fly;
wash me, Savior, or I die.

And having done this we will begin to know what is real grace and truth for, "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." He came and by his real, genuine, natural grace and truth showed us how really shallow and hollow our little outward pretenses at goodness were. What a sham and lie we really were, hollow as a drum, empty as a vacuum and rotten as a grave.

And when we saw Him living this gracious and truthful life in heart, spirit and deed every moment of every day we knew what real truth and goodness was. And when we found out that He lived it gladly without fear of punishment or hope of reward solely for the glory of His Father and for the love of men, we were amazed and struck with wonder love and praise.

And then when we found out that this loving, holy, innocent, truthful Son of God came to lay down His life on the cross in payment for our sins we fell before Him with loving adoration. He gave us power to believe on His name and become the sons of God and thus we were born again, if we are a Christian at all, born not of blood, nor of the will of man, but of God and of His fullness have all we received, grace for grace. This we did not get by the law of Moses, but by the grace and truth that is in Christ Jesus.

And so since He has regenerated us by the Gospel and made us new creatures in Christ we are able to be truthful and gracious with our self and with all men. The law may be able to check the course outbursts of sin by threatening and promising reward but it cannot really make free men and good men at heart.

Here also we must remember that there is no real permanent hope for the world. Kingdoms rise and Kingdoms fall. Wars come and go as well as days of peace. Men are born and men die. There is no real permanent hope for this world in the individual nations or in the United Nations. God has already judged and condemned this world and its days are numbered.

The Ten Commandments, while they may help to keep temporary bits of civil righteousness are no cure to make us righteous as we need to be in the sight of God when we must stand before Him. But the grace and truth that comes to us by faith in Jesus Christ furnishes us with the grace and truth of God Himself and really saves us now and forever. And the more real Christians we have in the nations and the world the better will be also our temporary pilgrimage here.

So both the temporal and the eternal hope of man is not found primarily in the Ten Commandments, but in the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Savior of the world whose Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom and not like the fly by night power of this world.

In remaking the Ten Commandments Cecil B. DeMille made a great movie. But when he remakes the "King of Kings" he will have made his greatest, "for the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."

So use this movie as an ice breaker for a wonderful opportunity in personal evangelism. See the movie note and the wrong application of the law and show people how only the Gospel can really do what Cecil B. DeMille and so many claim for the law.

Amen.