27, the cleansing wave. Oh, no I didn't. Thank you. That'll be the second song we
sing. Hymn number 227 first, The Cleansing
Wave. Oh now I see the The fountain
deep and wide. Jesus, my Lord, mighty to save,
points to His wounded side. The cleansing stream I see, I
see. I plunge and oh, it cleanseth
me. Oh, praise the Lord, it cleanseth
me. It cleanseth me, yes, cleanseth
me. I rise to walk in eternal life
above the world and sin. ? With hearts made pure and garments
white ? And Christ enthroned within ? The cleansing stream
I see, I see ? I plunge and oh, it cleanseth me ? Oh, praise
the Lord, it cleanseth me ? It cleanseth me, yes, cleanseth
me Amazing grace, tears have me low to feel the blood apply. And Jesus only, Jesus know my cleansing stream, I see, I see,
I plunge and oh, it cleanseth me. Oh, praise the Lord, it cleanseth
me. It cleanseth me. Yes, it cleanseth
me. Let me give myself a compliment. The Christ of the Cross. On a hill far away died the Christ
of the cross. He yielded to suffering and shame. God to fulfill So I'll cherish
the Christ of the cross And before His throne I'll bow down I will
cling to the Christ of the cross For He is the King has a wondrous traction to me. He, the dear Lamb of God, left
his glory above to bear all my sin on the tree. So I'll cherish the Christ of
the And before His throne I'll bow
down. I will cling to the Christ of
the cross. For He is the King I must crown. In the Christ of the cross, and
His blood so divine, a marvelous view. And before His throne I'll bow
down. I will cling to the Christ of
the cross. For He is the King I must cross. Of the cross I must ever be true
His shame and reproach gladly bear For in love he constrains
Till all shall be gay So I'll cherish the Christ of
the cross And before His throne I'll bow down I will cling to
the Christ of the cross For He is the King I must crown If you have your Bibles, turn
with me to Exodus chapter 20. I am going to read the entire chapter, but
as a way of introduction to this chapter, we are going to deal
with just a few verses of it. And God spake all these words,
saying, I am the Lord thy God. which hath brought thee out of
the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, or slavery.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 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,
and to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing
mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.
I shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for
the Lord will not hold you guiltless, him guiltless that taketh his
name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, and
keep it holy. six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work.
But in 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,
nor the manservant, nor the maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger
that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made
heaven and earth, and sea, and all that is in them, and rested
the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the
Sabbath day and hallowed it, honor thy father and thy mother,
that the 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 thy manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox,
nor his ass, nor anything that is in thy neighbor's. 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 removed and stood afar off. And they said to 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 is come to prove you, that his fear may
be before your eyes, that ye sin not. And the people stood
afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick cloudiness where
God was. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Thus thou shalt 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 thou 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 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 thereupon. Let us pray. We bless you and
thank you for great mercy for ruined and wretched sinners that
we are, hopeless and helpless without you. We are thankful
that you came into the world to save sinners. We with Paul
can say of whom I am chief. We are thankful, Father, for
the grace that you bestowed upon us, for the free gift of grace. We are thankful, Father, for
the shed blood of Jesus Christ, that perfect death that he offered
to you, that perfect offering. whereby your justice and law
was satisfied on behalf of your people. We praise you, Father,
for your goodness and your mercy, new mercies we have every day.
Help us, Lord, to love you and love each other also. Father,
we pray for those who requested prayer for our brother here tonight
with his pancreatic cancer. We ask, Lord, you'd give him
peace and comfort in his heart. We don't know your will, Father.
No one does know what your will is except what you've revealed
in your scripture. What you're doing now, we're not privy to.
We bow to your wisdom in all things. If it's according to
your pleasure to heal him, do so. If it's according to your
pleasure to take him home, we pray you'd give him peace in
these times and be with his wife and his family as they minister
to him. Pray for the others. For Kathy, she's received this
treatment. for these others who have cancer, going through trials
and tribulations of their life. We know they're children of God,
there is no accident there, that these things are appointed. Just
as you said to Martha when she said that her brother was dead, you said
he's not dead, he lives. We pray, Father, that you would
be unto us wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification, Your Holy
Spirit would take the things of Christ and reveal them unto
us, to show us your way, cause us to walk in your statutes.
We thank you for who you are, for what you've done for your
children. We thank you that you left no part of salvation to
us, but you saved us by your grace, redeemed us by the blood
of Jesus Christ, and called us by your gospel. Help us now to
be thankful. for all things, for this is the
will of God in Christ Jesus concerning us, and help us to worship you,
to bow us down into the dust where we belong, and lift our
eyes to see him who is altogether lovely, who sits even now at
thy right hand, having purged our sins. Thank you, Father,
in Christ's name. Amen. Now, this is the account
here in Exodus of the Lord speaking out of a dark cloud giving Moses
the first part of the law. This first part is called the
Decalogue, or the Ten Commandments, or the Ten Words, and many in
religion refer to these words as the moral law. There is no
indication of that in Scripture. In fact, the word moral is not
in Scripture at all, but they use that suggestion that these
are a list of edicts to follow to be identified as a moral person.
or even to have reached some sense of perfection or righteousness
before God based on their own doing or their own merit. That
they can be obeyed, that Jesus can be obeyed is in a behavioral
sense and is commonly believed among men and women and they
are not wrong. You can obey these things in
a natural sense. You can obey these laws. Paul
said to the Philippian church that he had confidence in the
flesh before the law, he said, I was blameless. I was blameless. The rich young ruler who came
to Christ and asked him how to obtain eternal life said that
he had kept the law from his youth. Now most people, both
in and out of religion, can lay claim to not being a murderer
or an adulterer or a thief, and in doing so they believe they've
kept the law. However, our Lord, as you know, took these very
same things, being a murderer, He said, you've heard that thou
shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit murder. He said, but
if you hate your brother, you're a murderer in your heart. He
said, you've heard that you shall not commit adultery. He said,
but if you lust after a woman in your heart, you've committed
adultery. So the law had to do with the
heart, and we'll see that as we go on in the study of this
20th chapter of Exodus here. Such people place importance
upon one part of the law, usually. Most people have one aspect of
the law that they emphasize, and in doing so, and saying they
have kept that part of the law, they diminish other aspects of
the law, deeming them less important. Those Pharisees who lived by
the law and kept the law in the days of our Lord Jesus Christ,
they came to Him with that kind of question over in Matthew chapter
22. Matthew chapter 22 and verse
34 says, When the Pharisees had
heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, the Pharisees were
against the Sadducees, the Pharisees believed in a resurrection, the
Sadducees did not, they go gather together. That is the way it
often is. Well, they put down this guy, we don't like this
guy, let's see what he has to say. Then one of them, which
was a lawyer, ask him a question, tempting him, testing him, and
saying, Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law?
In other words, of these ten words, this Decalogue that was
given, which is the most important one? which is the most important
one. And our Lord said, Thou shalt
love the Lord God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, and
the second is, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. And
as you will see in the studies, these laws deal with those two
basic things. Paul repeated this in Romans
chapter 13, said the same thing. The whole law is fulfilled in
these two things, loving God and loving your neighbor. Now,
some religions, such as the Judaizers in Galatia, who wanted to bring
the believers back UNDER the law, use the law to exalt themselves
and to put down other people, in Galatians chapter 6. Galatians chapter 6, Paul says
in verse 12, As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh,
that is, to make themselves important, they constrain you to be circumcised.
And when you read that in Galatians or Colossians or even in other
books of the Scripture, when they constrain someone to be
circumcised, what they're doing, they want to bring the believer
back under the rule of the law, back under the law for righteousness. So he said, to constrain you
to be circumcised only lest they should suffer persecution for
the cross of Christ. What does that mean? Well, Paul
in Galatians chapter 5 said, I think it is, he said, all I'll have to do
is give you something to do in this matter of salvation, and
I made the gospel void. For the gospel is difficult for
the natural man to take, and the reason is because, well,
it's impossible for him to take because he has to believe that
he has something to do with his salvation. He's got to believe
that or he can't help himself. And so when a person is told
this, which is the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, that
Jesus Christ is the Savior, and He alone receives the glory for
salvation, and you had nothing to do with your salvation, and
when you hear that, if you're not a believer, you're going
to rebel against it. Paul called it the offense of
the cross. He said, if I preach circumcision, all I'd have to
do is preach circumcision, and I'd remove the offense of the
law. But when I tell you circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth anything,
then I'm making a whole lot of people mad. Even the law doesn't
avail anything at all. So these people exalted themselves
and put down others. And Paul goes on to say, for
neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law, and
he's talking about the Judaizers, but they desire you to be circumcised
that they can glory in your flesh. They can say, we cause them to
obey us and go back under the law for righteousness. Now, this
is the true result of those who believe the law. Remember, our
Lord gave the parable, before he gave the parable of the publican
and the Pharisee in the temple, he said he gave this parable
to those who believed and trusted themselves that they were righteous
and despised others. despised others. That's why everyone
who tries to make a believer go back under the law, that's
what he believes. And the reason is because he
figures out a way to keep score. And he builds straw men in order
to make comparisons. He will say things like, well,
you can't tell me this old fellow here who's lazy and useless and
has all kinds of problems and doesn't appeal to anybody is
the same as this fellow over here who goes to church every
Sunday and reads his Bible and gives and all that. You can't
tell me they're the same. Well, if the scripture is true that
Christ came to save sinners, that fellow there has got more
hope than that fellow over there does. Christ didn't come into
the world to save good people. He came into the world not to
save the righteous. He said to the Pharisees, I didn't
come to call you, but to bring sinners to repentance. This issue
is not with the law. The issue is not with the law,
but how it is used, or rather how it is abused in Scripture.
It is not for the righteous man. Do you understand that? The law
was given for one purpose, that is, to IMPUTE SIN, to charge
a person with sin. That is what the Scripture says.
The law entered that sin might abound. And it says in Galatians
chapter 3 that the law was given because of transgression. No law is necessary for somebody
who is not transgressing. If you are not transgressing
the law, the law is not for you. It is for the person who breaks
the law. The speed limit is there, not for those who drive the speed
limit. It is for those who drive over
the speed limit, and then the law is applied. If you drive
the speed limit, the law has nothing to do with you. And that's
what he said in Scripture. The law was added because of
transgression over in 1 Timothy. Paul dealt with those legalists
in 1 Timothy. Now, he's talking to a young
preacher, a young pastor in 1 Timothy. Chapter 1, he says this, but
we know that the law is good if a man use it lawfully. knowing
this, that the law is not made for the righteous man, but for
the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly, for sinners,
for unholy, profane, for murderers, for fathers, and murderers of
mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile
themselves with mankind, for men-stealers, for liars, for
perjured persons, and for any other thing that is contrary
to sound doctrine." So he said, that's who the law is for. Now,
the case he is making throughout Timothy is that Jesus Christ
has satisfied God's law for us. He's fulfilled the law for us,
and He's answered the law's justice by His death. And for anybody
to try to bring a believer back under the law, he's saying Christ
didn't really save him, because the law is for whoremongers.
The law is for man-stealers. So if you try to bring on a person
of the law and say, Hey, that person's been redeemed by Jesus
Christ, you're saying Christ's work wasn't enough. You have
something to say about it. And you don't have anything to
say about what Christ did. It's a done deal. It's added,
because of transgression, entering so that sin may abound, he says
in Romans 5. And Paul said that the law was
holy and good, and indicted him who was carnal. He said in Romans
7, the law is holy and good. Nothing wrong with the law. But
I'm carnal, sold unto sin. The problem is with me. Romans
7, he talked about that marriage. He talked about marriage being
a thing that goes on as long as a person lives, and he's using
Christ, being married to Christ, and being married to the law
as an example there. He says, under the law, he says,
as long as you were under the law, you were married to the
law, and the law ruled your life. He said, and that does not change
unless somebody dies. Well, you died in Jesus Christ
and the law died to you. You are dead to the law by the
law, Paul says in Galatians chapter 2. And so what he is saying there
is that under the law, it is good and it is holy, but it is
a hard husband. It is a hard husband. It is tough
on you. The law comes home every day
from work and puts on white gloves and rubs along the windowsill.
looks at the carpet, see if the bed's made right, see if you're
dressed right, see if you look right, hard on you, hard on you. But that law died in Jesus Christ.
When Jesus Christ satisfied the law for the believers, we're
no longer under the law, we're under grace, and we're married
to another, which is legal if your first husband dies. This
law died, you're married to another, now your husband's completely
different. What did he say to you? He says, lay down and rest,
sweetheart. Put on this beautiful gown that I made for you. Pristine
robe of righteousness. Lay down and rest. I'll take
care of everything. I've already taken care of everything.
You don't have to do a thing. Rest in me. Trust me. Lay down and rest. That's a new
husband. I like him a lot better, don't
you? I like him a lot better. Paul says, the problem's not
with the law. He's good. He's strict, he's exacting, but
he's good and he's holy. But I'm married to another, I'm
married to another. Problem was, as good as he was,
that's how bad I was. I'm carnal soul under sin. Now,
one cannot estimate the influence that these Ten Commandments have
had on society, especially in Western civilization where we
live. You'd be hard-pressed to find a courthouse in this nation
that does not display these on their walls or their lawns. They're
everywhere. You'll see if you go, the one
over in Silver has it. I've been in that courthouse.
The one over in Bryson has it. Ten Commandments on the wall. Why do they have them there? They post them there in plaques
on the walls so people will supposedly live by them. They don't. They don't. People have brought
lawsuits to keep their displays in view of the public as if they
influence lawful behavior. There is no doubt that such believe
these to be an influence in a way of living or a threat against
evildoers. That's how they look at these
Ten Commandments here. Let me tell you something plain and
simple, as we'll see in our studies. These Ten Commandments are ABOUT
the Lord Jesus Christ, as all of Scripture is from Genesis
to Revelation. You do study the scriptures,
he said to the Pharisees, for in them you think you have eternal
life, but they are they which testify of me. There's no doubt
that such believe that they're an influence. They believe themselves
to be under the exacting parameters of these laws and have no understanding
that such an allegiant actually accounts them as guilty. If you
say you're under the law, then you're guilty immediately and
absolutely you're guilty. What the law saith, it saith
to them that under the law, that every mouth might be stopped
and the whole world become guilty before God. Romans chapter 3
and verse 19. What is absolutely essential
to understand these laws is the reason why they were given. If
we don't get that, we don't get that we miss what these laws
mean. They were not given as a self-help
guide or a recipe for a good life. They were given for one
reason. They were given to condemn and
indict Israel for the transgressions they had already committed. They
were added because of transgressions, and what he lists were the transgressions
that they had committed. They had stolen. They had killed. They had not kept the Sabbath.
They had been guilty of idolatry. They had raised up gods and made
them. They brought the images of Egypt out of Egypt. In fact,
they made a golden calf later on. This is what he's dealing
with. He's dealing with them because
they were already guilty. These words, according to Paul,
were a letter that kills in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, a ministration of
death, a ministration of condemnation, and a ministration that was set
aside and done away with by the life and death of the Lord Jesus
Christ. This covenant is no longer in
force. It's no longer enforced, that's
what the Word of God teaches. Look over at Hebrews chapter
10. Now Paul is dealing with Hebrew people here who are believers. But like all people, no matter
when you come to know Christ, you bring a lot of baggage along
with you. Now a Hebrew was born a Hebrew, and he learned the
Jewish religion from day one. He was circumcised the eighth
day. He was in the temple on the eighth day, and at six weeks,
he had other rituals that were done to him, and he stayed in
that temple. Temple worship was done. So if he was a Jew, that's
all he ever knew. So the temple meant something
to him. It was special. And it must have
really shook them up when the Lord looked at the temple and
said, You tear that down. I'll build it up again in three
days. What are you talking about? That's our temple. Christ was
talking about His body. See that priesthood? See that
fellow in there with that fine suit on and that turban with
holiness unto the Lord and the breastplate with all the names
of Israel on it and the robe and the blue ribbons around the
edge? You see him? That's not really the priest.
The high priest is Jesus Christ. See that lamb on the altar? That's
not really your salvation. Your salvation is the Lamb of
God that was slain from the foundation of the world, the Lord Jesus
Christ. All of that's about that. That's what they saw. So Paul
says to the Hebrew children concerning the law, which they were still
having difficulty with, you know, we don't keep the law, what's
going on? He said this, for the law having
a shadow of things to come. Oh, it's not really what's coming.
but it pictures something so the law having a shadow of things
to come in chapter ten and not the very image of the things
can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year
continually make the comers there unto perfect so what he's saying
is there needs to be a sacrifice that will perfect the children
because these old laws and under the ceremonial moral law they
were not they were not uh... perfected he said if they had
been perfected for then would they not have ceased to be offered
if they were perfected because the worshipers once purged should
have no more conscience of sin but this was he's talking about
the day of atonement which went on every year why because they
had to be reminded they were still sinners and their salvation
was not done it was an atonement a covering a covering the same
word is used for the pitch that covered the ark that Noah built,
a covering, an outside covering. But in those sacrifices, instead
of putting away sin, is a REMEMBRANCE of sin, year by year. For it is not POSSIBLE that the
blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Wherefore, when
he, the Lord Jesus Christ, cometh into the world, he said, Sacrifice
an offering thou wouldest not, But Abbad asked, Thou prepared
for me in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin. You had no
pleasure. You were not satisfied. Then
said, Lo, I come, I come in the volume of the book from Genesis
to Revelation. It is written of me to do Thy
will, O God. sacrifice and offering and burnt
offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not neither hast
thou pleasure therein which are offered by the law then said
I Christ says lo I come in the volume of the book it is written
to me to take away he taketh away the first what that governor
the sign out of what you're looking at and he establishes the second
and evidently in this second covenant the sacrifice that he
made actually perfected people because it wasn't like the law
It was different, which he goes on to say, And every peace standeth
daily, offering oft times the same sacrifices, which never
take away sins. In the tabernacle in the temple
there was not a couch, there was not a chair. Nobody ever
sat down. Twenty-four hours a day, seven
days a week, they kept that thing going. They lit those candles,
they made sure the showbread was there. They made sure there
was coals on the altar. They made sure the incense was
available. They made sure there was fresh water in the brazen
labor, but they never sat down. Why? Because the work wasn't
done. The work wasn't finished. Nobody was perfected. No sins
were put away. He said, but wait a minute, but
this man, Jesus Christ, after he had offered one sacrifice
for sins forever, he sat down. Why? Nothing left to do. He just
finished was his cry, sat down on the right hand of God, from
henceforth expect until his enemies made his footstool, from Jeremiah
31 it is spoken, for one offering he hath perfected, that is past
tense, he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. How
were they sanctified? Back in verse 10, by the which
will we are sanctified. where of the Holy Ghost also
as a witness before and after and so forth in verse 17 it says,
and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more from
Jeremiah 31. Now where sin and remission,
where the remission of these is, there's no more sacrifice
for sin. No more sacrifice. Why? Because
this one worked. Not all the bloods of bulls and
goats. not close to the nine hundred lambs that were offered
just in the feast of Tabernacle in eight days nine hundred beasts
were slain that's a lot of blood didn't take away one sin but
his did his perfected his perfected forever them that are sanctified
it's absolutely essential to understand this our Lord kept
the law in his perfect death how did he keep the law? he died
so that sinneth it shall die Nobody killed him. We wanted
to kill him. We were in that bunch. Gentiles
and Jews and Herod and Pontius Pilate. We were all in that bunch
and wanted to kill him. Had we been in that courtyard,
we would have been crying crucified just like the rest of the sinners
there. But we didn't kill him. We nailed
him to a tree. And then God shut off the lights
and poured His wrath out on Jesus Christ for our sins. That didn't
kill him either. He came out on the other side
of that. He came out on the other side of that and said, My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Then with a loud voice he
said, It is finished. And what did he do? He gave up. He willingly and freely, who
is life, ceased to live. Why? Because the payment for
sin is not a good life. The payment for sin is death.
And the only way for justice to be satisfied for me was that
Jesus Christ die the death that I owe God. That's the only way
to do it. The only way to do it. And he did it, thank God.
Our Lord kept the law in his perfect death and fulfilled the
law in his perfect life. The law had nothing to do with
him. He was a righteous man. He never had transgression. He
knew no sin. His perfect, entirely righteous
life fitted him to be the perfect sacrifice for sin. A lamb without
spot or blemish. and is the only undisputable
suitable offering to satisfy God's inflexible justice. The
law said sinners and transgressors must die, so he willingly took
his people's sin upon himself and died the death that he was
due. He was made to be sin for us, and you know sin. Don't ask me to explain that.
That's way above my pay scale and anybody else's on this human
earth to explain that. He was made to be sin for us.
Isaiah said our sins and iniquities were laid upon Him, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. That's what took place on the
cross of Christ, which we just sung about. Just as all of Scripture, our
text in Exodus, speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ and His gospel.
and the giving of the law did not come from the cloud that
shadowed them in the wilderness, or from the fiery pillar that
dispelled the darkness at night. It came with the voice of God
from a dark and gloomy and threatening cloud of smoke, so much that
the people backed away. They didn't want anything to
do with that. It portended ominous things. You see, the law is said
to be against us in Scripture. things of dread and death. The
people understood this. Look at verse 19. The people
said this back in our text. They said to Moses, Speak thou
with us, and we will hear you. You tell us. You talk to us,
and we'll hear you. But don't let God speak to us.
It'll kill us lest we die. Don't let God speak to us lest
we die. They understood that. They understood when this thing
changed after our Lord in chapter 19 told them what he had done
on eagles' wings and carried them out of that captivity out
of Egypt. And they said, Well, everything the Lord has commanded,
we'll do! And then all of a sudden the dark clouds started coming
in and lightning and thundering, and all of a sudden it was fearful.
Why? Because men thought that they could do what God said to
do, and they can't. Before the Lord set forth these
indictments, He prefaced it with the words of verse 1 and 2. He
said, And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord
thy God, which hath brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out
of the house of bondage. This is a kind of preamble to
the Constitution that He sets forth and declares the right
and warrant as the lawgiver to give these laws. It is God that
speaks. and does so in the earshot of
the people. This didn't happen many times in scripture. He spoke
to Moses face to face. He spoke to his prophets and
men of old and dreams and visions. But you don't hear his voice
speak from heaven that often in scripture. None but those
who heard the voice can attest to the sound and the impact of
it. And their response is, don't let him speak to us anymore.
We don't want to hear from him. In this case, people felt that
to hear the voice of God would eventuate in their death, their
demise. Not only to see His face is to
die, but to hear His voice is to die also, if that voice is
declaring the law. When God spoke in other instances,
men heard things like thunders. In John chapter 12, When the
Son of God said, Glorify me with the glory I had before thee before
the world began, God said, I have. A voice came from heaven and
said, God said, I have glorified it and will glorify your name.
And it says the people heard thunderings. Heard it and thought
it was thunder. Others said an angel spoke to
him. On the Mount of Transfiguration, when our Lord appeared, with
robes glistering whiter than any fuller could make them. And
there appeared Moses and Elijah who came across time to speak
to the Lord Jesus Christ about the death that he should accomplish
at Jerusalem. Peter got all excited. He saw
Moses and Elijah and he recognized them. Will we know our brothers
and sisters in Christ in heaven? I don't know. But he knew Moses
and Elijah for sure. Peter said, you know what would
be a good thing? What would probably help these people around here?
We put up three statues, three altars, three things people
can worship at. We'll put one up for Moses, one
for Elijah, and one for Jesus. And a fog rolled in over the
place, and a voice cried from heaven. this is my beloved son
in whom I am well pleased satisfied propitiated you hear him wait
a minute Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible Elijah
was one of the great prophets of the Bible possibly the greatest
by many people's estimation don't take count Peter said all the
prophets gave witness to Jesus Christ Acts chapter 10 verse
43 When Paul was accused of heresy in Acts chapter 24, he said,
After the way which men call heresy, that's what I believe. That's the way I worship God,
believing all that's written in the Law and the Prophets.
Why? Because the Law and the Prophets spoke of Christ. All
of them did. The only book that the disciples
had to preach from and the Lord preached from, the only book
they had up until 50 A.D. when 1 Corinthians was written,
was this Old Testament. And what did they preach? Christ
and Him crucified. All they had was this old book.
They didn't have no new book. All they had was the old one. Hebrews chapter 12. Look over
there just for a moment. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 25. It says, See that you refuse not
him that speaketh. He spoke not Jesus Christ. For
if they escaped not, who refused him that spoke from heaven? Much
more, how shall we not escape, if we turn away him that speaketh
from heaven? Talking about when they do not
listen to their old prophets, which he said to them, he said,
You kill the prophets, and you will not listen to him that speaketh
from heaven, which is Jesus Christ, whose voice then shook the earth.
But now he hath promised, saying, Yet more once I will shake this
earth, not the earth only, but I will shake heaven also. And
this word yet once more signifieth the removing of those things
that are shaken as things that are made." In other words, everything
you can see is going to be gone one day, that those things which
cannot be shaken may remain. What cannot be shaken? What God
has given you in faith, in grace. Everything else is going to be
shook, shook loose. That is the sovereign rule of
Christ, which cannot be moved. Let us have grace, whereby we
may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear, for
our God is a consuming fire. What is it going to be for those
who hear not God from heaven? God identifies Himself as Thy
God. Thy God. Back in our text, He
says, I am the Lord Thy God. Now, He speaks that singularly,
and that applies Throughout this whole text, the designation of
LORD in all uppercase designates Him as Jehovah Savior. Jehovah
Savior. He has saved His people from
destruction by pouring out His justice on the firstborn of Egypt
and His own firstborn in type with the Lamb slain, the Paschal
Lamb, wherein in 1 Corinthians it says, Christ our Passover
is slain for us. He alone delivered them from
slavery with the promise of a wonderful land He was going to take them
to, and this is what gives Him the right and warrant to command
them and to indict them for their sin and their transgression,
which He is about to do for a whole lot of chapters in Exodus. All of this has to do with sin
and the remedy for it. And we know that that remedy
is singular, Jehovah Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Father,
bless us to understand and pray in Christ's Name. Amen. All right.
God bless you.