God Spoke with Fearful Glory #2

How great must be the authority and significance of this law, these Ten Commandments, in the eyes of God in light of the way that He gave them to His people. Hello and welcome. This is the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

I'm Bill Wright. Our current series is called God's Forgotten Law. And today, as Don continues teaching God's people God's Word, he'll wrap up his look at the vitally important historical context surrounding the Ten Commandments. Open your Bible to Exodus chapter 19, and let's join Don now for the second half of a message called God Spoke with Fearful Glory, here in the Truth Pulpit. Look at Exodus 31 verse 18.

It's just a cool metaphor that I want you to see. Exodus 31 verse 18. When God had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, He gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone written by the finger of God, supernaturally inscribed.

This was not Moses chiseling them out. God gave him a completed expression written in stone testifying to these Ten Commandments. Everything about it is set apart.

Everything about it is set apart. The people, the geography, the signs, the final inscripturation on the tablets of stone, everything is supernaturally set apart. There's a dread authority to these commandments. And if we can jump ahead into the New Testament, the dread authority of these commandments in our New Testament informed eyes based on what happened two thousand years or fourteen hundred years more accurately after these commandments were given to Moses.

You see, the dread authority of the Ten Commandments in the way that the Father struck the Son on the cross of Calvary, the authority of God, the authority of these commandments shown in the fact that not even the Son of God could be spared if the people of God were to be redeemed. And that holy, sinless, wonderful person of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself was struck so that the violations, the countless violations of the moral law of God by His people could be satisfied. And what happened at the crucifixion?

Supernatural signs attesting to it. Darkness and gloom fell upon the land for three hours as Jesus bore the wrath of God, and it went supernaturally dark, and tombs were opened, and dead people came to life in that whole redemptive weekend. Does this not, I ask you, does this not convict us of our superficial regard for the Word of God? Many of you don't even know the Ten Commandments. You wouldn't have known before the series started where to even find them in the Bible. How could it possibly be well with your soul if you didn't know the Ten Commandments? You wouldn't have known before the series started where to even find them in the Bible. How could it possibly be well with your soul if you're that ignorant and that uninformed and that indifferent to what God has revealed? How could it possibly be right with you in your heart if you've just lived life in utter disregard and lack of care for these things?

How could that possibly be? Well, you see another aspect of the holiness of all of this. You'll recall that Moses, when he came down from the mountain, he came down upon Israel, and they're dancing around a golden calf that they had prepared with the help of Aaron. They're dancing around this golden calf celebrating this physical object as representing the God who had delivered them in direct violation of the law that God had just given. And in verses 15 and 16 of chapter 32, you see this.

We're skipping over a lot of the narrative. Moses turned, went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony as hands. Tablets which were written on both sides, they were written on one side and the other. The tablets were God's work, and the writing was God's writing engraved on the tablets. And then Moses comes, and he sees this awful act of idolatry taking place immediately on the heels of this supernatural revelation. He comes upon them dancing and celebrating this, and it came about in verse 19, as soon as Moses came near the camp, and he saw the calf and the dancing, and Moses' anger burned, and he threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf which they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it over the surface of the water and made the sons of Israel drink it.

There's a man for you. The physical tablets, the breaking of the physical tablets signified the greater breaking of the spiritual law that had just been given to them. And you get a picture, beloved, of the significance of sin in this way. The great majestic way in which the law of God was delivered, the Ten Commandments were delivered. The holiness of that, and then the violation, and what's the outcome of it? All that majestic holiness, all of the authority of the law of God in the presence of sin shattered. All of that authority has been defied.

And what was true nationally is true of each one of us individually. It's a picture of our sinning against the authority of God and the shattering guilt that comes upon us in our rebellion against God. How can it possibly go well?

How can it possibly go well in light of that? Well, God, we won't take the time to look there, God graciously replaced the tablets, and he did something else to give a position of esteem and unique authority to the Commandments when they were placed in the Ark of the Covenant. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 10.

Deuteronomy chapter 10. The Covenant was the special box which was placed in the tabernacle. It ultimately came to hold different significant objects from the history of Israel. It was a symbol of the great presence of God.

It was a symbol of something else. And in that great symbol of the presence of God in the Ark of the Covenant, Moses was commanded to take those stone tablets and place them there in that place of that holy place that only the priests could approach. Place in there, God told Moses, these 10 Commandments.

Deuteronomy chapter 10, verse 1. At that time, the Lord said to me, cut for yourselves two tablets of stone like the former ones. Come up to me on the mountain and make an ark of wood for yourselves. I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets which you shattered, and you shall put them in the ark. So Moses made an ark of acacia wood and cut out two tablets of stone like the former ones and went up on the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. This is Moses speaking. And God wrote on the tablets like the former writing, the 10 Commandments which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly, and the Lord gave them to me. Then I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark which I had made, and there they are as the Lord commanded me. That setting them in the ark in that immediate presence of the symbol of the immediate presence of God shows how tightly connected they are to the presence and authority of God.

You can put it this way. God associated the Ten Commandments with the symbol of his very presence. He testifies to the authority of the Ten Commandments by his very presence and sets them apart in a way that commands unique attention from the people of God.

Now I just ask you a summarizing question here. How great must be the authority and significance of this law, these Ten Commandments, in the eyes of God in light of the way that he gave them to his people? All of the signs and their ultimate destination in the ark and the shattering of them when they were violated. The trembling and fear of the people. This is a moral law that is generating that kind of response and fear. Now look, at some point, at some point, someone needs to point out these things and say this is significant. This has consequence for your life and your standing before God.

And we can't, we can't joke our way through life. A pulpit cannot joke its way through these things and be consistent with the majestic authority that God attached to the Ten Commandments. At some point, beloved, in today's, one of those days, there's some point where we just got to get serious in a manner that is consistent with the serious awe-inspiring way in which God delivered his law.

The context matters. The people who were there trembled. And if nothing else, they're trembling in the event of the deliverance of the law. At the very, very least, it goes much farther than this, but at the very least, it should be a warning to us that our casual indifference to obedience to the authority of God's Word is a great threat to our souls and it is a symptom that things are not right between you and God. If you are that cold and indifferent and you can just sail through life without concern about God's law and your sin, I fear that we've been conditioned over several decades of bad ministry. We've been conditioned over several decades of bad ministry to just lose sight of the holiness of God, the authority of his law, and to just make an unfounded assumption that everything's well with us when it's really not. I know I'm right about that because Jesus himself warned about it.

He said, many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not? He'll say, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. You who have lived your life in an utter disregard to the moral law of God, depart from me. I don't know you. The one who knows me, the one who loves me is the one who keeps my commandments. Now, I know that there are some who are hearing this or who will hear it and who just resent it. Don't tell me there's something wrong with me.

Who do you think you are? You're a sinner too. Yeah, I freely acknowledge that. But today, you can't be like me, the 40 years ago me that just casually tossed it aside and said, well, that doesn't really matter.

That's not really that important. But understand that the whole weight and testimony is against that kind of response and dismissal. God spoke with fearful glory, and the wise man is the one who takes that to heart. The wise woman is the one who takes that to heart. Now, why did God give them? We answered the first question, when did God give them? Secondly, why did God give them? The answer to that question is seen in what's called the Preface to the Ten Commandments in the first two verses of Exodus chapter 20.

Turn there with me. Why did God give the Ten Commandments? Well, look at the Preface in the first two verses of Exodus 20. The first commandment is found in verse 3.

There's a preface that is given to it there. Then God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Why did God give them? We see that first of all, he gave them as an expression of his authority, his right and prerogative to command his people. It says there in verse 2, I am the Lord your God. I am God, I am authority over you. I am Yahweh, and I speak from my authority as your God. He says to them, God has the right to command and his people owe him their obedience.

But more than just raw power is at stake here. The Ten Commandments, for all of the fearful deliverance of it, the Ten Commandments are ultimately an expression of grace, of undeserved favor. Look at verse 2 again with me.

I am the Lord your God. This unworthy people has this worthy God as theirs. This is an expression of grace in keeping with what God had said earlier in chapter 19, you'll be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. A God of grace had called an unworthy people to his side and would be their God as the progress of Revelation goes. You see it in the Psalms. It would be their Redeemer, their Defender, their Shield, their Shepherd, their Fortress. This is incomprehensibly great. And there's authority, there's grace, and there's a memorial aspect to it in verse 2.

Look at it there with me again. I brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. The Ten Commandments are a reminder of the redemption of the people of God, the redemption of Israel. Arthur Pink in his little brief book on the Ten Commandments where he quotes, he draws heavily from prior writers without attribution, that's okay. Arthur Pink said this, the law proceeded from God as a clear expression of his character as both the gracious Redeemer and the righteous Lord of his people. There are those who would say, well this is all just directed to Israel, it has no application to Gentiles.

That's really bad theology and it's completely incorrect. This moral law of God was obviously and clearly enforced before it was given and it was enforced and understood by other nations as you see as you study Scripture in the book of Genesis beforehand. You see its authority now in the fact that the New Testament in one way or another refers to all ten of these commandments. This is not something that can be marginalized and that your conscience can evade, this is so important to understand.

You cannot evade the authority of this by saying well this was just Israel. You interpret the Ten Commandments in light of all of Scripture and all of Scripture points to the fact that there is a universal applicable authority to all men that is found in these Ten Commandments. So much so that Romans 2 says that the law is written on the hearts of those who have never even heard it. God imprints it on conscience and so we're all we're all under this moral authority of the Word of God. And what God did was he spoke with fearful glory to instill the fear of God in us. We looked at it already but look at chapter 20 verse 20 again. Moses said to the people do not be afraid, in other words this is not going to be the end of you, 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. There is a restraining effect of the evil of the hearts of men that is that comes under that is exposed and the Ten Commandments and the moral law restrains the evil that's in men's heart.

We'll see in future days why that is true but let me just kind of bring the plane in for a landing here and to summarize things and to give a preview of coming attractions you might say. What the law of God does, what the Ten Commandments do is this. The Ten Commandments expose your sin and they expose my sin to us as we go through and study them and understand as it were you you view your life in a mirror which is the Ten Commandments. It reflects back to you the sin and the wickedness and the disobedience of all of your life and your prior you know and the sin that's in your heart. It exposes it.

It comes as a spotlight, it comes as a flashlight and shines on the darkness of your heart and makes it undeniable in a way and makes that obvious to you. It exposes our sin with a spiritual purpose not as a not as a final end in itself not as a final goal simply to convict but to take you further. The law exposes your sin to make you despair over your guilt, your undeniable guilt.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But pride is so bound up in the human heart that it denies that and asserts its own innocence, asserts its own goodness, asserts its own sufficiency to enter into the presence of God at death. And so deeply rooted is that sinful pride in the human heart that it takes nothing less than a fearful authority of the law of God to expose it and to break it with the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit. Friends, you were guilty at birth with inherited sin. You are guilty by choices of your own sinful making and you are guilty by divine verdict if you are not in Christ. And when the law that came in such a fearful way produces that kind of convicting work in your heart, you realize that you're utterly undone.

There's a good purpose in that. There is a gracious purpose in that because the law is designed to so convince you of your sin that you turn in desperation saying, where is there a Savior? Where is there a mediator? Where is the Moses that can mediate between me and God just as Moses mediated for the people of Israel before the holiness of God? Who can mediate for me because I cannot bear this holy weight by myself?

I can't bear it at all. Then, beloved, then the gospel of Christ enters in. Then the gospel of Christ enters in and offers free forgiveness to those who believe. Then the gospel of Christ comes in and says, there God, in addition to supplying the law, has supplied a mediator who satisfied everything that the law demands, fulfilled all of its requirements, paid all its penalties, and is willing to share his perfect righteousness, share his cleansing blood with everyone who will come to him in humble repentant faith and confess him as their Lord and their Savior. This plowing work of God in the field of your heart is designed to break up the soil so that rather than the hardened soil that existed before, as did in my heart, the law of God comes, discs up the field of your heart, so to speak, so that it is prepared and ready to receive the good seed, the good seed of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But it is a fatal mistake for Christians, for churches, for pastors to just kind of soar past and do a quick overview and a quick, quick fly-by of the Ten Commandments because this takes time for that work to take place in us. But the pattern is this. We see the law and its authority. We see its law and its convicting power in an undeniable way. Say, absolutely, God, you're right.

I agree with you. Your law convicts me. I am not what you require me to be. And then from that point, then the message that Christ died for sinners, then the message that there is a Savior, there is a mediator, there is a Redeemer who can take you out of spiritual slavery and bring you graciously without your merit into His kingdom, then the gospel is sweet. So we see the law, and then we see our need for Christ. Beloved, here at Truth Community Church, we've taken a couple of steps on the journey so far.

We do so in fear of what the law says. We do it in hope of the words of our blessed Savior found in John, Chapter 7, when He said, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living waters. That's Don Green, reminding us of the tremendous importance of diving deep into God's Word in order to receive all that our Heavenly Father has for us. Next time, Don will look at how to correctly interpret the meaning behind the Ten Commandments here on The Truth Pulpit. Meanwhile, if you'd like a copy of today's lesson in its entirety, or you'd like to find out more about Truth Community Church, just go to thetruthpulpit.com. Once again, that's thetruthpulpit.com. Now for Don Green, I'm Bill Wright, reminding you to join us next time on The Truth Pulpit, where we teach God's people God's Word.