Exodus 16:11-12
The LORD said to Moses, "I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, 'At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God."
GOD
SPEAKS TO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL THROUGH MOSES AND AARON (Exodus 19)
Exodus 19:4-6
You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on
eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my
covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although
the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy
nation.
The Mosaic covenant: God forms a covenant with
the Israelites through Moses
To receive God’s blessing and inherit the earth
as priests and a holy nation, the Israelites needed to remain faithful to God
and obey God’s voice.
The people accepted God’s call and promised to
do all that He has commanded. God then came to Moses in a thick cloud, to show
the Israelites that Moses was the chosen one through whom God would speak.
GOD
GIVES MOSES THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (Exodus 20:1-17)
The Law was given AFTER God took His people out
of bondage, AFTER He begun a personal relationship with them. Only having done
these two things, did God then give the Israelites the Law, allowing them to
become servants of God. This follows the ancient way of servant hood. The king
or leader would redeem a group of people, and they would abide by his rules
because they would become his servants. Thus, the purpose of the Law was NOT to
show what we can do to receive salvation. Instead, the purpose of the Law was
to illustrate that by LIVING it, we can come to understand how our lives are
better, therefore creating a thirst in the world for God.
The first four commandments apply to the people’s relationship with
God
God first identified Himself to the Israelites
as their God, who brought them out of Egypt, out of bondage.
1st Commandment: We should
have no other gods before God.
Worshiping any gods other than God is idolatry.
Such gods include, obviously, gods of all religions* and further includes
anything object we place above God, such as career, wealth, social status, etc.
* When we treat God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
as a religious figure rather than understand God and His works as the Absolute Truth,
then we have not truly recognized God as God Almighty but merely view Him as
any other religious god.
2nd Commandment: We should
not make for ourselves a carved image in the form of anything in heaven or on
earth.
This is closely tied to the 1st
Commandment, where God is making it clear that idol worship is a major sin.
Why is the concept of idolatry so important that
God spends the first 2 Commandments drilling this into our head? Because only
God of the Bible is the Truth, supported by not just His Word alone but also
historical, archeological, scientific findings. All other gods are mere
creations of man and offer nothing more than man’s imagination. How can there
be true salvation or understanding of life through creations of the created? If
we don’t start off following the one and only Truth, we would be led astray. If
we want to end right, then we have got to start right – and that begins with
following the one true God.
3rd Commandment: You shall
not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Most people take this commandment to mean that
we shall not use “swear word.” While the Bible does teach us that we need to be
cautious about what we say (James 3), because words have power and oftentimes
reflect our inner state of being (cf. Ephesians 4:29, Matthew 15:18, Proverbs
12:18, etc.), this commandment goes beyond just our choice of words. As Dr.
Chuck Missler of the Koinonia Institute likes to put it, this commandment is
more about our “ambassadorship.”
2 Corinthians 5:20
We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his
appeal through us.
In other words, as followers of Christ, we
represent Him as we live our lives. Everything we do or say directly reflects
Him and how deep our relationship with Him is. When non-believers watch us, and
they walk away thinking, “I don’t see a difference between having Christ in
their lives,” we really need to take that to heart.
We squeeze oranges and expect orange juice. We
squeeze lemons and expect lemonade. We squeeze Christians and ought to get
Christ! So, fellow brothers and sisters, be fitting ambassadors for Christ!
4th Commandment: Remember the
Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
We are taught to set aside at least once every 7
days and devote it to God. The point is to always remember our relationship
with God, to make sure that no matter how crazy life gets, we always come back
to God and reset, to maintain the most important relationship in life – our
relationship with God! I have learned that as long as my personal relationship
with God is in great health, then everything else in life just fall smoothly
into place.
The last six commandments apply to the people’s relationships with
other people
5th Commandment: Honor our
father and our mother.
6th Commandment: We should
not murder.
7th Commandment: We should not
commit adultery.
Unfaithfulness of our spirit is idolatry.
Unfaithfulness of our flesh is adultery. Throughout the Bible, Israel’s
idolatry has been compared to that of adultery (e.g., Isaiah 57).
8th Commandment: We should
not steal.
9th Commandment: We should
not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Jesus was crucified because of false witnesses.
No matter how much we dislike a person, it is never Christ-like to “lie” to get
what we want or to give them what they “deserve.” God is the ultimate Judge who
will right all wrongs (Romans 12:19) – because we are not perfectly righteous,
we cannot fairly right a wrong and therefore need to leave that in the hands of
God!
10th Commandment: We should
not covet our neighbor’s house, wife, servant, ox, donkey, or anything that
belongs to our neighbors.
Do not covet. God gave each one of us what He
expects us to use to succeed. He does not give us more and expect less or give
us less and expect more – Instead, He expects us to abide in His will and use
what He has given to each of us to do good works (Matthew 25:14-30). So, focus
on what He has given us and be grateful, be fruitful! What He has given to others,
be happy for them and encourage them with their walk in Christ faithfully with
all that they have been given as well!
THE PEOPLE BECAME AFRAID OF GOD (Exodus 20:18-26)
At this point, the Israelites were still in
bondage by the traditions of Egypt. The epitome of this was when they made the
golden calf (Exodus 32) – Moses was gone for 40 days; they didn't know if he
was still alive, and they needed food and water… so, instead of remaining
faithful in God and trust His provision, they decided to create religion and
bow to a man-made idol, thinking that would bring them food and water. Sounds
ridiculous – but oh how easily we fall into such a way of thinking!
Exodus 20:18-19
When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet
and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a
distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do
not have God speak to us or we will die.”
The Israelites were afraid of the manifestations
of God, in a manner shared by Adam after he ate from the Tree of Knowledge.
Before eating the fruit, Adam had not noticed he was naked because his full
attention was placed on God and God alone. However, after eating the frust, the
first thing he noticed was himself.
Similarly, that was exactly what was happening
with the Israelites. The people noticed only themselves but not God. Even when
they tried to acknowledge God, they approached God with presuppositions – God
must be approached a certain way, songs must be sang a certain way, etc.
The Israelites had always known about God, but
they had not yet developed a personal relationship with God as Moses had. They
had no idea how to approach God and were frightened by God's manifestations. Instead
of learning how to become closer to God through Moses, they chose to hide
instead. They hid from God. And instead of trusting God, they relied heavily on
their own thinking of who God is and how God should be approached.
Adam ate from the Tree and received carnal
knowledge. And his knowledge of the flesh prevented him from fellowship with
the God that he loved! Adam had the wrong knowledge. When we approach God with
the wrong knowledge, based not on the Scripture but man-made traditions, we too
will not be able to fellowship with God!
When we are in the flesh, we are not with God.
Our desires of the flesh blocks us from interacting with God. When we are in
the spirit with God, we do not focus on the flesh. Israelites and Gentiles
alike, we all need to realize that when we worship, it is all about God. Our
full attention should be place on God – not on ourselves and how we appear to
other people or how other people appear to us!
Exodus 20:21
The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick
darkness where God was.
We hinder ourselves when we tie ourselves down
with traditions. We stay at the base of the mountain like the Israelites did
when God wants us to be at the top of the mountain with Him! We hide from Mount
Sinai when we are afraid of His presence because of our bondages – bondages
created by our fleshly desires for the world. When we are in His presence, the
earthly enters the eternal. Lusts of the flesh and all shackles fall away
because we have been drawn into the presence of God, because our focus is on
Him, not ourselves.
Let our fear of the Lord keep us from
sinning
The Israelites’ fear was of the flesh – the fear
of death. This is not the fear we should have toward God. Instead, the fear of
God we should have should be that out of reverent respect, respect that comes
from the understanding that because God is so great, He deserves our reverence.
Fleshly fear can cripple a person, stopping us
from doing the great things that God may have in His heart for us to do.
Reverent fear is healthy – It allows us to view
and respect God in His Sovereignty, which would allow us to abide in His Will
with no hindrance and therefore truly bathe in His blessings.
Exodus 20:12
Do not make any gods to be alongside me; do not make for yourselves
gods of silver or gods of gold.
God is alive and living, not to be represented
by objects. Why? Because we humans have the tendency to idolize objects, and
God does not want us to turn to false worship.
We need to realize that our God is a LIVING God.
He is all-powerful, not limited at all by our own small minds but limitless to
even beyond our imagination. We should not boil God down to images or statues,
because our God is not confined by location or by structure. We can worship Him
anytime, anywhere, because God is so big, He is able to remain connected with
us no matter where we are.
When we objectify God, we shrink our view of His
greatness down to that object. We start to believe God is limited (for example,
“I must carry Him in my purse when I travel so that I can remain close to Him,”
or, “I can’t wait to visit Jerusalem, so that I can be closer to God,” or, “Oh
my, His statue is dusty. Let me clean it up so that God looks great.”) – God is
NOT limited! We don’t need to carry Him anywhere or clean Him up or “help” him
out in any way! He is the One who gives! And so, our view of God must be of God
is His COMPLETE sovereignty, and we must be careful that we do not limit our
view of Him because of our own inadequacies!
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