Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":
The financial world has been jolted by the guilty verdicts handed down to the two top executives of the giant Enron Corporation. Unless their appeal changes the verdict, they are headed to prison for life. To simplify the case, they have been convicted of bearing false witness and of virtually stealing the livelihood of thousands.
It began as merely extra clever “business,” no intent to steal or lie. According to the court, it became a slippery slope.
But some related good news has evolved from the scholastic studies of some who have investigated the original Hebrew language of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. The familiar “thou shalt nots” are in fact the simple indicative future tense of the various Hebrew verbs; they are not imperatives; in the original, they are not “commands,” but simple promises.
But like all of God’s promises, there is the one fundamental fulcrum on which the promise turns—faith to believe the promise. God may give us a gigantic gift, but if we refuse it we deprive ourselves of the benefit. His giving us the gift does not force us to receive it! That’s up to us.
That fulcrum in Exodus 20 is the Preamble to the Ten Commandments: “I brought.... you out of.... the house of bondage” (vs. 2); that is, I saved you!
But the cost of His saving us was—His own death. Yes, our second death.
The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is in that verse 2; let your proud, worldly heart be broken, melted, by that realization. Let your insensitive heart appreciate “the width and length and depth and height—to know the love [agape] of Christ which passes knowledge” (Eph. 3:18, 19); then God says, I promise—you will not fall down that slippery slope of stealing, or lying, or even to stumble into coveting your neighbor’s goods, or even his wife.
If prison eventuates for these two once-powerful corporation magnates, thank God it’s not the end of the road. The lesson of that grand Preamble is worth a lifetime’s learning, even in prison!
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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