We're getting nearer now in our
studies to the giving of the Ten Commandments of God. And
we read in the 19th chapter of Exodus that Israel came on the
third month and on the selfsame day into the wilderness of Sinai
and camped. See it there in verse 2? Before
the mountain. They camped there. Now the timeline
here, Arthur Pink says, is important because it ties their being in
this place to the Lord's everlasting covenant of grace. There's much
that goes on in this world, and this is something I'm going to
use this as tonight, that it typifies the experience of the
believer in that God brings him at certain times in his experience
and in his life He brings him to places where he tarries for
a while. And so Israel, as God brings
them across the desert, He allows them to tarry for a while. He
allowed them to tarry as a people in servitude down in Egypt. And
He left them there on purpose. And then He allowed them to tarry
a little bit before the sea. And they were able to look back
and see the enemy coming and look forward and see the sea
and see those mountains and see there was no way of escaping.
God let them tarry there for a little while. And then He let
them tarry out in the wilderness for a little while. They wandered
out there in that wilderness, in that dry desert, that scalding
eastern sun coming down on them. And He left them there. And let
them get real thirsty before He took them over to Elam and
let them have some rest. And there's much that goes on.
Here's the point I'm making is this. As we look on these things
typically, here, this being, this tearing, this camping here
at Mount Sinai is connected with the everlasting covenant of grace.
But there's a lot that goes on in this world in the name of
religion that's nothing more than vain tradition, and it's
not connected to God's everlasting covenant of grace. It's not connected
to anything. It's just vain tradition. That's
what our Lord called it. The Pharisees questioned the
Lord in Matthew chapter 15, verse 2, and they said, why do thy
disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they wash
not their hands when they eat bread. But the Lord answered
and said unto them, Why do you also transgress the commandment
of God by your tradition?" In other words, your tradition has
nothing to do with the commandment of God. These are things that
the elders made up along the way. They've got no connection
to God's commandments. They've got no connection to
God's covenant. They've got no connection to
God's purpose. They're just things that men
make up. And then he goes on to show many
things that were just purely traditional with these men. And
he says then in verse 9, he said, but in vain do they worship me,
now listen, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. So there's
much that goes on in the name of religion that has nothing
to do with the covenant salvation of God's elect. He tells us in
Colossians 2, verse 8, He said, Beware lest any man spoil you
through philosophy and vain deceit. Now listen, after the tradition
of men. See, men take traditions, they
take ceremonies, they take all of these things that somewhere
down the line committees got together and said, now here's
what we're going to do. There needs to be some kind of a formal
invitation for people to come forward after after the service,
and then there needs to be a place up here for them to pray, and
it seems to us like it'd be logical that we go down and pray with
them, and then, you know, up on their testimonies, and so
on. And they come up with these things.
Well, all of a sudden, these become the commandments of God.
They stand and preach these things from the pulpit as though God
commanded these people to come down the aisle, and God commanded
them to have this altar, or this bench, this mourner's bench,
or crosses on the wall, or baptism, or all of these different things
that men come up with over the years. And he says, beware, don't let
men spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the traditions
of men and after the rudiments. And I've often told you that
word means rudimentary or basic principles of the world and not
after Christ. Israel was brought to this very
spot on this very day because the living God had made on their
behalf a covenant with their father Abraham. Way back in Genesis
chapter 15, God came to Abraham and established with him His
everlasting covenant of grace. And there are three things that
we need to see about this covenant that God established with Abraham.
First of all, we need to understand that there was only one active
party in this covenant. Abraham was asleep. You go back
and read the account. God caused Abraham to fall into
a deep sleep. All the while this thing was
being ratified, God moving through the pieces and all of that, Abraham
was sound asleep. He didn't know anything about
it. There was just one active party in this covenant because
Abraham was asleep. And then secondly, this covenant
was based upon a substitutionary sacrifice. I find it very striking
that God the Holy Spirit moved between the pieces of that sacrifice
ratifying this covenant. And then thirdly, this covenant
was all of God and all of grace. Abraham did nothing to merit
this covenant. He didn't do anything to bring
this covenant about. God did it by his free, sovereign
grace. So Israel is coming and all of
these things. Now you can read this in Psalm
105. I read this to Kathy earlier in the week. You go through Psalm
105 and he states the covenant at the front and then he takes
you all the way through Israel's history beginning with Abraham
all the way up to this day where they are sitting before the mount.
So he is coming down into Egypt and coming out and they are obtaining
of Egyptian wealth and their passing through the sea and their
journey through the wilderness, even to this mount, was all connected
with God's covenant of grace. Now, let me just give you a few
passages to give you a little foundation for that statement.
Back in Exodus 2, verse 24, it says, And God heard their groaning,
and God remembered His covenant with Abraham. Isn't that what
that said? Do you remember studying it?
And God remembered His covenant with Abraham, and with Isaac,
and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children
of Israel, and God had respect unto them. In Exodus 3, verse
12, the Lord said, Certainly I will be with thee, and this
shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee, when thou hast
brought forth the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God
upon this mountain. That's what he told Moses. And
then in Exodus chapter 6 and verse 3, he tells Moses again,
I appeared unto Abraham and Isaac and Jacob by the name of God
Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known unto them. And
I've also established my covenant with them to give them the land
of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage wherein they were
strangers. And I've also heard the groaning
of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage,
and I have remembered my covenant." Now, why don't you go ahead and
turn with me to Psalm 105, and let's look at a few things in
that Psalm before I move forward. Psalm 105, beginning with verse
8. He said, "...he hath remembered
his covenant forever. The word which he commanded to
a thousand generations, which covenant he made with Abraham
and his oath unto Isaac, and confirmed the same unto Jacob
for a law, and unto Israel for an everlasting covenant." Verse
14. He suffered no man to do them
wrong. Yea, he reproved kings for their
sake, saying, touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets
no harm. Now skip down to verse 41. He opened the rock, and the waters
gushed out. They ran in dry places like a
river. For he remembered his holy promise,
and Abraham his servant." Verse 45. That they might observe his
statutes and keep his laws. Praise you, the Lord. Now, I
said all of that to say this. Mount Sinai does not begin a
new and different dispensation where God's people are given
a law as a condition of His blessing and favor. And if you'll read
the I suppose you would call it their
articles of faith or their theological points or whatever you want to
call it that religion uses. They believe in a dispensational
God who appears one way in this time, another way at this time,
and another way at this time. When all along we have the same
God with the same promise, the same grace, and the same people. God's elect from Adam all the
way down through to the end of time. And this is not a different
dispensation now. And God comes along and says,
now I've got a law. And if you keep this law, I'm
going to give you favor. If you don't keep this law, I'm
going to curse you. That's not what's going on here at Sinai.
God's blessing and favor to Israel was, is, and always shall be
the result of His everlasting love and the covenant of God's
free grace. Now, I've taken some time to
show you, and if you'll read the whole of Psalm 105, I think
you will agree that throughout the history of Israel, God has
revealed Himself to be their God and Savior, conditioned by
nothing, nothing less than His free and sovereign grace. And
this grace can be traced throughout the history of every believer.
The purpose of God in bringing them The camp before this mount
is not to add conditions to His covenant, but to show them their
need of a Savior. And this is my whole point in
the study tonight. God's not bringing them here
to curse them. He's not bringing them here to
put stipulations and conditions on them that they can't keep.
He's bringing them here to show them their need of a Savior. And that's why He brings us to
that mount and brings us to the knowledge of His law. It wasn't
to make himself unapproachable, but to magnify his mercy and
grace in the work required to save our soul. And there's places
in the experience of grace where God will have his people tarry
a while to receive certain revelations of himself and of his God. And
this number three is very important here because three is the number
of manifestation. the resurrection being a manifestation
of our justification and so on. So Israel came to Sinai on the
third month and they were commanded to sanctify themselves and stand
at the foot of God's mount on the third day. Now the believer's
life is full of places where he is brought to camp for a season
to be taught of God and to receive that which is necessary to the
saving of his soul. And I don't want to get into
the law itself tonight because we've got plenty of time for
that and it's clearer in the upcoming chapters. But what I'm
laboring to point out tonight is this bringing of Israel to
the mount as it's connected with God's everlasting purpose of
grace. He brings them here to this mount
to show them who He is. To show them the necessity of
a Savior. You notice when Moses came down,
and the people feared, and they saw that smoke, and they saw
that fire, and the mountain shaking, and they heard the trumpet, and
all of that thing, that they stood afar off, and as soon as
Moses said, here's what God commanded, they said, everything He commanded,
we'll do. Well, that's what God is going
to show them. This is something they can't do. This is something
they can't do. And there are six things I want
you to see in Exodus 19. So let's begin right here. First
of all, I want you to see that whatever conditions are spoken
of are not conditions that God expected Israel to keep. They
are conditions demanded by His holy character. God doesn't do anything. out
of harmony with His character. Whatever God does is in perfect
harmony with His character. And this giving of the law, He's
showing them that His perfect character will not just take
an eraser and go up to the chalkboard and erase your sins. That's not
going to happen. His holy character has to remain
in harmony. His justice has to be satisfied
and so on. What He's showing them here is
these conditions that God put upon Israel are conditions that
must be met. They must be met. He's not going
to receive them. So in one respect, I suppose
you could say these are the conditions put upon Israel, but God didn't
put them on them in order for them to keep them. He put them
on there to show them their necessity of a Savior. To show them something
about the glory of this work that he must accomplish. So he
begins this revelation to the people by, and watch this, here's
the first thing God tells them when He brings them to the mount.
God sends Moses down and He reminds them of everything He did for
them. He reminds them. He reminds them of His goodness.
It was grace that appointed for them a delivery. It was grace
that attended His ministry down in Egypt. It was grace that made
His words effectual, and it was grace that put His fear into
the hearts of their enemies. It was grace that caused the
Egyptians to hand over to Israel all their wealth. It was grace
that spared them in Goshen when the plagues fell upon the Egyptians.
And it was grace that led them through the sea, and sweetened
the bitter waters, and gave them rest in Edom, and caused His
bread to rain down from heaven, and gathered the quail in the
evening, And it was grace that instructed Moses to smite that
rock that the water might gush out. And God reminds them that
He is the covenant God of all grace. That's what He's telling
them. Now, were there any issues and
conditions concerning their bondage and deliverance? Did God put
any conditions on that? None whatsoever. None whatsoever. He just sent Moses down to deliver. Were there any issues and conditions
concerning that bondage and deliverance? Were there not conditions and
issues concerning God's power and presence in the sea? There
were issues there, there were conditions there, and God met
them. And all that God had done for
them, All the way up to this point, he proved himself to be
the God of grace. And he fulfilled both conditions
and the promise of his grace. He tells them, he said, I bear
you on eagle's wings and brought you unto myself. God did this. He didn't require them to do
anything. So whenever we begin to have thoughts about conditional
righteousness and acceptance and favor, we need to be reminded
of God's covenant grace. That's what we need. We need
to be reminded of God's covenant mercy and grace. And that grace
fills up our past. Does it not? God could have left
us right where we were. He'd have been just if He did,
wouldn't He? But it's grace. It's grace. You go back, it's
grace all the way. Grace all the way. In Galatians
2, verse 21, this is exactly what Paul does. He said to the
Galatians, first of all in Galatians 3, verse 2, he said, Received
you the Spirit by the works of the law or the hearing of faith?
How does things start? How does things start? Are you
so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect
by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things
in vain, if it be yet in vain? And then in Galatians 2.21, he
said, I do not frustrate the grace of God if righteousness
come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. I told you one time that a fellow
told me, he said, if you'll just take all the ifs, put them on
a chain, hang them around the neck of Christ. He meets every
condition that he demands, that God demands from His people.
Alright, here's the second thing I see here in chapter 19. I see
here a common presumption of men which is in itself the reason
why God must bring all of His elect to Sinai. There is a presumed
goodness that's in, it's the common error of all men. I don't care who you are. I don't
care what kind of a past you come out of. All men have a presumed
goodness. As soon as you begin to talk
to them about their nature of sin, they rebel, don't they?
I don't care if they're Catholic or Baptist or Nazarene or never
even went to church. You can pick somebody out of
a bar who spent his whole life, just like that fella that came
in here that night and started telling me what an awful sinner
he was until I told him what a sinner was and then he got
mad at me and told me he wasn't all that bad. There is a presumed goodness,
and it is the common error of all men. When Moses told the
people what God demanded, they, every one of them, said with
one accord, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do. Now,
you can read the true response to the law when God presses this
law upon the hearts of believing sinners. You can read it over
in Romans 3, verse 19. Now we know, Paul said, that
what thing soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under
the law, that every mouth may be stopped. Those mouths who
hear the law, who are taught the law, convinced that they
are lawbreakers, God shuts their mouth and He brings them guilty. Isn't that what he said? That
every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty. before God. That don't sound
to me like somebody saying everything He commanded will do. I'll tell
you what that sounds like is the rich young writer. Huh? That's almost word for word,
isn't it? He said in Romans 3, he said,
By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in
his sight, but rather by the law is the knowledge of sin.
The more you know about the law, the more light it shines, on
your sins. The more it testifies of your
sins. The law cannot justify. The law
cannot give peace. All the law can do is condemn. And the first thing that God
must destroy in His elect is this presumption of goodness. He's going to kill the sinner.
That's what the old preachers called killing the sinner. The
Lord said the good man has perished from the earth. Romans chapter
3 says there is none good. And then our Lord told that rich
young ruler, he said, good master, and he said, why callest thou
me good? There is none good but God. Until the greatness and holiness
of God is seen and experienced in the heart, men are ever ready
to make empty promises to God. That's based on their goodness.
So long as a man thinks he can do it, so long as he thinks he
has the ability and he has the potential, he's going to make
promises to God. When God destroys all of that
and brings him down in the dirt, then that man pleads mercy. He
don't plead goodness anymore. Alright, here's the third thing. The third thing I see here in
chapter 19 as we tarry before the mount is that God provided
them with a mediator. In Galatians chapter 3 verse
19, Paul said that the law was ordained by angels in the hand
of a mediator. Talking about Moses. Some ten
times in these next two chapters, Moses went up to the mount to
speak with God for the people and returned again to speak to
the people for God. He'd go up and tell God what
the people said. And then he'd come down and tell
the people what God said. And he'd go back up to the Lord
and tell them. He was a mediator. And in this
mediation, Moses is a type of Christ who's the one mediator
between God and men. God doesn't deal directly with
men, one-on-one with men, but He deals with us through a mediator. And for sinful men to come into
the presence of a holy God, A man said this one time, and I've
never found a better statement, it's like a moth flying into
a bonfire. And I tell you, once God, when
God settled down on that mount and gave them just a sight, just
a hint, of who he was, his majesty, the majesty of his holiness and
righteousness. And that whole mount, Mount Sinai,
was on a smoke and began to tremble. And the rocks were rent. And
the smoke came up, and fire, and lightning, and thunder. Them
people didn't want to go to that mount. They didn't want to talk
with God. They said, Moses, you go talk to him. You go talk to
him. Alright, fourthly, God says to
His Mediator, He gives to this Mediator His requirement of Israel. Exodus 19, verses 10 and 11. He told Moses to go and sanctify
the people who in turn were to wash their clothes. Now this
being a typical cleansing and a typical sanctification, I simply
give you what the Scripture says concerning this work as it concerns
the Lord. In Hebrews chapter 10, Paul tells
us that in the volume of God's book, it is written of Christ
that His coming was to accomplish the will of God. It was to accomplish
the conditions that God stipulated in His everlasting covenant of
grace. What God's holy character demanded,
Christ was sent to accomplish. That's what He said. And in the
entire book of God, in the whole volume of God's book, it's written
of Christ. I come to do Thy will, O God. And He came and He did that will.
He did that will. And in Hebrews chapter 10, He
tells us this. that all of the ceremonies and
all of the sacrifices were just shadows of good things to come,
and that His coming and fulfilling or accomplishing of God's will
took away the first to establish the second by the which will
we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. And it's by his relationship
with God and his appointments and his work and his success
that the Israel of God is sanctified and made ready to receive the
revelation of God in true holiness. It's in him. It's in him. And
so it was in Moses. And that typical washing and
that typical beginning to get prepared. In Titus chapter 3
verse 5 he uses these words. not by works of righteousness
which we've done, but according to His mercy He saved us by the
washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. Believers wash their robes, it
says in the book of Revelations, in the precious blood of the
Lamb. And the purity and holiness of
the righteousness of Christ is symbolized by this ceremonial
washing. All right, fifth place. God gives
us a strict prohibition. He gives Israel a strict prohibition. And this is a point that I hammer
on every time I stand up to preach. God tells those people, you can't
come to me. You can't come where I'm at.
You can't come to my mountain. You can stand down there and
you can look at the mountain. And you can tremble before the
mountain, and you can see my glory in the mountain, and you
can listen to my servant, but you can't touch my mountain.
You touch my mountain and you're going to die. Now that's what
he tells. He gives a strict prohibition here. Exodus 19 verses 12 through
15, he told Moses to tell the people on the third day he would
come down to them. But they couldn't come up to
him. And there's only one way that
God can honor His covenant and save His people and manifest
the glory of His name, and that is for God to come down to them.
They can't come up to Him. That's what He showed them here.
They can't come up to Him. Man cannot come up to God. Man cannot dig his way out of
the pit. He cannot change his past or
make amends for his crimes or produce what God requires for
him to be. With man, our Lord said of the
rich young ruler when he talked to his disciples and they said,
well, who can be saved if this man can't be saved? Who then
can be saved? What did he tell them? With man,
this is impossible. It's impossible. In order for
God to communicate his will and accomplish his purpose and redeem
his elect, God must take to himself the flesh and bones of a man
and do for him what he cannot do for himself. And what's going
on here at Sinai is not a revelation of man's glory, but a revelation
of God's. And man is strictly forbidden
to go there. It's a work to be seen, not done. So whenever we're talking about
this thing of the law, we're not talking about something that
man can accomplish, that man can do. We're talking about what
God requires from man, and which God in Christ accomplishes for
Him. It's a work to be seen, not a
work to be done. And it's a revelation to show
men their need of a Savior, not to show them how to be saved.
You know, this is what it is. I saw a sign not too long ago.
It was out in the parking lot. And I've seen several of them
around the country. But it's got a sign out there, and the
two signposts look like scrolls. And it's got this thing in the
middle with the Ten Commandments. And there's a little thing there
at the bottom that said, the Ten Commandments are enough for
us. Well, they're too much for me. They're too much for me. This is not a work to be done.
This is a work to be seen. To be seen and to honor God. It's to show men their need of
a Savior, not to show men how to be saved. By the law is the
knowledge of sin. The law, Paul said, is our schoolmaster. to bring us to Christ to be justified
by faith. That's what the law does. The
law takes away all these avenues, all these thoughts that men have
of being saved. The law destroys them all. It
shuts our mouths and renders us guilty and brings us to the
Savior. God in his holiness and justice and righteousness outside
of Christ is unapproachable to men. Listen to this. He tells Moses, he said, you
set bounds unto the people. When I stand up here on Sundays
and Wednesdays and I talk to you about the impossibility of
justifying yourself, that's what I'm doing. By God's commandment,
I'm setting bounds. I'm setting bounds. You can't
do this. You cannot do this. You do this,
the result is death. It's death. Set bounds to the
people round about. Tell them, take heed to yourself
that you go not up into the mount or so much as touch the border
of it. Whosoever touches the mount shall
surely be put to death." And then here's the last thing I
see here in this tearing before the mountain. I see an unapproachable
holiness. He said, not a hand shall touch
it but shall be stoned or shot through. Man or beast touches
this mountain. And when we come to this mountain,
we come only so far, just so far as God has commanded. And
even there, we come with a sanctified cleansing to look upon the holy
character of God as it's revealed in that mountain. Even that mountain
doesn't reveal his character in its perfection. Even that
mountain doesn't do that. Do you know that we're talking
about the unapproachable holiness of God? Do you know that God
killed 50,000 in Beth Shemesh for looking into the ark? They
didn't touch it. All they did was look at it.
Just looked into their polluted eyes. God killed 50,000. Do you remember the story of Uzzah?
They were moving the ark. God gave them instruction about
that ark. Told them the priests were to
bear that ark. They were to bear it on poles. Put their poles
through the rings and carry that ark. They were supposed to do
all that thing. But they put it on a wagon. And they called
it and that wagon hit a bump and that ark tilted and the others
were just going to catch the ark. God killed him dead in a
wedge. That's unapproachable holiness. God cannot be approached
by any sinner by his own accord or based on his worthiness. or
in consideration of anything that he's ever done. Scripture
said, man at his best state is altogether vanity. Isaiah said,
we are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags. So the vision of the mountain
of God is to shut us up to God's mercy and grace and Christ, not
to encourage men by their works to approach God. There was nothing,
and this is what I want you to see before we get into the study
of the law. There was nothing at Sinai to
encourage hope. Nothing. Nothing. There was nothing
at Sinai to attract the guilty or pacify the guilty conscience. David said, if the Lord should
mark iniquity, who could stand? Who's going to stand? Well, may
the Lord be pleased. shut us up to Christ and not
leave us with any hope at all. Not any hope, not any vain hope
of fulfilling that law and gaining the favor of God. But His favor
is all by the free grace of Christ. Father, bless the lesson tonight.
I know that when we talk about the mount and talk about the
law and talk about the severity of God and His holiness and justice,
It's not like when we're talking about His free grace. But this
mountain and His unapproachable holiness, these are the things
necessary that drive us and shut us up to grace. Teach these things to us. Teach
them to us in our hearts, not just our head, but in our hearts
for Christ's sake. All right. You're dismissed.