All right, good morning. Let's go to Exodus chapter 19 is
where we're going to start Exodus chapter 19.
And Emma just turned 12 yesterday.
So I'm not quite there with what pastors talking about with
phones and things like that, but we have already looked into it
for when the time comes and there's just, if you're
interested, there are a lot of options out there because
especially once your kid starts driving and things like that, I
still use the GPS. So I imagine the kids would need
them and things like that. And there are there are
subscriptions and particular phones out there that you can
completely the parents have complete control of what apps
and different things go on the phones.
It's starts off with just the basic is just phone calls and
text messages and you can even limit the contact list to who
they can text. If they don't, if that number is
not in their phone, it doesn't even come through to them and
things like that. So there are lots of options
that the phone itself is not the problem.
It's what they can access through the phone.
And if you can control that and help them, then, you know, phone
having a phone is not particularly the issue.
And I and me and pastor have talked about that.
But there are lots of options out there if your kids are
getting to that age and and you want to look into that.
But Exodus chapter 19 Well, thank you for some of have asked
about my back. It's it's just something I'm
dealing with now just like anybody else that has an injury
or anything else. And then when we went on the
camp out, I had in my mind I'm not going to do anything crazy.
The hike I'll probably skip. I ended up playing flag football
and going up a hike that probably none of us had any
business being on with the boulders and everything else.
So anyways, I'm paying for it a little bit, but I am doing just
fine. So Exodus chapter 19, we're
going to read verses one through 8.
Remember we started a new series called Mountains and Valleys and
we are in the mountains right now and we're going to look at a
second one this morning. We're going to look at Mount
Sinai, but I'm going to read our text and then we're going to
pray and get into this lesson. Exodus chapter 19 and verse one.
We'll read verses one through 8 it says.
And 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 Refidim and
were come to the desert of Sinai and had pitched in the
wilderness. And there Israel camped before
the mount, and Moses went up in unto God.
And the Lord called unto him out of the mountains, saying, Thus
shalt thou say to the House of Jacob, and tell the children of
Israel, You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I
bear you on eagle's wings, and brought you unto myself.
Now therefore, if you will keep, if you will obey My voice
indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar
treasure unto unto Me above all people, For all the earth is
mine, and you should be unto me a Kingdom of priests and an holy
nation. These are the word which which
thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
So he was talking to Moses that whole time.
And verse 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.
And all the people answered together, and said, All that the
Lord has spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of
the people unto the Lord. Let's pray and then we'll get
into this lesson. Father, I thank you for this day
you've given us. Thank you for the opportunity we
have to open your word. God, I pray we would never take
that for granted. Every single week, multiple
times a week, we come in and we are able to open your word and,
and glean from it and God, and there are other places that do
that under, under the threat of, of real harm and from their
governments and different things.
So God, I pray that we would just take these privileges that
we have to do that and be thankful for them.
And God, I just pray as we open your word today that you would
feed us from it both this morning here in Sunday school,
but also in the in the service to follow in Jesus name, I pray,
Amen. Now I was reading through here
because you start to get in OK. And in Exodus chapter 20, we're
going to skip the rest of chapter 19, but it talks about
the the instructions from God to Moses saying, look, don't let
the people get too close. They touch them out and I'm
going to kill them. And so then you get to chapter
20 and we all know what chapter 20 is.
That's the 10 commandments. But I got to looking at it and
you know, very quickly. So you had in verse 8, verse 7,
and Moses came and called for the elders and laid before their
faces all the words which the Lord had commanded.
This is in chapter 19 and verse 8, all the people answered
together. This is the leaders, the elders
and said all that the Lord has spoken we will do.
And by chapter 32, they got a golden calf.
So I got to looking at that. And that's not the point of this
lesson this morning. But how did that happen so
quickly? Well, you have in chapter
2020120223 all the way to chapter 32, when Moses comes
back down the mountain, that's him.
That's God giving the law to Moses.
That's what that is and so if you read through there chapter
23, just jump right in. Thou shalt not raise a false
report. Put not thine hand with the
wicked to be an to be an unrighteous witness.
Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.
Verse chapter 24 he said unto Moses, Come up unto the Lord,
thou and Aaron and Nadab and abaya and 70 of the elders of
Israel and worship you far off. Moses alone shall come near the
Lord, but thou shalt not come thine neither shall the people
go up with him. Moses came and told the people
all those words and then God gives him some more law and, and
all the way through these these 1012 chapters, we have God
giving Moses the law of what was supposed to happen.
And no wonder what Moses is up there for 40 days and 40 nights
talking to God. He comes down and they've got a
golden calf, exactly what God just told them not to do.
Now they didn't have the 10 commandments yet.
But remember in chapter 19 he says, if you will obey my voice
and keep my covenant, and you should, then you'll be a
peculiar treasure unto me above all people.
And verse 8, all the people answered together and said all
that the Lord has spoken we will do.
And literally 40 days later they've got a golden calf and
they're worshipping it. So no wonder Moses was so
frustrated and crushes those tosses, those, those 10
commandments that were written on it and breaks them and makes
them eat the golden calf literally that he grounded up.
But we want to look real quickly at Mount Sinai then.
So this this whole chapters 19 through 32, roughly what was the
significance of Mount Sinai? And we're going to jump straight
into this. But you know, the 10
commandments that we have is really a summary of about 600
plus commands that the law had given the children of Israel.
So the 10 commandments were not the only thing they had to
follow. Now remember in the New
Testament when the, when the rich young ruler comes to Christ
and says, I've kept all those commandments.
He didn't keep all 600 and whatever commandments that that
God had given to Moses, but he was talking about the 10
commandments. I've I've kept those from my
youth and it's just a summary of the law.
So let's jump straight into it. What was the purpose of this law
that God was giving the children of Israel?
We see that in verse 3 of chapter 19.
Moses went up unto God and the Lord called unto him out of the
mountains, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the House of Jacob,
and tell the children of Israel, You've seen what I did unto the
Egyptians, and how I bear you on eagle's wings, and brought you
unto myself. Here's the purpose of the law
now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my
covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above
all people for all the earth is mine and you shall be unto me a
Kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
These are the words which thou shalt speak to the children of
Israel and then we already read verse 7.
Moses shows that to the to the, to the elders and they agree to
it. Now God was directing.
It's, it's very important here that what we see in verse 3,
because look how many times even before this, we see the children
of Israel rebel against Moses. You've, you've brought us to the
Red Sea. Now we're going to die.
The the Egyptians are behind us. The sea is in front of us and we
should have just left us there. God delivers them.
They cross the Red Sea and and if you read through Exodus, it's
like every chapter starts with the children of Israel
complaining about something, right?
So God is clear here to Moses in verse 3 and the Lord called on
to him out of the mountain saying, thus shalt thou say to
the House of of Jacob and tell the children of Israel.
God is saying, tell them this is from me.
This is not your law that you're giving them because they will
not follow it. It's too much to follow anyways,
even coming from God. But I want them, I do want them
to attempt to follow this law, but tell them it's from me.
So God gives Moses that first, but then he goes to verse 4 and
says, remind them what I delivered them out of in verse
4, ye have seen what I did under the Egyptians and how I bear you
on eagle's wings and brought you unto myself.
So God's about to give them these, this huge law that they
need to follow, but he says, but remind them that I delivered
them out of Egypt. And I think the reason he
reminds them of this is because they, they're going to resist in
their hearts, they're going to resist this law, but they needed
to be reminded of the goodness of God what he had brought them
out of. So God is not trying to make a
case or or convince them to follow.
He's just easing the, the instruction a little bit because
he knows these people for 19 chapters we see them fighting
and fighting and fighting God's man.
So he's, he's getting ready to give them the law.
But he says, Moses, tell them it's from me.
And also remind them that this is with their best interest in
mind. I'm not doing this because I
hate them. I'm doing this because I love
them. Remind them what I did in
delivering them from Egypt. But then in verse 6, we see what
was the, what was the purpose? What was the desire of God's
heart in giving them the law. We see that in verse 6 of
chapter 19. If you keep the law, if you will
obey my voice and keep my covenant, then verse 6 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. The whole purpose God's reason
for this was to draw them to bring them close to him and be
so they could be his people, a peculiar nation of king of
priests and holy people that were God's people.
So, but there, there are some prerequisites and we'll get to
that in just a second. But that was God's desire.
God's desire wasn't to say, watch what I put these people
through. They'll never be able to keep
this law. The, the whole purpose was to
draw them closer to God so that they could be his people.
And we see that all the way through the Old Testament,
especially with the prophets. Look at Jeremiah and and Isaiah
and the children of Israel just wandering away from God.
And God is has his prophets there to preach to them about
about their waywardness. But they have this promise here
in chapter Exodus 19, verse 6. If you'll keep this covenant,
you shall be unto me a Kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
So that was God's purpose in giving them the law and not but
secondly, what was God's path here?
Now to for this we're going to go to Exodus chapter 20 to the
10 commandments. Because God wanted to make the
children of Israel a unique people on the earth.
And he did, but that was his goal.
He wanted them to be a unique people that would be separated
from the rest of the world, that would stand out as God's people.
But he had to give them some guidelines.
And like I said before, the 10 commandments are just a summary
of the the law that was about to come in the next chapters.
So in Exodus chapter 20 verses one through 17, we see the 10
commandments. I'm not going to read all that,
but we are going to refer to them quickly.
And we're going to go through all ten of these commandments.
And you may have heard this before, but the first five
commandments are are man's duty toward God.
OK, So real quickly, let's look at those, the 1st 5
commandments. We see that and you and they are
all they all start off with the Lord thy God.
So verse two, 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.
And you keep seeing that I am the Lord thy God.
I am the Lord thy God. So these are these are man's
duties or the commands toward God that we need to follow.
And so the first one we see is in, in verses 2 and three, I am
the Lord thy God, which I brought thee out of the land of
Egypt, out of the House of bondage.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
And that was a, it's a pretty simple command.
And I think we often think that as long as we aren't worshipping
other gods like little idols, we're, we're in the clear on
this commandment. And then I do believe that that
was probably the real reason here for this command to the
children of Israel. They were already starting to
follow after these other gods. And you see it 40 days later,
they've got a golden calf built and they're worshipping it, not
just deciding, hey, what are we going to do with this golden
calf we found? They build it and they're
worshipping it. And and that's so God knew their
their heart. He knew where they were at here
with us. I've no other gods before me,
but for us, we, we may not have little idols in our houses that
were, that were worshipping or that we're carrying around as
good luck charms, but we do have other gods in our lives.
And I think so this is a very important command for us.
Don't have anything that's more important than God in your life.
Otherwise, it's a God. It is taking the place of God
because, because why else would he say thou shalt have no other
gods before me, Don't have any gods that you're worshipping
that are more important than me? He's not giving, he's not giving
liberty here to have other gods as long as I'm the most
important one. He's saying don't have any other
gods that you that that take importance over me.
And, and so I think in our lives, it's very obvious that
those are, you know, work and money, even kids, even family,
don't let them become a God before me.
I mean, he says that in the New Testament when he's telling the
the disciples, it's going to look like you hate your own
mother and your own father and your own children and your own
life also. That's what it's going to look
like when you have me in first place.
And I think that's what God was saying here in verses 2 and
three. Don't have anything else that
takes the place of God. And this is nothing we've not
heard before, but it's something we need to be reminded of
because there are plenty of things in our lives that that we
start to to. And I'll just give you a simple
example. But when was it job that said
I'd, I'd, I, I desire your word more than my necessary food?
Or was that David? I don't remember, but one of
them. What about us?
Do we get up in the morning and just go about our day?
It's we have so much important things that we've got to get to
those have become a priority over God.
And I'm not saying that, you know, I mean, the Bible is
pretty clear early in the morning.
We need to seek him and all the rest of that.
Now, you know, schedules differ and things like that.
But if you don't have a time where you're spending time with
God during your day, think other things have taken the place of
God and you have a God before him.
That's the first commandment. The second one is in verse 4.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness
of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in earth
beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Pretty simple command. But within a few chapters, there
go the children of Israel making a graven image of something in
the earth, a calf that they're going to worship.
But we're going to move through these fairly quickly, just
forsake of time. Verse, verse 7, we have a third
one. 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 preached a message just a a few months ago on this, so I'm
not going to belabor that point. But it's not just with our
mouths, even though that is important.
Not taking the Lord's name as a curse word or anything like
that, but also not taking His name for vanity.
And we, we preached a whole message on that, that you take
the name Christian, you take God's name and then you don't
live as a Christian. That's taking his name in vain.
And we need to be very careful of that.
Again, these are just a a summary of of these 10
commandments. Verse chapter 20, verse 8.
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy works, But the 7th 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 7th day.
Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath and hallowed it.
So keep the Sabbath. Now I'm not going to get into
this, but there is a whole faction that believes and that
is really making a big deal about the Sabbath being Saturday
and Satan stole Sunday and now we've followed Satan in making
Sunday the Sabbath. Not going to get into it, but
but there is there is quite a bit in the Bible.
In fact, I'll, I'll leave it at this.
Christ told the Pharisees, the Sabbath is not man is not for
the made for the Sabbath. The Sabbath is made for man.
So don't worry about which day particularly that you're
worshiping on or holding Sabbath on.
And I'll leave it at that. But Christ was pretty clear,
stop worrying so much about which day and just make sure
that you have one where you set aside and you worship God and
we'll leave it at that. But there is there's a whole lot
more we could talk about. It's actually a very interesting
study and I think that it's perfectly fine and right to have
the Sabbath on Sunday. There's nothing wrong that we're
doing, even though people do believe that Satan has hijacked
Sunday as his day. Anyways.
Don't let, don't let this man be, Don't let the Sabbath take
man. What Jesus said, let the Sabbath
be for man, not man for the Sabbath.
All right then the last one in these duties to God or these
commands God word is verse 12 Honor thy father and thy mother
that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God
giveth thee. So that's that's the key there
that little phrase, the Lord thy God.
So this is still God word, but he rewards that honor of thy
father and thy mother. And then we have 5 duties or
five commands that are man word and we start those right in
verse 13. Thou shalt not kill.
Very simple. But first we're reminded here in
these five commandments of the worth that God recognizes.
He made life. He created all living beings.
And he's saying don't, don't kill.
Don't just take life carelessly or without a justified cause.
Because there are other places in the Bible that God commands
life to be taken. But killing is for no reason
just because I feel like it or I'm angry.
But anyways. So God gives gives that
commandment. Verse 14, thou shalt not commit
adultery, another institution, institution of God marriage.
He says don't commit adultery. Verse 15, thou shalt not steal
again, these are still man word. Thou shalt not steal.
And you know, there's, there's the Bible does say that if a man
steals because he's hungry and, and can't provide for his family
and doesn't get caught, it is what it is.
But he says if he gets caught, he needs to repay fourfold.
So there are places that the Bible that God talks about, you
know, stealing for necessity or for life itself.
And I'm not, I'm not condoning stealing, but I'm just saying
God doesn't say that you need to die for theft.
But what he is talking about here is where you are defrauding
or stealing for your own increase for your own own gain
to to to build your portfolio or to build your resources.
Thou shalt not steal pretty simple command that we see verse
16. Thou shalt not bear false
witness against thy neighbor. You know God rebukes us having a
false testimony about somebody else or about anything else.
This when we used to learn these in in Sunday school as a kid, I
used to think, well, that doesn't say thou shalt not lie,
says don't lie about somebody about your neighbor.
But I but I think it does go without without saying God
expects us to be honest in the words that we use.
Thou shalt not bear a false witness.
That doesn't mean that you're giving a false testimony.
That means you're lying. That means you're something
false is coming out of your mouth with your tongue.
Don't do that. So, so don't lie.
And then verse 17, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.
Thou shalt not cover thy neighbor's wife that nor his
manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor
anything that is thy neighbor's. And I'll just say this about
this last commandment and then we'll move on.
But God is God is commanding us to be careful of what we are
going after. That's the covetous because what
our mind craves to have, we will pursue it.
When you set a goal in your mind of, you know, whatever the goal
may be, that's just how we are made.
We're made to go after it. And that's why if we, if we
guard our hearts and, and, and put our hearts to seek after
God, we will pursue that. But if we are being covetous,
and this is the, this is the warning here and the command not
to covet, because when we do start coveting it, we will, we
will get it, we will go after it.
So be careful of what you are, what you're letting your mind
begin to crave and covet because your hand will soon pursue it if
you let your mind go to that spot.
So, so the command is simply thou shalt not covet.
All right, So we see those those commands, those those 10
commandments, A brief summary of the law.
And then we have the promise of God.
But that's back in chapter 19. So go back to chapter 19 of
Exodus and we'll finish with this that what is this promise
of God Verses 19, chapter 19, verses 5 and 6.
Now therefore we read these already.
But if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant,
then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all
people, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be unto me a
Kingdom of priests and an holy nation.
These are the words which thou shalt speak to the children of
Israel. It's interesting there that God
says all the earth is mine. I could, I could choose anybody
I want. I could choose any nation I
want. But I'm going to choose you,
Israel. Why?
Because I chose you. Job says that pretty clearly
when his friends are are are talking to him about, oh, you
must have sinned and and the rest of that and Job, God
actually tells Job, because Job starts to come to God a little
bit and say what is going on? And God says, who are you to
question me? I do for my own pleasure,
whatever I do, don't don't question what I do and kind of
push Job back in his place. Well, that's what we have here
in verse in chapter chapter 19, verse 5.
Why did he choose the children of Israel?
Because he chose them. There's no reason but he says,
first of all, this promise is a provisional promise.
If is a big word there in verse 5, if you'll keep my
commandments, then you'll be a peculiar treasure unto me above
all people. It was not a, a, a promise that
no matter how they acted, he was going to, he was going to, this
was going to be the case. And again, we see that in Isaiah
and Jeremiah. God is reminding them, I told
you, you were going to be my people if you obey my commands
and all the rest of that. And that's the those prophets
trying to bring the children of Israel back into covenant with
God or back into that relationship with God because
they're breaking this covenant that was given here all the way
back in Exodus on Mount Sinai. But the second thing is it is a
positive promise. Look at verse 6.
Ye shall be unto me a Kingdom of priests and an holy nation.
I'm going to treasure you above all other people.
That is a positive promise. And again, remember at the very
beginning of chapter 19, God, God told Moses to tell the
children visual, this is from me.
But also tell them this is not for their hurt.
This is this is a good thing. You're going to be my people.
It's a very positive promise of the of the great possibilities
that lay ahead for Israel the the the promised land.
You know when God tells them I'm going to give you this promised
land of Canaan and the and the spies go in and are very
negative about what they see. God promised them that land that
was a positive thing, not were they going to have to go through
a lot of fighting and and, and hardships to gain that land.
Yeah. But if they would, they would
have this promised land that God promised to them to have for
their own. And it's the same way with these
commands. If you keep these commands that
I'm going to give you, you're going to be my people.
That's a positive promise for the children of Israel.
But then we have a problem with this promise in in.
I want you to go to Hebrews chapter 8, if you will.
Hebrews, chapter 8. So this was this is a great
promise that God gave to the children of Israel, but we do
have a bit of a problem here and it's not a problem on God's
part. In Hebrews chapter 8 and verse
8, Bible says for finding fault with them.
Let's let's read verse 7. For if that first covenant had
been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the
second, the second what? The second covenant, right,
verse 8 for finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days
come, sayeth the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with
the House of Israel and with the House of Judah.
So what was the problem with this covenant?
The problem was that it had faulty men trying to keep the
promises or keep the commands in order to get this promise.
It had a fault and it wasn't God's fault.
God didn't make a mistake saying, all right, I'm going to
set this law in order and hopefully they can keep it.
He knew they couldn't keep it. He purposely built that fault
in, and we'll see this in just a minute.
For a very, very good reason. You can't keep the law.
I want you to try and you're going to be my people if you
keep the commands that I give you.
But there's a problem. And you see that in wrote in
Hebrews chapter 8 and verse 7. If the first covenant had been
faultless, was it? Was there errors in the first
covenant? Then?
No, the fault was with the men that were trying to keep the
first covenant. And so in Romans chapter 10 and
verse 4, you don't have to turn there.
But in Romans chapter 10 and verse 4 now, so now we have this
great promise of God, but now we have we have a problem.
They can't keep it. So what does God do?
He provides for them in Romans chapter 10 and verse 4 for
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that
believeth. So he's the end of the law in an
in an attempt for righteousness. There is no more law in order to
be righteous before God and Christ completely does away with
that with the new covenant. And we see that in in Matthew 5
verse 17 when Christ is preaching his sermon on the
mount. Mankind was left with really
helpless. We can't keep the law.
So now what? What are we supposed to do?
Christ comes in and fulfills the demands of the law and you can
write that verse down Matthew 517 if if you want to go back
and look at it. But we just heard this verse a
couple maybe last Sunday night when pastor was was teaching for
whosoever shall keep the whole law and maybe it's Sunday
morning and yet offended one point.
He's guilty of all. So you've got this law that you
need to keep in order to be a peculiar people to me.
But if you offended one point, you're guilty of the entire law.
And so Christ was sent to fulfill that law.
And again, from the beginning of eternity, this was God's plan.
He was going to set this law in order, but he was going to, he
knew they couldn't keep it and he knew he was going to send his
Son to be the fulfillment of that law for them.
And this is the last point I want to make.
And this is, we know this, but I think this is a great reminder
to use in our own witnessing and in our own sharing the gospel
with others. Go to Galatians chapter 3 and
verse 24. This is really the the
culmination of what was the point of this really beautiful
law that God gave the children of Israel, but that they
couldn't keep Galatians chapter 3 and verse 24.
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto
Christ that we might be justified by faith.
And and I say that you know, we we use this to in our own
witnessing because almost always when you knock on somebody's
door and say, hey, do you know that your sins have been taken
care of by Jesus Christ? Do you know that you're going to
heaven when you die? What it what is the typical
response? Almost every door.
I hope so almost every single door you knock on now not every
because we have had some say Nope, I'm not going me and me
and Frank talk to one. I'm I'm a Satanist.
I'm not going to heaven, but most doors, I hope so that so
they want to be reconciled to Christ.
They do want to they don't know how they don't know what.
So when you say, well, what do you mean by I hope so the very
next answer. It's almost like a script.
Well, I'm a good person. I I mean, I, I, I try to help
people. I'm a good neighbor.
I mean all these things. It's it's almost like somebody
wrote a script for them and I think somebody did his name is
Satan to make us think I can get myself to heaven.
But here in Galatians chapter 3, it says wherefore the law was
our schoolmaster. So if you start if you start
when they say I hope so I'm a good person.
You say, oh, have you if you you keep the 10 commandments.
That's that's yeah, yeah, I try, I try to have you ever lied?
I think those are the wrong questions other than to show
somebody you you haven't kept the whole law.
You are a Sinner because I heard, I heard somebody say this
and I, I, I really, really liked it.
First Corinthians talks about this.
You look into the perfect law of liberty and what's the point of
that? To, to see in that mirror that I
am dirty and I need Christ. But I heard, I heard somebody
talking about this and he was actually arguing with an atheist
or, or a definitely a non believer, probably more of an
agnostic and they were having a good conversation.
But this guy said, well, then what was the whole point of the
law? What was the point of the law in
the Old Testament? Because I think they're two
different things. And there's so many verses we've
read some of them that Christ fulfilled the law.
But this, this guy that was the believer said this to him.
He said, you know, reading the Bible to try to be, to try to
get yourself to heaven by following, you know, those laws
is like looking in the mirror, seeing the dirt on your face and
then taking the mirror off the wall and trying to wipe your
face with the mirror. The mirror is just showing you
that you're dirty. Then you need to go clean it
off. And he said, that's what the law
is. It's showing us that we are
dirty. We cannot get to heaven.
So we turn to Christ for that cleansing.
And I think that's, that's exactly what this law was for.
God gave it to the children of Israel to be a peculiar people
if they followed it and then to show them you can't follow it,
can you? I'm that's why I'm sending
Christ to, to be the fulfillment of that law.
And it's the same for us. There is no other way to
reconcile ourselves back to the Father except through Christ.
There's verse after verse after verse.
Romans chapter 3 verse 20 says that therefore by the deeds of
the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight.
For by the law is the knowledge of sin, not the cleansing of
sin. For by the law is the knowledge
of sin. And we don't attempt to keep the
law right now, but we do. We have plenty of things that we
try to obey in the Bible, commandments that we try to
follow. For what?
For our salvation? No, for our knowledge that we
can't keep it. And so we must turn to Christ
to, to for that reconciliation back to God.
So that's where the the law was given to the children of Israel
on Mount Sinai. Another name for Mount Sinai was
Mount Horeb. You'll see that in other places
in the Bible. But Mount Sinai, Mount Horeb was
they were given the law to show them that they couldn't keep the
law, but they needed a savior. And Christ eventually came and
fulfilled that. And, and that's the same, same
thing that we have. We are saved the exact same way.
We can try to be a good person. That's great to be a good
person, but that's not your salvation that you're showing
you that you can't keep all the laws that God gave us to keep.
And that's not on God. As we said, there's a fault in
this system. And it's not, it's not an error
on God's part. It's a it's a problem on ours.
We cannot keep it. And so we need a Savior and
Christ graciously and mercifully came to be that savior for us.
And hopefully you're thankful for that and hopefully you know
that. And and that's what we'll finish
today with Mount Sinai. We'll get into another mountain
next week. Let's pray.
Father, I thank you for this day you've given us.
God, I thank you for just the clarity in your word.
God, if we actually read it and and attempts to know your heart
and what you were doing God in fact you're it's it's very clear
in the Bible exactly what you were doing.
You even tell us that the the law was not there to cleanse us.
It was there to show us that we need, we need cleansing from
something far beyond us. And God, I thank you again for
the sacrifice of your son and coming to to be that that
penalty for us. And God, I just pray as we get
into the next service, God, as I know the gospel will be preached
at some point in there. I pray if anybody in here during
that service is not saved, that you will help them to understand
their need of a Savior, that we can't be good enough to save our
souls. And I just pray that you'll be
with Pastor, give him the words to say and give him power as he
preaches. Pray that you'd meet with us
this morning in Jesus name, I pray, Amen.
We're dismissed.