Prayer Works Morning Devotion: September 1, 2025

Thus Says The Lord-Who God Says He Is, His Commandments and Promises

Exodus 20:1-20 "And God Spoke All These Words Saying: "I Am The LoredYour God, Who Brought You Out Of The Land Of Egypt, Out Of The House Of Bondage. You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me. "

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Good morning, good morning, good morning to you, everybody. I hope you had a wonderful evening and night rested and ready for another day. And I know that today is Labor Day, so most of you probably are not going to work today and probably just trying to take it easy.  

And we are grateful for a day, for another extra day to rest. Let us go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we come before you. We thank you for your goodness and your mercy towards us.  

We thank you, Lord, for your love. We thank you, Lord, for your kindness. We thank you for grace. We thank you for the ability to believe, to have faith, these statutes that you have placed in us in order to make our lives easy.  

Not because life is not difficult, but because your principles, your statutes, your values, if we abide by them, always seem to make our lives extremely easy. So we're grateful that you love us, as you have given us a whole entire book full of principles and scriptures to aid to our lives.  

And to return us back to that original state that we were once in before the fall. So we thank you Father for your strategy, we thank you for your ability to set things in motion, to make sure that we as your children.

We are governed by your Spirit properly in order to find this sanctity that you have brought for us to enjoy in this course and this journey of life.  

So as we gather this morning, we pray Lord that Jesus as look at your word, help us to understand, help us to see, help us to experience. And we pray that Lord, as you continue to walk with us, that you open our eyes and see you for who you are.  

Thank you, and we give you blessings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Today, brothers and sisters, we are in Exodus 20:1-20. This is the Ten Commandments.  

We're going to read these scriptures, then we're going to go through it. And in fact, I was asking myself this morning, I was like, I don't know why we've never really done a good study of the Ten Commandments, and I think we should.  

All right, let's go. Exodus 20:1. And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.  

Now, we need to stop right there before we go any further and ask why God is saying or starving these commandments in this manner. Moses wrote the Ten Commandments on behalf of God.  

So God is expressing Himself to these people and He does not start by just giving them, Hey, these are the laws. This is what I need you to do. These are the instructions. No, He starts off by saying, I am your God.  

And he then points to the place where they have been. I brought you out of Egypt. In other words, before I say what I need to say, I need you to understand your condition. And I need you to see the situation that you were in. 

And from then onwards, you can now hear what I'm about to say. So, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in earth beneath, or that is in the water under earth. 

You shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord, your God, I am a jealous God. This is in the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.  

I looked at this today and I saw something that I've never seen before right here in verse number five. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them for I the Lord your God and I am a jealous God visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation. 

Most times we usually stop right there but the next important phrase it says of those who hate me. In other words God is not going to visit third and fourth generation iniquities of people who love Him, but of people who hate Him.  

So, in other words, if you hate God, God says, I will visit the iniquities of your fore father's third and fourth generation. But showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments. 

You shall not take the name of God of the Lord your God in vain. For the Lord will not hold him guiltless, who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work.  

But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do not work, you nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servants, for your family servants, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.  

For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested in the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and honour it. Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord God is giving you.  

You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, you shall not covet your neighbour's house, you shall not cover your neighbour's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant. 

Nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is in your neighbour's. Now all the people witnessed the thundering and lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountains smoking.  

And when the people saw it, they trembled and stood far off. Then they said to Moses, you speak with us, and we will hear you, but let not God speak with us, lest we die. Then Moses said to people, do not fear, for God has come to test you, and that his fear may be before you, so that you may not sin.  

In other words, when you people sin, there is no fear of the Lord. That's why the scripture says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Now, brothers and sisters, the Ten Commandments, we usually look at them as a list of instructions of things to do.  

But in them, they reveal the character of God in as much as we think they are laws and instructions, but they actually reveal how God thinks, functions, feel and does His things.

Now, before we go over there, I want to, let's go through one of them and see what they actually kind of really mean and lay a foundation of what we need to say.  

So, the first one, thou shalt have no other gods before me. The opposite of that is that it is the greatest human obligation to worship only God. Thou shalt not make idols. This is the greatest violation of worship.  

Now, brothers and sisters, as it pertains to idols, idolatry is like a sin of witchcraft. In other words, when you idolize something, there is an element in you that thinks that person is the greatest thing to ever happen, and I wish I could be that.  

That's what idol is, idolatry. So, when we build statues that we see all over the world, you go to different places, you see different statues of people. It means for that community, this person is unbelievably talented or whatever it is they did.  

And we love them so much that we want to put them over here that every time we pass through here, we remember that they are a special human being. But then, in God's eyes, we are all equal.  

There's no one special person. We are all his children. Just as much as we can look at our children and all say, hey, we love all of them. We don't have a favorite. We love all of them. So, idolatry, this is the greatest violation of worship.  

Number three, thou shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, right? This is the greatest violation of speech. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. This is the greatest homage to God, to take a day that you literally just devote to God.  

You are paying homage to Him. Honor your mother and father, this is the greatest intergenerational duty with a promise of long life. It's the first principle that God gives humanity with a promise of long life.  

The opposite of that is true. You don't honor your mother and your father, you're not going to have long days. Number six, why do, first of all, before I continue, why do we need to honor our mothers and fathers?  

We are honoring the source of life, where you get your existence. It says, honor it. Thou shalt not murder, the greatest injury human beings can inflict on one another. Number seven, Thou shalt not commit adultery.  

This is the greatest violation of family bonds. Thou shalt not steal. This is the greatest violation of movable property. Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor. It is the greatest violation of laws. 

Thou shalt not covert. This is the greatest obligation to community. Now, brothers and sisters, as we look at the Ten Commandments, again, let's listen to what God says right at the onset.  

And God spoke these words, saying, I am the Lord your God. who brought you out of Egypt and out of the house of bondage. Now, let's look at the people who are being given these instructions and these principles. They've been living in bondage for 400 years.  

Everything they knew about themselves has slowly but surely been wiped out. So they are a people without their own culture. They are a people whose culture is centered around other people abusing them.  

They've never been magistrised. All they know is strife. In fact, they have fallen in love so deep with strife that it has become normal to their existence.

Remember, the story of Moses bringing children of Israel out of Egypt points to Jesus bringing us out of this world back to the land that God desires us to be, which is heaven, the Garden of Eden.  

So we are following the kind of the same pattern, but in this situation here, these people have no clear understanding of who God is. This is why it's important to teach the next generation, because whatever we do not teach is literally lost.  

There are things that don't come through from one generation to the next. Whatever this generation deemed to not be important, will never be taught to the next generation. So these people have a very complicated relationship with God. 

Where they don't understand Him, they don't know Him, they themselves have done most of the things that are being proclaimed in the Ten Commandments. 

Remember I always say every time you see something in the scriptures, especially as it pertains to us, it simply means that, well, God is addressing something that we either are doing or that humanity will always forever be doing.  

Because you don't say to people, thou shalt not have any other gods, unless they have what? Any other gods. Thou shall not commit adultery, idolatry, idolatry, adultery. You don't say that if people are not going to do it.  

But the reason we have these is because it's in humanity's nature to do all of these ten things. Hence, God says, I'm going to give them to you. But now, the way I want us to look at the Ten Commandments and what God is telling Moses here. 

I want you to kind of look at them as if you are reading a statement from God, chronicling how he wants people to function. I am the Lord God who brought you out of a place where you don't know yourself because of slavery and everything else that you guys have been indulged in and done over the years.  

You have no clue whatsoever of who I am. And neither do you have a clue of the things that I had put in you guys as a human race in order to function comfortably together as you worship me.  

So I want you to remember that because if you don't remember it, you're most likely going to repeat the mistake again. So once you remember the place and condition and environment that you were existing. 

You should not have any other gods before you. If you understand that situation and then you understand where I am bringing you, there is no way you should have any other gods before you.  

And if you do not have any other god before me, definitely you are not going to make any idols You are not going to make any idols that you will worship because you understand how great and incredible I am to you because of where you were and where you are now.  

And if you shall not make idols, if you shall not look at other people and other things as God, then you will never ever take my name in vain you will be so respectful to me because you understand who I am and what I have done to you and what I've done for you and how I have rescued you and brought you out of place of slavery. 

And if you do these things, then you will remember how important I am that you will literally take a whole entire day where you will just honor and respect me because of who I am and what I have done for you.  

And if you are grateful, if you renew yourself, if you have this day, that you just set aside to be with me and to understand me and to respect me, then you will definitely honor your father and mother.  

You will honor the source of life that I have placed before you. You honor the place where you come from, that is your birthplace, which is your mother and your father, you will honor. And if you do that, I promise you, you will have a long life.  

And if you have long life, you shall not murder, because you do not have a long life without satisfaction. Long life comes with satisfaction because you've honoured your mother and father.  

In fact, if you honour the place where you come from, then you are going to take heed of instructions, principles, and you're going to be taught so well that the idea of ever thinking of murdering another person will be far from you.  

And if you have the ability to realize how important and valuable human life and existence is, then you shall not commit adultery. In other words, you shall be faithful because you respect life and the way it is set apart.  

And if you respect life, and if you respect people, then you are never ever going to go take anything away from them. Thou shall not steal and if you do not steal, then it's most likely you never have to go and bear false weakness against your neighbor.  

Because you are valuing the principles of life. And if you value your neighbor, and if you understand how important human life is, if you follow this in these steps, then you shall never ever think of taking anything away from another person, you shall not covert.  

So the Ten Commandments If you read them like a statement where God is saying something, you then realize they are not really laws. As much as they are laws, we call them the Ten Commandments.  

It doesn't say they are the ten laws, they are the commandments. In other, I'm commanding you to follow this structure of behavior in order to live a different life. than you once lived when you were in slavery, when you were in slavery, when you were in bondage.  

So if you want to know what the children of Israelites were experiencing in bondage, the Bible tells us in some excerpts what they were going through in Egypt.

But if you really want to understand the character of these people, you read the Ten Commandments because the opposite of that is what they were doing.  

So in other words, when they were in slavery, they had other gods. When they were in slavery, they were making idols. When they were in slavery, they were taking the Lord's name in vain. When they were in slavery, they did not rest.  

They worked all day, every day, all the time, seven days a week. When they were in slavery, they were not honoring their fathers and mother. When they were in slavery, they were murdering one another.  

They were committing adultery. They were stealing from one another. They were bearing false witness to the neighbor because they were afraid. If somebody gets caught, oh, like, man, I don't want to die.  

So they will beg false weakness. And they converted other people's things because they were in slavery. So when God gives them this instruction, that's why he points out at the beginning, at the onset of it, I am your God. 

I brought you from this despicable environment and now I've brought you out of it and now I want you to remember that because I've brought you from it and I don't want you to go back to it.  

I want to give you a whole different way of living altogether, that is different from what you have experienced while you were in Egypt. Hence, it gives us the Ten Commandments to govern humanity until his return.  

Now, you really want to understand that this is not about instructions and commandments and laws and pain associated with not doing certain things. If you really want to understand commandments, you have to go to Jesus when he gives us one commandment.  

Jesus says, if you love one another as I have loved you, that these people would know that you are surely the children of the Lord. And then he says, love one another as I have loved you.  

This is the greatest commandment. In other words, it sums up the laws. So all the Ten Commandments are summed up by one which Jesus introduces, right? Love one another. This sums up all the laws. 

Which means that number one, number two, number three, number four, number five, number six, number seven, number eight, number nine, number ten of these commandments, it's really about God's love for humanity, that he comes and rescue from strife.  

And then he gives you a new way of doing things that brings peace, rest, love, community, understanding, honor, giving, grace. It's all found in the Ten Commandments and I don't know any laws that give love.  

So I know we call them laws, but the scriptures calls them the Ten Commandments. When you command somebody, you're not giving them a law. You're giving them a better way of doing things.  

So I want us to look at the Ten Commandments differently from now onwards, and read them like a statement that God sets before us that if we do, I want you to first and foremost, before I say, before I say what I need to say, I want you to remember where I brought you from.  

So what does it mean to us? Hey, before I say what I need to say, I want you to remember when you did not have salvation. When you were just living in this world without any, any guidance, I want you to remember that.  

And once you remember that now I want you to remember where you are now how incredible phenomenal life is because you have a clear understanding of who I am and you know what I've given you in spirit and in truth. 

And now that I've given you that and you know where you came from and you know where you are now if you do these things in this manner and remember to guys, The Ten Commandments, they follow a hierarchical system.  

It's not just, you can't just go to ten before you go to one. You have to go through them in order. It's a step, they are steps too. And if you do the first one well, and the second one well, and the third one well, then the rest, this is why you see how they are divided, the first five, addresses the relationship between man and God. 

The second five addresses the relationship between man to man. Because if you address God the right way, then your relationship with man becomes easy. The vertical side of it becomes do the horizontal first and then this vertical one will become easy.  

So in other words, if you find yourself having difficulties with people, check your relationship with God first. Because if you do one, two, three, four, five well, then six, seven, eight, nine, ten will be easy.  

Those are the Ten Commandments. Thou saith the Lord. This is what Moses spent days and days going up the mountains trying to speak to God and God giving him the Ten Commandments that will govern society and humanity until his coming.  

And by the way, brothers and sisters, all the laws in the world that are established in almost every nation They all fall under these ten ones. This is the foundation in which law, as we know it, when people go to study law in school and all the things, universities that teach law, all the laws sit on these ten.  

Every single one of them, they sit on these ten. And if we actually study any kind of law in any country, at the core of it is addressing one of these issues. It's commandments that God gave us so that we can govern society and one another until his return.  

I hope and I pray that from now onwards you have a different understanding of the Ten Commandments. And I think we should do a teaching on this and really kind of dive deeper into it so we have a clear understanding of what God was doing and why he gave the Ten Commandments. 

And then we can link them to Jesus and the Ten Beatitudes and we understand the difference between these and the Ten Beatitudes and why God gave them that in that manner so we should probably do a study on this. 

Let us pray Father we are grateful of how much you love us. We thank you for your grace, your love, your peace. Today, as we take yet another day to rest from work, I pray, Lord, that you restore our bodies, our minds, our souls.  

We look to you for comfort and peace. We look to you as you address the things in us that needs to be addressed. We thank you, Lord, that we have a place we can run to and find safety.  

A place that is so stable that we can stand on and not worry about things. Father, I pray for what you have in store for us as we continue to look ahead. And I pray, Lord, that as you set our feet on solid ground. 

That we want to find ourselves steadfast, holding on to your statues and values, so that these lives that we behold will continue to experience the grace, the love, and the strength of faith.  

We thank you for healing, our bodies, our minds, our souls. Father, I pray, Lord, that every family that is represented here is walking in its full strength and the full manifestation of your kingdom.  

I pray for our children to be blessed coming in and going out. We pray for angels on assignment, protecting and covering them wherever they go.

We pray, Lord, that as we continue to teach them the principles that will sustain them for the rest of their life, may their eye, ears be quick to hear and their spirits be quick to do.  

Help our children to be different as they walk out their way and their faith in you. I thank you for every home protected from harm and danger. And I pray, Lord, your special blessing to rest upon all of us as we rest from laboring today.  

And we thank you, Lord, that as we gather around different tables and eating and talking, that may love abound and we pray this prayer and we seal it. And we thank you for giving us the Ten Commandments to govern us differently from when we are enslaved.  

Now continue to bless us in everything that we do. And may you lead us not into temptation but continue to deliver us from the evil one. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever, Amen.  

Brothers and sisters, let's have a wonderful, restful day, and may you all gather around, eat, and have an awesome, awesome, awesome, beautiful day. We'll see you tomorrow morning as we continue in this life's journey to devote these mornings to our Lord Jesus Christ and our God. May the Lord bless you.