Let's go to the book of Exodus. We'll go to Exodus, and this
is a very familiar portion of scripture to you, Exodus chapter
20. Exodus, and we'll be looking
at the first two verses of Exodus chapter 20. And God spake all these words. And here's what he said. This
is the way God introduced his law. I am the Lord thy God. That is, I am thy Redeemer. Lord means God, our Savior. I am God, your savior. I'm thy God, thy creator, thy
maker, the one who has all power, all authority. This is the very
basis for all that God has to say. What is the authority in
back of these wonderful, powerful, very, very strict in commandments. Well, here's the authority, God. God spoke these things. And He
identifies Himself as God, our Savior. This is our Lord Jesus
who speaks these words. Remember, God won't speak to
nor will He be be spoken to anybody, anybody who wants to speak to
God, and if God speaks to anybody, he's gonna speak through a mediator. That's our Savior. So here's
the very basis for taking very great heed to all that he has
to say is who speaks these words. God, our Savior. who is the all-powerful
creator. He says, I am the Lord, thy God,
which hath brought thee out of the land of Egypt and out of
the house of bondage. He identifies himself as being
the redeemer of Israel. Why should Israel take heed to
these words, these, as stated in other passages of scripture
in the Book of Deuteronomy, these Ten Commandments. Well, here's
the reason. The one who speaks is God, our
Savior. He is the Creator, all-powerful. And He's the one who redeemed
them. He's the one who brought them
out of Egyptian Therefore, he has the absolute authority over
them, and he has the right to give them these Ten Commandments. God spoke to them, and he spake
out of the darkness is what Ron read to us from Deuteronomy chapter
5. Let's ask God now to speak, not
out of the darkness, but out of the light, out of the light. And may he enlighten us to the
glorious message of redeeming grace and that this law has been
fulfilled by our Savior. Our Father, we thank you for
your word. We read that this is the incorruptible
word that liveth and abideth forever. You have said that heaven
and earth will pass away, but not your word, not your word. Here's the wise counsel to the
young, Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? Well, it's by taking heed thereof
to the word of God, to the word of life. And we read that this
word, that this is what you use in begatting us, in birthing
us into your family, You've begotten us again into a lively hope by
the word of God. So we bow to the authority of
this book. We rejoice that there's life
for poor sinners revealed in this book and that life is in
Christ Jesus. Oh, that we would be enabled
by the spirit of grace to hear that one who speaks with authority,
that one who speaks with power, that one who speaks in saving
grace. Lord, minister to your people,
and as your word goes forth this morning, anoint our ears, as it were,
that we might hear glorious things spoken from this book. We are mindful of our Savior's
words when he said in John 17, sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. So take this living word. And Lord, may it be the live
coal that touches our lips, as was so of Isaiah. Make us alive
unto you. May we seek your glory, your
honor. May we endeavor to worship you
through our Lord Jesus this morning. In his name and for his sake
I ask these things. Amen. Well, I want to address
this subject this morning. God spake out of the darkness. God spake out of the darkness. Actually, it's very amazing that
God would speak to any of the sons and daughters of Adam. that
God would have anything to say to us other than words of condemnation,
other than words of judgment. We deserve to hear those words.
We don't deserve to hear anything else from him. I know this, a
God who doesn't speak to us is a God who cannot be known. He can't be worshiped, not through
Christ Jesus, You see, the only way that we know the right means
whereby we come to God is through this book. It's through our Lord
Jesus. And you remember very well reading
in John chapter 14, the Savior said, I am the way, I am the
truth, and I am the life. No man. Get that. No man, no woman, no boy, no
girl, nobody is going to come to God except through Christ
Jesus. And He is this mediator. He is this one who speaks for
God to us. And He is the one who speaks
to us for God. He is that only door into salvation
and the only way into everlasting life. As we begin to look at
this subject of God's spake out of the darkness, I ask four questions. Very, very simple questions. Number one, who spoke these words? Well, the very first statement
of Exodus chapter 20 and verse 1 says, and God spake all these
words. In other words, these are not
the words of Moses. These are not the laws of Moses. These are not the commandments
of Moses. These are God's words. These
are God's laws. These are God's commandments.
Therefore, they do come to us with absolute authority. He has the right to give these
laws, to give these commandments, because He's our God. He made
us. It is He that hath made us, not
we ourselves, is what the psalmist says. And does not that one who
has made us, does he not have the right to tell us what to
do and what not to do? These are the laws of God. Deuteronomy chapter 10 and verse
4, and you need not look at this, but it says, and he wrote on
the tables, that is God did. He wrote on the tables according
to the, Of course, the first writing,
Moses broke the tablets of stone that God wrote his Ten Commandments
on when Moses came down and saw the children of Israel worshiping
a golden calf and breaking the very first commandment. Thou
shalt have no other gods before me. And here they are dancing
around a golden calf and Moses is upset. They're robbing God
of the glory of worship and adoration. And here's a golden calf that
Aaron has fashioned for them. and they bowed down, and Aaron
says, These are the gods. These are thy gods, O Israel. And Moses, when he observed all
that was going on, he took those tablets of stone and he threw
them down and broke them, indicating that's what Israel was doing.
You see, no sooner did God give the law than man broke the law. And we're all by nature lawbreakers. We're not law keepers. We're
not faithful. We're unfaithful. We're not believers. We're unbelievers by nature.
The Lord who wrote them on the tables
of stone in the first writing, Moses in Deuteronomy chapter
10 and verse 4, he says, the 10 commandments which the Lord
spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the
day of the assembly. The Lord, he said, gave them
to me. The Lord gave them to me to give
to you. Who spoke these words? Not Moses,
our Lord. Let's be even more specific. The one who spoke these words
is the second person of the Trinity. This is the only Redeemer. This is the only Savior. And
as was read to us in Deuteronomy chapter 5, the Lord spoke with
them face to face. Face to face. The Lord spoke these words. Here's
the second question. Where was it that God spoke these
words? Where was it that God the Son
spoke these words? And this is very significant. That is the location. It wasn't
at Elam. Elam was where there were 12
wells of water. That's where there were 70 palm
trees. Oh, what a wonderful place of
relaxation. Oh, how casual they were. Resting, enjoying. They say,
this is wonderful, isn't it? We're here in Elam. That's a
place of palm trees. We're here in an oasis. God doesn't
give His love at an oasis. And He doesn't give it at Rephidim. Rephidim means the place of rest,
the place of relaxation. It wasn't there either. Of all
the locations available to God, when He would speak these words,
or where He would speak these words, He gives these words to Israel
at Mount Sinai or also it's called Mount Horeb. Horeb or Mount Sinai. And that's significant because
here's what Horeb means, dry ground, desert. You know what the word Sinai
means? Thorny, prickly. that which is very painful. Now,
while the law of God is good and holy and does set forth to
man his responsibility to God as well as his responsibility
to others, if you want to go to Horeb and you seek refreshment
for your soul, You seek acceptance with God from Mount Horeb? Here's
what you're going to find. No wells of salvation. No living
water. Because in the law of God, there
is nothing to give refreshment to your poor, parched soul. by the deeds of the law, there
shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. And you run to the
law of God and you say, well, I'm going to keep the Ten Commandments.
Here's what you're going to find. Dry ground. Dry ground. No salvation, no refreshment,
no living water. Other name for it, of course,
is Mount Sinai. It means thorny. You go to the
law of God thinking that you'll find salvation there, you're
going to encounter a great deal of pain. It's thorny. In fact, as I read these 10 commandments,
Each one of them just pricks my soul. Don't they you? I feel the pain of them. Because
I have no ability to keep any of them to any degree. Every commandment, read the first
one. And you have to say guilty. I
broke that one. Read the second one. I broke
that one. I'm guilty. Guilty, guilty, guilty. Guilty 10 times. We must say
guilty. This is dry, parched desert here. The law is good. There's no question
about that. It's perfect. It sets forth perfect
behavior and attitude toward God and toward you. Summed up
this way, thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
mind, soul, and strength. You lived up to that one, have
you? We just have to bow our heads
in shame, Lord. I hadn't loved you like that.
I want to. All of God's people want to love Him that way. And
one day we will love Him that way. But we don't now. Our love
is hardly worth mentioning. What little love we do have for
the Lord is only because His love has been shed abroad in
our hearts by the Spirit of grace. And if you can honestly, honestly
say by the witness of the Spirit, I love the Lord, it's because
he first loved you. You know that's true. And then
what about the second table of the law, our duty to one another? Love your neighbor as yourself. We just all have to bow before
these statutes of God and say, Lord, guilty as charged. I'm
thankful that one entered into this world in my name and for
my stead who kept all of these laws perfectly. Outwardly, certainly. Inwardly, absolutely. But what
about all my violations of God's laws? He paid the price of redemption. He paid for the penalty, which
is death. That's the price that's going
to cost you if you go to the law of God, because you're not
going to get any water for your soul. You're not going to get
any refreshment. And here's what you'll find.
You go to the law of God for salvation, you're sure enough
in a briar patch, and you're not gonna get out of there, because
those briars, those thorns will hold you, and they'll go deeper
and deeper into you. Oh, God help us to look to that
one who wore a crown of thorns for his people, and who died
in our room, in our stead, and in our place. Where did God give these words? Well, he gave them to him at
Mount Horeb, even Mount Sinai. These 10 perfect laws, but not
one of them holds any hope of the water of life, no hope of
salvation. Oh, these are prickly indeed. No matter what you seek to do
for God, thinking that you will earn God's favor or God's salvation,
that you will merit good things from God as a result of your
obedience, God's law will tear you all to pieces. We read in Galatians, here's
what Paul says, you who desire to be under the law, don't you
hear what the law says? Don't you hear? Don't you hear
the perfection it demands outwardly and inwardly? The law doesn't
say do the best you can and God will make up what you lack. The
law of God says be ye perfect, be ye holy, God says, for I'm
holy. If you want salvation by running
to Mount Horeb or running to Mount Sinai, at least thinking
you can be saved there, This is what is required, perfection. Perfection. By your obedience, run to Christ Jesus. He's the
perfect Savior. He's the perfect Redeemer of
imperfect sinful people. And then thirdly, so who spoke
these words? God our Savior. Where did he
speak these words? At Mount Horeb and Mount Sinai. Here's the third question. Under
what circumstances or what conditions did God speak these words? Well,
they're fearful conditions. Look back at chapter 19. Look
at verse 16 here in Exodus. It came to pass on the third
day, Exodus 19, verse 16. It came to pass on the third
day in the morning that there were thunders and lightnings
and a thick cloud upon the mount and the voice of the trumpet
exceeding loud. In fact, it was so loud that
all the people in the camp, they trembled. And Moses brought forth the people
out of the camp to meet with God. Then they stood at the nether,
the nether part of the mountain. Nether means the lowest. They're
just right down at the bottom. They hadn't begun to ascend the
mountain. They're just down at the bottom
of it. And listen to how he describes this. Mount and Mount Sinai was
all together. on the smoke. Why is that? Because the Lord,
now watch it again, God our Savior, all capital letters, because
the Lord descended upon it in fire. In fire. You see, Moses had met this one
who was in the fire before. He made him back in Exodus the
third chapter. And this one who is in the fire
coming down from the mount was in a bush that burned but it
wasn't consumed. He made him there. I am, the voice said is my name. I am. And notice what he says here,
the smoke thereof ascended the smoke of a furnace. That's not
all. The whole mountain just shook,
just shook. An earthquake. Our son David
calls nearly every Sunday morning from Hiroshima, Japan. He was telling us that there
was an earthquake somewhere near Tokyo. And right now, one of
our grandchildren, David's daughter is up there, Ellen, and her mother
up there visiting a university that she is thinking about attending
and taking all of these tests. And they had an earthquake yesterday.
And they called to tell David, said, we're OK. But we sure did
feel that. I've never experienced an earthquake. And I don't want to. I don't
want to. But I'll tell you the Israelites,
here they are, what, two million of them, something like that.
And they're all around the base of Mount Sinai and Mount Horeb. And all of a sudden, all of a
sudden, here's this thick black smoke. And there's fire. And then the ground starts shaking
all around them. And then they hear a trumpet.
Look at verse 19, the voice of the trumpet. It sounded long
and waxed louder and louder. Louder and louder Moses spake
and God answered him by a voice and his voice was like a loud
thunder clap or like a loud trumpet sound. Trumpets, bugles. Back in those days, ram's horns,
those were used to get the attention of the people, to signal people
as to what is going on, depending upon what notes were played on
the ram's horn. was the different kind of messages. But all of a sudden they hear
like a ram's horn, a trumpet, and it sounded a long time and
it got louder and louder and louder so that they couldn't
even hear them talking to one another. What is this noise? It's the voice of God. That's
what it is. God speaking out of the smoke. God speaking out of the fire.
God speaking out of the dark. God speaking. And verse 20 it
says, and the Lord came down. Whew, the Lord came down. Scared the people to death. And I hear people, you know,
they talking about me and Jesus. Years ago you say God's my co-pilot. This is a a generation of religious
but lost people who know nothing about God. They don't know anything. They don't have the foggiest
ideas to who God is. And a good bit of the blame lies
with the men behind the pulpits. The scripture says there's no
fear of God before their eyes. Well, they preach about a God
who loves everybody and hates nobody. about a Jesus who shed
His blood for everybody and wants everybody to be saved if you'll
just let Him. They preach about a Holy Spirit.
He wants to save you if you'll just open your heart's door to
Jesus. They've got a disappointed God,
a disillusioned God, a defeated God. That's not the God of the
Bible. The God of the Bible has a voice
that when He speaks, He can raise the dead. It goes forth like
a trumpet. Scared these people to death. Now the word is from God, there's
no fear of God before their eyes. These are sad days, aren't they?
But they've always been sad days ever since the fall. ever since
the fall. Ignorant of God. No real worship. No solemnness. No reverence. We've got men running around,
I'm Reverend Dr. So-and-so. You're irreverent
is what you are. You're irreverent. Holy and Reverend
is His name. Where is the reverence due Him? And all of this tomfoolery regarding
the sinner and a holy God, it's just all blasphemy. That's all
it is. Taking God's name in vain over
and over and over again. Poor God. Poor Jesus. Poor Holy Spirit. wants to do
some things, wants to help you, wants to give you wealth and
wants to heal your body, if you just let Him. Yeah, you got a poor God, but
the God of the Bible is not poor. He is rich in power, rich in
authority, rich in grace, rich in mercy. conditions, the circumstances
under which God spoke these words instills fear. Fear. David referred to this awesome
event. Psalm 68, 8 says, the earth shook. The heavens also dropped at the
presence of God. Even Sinai was moved at the presence
of God. The God of Israel! A mountain
moved! And we stand there just conversing
with God. Tell you what, if you ever see
who God is, there will be a little earthquake in you too. He's going to shake us. Asaph said in Psalm 77 and verse
18, the voice of thy thunder was in the heavens, the lightnings
lighted the world, the earth trembled and shook. And man won't even tremble before
God. You'll either be brought by the
Spirit of God to tremble before Him in this life, or I'll guarantee
you, you'll tremble when you face Him at the judgment. You'll be like Bill Shatner when
he saw the handwriting on the wall, and there was nothing,
no body attached to the hand. Scripture says his knees smoked
together. I don't hear of too many people
whose knees are smiting together for fear of the God of glory.
But if you ever realize the awesomeness of God and the fearfulness of
falling into the hands of the living God, the fearfulness of
not having a mediator between you and this Holy, Holy, Holy
One, you'll be fearful. You'll start shaking. You'll
say, Oh God, is there any hope for me? I'm undone. That's what Isaiah
said when he heard the seraphim singing, Holy, Holy, Holy is
the Lord God of hosts. The whole earth is filled with
His glory. And Isaiah said, oh, woe is me. Damned is me. Judged is me. For I'm a man of unclean lips
and I dwell in the midst of a people who are just like me. Just like
me. Oh, if we could get a glimpse
of His glory. No wonder in the New Testament
in Hebrews chapter 12, We read in verses 18 and 19, you're not
coming to the mountain that might not be touched. That's what the
Lord said, don't you even touch this mountain. He even said,
if one of your animals touches this mountain, I'm going to kill
it. It's dead. And men today say, oh, I can
live by that law. Are you saved? Are you a Christian?
Living by the Ten Commandments. That means you're living under
the sentence of death. Dry, parched land. There's no well of water there.
There's no gospel in that. It's only strictness. There's
no life in it. Only death in it. God says, this
do and live. Disobey, I'll kill you. That's
what God says. I'll kill you. Don't hear too
many preachers preaching that way on television. God will put you away where you'll
never be heard from again. It says, you're not come unto the
mouth that might not be touched, that burned with fire, nor into
blackness and darkness. Darkness and the tempest. the sound of a trumpet and the
voice of words. See, God's going to give his
law to Israel, but before he does, he's going to fill the
hearts of these people with solemnness. They're going to be serious.
Ain't nobody laughing now. Ain't nobody making jokes around
Mount Sinai. They're in darkness. Darkness. And then they see fire. Fire
coming out of that mountain. What's going on? God's coming
down. That's what's going on. Nobody's saying, me and Jesus
got a good thing going. They're not talking about that
now. Every mouth is shut. They're
in awe of God. Are you in awe of God? I know we're not in awe of Him
as much as we ought to be. But I am. I'm in awe of God. And I'll tell you, you do what
you want to. But for this sinner, I'm going
to go to the mediator. And I'm going to say, I'm thankful
you dealt with God for me. And all of my confidence is in
you. Not in me, not in Him. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and His righteousness. He's the only hope we got. You see, here's the good news.
The lawgiver, he came down here and he became
the law keeper. That's what's so amazing about
this. Look with me in Galatians chapter
4. Galatians chapter 4. Galatians chapter 4. Look at
verse 4. Galatians 4 verse 4. But when
the fullness of the time was come, when the time was right,
on God's time, everything moves on God's time. But when the fullness
of the time was come, God sent forth His Son. And this is amazing, made of
a woman. He is the seed of the woman,
Genesis 3.15. And watch this, made under, under
the law, under its dominion. under its authority. Well, why? Why was he made of
a woman? Well, he couldn't be made of
a man because he'd get Adam's sin, Adam's disease. He can't
be made of man. The seed of man only breeds another
seed of man, which is a sinner. He's made of the seed of the
woman. The Holy Ghost overshadowed Mary. And that thing which was
formed in her is called that Holy Thing. That Holy One, the
Son of God. And He was made under a law. It doesn't matter which law you
want, how you want to take that. Family law? Civil law, God's
law, he kept them all. Peter said, they want to know,
do you pay taxes? He's under the law, sure he's
going to pay taxes. He said, well, I'm not going
to pay my taxes. The law will come after you. Good possibility. Our Lord Jesus, he kept man's
law. Moreover, he kept God's law.
He's the law keeper. Well, why was he made under the
law? Why was he made under the dominion
of the law? And have our sins charged to
him? What does that mean when all
the sins of His people were reckoned to His account, imputed to Him? The Scripture says He was made
sin. All of the iniquities of His
people, Isaiah 53 verse 6, were made to meet on Him. What does
that mean? It means He's going to die under
the wrath of God to fulfill God's law. Because it says in verse
5, to redeem them that were under the law. I'm under its dominion,
under its power, under its authority. And he came to buy us back from
the law. Buy us back. Law, what is it going to cost? me to buy all of the elect back
from you and the law says it will cost you your life. That's what it's going to cost. Jesus didn't die as an example. He didn't die as a martyr. He
didn't die to start a new religion. He died as the sacrifice of God. He died as the substitute for
his people. He died as our Savior. And I'll
tell you, when He died upon the cross of Calvary, the law of
God said, I'm satisfied. You see, if the penalty for breaking
God's law is death, and we were in the Savior when He died, Then
when He expired, when He died, the law was satisfied for Him
and for all who were in Him. Satisfied forever. Free from
the law. Oh, happy condition. Why is that? Jesus has bled and there's remission. Oh, I'm cursed by the law and
I'm bruised by the fall, but grace has redeemed me once for
all. He died to redeem us, to buy
us back. Not to buy us back from the devil.
There's no price paid to the devil. And the price isn't even
offered to you. Well, will you accept what Jesus
did for you? It isn't offered to you. The
price of redemption is never offered to the sinner. That's
one of the more foolish things I've ever heard. Well, to whom
was the price of redemption offered? To God! He's the offended one. Well, did He receive the price
paid? God said to an angel, go roll
that stone away. And the Lord Jesus come out of
that tomb, released! He served His time. He paid His
debt to God. That is, He paid our debt to
God. And all who were in Him were
freed, were justified, the scripture says, freely, freely by His grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. I'm going to
work on this more fully tonight but let me just give you this
fourth question because I'm going to come right back to this this
evening. Here's the fourth question. First
question, who spoke these words? The Lord God. Where did He speak
these words? Not at Elam, not at Rephidim,
but at Mount Horeb and Mount Sinai. Under what conditions? fire him out, belching forth
smoke like a great furnace in darkness with the sound of the
voice of God, it was like a trumpet. Fourth question, why was the
law given under these circumstances? Well, I'll just give you this
and then I'll enlarge upon it tonight. This sets forth the
majesty and the glory and the justice of the Holy One who gave
these laws. Who can shake the earth but the
One who made it? And it's amazing when He shakes
the earth. He can shake the whole thing or He can just shake a
little segment of it. And that day He shook Mount Sinai. Who made a mountain belch forth
smoke? It's like a great furnace! Look
at all that smoke! And the smoke is coming down,
that dark cloud of smoke is coming down and then the voice speaks
out of that dark cloud, right out of the darkness. Right out
of the darkness. And I'll give you this. That
voice that spoke out of the darkness, spoke out of the darkness another
time in the scripture. Actually, back in Genesis chapter
one, he spoke out of the darkness and said, let there be light.
And there was light. And that's what he speaks in
regeneration to the hearts of his people. And then he shows
us we're in spiritual darkness. And then he reminds us that when
he died on the cross of Calvary, when he cried, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? He cried that out in darkness
too. Why did God forsake him? A matter
of justice. Most people have no idea why
he died. But his death answered that question,
one of the oldest questions in the Bible, how can God be just
and justify the ungodly? And out of the darkness, I hear
my substitute saying, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? He was forsaken, so we would
never be forsaken. And then the sun shines again.
But there's going to come a day, going to come a day of final
judgment. Oh, in that day, men are going
to cry for the rocks and the mountains to fall on them and
hide them from this same one. And you know what it says in
Revelation 6? Hide us from the face of the Lamb of God. Ain't that something? Hide me
from the Lamb of God. I don't want to be hidden from
the Lamb of God. I want to be hidden in the Lamb
of God, don't you? And I am by His grace. Well, let's pray. Thank you, Father, for the good
new story of redeeming grace. We're so grateful for the Savior.
The same one who spoke from Sinai's fiery mountain, the same one
who spoke from Mount Horeb, oh, what a dry, dry land it was. No wells of water, nothing but
death all around, and prickly thorns. But our Savior, our Savior,
He saved us from the curse of the law. How did he do that?
Oh Father, he did that by being made a curse for us. And we've
come together this morning to thank you for redeeming grace.
To thank you for the dear Savior who died in the room, the stead,
and the place of guilty folks like us. Receive us, oh Lord,
through the merits of, bloodied death of, through the righteousness
of our glorious, glorious Savior. We worship Him and adore Him
and ask these things in His name and for His sake.