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July 3, 2020 1:00 am
On earth, the law of gravity is immutable. God’s moral law has the same force. The commandments He gave to Moses define His character, and His expectations of our behavior. In this message we learn why God’s moral law shows us who we really are.
Click here to listen (Duration 25:02)Law of gravity is God's volleyball is the same force the commandments, he gave to Moses define his character and his expectations of our behavior today by God's moral law shows us we really are from the Moody Church in Chicago this is going to win with Erwin Moser whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line after Luther take us again into Exodus chapter 19 and give us a preview of today's portion of thunder from Sinai.
You know Dave, I really do believe that the only way I can give you a preview is to encourage people to listen to this message because I still remember preaching it. The holiness of God, the power of God. The fear of God. It's all here, if there's ever a time when this nation needs to hear a message like this.
It is now, and that's why encourage people call your friends. Encourage others to listen to the ministry of running to win. And by the way our ministry is heard in 20 different countries. For this reason, it's because of the people who support this gospel driven ministry. Here's what you could do if you're interested in becoming an endurance partner endurance partners are those who stand with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts go to RTW offer.com RTW offer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 and now let us open our Bibles and let us go to Sinai and as best we can behold God is 19th chapter in an Introductory Way, God is speaking to Moses in the first few verses in verse eight it says in all the people answered together and said all that the Lord has spoken we will do unbelievable to think they meant it. They actually thought that whatever God tells us to do.
We can do, how deceived, can you get it was Martin Luther who said that man is not only blind is sick and dad without God if he were blind to sick and dad Annette were the end of it he might see his need and cast himself upon the mercy of God, but he is not only blind, sick and dead but it's far worse than that he perceives himself to be able to see he perceives himself as healthy and alive, and that's what makes it so difficult for men and women to repent. They don't see themselves as God sees remarkable story in the New Testament, young ruler comes to Jesus and says what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life. Jesus plays the game with him.
What shall you do okay you want to do it by works fine.
There is a second way of salvation.
Just be perfect and you'll make it.
Jesus said, he says do the commandments. The young man says these have I kept from my youth. And Jesus said oh really tongue-in-cheek.
Our Lord says well you know one thing you lack go sell everything that you have been given to the poor and then come and follow me. Jesus knew that he was covetous so he picked on the last commandment remarkable story.
Why is it remarkable. The two most perfect human beings in all the world are having a discussion. One is the spotless Lamb of God and the other is a lamb with only one minor blemish.
Isn't that remarkable. These have I kept from my youth up.
You know that men needed to do. He needed to get a glimpse of the holiness of God and if he had seen God he would've fallen on his face and he repented in dust and ashes. The gall to say these have I kept from my youth up.
What shallow view of sin, you know what happens when people see God. They begin to see themselves, and it's not a pretty picture. Back in the early 70s there was a revival in Canada that swept across hundreds of churches in much of the Western Canada there was a friend of mine who said that as he was a pastor. He said that a man called him on the phone and was crying so violently that the pastor thought for sure that his wife had been killed her child died or something. He said come on right over. So the man came over and when he came over he just threw himself across the pastor's desk and just kept sobbing and sobbing and sobbing and you know there's nothing you can do when that happens, except to wait until the guy cries himself out and he can talk.
As you can know what's wrong and the man said. He said you know he says, I was sitting in my office, he says. And while I was there God to show me what was in my heart and he says it was so terrible that it was as if I was looking into the pit of hell was this man really wicked man not so wicked, what he had done was this he got somebody to live for him.
It was an insurance settlement and he found out that by telling a little lie he could get more from the insurance company that's no big deal. Compare that with City Hall snow often too worried about my why am I brother and I were in a Holiday Inn last weekend in Toronto and that we ordered some hamburgers to be brought to the room and the man who left he left the check so that we could fill it in the puzzled me. I couldn't understand why until I realize that there are some people who are on expense accounts.
We weren't, but there's some people and instead of saying that it cost is six dollars.
You could say that it costs 12 and you could get some extra money and so they just do it that way is a big deal. Of course, not everybody does other waitresses in the city of Chicago who don't report their income that they receive on tips because nobody does it.
One of the waitresses told me is that a big deal. Of course not everybody does what they are doing. My friend, it's no big deal until you have seen God. And once you have seen God and he exposes these things in your heart. It is as if you are looking into the pit of hell.
The reason that these things can be in Christians lives and we justified it. We excuse it is because we have not seen God. When Isaiah did. He said woe is me, for I am undone right well in the midst of a people of on the lips for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts will recall in the Old Testament. When Job saw God, what did he say is that I've heard of the by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see if the wherefore I abhor myself, and I repent in dust and ashes. When you see the holiness of God, and you then see your self. It will be like looking into raw hell, and the purpose of the law was that we might see ourselves in all of our sinfulness, and cast ourselves upon the mercy of God, and finally see what we are like in his presence. The first purpose of the law's to reveal the holiness of God. The second purpose of the law is to reveal the sinfulness of man.
The third purpose of the law is to reveal the need for grace, the need for grace because you see this great chasm that exists between God and man. How is it to be bridged. Job asked the question is that how can a man be justified before God. How are we going to take care of the pollution that is in the human heart.
When God is totally separate trends and holy. That's where grace comes in because grace comes along and says that there is a way God made by which he can maintain his justice and his holiness and still welcomes sinners into his family. That's grace. That's grace. I want you to see the contrast would you turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 12 Hebrews chapter 12 and I want you to keep your finger in that passage. If you would please because there is a contrast here between Mount Sinai. The old covenant and the new covenant that I want you to see it.
The contrast is between Mount Sinai and Zion, which is a poetic name for Jerusalem and here he's using it as a reference to the heavenly Jerusalem, and this is the contrast verse 18, Hebrews 12 for you have not come to amount that may be touched. He didn't mean that they should touch it, it means that it is a physical mountain that one could in principle touch you have not come to a mountain that may be touched into a blazing fire into a darkness and to bloom in the whirlwind and to the blast of a trumpet, and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard the bag that no further word should be spoken to them, for they could not bear the command and now it's a reference. You know, to Mount Sinai. Exodus 19 if even a beast touches the mountain it will be stoned and so terrible was the site that Moses said I'm full of fear and trembling. Now he says that Sinai now notice the contrast but you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, and the heavenly Jerusalem into a myriad of angels into the general assembly into the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all into the spirits of righteous men made perfect, I take that to be a reference to the Old Testament saints and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkling of blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel to see the contrast here Sinai terrifying dark thunder, lightning, unapproachable, don't attach your dead son, here is Zion. The new covenant brought about through the blood of Jesus Christ. What is the contrast light approachability, I welcome reception a congregation of the other saints and a knowledge that we can come into God's presence without fear knowing that we have been accepted and received on the basis of grace that the contrast that the author of the book of Hebrews wants us to understand nicely. Once you understand grace, then you understand certain things you know them that our ability to approach God has to be based totally and squarely not on the law, not on the law, not on our ability find this absolutely unthinkable, but occasionally I still run across people who say well you know I'm willing to stand before God on my own record all while, but I'm sure glad I don't have to stand before God on my record.
The Bible says that whosoever believes that salvation is of the law will be judged by the law, all of its penalties. All of its impossibilities are upon your shoulders. But we must not, and think that we are going to be saved and received on the basis of Sinai.
Without law, but we come on the basis of the blood of Jesus Christ. The sprinkling of his blood because he absorbed the imprint of sin and the penalty of sin for us, death and the curse were in our cup. Oh Christ was full for the but thou has drained of the last dark drop to his empty now for me and God says to us today. Welcome welcome because of the new covenant, not because of the old you understand now why salvation is of the Lord to understand why people who think that they contribute in a cooperative way in salvation are going to be damned forever.
The reason is because God cannot accept any works that a human being does in his white light of holiness. All of it is polluted and tainted and only what Jesus Christ alone has done is acceptable to a holy God and if we do not flee to him. We will be damned forever. You heard me give the illustration a true one. By the way of a father and his daughter who was out in the Prairie one day when there was a prairie fire that was approaching and they knew that it would be fatal to them, they'd be burned because it was coming, their direction and they couldn't escape and the father very wisely said to his daughter. Let's begin a fire right here.
They began a fire and they spread the fire and they made the fire burn a patch of ground. As far as they could possibly burn it and then when the fire came, they were able to stand on the patch of ground that had already been burned and because of that they were spared the fire that came here you are is an unsafe person standing on the ground. The dry grass with an approaching fire saying I will I will stand on my own record can be burned by the judgment of God. The Bible says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. You want to be trembling in your seat. Those of you who have come to church time to time.
Again, some of you heard me preach for dozens of times and you come in here and you do not believe in you postpone it and you put it off and you do not take God seriously and one of these days you're gonna be gone forever in hell and you're never going to be able to be excluded from the awesome holiness and fire of God then you're gonna bear it on your soul forever. That's the law you want to stand on your own record. Keep standing. I am not going to. I assure you that there's another covenant it's the covenant of grace. It's it's standing where the fire of God's judgment has already fallen. Is it is fleeing to Jesus Christ, who in his own body is soul and spirit absorbed all of the penalties against sin and who says to us today. When you come to me and you receive me I will be your protector and shield you from the awful wrath of God that I have already absorbed for those that believe that's the difference. Your Bible still is open to Hebrews chapter 12. Look at what it says in verse 25. See to it that you do not refuse him who is speaking.
For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth is talking about Sinai, much less shall we escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven. God says when he spoke on Mount Sinai. He says the accountability of those people is small in comparison to the accountability of people today who have the fresh light of revelation of Jesus Christ, who know more about God and more about his salvation today because Jesus Christ came from heaven to save us that there accountability. The accountability of this generation. You are accountability is much greater. See to it that you refuse not him, whose weeks just because he's speaking in grace does not mean that somehow he is a compromise around his character is changed and he starting to get a little bit weak on his judgment on sin.
And so I ask you today who have come here time and time again that you've heard the gospel you harden your heart and you said not today. What are you going to do with Christ.
What will you do with the only one qualified to shield you from the holy justice of God.
What will you do with him. I ask you the purpose of the law to reveal the holiness of God. The sinfulness of man and the tremendous need that we have for grace if it were not for Christ. We all have to absorb the fire forever shall we pray father it is to us. Absolutely terrifying to think that there could be people listening to this message. You've heard the gospel 100 times and said no.
All we pray today that they might not refuse him who speaks knowing that the terror of Sinai is but small. It says in comparison with the terror still to come. We pray that men and women throughout this congregation, and others who are listening, will say today I received Christ as Savior, I flee to him for mercy and grace we ask in Jesus name, amen. My friend, today has the Holy Spirit of God spoken to you. You understand that God is absolutely holy and we arson. Oh, we desperately need a Savior. We desperately needed mediator someone to stand between us and a holy God. If you've never received Jesus Christ as your Savior would you do that right now. Would you admit your sinfulness and your need for somebody who can come and rescue you from the wrath to come, our God, the Bible says is a consuming fire.
And if you've done that, I encourage you to connect with us and let us know. And by the way, if you are interested in the book I've written.
Based on this series of messages on the 10 Commandments you can communicate with us. Here's what you do you go to RTW offer.com that's RTW offer.com or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337 that's 1-888-218-9337. Remember that running to win exists because of people like you supporting this ministry and we'd love to hear from many of you perhaps have never connected, especially if you have come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. As a result of these messages I'm once again for you to ask Pastor lutes or a question about the Bible or the Christian life dabbling in the cult is a very dangerous thing, something believers are told to avoid. One of our listeners has this question about an Old Testament king of Israel, Pastor lutes, or do you believe that Saul was a believer even though he went to the which indoor excellent question, and that someday when I get to heaven. I'm going to try to find the soul to see if he's there.
Not absolutely convinced that he'll be there, but I think he might be, you know, the Bible does say in his early days, that the spirit of the Lord came upon him and he prophesied, and it also says that he was changed into a different man, that sounds like conversion to me. And yet when you read the rest of his life. It was such a mixed bag, jealousy, and evil spirit from the Lord comes and terrorizes him so that he tries to kill David disobedience he repents, but his repentance is fake it doesn't last. It is really halfhearted repentance and then at the end as you mention in your question, he goes to the witch of Endor. And what an experience that was. He goes into the occult.
Even though the Bible says that he put away all false prophets and all witches from the land.
Yet when he's desperate. He goes to a witch. Saul is one of the most interesting characters in the Bible. Read his story with fascination.
Will he be in heaven. I hope so, but I'm not sure thank you Dr. Luke surfer those insights if you'd like to hear your question answered.
Go to our website@rtwoffer.com and click on ask Pastor lutes or or call us at 1-888-218-9337 that's 1-888-218-9337 you can write to us running to win 1635 N. LaSalle Boulevard Chicago, IL 60614 there is one area in which God tolerates no competition.
He wants to be supreme in our lives, and he made that clear my writing on a tablet of stone.
The first of the 10 Commandments it's commandment number one reason on our next running to win will turn to the first commandment and find out why God tolerates no competition whatsoever when it comes to our allegiance running to win is all about helping you understand God's for your race of life. Thanks for listening. This is going to win is sponsored by the Moody church