Ted Turner and the Ten Commandments

A Catholic group is demanding that Ted Turner be banned from baseball for a year for slurs he voiced about the Pope at a family planning dinner in Washington.

While Turner has sold all his holdings, including the Braves, to Time Warner Inc., he is still associated with the Braves as Time Warner vice chairman. The head of the Catholic group said it would be the height of hypocrisy for major league baseball to overlook Turner’s repeated statements of overt anti-Catholic and anti-Protestant Christian bigotry.

Well, what did Ted Turner say to draw this fire? While speaking at a dinner of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Association, someone asked him what he would say if he met the Pope. Extending an upraised foot to the audience, he answered, "Ever seen a Polish mine detector." He said the Pope ought to get with it and enter the 20^th century. He then suggested that the Ten Commandments’ ban on adultery should be abolished.

When Turner suggested a ban on the commandment against adultery he revealed both his arrogance and his ignorance.

Arrogance, because he is presuming himself to be wiser than God. It reminds me of Paul’s statement in Romans 1:22, "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." One wonders why Turner chose this particular commandment to be abolished. Is he advocating adultery? Is he advocating unfaithfulness to your spouse, betrayal of trust and the breaking of sacred vows? Several years ago a candidate for President of the United States said he wouldn’t have anyone on his staff or cabinet that was unfaithful to his marriage vows. Not surprisingly the media made him a laughingstock for that remark. But if a man does not keep the most sacred vow a person can make—faithfulness to his spouse, do you think he is going to take other vows seriously? Hearing Turner’s advocacy of adultery, I thought, if I were his wife, I’d keep a close eye on the guy. And when he was around I would lock up my wife and daughter.

His statement reveals his ignorance because who is going to repeal that law? The only ones who can abolish a law are the ones who put it on the book. The only one who can abolish one of the Ten Commandments is the One who established it. And I think you’re going to have a tough time talking God into that. That is God’s law, not man’s. It is the height of foolishness to think that man can overturn the law of God. These are the Ten Commandments, not the Ten Suggestions.

Ignorance, because obviously Turner doesn’t understand the nature of the Ten Commandments. The Bible says that sin is "lawlessness." It is more than an act it is an attitude. Remember the words of James 2:10? "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, yet offend IN ONE POINT, HE IS GUILTY OF ALL." In other words the Commandments are not separate and isolated from one another. They are a body, connected to each other. If you are hanging by a chain, it doesn’t take all the links to break for you to fall. One will be enough. The same attitude of rebellion that breaks one is the same attitude that breaks them all. So if you abolish one, you abolish them all. If you take away the law against adultery, then you do away with the laws concerning stealing and lying and honoring your father and mother. Surely Turner didn’t have that in mind.

The Ten Commandments are the foundation of a healthy society. God wasn’t being mean to us when He gave the commandments, He was being good, showing us the secret of that healthy society. If you’re looking for an explanation of the moral and social chaos in our country, look no farther -- it is the result of man breaking the foundational laws of society. It may help our perspective if we look at the Commandments in a positive way. Imagine what a wonderful and peaceful life we would lead, if everyone kept the commandments.

The Catholics demanded an apology and Turner gave them one. But it is not the Catholics to whom he owes an apology. It is to God and to all of us, for advocating the moral and social breakdown of our lives. And Turner’s greatest danger is not being banished from baseball.

Dr Death and the Greatest Sin

Last week a Michigan jury found Dr. Jack Kevorkian guilty of second degree murder. Having been tried for murder several times before, this is the first time "Dr. Death" was convicted for his assisted-suicide practices. My own feelings were "It’s about time," for call it what you may, according to the law, it was murder. Under the law, murder is the greatest crime a person can commit. But it is not the greatest sin.

The greatest sin a person can commit is the sin of unbelief. Of course, the world would not agree with this. They would say the greatest sin, if they even used the word, would be murder. But in God’s eyes the great crime of man is unbelief.

Unbelief is the source of all other sins. In the Garden of Eden, the crime business began when Satan said to Eve, "Ye shall not surely die," and the woman began to doubt whether God would carry out His threat. Her unbelief led to disobedience.

The Israelites could not enter the Promised Land because of their unbelief. They did not believe the clear promise of God. People are ready to believe what falls in with their carnal desires or fears, but are slow to believe what God has spoken.

Unbelief of the truth is always connected with the belief of a lie, that earth is better than heaven, sin lovelier than holiness, time more important than eternity. With unbelievers a trifling falsehood influences them more against belief in the Bible than gigantic truth in favor of it. Actually, without realizing it, man is more inclined to the side of error when it comes to divine truth. Paul, speaking of the heathen in Romans 1:25, says that they "changed the truth of God into a lie."

Unbelief is the occasion for all other sins. Perverted passions and depraved desires may be the inciting cause, but if not for unbelief these would not exist.

The greatest expression of unbelief is rejecting Christ. John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Rejecting Christ is a sin against logic. If you had the choice between perishing and having everlasting life, which would you choose? The logical answer would be, "everlasting life." Christianity is common sense in action. The most illogical move we make is the one away from Christ. Luke 15 tells that when the prodigal son "came to himself," he returned to the father.

Rejecting Christ is a sin against light. Listen to John, "And this is the condemnation that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be manifest, that they are wrought in God" (3:19-22). These verses reveal the folly of all excuses for not receiving the Gospel. People do not come to Christ because their deeds are evil. The trouble is not in a man’s head that he does not know HOW to believe; the trouble is in his heart that he does not WANT to believe.

Rejecting Christ is a sin against love. To spurn Christ is to trample under our feet the infinite love of God. Christ is the supreme expression of God’s love and it is an insult to that love when we reject such a supreme gift.

Unbelief is the sin that damns. Nothing is so provoking and offensive to God as to refuse the wonderful salvation He has provided at so mighty a cost. Nothing is so suicidal on the part of a person as when they turn from the only remedy that can heal their soul.

Murder will not condemn a person’s soul before God, but unbelief will.

OUR INHERITANCE

A couple of weeks ago a friend and his wife were in Hawaii celebrating his fiftieth birthday when they received a phone call telling them that their house had burned down. Their house was totally destroyed plus their two cars in the garage. My friend told a reporter than when they received the call, he and his wife were discussing paring down! But that certainly wasn’t what they had in mind.

I can’t think of many things that could be worse. My wife and I discussed what we would miss most if we lost our house. A lifetime of photographs was first on our list. Then financial files (the IRS probably wouldn’t understand). I thought of my library of several thousand books, most of which couldn’t be replaced. And on and on the list goes. It’s a sobering thought and reminds me of how fragile our lives and possessions are. It also reminded me that only the treasures we lay up in heaven would be eternally ours.

I thought of the words in First Peter 1:4 that tells us that we have an inheritance "incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, RESERVED IN HEAVEN FOR YOU." Heaven is a safe-deposit box where God is guarding our inheritance under constant surveillance.

In this life the things are passing that we enjoy, and we are passing who enjoy them. No matter how hard a grasp we have on things, they will eventually be torn from our hand. A fatal flaw afflicts all of life. Nothing lasts or escapes corruption.

BUT we who know Christ have an inheritance that is indestructible, imperishable and immortal. And it is reserved, fully assured. The word "reserved" has present and continuing implications—literally, it means "having ever been and ever continuing to be safeguarded."

This inheritance also is undefiled. The Greek word refers to a mineral found among the rocks and made into a fire-resistant fabric. Though soiled, it turned pure white when placed in the fire. Romans paid generously for such fabric. The word came to mean "unspoiled, untainted." All possessions here are defiled and stained with many defects and failings. But not so our inheritance in heaven.

Our inheritance is also unfading. It’s brilliance and splendor is not affected by the years. It never loses it original color and shine. It never withers, never disappoints, and never becomes old or worn or boring. Our delight in it will never lessen or grow stale.

This inheritance of which Peter speaks is not heaven. It is IN heaven. Peter doesn’t spell out what that inheritance is but I know that part, if not the whole of it, is God. Whatever the inheritance is, it is so great that Peter can only describe it by telling what it ISN’T. It can’t be compared to anything we have ever experienced or seen or known in this world.

But in the following verse Peter adds another word of assurance: "who are kept by the power of God...." Here is double assurance: our inheritance is kept for us and we are kept for it. Having a reservation in a luxury hotel doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be able to use it. You may have an accident on the way and end up in the hospital instead. We not only need a guarantee at the hotel, we need a guarantee that we will arrive.