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Exodus
19:1-25 “In the third month, when the
children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came
they into the wilderness of Sinai. 2
For
they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai,
and had pitched in the wilderness; and there Israel camped before the mount. 3
And
Moses went up unto God, and the LORD called unto him out
of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell
the children of Israel; 4 Ye have seen what I
did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought
you unto myself. 5 Now therefore, if ye
will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar
treasure unto me above all people: for
all the earth is mine: 6 and ye shall be unto
me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.
These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of
Israel [1st Peter 2:5, 9-10; Revelation 5:9-10]. 7
And
Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces
all these words which the LORD commanded him. 8
And
all the people answered together, and said, All that the LORD hath spoken we will
do. And Moses returned the words of the
people unto the LORD. 9
And
the LORD said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto
thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and
believe thee for ever. And Moses told
the words of the people unto the LORD.
10 And
the LORD said unto Moses, Go unto the
people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their
clothes, 11 and be ready against the third
day: for the third day the LORD will come down in the
sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. 12
And
thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to
yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border
of it: whosoever toucheth the mount
shall be surely put to death: 13 there shall not an
hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be
beast or man, it shall not live: when
the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount. 14 And Moses went down
from the mount unto the people, and sanctified the people; and they washed
their clothes. 15 And he said unto the
people, Be ready against the third day:
come not at your wives. 16
And
it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and
lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet
exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. 17
And
Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood
at the nether part of the mount. 18
And
mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in
fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as
the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. 19
And
when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses
spake, and God answered him by a voice. 20
And
the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, on
the top of the mount: and the LORD called Moses up
to the top of the mount; and Moses went up. 21
And
the LORD said unto Moses, Go down, charge
the people, lest they break through unto the LORD to gaze, and many of them perish. 22
And
let the priests also, which come near to the LORD, sanctify themselves,
lest the LORD break forth upon them. 23
And
Moses said unto the LORD, The people cannot
come up to the mount Sinai: for thou
chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it. 24
And
the LORD said unto him, Away, get thee
down, and thou shalt come up, thou, and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people break
through to come up unto the LORD, lest he break forth
upon them. 25 So Moses went down unto the
people, and spake unto them.” Introduction: I Bare You On Eagle’s Wings [Audio
version: https://resources.ccphilly.org/detail.asp?TopicID=&Teaching=WED556]
“Exodus, we have come now to
Israel’s approach to Mount Sinai, the range of Horeb, God had told Moses when
he appeared to him in a burning bush ‘That I will bring my people to this
mountain, and they shall worship me here.’
And it is over a year after that, it says “In the third
month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt,
the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. For they were departed from Rephidim, and
were come to the desert of Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness; and
there Israel camped before the mount.” (verses 1-2) now when it says
“wilderness” notice it will interchange “desert” and “wilderness.” When it says “wilderness” it’s not what
you’re used to living in the northeast United States, they’re not forests, the
wilderness in that part of the world is a desert. They pitched in the wilderness, “and there
Israel camped before the mount.” Numbers chapter 10, verse 11 tells us the next
time they move, that was in the second year, in the second month, and the 20th
day after they had come forth out of the land of Egypt. So they’re going to be camped here from
between 11 and 12 months now by Mount Sinai.
And Moses went up, please take note of that as we go through the chapter
Moses is going up and down a lot off this mountain. And this is a mountain, the elevation changes
vastly going up and down, it’s not a little hill, it’s a mountain, he’s 80
years old. So appreciate what’s
happening here. We’re not told at this
point that there’s any presence of God visible.
It seems that it will be on the third day after he talks to the people,
that the actual presence of God descends in a visible fashion. So as they first come and encamp in the
desert around this mountain, evidently there’s nothing specifically
intimidating to them when they first arrive on the scene. It says “And Moses went up unto God, and
the LORD called unto him out of the
mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the
children of Israel;” (verse 3) So Moses
goes up into the mountain, he hears the voice of the LORD speaking to him, “Ye
have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’
wings, and brought you unto myself.” (verse 4)
Now it’s one of the things he’s going to say to the children of
Israel, ‘You are eyewitnesses, you saw what I did to the Egyptians.’ “and how I bare you on eagles’
wings, and brought you unto myself.” (verse 4b) Now God’s view of the journey from Egypt to
Sinai is like being borne on eagle’s wings, that’s interesting because I’m sure
they didn’t think it was like that, being trapped in the desert, believing they
were going to die here, ‘We’re there no graves in Egypt?’ and they’re
being brought forth, getting to the other side of the Red Sea, then ending up
in Marah where there was water, but it was bitter, they couldn’t drink it, then
journeying on from there to Elim, you know, it was a nice place, then crying ‘You
brought us out here to starve us in the wilderness, there was bread in Egypt,’
and then God bringing manna, then their crying ‘We’re going to die of
thirst, you brought us out here to die of thirst.’ Poor Moses, what a grumbly congregation
he’s got out there, a murmuring one. But
God says ‘You saw what I did to the Egyptians, and I brought you on
eagles wings to this place,’ remarking about the care that’s given by
the mother eagle to the eaglets, and they’re all sitting in the nest screaming,
hollering ‘I’m going to starve to death and die of thirst too.’ In Deuteronomy he
reiterates, saying ‘As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth up her
young, spreadeth abroad her wings and taketh them, and beareth them on her
wings, so the LORD alone did lead them,
and there was no strange god with him.’ It’s an interesting
picture, there’s lots of books, I love eagles so, sorry, you’re going to hear a
little bit. There’s lots of books
written in the Christian genre about eagles, and all these things, and some of
them are really, you start to read them, and they make nice analogies like the
nest, the eagles will take the nest, as the eaglets get older they’ll rip the
nest apart, break it in pieces so the eaglets have to leave. A mating pair of eagles will go back to the
same nest for 20 years, 30 years, and then you read in another book, they’ll
take and line the nest with varmint fur, rabbit fur and so forth so it’s nice
and soft, it’s on thorns, and when they want the babies to leave they’ll take
out the skins, and the baby eagles will stick their feet on thorns and have to
jump out of the nest, ah, those mean parents.
There’s no truth in that. Then
finally the baby eagles jump out of the nest and falls, and the mom swoops
under and picks it up on her back and carries it, there’s no truth in that
either. So I started looking, so I
called the Philadelphia Zoo and asked ‘You got an eagle expert, I need to
find some truth,’ and they said, ‘No, we got a bird of prey guy, we
don’t have an eagle guy,’ I called the University of Pennsylvania, the veterinary
hospital guy who specializes in ornithology, so I called him, he said ‘No,
no, I’m not an eagle guy, you need to call the Smithsonian Institute,’ so I
called the Smithsonian Institute, talked to a guy there whose kind of an eagle
guy, he’s an eagle wannabe guy, and he said ‘I don’t know everything you
want to know, but you call Dr. Clayton White at Brigham Young University, he
knows more about eagles than anybody maybe on the planet.’ So I called him, and he actually got on
the phone with me and talked to me for over an hour. This was years ago, and he said ‘No, no,
they don’t do that.’ He said ‘I’ve
raised baby eagles, and I didn’t throw them out of the nest, and they learned
to fly, I didn’t dive under them and bear them up.’ He said ‘I’ve raised them…none of
that’s true.’ So he said ‘What
Moses observed is what he wrote, is that those eaglets don’t jump out of the
nest off the cliff till they’re ready to fly, it’s in their DNA, and when they
jump out, yes, they need to learn, but they don’t jump out and crash, they jump
out and fly or there’d be no eagles.’ And
he said ‘What happens is the parent eagle will go down and fly under that
young eagle, and that young eagle will follow on top of the parent eagle, not
sitting on it, but flying,’ he said ‘because we’ve discovered in their
eyes, homing pigeons have something similar, that in the back of their eyes
they have these coils called pectens and in those there’s electrolyte fluid
that’s sensitive to magnetism, and it’s soft when they’re young, but as they
mature it hardens,’ and he said ‘What they actually do is learn to feel
in back of their eyes what direction they’re going in, and it gives them an
inherited compass, that as they harden, so they can always find their way back
to the area where they nested,’ he said, ‘when those eagles grow up and
take a mate, they will nest somewhere in the same area. So wherever they go, how far they might
leave, the parents will take them, and we think they’re taking them on these
loops as these pectin’s are hardening, and they’re learning to function with
this internal compass, so they always have their bearings, they’ll always know
where they’re going, always guided by something that becomes internal.’ And then he said ‘Most species of
eagles then will take one mate for a lifetime.’ And the young will start this process
where the female eagle will go down and pick something up off the ground, it
might be a stick or a log that weighs a couple pounds, she’ll go up and the
male eagle will be courting her, following her, she’ll drop it, he’ll swoop
down and catch it. If he catches it,
then she’ll go get something heavier and take that up and drop it, then if he
catches that, she’ll get one heavier, and he said, about the third time if he
catches it all, she’s decided this is going to be a good husband, and he said
they go up somewhere to about 10,000 feet, she’s starts to dive, he comes down
on her back like at about 100 miles an hour, and right as he gets to her, she
flips over on her back, they lock talons, and they fall for about 5,000 feet
screaming, ‘aaaah!’ and he said that’s the marriage ceremony, and they
let go, this is fascinating. He said
when they let go, then they’ll be together for life. Humans lock talons and scream after they get
married, for the eagles, eagles do this, it sets the stage for them. So, just remarkable, remarkable animals, and
Moses making an observation about the way the parent eagle will guide that
maturing eagle. This was a nation,
again, it took one night to bring them out of Egypt, it’s going to take them 40
years to get Egypt out of Israel, and they’re in the process of maturing, God
is raising them. Look around this room,
that’s what he’s doing with us, he loves us, we’re his kids, he’s raising us,
he’s in the business of raising kids, and he’s conforming us into the imagine
and likeness of his Son. And he’s begun
a good work in us, and he’s going to continue it to that day. And he’s taking this nation, he’s making them
into a people, he says ‘You saw what my deliverance was like, what I did
unto the nation of Egypt, and how I bare you on eagles wings, I brought you on
a certain path to teach you.’ They
learned at Marah, they’ve learned in regards to the manna, they learned at
Rephidim, they learn in the battle with Amalek, they’ve been learning. He said ‘I bare you on as on eagles’
wings, and all of that to bring you to myself,’ the same story is true
in your life and in my life this evening.
The difficult places, the bitter experiences, the places where we feel
starved, we feel like we’re hungering for something, the times when you and I
find ourselves thirsting for a fresh filling of the Spirit, God takes us
through those experiences to mature us, but always with the same goal, to bring
you unto myself. And he says ‘Moses,
you go tell them this, communicate these things to them.’ If
You Will Obey My Voice & Keep My Covenant, Then Ye Shall Be Unto Me A
Kingdom Of Priests “Now therefore, if ye will obey
my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure
unto me above all people: for all the
earth is mine: and ye shall be
unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt
speak unto the children of Israel. (verses 5-6) [read1st Peter 2:5,
9-10; Revelation 5:9-10] Now you know Peter picks up on this in his
first Epistle. [Comment: This is the only place where God says this to
the nation of Israel, where due to their disobedience, he has to kind of revoke
this, and take this promise and re-apply it now to the Church, the greater Body
of Christ, because we see in 1st Peter 2:5, 9-10 and Revelation
5:9-10 and 20:4,6, he’s applying this to the Church and not the nation of
Israel. You can see by the wording of
verses 5-6 that this promise was conditional on Israel’s obedience and keeping
of the Old Covenant, which they couldn’t do.
We, the Church are being conformed into an holy nation, a kingdom of
kings and priests, who will rule over the entire world with Jesus Christ, the
King of kings, and Lord of lords.
Israel, all 12 tribes of them, will yet receive all the promises given
to them in all the prophecies about them in the Old Testament and New alike,
there is no replacement theology here at all, except in this one promise there
appears to be, because they disobeyed, and we in the Body of Christ have
remained faithful to receive kingships and priesthoods under Yeshua our King
during his soon-coming Kingdom on earth.]
“These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children
of Israel” (verse 6b) Verse 7
says “And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid
before their faces all these words which the LORD commanded him.” The idea is he went back down the
mountain. “And all the people
answered together, and said, All that the LORD hath spoken we will
do. And Moses returned the words of the
people unto the LORD.” (verse 8) [Comment: And
this promise of the people they would never be able to do, because the Holy
Spirit was not being offered to them, as the Holy Spirit has been offered to
us. Moses makes this clear in Numbers 11:13-29,
read it for yourself, where he tells Joshua he wishes God would give his Spirit
to all of Israel, and not just these 70 elders God was giving the Spirit to so
they could help Moses in his job. The
Israelites were promising obedience to God and his Laws they could never
deliver, on their own, on their own strength.] Boy they had little idea who they were, and
what their potential was. You know, the
spirit is willing, the flesh is weak, ‘All that the LORD has said we will do,’
how
many times have we said that, ‘Lord, I promise,’ and I just think of him
up there relieved ‘Oh finally, this one’s promised me.’ “And all the people answered together,
and said, All that the LORD hath spoken we will
do. And Moses returned the words of the
people unto the LORD.” back up the mountain
to talk to the LORD.
“And the LORD said unto Moses, Lo,
I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear” notice this please,
“when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever. And Moses told the words of the people unto
the LORD.” (verse 9) ‘LORD, they said, whatever
you tell them to do, that’s what they’re going to do, they’re going to be good
children.’ ‘Tell
The People To Get Ready, I’m Going To Meet Them In Three Days’ “And the LORD said unto Moses, Go
unto the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash
their clothes, and be ready against the third day: for the third day the LORD will come down in the
sight of all the people upon mount Sinai.” (verses 10-11) So that Rock that’s following them has got to
spit out enough water for them to do laundry now too, concept of
cleansing. Of course it’s interesting
that Peter tells us that a day with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand
years as a day, and that Hosea says ‘Behold, after two days
I will come,’ and we’re right around there now, for those of you that
are prophecy-ites. ‘I will come
down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai,’ “And thou shalt set
bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye
go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely
put to death:” (verse 12) the Old
Covenant, I’m so glad in the New Testament we’re told to draw near, to God’s
heart. “there shall not an hand touch
it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast
or man, it shall not live: when the
trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount.” (verse 13) Notice, to the mount, but not on the
mount. “And Moses went down from the
mount unto the people, and sanctified the people; and they washed their
clothes.” (verse 14) Poor guy, going
back down again. “And he said unto
the people, Be ready against the third day:
come not at your wives.” (verse 15) ‘keep yourselves from intimacy, set
yourselves aside.’ He’s going to
tell him the LORD’s going to come down, in thick
cloud, he’s going to speak, the trumpet’s going to blast. So verse 16 says “And it came to
pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings,
and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud;
so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.” Now what was that anticipation like? they had
seen what the LORD did in Egypt, they saw his
power, now here they are camped at Mount Sinai, Moses is going up and down the
mountain, every time he comes down ‘and the LORD said to tell you
this,’ and
the mountain didn’t look any different at that point in time. But he’s telling them, on the third day, the
LORD’s
going to show up for this conference, and make a covenant with you as a nation,
you’re going to be his people, he’s brought you out of Egypt. Now he’s going to give you his Laws, his
precepts, he’s going to speak to you.
And I just imagine, what must that have been like, 2, to 2 and a half
million people camped there, again, thinking the city of Philadelphia is a
million and a half, imagine 2 million people, what was their anticipation like
that morning? As they thought ‘This
is the day, Moses says, the LORD is going to come, his
presence is going to be manifest, he’s going to blow a trumpet.’ “And it came to pass on the third
day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud
upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the
people that was in the camp trembled.” (verse 16) Now that’s a loud trumpet, no PA system, but
a Divine PA system. You know, just
imagine, this darkness coming down on the mountain, settling there, lightnings
and thunderings and the sound of a trumpet that drowns all of that out, that
sounds loud and long, so that 2 million, the kids crying. There’s something to be awesome about this,
as God manifested himself to his people, that they would be in awe of who he
was. That they would realize this Great
God that brought them out of Egypt, who had led them and cared for them, and
now brought them to this place where he would make a covenant with them, and
make them a covenant people out of them.
“And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God;
and they stood at the nether part of the mount.” (verse 17) and I bet they
were walking slow, they kind of stood back.
‘no you, no you go first,’ you can imagine this. “And mount Sinai was altogether on a
smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in
fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as
the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.” (verse 18) I love the King James. It was altogether smoking, the whole mountain
“because the LORD descended upon it in
fire” Please, not a volcano, all of these are
granite, there’s not volcanic rock here, all of this is solid granite, these
ranges. Speaking of the people, even at
Harvard, who want to make this immediately a volcano, no evidence of that at
all. “And when the voice of the
trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God
answered him by a voice.” (verse 19)
you know, as the people were saying ‘It’s been blowing too long
Moses,’ the whole time it’s getting louder and louder. Now, Moses, give us a little more details
than that, is this just you and the elders, is this, are you close enough that
God’s voice drowns out the trumpet and people or at least the elders, those who
came forward hear him speaking to you? “And
the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, on
the top of the mount: and the LORD called Moses up
to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.” (verse 20) God’s grace on this guy, he’s 80 years old,
going up and down a mountain like this, up and down, up and down, up and down,
God’s keeping him alive. “And the LORD said unto Moses, Go
down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the LORD
to
gaze, and many of them perish.” (verse 21)
‘Moses, go down and warn them, not to come close,’ you know,
they’re not to touch the mountain. “And
let the priests also, which come near to the LORD, sanctify themselves,
lest the LORD break forth upon them.” (verse
22) Now, what do you say to the LORD when he tells you
like that? The ground is shaking,
there’s a furnace, the mountain’s on fire, there’s a sound of a trumpet, ‘Yes
LORD.’ “And Moses said unto the LORD, The people cannot
come up to the mount Sinai: for thou
chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it.” (verse 23) ‘You already told us to do this, I got guards
down there,’ he
walks all the way up to the top of the mountain so the LORD can tell him to go
back down and warn them. He’s thinking ‘I
don’t have to do it, they know, I don’t have to go back down there.’ Look at the next verse, “And the LORD said unto him, Away,
get thee down, and thou shalt come up, thou, and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people break
through to come up unto the LORD, lest he break forth
upon them.” (verse 24)
‘Away!’ that
means ‘back down.’ What a
remarkable, remarkable scene. Of course
the LORD knows the people better than
Moses does. He will get to know
them. “and thou shalt come up,” ‘Can’t
I just stay up, LORD?’ “And Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people break
through to come up unto the LORD, lest he break forth
upon them.” “So Moses went down unto the people, and spake unto them.” (verse
25) But you know, this happens to be an
incredible, incredible sequence of things, and this day had a profound effect
upon the nation of Israel. Look, we’re
going to look at the Decalogue here, the Ten Commandments. I know when you see the Movie, Charleton
Heston’s up there, kind of looking for the LORD, and Joshua gets
tired and lags behind him, and you know the LORD’s going to be there
when you hear ‘Dan, Dan, Da-Dan,’ then you’re on the right mountain, the
right scene, and as Moses is there this fire, kind of this fire comes in the
air, cuts out the stones, cuts out the Commandments. The description we have here is vastly
different than that. [Of course, God
through Moses is writing this, not Cecil B. DeMille 😊] God will speak, audibly, to 2 and a half
million people from the mountain. Moses
will afterwards go up and get the writing of the Commandments, they get it from
him audibly first. Imagine the PA system
necessary to talk to the entire city of Philadelphia, which is only a million
and a half. He gives them the
Commandments. When he is done issuing
these Commandments, the people come to Moses and say ‘Moses, from now on,
you talk to him, you go to him, because if he gives us 11 Commandments we’re
going to have a cardiac, you go to him, whatever he tells you, you come tell
us, we’ll do it.’ Look, go over to verse
18, in chapter 20, “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 unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.”
(verses 18-19) “And Moses said unto the
people, Fear not: for God is come to
prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.” (verse
20) ‘He wants you to
understand his majesty, his power, his beauty, his commitment to you,’ the
idea is. “And the people stood afar
off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.” (verse
21) Deuteronomy, you don’t have to
turn there, I’m going to give you a reiteration of this event from Deuteronomy,
where it says ‘These words the LORD
spoke
unto all your assembly,’ after it gives the Ten Commandments here, it says ‘the
LORD spoke them unto all
your assembly in the mount, out of the midst of the fire of the cloud and the
thick darkness, with a great voice,’ I guess so, ‘and he added
no more, and he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me,
and it came to pass when you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness,
for the mountain did burn with fire, that you came near to me, even all the
heads of your tribes and your elders, and you said ‘Behold, the LORD our God has showed us
his glory, and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of
the fire, we have seen this day that God doth talk with man, and he liveth,
we’re still alive. Now therefore, why should
we die? for this great fire will consume
us if we hear the voice of the LORD God anymore we will
die.’ and they say the same thing, ‘You
go talk to him, whatever he tells you, you come tell us, we’ll be fine with
that, let’s not go through this again.’
Exodus
20:1-19 “And God spake all these words,
saying, 2 I am the LORD thy God, which have
brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 Thou shalt have no
other gods before me. 4 Thou shalt not make
unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is
in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in
the water under the earth: 5 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; 6
and
shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. 7
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. 8 Remember the sabbath
day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shalt thou
labour, and do all thy work: 10 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: 11
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. 12 Honour thy father and
thy mother: that thy days may be long
upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. 13
Thou
shalt not kill [Hebrew: “murder”]. 14
Thou
shalt not commit adultery. 15 Thou shalt not steal. 16
Thou
shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. 17
Thou
shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s
wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any
thing that is thy neighbour’s. 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 removed, and stood afar off. 19
And
they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” The
Ten Commandments Introduction “So
this scene is something that we have to try to understand the scope of, 2 and a
half million people camped by the side of the mountain, the mountain’s smoking,
it’s on fire, sounds of the trumpet beginning, drawing everybody’s attention,
and then out of the mountain ‘I AM THE LORD THY GOD!’ What did that sound like? It shook the whole valley, all of them are
like, just imagine what this was like.
And it was clear to them, these were the Ten Commandments, they were not
the ten suggestions, by the end of this day nobody had any confusion about
this, they were not ten opinions, they were the Ten Commandments. They’re the ones that are on the Courthouse
walls, they’re in the Supreme Court, but we’re not allowed to tell the truth
here, but they have them posted everywhere else. And there’s a lot of people that are going to
stand before God, he’s going to say ‘You looked at them every day, they were
written on the wall right behind you, what’s the problem here?’ These are the Ten Commandments, the Ten
Commandments, not the ten suggestions.
Jesus said ‘If you love the Lord your God with all your heart,
soul, mind and strength and your neighbour as yourself, in these you have
fulfilled the law and the prophets,’ and certainly they reflect the two
tables of the Law, the first table of the Law dealing with our relationship
with the LORD, the second dealing with our
relationship with our fellow man. The
Law was not given to take away sin, it was not given to produce Salvation in
Israel in that sense that we understand it.
The Law was not given in Egypt, and God didn’t say if you obey these ten
things I’ll deliver you and get you out of here. This law was given to a redeemed people, they
were redeemed by the blood of the lambs on the Passover night, they were
already out of Egypt, and God gives them these commandments to be statutes and
ordinances for them to live by, different from all of the other nations on the
face of the earth, that they themselves as a nation, before the Aaronic
priesthood was established in the nation, that the nation itself would be
priests to the rest of the nations of the world, the rest of the heathen
nations of the world were to hear from the Jews [they always say Jews, but it’s
the 12 tribes of Israel before the Mount here, of which the Jews, the tribe of
Judah was only one tribe] there was one God, that he was worshipped a certain
way, that he was Holy and that he was good, that he was majestic and upright
and all-powerful. These Ten Commandments
were given to the nation, the people hearing this out loud. We have nine of them enforced in the New
Testament, they haven’t changed, it’s still wrong to commit adultery, it’s
still wrong to steal, idolatry is still wrong, 1st John ends with ‘My
little children, keep yourself from idols.’
The one thing that is not enforced on the Church is the keeping
of the Sabbath. Sabbath in Israel was
from sundown Friday when three stars are visible in the sky to sundown
Saturday. The Church has always kept
Sunday, the 8th day, the day of the Resurrection, Acts chapter 20,
verse 7, 1st Corinthians chapter 16, verse 2…right in there, it says
that they gathered on the first day of the week. [Comment:
based upon recent historic research, the early Church that started in
Jerusalem, and after the Jewish-Roman wars, ended up in Asia Minor, the early
churches of God coming originally out of Jerusalem and spreading throughout the
Roman Empire, they all kept the Sabbath and Holy Days of Leviticus 23 for the
first 300 years of their existence. To
view a research article proving this, including historic sources, see https://unityinchrist.com/history2/earlychurch1.htm]
Paul
tells us in Colossians, Feast days, new moons, Sabbaths were all a shadow, that
Christ himself is the reality of all of these things. Paul tells us in Romans 14, one man esteems
one day above another, another man esteems every day the same, but we shouldn’t
judge each other on those things. So the
Church is not mandated to keep Sabbath.
[Comment: there is a huge
dichotomy and ongoing discussion about whether the Sabbath day has been
abrogated for New Testament Christians or not.
These two articles explore the doctrinal evidence in that ongoing
discussion. See https://unityinchrist.com/wwcofg/Has%20the%20Sabbath%20Been%20Abrogated.htm and https://unityinchrist.com/hebrews/Hebrews4-1-16.htm]
The
spirit of that should be ours on the Lord’s day [what he’s calling Sunday],
Sunday should be a day of rest, Sunday, I love Sundays, my longest workday,
it’s usually an 18 to 20 hour day [for him, Pastor Joe], but I love
Sundays. And it is restful for me, I
usually can’t wait to come to see what he’s going to do, whether people are
going to get saved, how’s the worship going to be, how’s the sermon going to
be, I never know till it’s all over, you know, are people going to be blessed,
are people going to cry, are they going to cry because the sermon’s so bad, is
it going to put them to sleep. I just
come to see what he’s going to do, I come with great anticipation as God’s
people gather together, and it is a restful thing to me, it’s a busy thing
physically, but what it does in my heart and my spirit is remarkable. And look, the spirit of all of these things
is enjoined upon us. “And God spake
all these words, saying…thou shalt have no other gods before me.” (verses
1-3) We have the spirit of it handed
to us from the Master, Our Father. “Thou
shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing
that is in heaven above, or that is in the 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 shewing mercy unto
thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” (verses 4-6) It says here, “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.” (verse 7) ‘Hallowed be thy
name.’ “Remember the sabbath day, to
keep it holy. Six days shalt thou
labour, 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.” (verses 8-11) Children, obey your
children in the Lord, “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which
the LORD thy God giveth thee.” (verse
12) “Thou shalt not kill” (verse 13)
‘Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.’ “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” (verse 14) ‘Lead
us not into temptation.’ “Thou shalt
not steal.” (verse 15) ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ “Thou shalt not bear false witness
against thy neighbour.” (verse 16) ‘Keep us from the evil one.’ it says in the Lord’s
prayer, which is the accuser of the brethren.
“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not cover thy
neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his
ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.” (verse 17) We don’t have any need to, because the
heart of what we believe is “thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory
for ever and ever, amen,” all that we long for is an inheritance,
incorruptible, undefiled, it fadeth not away, it is on reserve for us, we don’t
have to covet a 54-in TV or a car [he laughs].
So the heart of these things are ours.
And the righteousness contained in them is part of the instruction in
the New Testament, undoubtedly. But
let’s look at them here. 1st Commandment “And God spake all these words,
saying,” out
loud, to this 2 and a half million people, coming out of the cloud and fire on
the mountain, everybody hearing ‘I AM THE LORD THY GOD,’ aaah,
because that’s the impression they give us, ‘Tell him not to talk to us
again!’ “I am the LORD thy God, which have
brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” (verse 2) That’s how it all begins for us, isn’t it? the
day we were saved. “Thou shalt have
no other gods before me.” (verse 3) First Commandment. It’s a heart issue, the last Commandment, a
heart issue. Very much practical things
inbetween. “Thou shalt have no other
gods before me,” all other ones, idolatry, not honouring his name, everything
on the first table is contained in that, “Thou shalt have no other gods
before me.” It doesn’t mean, it’s
not speaking of “before me” in the sense of precedent, in line, you know ‘You
can have your # 2 god, #3 god, as long as I’m the #1 God, you can’t have any
other gods before me,’ that’s not the word in the Hebrew, it means “in my
presence.” ‘There shall be no
other gods before me, as I sit enthroned in majesty, when I look, I don’t want
to see another god anywhere in my view, there shall be no other gods before me,
I am the LORD thy God, you worship
me alone, no other gods, I don’t want you to have a #2 god, a #3 god, a #4 god
and think that’s ok because you’re placating me in making me a #1 god,’ that’s not what it’s
saying, ‘no other gods, no other gods.’
“I am the LORD thy God, which have
brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
(verses 2-3) no
other gods. 2nd Commandment Second Commandment, “Thou
shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing
that is in heaven above, or that is in the 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 shewing mercy unto
thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” (verses 4-6) Look, first this is not a prohibition of art, it is
not a prohibition of sculpture, it is not a prohibition of engraving or
photography, it’s not a prohibition of jewelry, that’s not what it’s
saying. It isn’t saying you can’t
engrave an image, the Tabernacle was filled with nobs and flowers and
pomegranates and bulls, there’s all kinds of images there. Look around the planet, there are over a
billion images walking around the planet right now, created in his image and
likeness. What it’s saying is, ‘Thou
shalt not make unto me any graven thing, any image to bow down and to worship
it.’ [Used to be Catholics had
those images on their dashboards, plastic images of saint so and so, some
patron saint, that in a sense is idolatry, or getting real close to it.] It doesn’t say there’s anything wrong with a
dove on the wall [Calvary Chapels have a dove on their church wall, instead of
a cross], you go to the Philadelphia Art Museum, Jesus Christ, his likeness and
crucifixion is probably one of the major themes, and particularly in the Classics
all through the museum. It doesn’t say
that’s idolatry, you shouldn’t be on your knees before a painting worshipping
the painting, that’s what it’s prohibiting.
It’s not a prohibition of art or sculpture. That’s not what it’s saying, this is about idolatry,
it’s about making a graven image to worship it.
Isaiah, oh I can’t remember, 54 I think, God said ‘I will not
share my glory with a graven image.’ That’s
what it’s talking about here, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven
image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or
that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the
earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself
to them, nor serve them:” that’s the point of this, God’s jealous on behalf
of his people, not jealous in insecurity the way human beings get jealous,
jealousy is as cruel as the grave, we’re told in the Book of Proverbs, not that
way. He is jealous on our behalf. He knows tomorrow, he knows the end from the
beginning, so he’s not jealous in insecurity, he’s jealous over our wellbeing
and over our future. “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 shewing mercy unto
thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” (verses 4-6) extremely important, and “showing” that’s the
same word from verse 4, thou shalt not make,” same word, “making or showing
mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.” Look, this is not talking about ancestral
sin. That has creeped into the Church,
it’s ruined churches in the area, if you have any confusion about it, read Ezekiel
chapter 18, and it’s very clear there, ‘If there’s a man, and
he’s a good man, and does what’s right and so forth, honours me, walks with me,
keeps my commandments and so forth, he will be blessed because of his
righteousness. But if he has a son whose
a wicked son, and son does this and does that, and hates the poor and lives in
sexual sin, the son is not going to be benefited from the righteousness of his
father, the son will give an account for his own sin. But if that sinful son has a son, a grandson,
and that son walks in my ways, does what’s right, he is not going to be
punished for the sin of his parents.’ Because God is tired of hearing ‘Our
teeth are set on edge because our parents drank sour grapes, I have never
punished one generation for the sins of the generation before them,’ that’s
not what it’s saying here, because he says he shows mercy to a thousand
generations. In my house and my family,
I was the first generation saved, there was insanity in my family, they turned
to Christ, all of that is broken, I am not being punished for things that went
on in my family a generation or two ahead of me. God has blessed me so abundantly it’s
unbelievable. What it says here is the
iniquity is passed to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,
it is a Hebrew word that means “the bent,” it’s very important in child
raising. There’s a bent, there is an
example that’s set at home, there is, with children more is caught than taught. Gail Urwin always says, “I taught my kids
to eat with table manners, but they all eat like me.” So the problem is, in generations one after
another that hate God, the bent, the characteristics, the behavior, the
morality, the example of parents in those that hate him is passed on, that is
passed on, there’s an influence. ‘But
there’s mercy to a thousand generations of those who love me, to thousands of
those that love me” the LORD says. And it’s a prohibition of idolatry is what it
is. 3rd
Commandment Verse 7, “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.”
And
I’m sure you could probably sit down with a paper and pencil and write a number
of different ways that someone might do that.
I think of the unbeliever, on the job, smashes his thumb with a hammer,
and the first thing you hear out of his mouth is ‘Jesus Christ!’ why
nobody smashes his thumb and goes ‘Hari Krushna! Oh Buddha!’ they always
pick on our God because he’s the True and Living God. But more than that, I look at some of the
guys on TV, you know all the guys that get their permanents in the same place,
they swing around their jackets and knock people down, I think of the money
that’s being racked in with the name of Jesus held before people on the
television, and you hear of the lifestyles of these people behind the scenes as
they’re exposed, certainly that is taking the name of the Lord in vain, for a
vain reason. Jesus overturned the tables
of the moneychangers, said ‘This is my Father’s house, and you desecrated
it, thieves.’ So, the other side
of that is parents, I think, you know, if we tell our kids with our mouth that
they need to love Jesus and walk with him, and tell them a different story with
our life, we’re taking the Lord’s name in vain, it’s vanity, it’s useless. There isn’t a more confusing thing we can do
to our kids than tell them to walk with Jesus and believe the Bible, and then
you and I, for them to see us living a different way. So there’s probably many ways, the idea is,
it’s the name of the LORD, it’s like ointment
poured forth for us, Jesus, Jehovah is our Salvation [Yeshua], the name of
Jesus, never to take it in vain. The
Fourth Commandment “Remember the sabbath day, to
keep it holy. Six days shalt thou
labour, 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.” (verses 8-11)
Notice, he rested on the 7th Day, not that he needed rest, he
ceased from his labour on the 7th Day. Excuse me, but I have no problem believing
these are six literal days, these are six 24 hour days, over 2,400 times in the
Old Testament, and Moses the same one who wrote this wrote the Book of Genesis
said it was six days, he said it here, anybody want to argue about that or go
back and forth about it, you’re not sure about it, get “Unformed and Unfilled”
by Dr. Weston Fields, and he tears the whole argument down to basics, and quotes
ancient rabbis, everybody who understood, it’s just a great work, but these are
six literal days. Theistic evolution was
a compromise, because when Darwinism came to the surface, and you need to
understand Darwinism, I encourage you to at least get the first study we did in
Genesis, because if you understand Darwinism, you understand how dark it is,
because the implications are racism, murder, abortion, is all out of belief of
origins. If you believe God made us,
we’re all equal, there is no room for any of those things. [Comment:
Real theistic evolution, and the word “evolution” is a very poor word to
use, because real theistic evolution was a 100
percent God-controlled event from beginning to end, carried out by God flipping
genetic “gene switches,” to bring about the changes of lifeforms from
single-celled organisms to complex lifeforms as we see them today, going
through the various eons, epochs and periods from the creation of earth 4.5
billion years ago to now. GMO geneticists are knocking on the doorstep of
what God was doing, but in a very imperfect and dangerous way. The record
of the rocks don’t lie, but as Dr. Michael Behe (PhD in biochemistry) brought
out in his landmark book “Darwin's Black Box,” the cell is so very highly
complex, that it had to have been created all at once. The record of the
rocks shows that “all at once” creation took place some 3.5 billion years ago,
and what the record of the rocks shows, is God’s theistic “evolutionary”
creative work to transform those early cells into what we have now, but first,
by creating cyanobacteria to terraform earth’s atmosphere by creating oxygen,
then went on through the record of life found in the record of the rocks, from
then to now. It was a God-operation of
creation. See https://www.unityinchrist.com/Genesis1-1-31.html. Yes, Darwinism is
evil as a doctrine which came out of Darwin’s theories, based upon his
discoveries. His observations in early
paleontology were somewhat accurate, but his theories that came out of that
were wrong, racist and murderous. Real
theistic “evolution” has nothing to do with that.] But if you understand the things that Darwin
said, about race, about human life, and that becomes your basis of origin, that
is a very dark and Satanic position, and it has brought all kinds of evil on
this world. The Church [greater body of
Christ] is intimidated, because scientists were all clamoring to that position,
and compromised to theistic evolution.
A.E. Wildersmith when he was still alive and he was here at church, he
said “Theistic evolution destroyed Europe and produced fascism and
communism,” he said “it was the end of Europe. If the Church had held her place, believing
in a Creator God, that has no trouble bringing everything together in six days,
that never would have happened.” [He
is correct about Darwinism, that is not the kind of “theistic evolution” I am
talking about in that link. Anyway,
we’re so close to the end of the Age right now, however God did the creating,
in six literal human days as we know them on earth, or via the Gap Theory, as
Pastor Chuck Smith believed (who started the Calvary Chapels), or via the
theistic evolution with time dilation, as I describe in that link, it doesn’t
matter, we’ll find out soon which way God did it at the Wedding Feast of the
Lamb (cf. Revelation 19:7-9).] So I
encourage you, get at least the first study in the Book of Genesis that we did,
and think about it. By the way, if you
think we’re going through these commandments too fast, we did them several
years ago on Sunday morning, one week per commandment, so that should be slow
enough for you, you can get ten studies on the Ten Commandments, and go through
each one, one at a time. Ah, if you want
to be a Sabbath-keeper, you have to work six days, you don’t work five days and
take the weekend off, you work six days, and rest on the seventh. [Pastor Joe is not a Sabbath-keeper, nor does
he go to a legitimate Sabbath-keeping church, so he does not know what he’s
talking about here. I highly recommend
Samuele Bacchiocchi’s book on the Sabbath, titled “The SABBATH in the NEW
TESTAMENT, answers to questions.” (Copyright 1985 by Samuele Bacchiocchi, New
expanded edition 1990, To purchase a copy of this book mail your prepaid order
($12.95, postpaid) to BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVES, 4569 Lisa Lane, Berrien Springs,
Michigan 49103, USA) It is a definitive
work on the Sabbath, accepted throughout the Sabbath keeping denominations
worldwide. Pastor Joe’s glib statement
there is totally untrue, and even Torah Observant Orthodox Jews have worked
five days a week, with weekends off.] “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.” By the way, great idea, having one day a week
to rest, to repose our hearts, research has indicated your immune system takes
a break once every seven days, some wonderful things relative to this, I think
it’s a good idea, I don’t do it, but I think you should. [Comment:
I attended a Calvary Chapel for about ten years, and one of their
pastors, Jewish by race, and very knowledgeable about both OT and NT prophecy,
told all of us that during the Millennial Kingdom of God which will be
established at Jesus’ 2nd coming, after he touches down on the Mount
of Olives (cf. Zechariah 14:1-15), the days of worship for the Church around
the world will be the 7th Day Sabbath and the Holy Days of Leviticus
23. He said, “So you’d better get used
to the idea, because that Kingdom is coming to earth soon.” Just a thought. Again, there is a huge dichotomy between
Sunday-keepers and Sabbath-keepers over whether the Sabbath Day has been
abrogated, negated, in the New Testament Scriptures, the Four Gospels and
Epistles. This article examines that
subject in detail, see https://unityinchrist.com/wwcofg/Has%20the%20Sabbath%20Been%20Abrogated.htm] 5th
Commandment “Honour thy father and thy
mother: that thy days may be long upon
the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.”
(verse 12) There are only three commandments in the
Bible spoken directly to children, you have this one here, Ephesians 6, and
Colossians, they all basically say the same thing, ‘Children, obey your
parents in the Lord, as the Lord said, honour your mother and father,’ there’s
lots of instruction for parents, there’s pages of instructions for us in
regards to our kids. We should have no
excuses. Kids, God asks one thing of
children, “honour your mother and father.”
My kids were growing up in the house, arguing with my wife, whether they
were wrong or right in that argument, they had already failed, because that was
a secondary problem. The first problem
was they hadn’t honoured their mother.
It’s not always just about right and wrong, and certainly there were
things that you sat and you talked about, but listen, we live in a culture
where youth is deified. We’ll have a
girl in our school who wears a shirt so short that he whole midsection is
showing, and we call her mom and say, ‘Come in and get her or bring her
clothes,’ and her mom comes in and we look at the way the mom’s dressed and
we think ‘We’re fighting a loosing battle here, because mom’s 45 and she
thinks she’s 13 years old, how are we ever going?’ Youth is deified, you see people 50 years
old with pierced tongues and rings in their nose, and then there’s euthanasia
in some places in the world where they’re helping old people check out. The elderly who used to be a group that was
honoured, I think it was Spurgeon who said “The elderly is a group everybody
reluctantly joins because of the alternative.” Honour your mother and father, you know,
look, that starts when you’re young. And
I know, maybe there’s teenagers here, some of you, and I don’t mean to be
cavalier and naïve, some of you have grown up in abusive situations, and it’s
very difficult, and I know that. You can
at least be left to pray for that individual, maybe they’re miserable, maybe
they’re lost, maybe they’re going to burn in hell if they don’t get saved, but
you can at least say, ‘Lord, that’s the physical vessel you used to give me
physical life and bring me into this world, I don’t know why you made that
decision, it breaks my heart sometimes, Father, I need your wisdom, I need your
strength, things happened in my life that should have never happened, Lord, I
put them before you.’ If you have
good parents, any teenager here with Christian parents and they’re good
parents, you’re griping and complaining, I’ll just hit you on the head with a
ballpeen hammer, I’m telling you. In
this world, if you have parents that love Jesus, stop griping about them, thank
God for them, get on your knees and thank the Lord for them. And certainly as the tables turn, when you’re
young, they have the parental role, with my dad, the years come where you
become the parent in some ways. There
were no retirement homes, you didn’t shove the elderly away somewhere in some
sad situation, they were the patriarchs of the family, they were honoured, and
as they get older you owe that to them, to care for them, remember Jesus
challenged the Pharisees about saying “Korban,” to care for your parents, to
get to them, to tell them you love them, be supportive of them. You know, I’m 56, but I’d like to be 20
again, only if I could know what I know now.
I would never want to be 20 and know what I new then again. The worst thing would be to be 56 and know
what I new then. But I’d love to be 20
and know what I know now. [In the
resurrection to immortality, we’re going to end up with 20 year old bodies, but
composed of eternal spirit which will never age.] My dad in his last days, World War II, came
through the Depression, he said ‘Joe, I feel so bad, you have to take off
from work,’ and I said ‘Dad, I don’t do this because I have to, I do
this because I get to, it’s a privilege for me, we’re only going to do this one
time, I’m not going to look back on it and regret it for the rest of my life, I
get to do this, it’s my privilege to be with you, to be your chauffeur, take
care of you, drive you around to get you to the doctor, get you to the
surgeon.’ We only get to do it one
time, we’re going to do this right. And
what a privilege and what a blessing it was, “honour your mother and father”
it says, “that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.” 6th
Commandment “Thou shalt not kill” (verse 13) The commandment is “thou shalt do no
murder” [in Hebrew], premeditated manslaughter. We’re going to hear that broken down as we
get into the Law, involuntary manslaughter, God makes a provision for that. Ah, he sent Israel into battle, to war, and
war was necessary, we wouldn’t be here if there hadn’t been war through the
centuries. Through war the tribe of
Judah was sustained, and the Messiah came into the world, and there is a
difference between war, between governments and thou shalt do no murder. The next Commandment is “Thou shalt not
commit adultery.” (verse 14) and the sentence for an adulterer was to be stoned
to death, so you have “thou shalt not kill, and thou shalt not commit adultery,
it’s “thou shalt do no murder.”
It was speaking about premediated manslaughter, it is not our option, I
know that we get angry, we can get angry, it’s not our option. [Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5 that we’re
not even supposed to hate someone, that that is the spirit of murder.]
7th
Commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
(verse 14) Look, we’re honouring the Lord, we’re
honouring his Sabbath, we’re honouring his name, we’re honouring parents, we’re
honouring life, we’re honouring marriage, we’re going to honour the right to
private ownership. “Thou shalt not
commit adultery.” (verse 14) and
there’s going to be much said about that as we go through the Law, and it was a
capitol crime. An adulterer was put to
death. [Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5
that we’re not even to look on another woman, person, to lust after them, that
that’s the spirit of adultery.] 8th
Commandment “Thou shalt not steal.” (verse
15) Do we need to elaborate on
that? How did you get that whole thing
of pencils on your desk? ‘Oh at work,
they don’t care about them,’ hey, where’d you get all those boxes of
paperclips, ‘I just took them from work.’
Look, please, here “Thou shalt not steal.” ‘Ah, you’re being nitpicky,’ I didn’t
write it, you’re being nitpicky, picking on me, I didn’t write this, I’m just
reading it. Thou shalt not steal. [The apostle Paul said the positive spirit of
this Commandment was “Don’t steal, but get a job and use some of the money to
support the poor, fatherless and widows.]
9th
Commandment “Thou shalt not bear false
witness against thy neighbour.” (verse 16)
Isn’t it interesting, certainly slander, gossip, so many things come
under that, bearing false witness.
Because in this day, particularly in regards to “thou shalt not commit
adultery,” somebody could bear false witness, you could end up stoned to
death. “Thou shalt not bear false
witness against thy neighbour.” 10th
Commandment “Thou shalt not covet thy
neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his
manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is
thy neighbour’s.” (verse 17) This is before Desperate
Housewives and some of the wonderful programing was on television. Of course, that’s bowing down in front of an
image sometime, I think. “nor his
Porsche,” you get the idea? Look, if you
don’t covet his wife, there won’t be adultery, if you don’t covet his
belongings, there’s not going to be any theft, if you don’t covet something
that you don’t get, there’s not going to be any murder. Paul says in Romans chapter 7, you read it,
he said ‘I thought I had kept the law, because I had never committed
adultery, never committed murder, I honoured my parents,’ but he said ‘when
I got to the tenth commandment, it slew me, because I realized that the law was
spiritual.’ Everything up to
that last commandment is speaking about outward behaviour and observance. When you get to this last one, ‘Thou
shalt not covet,’ everybody is guilty under the Law. No one has kept the Law. You look at a woman and lust after her, you
look at something you want that somebody else has, “thou shalt not covet,” and
Paul says in Romans chapter 7, you read verses 7 to 14, read to the end of the
chapter. ‘Thou shalt not covet thy
neighbours house, thou shalt not covet his wife, his maidservant, his
manservant, his ox, his ass, or anything that is thy neighbour’s.’ ‘Moses,
You Speak To Us And We Will Hear, But Let Not God Speak With Us, Lest We Die’ We read this, all the people saw
it, they heard the noise, the trumpet, the mountain smoking, the people saw it,
they removed afar off, they said to Moses ‘Speak thou with us, we will
hear thee, but let not God speak to us any more lest we die.’ Quite an impressive day. “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 unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.”
(verses 18-19) Quite an impressive
day. “And Moses said unto the people,
Fear not: for God is come to prove you,
and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. And the people stood afar off,” I bet
they did, “and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.”
(verses 20-21) What kind of
impression did it make upon the people?
How lasting? By the time we get
to chapter 32 they’re making a golden calf and bowing down to worship it. You would think, you would think, and you
hear Christians say it, ‘If I could just see somebody raised from the dead,
if I could just see Jesus rebuke the wind and the sea, If I could just see
Jesus heal the blind, man, that would put a charge in my Christian experience,
then I’d really be a serious Christian.’
Well what about if you saw the Nile River turn to blood, and you saw
the plague of lice, and the plague of frogs, and you saw Egypt in blackness and
Goshen in daylight, what if you saw all of the firstborn in Egypt slaughtered,
what if you saw the Red Sea part, what if you saw the Pillar of Fire by night
and the Pillar of Cloud by day, what if you saw 5,000 tons of manna a day
falling from the sky to feed your encampment?
What if you saw a Rock following you around the wilderness to give you
water, what if you saw God’s presence on the mountain, the mountain shaking,
fire, the people scared to death, a trumpet blowing longer and longer, louder
and louder, then God speaking these Ten Commandments, you’d think you’d be
changed, don’t you? I happens by faith,
it happens by receiving Jesus Christ, it happens internally, line upon line,
precept upon precept, here a little there a little, God’s Word in our life does
not return void, it accomplishes what he sends it forth to do. The importance of what we do, week in and
week out. Never say ‘I’ve been in
Genesis before, I’ve been in Exodus,’ as far as I’ve been concerned, I’ve
never been here before. And I’m familiar
with the territory, but every time I come back I see things I never saw before,
because this is not a biology book or a chemistry book, it is a living
Word from God, and there are depths to it that I haven’t realized.
There is simplicity and power to it, that I’m just beginning to
understand. There’s beauty to it that
still fills me with awe. And it still
talks to me, sometime even when I don’t want to hear what it’s saying, it still
talks to me, it still talks to me. We
have this. Read ahead, 21, 22, there’s
some great things ahead of us if the Lord tarries we’ll be back here next
Wednesday night, chugging along through Exodus.
I’m going to have the musicians come, we’re going to sing a last
song. And look, if you’re here this
evening and you don’t know this God we’re talking about, make your way up here
when the service is over, we’d love to just answer your questions, talk with
you, give you a Bible, pray with you if you’re ready to receive Christ as your
Saviour. The Law was given, as the Bible
says, not so we could keep the Law, because nobody can keep the Law. Because even if you do your best, you still
covet, you still, the problem of the heart is the heart of the problem. And the Law as the Bible says, is a
schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. The
Law was a mirror for the Jews [Israelites] to look and see what they really
looked like. You look in a mirror and
see your face is dirty, but you don’t take the mirror and wash your face with
it. [Comment: The Law shows where the dirt is, the water to
wash the dirt off is the Holy Spirit.
The Law has a purpose of showing us where the dirt is, Christian growth
is using God’s Holy Spirit to clean the dirt off during our journey toward
eternal life, and that’s after our sins have been paid for by the Blood of the
Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ.] You put a
thermometer in your mouth and find out you have a fever, then you don’t get a
glass of water and swallow the thermometer.
It doesn’t remove the fever, it just tells you have one. There’s another means of relief, as we see
ourselves as lawbreakers, we understand what the human heart really is, and how
sweet and how beautiful Jesus Christ is, coming to us offering us Salvation,
freely, with his own accomplished work on the cross, finished, it is
finished. Let us pray. If you don’t know that God, who died for you,
please we’d love to talk to you at the end of evening…[transcript of a
connective expository sermon on Exodus 19:1-25 and Exodus 20:1-19, given by
Pastor Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue,
Philadelphia, PA 19116] related links: Based upon recent historic
research, the early Church that started in Jerusalem, and after the
Jewish-Roman wars, ended up in Asia Minor, the early churches of God coming
originally out of Jerusalem and spreading throughout the Roman Empire, kept the
Sabbath and Holy Days of Leviticus 23 for the first 300 years of their
existence. To view a research article,
including sources, see https://unityinchrist.com/history2/earlychurch1.htm There is a huge dichotomy and
ongoing discussion about whether the Sabbath day has been abrogated for New
Testament Christians or not. These two
articles explore the doctrinal evidence in that ongoing discussion. See https://unityinchrist.com/wwcofg/Has%20the%20Sabbath%20Been%20Abrogated.htm and https://unityinchrist.com/hebrews/Hebrews4-1-16.htm This article “How Does
Jesus Want Us To Observe His Sabbath Day?” is from the Sabbath-keeping
Churches of God perspective, and is Biblically accurate in it’s views, for
those who do with to observe the 4th Commandment. see https://unityinchrist.com/wwcofg/Observe%20His%20Sabbath%20Day.htm Audio version: https://resources.ccphilly.org/detail.asp?TopicID=&Teaching=WED556 |