There is a lesson to be learned from recent history of western interventions (and non-interventions) in Africa and the Middle East. It is easy enough for the united power of the USA and its allies to oust a dictator – but then comes the next and more challenging task, of building a just, stable, sensible government in its place. They don't appear spontaneously – and they aren't built easily; and too often another dictator takes the place of the old, or the state dissolves in chaos and strife.
Americans have a happier history, but even there it was one thing to achieve independence from Great Britain, quite another to establish a sensible form of government, under the Constitution of 1789. There are two sides to liberation – deliverance from, and deliverance for. When God set Israel free from bondage in Egypt, he did not turn them loose to invent their own forms of government, or religion and morality. He brought them to Mount Sinai, and formally entered into covenant with them, adopted them as his own people, and gave them a Law to govern their life as a people with him. Likewise in Baptism we are not only delivered and saved from sin and death, but we also enter into the new and eternal covenant with God in Christ. The benefits of this covenant we know by Faith: its obligations are set forth in the Law.
The Catechism is designed to inculcate a strong sense of the benefits that I receive from the Lord in the Covenant of Baptism – a sense of security and purpose in life - and also obligations which I must render him in return. In the Creed, I learn the great benefits of creation, redemption, and sanctification which I receive from the Triune God. Now turning to the third promise, “to keep God’s holy will and commandments, and to walk in the same all the days of my life”, the Catechism looks at my obligations as set forth in the Ten Commandments.
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