STOP!

I’ve often wondered why the Ten Commandments are mostly negative in their expression. Except for the mandates to keep the Sabbath and to honor one’s parents, the rest of the Decalogue is prohibitive in nature.

I am the LORD your God [and] you shall have no other gods before Me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol ….
You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain …
Observe the sabbath day to keep it holy ….
Honor your father and your mother ….
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 ….
Deuteronomy 5:6–9, 11–12, 16–21

Eighty percent negative. “Don’ts” and “Thou shalt nots.” Why, I wondered.

I finally found the answer the other day, courtesy of the infinite wisdom of the City of Dallas. Less than a mile away from my abode in this metropolis, while driving, I did a double take. I actually reversed back to the intersection (carefully!) to check out this unique phenomenon. Fortunately, I had my camera with me to record the biblical shrewdness of said City apparatchiks.

Yup, two (TWO; a.k.a. “2”) STOP signs. Back to back. One behind the other. Juxtaposed. Two of them! (I rejoiced to see that my tax dollars were being used responsibly by the sage bureaucrats controlling the council of that aforementioned city.) Two STOP signs. Why two?

Then I remembered. God gave 8 staccato STOP signs to the Israelites. Surely the City of Dallas can provide its denizens a couple in the same fashion.

I suppose it’s all got to do with depravity.

And you were dead
in your trespasses and sins,
in which you formerly walked
according to the course of this world ….
Among them we too all formerly lived
in the lusts of our flesh,
indulging the desires of the flesh
and of the mind, and were by nature
children of wrath ….
Ephesians 2:1–3

The propensity to sin is deeply embedded in us.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love.

Robert Robinson, 1758

That’s the believer; that’s I. Prone to wander, meander, and go adrift and astray. I need more than two STOP signs!

Or as Paul wrote …

There is none righteous, not even one;
there is none who understands,
there is none who seeks for God;
all have turned aside,
together they have become useless;
there is none who does good,
there is not even one.
Romans 3:10–12

Not even one.

This, of course, is not to say that humankind is as bad as it could be. We don’t deny glimmers and gleams of good here and there, though tainted by sin. A single bad egg in an omelet made of 9 other good eggs still produces a bad omelet!

This probably explains the negativity of the Ten Commandments (and the City of Dallas’s remarkable enterprise of duplicating road signs).

But one day, we won’t need STOP signs, for, on that day, we will be removed from the very presence of sin.

O that day when freed from sinning,

I shall see Thy lovely face;

Clothed then in blood washed linen

How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;

Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,

Take my ransomed soul away;

Send thine angels now to carry

Me to realms of endless day.
Robinson

Until then, O God, …

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Robinson

And watch for those STOP signs!