Thoughtful Moments

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 169, 17 October 1941, Page 2

Thoughtful Moments

(Supplied by ihe Whakat

The first Commandment is, Thou shall have no other gods before Me.

The second Commandment is, Thou shall not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the. iniquity of the fathers up on the

■.children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto thousands [if them that love Me and keep my Commandments. The third Commandment is, Thou ;halt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takcth His name in vain. The fourth Commandment is, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days slialt thou labour and do all thy work; but the seventh /lay is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou slialt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy '.laughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

The fifth Commandment is, Honour thj' father and the}' mother; that thy days maj l, be long upon the land ♦vhich the Lord thy God givcth thee.

The sixth Commandment is, Thon •;halt not kill.

The, seventh Commandment is, Thou shalt not commit adultery. The eighth Commandment is, Thou shalt not steal.

The ninth Commandment is, Thou (halt not bear false witness thy neighbour.

ne Mirnst ers' Association)

OUR SUNDAY MESSAGE

The lentil Commandment is, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, lliou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his fiss, nor any tiling that is thy neighbour's. In spite of Kipling the Ten Commands go east of Suez. They go tci the ends of the dim and distant stars. They are the eternal laws that keep a million times a million worlds revolving in their places. J hey are the eternal laws that make fire hot and control the force of gravity. The general idea seems to be that to break one of the Commands is to play a little trick on your preacher. The fact of course is that it is impossible to break one of the Commands" they break you. You can no more escape the consequences of violating one of these laws than you can escape the consequences of trying to cat a live coal. They arc the fabric of the Divine system. They are the essence of eternity. There never was a time when they were not. Before Moses they were as old as the univense. They are not laws* they are the Law. They arc the sum total of the Law: there is no other law. They are the beginning and the end . . . and we say with a tear that we have broken one of the Commandments. Huh! . . . Well, we have tried the other way. The diplomats and the marching armies and greedy fingers that snatched, tried the other way. And, beaten to our knccs> breathless, heartsick and alraid, the shattered world asks itself the question: 'What is the way out of this wilderness of dislocation and sorrow?' And the plain and simple answer Is there, as it always has been from the beginning and will be until the end of all things."