Emmet Fox - The Ten Commandments: The Master Key to Life

D R. Emmet Fox, the modern mystic, has the knack of taking profound spiritual truths and explaining them in a simple way so that all can understand and use them in their daily lives. Under his inspired handling the Bible comes to life, and what was sometimes dull and uninteresting or obscure suddenly takes on new and vivid meaning. There have been many people whose lives have been filled with new beauty and interest and joy through his inspired words.

Consequently, there has long been a demand for copies of his sermons and lectures by Bible students and seekers of Truth who have received healing and help through them. Indeed, in response to this insistent demand, Dr. Fox promised to put into book form especially his interpretation of the Ten Commandments, and the present volume fulfills that promise. It represents a series of sermons that were delivered to many thousands of persons in the Manhattan Opera House, New York City. Nothing has been changed and nothing has been deleted but the normal repetition that is necessary and desirable in the spoken word, but that in the written word becomes useless redundancy.

The Ten Commandments, as Moses gave them, set the stage for the rest of the Bible, and when spiritually understood form a master key to the Bible and to life. There is no problem that cannot be solved, nor any aspiration that cannot be fulfilled when once the underlying meaning is absorbed and made a part of ones life.

God is always ready when we are, and in this book Dr. Emmet Fox shows how to get that divine contact that will bring a freshness and newness to every department of your life.

HERMAN WOLHORN

A nd Moses went down from the mount unto the people, and sanctified the people; and they washed their clothes.

And he said unto the people, Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives.

And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.

And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount.

And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof as cended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.

And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice.

And the Lord came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.

And the Lord said unto Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish.

And let the priests also, which come near to the Lord, sanctify themselves, lest the Lord break forth upon them.

And Moses said unto the Lord, The people cannot come up to mount Sinai: for thou chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it.

And the Lord said unto him, Away, get thee down, and thou shalt come up, thou, and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the Lord, lest he break forth upon them.

E XODUS 19:1425

A nd God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Thou shall have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make unto thee 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:

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbours wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbours.

And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.

And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.

And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.

And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.

And the Lord said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.

Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.

E XODUS 20:122

W E are considering one of the most important sections in the Bible, a section that is certainly not neglected, because the Ten Commandments are taught everywhere, in Sunday schools and day schools, and often are written up on the walls of many churches. They are not neglected but they are woefully misunderstood.

It is still true today that the people stand afar off from the thick darkness where God is, but I am glad to say that that darkness is rapidly passing away. All over the world the main body of the people are getting the Truth about the Omnipresence and Availability of God. They do not call it that as a rule. However, they are learning and beginning to feel that God is something that we have with us every day, in the most prosaic and ordinary things. God is not just an abstract idea up in the sky, having no meaning in everyday life. That concept is going. All kinds of people, all over the world, are beginning to get the sense of God as a present, dynamic, real power for harmony, for healing, and for freedom.

There is nothing in the world more thrilling than the Bible, particularly our Bible in English. There is no literature in the world that comes within a thousand miles of it for literary power, for graphic presentation, for dramatic expression, for knowledge of human nature, and for human psychology, as it is the fashion at the moment, to call it. Yet I wonder how many people have read these two chapters, let us say, within the past year. How many would be astonished at the tremendous drama and human psychology they would find there, if they would read them.

Books and magazines and articles, alleged to be psychology, are pouring off the presses. The very word