Chapter 10

Please read Exodus, chapter 20.

No, no, God did not forsake His people Israel. In love and grace He let them know that they would not be able to ‘do every thing the Lord had said’

Patiently God placed His people Israel under His holy Law; doing so His finger wrote their death warrant in stone! (Please read Deuteronomy, chapter 5). The holy finger pointed to their trespasses and guilt. Before their eyes and into their ears God exhibited His awesome holiness. His people were made to acknowledge their unholiness and ‘they stayed at a distance’.

Exodus 20:18-21 “When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses,’ Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but do not have God speak to us or we will die.’

Moses said to the people ‘Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning’.

The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.”

’The people remained at a distance’. Properly so! But? Did they learn anything? Yes, they learned fear of God. But how could they learn something from God, while they were in fear of Him and at a distance?

Day after day and night after night they could not obey His laws. Why was that so? It was so because they were born in sin. Within themselves they carried a sinful nature, which they had inherited from Adam and Eve. That nature cannot do anything else but sin. That’s why they did have to stay behind the fences and not try to climb up to His holiness. At last, finally it began to dawn on them: ‘God is holy and we are sinful.

I need to be responsible and stress this truth a little further. Even if, if a Jew had been able to totally keep and fulfil God’s laws to the letter, that Jew still would not have been a holy Jew! He or she would still be unsuitable to be in the holy presence of God. Totally unacceptable! Why? It is because he or she had an inborn sinful nature. That cannot and will not please a holy God!

I must also be responsible to tell you the whole truth and nothing else but the truth. You and I also have an inborn sinful, human nature. But the Lord God never placed His laws on you or me. He prescribed His Law for His people Israel and for no other nation or people (Please read Psalm 147:19,20). After many years had passed by, God had one of His servants write and refer to His Law as an instrument of wrath (Romans 4:15). That same servant of God, himself being a Jew, wrote to Jews in Galatia, who had become Christians:

Galatians 3:11,12,13 “Clearly no one is justified before God by the Law, because the righteous will live BY FAITH.. The Law is not based on faith; on

the contrary, ‘The man who does these things will live by them’. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us; for it is written: *‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’ “

For you and me God is not pointing to trespassing. For you and me there are no trespasses of the Law because the Law was not given to us. Only the innocent blood of the Jews’ sacrifices would satisfy the holiness of their God.

In other words, the Jew who does not do these things will not live! . That Jew will not die, he is dead. Dead in sin as sure as any unbelieving non-Jew. His only hope was in the loving grace of a forgiving God. This same God gave His one and only Son, Who carried the curse from the Cross to the grave. For all of us today, who will believe and accept the sacrifice of Jesus, that’s where the curse was buried.

The laws of God could never reveal what God was to the Jews, but it did tell the Jews what they ought to be towards God. The law commanded the Jew to love the Lord and love Him with all his heart, but if he did not, then the same law would curse him. Today man should love God and if he will not, his physical death will be eternal death. To become and eternally remain separated from God and His grace.

It must also be obvious that God’s laws for the Jews are neither the source of life to sinners, nor can be the rule of life for Christians these days. Today only God the Holy Spirit, revealing God, through the God-given Scriptures, can be and is both. Well. let’s get back to Exodus 20.

Exodus 20:22 “Then the Lord said to Moses ‘Tell the Israelites this, you have seen for yourselves that I have spoken to you from heaven.

v.23 Do not make any gods to be alongside of Me, do not make for yourselves gods of silver or gods of gold.

Dumb idols, made by human hands, made of the purest gold and highly refined silver, will they ever hear a human prayer? Dumb idols, shaped by human craft, dead gods, will they ever bless a human being? Who or what is the idol that you are worshipping today? Will your idol god move you one step closer to the only living God, the God of the Bible? What kind of altars are you building? Nicely dressed stones? Esteem by the community? Respectability in public life? Fame and honor in sporting circles? Or degrees in academic fields? Name and fame in the music-world? There is nothing wrong with any of these values. But if they are not there to glorify God, to Him they are without value. You will not take any of it into your grave. After the grave they will not help you to spend eternity in heaven, with God. The one, single alternative will be eternity in hell. The God of the Bible tells us about the only one single way in which we can be safe from that dread:

Acts 4:12 “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven, given to men, by which we must be saved.”

That Name is Jesus! The one and only Jew Who carried out God’s commands and did so to the full. The blood sacrifice, given by God, to atone for all sinfulness. Not one denomination, not one theological argument. But only JESUS, given by God, is the answer.

Exodus 20 :24-26 “Make an altar of earth for Me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and goats and your cattle. Wherever I cause My Name to be honored, I will come to you and bless you

If you make an altar of stones for Me, do not build it with dressed stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it.

And do not go up to My altar on steps, lest your nakedness be exposed on it.”

Israel may build the altar. Did you notice God’s words? He spoke about ‘My altar’. No tools and no nakedness! It was their God’s mode in which Israel may worship Him at HIS altar. An altar of earth! None of man’s silver or gold! Neither any of man’s works of nicely polished stones.

We are reminded of Adam and Eve. They were in God’s Garden of Eden. And they were naked. Then they disobeyed God and so became sinful. In order to look a little more decent, when they were to meet with God, they dressed themselves in fig-leaves. When God came down to meet with them they were hiding in the bushes.

But God had them take off the fig-leaves and dressed them in animal skins. Innocent blood had been shed. And Adam and Eve were presentable before God. Doesn’t that remind you of the blood of Jesus. Has that blood been applied to your sin-sick soul? Only, and only by faith in God’s sacrifice of Jesus, will you forever be safe in the presence of a most holy God. You will be His child.

Today the Christian church, all over the world, has only one altar. It was ordained and raised by God Himself. At that altar sinful human beings are absolutely equal. Not in any sense one higher or better than another. Together they worship the holy God of heaven. Christians may go up to God’s altar at the cost of the Blood of Jesus; they will never be naked, but always dressed in the righteousness of God. Please come, come with me, to the Cross and receive that righteousness. It has cost so much, but to you and me it is totally free. Did you get it? Israel never made a covenant with the Lord. They made promises, which they could never keep. The Lord gave His sacrifice, which to Him will be satisfactory for ever