Eternity to Eternity 05 Genesis 1:9 — Joseph Balsan

The Third Day: Regeneration and Fruitfulness

Shall we turn to Genesis chapter one,. Genesis chapter one and verse nine,. Genesis one and verse nine,. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.

And it was so. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he seeds. And God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb-yielding seed, and the fruit tree-yielding fruit, after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth.

And it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, an herb-yielding seed, after his kind, and the tree-yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind. And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.

Passover and Protection Under the Blood

Exodus chapter twelve,. Exodus twelve and verse one,. Exodus twelve and verse one,. And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months.

It shall be the first month of the year to you, speaking unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house.

And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls. Every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb.

Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You shall take it up from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month, and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.

And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts, and on the upper door post of the houses wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and with leavened bread, and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.

Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire, his head with his legs, and with the pertinence thereof. And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning, and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire.

And thus shall ye eat it, with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And ye shall eat it in haste, it is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment.

I am the Lord, and the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are, and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt.

And this day shall be unto you for a memorial, and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations, ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.". One more portion in Exodus, chapter 20, and verse 1.

The Law Given to a Redeemed People

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. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is 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 God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquitous fathers, upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation them that hate me, and showing mercy on the thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments, that taketh his name in vain.

Remember this Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work, but 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, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. Wherefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it. Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

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 men, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.

And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain 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 is come to prove you, and 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.

May the Lord bless to us the reading of his word. Shall we look to the Lord in prayer? Our gracious God and Father, we desire to thank thee again tonight for the privilege we have of gathering together in this way to look into thy word.

We thank thee for it, and we thank thee for the one of whom it speaks, our Lord Jesus. And we pray if there's anyone in this audience tonight who knows him not, we pray that something may be used of thyself to awaken that one, and bring that one in repentance and faith to the Lord Jesus.

And then, as we thy people are gathered together to listen to thy word, we pray that thou will speak to our hearts. Give us understanding that we as thy people may grow in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, that we might more faithfully manifest him in our lives, and represent him in this world where he has left us.

We pray again at this time for our brother Robinson, that in a special way thou will graciously minister to him, laying thy good hand of healing upon him, and dealing graciously with him, with his loved ones as well who pass through this trial, this ordeal with him.

We commend them to thee for thy blessing and thy special grace and help in this hour of need. We ask it all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now, last night we were looking at the third day for a little while.

I might mention that while it is true that these six days picture for us the six ages of man's history upon the face of the earth, I might say that according to what we had looked at on Sunday night where we saw that man as the new creature is pictured for us in the first day.

You remember, we turn to the fourth chapter of 2 Corinthians in the sixth verse where it says, God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

And, this creation also pictures for us God's work in the human soul. 2 Corinthians 5, 17 says,. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is the new creation. All things are passed away, behold, all things are become new.

Six Stages of God’s Work in the Soul

And, in God's dealings with the individual soul, we have also, you might say, six steps. First of all, when the light of God shines into the heart and shows the man that he is a sinner and needs the Savior, revealing to him also the salvation that there is in the Lord Jesus Christ, because we saw that one part of the light that God gave was the light of promise.

A promise that a Savior would come into the world who would bruise the serpent's head and who, in turn, would have his heel bruised. A mention or a prophecy to us of the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He had to suffer in order to make atonement for the soul. And then, the second day, we had a new element brought in which divided that which was above from that which was beneath. Something that happens when a person is born again, a new element is brought into the life.

Life is divided, you might say, into two elements, the heavenly element and the earthly element. And then, the third day, three being the number of resurrection, we have brought before us how the dry land appears, how something reliable and stable appears in the creation of God.

And so, it is when God saves us, there is a definite work in which God regenerates the soul, putting a new nature within that soul, and from that new nature there is to be fruit. And then, the fourth day, when God put these stars, the sun and the moon and the stars, in their rightful places to shine upon the earth, to give light upon the earth.

And that's what the Christian is, that's what the church is. It is to be a light for the Lord Jesus here upon the earth, faithfully representing him. And then, the fifth day, the waters, picturing for us the tribulations that a Christian goes through.

The Lord Jesus said in the 16th chapter of John, "'In the world these things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.'.

It is true that the Christian will not be in the great tribulation. The Lord Jesus has promised us salvation. 1 Thessalonians 5 tells us that God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.

And that salvation that he has appointed for us is the salvation that is going to be ours at the coming of our Lord Jesus, when the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

So shall we ever be with the Lord. We shall be saved from the world and from the tribulation period.". The tribulation period that is coming upon the world, which has rejected the Lord Jesus Christ, rejected the testimony of the Holy Spirit in this age of grace, and the tribulation is going to be upon the Christ rejecters.

That is why we are assured that believers, or Christians, will not be in the great tribulation, because it is a time of wrath upon those who have refused the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is not true of any believer.

We may fail, and we do fail. Christians confess and acknowledge that they don't live the right kind of a life that they should live. The more we go on with the Lord and learn of his word, the more we find out how far short we come of what we as Christians should be, so that if being caught up to be with Christ depended upon the measure of our spirituality or our godliness, I don't think there would be a single Christian that would be taken to be with the Lord, but we're to be taken up to be with him because we are his, redeemed by his blood, and no matter how faulty our lies, we have believed in him, we have trusted in him, and he will save us from the great tribulation period.

Tribulation as the Christian’s School of Patience

But the Christian does have tribulation, tribulations through a lifetime, tribulations of different kinds, tribulations that sometimes last longer than seven years. To pray for him, and he wanted to pray for him that he might have patience.

You remember how Mr. Chapman got down and began to pray that the Lord would send tribulations into that young man's life? That he would send trials and difficulties and disappointments and problems and these various things into this young man's life, and after listening for a few minutes while the young man shook Mr. Chapman and says, No, Mr. Chapman, I ask you to pray that the Lord might give me patience, not tribulation.

And Mr. Chapman said, Well, tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope. Tribulation worketh patience. So, in the midst of all of our tribulations that we as Christians pass through, the Lord is working something out in our lives.

He's working for us, and so we have that the fifth day speaking of the turbulent waters which bring forth the various creatures in their abundance, picture for us the tribulations that a Christian passes through in his and her experience.

And then, of course, the sixth day when God put man upon the face of the earth and put all creation under his dominion, speaking of that day when we are going to reign with Christ, when we shall reign with him, but something that he would have us experience even in our lives now, that you and I as Christians should not be constantly defeated, not constantly overcome in our lives, not constantly hiding under the excuse, Well, the flesh is too strong for me, the flesh is too active for me, and I have no strength against it.

You know, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Well, as we shall see perhaps the nights ahead, the Lord has made provision for that too, so that you and I can reign in life by one, even by our Lord Jesus Christ.

You and I as Christians should be enjoying daily the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ that we might faithfully reproduce and live for him here, but it pictures completely that time when we're going to reign with him in that future day.

The Third Day in Creation and the Nations

Now, last night we were looking a little at this third day. We saw that there were three great scientific activities that took place on this third day. First of all, we see the science of oceanography.

The Lord says, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and then secondly, we have the science of geology. Let the dry land appear, and it was so, and thirdly, we have the science of botany.

The Lord says, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb-yielding seed, and the fruit-yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and it was so, and we mentioned how that pictures for us the third age, after the tower of Babel, when nations were formed and scattered abroad upon the face of the earth, for God's decree was that men should multiply, and that men should increase and replenish the earth, but when in their pride they determined to raise a tower, whose top would reach unto heaven, God came down and confounded their languages, and so the nations turned from God, and they were given up to idolatry.

I think that Romans chapter one is an apt description of what took place when these nations were scattered abroad. We find how they became idolatrous, how they became heathen, and I might say that many times when you read the word heathen in the Old Testament, it should rightly be translated nation.

The nations are heathen, the heathens are nations. There are three words in our English translation that they tell us are the same in the Hebrew translation, and the translators only translated them differently because perhaps they thought people would get tired of reading them with the same word.

Those three words are gentiles, nations, and heathen. All three of those words are one and the same word in the Hebrew. The gentiles are the nations, and the nations are heathen in God's sight because they do not know the Lord, and so we find that the waters are picturing for us the nations of the earth, and we have a new element.

We have the dry land appearing. As I have mentioned, you know there are some people that believe that these are ages rather than days of 24 hours each. Now, it does seem a little difficult to believe that the earth could come out of the water, and that it would not take a long time for it to dry, but I want you to notice it says here, and let the dry land appear.

Now, this was a tremendous miracle. God brought forth the earth out of the waters after it had been submerged in waters for millenniums perhaps. We don't know how long the earth was submerged in those waters while it was in the chaotic state, but when it came forth out of the earth, it was dry land.

It was dry land, though it had lain in the in the waters for perhaps millenniums and millions of years. We don't know why it was dry land when it came forth. You know, that's the way God did perform various miracles.

Remember when the children of Israel crossed through the Red Sea? It was dry land that they walked over on. Remember when they crossed over the river Jordan? It was dry land that they walked over on. So, it's not something that God does once in a while, but it's something that he did at least on three occasions for us in the Bible.

Here, when he brought forth the earth, and he said, God saw that it was good, and God said, let the earth bring forth grass, and we follow the earth is a picture to us of the nation of Israel. We were last night at the call of Abraham, how God called him from idolatry.

Israel as the Earthly Seed and Fruit-Bearing Nation

He gave him the great promises as to what he would do for him. He gave him the promise of two seeds, a heavenly seed and an earthly seed. He gave him the promise of a coming Messiah that through him would come the seed, as we shall see, through whom all the world would be blessed.

And, we also saw how God promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, how he promised to them the land, the land of Palestine, for an everlasting possession. That is God's land, and that is the land that God has promised to the nation of Israel.

But, I want you to notice something here. It says in the 11th verse, and God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and it were so.

And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind, and God saw that it was good. Now, the thing that God wanted and commanded that earth to bring forth was fruit.

Why did God choose Abraham? Why did God select the Jewish people, the people of Israel? Is it because they were any better than anybody else? I remember a number of years ago in northern Michigan, before I was ever married, or before I even had an automobile, or even a bicycle, when I was pioneering up there in northern Michigan among the mining villages, and was going from village to village with gospel tract, a salesman picked me up.

I was hitchhiking from one town to another, and we got to speaking about the Bible, and he said to me, well, he says, you know, I'm a salesman. I've had a number of dealings with Jews. He says, I've often wondered why it was, if the Bible is true, that God chose the Jews to be his people.

He says, I've had so many dealings with them that, frankly, I don't trust the Jews. How could they ever be God's chosen people? I said, well, for the same reason that God selects anyone today, not because of any good in them, but it was entirely by grace.

God said to Israel, I didn't choose you because you were more in number than any people, for you were the fewest of all people. But he says, because I loved you, and because of the covenant which I swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he says I have chosen you.

And my friends, it's the very same today. God doesn't save anybody because he or she is better than anyone else. God's not going to take anyone into heaven because he or she is good, or is trying to be good.

You know, men and women have God's way backwards. They think that God saves people and will take them to heaven because they do good, or because they're trying to be good. But I've never met a single person yet who was trying to be good in order to get to heaven who was ever sure, positively sure, that he or she was going to be there.

Because the Bible never tells us that anyone will ever get there by being good. It's when we find out that we're lost. I was reading a little article about a very wealthy man who was very sick, and he had a servant that was a Christian.

Salvation Requires Humility and Redemption

And this man was very sick and dying. He called for his servant, and he said to him, what must I do to be saved? How can I be saved? And this Christian said to him, well, he says, you're going to have to go into your barnyard and into your pigpen and get down on your knees in your pigpen and acknowledge to God that you're a sinner and cry to him for mercy.

He says, what? Me? Me go into the pigpen? What will people say if they see me going into the pigpen and getting down on my knees and crying to God for mercy? Well, he says, at least they'll see that you're earnest and that you mean business with God.

The question is, do you think that you're any better in the sight of God than those hogs? Well, he couldn't take that. That was too much for him. But, you know, a few days later as he was getting worse and worse, he called for his servant again, and he said to him, how can I be saved?

He says, well, you know what I told you. He says, if you really, truly want to get paid and want to get right into the place where you belong, why, you better get down into that pigpen and get down there and acknowledge that you're a sinner and that you need to be saved.

Humiliating? Yes, it is humiliating, but my friends, that's God's way up. God's way up is to, first of all, go down and take our place as a vile, guilty sinner, because it's only then that we can experience his salvation.

Now, he took Israel, and as we saw, he desired fruit. God said, let the earth bring forth fruit, and my friends, that's why God selected Israel. God selected Israel because he wanted that nation to bring forth fruit.

Israel’s Idolatry and the Bitterness of Sin

But where do you and I find that nation? When you and I turn to the twelfth chapter of Exodus, you and I find that nation as slaves in the land of Egypt. It was true that Abraham, he lived in the land of Canaan, but Abraham died.

His son Isaac died. His son Jacob died, leaving 12 sons, and before Jacob had died, Jacob had brought that nation down into the land of Egypt, and when they got into the land of Egypt, what did they do?

That those people became idolaters. They became idolatrous worshipers. They became worshipers of idols. How do we know? Because when they came out of the land of Egypt, and were in the wilderness, and wanted to make gods, they made gods like they had in the land of Egypt.

They made a golden calf. So, they were idolaters and slaves in the land of Egypt, and their lots were bitter. Why? There was certainly no fruit for God in that kind of a people. Am I speaking to someone tonight, and you're not saved?

An idolater? You say, be an idolater? Why don't fall down and worship gods of wood, and of stone, and of silver? Well, we may not worship gods like that, but my friends, people have other gods. How many are idolaters tonight?

They worship a god of their own making. They think that God is one who will look down very carelessly and indifferently upon their sin. That he is one who will wink at their sin. My friends, God is not one who can wink at our sin.

The cross of Christ shows that to us. God could not pass over sin. Christ had to die for our sin, because God could not pass over one sin. Others seem to have the idea that God is one just like themselves.

That God feels just like they feel, and if their religion and their ideas are satisfying to them, why then, of course, God would not expect more from them than what they expect of themselves. The 50th Psalm, God says, thou thoughtest that I was altogether such in one as thyself, but I will set these things in order before your eyes.

God says, as high as the heaven is above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts. My friends, America today is filled with idolaters. They have fashioned and formed gods of their own making.

Everything and anything is put before the Lord. It reminds me of the story of the little boy who was eating, and his mother noticed that he was taking some of the select pieces of meat, and he was putting them off to the side, and mother says to him, Johnny, what are you doing?

And Johnny says, I'm saving these for my little dog. She says, oh no you don't. She says, you eat that. She says, I'll give you something for your dog after the meal is over, and so she did. The meal was over, she went to the table, picked up a few scraps, put them on a plate, and says, now give this to your dog.

The little boy brought it to his dog. He looked at it, looked at his dog. He says, Fido, he says, I was going to bring you an offering, but here's a collection. Here's a collection. What was left over was going to be given to his dog.

You know, I wonder if that's what we give the Lord. Do we give the Lord what's left over? Left over of our time? Left over of our money? Left over of our thought? We'll read the newspaper, and we'll read it from beginning to end, and yet we'll never open the Word of God to read it.

We'll spend hours talking to one another about this and that and everything under the sun, and my friends, that'll minimize conversation, communication, very helpful, very useful. But do we spend no time speaking to the Lord in prayer?

And we can go into various departments of our life and ask ourselves the question, do I give the Lord an offering? Am I presenting something to him of my life? Something of my strength? Something of my mental ability?

Something of my affection? Something of my material possessions? Or do I give the Lord only what is left over? An idol. What is an idol? An idol is anything or anyone who means more to me than the Lord to my soul.

Deliverance Through the Passover Lamb

And so we find the people of Israel were idolaters. They were slaves. They were unable to deliver themselves, and as their cry ascended to heaven because of the bitterness of their lives. My friends, I don't think we've ever lived in a day when some lives were bitter.

People cried, roamed. The latest letters of interest in the article by Mr. John Taylor. He speaks about the front page of the front cover page of Time magazine when it put out how that amongst, they put out 10 of the leading millionaires, men under 40.

And were those men happy? Most of them were divorced. Most of them had no friends. Most of them had no time for their families. And it says most of them find that their lives are very bitter, very bitter.

My friends, the bitterness of the life of sin. Such was Israel's condition in the land of Egypt as slaves, idolatrous slaves. Their lives were bitter, and in their bitterness, their cry ascended to heaven.

And the Lord heard it. And the Lord sent a deliverer. And that deliverer came with a message. And that message was concerning a lamb who was to be selected. A lamb that was to be set apart. A lamb that on the 14th day was to be slain.

And its blood was to be shed. Its blood was to be applied to the doorpost and to the lentil. Because God said he was going to pass through the land at midnight in every house where he didn't see the blood on the doorpost and on the lentil, he was going to enter in and take the firstborn.

Judgment where there was no blood on the doorpost and on the lentil. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. They had to be sheltered under the blood. It didn't make a difference what kind of people they were living in that house.

It didn't make a difference how religious, how moral, how intellectual they were. It didn't make a difference how thrifty they were. It didn't make a difference what a wonderful family life they had. There was only one thing that the Lord was looking for, and that was the blood.

When I see the blood, I will pass over you. My friends, before that people could ever bring forth fruit for God, that people had to be redeemed by the blood of the lamb. For a single sinner can bring forth any fruit for God, he has to be redeemed by the blood.

Before you can do even a single thing for God, before a single penny of your money is accepted by the Lord, and you could give hundreds and thousands, and you could give all the wealth that you possess, that God would refuse it.

God accepts it now. All of your good works, all of your church membership, the Bible says, it's dead works before God, absolutely useless. You need to be sheltered under the blood. Did you ever wonder to yourself, why the lamb had to be slain?

Why wasn't it enough to just take a little blood from the lamb, and sprinkle on the doorpost, and save the lamb's life? Why did the lamb have to be slain? Why did the lamb have to lay down its life? Because those people that were to be sheltered under that blood, they were a guilty people.

Don't think that the Israelites were any better than the Egyptians. They weren't. They were guilty, and the sentence of God is, it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. The wages of sin is death.

Israel, your sins deserve death. The lamb has to be slain. The life has to be laid down. The penalty of God has to be met. The justice of God has to be satisfied. There has to be the blood. The lamb slain.

Christ had to die, and there's only one way that you and I can be sheltered from judgment, and that is by means of blood. God passed through the land at midnight, and he was looking for only one thing, and that was the blood.

The Ten Commandments and Israel’s Covenant

When we come to the 19th chapter of Exodus, in the 20th chapter, we have that people in the wilderness, and we have a great momentous point or crisis in their lives, and that is when God gave that people the Ten Commandments.

Now, I want you to notice, my friends, that there was only one nation to whom God gave the Ten Commandments. Only one nation was at Mount Sinai when God gave those Ten Commandments, and that nation was the nation of Israel.

God never gave the Ten Commandments to the Gentile world, and he never gave the Ten Commandments to the church. If men have incorporated it into Christian teaching, it's because of their ignorance of God's Word and of God's dispensational dealing.

God gave the law, the Ten Commandments, to only one nation, and those Ten Commandments are only part of the law. I read just the other day someone who had counted all the obligations that there are in the law, the moral, civil, and ceremonial obligations that go to constitute the law, and they figured they counted up that there were at least 612 different commandments civil, moral, and ceremonial that were involved in the law, so that when a person says, the law is my standard of life, the Ten Commandments is my standard of life, it is that is my standard, they don't realize all the laws that they are taking upon themselves and obligating themselves to fulfill.

Laws which they can never by any means possibly fulfill in their lives. I want you to notice in the twentieth chapter of Exodus, 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.

It is to a people that were redeemed and sheltered by the blood, a people that were taken out of Egypt to whom God gave the Ten Commandments. He did not give those Ten Commandments to the children of Israel to help them to save themselves.

They were already a people that were saved. They were a people that were separated from the land of Egypt. Those laws were given to them as a standard of life, a standard of righteousness, a standard of morality, which were to regulate them throughout their entire history.

As long as they obeyed and kept those commandments, they would be a prosperous and a happy people. God's blessing would rest upon them. They would experience blessing in every phase of their life, personal, agricultural, social, national, and international.

Every phase of their life would be affected and benefited by their obedience to those commandments. And, on the other hand, if they didn't keep those laws, what would be the result? The result was that the curse would be upon them.

The curse of God in every department of their lives would attend their life if they disregarded and disobeyed those commandments. There are people today who tell us that a person cannot be saved by keeping the Ten Commandments, but the Ten Commandments is a standard of life for the Christian.

The Ten Commandments is the ideal standard of behavior and conduct for the Christian, is it? If the children of Israel could not keep it, and what does the history of the Old Testament tell us? I remember a number of years ago in the city of Chicago, before I was out in the so-called Lord's Work, although I was distributing gospel tracts and talking to anybody that I could even at that time, I was returning from work one day in the streetcar and was speaking to a motorman.

And he was a motorman, and beside me sat another man, and we were talking about the Bible. The motorman was a devout Roman Catholic. He had respect for the Bible and for the things of God, and we were talking.

And beside us he sat a man, and this man said, well, he says, you know, to tell you the truth, if I had children, he says, there's one book I would never let them read. I would never let them read the Old Testament.

I said, you wouldn't? Why not? He says, because when I read that Old Testament and read about all the sins, and all the immorality, and all the wars, and all the failures by those people, the Jews, he says, I wouldn't want my children to read those things.

It kind of stunned me. Here was a man of the world who, as he read the Old Testament, it was impressed upon him that there was nothing but failure, nothing but disobedience, nothing but rebellion upon the part of Israel to the commands of God, so that they brought down upon themselves the judgment of God.