Commandments

The Island of Dr. Moreau is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells, but in this story the main character does not travel through time or fight aliens as in Well's The Time Machine or The War of the Worlds. Rather, the protagonist finds himself shipwrecked on a mysterious tropical island under the iron control of Dr. Moreau. The brilliant scientist has created monstrous human-animals, giving wolves, pigs, bulls, and other creatures the rudiments of human appearance, personality, and abilities; yet, at heart they are still animals. Moreau keeps them in line through constant repetition of "the Law," a long series of commands chanted daily:

Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?

Not to eat Fish or Flesh; that is the Law. Are we not Men?

Not to claw the Bark of Trees; that is the Law. Are we not Men?

Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men?'

Does the Law work? Can it curb animal instinct? Yes and no. It restrains them during the day, but at night the animal nature rises. The narrator observes that "the Law … battled in their minds with the deep seated, ever-rebellious cravings of their animal natures. This Law they were ever repeating, I found, and ever breaking."

Possible Preaching Angles: Wells was not a theologian, but he could have been commenting on Romans 7, "We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual … . When I want to do good, evil is right there with me … . . I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against" God's law.

In his TED Talk, "The Paradox of Choice," secular psychologist Barry Schwartz claims that many of us live by this unspoken but "official dogma": maximize your happiness by maximizing your individual freedom. And according to Schwartz, "The way to maximize freedom is to maximize choice."

Schwartz points to his local supermarket as an example—a place that offers 175 different kinds of salad dressings. Even our personal identity has become a matter of choice. "We don't inherit an identity," he says. "We get to invent it. And we get to re-invent ourselves as often as we like. And that means that every day, when you wake up in the morning, you have to decide what kind of person you want to be."

Schwartz ended his talk by pointing to a picture of two fish in a fishbowl as he said:

The truth of the matter is that if you shatter the fishbowl so that everything is possible, you don't have freedom. You have paralysis. If you shatter this fishbowl so that everything is possible, you decrease satisfaction … Everybody needs a fishbowl … The absence of some metaphorical fishbowl is a recipe for misery, and, I suspect, disaster.

Possible Preaching Angles: This would also work well as an object lesson illustration with a real fish in a fishbowl.

Imagine you are twelve years old again, and you love baseball. All your heroes are baseball players, all your extracurricular time is spent either with a ball glove in hand or watching a game on television, and, regardless of the season, it's been that way as long as you can remember. It's not that you're particularly good or particularly bad at baseball, you just love the game—the smack of the bat after a line drive, the smell of the grass, the feel of sliding headlong into second base. You've never had to defend it or describe it that way, but that's what you feel. And you can imagine one day having a jersey with your name on the back.

Things have begun to feel a little different this season, though, because twelve-year-olds have to try out for JV teams at the end of the year, and you get the feeling that not everyone makes the cut. You suddenly find yourself comparing your fielding skills with the other infielders and with players from other teams, and you start to count the number of times you miss balls that are hit to you. You keep track of how many strikeouts you get in each game.

Your coach has a way of calling you out, too. In one particularly bad stretch of the season, your coach calls across the field after you make yet another missed fielding play, "That's four times this game! Keep your head down!" You don't keep your head down, though, and after the fifth ground ball makes its way between your legs, your coach demotes you to the outfield. You replay his voice in your head. At your next at-bat, you strike out quickly, and you wonder if baseball is your sport after all.

Possible Preaching Angles: The authors note: "The Law is shorthand here for an accusing standard of performance. As we have noted, whenever the Law is coming, condemnation follows close behind. Whenever an expectation stands before us—from our coach, from ourselves, from God himself—we are either condemned by our failure before it, or made to be condemners in our fulfillment of it. The Law is the unfeeling voice of The Coach—it tolerates no excuses, it accepts no shortcuts. The Law is good, in that it proffers good fundamentals ('Keep your head down when fielding a groundball,' 'You shouldn't smoke,' 'Spend only the money you have,' etc.), but the failure which pursues it always creates a reaction. When we are criticized, we must defend."

In his book Visions of Vocation, Christian author and thinker Stephen Garber tells the story of meeting a woman who directed the Protection Project, an initiative under Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government that addresses human trafficking. Garber asked her, "So why do you care about the issue of human trafficking?"

She told the story of her heart opening to the cries of women and girls who were sold into slavery, often involving sexual bondage. After writing on the issue, the Kennedy School hired her to work at their Protection Project initiative in Washington D.C. Then Garber describes what happened next:

As we talked in her office, I watched her staff walking by in the hallway outside her door, and their serious and eager faces impressed me. She eventually said, "I get the most interesting applications here. Just imagine. Harvard University, Washington, D.C., human rights. It's a powerful combination, and it draws unusually gifted young women and men from the best universities in America."

But then she surprised me with these words, "After a few weeks they almost always find their way down the hall, knock on my door and ask to talk. Now, I know what they are going to say. After thanking me for the position and the opportunity, a bit awkwardly they ask, 'But who are we to say that trafficking is wrong in Pakistan? Isn't it a bit parochial for us to think that we know what is best for other people? Why is what is wrong for us wrong for them?' To be honest, I just don't have time for that question anymore. The issues we address are too real, they matter too much. I need more students like the one you sent me, because I need people who believe that there is basic right and wrong in the universe!"

Christian philosopher J.P. Moreland has written about an encounter with a student at the University of Vermont. Moreland was speaking in a dorm when a student told him, "Whatever is true for you is true for you and whatever is true for me is true for me. If something works for you because you believe it, that's great. But no one should force his or her views on other people since everything is relative." As Moreland left, he unplugged the student's stereo and started out the door with it.

The student protested: "Hey, what are you doing? … You can't do that." Moreland replied, "You're not going to force on me the belief that it is wrong to steal your stereo, are you?" He then went on to point out to the student that, when it's convenient, people say they don't care about sexual morality or cheating on exams. But they become moral absolutists in a hurry when someone steals their things or violates their rights. That is, they are selective moral relativists.

Interestingly, a few weeks later this student became a follower of Christ because he recognized the connection between God and human dignity and rights—that God made us in his image. I like to tell churches that this could be a great new evangelistic method called, "Stealing Stereos for Jesus."

In November 2014, the Food and Drug Administration released its rule for calorie counts on chain restaurants. The final rule is pretty tough: it even requires movie theaters, pizza chains, and grocery stores to include calorie counts on their products. The premise of calorie counts on food items is obvious: If a person sees that the hamburger has 800 calories and the chicken only has 500, maybe that person will choose the chicken.

Most Americans like this idea. Nearly 75 percent of Americans support menu labeling. After New York required labels in 2008, 84 percent of residents said they found the labels helpful, and 93 percent of people in a public health clinic sample saw menu labeling as important. A majority of Americans also said they would choose lower-calorie food items if they had more information at their disposal.

Unfortunately, there's one big problem with food labeling: it doesn't seem to change what we eat. Researchers reviewed 31 studies published between January 2007 and July 2013 that explored how calorie labeling influenced consumer choices at cafes and restaurants. One of the researchers concluded the results of this review: "The best designed studies show that calorie labels do not have the desired effect in reducing total calories ordered at the population level."

On May 7, 1915, the R.M.S Lusitania, a British ocean liner, was struck by a torpedo from a German submarine. The ship sank in a matter of minutes, killing 1198 of the 1959 passengers aboard. In her book, Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy, author Diana Preston recorded the observations of one passenger, bookseller, Charles Lauriat:

As the ship was sinking and as Lauriat looked around to see who needed life jackets, he noticed that among the crowds now pouring on deck nearly everyone who passed by him that was wearing a life jacket had it on incorrectly." In his panic, one man had thrust one arm through an armhole and his head through the other. Others rushed past wearing them upside down. No one had read the "neat little signs" around the ship telling people how to put them on. Lauriat tried to help, but some thought he was trying to take their life jackets from them and fled in terror.

Preston continues: "Dead and drowning people were 'dotting the sea like seagulls.' Many bodies were floating upside down because people had put their life jackets on the wrong way up … so that their heads were pushed under the water."

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Help from God; Dependence; Trust; Surrender—In the same way, how often do we flee in terror in the presence of the God who is trying to save our lives? (2) Commandments; Bible; Obedience—How often do we ignore the "signs" in God's Word and live with our life jackets on the wrong way up?

Bill Klem was the father of baseball umpires: colorful, judicious, and dignified. He was beyond passionate about America's favorite pastime, declaring, "To me, baseball is not a game, but a religion." The first umpire to use arm signals while working behind home plate, Bill umped for 37 years, including 18 World Series. He became known as "the Old Arbitrator," a deferential nod to his keen eye for calling balls and strikes.

On one such occasion, as he crouched and readied behind the plate, the pitcher threw the ball, the batter didn't swing, and, for just an instant, Bill said nothing. The batter turned and snorted, "Okay, so what was it, a ball or a strike?" To which Bill responded, "Sonny, it ain't nothing 'till I call it."

Tim loved his brand new house. The architect, who had supervised the entire building work, designed it so it was a big, open building. The walls were massive windows and the ceiling had a huge skylight in it so the whole house was full of light. There was also a little flowerbed in the middle of it. And in the middle of the flowerbed was one little plant—a gift from the architect himself. The plant would need hardly any attention because the flowerbed had a fully plumbed-in, automated watering system. And, of course, there was plenty of light in the house. All that was required was a little pruning from time to time to keep it from getting out of control.

But Tim's friends weren't so sure about this low-maintenance approach. They encouraged Tim to water it regularly just to make sure, so he did. The magazines Tim read were full of ads for different types of artificial fertilizer recommended for that kind of plant. So Tim tried these too. And the TV gardening programs said it really wasn't a great idea to prune those plants—they needed to be able to grow naturally. So Tim followed that advice too.

And it made a difference. Within weeks, it was shooting up and the leaves were thickening. Soon it was pushing the bounds for a normal-sized houseplant. Tim didn't notice the out-of-proportion growth until the architect came for a visit. When Tim invited him in for a cup of tea he realized just what had happened. By then the change was dramatic. That little plant had started to take over the entire house. Getting around the root structure in the house involved stepping over some branches, ducking others and generally some pretty impressive acrobatics. The plant had come to dominate everything.

But the change which concerned the architect most of all was the lack of light. The foliage was so dense that barely any of that beautiful light was getting through. If you looked really carefully, you could see a kind of pale tinge around the edge of some of the leaves. But that was now about all you could see of the light. It had become a dark green. This was definitely not the architect's original design.

Historian Simon Schama describes one of the most ecologically-friendly movements of the twentieth century. It initiated some of the first recycling programs, taught people how to garden for themselves, and intentionally took youth into the wilderness to experience the power of Creation. That movement was the Third Reich. From 1933-1935 Hitler enacted the first significant environmental legislation in modern history. Schama writes, "It is of course painful to acknowledge how ecologically conscientious the most barbaric regime in modern history actually was. Exterminating millions of lives was not at all incompatible with passionate protection of millions of trees."

When Jesus calls us to follow him, he does not call us to follow him in some areas of our life. Jesus asks for our entire lives. He asks for full obedience, not just "selective obedience."

If you go skydiving at the Southwest Florida Skydiving Club in Punta Gorda, Florida, you can count on two things: (1) an exciting experience and (2) the need to follow some basic rules. For instance, before you participate in a dive, your "Jump Master" will give you the following instructions:

• Don't curl up into the fetal position. (You can slip out of your harness.)
• Arch your back and hold your arms out in front of you. (To keep you from slipping out of your harness and to get you flying in the correct position.)
• Stick your legs out in front when landing. (No explanation necessary.)
• Do everything your jump master tells you to do. (Immediately.)
• No pets allowed on your jump.

These are not negotiable, especially if you want to live. They are absolutes.

Now let's imagine another skydiving experience. When you arrive a smiling instructor begins strapping a parachute to your back while walking you toward a plane idling just outside. Over the plane's engine noise the instructor yells, "We here at the Relativist Skydiving School believe there are many ways to get from the plane to the ground. We respect everyone's desire to skydive and we don't believe in absolute rules. Just listen to your inner voice, respond honestly to your feelings, and have a memorable experience. We'll see you when you get down!"

If that was your experience, would you go skydiving? Most people who go skydiving are glad that there are strict, nonnegotiable rules. You can't be a relativist at skydiving. The rules are there for good reason. When we know why the rules are there it helps us embrace them.

On July 24, 2013, a train carrying 218 people in eight carriages derailed in northwestern Spain, killing 79 people and hospitalizing another 66. Shortly after the wreck, the driver, Francisco Jose Garzon Amo, told officials, "I can't explain it. I still don't understand how I didn't see …. I just don't know." He said the journey was "going fine" until the train hit a curve. At that point Garzon said to himself, "Oh my God, the curve, the curve, the curve. I won't make it."

Despite Garzon's initial confusion and surprise, there is a simple explanation for the crash. Video footage revealed that the train was going as fast as 119 mph before it hit the deadly curve. That's more than twice the speed limit for that section of the track. So it wasn't just the speed that caused the accident. It was the combination of the speed and the location of the track. The train was designed to reach speeds of over 130 mph. But Garzon, who was a 30-year employee of Spain's national rail company, simply ignored the boundaries in which those high speeds were to be used.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) God's Commandments; Obedience—God has laid down the track for us so we don't wreck our lives or the lives of other people. We ignore his speed limits at our own peril. (2) Sex; Sexuality—Our culture needs to hear how the message of speed limits applies to our sexuality. (3) Limits; Balance; Rest—Ignoring our God-given limits for work or success or productivity will only lead to wreckage.

In "Teaching Respect Within the Home," Dave Stone writes:

A number of years ago, our family was in the Dominican Republic on a mission trip. If you've ever driven in a developing country, you know how dangerous the traffic can be. Vehicles whiz past, coming within just a few feet of children playing close to the road. One night, my son Sam was playing a game in his own little world, in which he would zig and zag, back and forth from sidewalk onto the narrow street and back. It wasn't a heavily travelled road; but there was always loud music blaring, and it was pitch dark. From about 10 feet away, I suddenly shouted, "Samuel, don't move!"

Immediately he froze. About a second later a Moped zipped past him, going 30 mph with no lights on—right where Sam was about to step. My 6-year-old didn't ignore me, argue, or blatantly disobey. I said freeze, and he froze. That obedience probably saved his life.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Parenting—As parents, our goal is that our children would obey us the first time we ask, not the second, third, or fourth time we ask. (1) Obeying God—As followers of Jesus, when we hear our Father's voice, we should obey him the first time he speaks to us.

Dorothy Sayers, the mystery writer, was also a devoted Christian. Dorothy Sayers was attempting to explain the moral law of God. She pointed out that in our society there are two kinds of laws. There is the law of the stop sign, and there's the law of the fire. The law of the stop sign is a law that says the traffic is heavy on a certain street, and as a result the police department or the city council decides to erect a stop sign. They also decide that if you run that stop sign, it will cost you $25 or $30 or $35. If the traffic changes, they can up the ante. That is if too many people are running the stop sign, they can make the fine $50 or $75, or if they build a highway around the city, they can take the stop sign down, or reduce the penalty, making it only $10 if you go through. The police department or city council controls the law of the stop sign.

But then she said there is also the law of the fire. And the law of the fire says if you put your hand in the fire, you'll get burned. Now imagine that all of the legislatures of all the nations of the entire world gathered in one great assembly, and they voted unanimously that here on out that fire would no longer burn. The first man or woman who left that assembly and put his or her hand in the fire would discover that the law of the fire is different than the law of the stop sign. Bound up in the nature of fire itself is the penalty for abusing it.

So, Dorothy Sayers says, the moral law of God is like the law of the fire. You never break God's laws; you just break yourself on them. God can't reduce the penalty, because the penalty for breaking the law is bound up in the law itself.

Over the 2011, 4th-of-July weekend, a group of motorcyclists gathered in Onondaga, New York, to ride in protest against the New York state law that requires motorcycle riders to wear a helmet. One of those riding in protest was a 55-year-old man from Parish, New York. During the ride, police say, his 1983 Harley Davidson spun out of control, and he flew headfirst over the handlebars. His head struck the pavement, and his skull was fractured. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

The police and the doctor treating the man said afterward that if he had been wearing a helmet, he probably would have survived the accident. The group organizing the protest ride said that while they encourage the voluntary use of motorcycle helmets, they oppose mandatory helmet laws.

Whatever the case for or against laws concerning motorcycle helmets, you cannot miss the irony of this accidental death: the man died protesting a law that—if he had obeyed it—would have saved his life.

In his booklet Absolute Truth, Mark Ashton tells the following story about a professor who demonstrates that moral relativism is unlivable:

Roger Wengert, a philosophy professor at the University of Illinois, often begins his introductory ethics classes by asking how many of the students believe that truth is relative. A show of hands usually reveals that two-thirds to three-fourths of the class thinks in this manner. After discussing the syllabus, testing dates, papers and content of the course, Wengert informs the class that they will be graded according to height. When the smart-alecky tall kid loudly agrees with this system, the professor adds, "Short students get A's; tall students flunk."

Inevitably a student's hand is raised: "Your grading system is not fair." "I am the professor," retorts Wengert. "I can grade however I wish." The student insists, "But what you ought to do is grade us according to how well we learn the material. You should look at our papers and exams to see how well we have understood the content of the course and grade us on that." The class nods in affirmation (especially the tall students).

Professor Wengert then replies, "By using words like should and ought, you betray your alleged conviction that truth is relative. If you were a true relativist, you would realize that there is no external standard to which my grading should conform. If my truth and my ethic lead me to an alternate grading system that you deem inappropriate, c'est la vie! I will grade however I wish."

A test was conducted at the Institute for Business and Home Safety in Richburg, South Carolina. Researchers constructed two 1,300-square-foot houses inside a $40 million laboratory and then observed how a simulated hurricane would impact the homes.

The first home was built according to conventional standards. The second home included reinforcement straps that connected every level of the building, from the foundation all the way to the roof. Then the researchers turned on giant fans, creating gusts of wind up to 110 miles per hour (equal to a category 3 hurricane). In the first two experiments, which lasted under ten minutes, both homes survived the intense winds. But when they tried a third experiment, turning on the fans for more than ten minutes, the conventional home began to shake and then collapsed. In contrast, the home with the floors and roof reinforced to the foundation sustained only cosmetic damage.

Tim Reingold, an engineer working on the experiment, summarized the results with a pointed question: "The bottom line you have to ask yourself is, which house would you rather be living in?"