If you will take your Bibles,
turn to Psalm chapter 22. You're probably most of you familiar
with this Psalm. It's been called the Psalm of
the Cross. Before we start reading, if you
would find your place in Matthew chapter 27, Just hold your place at Matthew
chapter 27. And let's begin reading in the
book of Psalms chapter 22. My God, my God, why hast Thou
forsaken me? Why art Thou so far from helping
me? And from the words of my roaring,
O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, in the
night season, and am not silent. But thou art holy, O thou that
inhabitest the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee,
they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto
thee, and were delivered. They trusted in thee and were
not confounded. But listen to what our Lord says
about himself. But I am a worm and no man, a
reproach of men and despised of the people. All they that
see me laugh me to scorn. They shoot out the lip, they
shake the head, say, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver
him. Let him deliver him, seeing he
delighted in him. I'll keep your place at Psalms
chapter two and turn to Matthew chapter 27. These are the words
of our Lord that he said. I don't know how many years before
this was repeated by those that crucified him. They said in verse
43 of Matthew 27, he trusted in God. Let him deliver him now,
if he will have him. For he said, I am the Son of
God. Back in the book of Psalms, picking
back up at verse nine. But thou art he, that took me
out of the womb. Thou didst make me hope when
I was upon my mother's breast. I was cast upon thee from the
womb. Thou art my God from my mother's belly. Be not far from
me, for trouble is near, for there is none to help. Many bulls
have come past me. Strong bulls of Bashan have beset
me round. They gapped upon me with their
mouths as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it is melted
in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like
a potsherd, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws. And thou hast brought
me into the dust of death. For dogs have come past me, the
assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierce my hands and
my feet. I may tell all my bones, they
look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them
and cast locks upon my vesture. But be not thou far from me,
O Lord, O my strength, haste thee to help me. Deliver my soul
from the sword, my darling from the power of the dog. Save me
from the lion's mouth, for thou has heard me from the horns of
the unicorns. I will declare thy name unto
my brethren in the midst of the congregation while I praise thee. Let us pray. Our Father, we bow before you,
Lord, in that name that you've put above every name, our Lord
Jesus Christ, who underwent death, such cruel treatment to come
to this earth to save poor, helpless sinners such as we are. Lord, we thank you for that precious
blood that you shed on Calvary's cross. Knowing Lord, without
the shedding of that blood, there'd be no remission of sin. And Lord, as we gather in this
place tonight, Lord, we come to that purpose that you set
forth of preaching your gospel. Lord, bless your word. draw sinners
to Yourself. Lord, only You can save. We cannot
save ourselves. Lord, we came into this world
in a terrible situation, and only You can deliver us. So Lord, we pray that Thy will
might be done this night. Send Thy Holy Spirit into this
place. Put Your hand upon Your preacher,
and Lord, touch these people. that we might bow at Your feet.
For we humbly ask it in Christ's name. Amen. After that message last night,
I hope we realize how blessed we are to have God's servant,
God's message for this hour, for exactly the people that should
hear it tonight. Exactly, right to the number.
Don, you come and preach the gospel to us. Why do you suppose God came down
on Mount Sinai with tables of stone and gave the Ten Commandments
to the children of Israel? Why were those Ten Commandments
given? Was it God's purpose that we
should post them on walls and courthouses and schoolhouses
and say, this is how you ought to live? Without question, this
is how you ought to live, exactly according to what's written in
the commandments. But what was God's purpose in giving it? Was
it his purpose that we should use the Ten Commandments as a
rule of life by which we judge ourselves and judge one another
and determine who knows God, who walks with God, who doesn't,
by which we should measure our sanctification and find assurance? Why did God give the Ten Commandments? Open your Bibles to the Gospel
of Exodus, and I'll give you the answer. Exodus chapter 20. Exodus chapter 20. I'm confident
God's given me a message for you. I pray he will give me the
grace to deliver you. Exodus chapter 20. The title
of my message is the Ten Commandments. If you're taking notes, you might
put another title by it. The Gospel of the Law. The whole
revelation of God, including these commandments, is the revelation
of the gospel of God's free, sovereign, saving grace in Jesus
Christ, our Lord. We come to Mount Sinai, and everything
is darkness, clouds, thunder, lightning, a terrible shaking,
until the sun of righteousness arises upon it. And then the
darkness melts before the rising sun and the angry roars are hushed
by the sound of grace. The terrors of the darkness are
dispersed by the light of life and the quaking of the mountain
is settled. and everything calm when the
Prince of Peace arises. Sinai opens the way to Zion's
blissful slopes of mercy, grace, and love. Mount Sinai is made
by God to be the backdrop upon which he would reveal his marvelous
free grace in Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Redeemer, and our Savior. Sinai gives us God's law, how
infinitely vast and important it is. It's delivered with such
awful solemnity that all the children of Israel feared and
quaked before the mountain as they stood before God. That fact
alone ought to fill our hearts with constantly increasing admiration,
joy, praise, and thanksgiving to God for the unspeakable gift
of God, Jesus Christ our Lord, who by his obedience unto death,
by his precious blood atonement, has fulfilled all the law, satisfied
all the justice of God, met every demand as our surety. He answered
the demands of Sinai's law for us, and thereby he became the
end, the finishing point, the termination, the full stop of
the law to everyone that believeth. With every renewed view of our
blessed Savior, who has by his own blood redeemed us from the
curse of the law, let us renew our praises to God and renew
our devotion to him. Blessed Spirit of God, by the
sweet influences of your grace in our hearts, teach us to cherish
the redemption that's ours in Christ Jesus and cherish our
Redeemer. In great love for our souls,
God the Son, before the world began, stood forth as our surety. He assumed total responsibility
for his people. The Lord God trusted him as the
God-man, our mediator, with all his will, all his glory, all
his purpose, and all his people. well might we trust him. If the
triune Jehovah trusts him, well might we trust him. Our Lord
Jesus undertook our cause and the Lord God from eternity ceased
to look to his people for anything. He looks rather to Christ the
surety for everything. God Almighty doesn't look to
you and it doesn't look to me somehow to make ourselves worthy
of God and worthy of His approval, but rather He looks to His Son
and accepted Him as the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world. By His blood, He obtained eternal
redemption for us. By His obedience unto God, He
brought in everlasting righteousness on our behalf. and now the boundary
which kept Israel from approaching God and kept God from approaching
Israel. The wall of partition that separated
God from us and separated us from God. That veil that stood
between the holy place and the most holy place saying no man
can hear into God's presence, has been ripped from top to bottom,
opened up by the doing and dying of the Son of God, and God says,
sinners, come and welcome. Come and welcome at the mercy
seat, because Jesus Christ, God's Son, has fulfilled all the law
in every jot and tittle on behalf of his people. We come to Jesus,
the mediator of the new covenant. and to the precious blood of
sprinkling, and draw nigh to God in this new and living way. And we arrive through him at
the fountainhead of all mercy, love, grace, and goodness, which
is the throne of God, the throne of grace. Let's look at these
26 verses in Exodus chapter 20. I want to call your attention
to five things very briefly. Number one, before giving his
law, The Lord God again identifies himself. And he identifies himself
by the salvation he performed. He always does. God identifies
himself by the salvation he performed. Look at verse one. God spake
all these words saying, I am the Lord thy God, which hath
brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
bondage. Who was it that brought Israel
to the foot of Mount Sinai? Who has the right to lay such
claims upon you and I as are given here in the Ten Commandments? It is God, the Supreme One, Elohim,
our Creator. It is the Lord thy God. our covenant
God, God in covenant with us, God who has sworn himself to
our salvation. He who speaks is the Lord Jehovah,
the self-existent eternal God of all redemption and grace.
He who speaks is the triune God, our omnipotent Savior, which
have brought thee out of the land of Egypt and out of the
house of bondage. Whatever you read in the scripture
of God speaking, of God revealing himself, of God making himself
known to man, it is always in the person of Christ our Savior. Always. Everywhere in the scripture
where it speaks of the angel of the Lord speaking to men,
that's Christ our Redeemer. The only way God will speak to
you and the only way you can speak to God is by Christ the
Lord. That no other way, no other way.
It is God, the God of everlasting grace, who speaks from Sinai. His mercy looked upon Israel's
enslavement in Egypt and protected them. He burst their bonds and
crushed their cruel foes. He led them morning after morning
and fed them day by day with the bread of heaven. He caused
streams to gush out of the rock and flooded their hearts when
they were thirsty all through their wilderness journeys. And
now he brings them to Sinai and makes Sinai to be the platform
upon which he shows Christ the Redeemer. Everything portrayed,
everything typified, everything prophesied in the whole work
of the law, in the whole worship of God, in the whole giving of
the tabernacle, all the ordinances of the tabernacle, all the priesthood
in the tabernacle, all the furnishings of the tabernacle, all the sacrifices
of the tabernacle, everything begins here at Sinai. where he
makes Sinai the platform on which he will show Christ our Redeemer. The children of Israel heard
a voice speaking to them from heaven. Who is it that spoke? It's the voice of the Redeemer,
their Redeemer, our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus. The Holy Spirit
tells us that the angel, the messenger of the eternal covenant
communed with Moses on the mount. If it is Christ who speaks, the
message will be full of tender love and rich mercy and mighty
grace. He says as he introduces himself,
you have seen chapter 19 verse 4, you see what I did unto the
Egyptians and how I bear you on eagle's wings and brought
you unto myself. Surely he didn't bear them on
eagle's wings out of Egypt just to crush them beneath his hand
at Sinai. The sound of the thunder on Sinai,
the flashes of lightning shooting from heaven are announcing fresh
rain from heaven, new revelations of grace. When I was a boy, like
most boys, and it came a bad, bad thunderstorm at night. Clouds
just covered with clouds and the sky is covered with clouds
and lightning flashing and thunder rolling. It just terrified you.
But if you, when you get a little older, you realize that rain's
fixing to come. The clouds and the lightning
and the thunders tell you God's fixing to refresh the earth again
with water from heaven. So it is here at Sinai. Special
preparation, however, must be made. The sin soiled people must
be purified ere they draw nigh to God. That is what everything
spoken of Sinai declares. You and I must be purged from
all sin, made absolutely pure, purified from all iniquity, cleansed
of all guilt before we can come to God. You can't approach God. You can't come to God. You can't
be accepted of God until you're purged of all sin, all iniquity,
all transgression, all unrighteousness, all guilt. So you stand before
God as God himself in the perfection of holiness. That's what's revealed
at Mount Sinai. So when the Lord God speaks from
Sinai's fiery mountain with his very first word, Before he gives
his 10 commandments, he identifies himself as God, our Savior. Now hear me, children of God.
Redemption is Christ's claim on you. You're not your own. You're bought
with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your
body and in your spirits, which are God's. Christ bought you,
Christ died for you, Christ redeemed you, that from that day on, you
should no longer live to yourself, but to him that loved you and
gave himself for you. Oh Lord, truly, I am thy servant. and the son of thine handmaid,
thou hast loosed my bonds. I will offer to thee the sacrifices
of thanksgiving and will call upon the name of the Lord as
long as I live. Understand this first and foremost,
the hand that holds the glittering sword of law and justice, the
hand that shakes over all the world, the law and justice of
God over guilty sinners, terrifying them, declaring the soul that
sinneth, it shall die. It's in the hand of the God-man,
our mediator, who redeemed us with his precious blood. The
law of God is in the hands of the Son of God. Now second, let's
look at the commandments the Lord gives. These 10 commandments,
we'll look at them just briefly. We'll read them as they're given
to us right here in the 20th chapter of Exodus. They were
written on two tables of stone by the finger of God. On the
first table, we have the first four commandments, and they relate
to our duty, our responsibility, the requirements of God concerning
our relationship to God. On the second table of the law,
we have six commandments relating to our responsibility, our duty,
the requirements of God concerning our relationship to one another.
Verse three, thou shalt have no other gods before me. What's he saying? The Lord God
demands that he be reverenced alone as God and served with
a perfect heart and a willing mind with every fiber of our
beings. No other gods before me, no rival
to God. Anybody here ever lived like
that? With no rival to God? Not me. Not even for a second. Not even for a second. But this
is what God commands. In this first commandment, all
the other commandments are given. We're commanded to worship the
triune Jehovah alone as God in faith, in hope, in love, in utter
devotion. Certainly the commandment prohibits
all idolatry. and I'll talk about that again
in a little bit, but every form of idolatry. It prohibits all
will worship. We live in a religious age that's
well described by the Apostle Paul as will worshipers, men
and women who worship the will of man rather than worshiping
God. They do everything, cherishing,
exalting, and magnifying the will of man rather than worshiping
the God of glory. Ah, free will religion, most
ridiculous thing on this earth, and everybody runs to it. Man
has a free will. I was preaching in Louisville
one time years ago with M. B. Magruder, who started the
church in Louisville. He came up to me afterwards,
he said, isn't it strange that men take the weakest part of
man's character and nature and make it their god? They will,
they will. Some of you are old enough to
remember when we had fairly decent ads on television, and Lay's
Potential made a fortune. Bet you can't eat one. Did you
ever try to eat just one potato chip out of a bag? Bet you can't
eat one. How come? Because the most fickle,
weak, unsteady, frail thing there is about your nature is your
will. And yet stupid, vain, idolatrous
man dares to presume that by his will he binds the hands of
God. This is a prohibition of mixing
the worship of God with idols. Balaam stands for us as the imminent
picture of a false prophet in scripture. Let me ask you to
find something in the Bible, something written in this book
that Balaam said that was wrong. Everything he said was exactly
right. I preached the same sermons he
preached and like preached them. The Lord's not beheld iniquity
in Israel, nor perverseness in Jacob. That's some sermon. That's
some sermon. But what did Balaam do? He taught
the children of Israel to mingle the worship of God with the well-worshipped
idolaters all around them. And for that, they forsook God
altogether. Our Lord Jesus tells us plainly,
we're to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all
our soul, and with all our mind. That's the first commandment.
Look at verse four. Thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image. And through verses four through
six, the Lord in the second commandment prohibits every form of religious
idolatry and imagery. That means we're not to have
any images of God, any images of Christ, any pictures, any
symbols, any crosses, any crucifixes, don't have them, don't have them.
Brother Frank Hall was pastoring, they bought a church building
down there, and one of the first things they did, Frank's brother
Curtis, I think I remember this correctly, climbed up there and
sawed the cross off the top of the steeple. That's just a thing
to do with it. If I could find the tree on which
the Son of God was crucified, I'd burn it up and put the ashes
in the sea. Because somebody would fall down
and worship it. We're not to have any images
of angels, any images of Christ, any religious symbols, but they
make me feel close to God. That's the reason you're not
to have them. That's exactly the reason you're not to have
them. The second commandment prohibits every form of religious
imagery, idolatry, superstition connected with it. Verse seven,
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." Now if you camped there all night and should, had a lot
of more important things to do right now, and yet nothing more
important than this commandment. Holy and reverend is his name. See that you reverence it. If
you want to joke about somebody, joke about Don, not about God.
If you want to use a bye word, rather than saying, oh my God,
say, oh my Don. Don't use words like gosh and
golly and oh Lord. That's taking God's name in vain. That's speaking God's name rashly.
It's uttering His name without reference. Any use of, any reference
to the name of our God without the intent of honoring God and
referencing Him, sanctifying Him, that's the word. Setting
him apart from everything and everybody is to take his name
in vain. Verse eight, remember the Sabbath
day to keep it holy. And he goes through verse 11
talking about that. This fourth commandment, like
the first three, has to do with our duty toward God. It stands
here as the last commandment in our relationship with God
and reverence for God. And yet our Lord Jesus declares
in Mark chapter two, the Sabbath was made for man. God said, remember
the Sabbath day, keep it holy. Now the only way you do that
is to do nothing on the Sabbath day, which is Saturday, except
worship God. Now, there never was a day when
God changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. That ought
to tell you something about folks who pretend to keep the Sabbath
day. You're not to do anything on the Sabbath day but worship
God. That's all. Don't pick up any
sticks. Don't walk for just a few feet.
Don't cook anything on the stove. Don't do anything. Don't even
let your ox go out and do anything. Not to do anything. Standing
as it does between the two tables of the law, at the end of the
first table and at the beginning of the second, it might be best
to understand this commandment as the hinge upon which everything
turns. You'll understand that in just
a minute, I promise you. It's the hinge on which the whole
of our duty to God and the whole of our duty to man turns. I'll
come back to this in a few minutes. But for now, let me dogmatically
assert, just in case I drop dead before I get to the next point.
There's nothing written in this book, nothing, nothing, nothing
required in this book more important than this fourth commandment.
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Nothing in this book
more important than that. All right, look at verse 12.
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon
the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. This fifth commandment
is called by the apostle Paul, the first commandment with promise.
God promises length of days to those who honor their parents,
to those who honor authority, which is neither more nor less
than honoring God. Not once in a while, all the
time. Again, anybody here ever live
like that? Not me. Not for a second. Verse 13, thou shalt not kill. Our Savior explains that to mean
more than murder. He's talking about being angry
with the brother without cause. Looking at a brother and saying,
he's worthless. He's worthless. Or looking at
another and saying, you fool. You feel ignorant, man. Setting
yourself up as superior to another so that you hold the life, the
character, the name, the reputation, the being of someone else of
less value than yourself. I'm guilty. I'm guilty. Verse
14, thou shalt not commit adultery. Well, I never did that. Whosoever
looketh on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery already
in his heart. Man or woman, who's not guilty? Not you, not me, not me. But Brother Don, the way you're
preaching, according to what's written here, everybody here
is going to hell. Read on, verse 15. Thou shalt not steal. Don't take anything that belongs
to somebody else. Don't do it. Not by fraud nor
outright theft. Don't disrespect the private
property of another as though it were your own. That's called
stealing. Verse 16. Thou shalt not bear false witness
against thy neighbor. Ooh. Don't say anything that
you don't know to be factual about another. And while you're
thinking on that, it includes stating things to someone else
about another. Don't speak it, don't hear it. That's the commandment of God.
That's the commandment of God. Don't bear false witness. Number
10, verse 17, thou shalt not covet. This 10th commandment
points to the root of evil. It is the desire of your heart. It shows us that by thinking
as well as by doing evil, we break God's law. By thinking
as well as by doing evil, we violate God's law. When Paul
saw this, like all the commandments of the law, he saw that it was
something altogether inward and spiritual. That man who all his
life, solitarsis, thought, man, if there's anybody that's ever
been good, I'm the judge. I'm the man. I've kept God's
law all my life. I've never violated God's law.
I've always loved God, loved Mama and Daddy. I've always been
a good boy. And then he said, suddenly, I
understood that God requires something inside me, not just
an apple shell. God required that I not covet. He requires heart obedience as
well as outward physical obedience. He said, then the law will revive,
sin revived and I die. God says, do these things. These are not 10 suggestions.
These are not 10 rules that you ought to try to obey. These are
not 10 governing principles of life. God didn't give these commandments
and say, now go do the best you can. God said, do them or die. That means John Chapman and his
wife, Vicki, and your boys and your grandbabies got to do them
or die and do them perfectly. Do them perfectly. Turn to Galatians. Hold your hands here in Exodus.
Turn to Galatians chapter three. I'll give you a minute to get
there. Galatians chapter three, verse 10. For as many as are of the works
of the law are under the curse, for it is written, cursed is
everyone that continueeth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. But that means we're all
cursed, that's what it means. That means every son of Adam
and every daughter of Adam, every human beings ever walked on the
top side of this earth is cursed! And deserves to go to hell. You
and me, your mama and mine, your daddy and mine, your children
and mine, your wife and mine, your husband and others, all
are cursed! Rightly cursed. But that no man
is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident. Anybody
who reads the law ought to know that. For the just shall live
by faith. And the law is not a faith, but
the man that doeth them shall live in them. The man who does
the law must live by the law. or died by the law. Look at verse
24. Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster. Now look at those
words, to bring us. They're in italics for a reason.
The translators added them. Read the text as it stands. Wherefore,
the law was our schoolmaster unto Christ, that we might be
justified by faith. Back about 30 years ago, I was
preaching in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, as I will be
tomorrow night through Tuesday, Lord willing. And I got on the
elevator on the way to services, and I saw a fella. I said, I
know that man. I know that man. And I stuck
out my hand, and I said, are you Bob Spencer? And he said,
I am. I said, you won't remember me.
My name's Don Fortney. He said, oh, I remember you. He was my
sixth grade teacher. And on more than one occasion,
he had good reason to take a belt to me when I was in sixth grade.
On one occasion, he caught me horsing around in the hallway
in school, and he just had one arm. He had a polio in his right
arm, I think it was. shriveled up stump of an armor
from a baby. And he caught me horsing around
and wrestling or fighting or something in the hallway. And
that man took his other hand, grabbed me by my belt, and shoved
me, literally, through the drywall so that my rear end is sticking
in the library from outside the hall. I mean, I was frightened
of that man. When he came around, I perked
up and paid attention. And he and I became friends.
We started, he and his wife come visit Shelby and I a number of
times. And we became friends. And we walked in, and boy, I'm
not really afraid of him. He doesn't have any authority
over me. Even if I did something to make him mad, I'm not afraid
of him. He doesn't have any power over me. He was my schoolmaster
for a while. The law of God was our schoolmaster
unto Christ. the schoolmaster under which
we were ruled with terror and fear until God gave us faith
in Jesus Christ. That's the whole purpose of the
law is to point us to him. All right, here's the third thing.
In verses 18 and 19 of Exodus 20, We're told that as soon as
the children of Israel heard what the Lord God required of
them, they wanted a mediator, somebody to stand before God
in their stead. Look at it. And all the people
saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpets
and the mountains smoking. And when the people saw it, they
removed and stood afar off. And they said to Moses, Moses,
speak thou with us and we will hear. But let not God speak with
us, lest we die. Blessed God, there is one man,
one man who fulfilled all the commands of God perfectly, not
for himself, but as a representative man, as a representative man. I have, sitting out here tonight,
my Uncle Neil. He was married to my mother's
younger sister. And he's, for this assembly,
for this purpose, he represents the whole Haralson family. He's
the only representative here other than me. Now that's just
a vague picture. The Lord Jesus Christ, like our
Father Adam, was a representative man. Adam represented the family
of humanity in his sin and his transgression. And when Adam
sinned, we sinned. When Adam died, we died. And
Christ Jesus, Romans chapter five, represents the family of
God. So that all that he did, all
that he is as the God-man, our mediator, all that he did in
his life of obedience and in his death upon Calvary's cursed
tree, he did as a representative man. Bless God we did it. He loved God with all his heart,
with all his soul, and with all his mind. And I loved God with all my heart,
all my soul, and all my mind, the full age of a man. All the days of his life, from
beginning to end, he did only those things that pleased his
father. He is that one of whom God spoke from heaven twice and
said, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. When he died at Calvary, When
he suffered the wrath of God, when God poured on him all the
fury of his holy wrath and justice, when God made him sin and turned
his back on his son because a holy God cannot look on sin, God Almighty
poured out all the fury of his wrath and justice on me. And
when he died, I died in him. When he was buried, I was buried
in him. When he arose, I arose in him in a new life. Seated
with him in heaven, even as he's seated there now. Seated with
him, my Redeemer, my Mediator, accepted of God. And guess what?
Guess what? God's well pleased with me. God's well pleased with me. Did
you get that Doug? All the time? All the time! He looks on us and sees us only
in His Son, one with His Son, who obeyed the law and satisfied
justice on our behalf, so that He is made of God unto us, wisdom
and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. He is the mediator,
God accepted. Read Psalm 1, Psalm 15, and Psalm
24. Read them carefully. They speak
of a righteous man. They all speak of a man who can
ascend up to heaven. Who shall ascend to the hill
of God? He that hath clean hands and
a pure heart and has never sworn deceitfully. Who is that? That's this man looking at you
and talking to you in Jesus Christ the Lord. And that's the only
one it can be speaking of is Christ our mediator, our representative
man. Behold him, oh my soul, behold
him, seated yonder on the throne of God, making intercession for
us. So the apostle John writes and
says, my little children, these things write I unto you that
you sin not. Don't sin. Don't sin. Don't sin. Don't sin. And if any man sin, write that
word if just as little or big as you want to, you fix it to.
If any man sin, well, you've lost all hope. I've got no peace
now. I've got no assurance now. Same man couldn't act like I
just acted. Same man couldn't think the things I'm thinking.
Same man couldn't behave like this. Don't ever make any excuse
for it. But if any man say it, he's lost
his advocate. If any man sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the
propitiation for our sins. He satisfied God. That's what the word propitiation
refers to. He is the propitiation for our sins. And now we come
to God by Him. Look at verse 20. Moses said
to the people, fear not. What a word. What a word. Don't be afraid. Don't be terrified. Don't shake in your boots anymore.
For God has come to prove you, not to prove you to him, he knew
what you were. He's come to prove you to you
for this purpose, that his fear may be before your faces that
you said not. God's come to prove you sin and
make you perfect. And the people stood far off
and Moses drew near under the thick darkness where God was.
Here's the fourth thing, verses 22 through 26. Even as God gives
the law at Sinai, the Lord God declares there's only one way
sinners can come to Him. And that's by an altar, an altar
of His making. Now, I don't have the new things
now in churches, but I expect this is still pretty much the
case. When I was a boy, all the Baptist churches had morning
benches or altars. Folks had family altars, so they'd
have a place out in the woods where they'd have an altar. I'd
go to my altar every day. You may as well go to a papist
booth and confess your sins to a fella dressed in drag. You'll
get that in a minute. You're not saved by coming to
the front of a church. You're not saved by confessing your
sins to a priest or a preacher. How? You're saved by coming to
God on an altar of his making. Look at verses 22 through 26. And the Lord said unto Moses,
thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, You have
seen that I 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." Boy, that's not very pretty. Not in the eyes
of men. But this is an altar of God's
making. "'An altar of earth shalt thou
make unto me, "'and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings,
"'and thy peace offerings, and thy sheep, and thy noxin. "'In
all places where I record my name, "'I will come unto thee
and bless thee. "'And if thou wilt make me an
altar of stone, "'thou shalt not build it of hewn stone, "'for
if thou lift up thy tool upon it.'" You ought to underscore
that about six or eight times if you can, put stars beside
it, highlight it red, pink, and purple. If you lift up your tomb
on it, you've polluted it. You touch God's salvation, you're
going to hell. You put your hand in this thing
anywhere, you've polluted the whole thing. What he says, neither
shalt thou go up thy steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness
be not discovered thereon. We have an altar, the apostle
says in Hebrews, Where are they that serve in the tabernacle
cannot come and cannot partake. And that altar is Jesus Christ
the Lord. He's the altar that God made
for us to come to him upon, Christ alone. And you come to him, not
by degrees, not in stages, a little step at a time. Back a number
of years ago, I went out to preach in Hiccumba, California with
a Bob Harmon. He's with the Lord now. He was
pastor. And on the way out, Brother Gene
Harmon was with me. He was pastor of Rescue Baptist
Church in Rescue, California. On the way out, Bob said, I've
decided to preach this morning. After we'd been there for three
days, he said, I'm going to preach before you this morning. I'd
like for you to critique my sermon. I said, Bob, I don't want to
do that. And he was just really insistent. And he got up and
preached. First Baptist Church, Hocumba, California. Much smaller
than it sounds. And he got up and preached for
about 45 minutes. works. Steps of grace, steps
of salvation. First you do this, next you do
that, then you experience this, and then you learn this. Steps
of grace. Everything he said from start to finish works. And
I turned around, we got done, I said, Brother Gene Harmon,
I said, I'll give you $100 if you'll preach at my place. He said, no you
can't. And I didn't have any choice.
If he had stood up there and preached that the moon's purple
and the earth's square, that went all right. That wouldn't
make any difference. But he preached that which is totally contrary
to the gospel of God's grace, and it had to be corrected on
the spot. And so I got up behind him in his pulpit and took the
sermon to task, point by point, from the scriptures, demonstrated
the heresy of it. I figured this is the end of
things, I'll say it all good at one time. But God got hold of
it and saved him. He does things just exactly opposite
of the way we would. And Bob became a dear, dear friend. But you don't come to God by
steps. First you gotta know this, and
then feel that, then experience that, and then do the other thing.
If you climb stairs, you fellas in school don't pay any attention
to this, little boys get on the stairs to see if they can look
up the girl's skirts as they're climbing the steps. Because you
climb the stairs, you expose your nakedness. You expose your
sin. God said, don't come to me on
steps. All you do is show your sin. Don't come to me trying
to keep the law little by little. All you do is expose your sin. You come to me on a slope of
stone without your mark of any tool of yours on it. When I was
a boy, up until about eight years ago, I always had the distinct
assumption, wherever I went, I was the strongest man in the
room. And nobody ever proved otherwise until about eight years
ago. Suddenly, now, I don't have any
strength in my legs. I don't have any balance, no
strength. I get on the floor, I gotta have something to get
hold of or somebody to come along and help me up. I can't get up
without pushed up on something. Just can't do it. I can climb
no stairs out there. but I've tried not to let you
see it because it ain't in pretty sight. It exposes my weakness. And every attempt at self-salvation
just shows you a helpless, needy, weak, dirty sinner. You can't
come to God, except all at once, casting your soul on the merits,
the doing and dying of the Son of God, our Savior. Now, so a
preacher, How can a man get to heaven then? This is the last
thing. If God requires perfection, and
no man can give it except Christ, and the Lord God forbids us even
to try to perform it, how can anybody be saved? I promised
you I'd come back to the fourth commandment, and I said this
is the most important thing written in the book of God. The whole
reason the law of the Sabbath was given was to show us that
the only way to heaven is to rest your way there. That's the
only way you can get there, is just rest. Just rest. over to England and Ireland to
preach a couple of times every year after many years. And I've
crossed the sea from North Ireland into Scotland a number of times. And when I do, I've never thought
about swimming. What I do is I get on a ferry. And I've never driven it, but
somebody's always driving. And they don't even drive. They
just pull the car up in the belly of that ferry and we get off
and go find us a place to sit down. And we sit down and have some
fish and chips, maybe an ale, a Coke, whatever. We just sit
there for about two hours and rest our way across the troubled
sea. Just rest all the way across
the sea. That's how you get to glory.
You come to Christ the Sabbath and cease from your works and
rest in him. Oh, rest. Rest to a laboring
man is the sweetest thing on this earth. Come unto me, our
Savior says, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll
give you rest. Rest from all your guilt. Rest
from all your trouble. Rest from all your pain. Rest
from all your anxiety. I will give you rest. You shall find rest unto your
souls. You see, Christ is our Sabbath. and we find rest in him and you'll
never find it anywhere but in him. Oh, God give you grace then
to come to Christ and rest forever until at last he brings us into
glory to rest at the throne of God. Amen. And the Lord spoke to us tonight. That was just outstanding.