Well, good evening, everyone.
If you would open your Bibles with me, Galatians chapter 4.
Galatians 4, as you're turning, let me give you the greetings
from the brethren in Danville. I was able to preach there last
night, and they sent their greeting to you. We had a good service. I pray the Lord will give us
one here tonight, too. I'd like to begin reading. I said, I think I said Galatians
4, it's Galatians 3. I'd like to begin reading in
verse 19. Wherefore then serveth the law?
Why did God give the law? It was added because of transgressions,
till the seed should come to whom the promise was made, and
it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a
mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Is the law
then against the promises of God? God forbid. For if there
had been a law given, which could have given life, Verily, righteousness
should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded
all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might
be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we are
kept under the law, shut up under the faith, which should afterwards
be revealed. Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster
to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
Now after the faith has come, we're no longer under a schoolmaster.
For you're all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been
baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There's neither Jew
nor Greek. There's neither bond nor free.
There is neither male nor female. For you're all one in Christ
Jesus. And if you be Christ, then are
you Abraham's seed and heirs. According to the promise. Alright,
Sean. OK, if you would turn in your handle
to song number 282 hiding in the. O safe to the rock that is higher
than I, my soul in its conflicts and sorrows would fly. So sinful, so weary, thine, thine
would I be. Thou blest rock of ages, I'm
hiding in thee. Hiding in Thee, Hiding in Thee,
Thou blessed Rock of Ages, I'm hiding in Thee. In the calm of the noon, Tied
in sorrow's lone hour, In times when temptation Cast o'er me
its power, in the tempest of life, on its wide heaving sea. Thou blessed rock of ages, I'm
hiding in thee. Hiding in Thee, Hiding in Thee,
Thou blessed Rock of Ages, I'm hiding in Thee. How oft in the conflict, when
pressed by the foe, I have fled to my refuge and breathed out
my woe. How often when trials like sea
billows roll, have I hidden in thee O Thou Rock of my soul,
Hiding in Thee, Hiding in Thee, Thou blessed Rock of Ages, I'm
hiding in thee. Okay, if you would now turn to
song number 256, It Is Well With My Soul. When peace like a river attendeth
my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll, Whatever my lot,
thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul,
it is well. with my soul. It is well, it is well with my
soul. Though Satan should buffet, though
trials should come, let this blessed assurance control. that Christ hath regarded my
helpless estate, and hath shed his own blood for my soul, it
is well. with my soul. It is well, it is well with my
soul. My sin, O the bliss of this glorious
thought! My sin, not in part, but the
whole! is nailed to the cross, and I
bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
O my soul, it is well. with my soul. It is well, it is well with my
soul. And Lord, haste the day when
my faith shall be sight. The clouds be rolled back as
a scroll. The trump shall resound, and
the Lord shall descend. Even so, it is well with my soul. It is well. with my soul. It is well, it is well with my
soul. I love that song. And the message
of this book is true. It's well with my soul if I trust
the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't know what's gonna happen
between here and the day that I die, but I know this. It's
well with my soul. That was such a good song. I
enjoy that so much. All right, if you would, open
your Bibles with me to Exodus chapter 20. Exodus chapter 20. I'll let you in on a little secret.
Some time ago, when we began studying the book of Exodus,
I thought, now, when I get to the giving of the law, I'm going
to quit going through Exodus and find another book for us
to go through on Wednesday nights. But I got looking at this this
week, and it was such a blessing to me in the study. I pray it
will be to you tonight. Exodus 20. And God spake all
these words. saying, I am the Lord thy God,
which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of bondage. Thou should have no other gods
before me. Thou should not make unto thee any graven image, or
any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is
in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Thou should not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them, for
I am the Lord thy God. For I, the Lord thy God, am a
jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children
under the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing
mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,
for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name
in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days
shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day, is
the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work,
thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant,
nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For
in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that
in them is, and rested the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed
the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Honor thy father and thy
mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the
Lord thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt
not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt
not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not
covet thy neighbor's house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's
wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox,
nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's. And all the
people saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise
of the trumpet and the mountains smoking. And when the people
saw it, they were moved and stood afar off. And they said unto
Moses, speak thou with us and we will hear, but let not God
speak with us lest we die. And Moses said unto the people,
fear not for God has come to prove you and that his fear may
be before your faces that you sin not. And the people stood
afar off and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where
God was. And the Lord said unto Moses, thus thou shalt say unto
the children of Israel. You have seen that I have talked
with you from heaven. You should not make with me gods
of silver, neither shall you make unto you gods of gold. An
altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice
thereon thy burnt offerings and thy peace offerings, thy sheep
and thy oxen. In all places where I record
my name, I will come unto thee and I will 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, thou hast
polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps
unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon. All
right, thank God for his word. Let's bow before him together
in prayer. Our Father, I thank you. I thank
you for all your Many, many blessings to your people, how you've given
unto us freely every spiritual blessing that you have. It's
because of our Lord Jesus Christ, because of his perfect obedience,
because of his precious blood, not because of any goodness in
us, but all because of our Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, we
thank you. We thank you for the provisions
of this life. We thank you for our homes and
our jobs and our families. We thank you for this family
of believers that you've gathered together here in this place to
worship you together. Father, we thank you that you've
given us this opportunity tonight to open your word, to read it
and study it and have Christ preach to us. And Father, I beg
of you that you'd bless us as we attempt to worship thee, that
you'd bless us. Father, send your spirit upon
us, we pray. that you'd give us a spirit of
worship, that you'd give us a heart that would hunger and thirst
after Christ and believe him and lay hold upon him when we
hear him preached. And Father, I beg of you that
you'd be with me in this hour, that Father, you would deliver
me from myself, that you'd deliver me from the thoughts and ways
of the flesh. Father, that you would open my
mouth that you'd fill my heart with the Lord Jesus Christ and
open my mouth. Father, enable me to declare
the glorious riches of our Lord Jesus Christ, full and free salvation
in him, his glorious, wonderful character. And Father, cause
all of us to believe and rest in him. Father, we pray for your
people wherever they're meeting together tonight. We pray that
you'd be with them and Father, be with other congregations,
those who are seeking a pastor, those who are in great difficulty,
times of sorrow and difficulty and uncertainty. Father, we pray
that you'd be with them, that you would not leave yourself
without a witness in these many different places. Father, in
this dark, dark day in which we live, that you'd cause the
glorious light of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to be
spread forth all across the land, Father, for your glory, for the
glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, it's in his name, for
his sake we pray, amen. I've titled the message this
evening, The Lord, the Sinner, and the Savior. Now our text
gives us an account of the Lord giving the Ten Commandments.
And when we hear of the Ten Commandments, we all think of of 10 commandments
is something that God's given us to do that we cannot do. That's
what we think about. And that's very true. These are
10 commandments we cannot obey. And that says something about
us, doesn't it? About our character. But you know, the 10 commandments
also reveal to us something of the character of God. These things,
these 10 commandments, the start of the giving of the law here,
shows us something of the glory that's found in the character
of our God. So first I want to show you the
Lord, something about the glory of God's character that's revealed
in the giving of the law. Now we know this, if the Lord's
God is gonna accept you and me, we must be perfect. I mean, there's
no great degrees of perfect, you're either perfect or you're
not, but I know people tend to ask and think this way, well,
how perfect do you gotta be? As perfect as God, as perfect
as God. So all these commandments of
God reveal something of the glory of God's character. Just like
the law is a reflection of our sin, isn't it? Just like a mirror
we hold up, the law is a reflection of our sin. The law is also a
reflection of the glorious character of God. Let me show you that
in these 10 commandments, beginning in verse three. He says, thou
shalt have no other gods before me. Now there is no other god
other than Jehovah, is there? The true and living God, there's
no other God besides him. He is the creator. This God,
the God that we worship, he's the creator and there's none
else. There's none beside him. Now, I grant you I've lived a
very sheltered life and I don't know a lot about idols from all
over the world, but I can't recall hearing of another idol who claims
to have created everything by himself. I can't think of one.
I mean, one might exist, He's a lie, isn't he? That's a lie.
Our God is the creator. Our God is the only God who's
both just and merciful. Now again, I've lived a sheltered
life. I don't know about all the different idols in the world,
but from the ones that I do know of, they either try to be just
or merciful. Nobody's ever, no man has ever
come up with a God who's both just and merciful. Our God is
the God who gives life. He gives life. Physical life,
plant life, animal life, spiritual life. He's the one who gives
life. He's the one who forgives sin in a way that's just. In a way that's just. And we're
to have no other God before, other than God Almighty, because
there isn't any. There's none beside him. There's
none like him. He's the only God. Verse four,
he says, thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or
any likeness of anything that's in heaven above, or that is in
earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou
shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. For I,
the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of
the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation
of them that hate me, and showing mercy, undeserved, unmerited
mercy, unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. We're not to make an image of
God because there is no image of God. God is spirit. He's spirit. And if we would
try to make an image of God, there's one of the scriptures
talks about it. Well, you think it's in the book of Isaiah said,
well, you know, people try to put gold and silver and all these
things aren't to make it as rich and as extravagant as possible.
Whatever image that you think you could come up with about
God, I'm telling you, it's nothing compared to his true glory. We
can't make an image that shows how glorious God really is. God's saying, well, to whom then
will you liken me? I mean, what image are you gonna
make that's like me? There's none like him, nothing,
and no one can compare to our God. I've heard it said, that
Brother Nybert says this often, that the word holy means other.
Other. God's other than us. I mean his,
the heights of his glory are just untold. And he says here,
now he'll not, he's gonna visit the iniquity of the fathers and
of the children and third and fourth generation of them that
ate him. God is inflexibly just, isn't he? God will be just, but
he's also merciful. Showing mercy unto thousands
of them that love me. Now what image are you gonna
make of that? What image could compare to that? That our God
would be merciful to thousands. Our God is too glorious for human
language to tell. And no idol dares to make that
claim. Every idol has a statue of it or a drawing of it somewhere.
Every one of them. But not the true and living God.
This is what we know about God. This is what we know about him.
There's no image of him. And look how precious his name
is, verse seven. Thou shall 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. The Lord's name is so
glorious. His name, just his name is so
glorious that it's sinful to use that precious, high, holy
name in a flippant or careless way. or a non-reverent way. You
know, the name of the Lord reveals who he is. He has many different
names in scripture to try to describe all the glorious attributes
of his character. Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will
provide. How many times have you hung
your soul on that? The Lord will provide. Jehovah
Sidkenu, The Lord our righteousness. I'd have no righteousness whatsoever
if it were not for Jehovah's Akenu. Jehovah Shalom. The Lord our peace. The one that
made peace with God for us by the blood of his cross. Jehovah
Rapha, the Lord that healeth thee. He heals all your spiritual
diseases, your wounds and your bruises and your putrefying sores.
He heals them all. Isn't that name glorious? It's
so glorious. The name of the Lord is so glorious,
it's the only name that saves sinners. There's none other name
under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. If you believe on his name, you
must be saved. That's how precious and glorious
his name is. God forbid that we would ever
speak his name in a way that's not just revering him. Then verse
11, the Lord says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh
day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. And if thou shalt not
do any work, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy main servant,
nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that
is within thy gates, for six days the Lord made heaven and
earth, the sea and all that in them is, and he rested the seventh
day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the
Sabbath day and hollowed it. Now the Lord took six days to
make the heavens and the earth. Could he have done it in one
day? One second? Absolutely he could have, but
he didn't. He chose to create the heavens and the earth in
six days. And then the Lord rested on the seventh day. He rested
from his work of creation. You know why? His work was perfect. The work was perfect. It was
the Lord God who observed the first Sabbath day. He rested
because the work was finished. There wasn't anything left to
be done. It was all perfect. And that shows us something about
the character of our God. Everything he does is perfect.
It's all perfect. I was preaching last night in
Danville, a message I preached here some months ago entitled,
It's Too Good to Be True. And I ended the message talking
about when the believer closes his eyes in death here on earth
and opens his eyes in glory to behold the face of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And I'm just convinced of this.
I don't know where they're really pearly gates or streets of gold.
I think it's going to take the believer a long time to ever
figure that out because who can look at the street when you've
got the Savior, to look at Him face to face. And as we look
back over our life, you know what we'll see? He's perfect. All those things that were so
painful and the trials and the tribulations and the heartaches,
when we look back on them there, you know what we're gonna see?
He's perfect. Just like our God Himself, He's
perfect. He's perfect. That's another
thing you can hang your soul on when everything Seems to be
crashing down around your ears, doesn't it? I don't understand
it, but I believe this with all my heart. It's perfect. It's
perfect. Verse 12, honor thy father and
thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land which the
Lord thy God giveth thee. You know, one has ever honored
his father like the Lord Jesus Christ. He was so determined
that he was going to honor his father, that he humbled himself
to be made flesh. He was so determined to honor
his father that he kept his father's law. He obeyed it perfectly.
He honored it and he magnified it. And then he was so determined
to honor his father, to honor his father's justice, to honor
his mercy and his grace and his truth, that knowing what it was
gonna cost him, knowing the depths of his suffering, He went to
the cross to satisfy his father, to do what his father gave him
to do. Christ died to enable his father
to be both just and justifier, that his name might be glorified
in all the earth. No one ever honored their father
like that, did they? Like our Savior did. Then verse
13 says, thou shalt not kill. You know, all life is given from
our Lord. He has the power to give life,
and he has the power to take life. And I was thinking about
this this afternoon. Look at the abundant life that's
in the earth. And this earth is cursed with
sin, yet still look at the abundant life of this earth. I mean, it's
amazing, isn't it? All that life comes from our
God. All that life is sustained from our God because he is life. And he never, ever, ever takes
a life needlessly. Never. Verse 14 says, thou shalt
not commit adultery. Our father chose a bride for
his son. That's what we call God's elect.
Those people that the father chose out of Adam's fallen race
to save, and he put them into his son. He gave them to his
son, and scripture calls the Lord Jesus Christ the bridegroom
of his people. And scripture calls God's elect
his bride, the bride of Christ. And let me tell you something
about our bridegroom. He will never cast her away. He'll never give her a bill of
divorce. Now, the Lord did allow a bill
of divorcement in his law, but it wasn't because it was good
or, you know, good for anybody. It was because the hardness of
man's heart. He did it so that men won't kill their wives, you
know, so they can marry, you know, a younger, prettier model.
The Lord did allow that bill of divorcement, but that was
because of the hardness of man's heart, not because of God's heart. Our Lord's heart is not so hard
that he will ever cast his bride away. Never, never, never, even
though we deserve it. Even though because of our sin,
he'll never cast her out. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
bridegroom who is always faithful, always loving, always providing,
always protecting, always taking care of his bride. That's who
he is. That's glorious, isn't it? Then verse 15, he says, thou
shalt not steal. Now, you know, the Lord can't
steal, can he? Because he owns everything. I
mean, he is so glorious. He's so over everything. He owns
it all. He can't steal because stealing
is taking what doesn't belong to you. It all belongs to him.
That's true about physical things. It's true about material things.
And it's true spiritually about the glory that's due his name
in the salvation of sinners. He's not stealing glory from
anybody when he says it's all mine. When he says, I'm a jealous
God, I'm jealous of my glory, he's not stealing from anybody,
not taking glory away from anybody else to have it for himself,
because all glory is his. It all belongs to him. Verse
16, he says, thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. You know, all the word of God
is truth. All of it is truth. Because God
is truth. His very name is truth. Everything
he says is true. And I know a lot of times that
rubs the flesh. I mean, well, it all the time
rubs flesh the wrong way, doesn't it? Do you hear how sinful we
are? Do you hear how depraved we are? Do you hear how deserving of
God's condemnation and wrath we are? We don't like to hear
that, but let God be true and every man a liar. Everything
he says is absolute truth. In verse 17, he says, thou shall
not covet. thy neighbor's house, thou shalt
not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant,
nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's. There's no reason for the Lord
to covet anything, is there? He owns it all. We're so fallen
and wretched, there's nothing about us, there's nothing we
have, there's nothing we think that God could covet at all.
And instead of coveting, You know what our God does? He opens
his hand and gives to people freely. He gives to his people
freely. That's glorious, isn't it? Now
that tells us something about the glory of God, that this is
what he commands. If you would be like me, this
is what you got to do. But that brings me to the second
thing. We can't do it. Here's man's sinfulness. We read
this in the book of Galatians to open the service, the purpose
of the law is to be a mirror that will show us how sinful
we really are. And you know, we need that mirror.
We need that law. We need God to show us what it
is because we think we can keep it. Look back at chapter 19,
verse seven. And Moses came and called for
the elders of the people and laid before their faces all these
words, which the Lord had commanded him And the people heard this,
and this is what they said. Verse eight, all the people answered
together and said, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do. Oh, really? Oh, really? They said that, then God gave
the law. Then God, just 10 commandments.
I mean, how many commandments are there in the law? I have
no idea. But he just gave these 10 commandments to teach you
and me how sinful we are, and how much we need a savior. And
here are these 10 commandments as a mirror showing us who we
are. Verse three, thou shalt have no other gods before me.
You, the nature of our flesh, wants any god but God. Now think about that for a minute,
that's true. The nature of our flesh wants any god but God. That was Adam's problem in the
garden, wasn't it? Boy, you eat this fruit, you'll
be as God, knowing good and evil. What he was saying there was,
you eat this fruit, you'll be the one to decide what's good
and what's evil. And Adam said, I like that. I
don't want to be under this rule anymore. I want to make the rules. 6,000 years later, we still have
his nature. We want to make the rules. We
want to say what's good and what's evil. That's what we call will
worship. Even a believer will do this
unconsciously and become guilty of breaking this unconsciously.
When something happens that I don't like, that's painful or uncomfortable
for me, you know what we think? I wish it was this way. I mean, if I could do it, I would
do it this way. That's putting my will above God's will. That's
having another God before him. We have to say we're guilty,
don't we? We have to say we're guilty. Then verse four, thou
shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness
of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow
down thyself to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord thy God,
am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children under the third and fourth generation of them
that hate me. He says, don't make any graven
image. You know, every religious rally
is idolatry. But God is spirit. So you can't
make an image of him. And this can be so subtle. It's crosses that people put
on their pulpits or on their Bibles or wear as jewelry or
a necklace or earrings or something. It's a religious relic, a token,
something you can see and touch. And I'm just confident of this.
I know everybody here. I'm just confident of this. You're
not bound down to a ceramic statue. I was in Mexico one time and
saw a mother teaching her little, little children how to bow down
to this ceramic statue. It's one of the most heartbreaking
things I ever have seen. So heartbreaking? I don't think
anybody here is doing that, I'm sure of it. But every time we
imagine what God's like, and it doesn't come from this book.
Every time, out of our imagination, we compare God to something on
earth, you know what we've done? We've committed idolatry. The
apostle Paul said that covetousness is idolatry. I mean, we covet
things all the time, don't we? To covet something that we don't
have is idolatry. The only thing we can say, guilty
as charged, isn't 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. This will take your breath. The
Lord's name is holy and reverent. Holy and reverent is his name. And you may not have used the
Lord's name as a cuss word, but anytime we use the Lord's name
flippantly, Any time we use the Lord's name without a proper
amount of reverence and fear, which is every time we've used
His name, we've taken the Lord's name in vain. I can honestly tell you, this
is the truth. By God's grace, I love the Lord. I love Him. And I've never once
spoken His name as it ought to have been spoken. I've never
once spoken of him as high and lifted up as he really is. I've
never spoken of him as reverently as I should have. Thou shalt
not take my name in vain, and we have to say guilty. Guilty. Verse eight says, remember the
Sabbath day to keep it holy. You know, the law of the Sabbath
day was harsh. The law says anybody that even
picked up a few sticks on Saturday, they were to be put to death.
I mean, just for a few sticks. And I tell you what's worse,
is violating the spiritual Sabbath. If we violate the spiritual Sabbath,
we'll surely die. You know what salvation is? Simply
put, it's resting. It's not doing one blessed thing,
not doing one work trying to earn God's favor, it's resting
in Christ, our spiritual Sabbath. And every single time this comes
up, I mean, you can't stop, I mean, well, if you're like me, you
can't stop the thought from coming up in your mind. Well, this is
not going good. You know, maybe the Lord's chastising
me or whatever it is, this is not going, I better do some good
works. I'm gonna keep a few laws and
act real holy and act real religious and get this thing, you know,
let's correct the course here. That's violating the Sabbath,
not resting in Christ. We're guilty, aren't we? Guilty.
Without even meaning to, we're guilty. Verse 12, he says, honor
thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the
land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. Honor your father and your
mother. Do you know that's honoring God?
It is, it's honoring God. When you were a child, did you
ever do something your parents told you not to do? Mom's sitting
back there. I hate to even say it, but I
couldn't deny it. The things I would do she told
me not to do, and I'd get out of her sight, and I'd do them
just sure shooting. We're guilty, aren't we? Guilty.
But you know, this applies to all authority, to all authority. And you know, most everybody
here, you know, I would say we call ourselves law and order
kind of citizens, don't you? I mean, you know, these are not,
this is not a group of people that you're typically gonna get
hauled in front of the judge for doing something. But let
me ask you this, how do you feel about authority? You ever jaywalked? Here's another one that'll get
us. Have you ever spoken disrespectfully about the president? Because
he's from a different party than you are. We're guilty. We're guilty, aren't
we? Verse 13, thou shalt not kill. And again, I'm pretty sure I
know everybody in this room. I'm sure you've never shot somebody,
you know, on purpose to kill them or, you know, slit their
throat or something to take their life. But you know, we're still
all guilty. Guilty of murder. The Lord said
to be angry at somebody without a cause is to be guilty of murder. What flashed through your mind
last time somebody cut you off in traffic and almost wrecked
you? I mean, they dismissed your bumper by that much. What went
through your mind? The Lord said to call somebody a fool, thou
fool. Do you know that makes us guilty
of murder? Because we ruined that man's reputation. And worse
yet, worse yet, we're guilty of murdering God's only begotten
son. The cry of our heart is the same cry of that crowd gathered
outside Pilate's hall, crucifying and give us promise. That's our
nature. We have to say we're guilty.
Verse 14, he says, thou shall not commit adultery. Now, maybe
you haven't committed the act of adultery, but let me tell
you, we're all guilty of it. Every last one of us is guilty.
The Lord said to even look on a woman, and I would assume that
means for a woman to look on a man too, but to look on a woman
in lust, that makes us guilty of adultery. And worse yet, this
is far worse. Every last one of us is guilty
of spiritual adultery. When we try to find any spiritual
comfort or any blessing in anything other than Christ our Bridegroom
alone, We've committed spiritual adultery. That's just so shameful. I just want to hide my face. That's so shameful. But we're
guilty. Verse 15, he says, thou shalt not steal. Now, could be. You never took something that
didn't belong to you. I mean, most kids probably try to steal something
that don't belong to them. Brother Henry talked about this
a lot. This guy must have stolen a lot of watermelons when he
was a kid. He talked about, I didn't become a sinner the first time
I stole a watermelon. Maybe we didn't take something. They didn't
belong to us, although we probably did. But let me ask you this. After you got a little older
and you learn not to do that, you say, well, I haven't stolen
anything in a long time. Well, let me ask you this. Have
you ever taken credit for something that God did? Has the Lord ever
blessed you in some way? and you've given off the impression,
God's blessed me because of my orthodoxy. Because I've done
everything here, I've been doing things just the right way, and
that's why God blessed me. That's taking, that's stealing
God's glory. God always blesses us in spite
of ourselves. It's because of His goodness,
never ours. That's stealing the glory that
belongs to God. Verse 16 says, thou shalt not
bear false witness against thy neighbor. Now again, I really
don't think somebody here would just completely make up a story
out of the clear blue sky that's an absolute lie that did not
happen and tell it on somebody. I don't think that you would
do that. But let me ask you this. Have you ever told a story and
you just changed it maybe or the way that you told it or the
inflection in your voice, the way you told it put a better
light on you than somebody else? That's bearing false witness,
isn't it? You gilded the lily just a little bit. That makes
us guilty of bearing false witness. And worse yet, they're spiritually
bearing false witness. Have you ever believed or supported
a false gospel before the Lord saved you? Now, have you ever
done that? That's bearing false witness against the Lord. not
believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, that's bearing false witness
against the Lord. Not believing Christ makes God a liar. I don't believe him because he
can't do what he said he'd do. He's not like he isn't. All of
us has lived in unbelief. This makes God a liar. We're
guilty. Verse 17, thou shalt not covet
thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife,
manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor
anything that is thy neighbor's." You know, we've all wanted something
that didn't belong to us, didn't we? I'll quote Brother Henry
again. I thought this was so funny.
Henry said his mother told him, I don't say I want that house,
say I want one like it. If you say, I want one like it,
that's not coveting. And you know, that's just our
way. And that we're trying to get around the law, trying to
find a way to justify ourselves. That's what we do. We're guilty.
But worse yet is spiritual covetousness. How many times have you wanted
to take credit for your righteousness and your goodness? Like you'd
like, like you contributed something to it instead of God giving all
the, giving God all the credit for saving you. instead of giving
Christ all the credit for being your righteousness. We've all
done it. We're guilty. We want people
to think of us better than what we really are. Now that's just
10 commandments. I don't know how many commandments
there are in the law, but this is just a small part of God's
law. And 10 commandments has exposed
our sin, hasn't it? Just this small part of the law
has exposed our need of Christ. I read these 10 commandments
and I say, oh my, I've sinned. and fallen short of the glory
of God. And that's what Israel saw, verse 18. And all the people
saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet
and the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it, they
were moved and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, speak
thou with us and we'll hear, but let not God speak with us,
lest we die. Moses said unto the people, fear
not, for God has come to prove you. that his fear may be before
your eyes or before your faces that you sin not. And the people
stood afar off. And Moses drew near under the
thick darkness where God was. God came down this mountain. It was covered with thick smoke
and clouds. There were thunders and lightnings
and the voice of God ringing through. as a trumpet, and the
people were scared to death. The people just a minute ago
were saying, oh, whatever God says, we'll do. Now they're saying,
we need a mediator. We need somebody to go to God
for us because we can't do it, because we're guilty. And the
Lord said, that's right. That's right. You need a mediator.
And you need a mediator who has something to plead. You need
a mediator that has a sacrifice, a perfect sacrifice to plead
for the forgiveness of sins. So that brings me to the third
thing. Now we've seen the Lord, we've seen the sinner, that's
who we are. Now third, here's the Savior that God sent to save
sinners. In verse 22, the Lord said unto
Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, ye have
seen that I have talked with you from heaven. Ye shall not
make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you
gods of gold. An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and
shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings and thy peace offerings,
thy sheep and thine oxen. In all places where I record
my name, I will come unto thee and I'll bless thee. I'm going
to bless you at that altar. Now here's the grace of God while
God's giving the law. Again, this is our God. He gives
grace. He gives forgiveness while he's
giving the law. As soon as God gave the 10 commandments,
he gave us the remedy for sin. It's the sacrifice of Christ,
as soon as he gave it. You know, we have an altar. We
don't have an altar where we offer sheep and oxen and those
kinds of things anymore, do we? But believers have an altar.
The writer of the Hebrew says it's the Lord Jesus Christ. And
all these altars that the Lord's talking about here, the altar
of earth, in a minute we'll read about the altar of stone. These
things are pictures of Christ. The only way, this is what God's
telling us. Now you're guilty, you see it.
The only way our sin can be forgiven is by the sacrifice of Christ.
The only way that we can approach God, what we see in ourselves,
we cannot approach God because we're guilty. But there is a
way that God's provided that we can approach him and be accepted.
It's through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what this altar of earth is a picture of. The altar of earth pictures
the humanity of Christ and the burnt offerings was offered upon
this altar of earth. The burnt offering is a picture
of sin being burnt up completely by the fire of God's wrath. And
they put that animal on that altar of earth, and they set
it on fire, and the fire would go out when the animal was burnt
to ashes. Now that's a picture. They worship
there with that picture. But we have something so much
better. We have the real thing. When Christ was crucified at
Calvary, the burnt offering for sin was offered. The fire of
God's wrath fell upon the Lord Jesus Christ and that fire kept
coming and kept coming. God poured it on in all of its
heat and all of its fury until sin was gone. Now the animal
sacrifices, they burnt to ashes and the fire went out because
there was no more fuel, right? When Christ was sacrificed, the
sacrifice consumed the fire. The fire went out because sin
was gone. The sin of God's elect was gone,
and the Savior was still there. He had consumed the fire of God's
wrath, and the fire went out because sin was gone, and the
Savior gave up the ghost. To satisfy the law's demand that
there be death for sin, justice was satisfied. And since justice
was satisfied, The sacrifice of Christ made it right for God
to bless his people wherever they're at. It made it right
for him to accept his people into his presence because of
the sacrifice of Christ. God also said you can offer a
peace offering on this altar of earth. Obviously the smoke
and the thunder and the lightning and the cloud and over all this
mountain that scared the people to death showed we don't have
peace with God because of our sin. But we offer this sacrifice,
a peace offering. And those peace offerings were
all pictures of Christ, our sacrifice. By his sacrifice, he made peace
with God. He made peace with God for his
people through his blood. So God's not angry anymore. And
we can come into his presence. That's grace. And then there's
a stone altar. He said, you can build a stone
altar if you want to, verse 25. 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, thou hast polluted it. Neither shalt
thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be
not discovered. Now the Lord says you can make
an altar of stone, but if you do, don't put your tools to that
stone. You use the stones just exactly
like you found them, like God provided them for you. Don't
take the stones and carve a picture into them. make them look pretty,
you know, carve a picture of what people say is a face of
Jesus or a cross or something like that, you know, that makes
it seem more religious to the natural man. God says, don't
you do that, don't you carve the stones and kind of round
off the edges, you know, to make the altar look more appealing
to men, like it's more straight up and down or something, you
know. Just use the stones as God has provided. Otherwise you
pollute the altar. And if you pollute the altar,
you pollute the sacrifice and there's no sacrifice for sin.
Here's the picture. You come to Christ just exactly
as God's provided him in his word. Just exactly like he's
described in his word, not how you think he should be, not how
you think he is, but how God says he is. You come to him and
you trust him and don't add any of your works to Christ. Don't
add anything about you to come to Christ and to make the sacrifice
or this salvation be more appealing to the flesh. Make sure it's
unappealing to the flesh. Anything that God's gonna accept
is gonna be unappealing to the flesh. You come to Christ and
Christ alone. And in him, you'll find salvation. Perfect salvation. Perfect righteousness. Complete forgiveness of sins.
That's what these steps are a picture of. There's no steps to God. There's no steps where we climb
up getting holier and holier and holier and more righteous
and more righteous and more righteous and better and better and better.
There's no steps. The believer comes to Christ, he's instantly
righteous. He's instantly holy. He's instantly
forgiven. He's instantly accepted. And if we try to climb our way
up to God, you know what we're going to reveal? We're going
to reveal our shame and our nakedness. but you come to Christ as he
is, and you'll be instantly, instantly saved from all of your
sin. Now that's a glorious salvation.
And I know this, that's the way I want God to save me. That's my heart's desire. All
right, let's bow together. Our Father, we're so thankful
that in your justice, in the truth of your law, in the demands
of your law that demands perfection, that you remembered mercy, that
you remembered grace, that as soon as you show us our guilt
and our need and our depravity and our filth, that you point
us to the Lord Jesus Christ and his sacrifice, his precious blood
that makes us the very righteousness of God in him, his precious sin
atoning blood that cleanses us from all sin. Father, we're so
thankful that you remembered mercy. and that you showed it
to us. And Father, I pray that you'd
give each one of us here a heart of faith, that we might leave
here this evening trusting in and resting in the Lord Jesus
Christ, Christ and Christ alone. Father, it's in his name, for
his glory and his sake we pray, amen. All right, Sean. Okay, if you would turn in your
handle to song number 240 and stand as we sing, I am coming
Lord. 240. I hear thy welcome voice that
calls me, Lord, to thee for cleansing in thy precious blood that flowed
on Calvary. I am coming, Lord, coming now
to Thee. Wash me, cleanse me in the blood
that flowed on Calvary. Though coming weak and vile,
Thou dost my strength assure, Thou dost my vileness fully cleanse,
Till spotless, all and pure. I am coming, Lord, coming now to
Thee, Wash me, cleanse me in the blood that flowed on Calvary. Tis Jesus calls me on to perfect
faith and love. to perfect hope and peace and
trust for earth and heaven above. I am coming, Lord, coming now
to Thee. Wash me, cleanse me in the blood
that flowed on Calvary.