I thank God for you, for your
love for me, your friendship, your fellowship in the gospel,
and your labors here. I'm at the age now where I've
got a lot of old friends, and you folks have been friends for
a long, long time. Brother Donnie Bell and I were
in a meeting some years ago, and one of my friends was called
to pray before we left the meeting. And he prayed. He's sitting about where Brother
Donnie is and I'm sitting about where your pastor is. And he
said, Lord, thank you for this thing and that. I don't remember
what else he said. I don't have any idea, but I remember this.
Did you ever hear a man laugh while somebody else was praying?
He said, Lord, I thank you for teaching us to love each other,
for teaching me to love Brother Don Fortner. He said, Lord, you
know he's a hard man to love. And he broke out laughing. So I'm learning to thank God
for your love for me. Aren't you thankful for Shelby? And I thank God for that message.
Oh, what a privilege to hear what we heard this morning. Open
your Bibles with me again to the gospel of Exodus. I want
to ask you a question. When you think about the law
of God and the giving of God's law at Sinai, are you a little
uncomfortable? When you think about the Ten
Commandments, summed up in those two statements our Lord gave
the rich young ruler, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart. and with all thy soul, and with
all thy strength, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Does that make you a little uneasy? Or are you one of the very few
people in this world who understands what the law teaches and why
the law was given? If you understand what the law
teaches and why the law was given, the commandments of God will
never make you uneasy. The law of God will never make
you uncomfortable, but rather will give you joy and cause you
to delight in the law of God after the inward man. You see
the law given at Sinai was given for one reason, as our schoolmaster,
to bring us unto Christ. The law was our schoolmaster
to bring us unto Christ. God never gave the law to be
a rule of life. God never gave a commandment
to be a means of sanctification. God never gave a word of demand
from his throne to teach us duty. Rather, the law was given to
be our schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ. The purpose of
God in giving the law was to show us our need of our savior,
to point us to his son as our savior, and graciously force
us into his arms, trusting our Savior. My text this morning
is a lengthy one. Exodus chapter 19 and 20. The title of my message is Grace
at Sinai. Exodus chapters 19 and 20, Grace
at Sinai. Just hold your Bibles open to
these two chapters. I have no intention of giving
an exposition of these two chapters in a single message. I've got
better sense than that. But when you read these two chapters,
they ought always to be read as one. Read them together. Now the first thing Israel met
with at Sinai was a promise from God. Israel has come across the
Red Sea. They've now tasted the sweet
waters sweetened at Marra. They have eaten bread from heaven. They have drunk from the smitten
rock, gushing fountains of fresh spring water. And now they come
to Sinai. When they left Rephidim, the
place of murmuring, they came to the Mount of God at Sinai.
While they are camped here at Mount Sinai, that which is described
as the Mount of God, Moses went up to God on Sinai. And the very first word the Lord
God spoke to his people at Sinai was a promise of pure, free grace. That may take a little to settle
in with you. The very first word God spoke
at Sinai was a promise of pure, free grace. God gave Moses this
specific message for his people. You'll notice in verse 3, he
referred to his people both as Jacob and Israel. Thou shalt
say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel.
And he uses those terms interchangeably. But always, always, not an exception
that I've found yet, when God uses the terms Jacob and Israel
together, referring to his people, he always reminds us of what
we are by nature. Never forget that, just Jacob. Tricky, conniving, scheming,
dirty, cheating, deceiving, rotten, ungodly Jacob. As not what you
were, as what you are. Me too. God, don't let me forget
it for a second. And Israel, prince with God. A prince with God. One who has
power with God. Ask me whatever you want to,
I'll do it. A prince with God, you sons of Jacob. Now, let's
look at the promise God made. Exodus 19 verse one. In the third month, when the
children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt,
the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. For they
were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of
Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness, and there Israel
camped before the mount. And Moses went up unto God, and
the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus
shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children
of Israel, ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and
how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. I picked you up like an eagle
carrying her young chicks on her wings and brought you to
me right here in the mouth of God. Now, therefore, if ye will
obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, now watch what it
says. Ye shall be a peculiar treasure
unto me above all people for all the earth is mine. And ye
shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are
the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
First, he reminded Israel of what he had done for them already,
reminding them specifically of the grace and power of God they
had already experienced. You've seen what I've done for
you. And then he promises that he will make these chosen people,
the people of his covenant, the people he had redeemed by blood
and by power, his own peculiar treasure above all people, is
I'll make you a kingdom of priests. I'll make you a holy nation. Now, yes, there was a condition
to the promise. He said if. But now let me give you something.
I'll come back to this at the end of the message, Lord willing,
but I want to give it to you now just in case I don't get
there. Whenever you read the word of God speaking to his people
and he says, if, that is not a condition that you must meet,
but rather it is God's promise of him meeting the condition
for you. He said, I'm going to do everything
needful from you. everything required of you, and
I'll make you my peculiar people. I will make you a kingdom of
priests. I will make you a holy nation.
Now if you read through the Old Testament all the way through
until the crucifixion of our Redeemer and his resurrection
from the dead, the children of Israel, that physical nation,
was never made God's peculiar people. They never obeyed any
condition that was set forth in this if. They were never God's
peculiar treasure. Rather, God cast them off. I
don't mean for a little while. He cast them off. He sent blindness
to them. They never became a kingdom of
priests. They still walk around and have
folks serving as priests for them. And they never were made
a holy nation. But there is another Israel.
There is a true Israel. There is a people who are indeed
princes with God, his peculiar treasure in the earth. Our Lord
Jesus redeemed unto himself a peculiar people, a peculiar treasure. He made those people to be kings
and priests unto God. And he made those people to be
an holy nation. And here she is. It's talking
about the church of God, the church of the living God. God
begins this word then at Sinai with a promise of pure, free
grace. He said, you've got to honor
my law. You've got to keep my commands. But this is my promise. I'm going
to make you my peculiar treasure, my priestly kings, and my holy
nation, because I'm going to do what you can never do. I'm
going to do for you that which now I speak to you. Here's the
second thing. God made this promise of grace.
made it to his people, and then he sent Moses to declare to the
people that which he spoke as they stood at the foot of the
mount. And as Moses proclaimed God's promise, the elders of
Israel gave a unified answer. He comes down and says, all God
requires of you is that you be perfect. That's all he requires. God requires that you obey him. God requires that you keep his
commandments. Now this is the second thing I want you to see.
There is in all of us by nature a presumption of goodness. A presumption not of goodness
in others, but a presumption of goodness in ourselves. A proud,
haughty, arrogant, vile, ugly presumption of goodness. Our politicians all like to make
you feel good. There's a basic goodness in the
American people. Kind of like there is in the
Islamic folks. Not the same basic goodness,
but you cut a fellow's head off and televise it for folks. Just
about the same kind of goodness. But we like to say, I just, I
believe in the innate goodness of man. That's because I want
you to know I'm really good. I'm really good. We speak such
nonsense, lying to men, because no man really thinks that about
another man. No man really thinks that about
another man. He rather presumes in you there's a basic evil.
but I'm not like you, I'm good. I'm good. The children of Israel
said to Moses, well, we can do that. We can do that. Look at verses seven and eight.
Moses came and called for the elders of the people and laid
before their faces all these words, which the Lord commanded
him. And all the people answered together. Okay, boy, we're on our way now.
All that the Lord has spoken, we will do. Wow, that's a piece
of cake. That's a piece of cake. And Moses
returned the words of the people to the Lord. You see, this is
the same problem that rich young ruler had who came to the master.
When the master said to him, what are the commandments? He
said, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and being.
Love your neighbor as yourself. And the rich young ruler said,
well, I've always done that. I've always been a good boy.
Now I might have fudged here and there, but I've always, I've
basically been good. Basically been good. And the
Lord Jesus said, let's see. Go sell everything you have,
give it to the poor. Come follow me. Well, surely
he didn't expect that. That's what God requires of you.
That's what God requires of me. He requires us, Brother Johnny
Bell, to obey him as God, reverence him as God, rule over everything. You say, pull my hair out, pull
my hair out. You say, enter my wallet, enter my wallet. You
say, wash my brother's feet, I'll wash my brother's feet.
Give everything I've got to the poor, love your neighbor as yourself. And that rich young ruler said,
leave all hang on. And he walked away. And the disciples
said, oh, if that man Not saved. Who then can be saved? Return
to the promise. With men, it's impossible. But
with God, all things are possible. What God requires, God performs. Now, watch verse nine. The Lord
provided a mediator for this poor, sinful, ignorant people. The Lord said to Moses, lo, I
come unto thee in a thick cloud that the people may hear when
I speak with thee and believe thee forever. And Moses told
the words of the people to the Lord. Now, throughout these two
chapters, Moses clearly typifies our Lord Jesus Christ, our great
mediator. The law, Paul tells us in Galatians
3.19, was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. God put the law in Moses' hand
and said to Moses, you go carry it to the people. And the people
said, Moses, we've got to have somebody speak to us, speak to
God for us. You go carry our word back to
God. And Moses was a mediator between
God and his people. No less than 10 times, God the
Holy Ghost tells us, Moses went up to the mount to speak for
God and came down from the mount to speak to the people for God. Oh, how we ought to give thanks
to God continually for that one mediator between God and men,
the man, Christ Jesus. Look at verse 10. Here's God's
requirement. And the Lord said unto Moses,
all right, go unto the people and sanctify them. Sanctify them
today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes. And be ready,
be ready, prepared aforehand against the third day. For the
third day, the Lord will come down in the sight of all the
people upon Mount Sinai. people had to be sanctified,
separated, made holy, made pure, prepared, made meet to meet God,
made ready to meet God, made fit to meet God. The word sanctify,
as you know, means to separate, to set apart, or to make pure,
or to make holy. And the act by which the people
had to be sanctified tells us they must be set apart, prepared,
made ready to meet God by being made pure, holy, and clean before
Him ceremonially. The purity and holiness was symbolized
by a ceremonial washing. If you and I, however, would
be ready to meet God, it would be more than a ceremony. We must
be readied both by blood atonement and by the sanctifying work of
God the Holy Ghost, by the precious blood of Jesus Christ shared
as our substitute at Calvary, and by the washing of regeneration
in the Holy Spirit. Hold your hands here in Exodus
and turn to Titus chapter 3. Titus chapter 3. How is it that we're made meat
to be protectors of the inheritance of the saints in light? Made
ready to meet God. Made meat for God. Titus 3 verse
4. But after that the kindness and
love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of
righteousness which we have done. No, no, no, no, no. But according
to his mercy he saved us. How? By the washing of regeneration. and the renewing of the Holy
Ghost by the cleansing, the purifying, the washing of regeneration,
and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which is shed on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Christ, you remember, Paul said,
hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse
for us, just as our brother so masterfully told us a moment
ago. He was made a curse for us, for it is written, cursed
is everyone that hangeth on a tree. But the sentence doesn't end
there. That we might receive the promise of Abraham, the promise
of the Spirit, the blessing of Abraham, the promise of God the
Holy Ghost. Now then, which was shed upon
us abundantly through Christ our Savior, that being justified
by His grace, having been justified by what He did, we should be
made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Being born again
of God, we have hope of eternal life, Christ in you, the hope
of glory. Now, watch the next thing revealed
at Sinai. God said, I will come down to
my people on the third day. And on the third day of time,
he did just that. But they cannot come up to me. They cannot come up to me. Look at verse 12. Now listen
to this. You can't come to God by anything
you do. You can't come to God. No man can come unto me. No man. You can't come to God
by anything you do. Not by a change of life, not
by prayer, not by resolutions, not by dedicating yourself, not
by giving your heart to Jesus. You can't come to God. Set bounds unto the people round
about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount,
or touch the border of it. Whosoever toucheth the mount
shall be surely put to death. There shall not an hand touch
it, but shall surely be stoned or shot through. Whether it be
beast or man, it shall not live. Now what's the next word? When
the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount. You
can't come. You can't come. But when the
trumpet sounds long, they shall come up to the mount. And Moses
went down from the mount unto the people and sanctified the
people and washed their clothes. And he said unto the people,
be ready against the third day. Come down at your wives. No one
was allowed to come to the mount of God or touch it with his hands,
let alone climb up to the mount by his works fulfilling the law. If they dared do so, they were
put to death. Remember, the whole congregation
had boasted that they would do whatever God required for them
to do. They would do whatever word God
gave by which they might find acceptance with Him. Here the
Lord God says, even if you try to satisfy me with your polluted
hands, I'll kill you. You come to the mount and say,
I can do this. I can't be perfect, but I can
do this. No man's perfect, but I do the best I can. Touch the
mount. God will kill you. What's that
mean? You put your dirty hands on God's
ark of salvation. That's Christ Jesus the Lord.
You reach out and put your dirty hand on that ark as if somehow
he needs something from you or will accept something from you.
You put your dirty hands on it. God'll kill you. He'll send you
to hell. He'll send you to hell. Ask Uzzah. Ask him. You start just prying
into things. Lift the lid and look into the
ark. Let's see what's in there. You've got to have my curiosity
satisfied. Go talk to those 50,000 men of Bathsheba and see if God
will kill you. God will kill you. God will slay
you for your gaze of curiosity. But there's something particularly
instructive given here about the third day. The third day
in scripture is held forth in a unique way. The Lord told Moses
to make the people ready against the third day because he said,
I'll come to them on the third day. On the third day, God raised
the earth from chaos and calls us to bud forth with life in
Genesis 1. On the third day, Abraham offered
Isaac about Moriah in Genesis 22, and there the Lord revealed
himself as Jehovah-Jireh. On the third day in Leviticus
17, the sacrifice was burned. Our Lord Jesus was raised from
the dead on the third day. The scriptures speak of three
distinct days as Sabbath days. There was a Sabbath day of innocence. When God created the heavens
and the earth and created man upon the earth and saw everything
that he'd done that it was very good, the Lord rested on the
seventh day. There was a Sabbath day of innocence.
And then we come to our text here in Exodus 20, 19 and 20,
and God gave another Sabbath day. A seventh day Sabbath given by
the law, commanding the people of Israel to keep the Sabbath
day holy. That was a day that continued
for the next 2,000 years. It was a day of law, of curse,
of guilt, of sin, of condemnation, of death, of separation. They never obeyed God's law,
not even a little. Not even a little. And all through
the Old Testament, the law of God pronounces them guilty, guilty,
guilty, guilty. And God maintained a veil, a
thick, thick veil, separating himself from the people. And
God said by that veil, you can't come to me. And I won't come
to you. The holy God cannot and will
not receive, look upon, accept anything except perfect holiness. The obvious message of God to
Israel in verses 12 through 15 is this. You can't come to me,
but I will come to you on the third day. I'll come to you and
sanctify you. And he did. In Matthew 28, we
read of our Lord Jesus Christ's resurrection from the dead in
verse 1. And we're told, at the end of
the Sabbath, as it dawned upon the first day of the week. Do
you know what that word literally is? At the end of the Sabbath,
as it dawned upon the Sabbath. Now, how could that be? Now,
if it's Saturday, it's not going to dawn on Saturday. How could
that possibly be? At the end of the Sabbath, as
it dawned upon the Sabbath. Now, I know our legalist friends. I'll call them that. They wouldn't
call me that. Our legalist friends, they say, well, that's when the
Sunday became the Sabbath. Find that for me in the Word
of God. Find me anywhere in the Word of God where folks called
Sunday the Sabbath day. Just you won't find it. Well,
what does it mean? As that law sabbath ended. Because Christ said, it is finished. And when he did, this very thing
that God spoke of here, when he came down, we'll see it in
a little bit, he came down in a thundering. smoke and fire
and a shaking of the earth, so much so that the graves were
opened. And many of the saints of God
walked the streets of Jerusalem that night. What does that mean? As I was finishing up my message
last night, I think I got a little light on that for the first time.
A little light on that the first time. When Christ came down here
in the third day, as that Sabbath of grace began in which we now
live. when He, by His obedience under
death, His righteousness in blood, justified us and made us righteous
before God, the very righteousness of God in Him. Then He comes
by His grace at the appointed time of love and He sanctifies
us by His Spirit, making us ready to meet God, ready for God, making
us to have that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord,
which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. The Lord God Almighty
causes his saints to rise from the dead just like those folks
in Jerusalem and walk with God in the holy city by his almighty
grace forever. The Lord God comes on the third
day and on the third day If you read through the chapters three
times, he talks about, he said, I'm going to sound the trumpet.
He said, he said, when the trumpet sounds long, when the trumpet
sounds long, then they shall come to me. Do you hear the gospel
trumpet? Do you hear it? It's been sounding
long and loud. Oh, how God has spoken this week
and drawn us to him. Turn over to Hebrews chapter
10. Let me give you this gospel trumpet. When our Lord Jesus
finished his work, and the veil of the temple was rent into,
I've often thought to myself, I'd sure like to have seen the
look on that high priest's face when that temple was rent into.
Do you know there wasn't an Ark of Mercy in there? That Ark of
the Covenant had been long since gone. All they did for 400 years
or better was pretend to keep the Passover. They just pretended
to. When that veil went into, uh-oh,
I'm caught now. I guess he's sitting in that
chute in the back there having a bowl of soup or something. I don't
want him to do it. But he wasn't sprinkling blood. He wasn't sprinkling
blood. And the veil split from top to bottom. And God said,
all right, now you come to me. Now you can come to me. I'll
come down to you in the person of my darling son and fulfill
everything I require of you. And now you can come to me. Let's
see if that's all it says. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 19.
Having therefore brethren boldness. That doesn't mean cockiness or
bravery. It's talking about freedom. Freedom. If I walk out here and
the door's open, I figure I can go through it. Now if the door
is closed and locked, I push down on the handle of this lock,
I figure I'll probably stay out. But if it's open, I've never
asked permission in my life to walk through an open door, have
you? I have knocked on a closed door, even though it wasn't locked,
but I've never asked permission of my wife to walk through an
open door. God says, the door's open! Now watch this. Having
now freedom to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through
the veil, that is to say, his flesh, and having a high priest
over the house of God, let us draw near Let us draw near with a true
heart in full assurance of faith. How can I have assurance? Trust
Christ. And as long as you trust something else with him, you
never will. As long as you trust your feeling,
your decision, your works, your church going, your distinctiveness
from somebody else. As long as you look in here,
you will never know the blessedness of assurance. But if you come
to God trusting Christ, I can come to God, I've got what he
wants. I've got what he wants. I've got everything he requires.
I bring God what he gave. Having full assurance of faith. having our hearts sprinkled from
an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. That's what was pictured back
here in the sanctification. Now we come to God being renewed
by the spirit of God with confidence. Let us therefore come boldly,
come with the ease, the freedom of a child talking to his daddy.
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we
may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. All
right, back here in Exodus 19, verse 60. In verses 16 through 25, the
Lord God gives us a magnificent display of his unapproachable
holiness. Isn't it wonderful how before
he gives us this, he tells us the ways, the way he's going
to do things. But first he says, he's not going to do this for
you, but here is a picture of God's unapproachable holiness.
And it came to pass on the third day, at the beginning of the
day, in the beginning of the morning, there were thunders
and lightnings and a thick cloud upon the mountain, the voice
of a trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people that was
in the camp, they trembled. They trembled. Oh, my. God came down at Calvary. and showed himself in all his
glorious holy being and all his glorious attributes and the earth
itself shook beneath him. The graves were opened, stones
cracked before him, people trembled for seven days. 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 ascended as the smoke of the 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 mountain. The Lord called Moses up to the
top of the mount. And Moses went up. And the Lord
said unto Moses, Go down now, 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 the Lord sanctify themselves, lest the Lord break through upon
them. And Moses said unto the Lord, the people cannot come
up to the Mount Sinai. For thou chargest us saying,
set bounds about the mountain, sanctify it. And the Lord said
unto him, away, get thee down. Thou shalt come up, thou and
Aaron with thee. But let not the priest and the
people break through to come up to the Lord, lest he break
forth upon them. So Moses went down unto the people
and spake to them. The Lord came down upon Sinai. His coming was announced with
a sevenfold, a perfect expression of his terrible majesty and holiness,
his unapproachable majesty and holiness, thunder, lightning,
cloud, fire, smoke, quaking, and a trumpet. There was nothing
there to encourage hope, nothing to attract the guilty, nothing
to pacify the accusing conscience. Such is the character of the
great judge of all the earth. God Almighty is all terror to
sin. He's all terror to sin. Our God
is a consuming fire. You can't come to Him. Well might
we cry with the men of Beshemoth. Who is able to stand before the
holy Lord God? Just one man. He that hath clean
hands and a pure heart and has never lifted up his soul to vanity,
Jesus Christ the Lord. Moses, you go back down there
and this time bring Aaron up here with you. And now you and
Aaron, Christ, our king, our prophet, and our priest, you
represent the people to me. And by me, they come up to me. Now, in chapter 20, sin is exposed. Oh, how God exposes sin. The giving of the law, the Ten
Commandments. The Lord God exposed sin. and the guilt of this people
who had boasted all that the Lord has spoken we will do. God
spake unto these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which
have brought thee out of the land of Egypt and out of the
house of bondage. Thou shalt 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 the Lord thy God is a jealous
God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children
unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, showing
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. And so on he gives the commandments.
Read through the list as it continues through verse 17 and tell me
which commandment haven't you broken? Which commandment don't you break all the time? Which one sitting here this minute
has no rival to God in his heart? No rival at all. Who, sitting here this minute,
doesn't speak God's name in vain? Who? Who? That's not just talking
about cussing, using God's name, cussing. Every time you say,
gosh, oh, Lord, Lordy, you take God's name in vain. And every
time you mention his name without the intent of honoring it, you
take his name in vain. Who? Who hasn't committed adultery? Who hasn't murdered his neighbor?
Who? Who? Who always honors his father
and mother? Who doesn't take what doesn't
belong to him? Raise your hand, I'll sit down
and let you preach. Who? Who doesn't covet what somebody
else has? What was it that caused the people
terror? You see, the law's purpose is
to identify sin, condemn the sinner, and condemn the sin. These people were appalled not
by what required, that's all holy, just, and good. Tell me
who would object to anybody loving God with all his heart and loving
his neighbor as himself. That's not what appalled them.
But they were appalled by their own sinfulness. For now they
knew that it was their sin that prevented
them from coming to God. Their sin that prevented them
from doing what God required. When they saw that God demands
perfection, they withdrew from the mount as quickly as they
could. Look at verse 18. All the people saw the thunderings
and lightnings and noise of trumpet and the mount smoking. And when
the people saw it, they removed and stood far off. Now, learn
this. The purpose of God in giving
his law at Sinai was to show his people, to show us, our need
of a mediator, to shut us up to Christ and faith in him. And that's precisely what happened
with these Israelites at Sinai. The terrors of Sinai reveal the
necessity for Calvary. Verse 19, they said unto Moses,
speak thou with us, and we will hear. But let not God speak with
us, lest we die. Don't, don't, Moses, don't, don't,
don't let God say another word to me. I'll die if he does. And
Moses said to the people, fear not. Don't be afraid. The thunder
and the shaking and the fire and smoke, the holiness of God,
no reason to be terrified for God has come to prove you that
his fear may be before your faces that you sin not. And the people
stood afar off and Moses drew near into the thick darkness
where God was. This was all the nearness of
God they could accomplish when their imaginary goodness was
exposed for the evil it was. Sin exposed, sin felt, guilt
experienced causes needy souls to want a mediator. We can't
come to God without Christ. We can't come to God without
Christ. Now let me tell you something.
These preachers will tell you, you believers will say amen.
We want God to be everything God is. We want God to be everything.
I want God perfect and holy. and righteous, and just, and
pure, and unbending, and truth. I want God exactly as He is,
and nothing about Him terrifies me. It used to. It used to. Brother Greg, I spent
a year in utter torment with guilt, terrified of God. Terrified. Afraid to go to sleep
and afraid to get up. Terrified of God. Terrified at
the mention of His name. Until one day, I saw Him whom
God has accepted. And I've never been afraid of
God since. No longer terrified. He's my Father. He's my Father.
Oh, but judgment's coming. Not for me. Not for me. Our savior said judgment's over.
The prince of this world's judged. Not for me. No reason to be terrified
of God. Now, we're reading verses 20
through 26. And we remember we're still at
Mount Sinai. We're still learning what the
law says. In those last verses of Exodus 20, the Lord God shows
us the way by which sinners may and must come to him. Not by
works, but by the blood and the precious righteousness of Christ.
Verse 22, the Lord said unto Moses, thus shalt thou say unto
the children of Israel, ye have seen that I have talked with
you from heaven. You shall not make with me gods
of silver, neither shall you make unto you gods of gold. An
altar of earth. I've got a family altar. No,
no, no. We go to the altar at the church.
Well, if you do, you'll never get to God. I knelt at the altar
and prayed through. If you did, you prayed through
to hell, nothing else. We have an altar, but it's an altar of
God's making, an altar of earth, not an altar of our making. By
an altar of earth shalt thou come unto me, and sacrifice thereon. Bring the sacrifice with you,
thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, and thy sheep,
and thine oxen, and all places where I record my name, and I'll
come to you. I'll come to you, and I'll bless
you. Christ is that sacrifice. And if thou wilt make an altar
of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone. That is, you
can't have any chisel marks on it. You can't take your sledgehammer
and break it and cut it like you do the rocks out here. You
can't do that, because if you lift up your hammer on it, you've
polluted it. It's got to be a stone of God's making. Christ, the
stone that God has laid. For if thou lift up thy tool
upon it, thou hast polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps
unto mine altar. We have an altar. His name is
Jesus Christ the Lord. And don't go up by steps. If
you do, you'll expose your nakedness there. Now, I was looking that
over this morning. I thought I got a pretty good
illustration of that. Y'all have got a, back yonder, got some
steps going down that way. And you got a long ramp going
down that way. And so far, coming in here, I've
never come up those steps because I have a problem. I don't like
for you to see it. In my recent years, I don't have
any legs left. And I don't have any balance.
I don't have any strength in my feet. Unless I get hold of something,
I can't push myself up from one step to the other. And I can
make it up the stairs, but it ain't a pretty sight. I wouldn't
want anybody behind me watching me climb some steep stairs. So
I always go up the ramp so I don't expose my nakedness. my weakness,
my deformity, my clumsiness, my sin. And as surely as you
attempt to come to God by steps, you only show your sin that you
call righteousness. Several years ago, back in 1995,
I was preaching for the first time in Columbia, California.
Brother Bob Harmon was pastor. And on the way out, Brother Bob
said to me, he said, I'm going to preach before you this morning.
I've decided to preach first. I want you to critique my sermon. I
said, Bob, I don't do that. I just don't want to do that.
No, I don't want to do that. But he went on and preached.
Brother Gene Harmon was preaching with me. And right before I preached,
Bob preached on steps of salvation. And it was works from the first
syllable to the last syllable of the message. And I had to
critique it publicly. If he had been preaching that
the moon is purple and the sun is pretty bright green, I'd have
let that go. That doesn't make any difference.
If he had preached that Santa Claus rides a walking horse rather
than a reindeer, that would have been all right. I would have
let that go. It wouldn't have made any difference. But he preached
nothing but work. And I turned around and said
to Gene Harmon, I said, I'll give you $100 if you'll preach
instead of me. He said, no, you have it. And so I got up and
preached free grace and just took apart everything he said,
line by line, word by word, sentence by sentence. And I figured, well,
this is the end of this. But God was pleased to save him.
You can't come to God ascending by your gradual degree. come
to God all at once through one door, faith in God's darling
Son. That's all. Now, I told you at
the beginning of my message I'd say something to you about this
if. God's if in verse 19, or verse 5 of Exodus 19, is to be
read not as a condition that must be met by us, but as God's
promise to us that he would meet the condition, supplying for
us Jacob and Israel, all the house of his elect, everything
connected with the promise. God said, if you will obey my
voice, then I'll make you my peculiar treasure. I'll make
you a kingdom of priests. I'll make you a holy nation. In Christ, By His obedience unto
death as our substitute, by the gift of His Spirit in grace,
God Almighty met all the conditions of the promise. He's made us
sinners ready to meet God. ready to meet God. I have been on a couple of cases
in my life on what the doctors considered to be the precipice
of death and I thought sure I was going to die and they did too. Not a quake in my soul. Not a tremble in my soul. Not
a fear of any kind except for those I would leave behind. How
come? Because I'm ready to meet God. I've got a substitute. God It
came down to me when I couldn't come up to Him. And God coming
down to me in the person of His Son has carried me up to Him. How can you say you're ready
to meet God because I'm already there? I'm seated with Him in
the heavenlies. seated with Christ on his throne,
where he seated as the reward of perfect righteousness. Justly so. God came down in all
his law, in all his holiness, in all his glory, and fulfilled
every requirement and made us his peculiar treasure, his royal
priesthood, his holy nation. Let me show you first Peter chapter
two, first Peter chapter two, verse five. He also as lively stones are
built up a spiritual house and holy priesthood to offer up spiritual
sacrifices. Watch this now acceptable to
God by Jesus Christ. Whatever you bring him. God told
us about Solomon, the wise man. He said, go now and enjoy the
wife of your youth. God now accepteth thy works.
What? Get home late tomorrow, or late
this evening. We have to hurry out of here.
They changed our flight schedule, but we have to leave early this
afternoon. We get home and probably not
tonight. Probably get home tonight and
get in bed pretty quick. But tomorrow, sometime after
we get done with our work, Shelby will sit there on my lap, light
my pipe and smoke it. We'll sit there and maybe have
a glass of wine. We don't ever do that. Might
have a glass of wine and just sit there. And God says, enjoy
yourself. God accepts you. You think God
accepts that? John Davis, God accepts his people. in the totality of our lives
while we walk on this earth because of perfection and righteousness
and holiness without sin in his son. Watch this. Wherefore, also
it's contained in the Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief
cornerstone, elect, precious, and he that believeth on him
shall not be confounded, never confused, unto you, therefore,
which believe. He's precious. But unto them
which be disobedient, the stone of stumbling, the stone which
the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the
quarter, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to
them which stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto
they were appointed. But ye are a chosen generation.
a royal priesthood and holy nation, a peculiar people that you should
show forth the praises of him who had called you out of darkness
into his marvelous light, which in time past were not a people,
but are now the people of God, which had not obtained mercy,
but have now obtained mercy. The law demands a weighty debt,
and not a single bite will it abate. But the gospel sings of
Jesus' blood and says he made the payment good. The law provokes
men off to ill, and hardened hearts makes harder steel. But
gospel acts a kinder part. It melts the hard and stony heart. Run, run, and work the law demands,
but gives me neither feet nor hands. The sweeter news the gospel
brings, it bids me fly and gives me wings. Such needful wings,
O Lord, impart to brace my feet, embrace my heart. Good wings
of faith and wings of love will make dead sinners live and love. With these, my burdened soul now flies and
soars aloft to reach the sky. nor faint, nor falter in the
race, but live by faith and sing of grace.