Now the third month, when the children of
Israel were gone forth out of the land
of Egypt, in the same day they came
into the wilderness of Sinai.
For they were departed from Rephidim, and they
were come to the desert of Sinai, and
they had pitched in the wilderness, and there
Israel encamped before the mount.
And Moses went up unto God, and the
Lord called unto him out of the mountain,
saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house
of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel,
You have seen what I did to the
Egyptians, and how I bear you on eagles'
wings, and brought you unto myself.
First of all, God said to Moses, Now
you tell them, and point out to them
what I have already done for them.
I have delivered them from the Egyptians.
I carried them on eagles' wings to bring
them to myself.
Now therefore, that's the past, now the present.
Now therefore, if you will obey my voice
indeed, and keep my covenant, then, as far
as the future, ye shall be a special
treasure unto me above all of the people,
for all the earth is mine.
And ye shall be unto me a kingdom
of priests, a holy nation.
Now a priest was a man who stood
before God, representing the people.
But, he also stood before the people representing
God.
And so being a kingdom of priests, they
were to be a special people who would
represent God before the world.
God is looking for people to represent Him.
And so in a priestly kind of a
ministry, in representing God before the world, Israel
was to be God's representative to the world.
That was God's desire and intention for these
people, that they might represent Him to the
world.
A kingdom of priests.
A holy nation.
Now, these are the words God said that
you shall speak to the children of Israel.
So Moses came and he called for the
elders of the people, and he laid before
their faces all these words which the Lord
commanded him.
And the people answered together and said, All
that the Lord hath spoken we will do.
What a rash promise.
And Moses returned the words of the people
unto the Lord.
Now at this point, Moses was a priest.
That is, he was going before God, speaking
for the people, and then he was coming
to the people and speaking for God.
Christ has become our great high priest.
He represents us to the Father, and He
represents the Father to us.
He is our great high priest.
So there is one mediator between God and
man, the man Christ Jesus, our great high
priest.
But Moses was the priest, and in the
Old Testament this was always the purpose of
the priest, to represent the people to God,
to go unto God, speak for the people,
and then come to the people and speak
for God.
And so here is Moses operating in that
whole concept of priesthood.
And so he goes back to God and
he says, Hey, they said they'll buy it,
everything you say they'll do.
All that the Lord has spoken we will
do.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Lo, I
come to thee in a thick cloud, that
the people may hear when I speak with
you, and believe you forever.
And Moses told the words of the people
unto the Lord.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Go unto
the people and sanctify them today and tomorrow,
and let them wash their clothes.
Now the washing of their clothes was actually
just a symbolic action.
The people were to really cleanse themselves before
God.
And the washing of their clothes being a
symbolic action that spoke of just the setting
of themselves or the washing of themselves of
their hearts, their minds, their lives.
The sanctify means to set apart for use.
And so here he calls the people to
sanctify themselves and to wash their clothes.
And be ready against the third day.
For the third day the Lord will come
down in the sight of all of the
people on Mount Sinai.
So let the people sanctify themselves, really, you
know, wash themselves, get themselves pure and all.
Because the third day is going to be
a big day.
I'm going to come down on Mount Sinai
in the sight of the people.
It's going to be an awesome day.
And thou shalt set bounds unto the people
round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves that
you go not up into the mount or
touch the border of it, for whosoever touches
the mount shall surely be put to death.
And there shall not a hand touch it.
But he shall surely be stoned or shot
through, whether it be beast or man, it
shall not live.
When the trumpet sounds long, they shall come
up to the mount.
And Moses went down from the mount to
the people and he sanctified the people and
they washed their clothes.
And he said unto the people, Be ready
against the third day and come not at
your wives.
In other words, they were to refrain from
sexual relations.
They were just to really set themselves aside
for God for these three days.
And it came to pass on the third
day in the morning that there were thunders
and lightnings and a thick cloud upon the
mount, and the voice of a trumpet exceeding
loud, so that all the people that were
in the camp trembled.
Can you imagine what that must have been
when God began to demonstrate Himself to these
people in this way?
That there came down there on Mount Sinai
this smoke, there was this blasting trumpet sound,
and the fire rolling around and the lightnings
and the thunders and the thick cloud.
And Moses brought forth the people out of
the camp to meet with God.
And they stood at the nether part of
the mountain or away from the mountain.
And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke,
because the Lord descended upon it in fire,
and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke
of a furnace, while the mount shook greatly.
So the mountain was shaking violently, the smoke
was ascending like a furnace, and there was
this great blast like a trumpet.
And when the voice of the trumpet sounded
long and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake,
and God answered him by a voice.
And the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai
on the top of the mount, and the
Lord called Moses up to the top of
the mount, and Moses went up.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Go down
and charge the people, lest they break through
unto the Lord to gaze, and many of
them perish.
And let the priests also which come near
to the Lord sanctify themselves, lest the Lord
break forth upon them.
Now, verse 22 indicates that perhaps some of
the priests thought, well, we don't have to
sanctify ourselves, that's the common people.
And some of the priests apparently didn't sanctify
themselves.
And in the book of Hebrews, we read
where some of the priests on this day
died.
And so, Moses is told to tell the
priests that they're not excluded from this.
A lot of times people think, well, I'm
so holy, you know, and I'm above the
general rules, and God makes some kind of
a special concession for me.
But such is not the case.
Verse 25 of Hebrews 12, See that ye
refuse not him that speaks, for if they
escape not who refused him that spake on
earth, much more shall not we escape if
we turn away from him that speaks from
heaven, whose voice then shook the earth.
But now he has promised, saying yet once
more, I'll shake not the earth only, but
heaven.
So, in Hebrews, referring to this, speaks of
some who perish.
And so, evidently, some of the priests.
And the priests also which come near to
the Lord, let them sanctify themselves, lest the
Lord break forth on them.
And Moses said unto the Lord, The people
cannot come up to the Mount Sinai, for
thou chargest us, saying, Set bounds about the
mountain, sanctify it.
And the Lord said unto him, Away, get
down, and you shall come up, you and
Aaron with you.
But let not the priest or the people
break through to come up to the Lord,
lest he break forth upon them.
So Moses went down unto them, and the
people, and he spake unto them.
And God spake these words, saying, Now the
people said, All that the Lord commands, we
will do.
All right, this is what the Lord has
spoken.
Now, these are the commandments of God.
I am the Lord thy God, which hath
brought thee out of the land of Egypt,
and out of the house of Bondage.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
First of all, I am Jehovah thy God.
The word Jehovah is a beautiful word.
It is a verb which means the becoming
one.
A word by which God expresses himself in
that which he desires to be to his
people.
God wishes to become to you whatever your
need might be.
The becoming one, Yahweh.
A verb, to be.
And so God becoming to you.
I am Yahweh thy God, which brought you
out of the land of Egypt, out of
the house of Bondage.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Now, as we said this morning, that doesn't
mean that God is first in your life,
and then you can have all other kinds
of gods, as long as he's first God
in your life.
Before, in the sense of precedence, I've got
to be the greatest God of your life,
and then you can have all kinds of
gods under me.
No.
Before, that is in the presence of me.
You're to worship the Lord thy God, and
him only shalt thou serve.
You're not to have any other gods.
He is to be the exclusive God of
your life.
You shall have no other gods in the
presence of me.
Before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven
image, or any likeness of anything that is
in heaven above, or in the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the
earth.
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them,
nor serve them.
For I, the Lord thy God, am a
jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children, to the third and fourth
generation of them that hate me, and showing
mercy unto the thousands of them that love
me, and keep my commandments.
So, the prohibition of making graven images, and
it goes actually of any likeness of anything
that is in heaven above, which would include
then the angelic beings, or that is in
the earth beneath, or that is in the
water under the earth, whatever those creatures might
look like.
Thou shalt not make them, thou shalt not
bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.
Now, men, as we pointed out this morning,
have always been guilty of making their own
gods.
Man is conscious of God.
The heavens declare the glory of God, the
earth showeth forth its handiwork, and there is
a universal consciousness of God in every culture
of man.
Concepts, ideas of God exist.
Now, many men have been guilty of making
their own gods.
And a man, when he makes his own
God, usually starts out with this premise.
If I were God, this is what I
would be.
This is what I would do.
This is how I would respond.
This is how I would react.
And so, the Greeks made their own gods.
And in your Greek mythology, you have their
concepts of God, which are really an expression
of what they would be if they were
God.
Now, some fellow having been in love with
a girl, and another suitor won her away
from him.
If I were God, you know, I could
live up there, and I could bring magic
potions, and I could use my powers, and
then she would be mine instead of his.
And so, you have your gods that are
intertwining themselves in the love affairs of man,
and all of these kind of things, because
if I were God, I would use these
powers for an advantage in my relationship with
men.
And thus, you find that is sort of
a basis of your Greek mythology.
Men creating their own gods.
When a man makes a god, he actually
makes the god like himself.
A man's god is usually a projection of
himself.
A man is oftentimes worshipping himself, a projection
of himself, and that is what he is
worshipping.
Most generally, when a man rejects the true
and the living God, his god is just
a projection of himself.
This is why I sort of cringe whenever
anybody comes up to me and says, well,
I don't know why God would do this.
What they are saying is, if I were
God, I wouldn't do that.
I could sure figure out a better way
of doing it than this way, and that
person is close to creating his own god.
If I were God, this is what I
would do.
If I were God, this is how I
would respond.
And if God doesn't respond the way I
would respond, then I get angry, and I
say, well, you know, I can't understand why
God did that, you know, or why God
allowed that, as though God has made a
real blunder.
He really goofed on this one.
I don't know how God can be so
stupid, you know, is really what you're saying.
I can see so much better than that.
I could work it out in such a
much better way.
Oh, if I were only God, what I
could do.
If you were God, I'd hate to be
in this universe very long.
When Job and his friends were talking about
God, well, God is this, and if I
were God, that, you know, and they were
giving all their ideas about what God was
and what God was doing and so forth,
which were projections of their own selves, their
own concepts, putting them in the mind of
God, sort of.
When God came on the scene, after these
guys had all expressed their concepts of God
and how God works, etc., when God came
on the scene, they said, all right, Job,
gird yourself like a man.
You've been talking about things that you really
don't know anything about.
I'm going to ask you a few questions.
First of all, Job, where were you when
I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell me if you think you know so
much.
How would you like to guide Arcturus through
the sky?
How would you like to guide Arcturus through
the sky?
Arcturus is known as the runaway star.
Its speed is estimated at 115 miles a
second.
How would you like the job of guiding
that big old thing through the sky, wheeling
that thing around at that kind of a
speed?
Tell me, God said.
Can you bind the sweet influence of the
Pleiades?
And he went on.
And hey, Job said, that's all right, God.
You just keep running.
I don't know anything about it, you know.
Yes, we have a difficult time running this
universe, I'll tell you.
We have enough problems just running our own
lives.
So man makes a God like himself, but
then he often makes the God less than
himself.
As David points out, the gods of the
heathen are vain.
They cut them out of the forest.
They have eyes, but they cannot see.
Ears they have, but they cannot hear.
Feet they have, but they cannot walk.
Mouths they have, but they cannot speak.
So a man made a God like himself.
He carved his God out of a piece
of tree limb.
Sat there day after day carving out his
little God.
He carved ears on his little God.
He carved eyes on his little God.
He carved a nose on his little God.
He carved a mouth.
He carved feet.
But the thing is, the eyes that He
carved on His little God can't see.
The ears that He carved on His little
God can't hear.
The mouth that He carved on His little
God can't speak.
So a man made a God.
He made Him like Himself.
Because I have ears, I put ears on
my God.
Because I have a mouth, I put a
mouth on my God.
Because I have feet, I put feet on
my God.
But though I made Him like Myself, I
made Him less than Myself.
Because the feet I put on my little
God can't walk, thus He is less than
I am.
His eyes can't see, thus He is less
than I am.
And then David said, They that have made
them have become like the gods they have
made.
In other words, a man becomes like his
God.
And if you make a God less than
yourself, you are being degraded.
You are on the road down.
You are becoming less than what you were.
If your God can't see, you soon become
blind to the things of God.
If your God can't hear, you soon become
deaf to the voice of God.
You become insensate as your God is insensate.
That's the danger of making gods.
You become like them, but yet they are
less than yourself.
So God strictly prohibited trying to make any
likeness or representation of Himself.
Now in the light of that, why is
it that in the church we have statues
of Jesus Christ?
Or even pictures, which constitutes a likeness.
What is a man signifying when he makes
an idol?
He is signifying the loss of the consciousness
of the presence of God in his life.
Whenever I make an idol, a reminder, it
is only indicating that I have lost something
vital in my relationship with God and I
need this little relic as a reminder of
God.
Because I have lost the consciousness of His
presence.
If I am living in the consciousness of
the presence of God, I don't need any
little relic to remind me of God.
But the making of the relic not only
indicates the loss of the consciousness, but somehow
there is a desire to regain that which
I've lost.
And somehow I would like to be conscious
of God again, so I make a reminder
so that I can be conscious of God.
But it is always an indication of a
degraded spiritual state.
Now people can make idols out of many
different things.
The place in the church where I was
sitting when I came into the consciousness of
God.
And you'd be amazed how many people come
back and they sit in that same place
trying to regain that which was lost.
At that place where I was sitting here,
right in the spot, when I really became
conscious of the presence of God, oh, it
was so glorious, I just, oh, you know,
and so you'll return and try to duplicate
a past experience of God's consciousness thinking that
it relates to a place.
While I was wearing those shoes.
So you dig around, find the old shoes
again, you know.
As I was wearing these shoes, when I
became aware of the presence of God, hey,
you've lost something, friend.
Paul the Apostle said, in Him we live,
we move, we have our being.
God is here.
God is with you.
You've lost the consciousness.
Not that He's not with you, you've just
lost the consciousness of His presence with you.
And thus you're looking for something that will
somehow remind or bring back that experience of
the past.
But God has new experiences for you.
And He doesn't want you living in the
past experiences.
He wants you living in a fresh day
-by-day relationship of fellowship in His love
and in His grace, experiencing daily that overflowing
grace of God in your life.
And so the prohibiting of making, first of
all, the likenesses, why?
Because once you've made them, then the next
thing is so often the bowing down to
them.
And then, that leads to the serving of
them.
So the progression, you make a god, then
you're worshipping your god, and finally, you're serving
your god.
But no man can serve two masters.
Thou shalt not take the name of the
Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord
will not hold him guiltless that takes His
name in vain.
What does that mean?
It means much more than just using the
name of God in a profane way.
As you hear people in their conversations using
the name of God in a profane way,
it's much more than that.
Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah
thy God in vain.
What does it mean?
It means that if you take the name
of Jehovah, it means that you have placed
Him as the Lord, the guide, the director
of your life.
Now, if you don't give Him the chance
to guide and direct your life, you've taken
His name in vain.
So many times we say, Oh, Lord, Lord.
Jesus said, why do you say Lord, Lord
and you don't do the things I command
you?
If you're not obeying Him, you've taken His
name in vain.
Thus, the greatest blasphemy is not that which
you hear on Skid Row, but the greatest
blasphemy is that of those who make an
acknowledgement of God in their words and maybe
even in their deeds by attending church and
so forth, and yet God doesn't have a
place in their daily life through the week.
You never give God a place.
You never give God a chance.
You never open up your life to God
during the week.
It's just a Sunday relationship with Him.
That is taking the name of the Lord
your God in vain.
That's the greatest blasphemy.
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
Six days shalt thou labor and do all
thy work.
Therefore, if you're on a five-day week,
you're unscriptural.
If you want to really be tight to
the law.
The seventh day is the Sabbath of the
Lord thy God.
In it thou shalt not do any work.
Thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor
thy manservant, or maidservant, or thy cattle, or
the stranger that is within thy gates.
For in six days the Lord made the
heaven and the earth and the sea and
all that in them is, and rested the
seventh day.
Wherefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and
hallowed it, honored it.
Now, there are a lot of people who
today like to make a big issue over
the Sabbath day and over worshiping on Sunday.
And they say the Sabbath day is the
day that you should worship God.
And they've even gone so far as to
say that Sunday worship is the mark of
the beast.
And so you've all been guilty of taking
the mark of the beast because you worship
God on Sunday.
Let me say that first of all, I
worship God every day of the week.
As far as I'm concerned, every day of
the week is a great day to worship
God.
I do believe that for man's sake God
established a pattern of six in one.
Sabbath was made for man, not man for
the Sabbath.
And that God has ordained for the body's
sake one day of rest for the purpose
of recuperation.
And I think that you'd live healthier and
longer if you would just spend one day
in bed a week.
Just really flaked out and sacked out and
doing nothing.
Just a total change of pace.
I would love to do it.
But this particular law was a special law
to the people of Israel as is declared
in the 31st chapter of Exodus verses 16
and 17.
Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the
Sabbath to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations
for a perpetual covenant.
It is a sign between me and the
children of Israel forever for in six days
the Lord made the heaven and the earth
and in the seventh day rested.
So God here plainly declares that it's a
sign between Him and the children of Israel.
It is interesting that the one law that
Jesus was constantly being accused of violating was
the law of the Sabbath.
And that's what really created the ire of
the Pharisees against Jesus more than anything else
is that He disregarded their Sabbath day law
traditions.
Walking through the cornfields He allowed His disciples,
the wheat fields actually take the corn of
wheat and rub it in their hands and
eat the corn on the Sabbath day.
Why do you allow your disciples to do
that?
Which is unlawful to do on the Sabbath
day.
Now they had so interpreted the Sabbath the
bearing of burdens and so forth that they
had really made the Sabbath day extremely restricting
with all of their rules and regulations that
regard the Sabbath day what constitutes a keeping
and a violating of the Sabbath day law.
And instead of the day being a day
of rest it was a day of bondage.
Man, everything they laid on you was so
heavy.
You were so worried about violating it that
it was a bondage instead of a real
rest and a day of relaxation and rest.
You were so concerned about the violation of
it they made it a bondage keeping that
law.
In the early church when it was brought
to the attention of the church in Jerusalem
concerning the Gentile Christians that were not walking
after the law of Moses it was determined
by the early church that they would not
try to put upon the church the Mosaic
law but only certain parts of it and
that which related to idolatry and eating of
meats that were sacrificed to idols or blood,
keep yourself from blood and things strangled and
so forth.
But nothing was mentioned as far as the
Sabbath day and the church was concerned.
Now, the law was not given to make
men holy and this is our whole misconception
of the law and that is the idea
that the keeping of the law will make
me holy.
If righteousness could come by the law then
Christ died in vain.
If you could keep these ten commandments and
by keeping them be righteous then Jesus wouldn't
need to die.
If God could take and impute righteousness to
you because you kept every one of these
commandments in your heart, faithfully and completely then
there is no necessity for Jesus Christ.
But righteousness could not come by the law
even if you kept it.
Righteousness comes through faith in Jesus Christ.
Now, God related to these people the covenant
of God was related to their obedience if
they will obey and their obedience to the
law of God was the condition upon which
they could relate to God.
But this old covenant failed and it failed
because of man's weakness and man's failure.
Man was incapable of obeying.
Therefore, God has established a new covenant that
isn't predicated upon man's faithfulness, but the new
covenant is predicated upon God's faithfulness.
The faithfulness of God to keep His Word.
The first covenant?
Man's faithfulness to keep God's Word.
First covenant failed.
Man wasn't faithful.
The second covenant that God has established through
Jesus Christ is a covenant that God has
now established which is predicated upon the faithfulness
of God to keep His Word and His
covenant shall always stand with us because God
will keep His Word.
And my believing that God will keep His
Word.
So to him that worketh not but believeth,
God imputes that faith for righteousness.
Now does that mean then that I have
no relationship to the Lord of all?
I can live however I want?
I can violate any of these commandments I
want and still have fellowship with God?
God forbid.
How can we who are dead to sin
live any longer therein?
But it means that God now gives to
me the new power of His Holy Spirit
within my life whereby I am enabled to
be what God wants me to be.
The fifth commandment, some people put with the
first table.
They say that it belongs in the first
table.
Honor thy father and thy mother because you
are not to consider your father and mother
unequal, but always on a superior basis even
as God is always thought upon in a
superior basis.
And thus, they say it belongs in the
first five words of the law instead of
the second six.
And so they have divided the law into
two categories of five and five.
I don't argue with that.
It's foolish.
What difference does it make?
It's all part of the ten.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy
neighbor.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife nor
his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox,
nor his ass, nor anything that is thy
neighbor's.
Now, covet is to desire earnestly.
Have a strong desire for those things.
You're not to have it.
Now, Paul the Apostle said this is the
law that wiped him out.
I didn't know, he said, that coveting was
sin.
Except the law said thou shalt not covet.
Man, when he saw that.
When the Spirit revealed that law to him,
he said, man, I was dead.
It killed me.
It was the one that condemned Paul to
death.
Here he had done all he could to
be righteous by the law.
And he could write to the Philippians concerning
his past experience as a Pharisee.
He said, and concerning the righteousness which is
of the law, I was blameless.
But then when he saw the law was
spiritual, then he said, man, I was wiped
out.
I was dead.
The law destroyed me.
Now, that was the whole basis of the
teaching of Christ, and that is that the
law is spiritual.
Thou shalt not kill.
What does that really mean?
It means you're not to have hatred for
anybody.
Because hatred is the seedbed of murder.
And thus you can violate the law thou
shalt not kill and never club a fellow
at all.
But if you have a hatred for him,
animosity against him, you've violated the law, thou
shalt not kill.
Now, the law was intended as a schoolmaster
to drive us to Jesus Christ, to make
us realize that we were spiritually bankrupt.
To make me realize that there's no way
I can pay the debt.
And thus drives me to Jesus Christ as
my source and my resource.
Now all the people saw the thunderings, the
lightnings, the noise of the trumpet, the mountains
smoking, and when the people saw it, they
removed and stood afar off and they said
unto Moses, Hey, you speak with us and
we'll listen to you.
But don't let God speak with us or
we'll die.
And Moses said to the people, Fear not.
Now here they are, frightened, terrified by the
manifestation of God's presence.
The words of God's grace, Fear not, for
God is come not to destroy you, He's
come to prove you.
You said you would obey Him, you'd be
His people, you'd be His special people.
Now God has come to prove you that
His fear may be before your faces, that
you might really reverence God.
That ye sin not.
So God is just telling you what is
and what constitutes sin.
This is a basic law of God which
constitutes the right relationship with God and the
right relationship with your fellow man.
If you don't have the right relationship with
God, there's no sense of going any further.
You're not going to have a right relationship
with your fellow man.
That is why when the young ruler came
to Jesus and said, Good Master, what must
I do to be saved?
Jesus, first of all, tried to draw his
attention to something.
He said, Why did you call me good?
There's only one good, that's God.
What was Jesus saying to him?
He was saying one of two things.
He was saying to this young man, Hey,
I'm no good.
Or he was saying to this young man,
I am God.
And he's trying to point out to the
young man that he recognized in Jesus something
that was truth.
Why did you call me good?
Think about this now, young man.
You've discovered a truth.
When you came to me, you called me
good.
Why did you do that?
Because you see, you've recognized a truth.
I am God.
Why did you call me good?
There's only one good, that's God.
That gives you a hint.
Why you call me good.
We misinterpret that.
Jesus is saying to the young man, Why
did you call me good?
I'm no good.
There's only one good, that's God.
No, that's not at all what he is
saying.
Why did you call me good?
I'll give you a hint.
There's only one good, that's God.
That's why you called me good, because I'm
God.
What must I do to have age-abiding
life?
Keep the commandments.
Which ones, Lord?
And what did the Lord give to him?
He gave to him the first table of
the law.
Your relationship with God.
Why?
Because if you don't get past this, there's
no sense going to the second table.
If you don't pass the first four, there's
no sense going on to the second six.
If you don't have a right relationship with
God, you're not going to have a right
relationship with your fellow man.
So Jesus reiterates the first four.
Lord, I've kept all these from my youth
up.
What do I lack yet?
Oh, let's come back and take a look
at that.
What is the first law?
Thou shalt not have any other gods before
me.
You say you've kept them all.
All right.
Go out and sell everything that you have.
And take the money and give it to
the poor and come and follow me.
You'll have great treasures in heaven.
What was Jesus doing?
He was pointing out the folly of what
the man had said.
The first law, thou shalt have no other
gods before me, was a law that he
was breaking because he had his possessions as
a God in his life.
They were his God.
And they were before.
They were there in the presence of his
worship of God.
Lord, I've kept this law from my youth
up.
What do I lack yet?
Oh, wait a minute.
You haven't kept it from your youth up.
You only say you have.
But in reality, you have a God in
your life that is possessing you and it
is even stronger and has a greater hold
than I have upon you.
Your desire for it is greater than your
desire for me.
Be careful what you say to Jesus.
He's liable to put you on an examination.
So much of what we say is flippant
off of the top of our heads when
we come to worship God.
Oh, God, everything I have is yours.
Oh, that's wonderful.
Now, if you'll just sell this and this.
Oh, no, Lord, I really didn't mean that.
You know, that's just a figure of speech.
Words.
Empty words.
We're so guilty of offering to the Lord
the empty words of our mouth.
Rend your hearts, not your garments, unto God.
So, God has laid out what sin is.
He's said this is the mark.
And so, I've given you the law that
you might know what sin is that you
will sin not.
The people stood afar off and Moses drew
near into the thick darkness where God was.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Thus shalt
thou say to the children of Israel, You
have seen that I have talked with you
from heaven.
You shall not make with Me gods of
silver, neither shall you make unto you gods
of gold.
An altar of earth thou shalt make unto
Me and shalt sacrifice thereon burnt offerings.
Notice, the Lord is not even wanting them
to build ornate altars.
And if you make an altar of earth
to make your sacrifice, just pile up dirt
for your altar.
And if you use stone, don't bring a
chisel on it.
Because if you put a chisel on it,
you're going to defile it.
God doesn't want anything to distract from Him.
Not even a glorious, fancy altar.
He doesn't want man glorying in the works
of his own hands.
God, help us!
In the church today, you go into so
many churches where you've got the fancy work
of man's hands, the ornate altars, the ornate
buildings and all, and God cannot be pleased
with them.
God said, hey, be simple.
Build an altar out of earth.
That's good enough.
And if you make it out of stones,
then don't carve on the stones.
Don't chisel on them.
If you put a chisel on it, you're
going to defile it.
Leave it natural.
The naturalness whereby man's work of his hands
is not glorified.
When we come to worship God, only God
is glorified.
We don't glorify the works of man's hands.
We don't say, oh my, this lovely sanctuary
built by the hands of men.
This glorious golden altar built by the hands
of men.
So many places where you go to worship
God, your attention is so drawn to the
architecture or to the ornateness or to the
lavishness of it and to the works of
man's hands that you fail to see God.
You're lost in the works of man's hands.
God was forbidding that.
He said, hey, when you make an altar,
make it out of earth.
He doesn't want man to glory in his
presence the work of his hands or anything
else.
God wants the glory when we come to
worship Him.
He wants all the glory.
God, help that man who seeks to bring
glory and attention to himself while doing the
service of God.
The altar of earth thou shalt make unto
me and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings
and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, thy oxen.
In all places where I record my name,
I will come unto thee and I will
bless thee.
And if you will make me an altar
of stone, thou shalt not build it of
hewn stone, for if you lift up your
tool on it, you have polluted it.
Neither shalt thou go up by the steps
to my altar that thy nakedness be not
discovered thereon.
In other words, don't go up steps and
high where people can look up and see
your bare legs or something.
God just doesn't want attention drawn to anything
but Him when we are worshiping God.
He wants your heart and your mind to
be centered upon Him, not to be distracted.
That is why we seek to keep distractions
here to a minimum.
We don't want anything that draws attention to
man.
We want our attention to be drawn to
the Word of God and to God Himself
when we gather together to worship Him.
For God forbid that any flesh should glory
in His sight.
In dealing with our Maranatha musicians, one of
the most difficult things we have is that
of keeping them from these little antics that
draw attention to themselves.
Even a special movement as you're playing the
bass, you know.
It draws attention to you and takes the
attention of the people off of what you're
saying, what you're singing.
Oh man, look at him, you know.
Really swings, you know.
Really grooving, isn't he?
And that subtle little way that we have
of drawing attention to ourselves.
But the minute I draw attention to me,
then the person's attention is taken off of
God.
And I am robbing God of that which
is His.
And God will hold me accountable for it.
Thus, serving the Lord is always a very
fine balance because I must do it in
such a way that if possible, I be
hid and Christ be seen.
And if that comes to pass, then my
service for God is accepted and it is
blessed and it is successful.
But if we're drawing attention to other things,
then the people are going out robbed of
the full blessing of God.
Tragically so.
Next week, we'll take the next five chapters.
Father, we thank you tonight for Thy Word.
A lamp unto our feet, a light unto
our path.
And Lord, we thank you for your law,
the standards that you have given to us.
And Lord, we delight after Thy law.
We consent to Thy law.
We desire to fulfill Thy law.
Give us the power, Lord, to be what
you want us to be and to do
what we ought to do as your children.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
May the Lord be with you and watch
over you through the week.
And may you experience God's power working in
your life as He would transform you by
the power of His Spirit into the image
of Jesus Christ.
That you would open face, beholding the glory
of the Lord, might be changed from glory
to glory into that same image by His
Spirit working in you.
In Jesus' name.