What does a journeyman who is disoriented and lost in the thick usually do? Open his eyes and ears for directional signs, right? When he finds someone who could give him proper direction, how would he feel? He would feel relieved and delighted, right? And would he disobey the instructions given him? Of course not! In fact, he would try hard not to forget any one of them. He would obey them 100% with gladness and excitement in his heart.Now, are we not disoriented and lost in this spiritual journey called life? God no less has provided us the roadmap to the realm of the living. The roadmap requires purity, the strive to be holy (obeying God’s instructions 100 percent). Holiness requires conscientiousness, meaning thorough and diligent obedience of the instructions.
Conscientiousness starts with being realistic. We have to learn and accept what we are: spirits living in souls embodied in flesh (1 Thessalonians 5:23). We have to learn and accept that God is not after the state of our flesh but rather after the state of our spirits. It goes without saying that we must attend more to our spiritual well-being than our physical well-being.
Next is knowing God’s instructions. In applying for a job, we have to know the job requirements before we can comply with them. The same holds true in finding our way back to life. We have to know exactly what the instructions are. In the succeeding pages of this book, the decrees and ordinances of each commandment will be unfolded and taught. The desire to be loyal to God must be tempered with the knowledge of how God expects us to be loyal to Him.
11 Whoever wants to keep the Law must learn what the Law means. SIRACH 21
10 Find out what pleases the Lord. EPHESIANS 5
2 It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way. PROVERBS 19
Third is understanding the instructions. Psalm 119:142 says God’s instructions are the truth. Psalm 19:7-8 says, “The Law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the soul are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.” But some of God’s instructions have been corrupted (the Ten made Nine is one blatant proof of this). It is not healthy for anyone’s spirituality to obey them at face value. Conscientiousness requires faith that is based on accurate knowledge (John 17:3). We must analyze the Law and figure out its flaws: which parts are insertions, which parts are altered, and which parts are omitted. The chaff must be taken away from the grain before full compliance is made. The instructions must be obeyed in their pure form.
17 …Understand what the Lord’s will is. EPHESIANS 5
Fourth is living by the instructions. In the Gospel of Barnabas God asked, “My instructions to you, are they given for knowing or for doing?” Conscientiousness requires making constant practice of obeying the instructions until it becomes a habit. This is the toughest part. Our rebellious spirits, sinful desires, compromising attitudes, and the false teachings lurking in our minds will have to be discarded. Prophet Ezra devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law, and to teaching its commandments and decrees (Ezra 7:10). Let us imitate him.
1 Let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God. 2 CORINTHIANS 7
Conscientiousness requires obeying God’s instructions with enthusiasm (Psalm 100:2) and without overlooking or altering any one of its specifications (Galatians 3:15). Rick Warren said, “Often we try to offer God partial obedience. We want to pick and choose the commands we obey. We make a list of the commands we like and obey those while ignoring the ones we think are unreasonable, difficult, expensive, or unpopular. I’ll attend church but I won’t tithe. I’ll read my Bible but won’t forgive the person who hurt me. Yet partial obedience is disobedience.”[1]
To overlook or alter a specification is to act against the will of God. It will keep us lost, impure, barred…10 Whoever keeps the whole Law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. JAMES 2
How many sins did it take for Adam and Eve to be banished from the kingdom of heaven? Just one. Likewise, it takes one sin to keep us out of God’s heaven.[2]
Study Made Easy
The Ten-C are like jigsaw parts scattered in the 66 books of the Scripture (74 books if the apocryphal books are added). This book has pieced the parts together.
In sourcing study materials for each of the commandments, extrabiblical Christian literatures have been consulted like the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Barnabas (although we do not necessarily agree with all of their contents). Also, books which Born-Again Christians consider apocryphal—like the books of Tobit and Sirach (better known as Ecclesiasticus)—have been consulted. In Thomas, Barnabas, Tobit and Sirach are practical notes that elaborate the Ten-C better than we could. We took the liberty of quoting them for you so they could serve as commentary and give both emphasis and clarity to the lessons at hand.
Text integrity of quoted materials is kept. However, liberty is taken to replace “Jesus” and “Christ” with Y’shua and Messiah respectively. (Why we do so will be discussed in Commandment No. 3.) Also, New Testament verses quoting the Old Testament are identified in bold letters. The first letter of pronouns pertaining to God is capitalized.
In citing a Scripture verse, we have chosen that which is closest to the meaning or intended message of the original text. The Scripture was originally written in Hebrew Aramaic and subsequently translated: the Aramaic copy to Greek; the Greek, to Latin; the Latin, to different English versions; and the English versions, to other languages and dialects. In the event the translations before us are essentially the same, we cite the one which could give fresh understanding.
The objective behind all the above efforts is to frame God’s instructions and present them to you in a purer form—minus the satanic contaminations, distortions, insertions and omissions done to them.
In figuring out the satanic corruptions, we have relied on the Gospels as our primary resource material; the other books in the New Testament, secondary; and the Old Testament writings, tertiary. In rare cases where an irreconcilable conflict between an Old Testament verse and the New Testament exists, the policy is for the New to prevail upon the Old. You will notice that extensive references are made to the Old Testament. That is because the New Testament teachings are given in the context of the Old Testament. In order to understand the New, we need to be familiar with the Old.
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