Try to imagine a college or professional football game where there are no rules.

The players get together and decide that they are so skillful, so good, that they can dispense with their coach and dispense with the referees.

"We know what we are doing," they say. "Coaches and referees are obsolete. They are part of another generation. We are so advanced, so superior, so progressive in our football knowledge and instincts, we are just going to do what feels right."

If this became the prevailing attitude among football players around the country, how long do you think the game of football would last? How many people would turn on their TVs to watch Monday night football?

We all know the answer to that. With no rules, there is no game. There is no game because there is no standard. Each person's opinion is no better than anyone else's. There is only chaos, both on the field and in the stands.

If that is true in football, what about the game of life?

Have you noticed that these days, more and more people are saying, "We don't need rules. We don't need standards. I know what I am doing. I am so good and sensitive, I am going to do what feels good to me. My opinion is just as good as anyone else's, and maybe even better."

You hear such talk everywhere. In one way or another, you hear it on TV. You hear it in school. You hear it in the workplace. When you hear such words as "tolerance," "progressive thinking," or "old fashioned," listen carefully. Underneath the jargon, you may be hearing people actually saying, "Let's do away with the rules."

If a football game falls apart without rules, what will happen to a whole society that says, "Rules went out with the horse and buggy"?

Not too long ago, Ted Turner, the big media mogul and founder of CNN, said that the Ten Commandments are out of date. He said they should be replaced with the "ten voluntary initiatives." In other words, he didn't like the thought of anyone telling him what to do or think. He didn't like standards. He wanted to do his own thing.

Ted Turner's remark tells us more about Ted Turner than it does about the Ten Commandments. As a businessman, Ted Turner is a genius. When it comes to the Ten Commandments, Ted Turner is a moron. He has no idea what the Ten Commandments are about.

For a moment, try to imagine yourself a person recently freed from slavery. For hundreds of years, you and your father, your grandfather, your great-grandfather and your great-grandfather's great grandfather have served a tyrant king against your will. For generations, you have done nothing but work at hard labor until you dropped from exhaustion or death.

Then against all odds, a powerful king comes to your rescue. Now, miracle of miracles, you become free!

There is only one catch: after hundreds of years of slavery, you know nothing about freedom. Your people have lost all memory of what freedom is. You know nothing about its opportunities and its risks. But your rescuing king kindly gives you guidelines to help you proceed on this exciting but precarious new adventure.

This story actually played out nearly 3,500 years ago when God worked through Moses to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. The Israelites had just emerged from one of history's worst tyrannies. Now they were free. God delivered them. He opened up the Red Sea to make a way for them.

Now, God gave them rules to preserve and enhance their freedom. Today, we know those guidelines—these rules--as the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20.

1. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything.
3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
4. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
5. Honor your father and your mother.
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not give false testimony.
10. You shall not covet.

One would think that a miraculous delivery from slavery would have convinced the Israelites of God's trustworthy character and they would have gladly obeyed the Ten Commandments. They would have passed on to their children the glories of God's relationship with them.

But this was not to be. In the Book of Judges, we are told that after the deaths of Moses and Joshua, a new generation grew up that knew not the Lord or how He had freed the people of Israel from slavery. The Bible tells us that they "did what was right in their own eyes." This did not lead them to the freedom they expected. Instead, they wound up turning to gods and goddesses that required them to sacrifice their own children.

They completely forgot the Ten Commandments. They regarded the Ten Commandments as a relic of a past they no longer remembered. Their faulty thinking led them into a new and worse slavery of the mind and spirit.

The experience of the Israelites should sober us. How easy for us to forget God's rules and think we are gaining "freedom"! Unlike a car or a house, God's rules never tarnish or wear out. They are just as new and shiny and modern as they were 3,500 years ago. Today, the Ten Commandments are still our path to freedom.

3,500 years after Moses, human nature has not changed. For all our so-called "progressive thinking," we still have an urge to break the Ten Commandments. We still drift away and do what is right in our own eyes. We have short attention spans when it comes to the things of God.

Many years after Moses, Jesus helped us to get at the heart of the Ten Commandments. Once, someone asked Him, "What is the greatest commandment?" Jesus knew that the first four commandments have to do with our relationship with God, and the last six with our relationships with one another. So he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself."

Maybe you find it hard to keep the Ten Commandments. Sometimes, maybe, you kind of wish they would go away. If so, it means that down deep you don't really love God with your whole heart soul and mind. It means that you are also failing to love your neighbor as yourself.

Nobody knew this truth better than the apostle Paul. No man tried harder to obey the Ten Commandments than Paul. In the end, he concluded that all of his efforts were "rubbish." He couldn't obey them, no matter how hard he tried. Without the grace of God to help him, he was doomed to total failure.

Paul taught us an important truth about the Ten Commandments. He told us that God originally gave the Ten Commandments, knowing that we would never be able to keep them in our own strength. He wanted us to learn from hard experience how weak we really are.

But God did not do this just to humiliate us and make us feel guilty. He wanted to lead us to true freedom and dignity. That's why God also gave us Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the only person who perfectly kept the Ten Commandments. More than that, Jesus Christ is also the only person who has authority and power to help you and me to keep the Ten Commandments.

In the end, we can fulfill the Ten Commandments only when we reconcile with God through Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Jesus tells us plainly, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life."

Remember that a game with no rules is no game at all. Let Jesus help you to become a success at the "game of life."

Call on Jesus today. Right this moment, you can come to personally know the God who gave us the Ten Commandments. Through Jesus Christ, you can receive power to live an upright life. Through Jesus Christ, you can experience genuine freedom.

Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, I confess that I need your grace and forgiveness. I confess I have broken your Ten Commandments. Save me from my sin and remove my guilt. Cleanse me with your precious blood. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. In Jesus Name. Amen.