A Study of the Life of Moses

Sermon # 13

 Smoke On The Mountain

Exodus 19:1 - 20:1

              Today according to prevalent mindset, what is right or wrong has to be decided in each given situation. There is no absolute standard of right and wrong. When it comes to personal ethics, each person must decide in a given situation what love would command him to do rather than to seek an outside moral standard.  And the result is absolute chaos.

            William Bennett in his updated version of the “Index of Leading Cultural Indicators,” (Bennett, 1999) concludes, “During the last half of this century (20^th), we have made extraordinary progress in medicine, science and technology. We have achieved unprecedented levels of wealth and affluence… But we have lost something in the process. The nation that we live in today is more violent and vulgar, coarse and cynical, rude and remorseless, deviant and depressed than the one we once inhabited. A popular culture that is often brutal, gruesome, and enamored with death robs many children of their innocence. People kill other people and themselves more easily. Men and women abandon each other, and their children more readily. Marriage and the American family is weaker and more unstable.”

            We are like a culture lost in unfamiliar territory without a map. What we need are some landmarks, some fixed points of reference to figure out where we are and where we are going. That is where the Ten Commandments come in.

As we catch up with Moses and the children of Israel in Exodus 19 the people have been in the desert for about three months.  Now in Exodus 19 they arrive at “the mountain.” (v. 2).   They have arrived at the same place where Moses had first been called by God to go and bring the people out of Egypt.  That is Mt. Sinai, or Mt. Horeb, probably two different names for the same place.  It was here that God had promised in Exodus 3:12   “… I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

            In Exodus 19:3, we find that Moses makes his first of many trips up the mountain. (We have a false impression from the movies that Moses made only one trip up the mountain to receive the law.) On the mountain God tells about what he is to tell the children of Israel. Exodus 19:4, ^“‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself.”

            First, he reminds the children of Israel what he has done for them, how he defeated the Egyptians and carried them, as it were on Eagles wings. 

Let me make it personal!  Do you remember when you were trapped in Egypt, you were in bondage to sin and there was no place for you to go? Do you remember how you groaned and cried out in your captivity? Do you remember when you looked at your life and saw only the agony and hopeless of your situation?   The Lord is saying, “I heard your cries, I saw your tears and I came down to buy back out of slavery. Do you remember?”  Do you remember when you time when you stood with enemies on every side and the Red Sea lapping at your feet with no where to go?  When you couldn’t go forward and you could not go back?  The Lord is saying, “Do you remember how I rescued you, how I made a way were there was no way? Do remember?”

            Secondly he tells them that he has set them aside for a special purpose. Exodus 19: 5-6 says, “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. (6) And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”  He says that they are to be a holy nation, the word “holy” means to be set apart for a special purpose.  A nation of people who are to show the difference that living in a relationship with God makes.  They were to be a nation who would form a bridge between God and the other nations. This was not meant to exclude other nations but rather to show by their lives what God’s ideal for nations was and that life is to be so attractive that the other nations will want to come and join them.  So how were they to show they were different?  By showing the other nations what it meant to be in a relationship with the living God. 

            Only three days later according to verse 16, they assembled at the base of the mountain and suddenly the mountain is surrounded by cloud, there is thunder and lightning and a deafening blast of trumpets.  And everyone trembles. Calling Moses up into the mountain, God gave him the law (Ex. 20:1). Included in the law were the Ten Commandments, some-times called the Law of Moses.  

As we will see the Ten Commandments are divided into two parts – the first four commandments regard man’s relationship to God. First, we must get our relationship with God right, this will be the subject of study for next week. The following Sunday we will look at the last six commandments, which regard man’s relationship to man.  Here we discover how people are supposed to relate to one another.  These command-ments show how we are to show in our relationships with one another the same grace and love that God has shown in dealing with us.

This morning I want to serve as an introduction to the Ten Commandments.  Perhaps no other single portion of scripture is more misunderstood or the target of so much criticism.  “A few years back Ted Turner, the outspoken chairman of the Turner Broadcasting System and the creator of CNN, declared the Ten Commandments to be outmoded. He said they weren’t relevant to current global problems such as overpopulation and the arms race. He told the audience, “I bet nobody here even pays much attention to them, because they are too old. Commandments are out.” To replace them, Turner offered his own, Ten Voluntary Initiatives.” They included: to help the downtrodden, to love and respect planet Earth, and to limit families to two children. He concluded by calling Christianity a religion of losers.” [David Holwick. “Laying Down the Law.” Exodus 19:3-8.  Sermon Central]

Regardless of Mr. Turner’s thoughts the Ten Commandments continue to stand as moral standards that have not been repealed, nor do they need updating to meet the thinking of modern society.

ABC Nightline’s Ted Koppel one night made the following comment: “We have actually convinced ourselves that slogans will save us. ‘Shoot up if you must, but use a clean needle.’ or, ‘Enjoy sex whenever and with whomever you wish, but protect yourself.’ “No! The answer is no! Not because it isn’t cool or smart or because you might wind up in jail or dying in the AIDS ward, but because it’s wrong!

“What Moses brought down from Mount Sinai were not the Ten Suggestions, but the Ten Commandments!” [Bits & Pieces, April 30, 1992]

            What is most need for us today is to understand the implications of the Ten Commandments for the present age.

Do the Ten Commandments have any significance for us as believers today?  Jesus said about the law in Matthew 5:17-18, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. (18) For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.”  Jesus said, “I have not come to break the law or to do away with the law but I have come to fulfill it.”  The word, fulfill means literally “to give full meaning.”  Jesus not only adhered to the Ten Commandments he was the living exposition of them.  What Jesus did was to show that it was not good enough to have a nice neat little set of rules to regulate our lives. What we need is to behave in such a way that others will see and ask why.

Today I would like for us to ask and answer the question: “What are we to do with Ten Commandments?”

 1. We are to use them as a Mirror.

The law was not given so that Israel by keeping it could make themselves acceptable to God.  A right standing in the sight of God was then and is now attained through faith in God. The law functioned to reveal to the Israelites their sinfulness by a striking contrast to the standards of a holy God.  Paul tells us in Romans 3:19 & 20 that, “ …. whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. (20) Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”

Paul says that the law does not make any one right in God’s sight, but that rather  “by the law is the knowledge of sin.”  He is not saying that the law makes us sinners, but that the law reveals our sin.  The mirror never makes the spot on your face. The mirror only reveals to you that there is a spot.

We need to remember that the law was given to a redeemed people. They had already been freed from slavery, it was not given in order to get them out of bondage.  It was faith in applying the blood of lamb that was the only way of escaping the judgment of God.

          Just as the Israelites escaped the judgment of God by applying the blood of the sacrificed lamb you and I escape God’s judgment by accepting the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary.  We are not saved by keeping the law, but by applying his blood to our lives through faith in his completed sacrifice. 

 2.   We are to use them as a compass to give us direction.

God has given his law to let man know what is right and what is wrong. Stealing is wrong because God says it is wrong. Lying is wrong because God says it is wrong. And adultery is wrong because God says it is wrong.

            God did not lean out of Heaven one day and say, “I think that these people are far to happy, I think I will give them the Commandments to make their lives miserable.”  In reality, God saw that men and women were continually ruining their lives, enslaving themselves to sin and its consequences.  He therefore summarized ten life-directing principles to bring order and harmony to life.

 3. We are to Allow Them to Lead Us To Christ.

We are to allow the Ten Commandment to act as a guardian to bring us to Christ. Galatians 3:24 says, ^“Therefore the law was our tutor (schoolmaster)  to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”  “The word ‘schoolmaster’ is the Greek paidagogos, and does not mean school teacher. Schoolmaster is a good word, but it meant something quite different back in the days of Paul. It meant a servant or a slave who was part of a Roman household. …In the homes … of the rich in the Romans Empire, were slaves who cared for the children. When a child was born into such a home, he was put in the custody of a servant or slave who actually raised him. … When the little one grew to a certain age and was to school, this servant was the one who…takes the little one by the hand, leads him to school and turns him over to the school teacher.” [J. Vernon McGee. Love, Liberation & The Law : The Ten Commandments. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995.) pp. xix - xx.]

            The Ten Commandments won’t take you to heaven but they will point you in the right direction.  When you finally come to the place that you see your hopeless and helpless condition as a sinner, the law does not save you it is the one who takes you by the hand and brings you to Christ.

            Salvation is not a matter of comparison. I can’t say, “I’m going to heaven because I am so much better than you.” That will not help a bit. While it is true that a man standing on the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro may be a great deal higher than a man standing on an anthill, but both of them are still a long, long way from heaven.

            Want you allow the knowledge of the Ten Commandments to lead you into a loving and intimate relationship with Jesus?

 Application

            In closing this morning I want you to see that the Ten Commandments keeps us from two very real dangers.

            The Ten Commandments keeps us from rationalization, from fuzzy thinking about sin.  When we determine sinfulness based on comparison with the behavior of others we do not look so bad.  We rationalize, “Everyone else is doing it, it must be ok!”  The Ten Commandments clear the fog. They remind us that regardless of what every one else is doing, no matter where our society draws the lines, some things are wrong.  The standard of behavior is not determined by what our friends think but by what God thinks.

            The Ten Commandments keep us from compartmentalization.   The Ten Commandments are not something that we must only accept intellectually, the objective of the Ten Commandments is to change our hearts and our behavior.  They give us concrete behavioral objectives