It's called resting in my Savior
as my all in all, standing on the promises of God. Standing, standing, standing
on the promises of God my Savior. Standing, standing, I'm standing
on the promises of God. That's a good hymn, isn't it?
We haven't sung that in a while. Couldn't help but notice the
author writes, standing on the promises of Christ. And then
the chorus says, standing on the promises of God. Well, whose
promises are they? Well, Christ is God. And men are so confused about
this. God's people aren't. God's people aren't. But Scripture
says, For wherever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. David
wrote that of Jehovah, O Lord. Well, Christ, when he comes,
he says, My word shall not fail. Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but not one word of mine shall pass away." That's because he's
Jehovah. He's God. God our Savior. That's what John wrote, didn't
he? God our Savior. That's what Thomas said to him,
and the Lord didn't correct him. This is God our Savior, the promises
of God, and they're in Christ, he said. OK, go. Go to Exodus chapter 31 with
Exodus 31. If you recall, the last time
we looked at Exodus, we. Looked at the Sabbath day. And
we just merely read verse 18. I remember at the end of that
study, we were out of time. And we just read that verse.
Well, I looked at it again and we need
to devote a whole message. To what this one verse said. All right, verse 18, it says,
God gave unto Moses. When he had made an end of communing
or talking with him. Upon Mount Sinai. Two tables of testimony, God's
testimony. Testimony being what someone
says about a matter. What someone testifies of. What
they know, what they've seen, so on. Two tables of testimony. Tables of stone written with
the finger of God. That just really struck me. Tables
of stone written with the finger of God. Two things we're going
to see here. I hope you'll ask the Lord to
give you attentive minds and hearts. OK, this will be. I believe
glorifying the God, his word and edifying to you. Two things we are going to see.
We're going to see, first of all, the law of God, God's word,
His law, and Moses. And secondly, the gospel of God
and Christ. All right, God's law and Moses.
Look back at chapter 24, Exodus 24. God's law and Moses. This giving of the law was glorious. Paul wrote of that in his letter
to the Corinthians. It was glorious. Administration of the law. Remember
reading that? It was glorious. Wondrous. Wondrous. It was amazing. God
spoke in the midst from a fire on a mountain. People, remember,
they said that in Deuteronomy. Who has heard God speak out of
the fire and live? We have. It was glorious, it was wondrous,
it was amazing. God Almighty literally, literally,
now this is not figurative, it's literal. God Almighty took His
finger and made some tablets, tables being tablets, of stone
and God Almighty engraved in stone His Word. And sent it by
Moses, this man. down to the people. He said,
look what I have for you. We've never had this before,
but here we have it. God's Word written with a finger
of God. The Word of God was nonexistent
until then. Look at Exodus 24, verse 12. Look at what the Lord says of
His Word. He says in verse 12, the Lord
said unto Moses, come up to me. To Moses now. The Lord is speaking
to one man. He never spoke to anyone but
this man, who in turn spoke to the people. There's one mediator
between God and the people. It's this man, Moses. And God
spoke to him. Need I tell you who he represented?
Well, we'll get to that in a moment. The Lord said to Moses, come
up to me into the mountain. Now this is a mountain that no
mere man could touch. Even a dog was killed if it came
near this mountain. God said to this man, you come
up to me in the mountain and be there and I will give thee
tables of stone and a log and commandments which I have written
God's Word. written by God that thou mayest
teach them. You're going to take this and
you're going to teach the people. Tables of stone. Why did God
write these on stone and not leather and not parchment? Back then, they wrote things
on parchment thick and also leather scrolls and so forth. Why did
God write it on stone? Well, this is typical. It's a
picture of, you know, stone is God made, is it not? Who made
the stones? Who made the rocks? We were talking
about this, about shells and so forth we found on the beach.
Glorious, marvelous. Who made those? Did they just
evolve that way? over a period of time? No, no,
no. God made all of that. God made this stone on which
he wrote. Stone is old, is it not? Aging. Aging. Stone is enduring. People, when we write, we put
a new, they made a new veterans memorial, haven't they, down
here. And they've erected, what did they erect with the write
on? Stone. Slab of stone that it
might endure for a long time. Stone is solid, is it not? Nothing's
going to move it. It's weighty. It's heavy. You're not going to move it.
Are you reading what this represents? God's Word is forever. You can't destroy it. It's God's
Word. He made it. How old is it? As old as God. It didn't begin
with Moses. It didn't begin with Moses. It's
just revealed then, wasn't it? Finally written by God, but forever,
O Lord, my Word. It's eternal. God's Word. It's solid through and through. Stone is solid through and through.
It's weighty. It's heavy. It's not light, God's
Word, there's nothing light about it. It's weighty, it's heavy,
and it'll not be moved. God's Word. And he says here
in Exodus 24, he says, I've written this on tables of stone, verse
12, it's a law and commandments. Now, we're so ignorant and so
finite in our understanding, the way we talk about things,
We think of law. When somebody says law, what
do we think of? Automatically, we think of the
Ten Commandments. Is that all God sent up on that mountain?
Is that all God gave to Moses? The Ten Commandments? Oh, there
was so much more. Paul, you know, wrote in another
place, he said, You that desire to be under the law, you don't
hear it, you don't understand it. And then, but then, those
that make light of God's law, those that say disparaging things
about God's law. And I've done it. You don't ever say anything derogatory
or light or flippant about God's law. David said, Oh, how I love thy
law. Oh, Lord, what is that? It's
everything God said. His law is everything he said.
You understand where I'm coming from here? We don't ever, not only do we not pretend to
keep it, keep the law, think we do, or be under it or whatever,
but we don't even, don't be guilty of saying anything about the
law in a derogatory manner. I've been guilty of that. The
word he says it's a lot of the God's word David throughout remember
some one nineteen David gives God's word many names he calls
it God's word God's commandments God's precepts God's statutes
God's judgments God's testimonies God's ways and on and on and
on the. But the Lord sums it up here
when he talks about his word as my law and my commandments. Why does he say that? Because
God has never, ever given advice. God has never written anything
that was merely advice. We do, don't we? Or opinion. God didn't say, now this is my
opinion. This is law. Meaning, this is the way it is.
You can't change the law in commandment. My dad, when my dad handed down
commandments to me, I may not have liked them, and I may have
broke them, and I may have tried to twist what he said to me,
but it was what he said, and that was law. Commandments from
him. So it is with God's Word. Command,
not advice. Command. And look at this in
verse 12 there, verse 24. I will give thee tables of stone
and a law and commandments which I have written. This is God's
Word. Moses didn't write this. Moses didn't write this. Samuel
didn't write the first and second books of Samuel. David didn't
write the Psalms. Huh? Jeremiah didn't write the
book of Jeremiah. Peter tells us that, doesn't
he? Holy men spake as they were moved of God. No, he said, no
scriptures of any private or personal interpretation. Isaiah
didn't sit down and decide to write Isaiah 53. As a matter
of fact, I'm quite certain after he wrote it, he thought, what?
Where did this come from? Of whom have I written? I know
it's of the Christ, but huh, because that's what Peter said.
Holy men spake. They wrote to us. unto whom it
was not revealed, but now is revealed unto us." The church. Not all scriptures
have any personal man's opinion or interpretation, but holy men,
that is, chosen men's faith is removed by God. God's Word. This is God's Word. God's Word. My, my. Thank God for His Word. And it's no mere coincidence
that we have two tablets. We call it old and new. Did God
say, now I've got the old, the first tablet, and the second
tablet? I've got the old tablet and the new tablet. He just said,
it's all My Word. It's all My Word. We've got two tablets. Two tablets written on both sides. God's Word. Thank God for His
Word. Thank God for His Word. And thank
God for giving us men, no less men than Moses was, to bring us His Word. Aren't
you glad? Aren't you thankful for men like
Joshua, Samuel? God never left Himself without
a witness. Samuel, David, Elijah, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Matthew? Huh? Aren't you thankful? Peter? Aren't you thankful? God raised up old Simon and made
a preacher out of him. Huh? Oh, I'm so thankful. Luther? Calvin? Richardson? Harding? Aren't you glad? Aren't you thankful? Aren't you
thankful? True men of God. No less men
than Moses was. And God said, I've written this.
Look at verse 12 again. That thou mayest teach them.
Who? God didn't give this word to
everybody. Though it ended up in the hands
of many, did it? God didn't give this Word to
everybody. He didn't reveal it to everybody. He didn't write
it for everybody, did He? Who did He write it for? Israel. His chosen people. His elect.
The sons of Jacob. And that's what we read over
there in Deuteronomy 5. People, who has heard what we've
heard? Who has heard what we have heard?
We've heard from Boerneges over the years, haven't we? Sons of
Thunder, not Wimpy Lip. You turn the radio and the TV
on and all that and listen to all this trash, this garbage
that goes under the name of preaching. I tell you, I don't even think
there's a man today who's a man whom they call a preacher. Oh,
a bunch of hirelings. corrupt, greedy, and they don't
have anything to say. Who has heard what we've heard?
Who has heard what we have heard over the years? We've heard glory. We've
heard the Word of God no less than the children of Israel heard
it from the mouth of the Lord. What a blessing to Israel. No
one else. God gave it to Israel through
a mediator. A true, honest man of God. A
mediator. Moses, who represents Christ. God's Word. My, my. Written in
stone. Now, go back to Exodus 32. Written
in stone. God's Word. I could just stay
right here a little while, but I've got to go on. And I'll tell
you, let me give you just about four things, though. Those of
you taking notes, this is good. This is really good. How do we know this is God's
word? Four things, I could give you 44 at least, but here's four
things that absolutely prove this is God's word. The longevity
of it. How long it's lasted. Men have tried to destroy this
book. Haven't they? They've tried to destroy it.
They can't. Why? Because the Master copies
in heaven. You can't get to it. God just led men to copy it back down. The longevity of it. Forever,
O Lord, thy Word is settled in heaven. We quote it. Number two,
the purity of it. The holiness of it. Whatever I read written by men,
you'll find some corruption in it. The pride of man. Whatever. This Word is pure. It's holy. It's pure. I know it's God's Word because
there's nobody going to expose themselves. These stories expose human beings.
All of them expose them. Because God's word is holy, it's
the searcher of the thoughts and intents of the heart. It
exposes every man at his best state to be vanity. I know it's
God's word. It reveals the innermost thoughts
of the best of men, because it's his holy word. That's what it
does to us, doesn't it, when we hear it? This is the word
of God because of the power of it. The power of it. I talked to you the other day,
the last time we were together, about how powerful the Word is
and how a man like Adolf Hitler could stand up and move and sway
the masses, millions of people to follow him blindly and commit
all sorts of atrocious things and think he's right and think
he's true. That the power of oratory or the Word spoken, I'll
tell you something more powerful than that man, more powerful
than the Word spoken, more powerful than it has swayed billions of
people down through the years. Changed life, the given life.
Broken hearts, changed old ways, minds, opinions that you can't
change, nobody could. God's Word. This is His words,
His powers. Only thing. Take Abraham, for
example. Seventy-five years old. An idolater. It'd be like taking a seventy-five
year old Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher. And making him
totally renounce his past as idolatry. To turn from his idols to serve
the living and true God. That's what God did to Abraham.
Who can do that but God through his Word? The power of it. It's God's Word because of the
subject of it. The subject of it. This speaks
of God. This is not by man, for man.
This is by God, for God. This is God's Word about God.
It's for God, for His glory, for His honor, for His exaltation,
the abasement of man, the exaltation of God. That's how I know it's
God's Word. And it's all about the God-man.
This whole book from cover to cover is about the God-man. That's
why God wrote it. When you people have children,
from that day forward, your lives are taken up with your children. Why did God create all things? Why did God write a book? Why
did God do all this? Why? Why did He create the human
race? For the glory of His Son. To
show forth His glory. That's Barnard. I love that. I keep repeating
it over and over again. that God Almighty in eternity
past. Barnard says he got up for breakfast.
Anyway, God Almighty looked at his son and loved him so much
and admired him so much. He said, I'm going to create
a whole bunch of people just like him for his glory, for his
honor, for his sake, to behold his glory. I'm going to write
a book about him. The whole book is about Christ. The whole book. And that's what
God instructs us from these tables of stone, from His law, from
His Word. It's the law concerning Christ. And the subject of it. Why do I know it's God's Word?
It speaks of God's son through and through. And you have what
looked at it with me over the years and other men. And you
have seen, as we studied, marvelously beheld, amazingly seen how that every jot and tittle. Speaks of God's son, and that's
just it has to be God's word. Nobody could come close to doing
that. Well, tables of stone. Now, Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians,
he wrote of how that was glorious. Written on stone was glorious. There's something much more glorious. Something of which that speaks,
he wrote in Romans, he said, But Moses testifies of someone
else. The giving of the law, what the
law says, and the one who received it speaks of someone much greater. The written Word, as great as
it is, speaks of the incarnate Word. Moses went up on the mountain.
He read it with me. Moses went up on the mountain
and received the Word from God Himself. Christ was with the
Father in the beginning, received the Word from God, and came to
us. God, Hebrews 1 says, in time,
past, and diverse manners, spake unto the Father by the prophets,
hath in these last days spoken unto us. by his son, the one
mediator between God and man, the man, the man. This is why people now speak
of words of Jesus, the acts of Jesus, as if he were just a man.
Take it or leave it. It's just a man like Confucius,
like Mohammed, like Buddha or whatever. He's just a man. We're
followers of Jesus. We're followers of Buddha. Who
is that man? It's the God-man. God. Christ said, the words I speak,
I speak not of myself, but of him that sent me, the Father.
And if you've heard me, you've heard God. You've seen me, you've
seen God. The one mediator between God
and men. The man? Yes. The God-man. Christ Jesus. Well, I'm running out of time,
and I have so much I wanted to show you about the law. How the
law was given by Moses. The law was given by Moses, and
God said over there in our... we studied Exodus 32. You remember? Moses, it said, delayed. He delayed. He was up in the mountain receiving
the law. He delayed. And what did the
people do? They corrupted themselves. God said in Exodus 32, verse
8, if you want to look at that, they turned aside quickly out
of the way. God, He calls His Word The way,
not a way. Not a way. And I hear people
talk about God's way. You better say the way. There
is a way that seems right under me, but the end is destruction. It doesn't matter what that way
is. The way. And he said, they had turned
aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them, made
a molten cap and worshipped it, sacrificed unto it. They turned
aside quickly. And though they had God's word,
they turned aside to other things. They held the truth, as we noted
this morning, in unrighteousness. They changed the glory of God.
Now, I'm just quoting you Scripture. They changed the glory of God
into a corruptible thing, an image. And God gave them up,
didn't He? In forty days, they were filled
with all unrighteousness. And though they probably boasted
of the law, they broke it. Now, all that's a summary of
Romans 1 and 2. And it goes on in Romans 3 to
say, Are we better than they? Are we better than they? Many
of us in here were in religion, but we're idolatrous. We turned
aside from the way of the fables. I profess to believe the truth,
but often even argue it with people that I didn't know Christ.
I was a hypocrite. Hypocrite. Are we better than
they? No. God before proved that they're
all. gone out of the way. And the
law says, guilty. Whatsoever things the law sayeth,
sayeth to them that are under the law, the Word of God, guilty of all that sin. What does God's
Word say to us? This is my law. This is my commandment.
Keep it. Do we? No. Guilty. The wages of, you know, every,
what is sin? What's the definition of sin?
The clearest definition of sin. Sin is, it says, the transgression
of the law. The transgression of the law.
The wages of sin is what? Damn, are you with me? Now look at what happened to
these lawbreakers here in Exodus 32. Look at what happened to
them. Look at it. Verse 19, Exodus 32. Came to pass as soon as Moses came nigh
unto the camp, he saw the calf, the dancing, his anger waxed
hot, he broke the tables of stone beneath the mountain. Verse 20,
he took the calf which they'd made, They're idolatry. Burned it into the fire, ground
it to powder, threw it on the water, and made the children
drink of it. And you know, it's always been
the case that we will all drink the bitterness of our own sin.
We will. Some of them. Some of them. Or made to taste the bitterness
of our own sin. There's a real lesson there. All of them. He did this to all
of them. And all of us, if God in mercy sends a man to show
us how we've broken his law and to put in us a bitterness, that's
a blessing, isn't it? Look at verse 27 and verse 28. And he said unto them, Thus saith
the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, Go
in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp. Slay every
man his brother, every man his companion, every man his neighbor,
and children of Levi, I did according to the word of Moses. And there
fell to the people that day three thousand men. A terrible slaughter. because they broke the law. Didn't it? Are we better than they? Nancy, God is coming back
to this earth in judgment. To do what? To slaughter lawbreakers. But God. God raised up this man named
Moses. Who loved these people. He loved them. And he went to
them and said, listen. I have interceded for you. God
was going to kill you. But I've interceded for you.
A mediator. The law, now turn with me to
John chapter one. John chapter one, and we'll close
with this, all right? I just showed you a little bit
of the law, God's law, and what happens to those who break it.
God's law. His word. And scripture says
we're to keep every jot and tittle of it, doesn't it? Cursed is he that continueth
not in all points written in the book of the law to do them.
All points. So we've all broken them. No less than these people. Covetousness is idolatry, is
it not? God's Word, God's law hasn't
been abolished. Now let me tell you the good
news. Look here at John chapter 1. John 1 verse 17. It says, The law was given by
Moses, Grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. The wages of sin is death. We're
all a bunch of lawbreakers, a bunch of ungrateful lawbreaking sinners
against God. We sinned against God, but God. The wages of sin is death. It's
what we all deserve. But God, rich in mercy, saved
us by his grace. That's given unto us. Grace means
given through another mediator. Grace
and truth come by another mediator. The one mediator of a better
covenant. Paul wrote a whole book about
that. An everlasting covenant. mediator, the God-man, grace
and truth. These two words declare the good
news of the gospel. Grace, by grace are you saved.
See, this salvation is a free gift. By grace are you saved. A righteousness given, an atonement
given, revelation given, a new heart given, repentance given. All by grace. By grace he is
saved. Saved from what? The penalty of sin. Death. All of sin. But now where Scripture
says, after that, all of sin, but being justified freely. How? By His grace. About that
woman, I always bring her up, don't I? But she's the best example
I know. The woman caught in the act of adultery. And though we
haven't been caught by man, per se, God sees it, and our thoughts
are guilty. She was brought before Christ
before the judgment seat, and they said the law, Moses says,
in the law she's to be stoned. The wages of her sin is death.
Kill her. Stone her. This is what the law
says. What do you say? And they brought her to the one
who wrote the law. The one who wrote that law, who
said she's to be stoned. The lawbreaker's to be stoned,
the one who wrote it. What did he say about her? He
says, justify. He says, forgive her. Completely
exonerated of all charges. And all of you all are guilty. But we didn't do it. Yes, you
did. Why is she justified? Why is
she forgiven? Because He said so. Freely! She didn't do anything to be
justified. She didn't do anything to be forgiven. He did it all.
He said so. But wait a minute. She broke
that law. God is holy. He will by no means
clear the guilty. He won't just clear the guilty.
He can't just barnardously say, God doesn't forgive sins. He
punishes them. They have to be paid for. Every
transgression that is sin shall receive a just recompense. Every
sin is going to be paid for. Every jot and tittle of the law
must be fulfilled, and the breaking of it. How? Christ's coming. The one who
said to her, Thy sins be forgiven thee, took her sin in his own
body on the Later on, so her sins were going to be paid for.
He was going to do it. He was held accountable by God
for her sin. He was held responsible. God
put on him the iniquity of her. And God charged him with adultery.
And God stoned him. And by his stripes, she's healed. Grace. It's a free gift. By grace, he's saying. It's all
a gift. Justified freely by His grace. God's gift through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus. And the very law which condemns
us witnesses and testifies of Christ who justifies us. That's how I know it's God's
Word. Grace and truth. Grace and truth. Moses, as I
said, Moses came down from the mount and saw the people in all sorts of debauchery and
showed them how they broke the law. That's what he threw that
law down for. He said, you've broken every
bit of this. What's the point in showing you this to keep this?
You've broken it all. Well, then how did God spare
them? God spared many of them. How did he spare them? You know
the story? Why did God spare many of them? Some of them He didn't spare.
He slew them, slaughtered them, three thousand. Why did He spare
the rest? Because Moses stood in the breach. Moses said, Who's on the Lord's
side? Let Him come to me. Moses had
prayed to God. Don't kill these people, though
they deserve it. I know what they are, a sinful,
ungodly people. Blot my name out. Remember that? Moses said, if you're going to
blot my name out, not them. Now, God said, I can't do that.
Remember? God said, I can't do that. He
said, the ones that sinned against me, I'm going to blot his name
out. But now, Jesus Christ is not Moses. He's God, and he came
down and said that very thing. Take me, not them. Spare them. Don't spare me. And God took
his son. And killed him, but that's the
truth. Grace and the truth came by Jesus Christ. Truth of salvation. What is the whole truth of salvation? Christ. Pilot asked a man named Jesus. What is truth? What is truth in the whole world?
There he stands. It's not a watch. It's a person. You know, it's a person, the
truth of who God is. What's God like? There's that. What does God have to say? What
do you say? Truth, who God is. Truth, what
man is. What did Christ say good about
man? Nothing. Snakes, vipers, dogs,
swine. The truth of what God says about
man, the truth of how man is saved. He said, No man cometh
unto the Father by name. Grace and truth. He said, truth
and life. He said, I'm the way, the truth,
the life. He that hath the Son hath the
life. Christ in you, the hope of glory,
of eternal life. Christ in you. He's life. He's
the half-not-son, half-not-life. Half-not-life. Well, wait. Tables of stone. But if Paul,
as I said, told you about that story in 1 Corinthians, where
Paul said, God has written this epistle not on stone now. It's not on stone. It's on tables
of hearts. He's done this. with his finger.
God, no less God, has done this on the tables of people's hearts.
How many chambers of the heart? God has written this on the tables
of the heart. May God do that to someone tonight.