Audio
Israel
has just received the Word of God concerning how He wants them to live! And
even as He speaks, they are cut to the core of their being with conviction that
they are already guilty of violating His Law. Notice, in verse 18, cognizant
that they are in the presence of the Lord, with the echo of His voice still
reverberating in their ears, “they trembled and stood at a distance.” They said
to Moses, “Speak to us yourself, and we will listen; but let not God speak to
us, or we will die!” (v19). The Holy Spirit convicts us to the core of our
being that we are guilty before God, and that there are dire consequences to
our actions. To tremble under such conviction is a fitting response to what God
has spoken.
Why are you here? I suppose that there are a variety of
reasons that people come to church on Sunday morning, so what is your reason?
Have you come out of a sense of duty or tradition? Have you come to socialize
with your friends? Have you come because you had nothing better to do? Or have
you come because you realize that man does not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceeds from the mouth of God? You see, when we gather for
worship, we come to celebrate together the glory and power of our God, and we
come to hear this God speak. Now, it would be arrogant presumption for me or
anyone else to say that, when we speak, God is speaking. But as we proclaim the
Word which He has inspired for us – inerrantly, infallibly, and authoritatively
in the Bible – we have the confident assurance that we are hearing God speak. As
I have traveled the world, I have had the opportunity to visit many temples and
shrines of other belief systems. In many of them, there are gods on visible
display. Some are made of gold and silver, some of wood and stone. Some are
beautifully decorated with precious stones, others are nondescript and
unadorned. But all of those gods have one thing in common. They are silent.
They are seen but not heard. They cannot speak. The God whom we serve, however,
is entirely different. He is not seen. He is not visible. His presence is not
represented by any tangible object. But His voice is clearly heard as He speaks
through His Word.
In our text today, the nation of Israel comes to the wilderness of
Sinai, the base of a great mountain. Seven weeks have elapsed since they left Egypt . And here
at this mountain, God is going to do something for them that He has done for no
other people of the world to that point in history. He is going to speak to
them. From atop the mountain, covered with smoke from the fire of His presence
and surrounded by darkness and flashes of lightning, God revealed Himself and
His will to Israel .
The book of Deuteronomy records for us Moses’ farewell speech to the nation of Israel before
his death. In it, we are not surprised that he takes them back in their
memories to this very event. He said to them in Deuteronomy 4:33, “Has any
people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have
heard it, and survived?” In his commentary on that verse, Eugene Merrill points
out that “there are not even any other peoples that heard the voice of the Lord
speak out of the fire and didn’t live
to tell about it.”[1] Carl Henry
noted that in God’s merciful act of revealing Himself and His will to His
people, “He forfeits His own personal privacy that His creatures might know
Him.”[2]
We must never lose sight of or take for granted the
unprecedented and unparalleled mercy that God has shown us in revealing Himself
to us by His word. Therefore, what we are coming to do every Sunday morning as
we gather with the church, and even what we do every time we open our Bibles,
is not altogether different from the experience that Israel had at Sinai. So, as we look
at our text today, let us observe three realities about encountering the God
who speaks.
I. If we would encounter the God who speaks, there must be
careful preparation (19:1-25).
Think about how you prepare for Sunday worship. Maybe it
starts for you when your alarm goes off, then there is a cup of coffee, a
shower, a clean shave, the selection of your clothing, and so on. Those are all
good things. But preparation for the encounter with the speaking God begins
long before the alarm clock rings on Sunday morning. We see how important
preparation for encountering the God who speaks is here in the text, as a full
chapter is devoted to the subject.
Notice that first and foremost, there must be a relationship
with God. Notice in verse 3 that God’s first words to Moses, which he is to
deliver to the people to prepare them for this encounter, reminds them of the
relationship that they have with Him. He speaks in verse 4 of how He has
brought judgment on the Egyptians and carried Israel along “on eagles’ wings” to
bring them to Himself. He speaks to them in terms of a covenant relationship –
He will be their God and they will be His unique people in all the earth. So,
they are able to be the recipients of His Word because they have entered by
faith into this personal relationship with Him. And the same is true for us. Apart
from a personal relationship with God by faith in Jesus Christ, we may read the
Bible, but it will strike us no differently than reading the phone book or the
Declaration of Independence. But when we know this God in the context of a
covenant relationship, resting on what He has done for us through the saving
work of Jesus Christ, we perceive in His Word a clear voice of love and grace.
The Bible comes alive in our reading of it when we have that relationship with
God.
We also observe that there must be a commitment to obey what
God says. Verse 8, the people said to Moses, “All that the Lord has spoken we
will do!” Now, what has the Lord told them to do? At this point, He has not
told them to do anything!
Nonetheless, there is a commitment here to obey whatever He says to do,
whenever He says to do it! That is what it means for Him to be “Lord.” It means
that we do what He says in obedience to Him. So, when you open your Bibles or
come to the moment of teaching and preaching, have you committed in your heart
that you will obey whatever it is that God will say? When you call Him Lord,
there is no room to say, “Well, tell me what it is first, and then let me think
about it.” No, we say, “Speak, Lord, and whatever you say, I will do.”
A third measure of preparation is seen in the respect given
to the messenger. Verse 9, the Lord says to Moses, “I will come to you in a
thick cloud, so that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also
believe in you forever.” In other
words, God would make it evident to all the people that His word is what they
were hearing when Moses delivered the message to them. He was validating the
authority of His messenger. Now, I know that it seems very self-serving for me
to say this, but I am glad to say that I have enjoyed a great measure of
respect in this regard from you over the last 12 years. And I am emboldened to
say this today because soon, you will be hearing from someone else on a regular
basis. I hope that it has been evident to you in my preaching that I have
carefully tried to faithfully deliver the Word of God without alteration or
adulteration. And I want you to expect the same from anyone else who ever
stands in this pulpit. Aside from issues of moral integrity, the number one
criteria by which you must measure a pastor (and I could say the same for
Sunday School teachers, or any other kinds of teachers in the church) is this:
do they faithfully impart the Word of God. Expect it of them. Require it of
them. Hold them accountable to it. You need to know that you can respect the
one who stands to deliver the Word of God and trust them to do just that.
Another issue of preparation concerns personal spiritual
preparation. In verses 10 through 15, we see God giving the people instructions
to cleanse themselves in advance of the encounter with Him. These measures of
purification were outward demonstrations of an inward preparation of the heart.
It would do them no good to merely wash their clothes without washing their
hearts. Clean clothes do not indicate a clean heart, but the Israelites were to
symbolize the cleansing of their hearts by the cleansing of their clothes. For
us today, we may opt for differing ways of displaying the outward signs, but
the inward reality remains the same. Prior to encountering the God who speaks,
we must search our hearts and lay them bare before the Lord; examine ourselves
in light of His holiness and ask Him to cleanse us afresh and anew that we might
be fitted by His purifying grace to become an audience for His word, whether in
public or private.
In the remainder of Chapter 19, we see that preparation
includes cultivating a heart of reverence for God. We must know that we are not
opening our Bibles for an academic exercise. We are not listening to a
philosophical lecture. We are engaging in an act of worship as we receive the
Word of God and we must tune our hearts accordingly. For the Israelites, this
meant acknowledging the holiness and worthiness of God by abiding by the
boundary markers and consecrating even the priests, lest “the Lord break out
against them” (v22). There is a healthy fear and a holy reverence for God’s
glory that must not devolve in contempt by an illegitimate sense of familiarity
with Him. There is a danger of cold formality in worship that makes God seem
far off and indifferent to us. But today there is an increasing and equivalent
danger of viewing God as our buddy, and encountering His as hanging out at a
pajama party. If we do not strike a balance between these extremes, we will
abandon the reverence for God that is due Him, and our efforts to worship will
devolve into the self-centered adoration of a deity we have crafted into our
own image and likeness. This is the holy God of the universe! When we come
before Him, we are not hanging out in the living room, but we are bowing down
in the throne room! The reading and hearing of His Word is an act of worship!
This is why I so despise the vocabulary of “worship” referring solely to
“music.” I hear people say, “At my church, we have 30 minutes of worship and 30
minutes of preaching!” God forbid! If you do not come before the Word of the
Lord with reverence in an act of worship you will not encounter the God who
speaks! If you aren’t worshiping Him even in this very moment, then I dare say
that you probably have not been truly worshiping Him at any point in this
service.
So, chapter 19 teaches us the importance of preparation when
we encounter this speaking God, and shows us by Israel ’s example how we should do
so.
Now, we move into Chapter 20 and discover …
II. When we encounter the God who speaks, there is divine
declaration (20:1-17).
I landed myself in a bit of trouble here many years ago on a
Sunday morning. I was preaching from the Gospel of Mark, and the passage dealt
with a sensitive subject. I tried to be balanced in my presentation, indicating
the severity of the sin, but also ensuring the availability of God’s grace to
forgive us if we have committed that sin. After the service, I was approached
by someone who was extremely offended by the message. In fact, I don’t think
they ever returned after that Sunday. But I asked them, “What did I say that
has you so upset?” They told me what it was, and I said, “I did not say that.”
They said, “Yes you did.” I said, “No I didn’t.” They continued to protest and
said that they were mad at me for saying it. Very tenderly, pastorally, I took
my Bible and opened it to the passage and put my finger on the verse, and said,
“Are these the words that have upset you?” They said, “Yes!” I said, “Then you
are not angry with me, because these are not my words. I didn’t say this. I
merely read and repeated it. These are Jesus’ words. He said this. So are you
mad at Him?” There was no answer.
Friends, when we come before God and encounter Him in His
Word, we must recognize that it is Him who is speaking! We saw that in Chapter
19, when the Lord told Moses that He wanted the people to hear that it was Him
doing the talking (v9). Now, as chapter 20 begins, lest there be any confusion,
we are told plainly, “Then God spoke all these words.” Now, from what we come
to learn in the rest of the Bible, we have the assurance that what we read on
every page is the very Word of God.
When we read the Bible, God is speaking. Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All
Scripture is inspired by God,” or as the NIV says, “is God-breathed.” The Bible
does not merely contain some words of God, but it IS, as a whole, the Word
of God. So, when He speaks to us from His Word, we can expect the same kind of
divine declaration that the Israelites received at Sinai. And what kind of
divine declaration was that?
Notice first of all that it is a revelation of Himself. One
of my favorite Seinfeld episodes was the one about the celebration of the made
up holiday, Festivus. As the friends gather for the meal, Mr. Constanza says,
“The tradition of Festivus begins with the airing of grievances. I got a lot of
problems with you people, and now you’re gonna hear about ‘em!” Now, surely,
God would have every right to begin speaking to any segment of humanity in a
similar way, but He does not. Almost invariably in Scripture, when God speaks,
He begins by disclosing something about who He is! He does it here. He says in
verse 2, “I am the Lord (or I am YHWH) your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt Egypt ,
is quoted nearly verbatim 125 times in the Bible to describe His righteous and
gracious nature.[3]
It is almost always the case that the imperatives of
Scripture (what we must do) flow out of the indicatives in Scripture – that is,
propositional truths about who God is and what He has done for us. So, having
just revealed the indicative of who He is and what He done, He begins to reveal
His will in a series of imperatives. This is how He wants His people to live. In
short, because He is holy, He wills that His people would live holy lives
before Him and the watching the world that His nature may be reflected in His
people. He says repeatedly, in the Old and New Testament alike, “Be holy, for I
am holy” (e.g., Lev 11:44, 19:2; 1 Pet 1:16; et al.). Therefore our lives are
to be marked by the singular characteristic of obedience to His will, as
expressed in His practical commands for mankind.
If we were to number all of the commands and prohibitions of
the Bible, it would take a very long time. Even this would not be exhaustive,
for as Jesus demonstrates in the Sermon on the Mount, there are implications to
be drawn beyond what is stated in each command of the Lord. Nevertheless, by
God’s matchless divine wisdom, His perfect will for humanity is concisely
represented in ten rather simple statements. We call them the Ten Commandments,
and they are found here in verses 3 through 17. Herein, we find perfect moral
and theological guidance for how God intends our lives to be lived as we walk
by faith in Him. Here we see how He deserves for us to relate to Him, and how
He desires for us to relate to one another. When Jesus was asked which of the
commandments was the greatest, the questioner may have had in mind for Jesus to
pick one of these ten which was most important. But, Jesus did not respond by quoting
any of these ten. Rather, He quoted commandments which encompass these, saying,
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,
and with all your mind” (Matt 22:37, quoting Deut 6:5). And then He said, “This
is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love
your neighbor as yourself’” (Matt 22:38-39, quoting Lev 19:18). He said, “On
these two commandments depend the whole Law and Prophets” (Matt 22:40). And we
see how that is so as we examine the ten commandments.
In the first four commandments, God shows us His will for
how we are to love Him with the entirety of our being above all else. We must
have no other gods. That means there must be no idols in our lives – no matter
what they may be – which compete for our allegiance. He deserves first place in
our affections and devotion! We must not fashion any visible or tangible
representation of Him in order to worship that object. Some have inferred from
this that we should not make symbols or artistic representations of God or of
the Lord Jesus, and there is probably more merit to this suggest than we would
like to acknowledge. The primary point, however, is not that you cannot have a
portrait of Jesus, for example, but that you must not worship the portrait as
though it were the Lord Himself! We must not mistake the symbol for the
reality. He is the reality, and He is not confined within, or represented by,
any creation of our flawed imaginations. He says we must have a reverence for
His name, and not take it in vain. It means that we must not make reference to
God in a meaningless way. Some of us do this habitually when we use God’s name
as an exclamation of surprise or shock. Sometimes we are guilty of it when we
speak flippantly of the Lord, put words into His mouth that He did not say, or
say of Him things which are not true. And the fourth commandment indicates that
we are to honor His Lordship over our lives by devoting one day out of every
seven to Him. We keep the Sabbath in obedience to His command and example for
us to rest our bodies and concentrate our minds on Him alone. We honor Him in
our worship as we devote a day of our week to Him, and we acknowledge that our
labor is ultimately for Him, therefore, we can rest knowing that it is by His
working and not ours that we are made right with Him.
The remaining commandments express the love that God wills
for us to show to one another. We recognize in our fellow man the image of God
in which he or she was created and treat them accordingly. That means that we
honor our parents, knowing that God has placed us within human families so that
we can know what it means to live under His love and discipline. We must not
murder, for life is not ours to take. It belongs to God and bears His image. We
must not commit adultery, for the marriage vows are sacred, reflecting the
intimacy of our union with God in covenant relationship. We must not steal
because we believe that God provides to every man that which we need. Stealing
deprives others of what has God has provided them, and betrays the provision
which God has made for us. We are not to bear false witness against another, or
to speak things about them which are not true. We are to speak of others in the
same way we wish them to speak of us, stating only what is verifiably true, and
granting them every benefit of doubt. And we are not to covet, be it our
neighbor’s house or spouse, or station in life or possessions – “anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
Covetousness is a theft that occurs in the heart, and it indicts God for
failing to provide what is good and fitting for each person. The antidote to
coveting is contentment, training our hearts to be satisfied with what He has
given to us.
It is not difficult to see how, if we would live in this
way, loving God wholeheartedly above all else and loving one another
selflessly, the world would be a better place. God’s commands are not
restrictive and punitive. They promote the common welfare of humanity and serve
to secure a peaceable society. It is sometimes said that Israel ’s law
code, summarized in these commandments, was just a copy of other law codes that
came earlier or arose in other civilizations. No, as Bernard Ramm says, “More
mature analysis has shown how far superior the law of Israel was and
is. There is no parallel to the Ten (Commandments) in Confucianism, Buddhism,
Zoroastrianism, Islam, or the ancient religions of Egypt .”[4]
This is also why, around the world, these commandments of God have become the
basis of law codes in nearly ever civilized nation. This Law is good, fair,
just, and right. It says all that needs to be said, and does not include
anything that needs not be said. It is God’s will for humanity, revealed by Him
for our good and His glory. And the accountability that such a law requires is
not found merely in a court of law, but in the High Court of God’s justice. We
are not merely answerable to civil authorities, but to the ultimate authority
of a holy God who is a righteous judge. And because He loves us, He has
revealed to us who He is and how He wills for us to live. He wants us to live
lives of love for Him and one another.
Now, it should not take long for us, upon reading this
revealed will of God, to realize that we have violated God’s will and broken
His law. G. Campbell Morgan says,
Men are apt to thing that if there
be ten commandments, of which they obey nine, such obedience will be put to
their credit, even though they break the tenth. That, however, is to misunderstand
God’s purpose of perfection for man, and the consequent perfection of His law.
The ten words of Sinai were not ten separate commandments, having no reference
to each other. They were ten sides of the one law of God. … These commandments
are so inter-related that if a man offended in one point he breaks the unity of
the law.”[5]
We are therefore justly condemned as guilty before Him. We
have broken the whole law. The Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23) –
glory that is revealed and reflected in His perfect law. But, this very bad
news prepares us for the next reality of encountering the God who speaks, and
that concerns our response to Him.
III. After we encounter the God who speaks, there must be
personal reaction (20:18-26).
Last December, I was driving north on I-85 when I noticed
the sight of flashing blue lights in my mirror. I glanced down at my
speedometer, pulled to the side of the road, rolled down my window and held my
license out for the officer. I was guilty and I knew it! There was no way to
argue my way out of it or excuse my violation. Less than five minutes later, I
drove away slowly with my ticket and my court date.
But notice that the next reaction after conviction is
consolation. Verse 20, Moses says, “Do not be afraid; for God has come in order
to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you
may not sin.” In other words, let that sense of your guilt before God drive you
to Him, not away from Him. If you let it drive you away from Him, you will
perish and die in your sin. Let it drive you to Him so that He might deal with
your sin and deliver you from it, that you might live free of its bondage and
have victory over it.
How can such consolation be experienced by guilty sinners
condemned before a holy God? There is another reaction here, and it is
restoration. In verses 21-25, the Lord instructs the people how they may return
to Him. In the very giving of the law that condemns, there is the
acknowledgment of human inability to keep that law, and the gracious provision
of restoration of fellowship with God when we break it. He reminds them that He
alone is God and that they must have no other, and then He tells them that He
will welcome them to return to Him. But they cannot decide on their own how
they will return. They must come by His prescribed way and no other. He says,
“You shall make an altar.” And on this altar, they are to bring offerings to
make peace with God. If they will do this, God says, “I will come to you and
bless you.” But the altar is not to be the product of their own hands. He says
“you will profane it” if you put your tools on it. You build the altar with
what I have given you, and you return to Me by that way.
And friends, for centuries, Israel communed with her God in
this way, bringing offerings and sacrifices before Him on the altar to make
peace for their sin. But in the fullness of time, God would provide even more
perfectly for His people. He would come to us and bless us with His presence in
the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus. He became for us the altar and the
offering by which we are reconciled to God. On Him our sins were placed. He is
the only One who ever loved both God and neighbor perfectly, and in His death,
He paid the price for all of us who have broken every law God has given and
violated His glorious will. He is our offering of peace, for in Him and in Him
alone, our sins are forgiven, and God reckons to us the righteousness of
Christ’s perfect obedience and vows to treat us as though we were as holy as
His only begotten Son. He is a God who speaks, and He has spoken in many
portions and in many ways through the passing of time, but in these last days,
He has spoken to us in His Son (Heb 1:1-2), the Word of God incarnate, made
flesh, in the person of Jesus Christ. Prepare yourself to encounter this
speaking, saving God. Listen to the divine declaration of who He is and what He
wills for your life, and respond to Him from the conviction of our guilt, in
the consolation He offers us through the restoration that is secured through
Christ’s atoning death on the cross.
[1] R.
Albert Mohler, Words From the Fire (Chicago : Moody, 2009),
15.
[2] Ibid.,
18.
[3] Walter
C. Kaiser Jr., “Exodus,” in The
Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), 422.
[4] Bernard
Ramm, His Way Out (Glendale , Cal.
[5] G.
Campbell Morgan, The Ten Commandments in
the Light of the Christian Dispensation (Belfast: Ambassador, 1997), 11.
No comments:
Post a Comment