God Spoke with Fearful Glory #1

God delivered the 10 Commandments in a specific way at a specific time to a specific people with a specific purpose and we need to see that surrounding context in order to have some sense of the weight and gravity that the 10 Commandments carried hello and thanks for joining us on the truth pulpit with Don Green founding pastor of truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio Pineville right today. Don continues teaching God's people. God's word will continue laying the groundwork necessary in order for us to fully understand and appreciate all that in depth study of the 10 Commandments has to offer believers this time specifically looking at historical context Don when studying the 10 Commandments important is context will bill the more I studied the 10 Commandments more of realized that the historical context is crucial to knowing what God intended us to glean from his law. The context shows us that the majesty and seriousness of God himself is expressed in the 10 Commandments, when he gave the law through Moses. The people feared God due to the signs that accompanied the giving of the law and that fearful context, shows the fearful authority of the commands of God themselves. You see, my friend.

The law leads us to fear God, which Scripture says is the beginning of wisdom.

Let's get started and open our Bibles as we turn to God's word today on the truth pulpit. Thanks Don and Fran go ahead and open your Bible to Exodus chapter 19.

Let's join our teacher for part one of a message called God spoke with fearful glory, truthful look at Exodus 19 verse 10. I just think this is magnificent Scripture that were considering here today.

I should kick off my shoes because we are standing on holy ground.

As we read and and examine these things. So in Exodus chapter 19 verse 10 you see this, the Lord also said to Moses – let's go back to to verse nine, the Lord said to Moses, behold, 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. Then Moses told the words of the people to the Lord.

Now verse 10.

The Lord also said to Moses, go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow and let them wash their garments, and let them be ready for the third day four on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people and so that this was such a holy occasion that was about to take place that God commanded the people to take a number of days to prepare for what was about to happen okay and so by setting the time apart in the people setting themselves and their garments apart as it were, setting themselves apart is setting it is setting the stage, it is preparing them for to recognize that the event for which they are preparing is an event in itself that is greatly set apart, and by showing the nature of the separation in the preparation that takes you on already.

Already we have a something that that strikes and sobers our heart in modern day I'm just gonna take a moment here for little bit of personal application and I don't care a bet that this is going to offend some a few I really don't because it's more important for us to understand the importance of what were studying rather than you know. To preserve individual's feelings. God told his people to prepare for the coming of his law, there are people that just the just find it a pain to get up in the morning to go and be at church on Sunday and the end and in an interview in a complaining way rubbing their eyes. And I don't want to be up right now. What kind of preparation of soul, heart and soul and mind is that for coming to hear the word of God, did the callous indifference that that the the callous disregard for the sacred nature of Christian worship of the proclamation of the word of God is. It is a conviction already in our hearts of these things and people want to stay up late at night and and you know and and and not not prepare themselves as many people of said getting a Sunday morning in preparation of your heart for Sunday morning. It starts on Saturday night and the way that you order and structure your life so that you are prepared to come into the presence of God under the presence of hid the preaching of his Word and to be able to receive it with a clear, active, engaged, energetic mind.

This is the start of preparation and in the way that you conduct your life on Saturday night as an indication in and it is an indication of the seriousness that you attached to Sunday morning and so God God takes these matters seriously and he says I'm going to give you my word in three days you need to get ready and it's not too much.

It's not too much for us to make sure that were rested. The work we are getting our proper sleep in preparation for the day and actually make the effort to show up and be here as you fine folks have done here today that this this matters and so the holy event of the delivery of the 10 Commandments was marked by a physical preparation now along with that when God gave the 10 Commandments, the holy event of the giving of the 10 Commandments was marked by a physical separation a physical separation. Look at verse 12 and and and there's just you know, as we read this or should just be this growing sense of awe and respect and reverence and even fear in your mind as you see what God did to prepare his people for the fearful deliverance of the 10 Commandments verse 12 he told Moses, you shall set balance for the people all around saying beware that you do not go up on the mountain or touch the border of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. There was this personal preparation followed by warnings about physical separation. Because this event was going to be of such significance and so before God has even spoken before God has even spoken the 10 Commandments he is prepared, the people with a sense that what is about to happen is an event set apart. This is uniquely different than anything that has come before hand. This is not common. This is a majestic pedestal of an event at which we will look up with respect and fear. There is a heart preparation that is going on the physical outward circumstances in which God prepared the people for the deliverance of the law was a means of emphasizing and signifying the great significance that it had in the purpose of God for his people. So you get the idea here already and we haven't even gotten to the fearful stuff yet we have and were going to get to that in just a moment, but already already were finding ourselves challenged by the great holy manner in which God delivered the law and told his people to prepare for it.

We are immediately confronted with our superficial and and deplorable in deference to the word of God as we see the way that he prepared his people to receive it told the story in the past about my own personal history.

I'd I detest the fact that this was a part of my life before Christ.

I remember, and in part of the reason I'm energized about preaching.

This is just that I don't want you to be like me like what I used to be like in the the utter disdain that I had for the word of God as a college student was expressed was expressed in this manner.

I didn't even own a Bible. The only by a real Bible the only Bible I had was one of those little giddy and new Testaments that somebody had given to me on the street corner of Indiana University. One time I didn't even read that, except for one night. I remember reading and I cracked it open and I was laying on my bed and I was half-asleep the same thing that I warned you against in your preparation for Sunday.

I was half-asleep. I think I read like five verses out of the book of Galatians. I had no idea what they meant and personally at that point I didn't even care and I and all does it grieve my heart to remember that I was like this. I am so sorry that I was like this I read those five verses out of the book of Galatians. While I was laying in my bed at the little apartment in which I lived alone. I closed that little Gideons New Testament and I casually flipped it over onto the dresser thinking in my mind, there God ought to be satisfied with that.

The utter contempt for the word of God that I had in my heart at that moment has never thoroughly left my mind as I look back on it with a regenerate mind now that was a perfect summation of the entire attitude that I had as an unbeliever, toward the word of God. I couldn't even sit up in a chair to read it. I read it at the end of the day when I was tired and not alert. I read such a short amount and maybe in maybe 60 seconds and I casually cast it aside, watched it plop on the counter and congratulated myself on the nice throw that I'd made and I said there gotta be satisfied with that is if God were answering to me instead of me answering to God and and his revelation in his word.

You see the problem you see you see how how this casual contempt and indifference. Even with an open word of God before you how casual contempt can can can define your attitude toward it. That's a real problem. God is holy and his word is true and one day were going to stand before him as a judge, don't you think what he has to say in the what his law is tortoises rather something of significance for that coming event course it is. And yet, you know, we resent getting out of bed for it. I don't get it get it. It's a manifestation of the dark dead hearts in the in the contempt that is in our minds for the word of God. Otherwise we would not respond in this way God knowing the human heart tells his people to prepare themselves. It's as though he says I'm making this somewhat metaphorical here. It's as though he said thinking about my day in Bloomington, Indiana yeah it's it's as though he see comes in. He tells the people of Israel set out and pay attention and get your heart ready for what I am about to say. That's the basic idea in colloquial terms for it.

What happened when the day King spent two or three days getting ready what happened when the day came for his word to be delivered well, I'll summarize and then show you in the Scriptures, God came with fearful glory to deliver this law he came with fearful glory to deliver this law. Look at Exodus chapter 19 verse 16 and the supernatural accompaniment of phenomena in nature gave the added witness to the weight that God placed to this occasion he came with fearful glory, and he spoke verse 16. So it came about on the third day when it was morning that there were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud trumpet sound, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. The visual assault on them.

The audio assault on their ears. The physical sensation of the ground, trembling under them, cause them all to fear and shaken in regards to what was happening in verse 17 Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain of verse 18 now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently ever been in a tornado or a hurricane or an earthquake, and you realize what's happening in nature is a threat to your existence. That is the sense of fear which accompanied the delivery of God's law. The whole mountain was quaking. Verse 19 it. It intensified verse 19 when the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Moses spoke and God answered him with thunder and the Lord came down on Mount Sinai to the top of the mountain and the Lord called to Moses to the top of the mountain and Moses went up now those are the preliminaries.

As we saw last time the 10 Commandments themselves are found in chapter 21 through 17. Copies of that message are available in the outer lobby. If you missed it. Want to pick that up. So we see it from God's perspective and what God did just immediately before the 10 Commandments were delivered and then he delivers the 10 Commandments in that those 17 verses and afterwords, what is the response of the people. Look at verse 18 of chapter 20 verse 18 of chapter 20 all the people perceived the thunder and the lightning flashes, and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking. They took it all in. What was the effect of it. When the people saw what they trembled and stood at a distance they saw these phenomenon, they were literally literally physically shaking in response to it, and they stood back, recognizing the majestic solemnity of what they were witnessing. Now the point of this the point of these of the signs was, not simply for the sake of a physical display of fireworks because God could do it. The point of these accompanying natural phenomenon that what I mean is these phenomena in nature was to give added emphasis to the significance of the moral law that was being delivered to them to add weight and authority to what God was saying.

He testified to it, and when God is giving revelation. He's done doing that now in in his time of knowing the biblical times when when God attested to the authority of the apostles in the New Testament.

He gave them power to do signs and wonders that testify to the supernatural truth in Revelation that this was really from God. And so in Exodus chapter 20. God gives these phenomena in nature to say this is really my moral authority and the authority of the moral law is frightful. You are not prepared and equipped to deal with this moral law. The people were afraid and didn't want to draw near well.

The purpose of God and that was not simply to emphasize and to create fear at the signs, the accompanying signs. The purpose of God, and it was to create a fear and respect and reverence for the law that the signs were merely introducing this is a matter of great consequence that is taking place here and so when we asked the question. When did God give the 10 Commandments is immediately after their deliverance from Egypt three months afterwards and when he gave it. We see this from the narrative. The this supernatural fearful manner in which he did it.

That was the context in which the 10 Commandments were given the fear listen to me beloved with what I'm about to say the theater which the appearance of God generated at the time outwardly physically the physical appearance of physical manifestation of the presence of God did this.

Remember the physical actions had a spiritual significance.

As we saw from those verses in Exodus 19, the fear which the outward manifestation of God generated, does this it conveys to us the dread authority of the Commandments themselves. Let me say that again because this is essential for you to understand the fear which the outward manifestation of God generated in the people at that time conveys to us the dread authority of the commands themselves.

They trembled at the outward manifestation.

The point is is that when we understand the authority and the implications of the 10 Commandments it creates a like fear and trembling at us on a spiritual level, just as they were not equipped to deal with the outward manifestations of God. So now sinful men like you and me. We are not equipped to deal with the spiritual authority of the 10 Commandments. That's what were supposed understand.

Look at Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 22 just to reiterate this.

Deuteronomy 5 is where the 10 Commandments were repeated by Moses.

In his parting message to the people of Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 22 Moses tells the people later looking back and interpreting history for them. 40 years later, he says these words, the Lord spoke to all your assembly of the mountain from the midst of the fire of the cloud and of the thick gloom with a great voice and he added no more he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me. God supernaturally inscribed the the written version of the 10 Commandments he inscribed them supernaturally on tablets of stone to establish their permanents and then he gave it to Moses, and Moses tells people. In verse 23.

When you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness. While the mountain was burning with fire you came near to me all the heads of your tribes and your elders and you said the old, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and his greatness.

We have heard his voice from the midst of the fire. We have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives now, then why should we die for this great fire will consume us. If we hear the voice Lord our God any longer then we will die for.

Who is there of all flesh was heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire as we have and live. They realized that what God had just done showed that his sovereign majesty was such that they could not continue on in life unless there was a mediator unless God would show grace and mercy to them and so they pled with Moses to intercede all in response. Here's the point.

Beloved, trying to keep the main thing the main thing for you here today. All of this simply to show that a a supernaturally powerful God, a holy God gave in a supernaturally great way in a holy way gave his holy law expressed in the 10 Commandments to his people. All of the supernatural manifestations which created fear in the hearts of the people there is to be a connection in your mind between that outward authority that outward fearfulness and the spiritual significance of the 10 Commandments, and so the fear of the appearance of God conveys the dread authority of the commands themselves. Now this is unique. The manner in which God gave the 10 Commandments distinguishes them from other aspects of the laws that he gave at that same time the civil law the social laws that followed in the rest of the book of Exodus, the regulations for the construction of the tabernacle, the ceremonial law given in Leviticus. None of then none of that revelation was accompanied by this same kind of manifestation of the fearful authority of God. The civil and ceremonial law were not given like that. And so what you are to understand is this is that there is a there is a unique significance attached to the 10 Commandments that are to impress themselves on your mind. They are unique. Even the way that God gave them you know he inscribed them supernaturally himself that stone green bringing our study for today will close next time.

The second half of the lesson entitled God spoke with fearful glory here on the truth pulpit do join us then. Well, if you'd like a copy of today's lesson in its entirety you'd like to find out more about this ministry, we invite you to visit the truth. Pulpit.com that again is the truth.

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