Well, I've got good news and
bad news. If you'd be turning to the book
of Exodus, chapter 20, And those that were here the
last hour, unless you were asleep, already know what I'm speaking
about. Oh my. But I do think that I
shall look at this passage and a couple of its statements somewhat
differently than the approach that Brother Rogers took in the
Bible class this morning. Exodus 20 is the full account
of the content of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments. And some things that I shall
say that We'll repeat what Brother Rogers has had to say, but before
we actually begin to read this and make some comments, let's
bow and beg the Lord to come and take up his own cause with
us. If all you got's a sorry preacher,
you ain't got nothing. But if God comes, if the Holy
Spirit comes, oh, that's a different matter. altogether. There are some things in this
book that we are not willing to say about ourselves until the grace of God comes
and we confess it to our dying day. Sinners, just sinners, saved
only by the grace of God in Christ. Alright, may we pray. Lord, we come to a certain portion of your
word that has caused everybody at one time
or another to be bent out of shape over what these ten laws
are, and that your word elsewhere tells us as plainly as words
can say them, that no man apart from the God-man Christ Jesus
has ever kept so much as one of these laws, not even to mention All of them. It tells us that the religion
that we were born into this world in is full of lies. It tells people how good they are.
And this book tells us how bad we are. Lord, without your direction,
Without your infinite wisdom and without your almighty power,
we can do nothing. Oh, but if you do come in, my,
what a difference that will be. We beg in Christ's name, amen. Something tells me I didn't turn
my recording device on. There we go. I want to, instead of re-reading, surely everybody knows what Ten
Commandments are, you've seen them posted somewhere, they might
have been in a little different language than what's here in
Exodus chapter 20, but beginning at chapter 1 and taking us even
to the end of the chapter, is the whole matter in front of
us. And it is a portion of God's Word that needs desperately to
be proclaimed in our generation. So our text will consist of,
I've got to find them now, I thought I had them right in front of
me. 24, 25, and 26. Verses 24, 25, and 26.
But I shall back up to verse 21. And the people stood afar off, And Moses drew near unto the
thick darkness where God was. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Thus you shall say unto the children of Israel, You have seen that
I have talked with you from heaven." Now that ain't no small accomplishment. God speaking from heaven to people
on earth. You shall not make with me gods
of silver, neither shall you make unto you gods of gold. An altar of earth shall you make
unto me, just a pile of dirt." Just dirt. What is that? Why? Why have an
altar that is nothing but dirt? to humble our proud and stupid
minds that what we think looks good, God thinks it's good, and
that ain't got no correlation whatsoever. We're still just
sinners, trusting only in God's grace
in Christ. Now listen to what it says about
this altar. an altar of earth you shall make
unto me, and shall sacrifice thereon your burnt offerings
and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen, in all places
where I record my name, not where we record it, where God records
it, I will come unto you and I will bless you. I'm going to tell you, where
this is not happening, it is a tremendous difference between
the two places, even though we might be on the same road or
in the same county or the same state. I don't imagine you have any
sheep, nor oxen, and therefore This statement puts us nowhere
except in Christ. Verse 25, and if you will make me an altar
of stone, much more durable, perhaps planning to be permanently
in that location, an altar of stone, But it ain't
just any stone. Now our first thought is, oh
this is stone that's been dressed up to the hilt. That ain't right. God's not impressed with what
we think is pretty. Make me an altar of stone. You
shall not build it of hewn stone. You can't shape it and form it
and fashion it and polish it. It is stone that is just laying
in the ground. And use it without altering it
one whit. If you lift up your tool upon
it, You have polluted it. You made it worthless. Oh, but this looks out of place.
You made it worse. It ain't worth nothing like that.
This is God speaking. Verse 26. Neither shall you go up by steps
unto my altar, that your nakedness be not discovered therein." We
are not to elevate ourselves where this altar is. And what
I'm standing on ain't no altar. It has not ever been, and it
is not now, and it never will be. It's just something built
out of wood and carpet that enables the pastor to get a little better
look at the people to whom he's preaching, which is not always
that many, but I'm glad this many is here this morning. Do we understand this now? God
chooses how he'll be worshipped. He doesn't ask for my advice. What I think is not important. God has purposed in His blessed
Son, the Lord Jesus, to give the most precious gift that sinners
could ever know. And every one of these statements
that we've just considered have everything to do with the honor
and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I'm going to change my approach. I want to speak to you on these
three verses. And Betty, whatever you can figure
out about the title, if you lift up your tool upon it, you have
polluted it. So we'll have to abbreviate that
somehow or another. This chapter abounds with legal
terror. Here the glorious Jehovah is
giving the law with thunderings and lightnings and the noise
of a trumpet The mountain is smoking, poor sinners trembling
and fleeing, saying, let not God speak with us, lest we die. They told Moses, we don't want
God to speak to us. You'll have to be our mediator
in between. Well, might Paul call this what
he called it in 2 Corinthians chapter 3? He said, the administration of death and
condemnation. Now that's two negatives, no
positives. And this is Paul speaking. And somehow I think in New Testament
times you'd be hard-pressed to have a better witness than this
man, the Apostle Paul. Here we rejoice and say, let
God speak and we live. For here is an altar that is
commanded. God is accessible to us, and
all for of earth you shall make unto me. Here is gospel grace,
that beloved Son typified who was made like unto us and appeared
in our earthly nature in thirty-some, one or two or three years on
this earth, in a body like the one that we all have. You shall offer your burnt offerings
and your peace offerings upon it. Hebrews 12 says, our God
is a consuming fire. Yet, we have an altar, and the
name of that altar is Christ, and Him crucified. It's the only altar this world
has ever seen. All the others are just pretenders.
False. False gods. The people that worship
them are false. Christ is both our altar and
our burnt offering. Our peace offering and our priest.
In Him, God is ever accessible to us, and we are ever acceptable
to Him." Now, one of those words is accessible. That means we
have God's ear. But the other word that is used
here is acceptable. That's talking about our being
accepted. How? In the Beloved, in Christ. That's the only way you can ever
be accepted. You can't do enough, you can't
earn enough, you can't give enough. It's impossible. We're born with
a nature that loves sin and hates God. And nothing short of a divine
conversion, being born again, can ever make that anything else. You can be high up in religious
ranks, you can have the title of reverend or bishop or pope
or anything else you want, but you don't have anything. If Christ is not everything,
you don't have anything. And neither do I. And I don't
know about you, but it took me a long time to find that little
bit out. We're not born knowing this stuff. It's not like it is in school
when one guy can go through school and never open his books and
make straight A's and the rest of us have to work for that stuff.
But this is not the same realm that we are speaking of this
morning. Then we read about an altar of
stone. Daniel 2 verse 45 says, That stone which was cut out
of the mountain, now listen, without hands, no human touch. The human race had no participation
in it. Bringing Christ into this world,
transforming Him With our perfect human nature without sin, you
and I can't do that. God has to do it and He has done
it. And our Savior is seated in glory
this morning in human flesh. Human flesh. No wonder our Lord said in John
5, search the scriptures, they are they which testify of me. He wasn't bashful to tell the
Jews that God was speaking through him. They hated him with a purple
passion. They dogged his every step. And
I'm telling you the true gospel gets the same treatment today
as it did then. Ain't a bit of difference. Religion
is still nothing but religion. And the gospel, the glorious
gospel of Christ is still glorious. No wonder our Savior said, search
the scriptures, they testify of me. If you lift up your tool
upon it, you've polluted it. So what can this mean? To forbid
our pride and our arrogance, though we are a law-condemned
sinner, yet pride and vanity work, even then, in us. We're prone to think by our works,
our art, our device, that we are to add something of our own
to this altar, but that is indeed the thing we cannot do. The whole idea is to render ourselves
acceptable to God. And I'm telling you there's only
one thing that makes us acceptable to God, and that's the blood
and righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you don't like
a religion that has blood, you're in the wrong place. Christ died for our sins on that
tree. The foolish Galatians followed
this course. They were called foolish and
bewitched Galatians. So some are said to crucify the
Lord afresh. Oh, beware of this spiritual
pollution of the blessed altar Christ. Know that we are perfectly
and everlastingly accepted in Him and without any work of our
own. Believe this. Obey God. Glorify Him. Does the law convince
of sin and cut off all hope? off all hope in ourselves, this
blessed peace is from this altar that is all sufficient to fill
us with hope and joy and peace. Now that's my introduction, so
I've got to get straight on to some other matters. My brother Rogers was quite merciful
this morning as to how many times we had to turn and look at things.
So I'm going to borrow a few from Craig because it might do
you some good to find out how to find things in your own Bible. Alright, let's go to Hebrews.
I'm going to put me a marker now at Exodus 20. Let's go to
Hebrews in the New Testament, written by the Apostle Paul. Mine is in plum nearly. There
it is, finally. Hebrews chapter 6, when people come to Christ, Especially
when we look at it in the light of those cities in the Old Testament,
after God had given to Israel the promised land that belonged
to other nations, they were to build cities. To begin with,
it was three. three cities where a person who,
without intending to, accidentally kills someone, then that murderer
can flee to this city until his case is heard and perhaps set
him free. But if he tries to live where
he killed somebody unintentionally, then he might not live many days. They might figure to take him
out. You understand? So to keep this from happening,
our Lord designated three of their cities to be called cities
of refuge. It was for murderers who did
not believe that they were guilty of that degree of murder that
requires them to die. So, when it comes now to ourselves, we must also flee to this city
of refuge. And Christ is that refuge. You
can find the whole list. To start with, there were just
three cities in the middle part of of the land that God gave
them. And then as other land was added,
they added three more cities so that they were strategically
located from north to south and east to west, making it more
easily being able to get to it. If you were trying to keep somebody
from killing you, you want to get to that city of refuge. What did I say? Joshua 20? Did
I say that? No? Well I must have thought
it and it went out one ear. But I believe it's Joshua 20
that has all six of the cities. And in every case the names are
very important. I didn't plan to deal with that
today so I don't have that information in front of me. But you can easily
find it in some books that can be read on the subject. So if we are fleeing for refuge
to the Lord Jesus Christ, what does this coming to Christ
demand of the persons who are seeking this refuge? What must they do? I'm not asking what can they
do, because I know what we can do, nothing. But I know there
are some things we have to have in order to be welcome in the
New Testament city of refuge. The first thing is believe. Oh, preacher, I can believe anytime
I want to. No, you can't. Not the kind of belief we're
talking about. People say, well, God saves people
every day without having faith or without seeking Christ. Well,
it sure ain't happening here. And whatever's happening elsewhere,
in my estimation, ain't worth a plug nickel. What does the gospel demand of
its hearers? It demands faith in Christ. And God is the author of that
grace. Secondly, it commands us to come. Our Lord
Himself in John chapter 11 and verse 28 to which I don't think
we need to turn unless you just need some exercise. And come
unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I'll give
you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me for I'm meek and lowly in heart. And that's what it
means to come to Christ. Now, what if we decide to come
with a price in our hands? You know, we've got some money
that we want to donate. No, you can't have anything in
your hands, or in your pockets, or in your mind, or in your heart.
You come to Christ for mercy that is free. Absolutely 100%
free. In any attempt on our part, you
know, to sort of balance the scales, to put something there
with it, that don't work. It means you don't know what
you're doing and you don't know who you're doing it to. You don't
know what an insult this is to the Son of God. For that matter,
the whole Trinity. So we are to believe With God-given
faith, we are to come because the grace of God in Christ has
enabled us to come. Thirdly, we are to come in commitment that this is not a
game. This is life or death. I need you to turn one more time,
Romans chapter 10. Romans 10. Romans 10 and verse 3. And here the word is submit. Those who come to Christ must
submit themselves, bow before Him, confess His right to do
with us as He pleases, and begging for mercy. Alright, verse 3,
Romans chapter 10. For they being ignorant of God's
righteousness, now who's they? It's the Jews that have been
so wild in their complaints and
treatments of the Lord Jesus And Paul has been attacked by
these people and beaten many times. And so he simply says
in this third verse, being ignorant of God's righteousness. These people believe they're
God's people. They believe that God is their
God. And they don't even know that He's righteous. They think they themselves are
righteous, and that is not the case. They, being ignorant of
God's righteousness and going about to establish their own
righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness
of God. Verse 4 says, For Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. Hallelujah. For Moses describes the righteousness
which is of the law, that the man which does those things shall
live by them. If you insist on coming to God
by the law, help yourself, but you ain't gonna make it. You
can try to keep them all the rest of your days, you can live
an honest and upright life, But if you don't know the God of
the Bible, you're not fit for eternity. I can tell you that.
That's not some place you want to be without Christ. Then there is this matter of
the city of refuge. Therefore, we are to flee. We
spent enough time on that earlier, maybe I can... Bypass that one. The rest of that page anyway.
So Christ is both our refuge as well as our way. He said,
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the
Father except by me. You can't get to God without
going through the God-man Christ Jesus, the Son of God. who is
perfectly equal. All three members of the Holy
Trinity are blessed with the same attributes and the same
degrees. So who is it that needs this
refuge? Who needs it? Do you need it? I need it. Do you need it? There ain't but one place to
get it. That's at the throne of God,
pleading the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. Otherwise, God
won't hear you. You can think that He does and
you can say that He does, but that won't make it true. Every poor sinner who has murdered
his own soul by sin needs this refuge. Who but Jehovah, the triune God,
could prepare this way? Who could ever have thought that
the method by which God would redeem His people was the death
of His own Son at the hands of angry men? Religious, mind you,
but angry. They all give us, grab us, and
crucify the Lord Jesus. And these dumb, stupid religious
people of our day say, well if I'd have been there, I wouldn't
have voted to crucify Him. You need to go look in the mirror
again because you're lying. We're born enemies to God and
to Christ. And some little 10 cent decision
ain't going to ever change that. This is a radical, radical change. And in that Old Testament setting
that Joshua 20 speaks about and the reference that we had in
Deuteronomy chapter 12 or 6 or something like that,
I can't remember. They were required, where these
cities were located, they were required first of all through
the magistrates that I guess each of these cities had. I guess
they must have had politics like we have. It's a curse, but we
got them anyway. These people to whom this person is fleeing
for his life. God required that the roads that
led to these refuge places, these cities of refuge, once a year,
They had to clean those roadways to take out of any obstacles
that might slow down this fellow that's fleeing for his life. And once he got to that city,
inside that gate, he was safe until his trial was over. Until
it was heard by a judge or some kind of description, I have no
idea. So our Savior, God the Father
and God the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit sets before us the
Lord Jesus Christ before our eyes. Just like Moses put that
serpent on that pole and anybody bitten with that snake could
look at that pole and be immediately healed. So the Lord Jesus is
lifted up. And if God gives you eyes to
see and a heart to understand, you look to Him and you'll be
saved. I mean, that statement's in the Bible. Isaiah 45, verse
maybe 22, "...Look unto Me and be saved, all the ends of the
earth, for I am God and there is none else." Look! Salvation's in a look! Well I'm going to stop y'all.
Let me make one other little statement here, kind of brief. I was going to use this as an
illustration. I was going to ask you to turn to, well I'll
ask you anyway. 2 Kings chapter 7. I'll let you
read it yourself because I don't have time to read it to you. 2 Kings It's 1st and 2nd Samuel,
1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, 2nd Kings, chapter 7. I can only give you just a quick
synopsis of what's in 2 Kings 7. Elisha is God's prophet at
the time, and foreign nations have joined each other and are
surrounded this entire city, this walled city, And they're
planning when they think things have gotten to a sorry enough
situation on the inside of those city walls. For example, two
women decided since they were starving to death that they would
eat this woman's child today and the other woman's child tomorrow. Well, when tomorrow came, the
other woman could not be found nor her child. They were hiding,
and she didn't intend ever to give up her child, but this other
woman did. And I'd call that desperation, wouldn't
you? That's when you're desperate.
If God ever saves me, it'll be when I'm desperate. I don't have
any other alternative. There's nothing for me to do.
There's nothing to say. You can memorize all the words
you want to and they ain't worth a hill of beans. So, Elisha sends a message down
to the king in that city that they're just surrounded. There
ain't nothing. No food. No water. Time's running
out. Elisha sends a message down in
verse 1. He says, Thus saith the Lord,
tomorrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold
for a shekel. That's about four pecks. If you didn't grow up on a farm,
you don't know what a peck is. But anyway, it's a bucket about
that big, and it would be awfully cheap. And there are four lepers who
are not allowed in that city. Leprosy is an awful disease.
We don't know anything about it here in the present generation. Four lepers. They're sitting
outside the gate and they're talking to each other. If we
just sit here, we're going to die. If we try to get into the
city, we're going to die. And that army out yonder, of
tens upon tens of thousands of troops, I don't remember the
number, you can learn it for yourself from that one chapter. They said, I don't know who wrote
these words, but it fits perfectly to view that. We can but perish if we go. We are resolved to try. For if
I stay away, I know I must forever die. So these guys get up, leprosy
along with them. They go out to the camp of the
enemy. They said if we go in there, they're going to kill
us. If we go over there where the enemy are, they're going
to kill us. So either way, we're going to
die. And if we sit here, we're going to die. They went to the
camp and everybody was gone. There was not a soul left. They
left their tents, their food, their everything. And somewhere
in this chapter, I think it is, they heard noises like chariots. I mean, hundreds and hundreds
of them. And they just don't take anything. They just run. And these lepers, after feasting
themselves, they said, hey, we're not doing good. We need to go
back to town and tell these folks. So they went back and told them.
And they still didn't want to believe it. Elisha said, tomorrow
at this time, you can buy all this kind of flour you want for
little or nothing. Ah, but who's he? He's God's
prophet. That's who he is. He's a man that doesn't tell
lies. Well that's enough, that's enough,
that's enough. As soon as they cut this machine
off I might