Today our world is on a new set of standards--none at all!

   What was once grossly immoral is now chic. Premarital sex is said to be healthy. Living together unmarried is common. Homosexuality is presented as an "alternative lifestyle." Abortion is no longer thought of as murder, just a "woman's choice." Divorces, once the exception, now are almost the rule. Half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce.

   Along with these new "enlightened" standards have come curses. Depression and mental illness are widespread. Suicide is rampant among teens. The most familiar setting for murder is within the family. Venereal disease is pandemic, and the "alter­native lifestyle" of homosexuals has introduced an alternate way to die--AIDS!

   What is the connection between this lack of standards and these gruesome curses? Is it possible that the Creator of the human race has certain rules for His creation--the Ten Commandments--which, if broken, bring terrible curses?

   "I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live," Deuteronomy 30:19.

   Why would the Heavenly Father engage the entire Old Testament trying to teach people to keep His commandments and then take up all the New Testament trying to teach them not to? Yet this is what is usually taught today. This is probably what your church teaches--that the Ten Commandments were done away, nailed to the cross, that today it is all right to break them because we are under grace.

   Is it?

   This is the most important question you will ever face: Should I break the Ten Commandments?

   Those against the Father's commandments teach that they began with Moses and ended at the time of the Messiah. But the great spiritual basis of the Ten Commandments did not begin with Moses-it existed at creation. The Bible’s very definition of sin proves it. "Sin is the transgression of the law," (1 John 3:4). Your New Testament says sin is breaking the Ten Commandments!

   Every instance of sin before the time of Moses is proof that the commandment law already existed. If sin is breaking the law, the law had to exist if sin is to exist.

   The Bible shows in other ways that Moses didn't start the Ten Commandment law. On the seventh day of creation during the time of Adam (not Moses), the Sabbath day was created. The Fourth Com­mandment or Sabbath commandment, one of the most despised today, has been in effect since creation.

   Abraham, the ancestor of the Hebrews, was blessed by the Heavenly Father Yahweh* "because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes and My laws," Genesis 26:5. Abraham became the father of the faithful because he obeyed the Ten Commandments. And Abraham was Moses' great-great-great-great-great­grandfather!

   Before the time of Sinai we find Moses judging the people, making "them know the statutes of Yahweh and His laws," Exodus 18:16. The law against murder was in effect at the time that Cain killed Abel, as well as in Noah's day, Genesis 9:5-6, while the commandment against adultery is found operating in Genesis 20:3 and 26:10--long before the two tablets were given to Moses at Sinai in Exodus 20.

   Many commandments were in effect before Sinai. Moses certainly wasn't the first to pass them down. But if the Ten Commandments didn't start with Moses, what did happen at Mt. Sinai?

   At the time of Moses, the Hebrews were called out of Egypt to be a special people. At Mt. Sinai they were given special knowledge of the only constructive way to live--obey the Ten Commandments.

   But Israel had been in Egypt for hundreds of years. There they lost the true religious knowledge they had learned from their forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Instead, they had absorbed the pagan beliefs of Egypt. They had learned Egypt's idols, Egyptian days of pagan worship, and its immoral feasts. These heathen customs had to be removed from Israel. The Israelites were being brought out of Egypt both physically and spiritu­ally.

   The Heavenly Father again had to teach the Hebrews His Ten Commandment law. As Mt. Sinai quaked and smoked, the thunderous voice of the Creator boomed out the law for His creation. The teaching of this valuable knowledge was a mirac­ulous, momentous occasion.

   Let's briefly examine these commandments that our Creator considered so important:

1. "And Elohim spoke all these words, saying, 'I am Yahweh your Elohim, which have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other elohim before me,' " Exodus 20:1-3.
   
   Egypt had numerous deities, from birds to bulls, from the sun and moon to the earth and the Nile. In the First Commandment Yahweh introduces himself as the Elohim of Israel, their Mighty One, in contrast to all the deities of Egypt. By crushing Egypt with the 10 plagues (most aimed at Egyptian deities, like the frog deity, insect deities, Isis and Osiris, and the sun deity Ra), Yahweh had shown that their mighty ones were nothing. He tells Israel to forget all the idols they had learned in Egypt. He, Yahweh. is their elohim and they were to have no other.

2. "You shall not make unto you any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: You shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them: for I, Yahweh your Elohim am a jealous Elohim, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments," Exodus 20:4-6.
   
   Yahweh's chosen people are not to have any idolatrous worship. Paradoxically, while Moses was gone to receive the Ten Commandment tablets, Israel made a golden calf to worship--just as had been done in Egypt. No wonder Yahweh went to such miraculous pains to show them His way instead of the pagan way.

3. "You shall not take the name of Yahweh your Elohim in vain; for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless that takes His name in vain," Exodus 20:7.
   
   After creation, as people got farther and farther away from their Creator, they forgot who He was. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew Yahweh and His Name, as is shown all through the Book of Genesis. But by the time of the exodus even Moses had to ask, "What is His name?" (Ex. 3:13). All of creation had forgotten their Creator!
   
   In the Third Commandment Yahweh warns not only against profaning His Name by using it incor­rectly, but also never to bring it to nothing by forgetting it as all the heathen had done. What greater way is there to take a name in vain than to ignore it altogether?
   
   Instead of worshiping Yahweh, people were worshiping idols of things Yahweh had created. As the Apostle Paul later said, they "changed the glory of the incorruptible Elohim into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts and creeping things," Romans 1:23.
    

   These idols were often called "Lord." For example, Osiris was the Egyptian Universal Lord, and Ra (the sun deity) was Lord of the sky. The heathen custom was to superstitiously avoid using the name of their deity and just call him "Lord." Baal, the idol mentioned most often in the Bible, had also come to be known simply as "Lord." That is what the word Baal means--Lord!
   
   In the Third Commandment, Yahweh did not call himself "Lord" like the pagan idols, but referred to himself as "Yahweh your Elohim." Ironically, most Bible translations, including the King James, have followed the Baal custom and inserted "Lord" for Yahweh, forgetting the Father's Name! (Write for our free booklet or read online, The Heavenly Father's Great Name.) The Jews later stopped using His Name and used "Lord," and now most Bible translations delete His Name and substitute "Lord." This is precisely what Yahweh commands against.
   
   Substituting words like Lord, God or Eternal for Yahweh in the Third Commandment is no more acceptable than inserting another elohim in the First Commandment. Deuteronomy 4:2 sternly warns, "You shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish anything from it, that you may keep the commandments of Yahweh your Elohim which I command you."
   
   If these commandments are to be obeyed, it must be as the finger of the Almighty wrote them--not as some human would rewrite them to change what he doesn't like.

   Today the Name Yahweh has been so forgotten that few people know that He is the Heavenly Father of the Bible and that His Son is named Yahshua, not Jesus. Yahshua was named after His Father Yahweh. He said in John 5:43, "I am come in my Father's name, and you receive me not." The Name Yahshua means "the salvation of Yahweh" and Yahshua came to save us from our sins, exactly as His true Name proclaims.
   
   His Name as written in Greek, Iesous with a final silent s, was pronounced the same way-Yah­shua. Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8 show that the Messiah had the same name as the successor to Moses, rendered in the King James as Joshua but correctly pronounced Yahshua. (The J did not exist until our 16th century. Write for our free booklet or read online, The Missing J.)
   
   Using the name Jesus for the Messiah is simply incorrect--that was not His name. Since there is no "Yah" contained in the name Jesus, the name Jesus hides the fact that Yahshua was the messenger of Yahweh and again brings the Father's Name to nothing.
   
   If these names seem strange to you, that should show you how far modern, spiritual Egypt has strayed from the commandments of the Bible. How true when Proverbs 30:4 asks, "Who has estab­lished all the ends of the earth? What is His name and what is His Son's name, if you can tell?"

4. "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shall you labor, and do all your work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of Yahweh your Elohim: in it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates: for in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is and rested the seventh day: where­fore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it," Exodus 20:8-11.
   
   Since people forgot the Creator Yahweh, they also forgot the memorial of His creation, the Sabbath, or seventh day of the week. In Egypt the supreme deity of all their idols was Ra-amen, the sun deity. Worshipers of the sun considered Sunday ("day of the sun"), the first day of the week, special. Israel had to be taught the true Sabbath day.
   
   In Exodus 16, before He ever spoke the com­mandments to the Hebrews, Yahweh stressed the importance of His Sabbath by giving them manna six days a week, providing a double portion on the sixth day but none on the Sabbath.

   Yahweh's command is to "remember the Sabbath day" to honor Him as the Creator, and not to substitute the day of the sun or any other day. Today, as when Israel came out of Egypt, this commandment has been almost totally forsaken.

   Israel also had to be taught the Father's annual holy days instead of pagan holidays. The Egyptians had celebrated holidays such as the spring feast to the sex goddess Ishtar, known today as Easter. If you ever wondered what eggs and prolific bunny rabbits have to do with Easter, these vestiges are reminders of the holiday's origin in fertility rites.

(Write for our free booklet or read online, What You Should Know About Easter. )

   Israel left Egypt during the festival of Unleavened Bread and was given the Ten Commandments at the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost. This timing was not accidental. Yahweh was giving them great lessons in observing His holy days instead of the pagan holidays.

   Listed in Leviticus 23 are the three feast seasons and seven annual holy days that the Father's true followers observe.

   These holy days from the Bible are in strong contrast to the major religious holidays of the supposedly Bible believing world -- Easter, Christ­mas, Halloween--all of which come directly from pagan idol worship.

   Some will contest that they keep these idol days to worship the true Father. But that is exactly what Aaron said when he and the Hebrews made the golden calf. Aaron built an altar before the calf and proclaimed, "Tomorrow is a feast to Yahweh," Exodus 32:5. Yahweh didn't agree.

   The first four commandments show how to love the Father in Heaven. If you love Him you will have no other elohim and take part in no idolatrous worship, and you will honor His Name and remember His Sabbaths. The last six commandments show how to love our fellow human beings.

5. "Honor your father and your mother: that your days may be long upon the land which Yahweh your Elohim gives you."
    

6. "You shall not murder."
    

7. "You shall not commit adultery.”
    

8. "You shall not steal."
    

9. "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."
    

10. "You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is your neighbor's," Exodus 20: 12-17.

   If you love your parents, do you show your love by dishonoring them? Would you show love to a neighbor by killing him, stealing his mate, stealing his goods, lying to him or even just wishing to take what is his? No. You show love to your neighbor by obeying the Ten Commandments.

   Doesn't this make you wonder why so many of the world's religions rail against the Ten Command­ments? What's wrong with not killing someone? Nothing! What's wrong with observing the true Sabbath day instead of the day of the sun? Nothing! But something is wrong with religions that despise the Heavenly Father's instructions.

   Yahshua the Messiah was once asked, "Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”

   Yahshua said unto him, “‘You shall love Yahweh your Elohim with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,” Matthew 22:36-40.

   Yahshua here quoted the Old Testament to explain the basis for the Ten Commandments: to love Yahweh and to love our fellow human beings. The Ten Commandments show how to do this. As Paul summed it up, "Love is the fulfilling of the law," Romans 13:10.

   The Hebrews were given a beautiful lesson in living, uttered by the thunderous voice of the Almighty while the mountain smoked and shook. Israel promised to obey Yahweh and Yahweh promised to bless them above all nations. In Exodus 19:5 Yahweh pledged, "Now, therefore, if you will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people." In Exodus 24:7, Moses "took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, 'All that Yahweh has said will we do, and be obedient.'" This was the making of the Old Covenant, an agreement between Yahweh and Israel.

   The Ten Commandments did not begin at Mt. Sinai. What did begin at Mt. Sinai was the Old Covenant.

   It soon became apparent that the Old Covenant had a flaw--Israel wasn't going to keep it. In Exodus 32, while Moses was on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandment tablets, Aaron and the Hebrews were building and worshiping a golden calf idol, as in Egyptian worship.

   When Moses returned from the mountain and saw this, he threw down the two commandment tablets, breaking them. This symbolized what had just happened--Israel had broken the command­ments. They had not kept their agreement. Moses barely got off the mountain before the law was literally in shambles.

   Those who teach commandment breaking say that the fault with the Old Covenant rested with the Ten Commandments, and that under the New Covenant that fault--the commandments--has been done away. Ask yourself this question: When the Old Covenant was put in force and Israel broke the Second Commandment by worshiping a golden calf, whose fault was it?

   Was it Yahweh's fault for saying, "Don't worship any idols?" Or was it Israel's fault for holding a pagan, orgiastic feast to a hunk of metal?

   Was the problem with the Heavenly Father or with carnal Israel?

   Obviously it was Israel's fault. Yahweh said, "And I gave them my statutes, and showed them my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them. Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am Yahweh that sanctifies them. But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and my Sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them," Ezekiel 20: 11-13.

   Yahweh didn't think it was His fault. The problem with the Old Covenant was not the Heavenly Father and His perfect law. "The law of Yahweh is perfect, converting the soul," Psalm 19:7.

   After Israel began breaking the Old Covenant, Yahweh gave them a system of mandatory sacrifices to remind them of their continuing sins. Jeremiah 7:22 explains this:

   "For I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices; but this thing commanded I them, saying, 'Obey My voice, and I will be your Elohim, and you shall be My people: and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.'"

   Paul spoke about this added law of sin sacrifices when he said, "Wherefore then serves the law? It was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise was made," Galatians 3:19.

   What law was added because of transgressions? Not the Ten Commandments. The sacrificial law was added because of Israel's sins, but only until the coming of the eternal sacrifice, Yahshua the Messiah.

   With the death of Yahshua the Messiah, the sacrificial laws ended for us today. Did the Messiah also do away with the Ten Commandments?

   Why would Yahshua take away the commandments His beloved Father had given? Had the Father made a mistake?

   Because sin is the transgression of the law (1 John 3:4), if the Ten Commandments had ended, how could we even sin today? Why would the Messiah die for our transgressions when there would be no law to transgress?

   Since the law was perfect and the people imperfect, why not change the people?

   In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, Yahshua unmistakably answered all questions of whether He came to end His Father's commandments: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill," verse 17.

   How incredible that so many teach that the Messiah destroyed the commandments when He proclaimed just the opposite! Yahshua goes on to point out that in His Kingdom the commandment keepers will be called "great." Not so with commandment breakers. "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven," Matthew 5:19.

   Yahshua didn't come to destroy the Ten Commandments, but it was prophesied that He would do something else to them.

   In one of his many prophecies about the coming servant of Yahweh, Isaiah prophesied, "He will magnify the law, and make it honorable," Isaiah 42:21. Not destroy the law, but magnify it!

   In Matthew 5, after Yahshua declared that He wasn't going to destroy the law, he proceeded to magnify it. "You have heard that it was said by them of old time, 'You shall not kill;'...But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment," Matthew 5:21-22.

   A hard-hearted Israelite might have hated his neighbor for years, but unless he actually killed him, he was thought to be keeping the Sixth Commandment. Under the expanded Sixth Commandment, not only can you not kill your neighbor, you can't even desire to!

   Yahshua went on: "You have heard that it was said by them of old time, You shall not commit adultery: But I say unto you, that whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart," Matthew 5:27-28.

   The commandment against adultery, instead of being done away, now prohibits even setting your mind on such a thing.

   As Isaiah prophesied, Yahshua certainly magnified the law. He didn't end His Father's command­ments, He made them broader and more inclusive. Today, the called-out ones, spiritual Israel, have to obey these commandments. They observe them not just with an outward show but from the innermost being, in spirit and in truth.

   Yahshua said, "I have kept My Father's commandments," (John 15:10), and He was our example (1 Pet. 2:21). We either follow His example and obey the commandments or we follow the example of rebellious Israel and disobey them.

   The Book of Hebrews discusses the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

   The Old Covenant was flawed because of disobedience to Yahweh's laws, but those under the New Covenant will, with the help of His Holy Spirit, obey Yahweh's laws.

   "For finding fault with them, He says 'Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, says Yahweh. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Yahweh; I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts," Hebrews 8:7-10.

   This passage reaffirms that the fault with the Old Covenant was with the people, not with the Covenant. Under the New Covenant, instead of the law being done away, the commandments will be more effective by being put into the hearts and minds of believers. Disobedience is to be done away!

   The fault was with the people, so Yahweh is changing the people. Through His Holy Spirit He is changing the minds of His followers from rebellious, disobedient, self-willed, commandment breakers like Israel to humble, dedicated, obedient people like Yahshua the Messiah.

   Which example will you follow?

   Love Yahweh and love your neighbor. This is the great law of creation, as explained by the Ten Commandments. To obey these commandments is to be blessed by peace of mind, sound families, good health.

   To disobey Yahweh's commandments is to be cursed with unhappiness, broken homes, and dreadful diseases. To the degree that you put other things before Yahweh by taking part in pagan worship, dishonoring your parents, killing or hating, committing sexual sins, stealing, lying or coveting--that is the degree to which you will be cursed.

   It is no accident that some of the most dreaded diseases, such as syphilis and AIDS, strike the most flagrant commandment breakers like adulterers and homosexuals.

   Most people have been taught that the Ten Commandments are harsh and evil, instead of being taught that it is evil to break them. What a Satanic twist!

   If you are ignoring Yahweh's commandments and living your life by repeatedly transgressing this holy, spiritual law, you need to stop! Repent, be sorry for what you have done, and then change. Yahshua died for your transgressions, but His blood can be applied only after repentance--real, heart-felt change.

   Should you break the Ten Commandments? Yahshua’s words are crystal clear: "If you will enter into life, keep the commandments," Matthew 19:17. Yahshua the Messiah did not spend His whole life obeying the Ten Commandments, never once breaking them, just so you could be like hard-hearted Israel and ignore them.

   He did not die to rid the world of His Father's laws. He died to rid you of the death penalty of sin. If you accept His sacrifice for your transgressions and stop breaking the commandments, your life will be most richly blessed-both now and forever.

HalleluYAH!