This week the blog is sponsored by Reformed Free Publishing Association. This post is about their brand new picture book, The Ten Commandments for Children, written by Prof. Ron Cammenga and illustrated by Ana Sebastián.

Jesus Christ is glorified when we obey Him. That is what Jesus meant when he told his disciples, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Because we love our Savior and we want to bring glory to his great name, we live according to his law—by keeping the Sabbath day holy, avoiding theft and murder, telling the truth, and all the rest. We want our children to show the world their love for Jesus, and so we teach them to obey God’s law, too, even from a young age.
But what is harder to explain to our children, and what we can often forget, is that there is so much more to keeping God’s law than following a list of do’s and do not’s. God sees and knows our hearts.
We might bring the whole family to church each week, but God knows where our minds actually are on Sunday morning. Our children might not swipe the gadgets from Best Buy that are small enough to fit in their pockets, but God sees the bitterness and envy they harbor toward friends and classmates who always seem to have the latest device connected to their air pods.
Truly keeping God’s law is so much more than external obedience. Truly keeping God’s law is loving him and loving others from the heart.

If you are looking for a resource you can share with your family to explain and apply this truth, consider The Ten Commandments for Children by Ronald Cammenga. This new children’s book from the Reformed Free Publishing Association (RFPA) explains and applies each commandment in language that kids understand. In two to three chapters, it covers what God forbids—the negative side of each commandment—and what he requires—the positive.
The book is made up of 28 two-page chapters that can be used either as lessons or devotions on God’s law. Here is the layout of the book:

Chapters 1–2 introduce the law of God
Chapters 3–6 explain why God has given us his law
Chapter 7 teaches about love, the summary of the law
Chapters 8–28 present each commandment in two to three chapters, focusing first on what is forbidden in each commandment (the negative) and then what is required (the positive)

This book is the first in a three-part series by the author, Prof. Ron Cammenga of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
If you have children or grandchildren, Ten Commandments would make a great devotional to close out the summer or start the school year off right.
“The book is designed not just to be read to them,” says the author, “but also to serve as a devotional you can use with your kids in the morning before they go off to school.”
Kids and parents alike will also appreciate the beautiful full-color illustrations by Ana Sebastián, a digital illustrator based in Madrid, Spain.

Here are a couple of excerpts from chapters 24 and 25 that demonstrate the positive and the negative applications of the ninth commandment.
From Chapter 24, “Do Not Lie!”
A lie is a deliberate untruth. You know what the truth is. But you deliberately change the truth.
Often people lie to cover up a sin or avoid punishment. How often haven’t you done that? You were being mean to your sister or brother, but when your mother asks you about it, you lie. You deny that you said or did anything mean.
From Chapter 25, “Speak the Truth in Love!”
We must speak the truth that God is the only true God, that God’s word is truth, that God’s Son Jesus is the only Savior. We must also speak the truth about ourselves—never lying to impress people with how great we are. And we must speak the truth about others so that we never put them down or make them look bad. Solomon wrote in Proverbs 12:22, “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord: but they that deal truly are his delight.”
Let’s teach our children to glorify their only Savior, by keeping his commandments from the heart.
You can purchase your copy of The Ten Commandments for Children here. Subscribe to the Reformed Free Publishing Association email list on their website homepage to be notified of sales, news, and upcoming children’s book releases.

Ray Van Neste recently appealed to pastors to ensure they don’t neglect the children in their preaching. “Preacher, don’t assume children can’t or won’t listen,” he said. “Many things will escape them, but they understand more than we give them credit for.“ Hence, “you should speak to the children in your sermons.” I very much appreciated this word of exhortation as it reflects something I have been trying to emphasize in my own preaching.

Van Neste offers a few good reasons to speak to the children. I thought I’d complement this by offering a few examples. I’m no master and have had mixed success, but each of these examples seemed to go over well. The keys, I believe, are to 1) clearly let the children know you are speaking to them, 2) to provide a vivid example followed by a simple application, and 3) to not try to accomplish too much in a single illustration. I try to aim the illustrations at children between 8 and 12. Of course it’s fun to watch everyone, from the youngest to oldest, perk up and listen intently when I speak specifically to the kids.
Dad’s Drone
This first example comes from a sermon on “blessed are the pure in heart.” Part of what it means to be pure in heart is to have a heart that is undivided or fully committed to the Lord. This is how I attempted to illustrate that.

Kids, I’ve got a question for you. Have you ever seen anyone flying a drone? It’s kind of fun to watch, isn’t it? We’re used to seeing the world from the ground up, but a drone lets you see the world from the sky down. It’s pretty neat.
I want you to imagine that one day you’re watching your dad fly a drone. That sounds like the kind of thing a dad does, right? No one has ever seen a mom fly a drone! Dad’s taking that drone way up in the sky, and recording some neat videos, and taking some pretty pictures, and maybe flying it in some fun patterns. But then something strange happens—another guy shows up and it turns out he can control the drone too. So dad sends it this way, but that guy sends it the other way. Dad tells it to go lower, but the other guy tells it to climb higher. That drone has two people controlling it and now it’s swerving all over the place. You know what’s going to happen? That drone is going to crash. Your dad needs to walk over to that other person and pull the cable out his controller and say, “This is my drone and I control it.”
Jesus once said something kind of like that: He said “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” No one can serve two masters just like no drone can obey two controllers. Each of us can ultimately be controlled by just one thing or one person. The question each of us needs to ask—and this is true whether we’re kids or grownups—is this: Am I going to let God control me? Or am I going to let someone or something else control me? To become a Christian is to put our faith in Jesus and to say, “God, I want you to be the boss in my life. I want you to control me. I want to live the way you tell me to live.” Have you done that? Have you handed the controls to God and said, “I am yours.” That’s what it is to be a Christian.

The Dog
Here’s another one that came from a sermon on “blessed are the peacemakers.” In this one I was attempting to explain that even though we are called to bring peace between people who are in some kind of disagreement, we also need to exercise wisdom to ensure we are not meddling.

Kids, I’ve got a proverb for you to listen to. Some proverbs are kind of hard to understand, but not this one. I am pretty sure you can figure out what this one means. It’s Proverbs 26:17. Here’s what it says: “Whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears.” Imagine that one day you’re out at the park and a big dog walks on by—he’s not on a leash, and you can’t see his owner anywhere, and he’s got one of those big collars all covered in metal studs. He’s just a big old dog. Do you think it would be a good idea or a bad idea to walk up him, grab his ears, and gave them a big pull? I think that’s a bad idea. You’d probably get bit! You don’t take a passing dog by the ears!
That’s how the Bible tells us to be careful not to meddle in a fight that’s not our business. We need to be very careful when we see other people arguing or fighting that we don’t meddle, that don’t get involved in something we know nothing about and can do nothing to fix. We need to wise to when we can help and when we can’t.

The Zoo
This example comes from a sermon on “blessed are those who mourn.” I was speaking about mourning the ways we ignore God’s warnings to us, whether those warnings come through Scripture, conscience, or the Spirit.

Kids, if you go to the zoo, you’ll see that the alligator enclosure is surrounded by signs and warnings and walls and fences. Why? Because alligators are dangerous! If a pit is full of bunny rabbits and guinea pigs and cotton balls they don’t need to warn people away from it. But alligators are dangerous and hungry.
And God shows us how dangerous our sin is by warning us not to commit it. There are so many ways God warns us away from sin, so many opportunities he gives us to do what is right instead of what is wrong.

I then went on to explain some of these ways, though I suppose that as I did so, I transitioned into speaking more to adults than to kids.
Solomon’s Folly
This one came from a sermon about Solomon. I didn’t come up with an illustration outside the text, but decided to use Solomon’s folly as a means to appeal to the kids to put their faith in Jesus.

Kids, I know I’ve talked for a long time, but I want just 2 more minutes from you and then we will be done.
I want you to think about something: When Solomon became king he had everything he needed to be the greatest king ever. He had an awesome dad who was called “the man after God’s own heart.” He was taught by the greatest teachers. God made him the wisest man ever. He had all these years of peace so he could make his country strong. He built a beautiful temple so he could worship God. He was richer than everyone in Toronto all put together. Everyone loved and respected him. He could have been the greatest and godliest king the world has ever known. But he wasn’t.
Why? The Bible tells us. Because his heart was not wholly true to God. His heart didn’t love God all the way. He had room in it for other gods, other things he loved more than God. He had so many privileges, but threw them away.
And I want you to know that you have a lot of privileges too. You are living in a great city in a great country. You get to learn from great teachers. Your parents read the Bible and pray with you. You come to church and GraceKids where you hear the gospel. Those are all good things—but those won’t keep your heart true to God. To have a heart that’s true to God all the way you need to put your faith in Jesus and ask him to forgive your sins. Have you put your faith in Jesus? Has he forgiven your sins? And then you need to do what Solomon didn’t do—God told him to read his Bible, to read it all throughout his life, and to obey it. Solomon didn’t, and that’s why we read about him falling into such terrible sin. Will you read your Bible all of your life? That’s the way God will speak to you. He will tell you how to live in a way that is wise, in a way that will keep you from harm and bring glory to God. I pray for you all the time and I know the other pastors pray for you all the time that you will grow up to have a heart that is fully true to God for all of your life.

A Few Handfuls
Anyway, I hope you find something in this that is helpful. Perhaps it will give you a couple of ideas as you attempt to reach the kids through your preaching.
Let me conclude with an endearing little quote I found some time ago as I was reading through the collected works of F.B. Meyer—a quote I’ve attempted to apply to my own sermons. “Would that preachers would contrive to drop a few handfuls on purpose for the weary little listeners, whose eyes would glisten if their story were to be dropped into the discourse,” he said. “And the parents would be proud to explain that ‘our minister always thinks of the children.’”

We can sometimes get dismayed as we think about the church. We can sometimes get frustrated or even embittered. And sometimes our dismay is fair, for the church is made up of people who, though they love the Lord, still sin against God and still harm one another. Though it is a blessing to belong to the church, it can also be a challenge and even a trial.

Yet in God’s eyes, the church is beautiful. It is lovely. It is precious. The unique wonder of the church is the subject of Dustin Benge’s book The Loveliest Place. “This book is about the beauty and loveliness of the church,” he says. “It’s for all those who sometimes struggle to see those qualities in her. If you tirelessly serve within her ministries while dismayed by her apparent failures, or have rare, unsustainable glimpses of her beauty, this book is for you. The singular goal is to awaken your affections. Not affections for form, methodology, structure, organization, or programs, but affections for who she is and why she exists.”
At a time when many people are perplexed by the nature or definition of the church, and at a time when many are considering walking away from the church altogether, this book means “to set before you a thoroughly biblical portrait of the church that derives its life from the sweet fellowship of the Father, Son, and Spirit, creating a community of love, worship, fellowship, and mission, all animated by the gospel and empowered by the word of God.” It means to show that the church is not just a lovely place, but the loveliest place of all.
Through fourteen relatively brief chapters Benge highlights different aspects of the church as we read of them in Scripture. Beginning with Song of Solomon he shows the church to be beautiful in the eyes of God—Christ’s very own bride. “We consider what the church can give us and do for us, how she can serve us, and even what’s in it for us, but rarely do we enjoy the eye-opening and soul-stirring truth that she is beautiful and lovely in just being who she is.”
He looks to the church as the household of God, then shows how the Trinity relates to the church: God as Father and friend, Christ as Savior and head, Spirit as helper and beautifier. He considers the church as the pillar and buttress of the truth, he looks at the need for shepherding and feeding the flock, he describes the church’s responsibility to evangelize, and he tells how the church ought to expect to face persecution. “Every faithful believer must expect persecution. Not that every believer will be tortured, imprisoned, asked to recant, or even burned at a stake—but you will experience, at one point or another, opposition from the world. What does this mean for the church? It means that the church is composed of those whom the world despises. There may be a facade of friendliness and desire for cooperation, but in the recesses of the heart of the ungodly, there is a vehement hatred for the things of God and the good news of the gospel.”
He wraps up with an examination of the oneness of the church—the unity that we share and the unity that serves as a powerful testimony of the gospel. ”The church’s growing oneness is what defines the church as having an otherness. Why would the world be supernaturally drawn to an institution filled with conflict, cliques, hostility, fighting, and division?” It’s a valid question and a very good reason to pursue actually the unity God says we have positionally.
At a time—and maybe it is always such a time—when even Christians seem intent on disparaging the church, we need a reminder of the beauty, the loveliness, and the sheer wonder of what God has done in setting his love on a people who are his own. To that end, The Loveliest Place will help you marvel at the church, love the church, and further commit yourself to it. For you will deepen your convictions that “the church isn’t just about organization, leadership, function, and vision. There’s something much more beautiful and lovely to recognize. The church is about people being rescued, redeemed, and renewed. The church is about savoring, rejoicing, and service. The church is about proclaiming, enduring, and walking. The church is about being the bride adorned, beautiful, and lovely.”

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