I want to ask you to turn in your Bibles to Exodus chapter 19. Exodus chapter 19 for the sermon. We'll be preaching on Exodus 20 verse 1. We want to read some of these preceding verses. So Exodus chapter 19. And again, let us give our attention here. We're going to begin in verse 16. So, Exodus 19, 16. And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the nether part of the mount. 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, and the whole mount quaked greatly. 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. The Lord said unto Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish. Let the priests also which come near to the Lord sanctify themselves, lest the Lord break forth upon them. And Moses said unto the Lord, The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for thou chargest us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it. The Lord said unto him, Away, get thee down, and thou shalt come up thou and Aaron with thee. But let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the Lord, lest he break forth upon them. So Moses went down unto the people and spake unto them. And God spake all these words, saying, and if you'll come down with me to verse 18, just after he gives the Ten Commandments, it says, And all the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet and the mountains smoking And when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear, but let not God speak with us, lest we die. And Moses said unto the people, Fear not, for God has come to prove you, that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. And the people stood afar off, And Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was. Thus ends there the reading of the Scriptures of God. We'll continue on here and pray and seek the Lord's face for help as we consider especially this verse 1 of chapter 20. Let us seek the Lord's face together. Our Father in heaven, We thank thee, Lord, for this word, terrifying as it is, for it has the great marks upon it, the holiness and the majesty of God, yea, the sovereignty of God. We pray, Lord, that we might not be flippant. We might not take these things into our minds and our hands, as it were, to deal lightly with them. Lord, receive us and deliver us from such things, from the preacher down to the smallest child. Lord, it is not that our great tendency to deal with a careless hand. careless heart with the things of God. For Jesus' sake we pray these things. May His kingdom be advanced this day. Amen. As I said, I want to come to consider the Ten Commandments. And you'll notice at the beginning of the Ten Commandments here, you have a couple of verses. In verse one, we read this morning, and God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which hath brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. And then he begins with the first commandment. Thou shalt not, or excuse me, thou shalt have no other gods before me. But you have this preface, Word that goes before these ten commandments in verse two. But as one man said, there's that little verse one. It's like a preface to the preface. A little word that goes even before this little preface message. And it is, as we read, and God spake all these words. And all these words refer to the Ten Commandments. In fact, Deuteronomy tells us in chapter 5, after it repeats these commandments. I was just repeating things there in Deuteronomy. It says that He gave us these Ten Commandments, or these Ten Words, and added no more. These were the permanent laws. These were the things that God wrote in stone. And here, as we have read this morning, He spoke them honorably to the children of Israel as they were gathered at the bottom of the mount. God does not have a mouth, does He? He doesn't have a tongue. God is a spirit. Spirits have no bodily parts. So how did God speak? Obviously, it's not the first time we have come to the word speak, is it? Remember in Genesis chapter 1, what do we read? And God said, let there be light. And what? There was light. So, the Bible starts out with God speaking. God speaking. Did God speak audibly then? He very well may have. The angels would have heard Him. And as the beasts were created in man, there they would have heard Him too speak. But God is not limited in His ability, in His power, so that he cannot create a voice, as some say, in the air. He doesn't need an organ called the voice box, and a tongue, and a mouth, and a throat, and all those things put together to have a voice, to have words come that man can hear. So, however God may have caused that, we know it is not an impossibility at all with God. For God does wonders. Things which we know not, the Bible says, in a place. So we should not be surprised that God spake, that God said. Anywhere we read it in the Holy Scripture, sometimes it is literal, like here. The voice of words, Deuteronomy says, is what they heard here on the mount. Sometimes it is a figurative statement, meaning that God said In other words, he gave a word to his prophets, or he caused a man to write something. And that is God speaking. Not that it's not literal truth, but the literal truth is expressed in a figurative way. But here, not only is it literal truth, it is expressed in a literal way. And God spake all these words, saying..." Remember, this is the month with God's help. We'll remember the great Protestant Reformation when we believe that God stepped again into history with a great outpouring of His Spirit and raised up men like Luther and Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, Farrell, and many others to restore the church to Christ. Calvin was accused, I was reminded the other day by a letter from one of my brethren, was accused of always being an apostate. And so he replied, he says, well, my conscience does not condemn me, for how is it that I can be an apostate when I see The army of Christ and his banner being thrown to the ground and every man running from the battle. And if I grab the standard and lift it up and call men back to it, how is that apostasy? And then he says, words to the effect that, oh God, I have lifted up simply thine ensign or thy flag, thy standard. But we believe that is what happened in the Protestant Reformation. These men, again, raised up God's standard, His ensign, His flag, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. And remember, they had five solas, they called them, or five statements about something being alone. One of them was Sola Scriptura. Sola Scriptura, the Bible alone. It means that it is the final authority. It is the only written revelation of God. It's infallible. It means it cannot err. It is inspired. That means it was given by God. And thus, it is authoritative. Because why? It is God's work. And so I think it is fitting if we would think a few moments this morning upon that theme of God speaking all these words. Because as we mentioned a little earlier in the service today, there are many today who do not think of the Bible as being inspired. infallible, or even in any way, hardly, the Word of God. The Word of God. One man, I was reading his book, published in 2005, and he thinks he had to memorize as some sort of Protestant in his youth. Actually, he grew up in North Carolina, though he's a very well-known man today, retired and still writing books against Bible Christianity. In his youth, in his young days, he wasn't so opposed to these things. And he was required to memorize the Ten Commandments in every detail, not just a shorter version. Let's say, of like, verse 4 of Graven Images, or in like, verse 8, as summaries of some of those commandments, instead of every verse, in every detail. And even like, the Tenth Commandment, just saying the very first few words, which is fine to memorize some of that. The Bible in the New Testament doesn't quote every single detail when it refers to the commandments. But it's even better if we know the details. What I'm saying is this, though. He memorized these things, and then he says, well, they're convoluted. Convoluted. But I would submit to you, he probably doesn't think it's very convoluted when a man, out of respect to the law of God, doesn't steal his money or doesn't kill his person. Or does it lie to them? Probably doesn't think that's very convoluted. I'm just saying, there's many that write as supposed Christians and believers even, he'll say. And say, no, we can't accept this Ten Commandments. These things are outdated. Even saying that honoring your parents is something that's not acceptable anymore. I just wonder how these people would like it in their homes if people really acted on those things. Why do they say that? Why do they say that? Well, let me give you another instance before we answer that question. The Roman Catholic Church. We have actually similar things. We have a man, Alphonsus Liguori. He was a man that was canonized among the saints in heaven. by the pronouncement of Pope Gregory XVI in 1839. He was declared a doctor of the Universal Roman Church by Pope Pius IX. He says some things here about his moral teachings may shock you. He says a servant is allowed to help his master to climb a window to commit fornication. It is not a mortal sin to get drunk unless one loses completely the use of his mental faculties for over one hour. It's lawful to violate penal laws such like as hunting, fishing, you can just do whatever you want no matter what the laws are. It is asked whether prostitutes are to be permitted. They are to be permitted because, as the distinguished priest says, remove prostitutes from the world and all things will be disordered with lust. Hence, in large cities, prostitutes may be permitted. Why do they say things like this? These are people that profess to be Christ's disciples in both cases. But they're interested in progression and morality. Why? Well, I'll tell you why. In the first instance, the man I referred to, whose name is Mr. Spong, you may have heard of him, Bishop Spong, in the Episcopal Church. He insists that all things in the Bible must be gone through the crucible of modern knowledge, modern scholarship, so they can be relevant. The Roman Catholics here, they do not simply say the Bible alone. What do they say? Well, we'll just quote here from the Jesuit founder, Ignatius Loyola. He says, laying aside all private judgment, the spirit must be always ready to obey the true doctrine. And therefore, if anything shall appear white to our eyes, which the church has defined as black, We likewise must declare it to be black. If you receive from your superior a command which appears to go against your own judgment, your own conviction, or your own well-being, then you must fall on your knees, putting off all human principles and considerations, and renew, when you are alone, your vow of obedience." In other words, the church is the standard, is the authority. And you remember our present Pope that we have in the world today is a Jesuit, a follower of Ignatius Loyola. And one of their great principles, I don't mean great in a good sense, but one of their principles that they're well known for is the end that justifies the means. If you're promoting the Catholic religion, then you can do what you need to do to have it become successful. If you need to kill someone unlawfully, According to the word of God, it doesn't matter, it's still lawful now because you're furthering the Pope's plans. Kill them. Lying, cheating, stealing, doesn't matter. So you see, both of these groups have put man, either ecclesiastical man in the case of Rome, or modern man in his consciousness, so to speak, his moral consciousness, what men think, may get together and feel as good for today. They put man in the place of authority. They made an idol out of man. Reminded of Psalm 2, are we not? Let us cast their bands from us. Romans chapter 1, where they would not like to retain the knowledge of God. This is religious man. This is unreligious man, if you will. They will have their own authority. Let me just say this too. We cannot expect in America or any country for traditional morality to win. Because it's based on tradition. It's based on what we used to think as a nation. Man will not submit to just things that men used to believe. Man needs a divine word from heaven. This is the divine word from heaven. And God spake all these words saying, These ones I've mentioned, Mr. Spong and the Roman Catholic Church love to say, we're followers of Jesus. Whatever Jesus they may be referring to. If they would read the New Testament, they would find that Jesus constantly appealed to what? The Scriptures. When men asked Him about divorce, what did He say? Well, I think in these modern times it would be permissible to do such and such. When they ask him about the Sabbath, what did he say? Well, you know, that was kind of stringent back then. There's a lot of details that were convoluted, so we just don't need to worry about that anymore. No. When he's asked about the resurrection, what did he say? Well, you know, that was fine for some of those men in the old times, long thousands of years ago. But you know, in these more modern scientific times, those things are really not possible. They just didn't know that back then. No. He didn't say that, did he? When asked about how to get to heaven, Did he make up another way? He said, keep the law. What was that to do? That was the point, man, that they can't keep the law. He said, I am what? The way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. He said, in reference to the moral questions that we mentioned of divorce or the Sabbath, What sayeth the Scriptures? What about honoring your parents? Remember that one? Christ didn't say, yes, old-fashioned, let's get rid of that one. No, he rebuked the Pharisees and scribes and some of the Jews. Why? Because they made void that law by the tradition. He upheld it. The Sabbath, he corrected from the abuses of the current church of that day. But he didn't say don't do it. Divorce. He went back to the scriptures of the Old Testament, the writings. He talked about what Moses allowed for the hardness of the heart, but he talked about how God made them from the beginning again, showing that he believed that Genesis was a real historical book. Brethren, Jesus, just as much as we believe, God spake all these words, saying. That is the authority for the Bible believer. What saith the Scripture? What saith the Scripture? There is no other authority for the Bible believer. That is a final authority. Everything goes through that book. It does have a privileged status. It does have, if you will, a free pass. Does it mean it's not to be studied? To be interpreted properly? To be read. To be dug into. To be wrestled and labored with. It says the preachers to labor in the Word and doctrine. But we are not to judge it. It is to judge us. We are not to inform it. We are to be informed by it. We are not to pick and choose what you believe in it. We are to believe in all. Paul said, I am believing all that is written in the law and the prophets. Is that your view today? Is your morals just set on what man thinks? Or what's easy? Or perhaps even what the church may say? Or is it founded upon God speaking all these words? Where is your authority? You have an authority. Every man assumes some authority. Every sin is committed. Men have some reason why they committed it. Some authority, some way they can justify it. Will they profess to be Christians or no? It says here that God spake all these words. It means that God busied Himself with speaking. He didn't have to speak. He could not, or He could have refused. It was in His power. Yet God graciously spoke. It says in the Psalms that he dealt not with any other nation, but he gave Jacob the commandments of God. It's a great blessing, though many count it a curse upon the world. But it's a great blessing. It reveals to us God as He is. It reveals to us His holy character, His love, His wrath, His justice. His salvation. Remember in the Old Testament, it even said, Look unto Me, all the ends of the earth, and be ye saved. It even said there is no other Savior. God busied Himself, we can say that's what the idea of that word, that verb, speak. With this work, this action of speaking. All these words. Does that mean all the words are easy to understand, though? Does it mean we should ignore them? No. In fact, because God spake them. Because He felt it very important to begin and continue to speak to men We should feel it very important to hear what He has to say. Not some, but all these words. All these words. You see, that's the thing. When men began to set themselves up as authority, they began to say, well, we like these words over here. Or we don't like these, so we'll just hear these words. We'll just promote these words. Brother, how do you hear? Do you hear them all? Do you hear them as God's speaking? Well, there may be passages you're in doubt of as to how to take them, how to understand them. What we do not need is to change the Scripture. We do not need to reject it. We need to pray for the Holy Spirit to teach us. The apostles received the scriptures and they also received the Holy Spirit to help them understand. One of the apostles, Peter, writing about another apostle, that is the apostle Paul. He says of this, he says, even as our beloved brother Paul, also according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, that is of the new earth and the Lord's coming, in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable rest as they do also the other Scriptures unto their own destruction." That is in 2 Peter 3, 15b-16. You see there, Peter didn't say because these are hard to understand, these brethren here that he's writing to should reject them and change them. No, he says be careful, really, doesn't he? Because those that are unlearned are unstable. They rest them, or twist them, or warp them. How? To their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. So he was saying Paul's writings are scripture, just like the rest of the scriptures. There are some things that are hard to be understood. Again, we don't reject them and say these are fanciful tales. These could not happen. Or this is just impossible. Who would ever believe something like that? That's absurd. I'm sorry I have to say those words. People say that and much worse about the Bible. And then they say they believe it. In some way or another. We don't know. Hard to understand that. That's something hard to be understood, isn't it? But in the Scriptures, let us pray for understanding. Let us receive them. It will not profit you, my brother and sister, if we have the word of God preached. The gospel, Paul says, was preached to those in the Old Testament. But what? It did not profit them not being mixed with what? Complete understanding? No. Faith. Faith. It did not receive them, believingly. And so it did not profit them. In fact, it was turned to their own damnation. And these men and women that write against the scriptures and denigrate them and call them all kinds of blasphemous names and use terrible adjectives to describe them, they will find in the last day that the Word of God endureth forever, and they, as the grass of the field, and perhaps they're the flower of the field, the glory of man. Perhaps they're considered the glory of our age, of scholars, or of churchmen, or churchwomen. They shall pass away and fade away, but the gospel will not. God says in Isaiah, to the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to these, to the written Word of God. It is because there is no light in them. This is God's Word. We're not making this up. We're not saying in our puny wisdom as men, as men. God is saying these people that speak against this word and speak things contrary to it and deny it. We're speaking out of darkness. The darkness of unbelief. The darkness of rebellion against the word of the Lord. In fact, children, you may not understand everything, but if someone comes to you and says, well, you know, this is not true, the Bible, we'll get failed. Paul has an answer for you. Paul has an answer for you. Look in the book of Romans. The book of Romans, chapter 3. And he's speaking here of the advantage of the Jew and the profit of circumcision. He says there's much profit, there's much advantage here. Every way, in verse 2, chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. Now there's a good word for these folk. Paul said they were the oracles of God. The Old Testament. For what if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? Now here comes an objection. Here comes an objection. Doesn't seem like God's promises came through. Some of those Israelites, they didn't believe. Look at verse 4. God forbid, yea, let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written, that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. Brethren, there's the answer. Let God be true. And what is it true? What is he speaking of here? He's speaking of the written word of God. Brethren, with much study and God's help in that study, our Protestant forefathers, we can say even some of our early church forefathers, answered these contradictions that men bring up as if they're real. They're not real. They may appear to be at first glance until the truth is understood, until things are looked into more deeply. But children, even if we never come to reconcile something, let us say with Paul, let God be true and every man a liar. Let us confess that we're men. We may not be able to plumb the depths of certain things that men may throw at us. As Spurgeon used to say, any fool can throw a question out nobody can answer. Let us have in our hearts, settle. Settle this in your heart, brethren, this morning. Let God be true. And every man a liar. Every man a liar. God's Word cannot fail. It is true. Men may think they have all these things they can say, oh, here's an error, here's an error. That didn't come to pass. It's only because they haven't understood it. They have missed something. Because God cannot lie. He's a God of truth. And because of that, He spoke all these words. Remember we sang in the Psalms here in Psalm 119, the third part there. Is the Word of God your delight? Do you love it? Is it that which you long after? Christ did. Christ did. The apostles did. What did Paul say? Bring the books, but especially the parchments. Especially the parchments. Especially the Scriptures. God has taken in hand to speak with that miraculous voice we might say. Are we taking in hand to hear? Are we asking God to circumcise our ears and hearts, to cut away the flesh, the carnality, that we may hear Him and rejoice in Him? Brethren, these words that God has written, while they're in, remember we read, that's the scary Scary, terrible, making many afraid. In fact, what does Moses say here in chapter 19, we read a few minutes ago, that all the people that was in the camp trembled, even Moses. Brethren, this is not the end of the words, is it? These laws are meant not only to show us our duty, show us what righteousness is, but to show us that we need the Lord Jesus Christ. Of all, Paul says, our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Because we don't like to hear all God's words or we go to sleep hearing them. Or we avoid them or ignore them or read over them because we're not paying attention. And even these folk here that heard them, and you saw their reaction, they're afraid. They said, Moses, speak instead of... Lord, I'm going to die. Even they didn't keep them all. Though it was much fear given to them that wore off, didn't it? And the forgetfulness. And the lack of meditation, and really the lack of faith. I encourage you. Yea, I exhort you. Don't stop with just hearing the Word. Do you have it mixed with faith? Do you receive it from Christ's hand? For you have to receive it one way or the other. From the hand of God as a judge. From the hand of Christ as your Savior, the Mediator. Which is it for you? Are you doing these things out of a slavish fear, It would be good enough for you to escape some of God's judgment, some of His punishment. Are you doing it because God, through Christ, has saved you and loved you? Christ's death is atoned for every one of the violations of these commandments. So you can rejoice to hear God's law because your Savior has fulfilled it, not only so, on your behalf and justified you without these laws being performed by you. but has given the Spirit to sanctify you so that you're able to keep these laws now. You can rejoice in them, knowing that Christ has fulfilled them. He's promised to be not only your righteousness, but your sanctification. Your sanctification. You're one that sanctifies you to prepare the ways to walk in to do these good deeds, that you may glorify Him who has justified you by being sanctified and bearing good fruit. Hear the Word of God. He has written it. He has spoken it. Let us hear it by faith in Jesus Christ. Let us be given joy. Not in our own performance, but in the performance, in the promise, in the help of another outside of us. He then is our all in all, beginning to end, the author and finisher of our faith. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, help us now as we would close our meeting, that we might hear the words which Thou hast written, which Thou hast spoken, committed then to writing, The Lord, in our own flesh, if there be any here or any listening later on the internet, that have saw only in this law judgment, condemnation, something fearful to be done to avoid hell, O God, may they be struck even more so with the inability to do, not only that, Lord, but the averseness of heart to hear these words. Lord God, we confess our own carnality. The flesh hates this book, hates this law. It would not submit to it. Yet, Lord, we thank Thee for the regenerating Spirit, giving us that new heart which we might rejoice in the law of God in the inner man. O God, we ask, may many be driven to Christ. May the schoolmaster do his duty to bring them to Christ, to be justified without the deeds of the law. Grant us wisdom and help, Lord, even this week. For Christ's sake. Amen.