Law Law Law

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, as we open up your word, we ask that you open our hearts and our minds to understand it so that we may believe the truth and understand rightly how to understand your law and your gospel.

All of this we ask in Jesus' name, amen. All right, give me a second here, I'm gonna do that.

Good, there we go. Okay, today we are in Exodus 19,

Exodus 19. We're going to note a few things along the way as we head towards, race towards the 10

Commandments. And when we get to the 10 Commandments, we're gonna slow down and work our way through them a little bit.

And we're gonna note here that, you know, kind of building off the theme that I already began in my sermon, the 10

Commandments were never given as a means by which we are saved, declared righteous, justified before God.

That's not the purpose of the 10 Commandments. 10 Commandments have a purpose.

Number one is to show our sinfulness. But number two, it shows us what a good work is, what it means to do the will of God so we don't have to go about thinking of, well, how do

I do something that is pleasing to God? No, God's word teaches you what that is so you don't have to invent something.

And unfortunately, because of our sinful nature, our human hearts are factories that produce little idols and make all kinds of stuff up.

So we'll address that today too. We are in Exodus chapter 19, verse one.

On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai.

So you'll note the timeframe here. The timeframe is three months. The Jewish calendar,

Jewish calendar, by the way, is a lunar calendar. So it's from new moon to new moon, and which means it's like on a 28 -day cycle.

And so months within the Jewish calendar move around a little bit because the lunar calendar is not, how do we put it, in sync exactly with a solar year.

Kind of an interesting thing to keep in mind. So children of Israel, they have gone out of Egypt, mighty 10 plagues, the death of the

Passover lambs, the bringing in of the destroyer, the firstborn dying, them marching out defiantly, crossing the

Red Sea, the armies of Pharaoh being destroyed. Who's done all the saving?

God, God has done it all. Now you notice they're already saved.

They're already set free from slavery. God is the one who's done all of this.

And so when we last looked at what was going on, God is now feeding them heavenly manna.

Manna means what is it? And so they're being cared for and taken care of by Christ.

And his presence is with them. He's the rock that's following them. He was the split rock at Horeb that we noted last week.

That's who Christ is, the water who was struck, and the rock that was struck in the water comes out.

And so God has done all of these things, and so they spend three months, three lunar months, from new moon to new moon, new moon, new moon, three of them, there at Horeb kind of just resting.

No more labor, no more brick making. And they're on their way to Sinai. So let's take a look real quick at our

Google Earth again so we kind of get an idea of, you know, this is where we're going. This is Mount Sinai itself.

But if I zoom out real quick, you kind of see where we're at in Saudi Arabia.

Horeb, where they parked it for three months, where the split rock is, it's over here.

So Mount Sinai's here. Where they spent three months is over here.

And so they ended up wandering basically from this area. They will end up going, they can't get

Sinai directly this way. The terrain is way too rugged. So they'll end up going around and coming into the wilderness of Sinai, which is over in this direction.

And then they're ultimately going to get to Mount Sinai itself and literally camp at the base of the mountain.

So let me see if I can kind of sort this out a little bit here. There we go.

So where they're gonna end up camping is down in here. That's where they're gonna be. And you'll notice that Mount Sinai itself totally blackened and charred on the top at the same elevation all the way around, which is kind of weird because it's not volcanic.

And there's like no vegetation on this thing, in case you haven't figured it out. Saudi Arabia is kind of a toasty place to be.

And so the whole top of the mountain is just utterly blackened. And we're gonna find out why in a bit.

The people who've been there and have taken photographs of the rocks there have demonstrated that the rocks themselves have just a very light char layer all around them.

And that when you break into the rocks, it's a nice pink granite on the inside. Fascinating.

This is in Saudi Arabia? Yes, ma 'am. Okay. Who owns that? Saudi Arabia.

Okay, yeah. Will they let people go there? Okay, if you are legally in the country, let's say you work for one of the oil companies,

Aramco or something like that, and you were there on a visa which permits you to work, on your days off, if you want to, you can travel here, no problem.

Getting permission to get into Saudi Arabia, really hard. If you're not working for an oil company, it's very difficult for just the average

American citizen to get the ability to go there. And then if you go there on a visa because you're

Muslim and you're going to Mecca for your pilgrimage, that doesn't give you unlimited freedom to travel the country.

It's pretty tough, pretty tough for Americans to get the visas necessary to go there, but there are plenty of Americans who have had the visas and do have the visas who go to this place and send photos back and stuff like that because it's a very fascinating spot.

I'm thinking that in the future, on one of those Sundays, if I have to be gone, it would be fun for Sunday School to actually play that DVD about the crossing and where Mount Sinai is.

Okay, coming back to our text then. So on the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai.

They set out from Rephidim, came into the wilderness of Sinai. They encamped in the wilderness. There Israel encamped before the mountain while Moses went up to God.

The Lord God called to him out of the mountain, saying, thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel, you yourselves have seen what

I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all of the people for all of the earth is mine and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

And these are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel. Now, a little bit of a note here.

I'm gonna give you a Latin phrase, which I think will be helpful in this next part. Okay, there's the

Latin phrase, opinio legis. It literally means the opinion of the law.

And it's a technical term that talks about the fact that Romans, the book of Romans reveals that we all have the law written on our heart.

When we see the law, we get it. Do this, obey.

If you were to take a look at the Bible, some of the Bibles I had when I was in high school and look at the highlights.

All of the highlights are on the do passages. None of the highlights are on the done passages, what

Christ has done for us. Do, do, do, do, do, law, law, law, law, law. We get the law. So we see the law and we immediately go,

I get that. We hear the gospel and it sounds to us, if we're not trained to learn how to hear it, we hear the gospel and it sounds to us the way

Charlie Brown's teacher sounds to Charlie Brown. Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.

So when I just read this out, see if you can see what

I'm saying, okay? Listen again, verse four. You yourselves have seen what

I did to the Egyptian, how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples.

And all the earth is mine and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.

Do you see the gospel in there? Do you see the law? Uh -huh.

So the gospel's in there, clear as a bell. Clear as crystal.

And I just read it twice and you're all going, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.

Yeah. What's the translation Bible say? You saw what

I, the Lord, did to the Egyptians and now I carry you as my own.

But you will be my chosen people, a people dedicated to me alone.

And you will serve me as priests. Okay, good translation, I like it.

Okay, which part is the gospel part? What's it say? I bore you.

Okay, I'm gonna note this. You're gonna see this in this chapter and in the next right before the 10

Commandments are given. There is a proclamation of what God did.

I bore you. I brought you out as on eagle's wings.

So you're gonna note here when it talks about the law, the law is followed by what

God did. God sets them free, God rescues, God saves, God does for them.

Then the law is given. It shows them how to live.

It is not, God is not saying, and you need to hear this, God is not saying, if you obey my commandments, then

I will bear you up on eagle's wings and save you. He's saying,

I have borne you on eagle's wings. I have delivered you. I brought you out of the land of Egypt.

And then he gives us the law. The law is given to show us what it looks like, no joke, to live in freedom.

Sin in Scripture, we read it in the sermon in Romans 6, sin is slavery, period.

It is not freedom. It is slavery. Sin is that thing that when we commit it, we feel terrible inside.

It brings with it guilt and shame and literally destroys our life.

There's nothing freeing about sin at all. And the society would tell you, you just need to be you.

Whatever is on the inside of you, whatever God has put into your heart, it's the theology of the

Barbie movie. I haven't seen the Barbie movie, I'm just saying, I've heard, okay.

Stephen. It's quite interesting when, I don't know how many people have had the experience, a lot of the people that work in this world, they often go and they drink all the time and they wore around and everything else of this nature.

And when you talk to them, they think it's the greatest achievement when they're in front of their friends. But when you get the people alone, just talking about that person, they're like, oh, they're just drinking their lives away.

Oh, they're doing this and they're destroyed and it's like they know that it's wrong, what they're doing, but because they're trying to just deal with their lives and the sin that has just completely crept up on them and they've experienced and just dived straight into, but they try to push it away as if it's not a big deal at all.

And that's the thing though, note this. Even the pagans know that what they're doing is wrong.

Why? Well, coming back to our theological word, the opiniolages, they have the law written on their hearts, which is a good thing, it helps us a lot.

Helps us a lot. But because we have the law written on our hearts, our default position, if you would, is if I clean myself up, then

God will accept me and save me. That's not how this works. God has saved you, bled and died for you.

The gospel says that in while we were yet sinners, Christ died for our sins.

Christ dies for the ungodly, those who are his enemies, and he sets them free and then begins the process of the mortification of our sinful natures, we're all heading to the grave, and then the bringing forth of the new man that we are in Christ, given to us by God.

And so the idea then is the law teaches us what a good work is, so that when our sinful nature goes, but I really wanna do that, he said, no,

I do not have to obey that. That's slavery, I'm going to live in freedom.

You see the context? And so when we just read this text, first read, you guys didn't see the gospel.

Second read, you didn't see it. So think of it this way. Gospel is the proclamation of what

Christ does for us. It's not anything you have to do, it's what's done for you, that's gospel.

Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scripture, was buried and raised again on the third day in accordance with the scripture, gospel.

There's nothing you do for gospel, it's an announcement of good news. Law tells you what you ought to do.

And because we have a sinful nature still clinging to us, even after our baptism, the law is always gonna be doing two things to us.

One, convicting us of where we fall short. Because when you look at God's law, you sit there and go, I'm not doing this.

I'm not doing as I should. Come back to the gospel, Christ has bled and died for this.

So we bear fruit in keeping with repentance. You kind of think of it this way. Repentance is not a one -time thing, it's not a flu shot.

Repentance is a daily exercise for the Christian. This is why we pray daily, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And so when you wake up in the morning, you say your prayers, you read your scriptures, go and serve your neighbor in your vocation, and we can then strive in our good works to shoot for doing well, doing right, doing it perfectly.

And then when we come up short, which we will. Because remember, sin is in thought, word, and deed.

Next Sunday, we're going to get into the thought part of sin. Many people think that, well, if I haven't actually done the deed, well, then

I'm okay with God. Really? So have you ever been angry with your brother?

Well, yeah. You're a murderer. No, I'm not. I'm not a murderer. Oh, yeah, you are. All right.

Well, at least I'm not an adulterer. Have you ever, well, had lustful thoughts towards someone?

Well, yeah. You're an adulterer. No, I haven't done the deed. No, really, you have, in your heart.

You see, sin is such a completely debilitating and deep sickness.

There isn't a part of us that's sound. For Christians, though, and I'm talking about our flesh, for Christians, though, we have a new person.

We've been regenerated, and we are new in Christ. And that new man desires to do the right thing.

So being a Christian feels like being schizophrenic, being at war with yourself. Yeah, you have the new nature and the old nature just doing this all the time.

Like the Hatfields and the Coors. That's right. And it's right inside of you. Right? All right, so coming back here.

So notice, verse four. You yourselves have seen what I did to the

Egyptians, how I bore you on eagle's wings, and I brought you to myself. Gospel.

That's not law. It's gospel. They didn't earn it. It was given to them. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice, keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples.

For all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.

These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel. Now, oh boy, the cross -reference to this, it's just fantastic.

Now, let me show you the cross -reference. We're in 1 Peter chapter two. One Peter, two.

Let me make that a little bit bigger. Have mercy on people's eyeballs. Okay, notice the language here.

God is saying, you will be my treasured possession, you shall be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.

Watch what Peter does with these words. And I'll start in verse nine.

Peter says to the Christians whom he is writing to, you are a chosen race.

You are a royal priesthood. You are a holy nation. A people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

So notice what God is saying to the people of Israel in the wilderness, as they're approaching Sinai, that he wants them to be a holy nation, a treasured possession.

In the New Testament, Peter is saying to us that we are a chosen royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, and that he has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.

You see that this is almost perfectly lifted from Exodus 19.

And it's not an accident because this is describing the very reality that we have in Christ.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

See, God is the one who made us holy, chose us, made us for his own possession. We have received mercy, been called out of darkness into light, and watch the flow then.

So beloved, I urge you as sojourners in exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh.

So notice, gospel, now comes the admonitions to doing the will of God because of the reality that we have been set free.

We're no longer slaves, we're free. Here's what freedom looks like. You see it? Okay, just wanna make sure.

Sometimes I can, you know, get way too up here and that's not a good thing. Now, so you can see then, this language is spoken about us.

And the typology is really fun, it really is. Okay, coming back then, let's review that verse six.

You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.

And so you can see, we've been grafted into Israel. We're part of this holy nation, this kingdom of priests.

So Moses came and he called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that Yahweh had commanded him.

All the people answered together and said, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do. Probably not.

Moses reported the words of the people to Yahweh and Yahweh said to Moses, behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud that the people may hear when

I speak with you and may also believe you forever. Now, a little bit of a note here.

We're going to get to Mount Sinai. Important things happen on mountains in the

Bible. There's this kind of high place theology. So the

Lord gives the law on Mount Sinai. Christ is crucified on Mount Moriah.

Abraham is to offer Isaac on Mount Moriah and on that mountain, the Lord will provide. Jesus, when he gives the

Lord's supper, is in the upper room. You see this kind of a theme going on here.

Now, in a few weeks, we're going to have Transfiguration Sunday and Transfiguration Sunday, we see again, high mountain and this cloud here that God talks about.

The Lord said to Moses, behold, I'm coming to you in a thick cloud so that people may hear when I speak with you and may also believe you forever.

Now, let's take a look at Matthew 17 real quick. Matt 17, the account of the

Transfiguration and you're going to see this same cloud on a mountain appearing and speaking.

After six days, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John, his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.

Important things happen on mountains in the Bible. I'm just saying. He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun.

His clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah talking with him.

Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it's good that we're here. If you wish, I will make three tents here.

One for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah. He was still speaking when behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them.

And a voice from the cloud said, this is my beloved son with whom I am well. Please listen to him.

And when the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and they were terrified. Now, we'll save the rest of the story for a few

Sundays from now. As we get close to the end, the final Sunday of Epiphany is on this text.

But you see, on a mountain, a cloud appears. The voice speaks. The disciples, children of Israel at Mount Sinai.

The Lord descends in a cloud. The voice speaks. And what do the children of Israel do?

When God gives the 10 commandments on Mount Sinai, they can hear the voice of the

Lord. You will have no other gods before me. At the tail end of Exodus 20, the children of Israel are like, we don't want to hear that voice anymore.

Totally rattles them to their bones. So note here, coming back.

So the Lord says, I'm coming to you in a thick cloud so the people may hear when I speak with you and may also believe you forever.

Moses told the words of the people to Yahweh. Yahweh said to Moses, go to the people, consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day.

I always say, pay attention to that third day stuff. So on the third day, do your laundry?

Really? On the third day, wash your garments.

Do your laundry. Are we supposed to wear clothes for three days? No, that's not what this is saying.

On the day that the Lord is going to appear on Mount Sinai in a thick cloud, they're going to hear

God's voice and he wants everybody to be wearing clean clothes.

Oh, second coming. Okay, now you're talking. Okay, now see, you're starting to see the connection here.

Now I'm gonna make this note. Robin's starting to get it. You can't understand the book of Revelation until you understand your

Old Testament. You really can't. Let me give you a cross -reference. Let's take a look at Revelation chapter seven, verse nine.

Revelation seven, verse nine. After this, I looked, and behold, a great number that no one could number, from every nation, all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the

Lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our

God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and they worshiped

God, saying, amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our

God forever and ever, amen. So then one of the elders addressed me.

This is John saying, who are these clothed in white robes and from where have they come?

And so John does this. Watch the evasive answer.

Sir, you know. So he said to me, these are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.

They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. You see it?

So here at Mount Sinai, God's people who have been set free from slavery, washed in the waters of the

Red Sea, fed the heavenly manna, drank from the rock who is

Christ. They are brought to Mount Sinai and God's going to appear to them in a thick cloud and they're going to hear his voice and to appear before him.

He wants their clothes washed. See, all of this, there's a pattern to it.

There's a logic to it when you start to see. You see, it was not just throw away details. So you want the children of Israel to come to the base of the mountain, but you want their laundry done.

That's kind of missing the whole point. This is a picture of something. And this picture then is of what we see in the book of Revelation, even in the other parts of the end of the book.

And this idea of washing our garments, our robes in the blood of the Lamb and making them white.

That is the detergent that washes our robes, right? Now, if you're thinking, well, this is talking about those coming out of the

Great Tribulation. That's still coming. I want you to look at Revelation 1, verse 9.

Revelation 1, verse 9. I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom, the patient endurance that are in Jesus was on the

Isle of Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. Does John, the apostle, believe he's in the tribulation or not?

Yeah, he does. And it's not a tribulation, it's the tribulation.

So here's the idea. Scripture actually reveals, and you have to let it define these terms for you.

The tribulation is not limited to a short period of time just before the return of Christ.

The tribulation begins with the ascension of Christ and ends with His coming.

And right before He comes, all hell breaks loose. There's a season within the tribulation itself where it's just like hell on earth.

But the tribulation itself begins with the ascension of Christ. The apostle John already considers himself in it.

And so that multitude from every tribe, nation, language, peoples, these are those coming out of the great tribulation.

These are the saints who've been brought to faith in Christ through evangelism beginning with the day of Pentecost and going all the way through until the tribulation concludes with Christ's return.

Does that make sense? So the tribulation is not limited to a tiny period, it's actually the whole time.

We're in it. John was in it. Does that make sense? And you have to let the Scripture define terms in these ways.

Oftentimes people think the tribulation is referring only to that hell breaking loose at the end part of what we're already in, and that's not it.

The tribulation itself, we're already in it. A little bit of a side note. So coming back then to our text,

Exodus 19. Yes? The links that were posted for a leak out are on our

Facebook page. Oh good, they're on the Kongsvinger Facebook? Yeah. Okay. Commentary and a link to the book.

Excellent. All right, on the Kongsvinger Facebook page, two links. One is to a commentary,

I apologize it's expensive, written by Louis Brighton, the late Louis Brighton who taught at Concordia Theological Seminary at St.

Louis. And his commentary on the book of Revelation, it's worth its weight in gold.

But there's also a link to a series of seminary lectures that he gave on the book of Revelation, and those are all free on iTunes.

So click the link and you can literally be walked through the book of Revelation and understand it from a proper distinction of long gospel and not caught up in kind of like the best way

I can put it, some of the really crazy end time schemes that people have concocted in the last 50 and 100 years.

I mean, if you kind of want to get the idea here. Y 'all remember the book, The Late Great Planet Earth? I know some of you are too young for that.

Yeah, Hal Lindsey, okay. So when I was growing up in the 70s, it was The Late Great Planet Earth. Jesus is just around the corner.

The rapture's gonna happen any moment now. And Jesus didn't show up. So he wrote another book, 1980s

Countdown to Armageddon. Now people talk about the 80s the way we talked about the 50s when

I was growing up. It's very disconcerting, okay. Like, you know, in high schools, you know, when they have dress up days, dress up in 80s clothes now.

It's like, really? That was like every day for me in high school, you know. Before you know it, it's gonna be 90s.

Yeah, yeah. We feel for you, I get it, I get it. But the idea here is that were the 1980s the

Countdown to Armageddon? No. The four blood moons, the

Shmita. No. Y2K. Y2K. I still have 5 ,000 pounds of spam from Y2K.

I don't know what I'm gonna do with it. Oh yeah, the Mayan apocalypse. Yeah, so you remember all these things?

Okay. We're gonna survive. And there was a comet of some kind. Oh, I know. So the thing is, if you go with, and I hate to say this, kind of the popularized guys who claim that they've cracked the code for the book of Revelation.

The book of Revelation is not a code that needs to be cracked, all right? You have to understand what's revealed in it.

And if you understand the Old Testament well, you're going to begin to get what's going on in the book of Revelation itself.

And you can't understand it apart from type and shadow. And the book of Revelation is not written as a historical narrative.

It's an apocalyptic book, which means it's writing in word pictures. The end of the world is like this 10 -headed dragon where one of the heads has been wounded and it has these blasphemous names on its horns.

And then there's this whore riding the beast and they're causing people to worship the dragon. That's what the end of the world is like.

You sit there and go, sounds awful. What does it mean?

You have to know the Old Testament to figure out what it means. So already you're seeing here, wash your clothes.

This is pointing to the great multitude before the throne who've washed their garments in the blood of the

Lamb. The crossover, you can't get it unless you know your Old Testament. Does that make sense? So those links then are on the

Kongsvinger Facebook page. Well worth grabbing them and reading them. All right, one of these days we'll have to do an in -depth study on Revelation.

I think it'd be fun. Okay, back to halfway through verse nine. So Moses told the words of the people to Yahweh.

The Lord said to Moses, go to the people, consecrate them today and tomorrow. Let them wash their garments. Be ready for the third day.

On the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people and shall set limits for the people all around saying take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it.

Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. No hand shall touch him but he shall be stoned or shot.

Whether beast or man he shall not live. When the trumpet sounds a long blast they shall come up to the mountain.

So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated the people and they washed their garments.

And he said to the people, be ready for on the third day, for the third day, do not go near a woman.

What? What? What? A little bit of a historical note here.

Back in the fourth and fifth centuries if you wanted to have the Lord's Supper you were not permitted sexual relations with your spouse prior to having the

Lord's Supper. That caused participation at the Lord's Supper to plummet.

Yeah, you coming to the Lord's Supper? No. And more important things to do but.

Anyway. So what's going on here? Why this not going near women stuff?

This is another motif in scripture. Let me show it to you in 2 Corinthians 11 and then

I'll give you another book of revelation context thing here. 2 Corinthians 11,

I want to show you this. Verse one, and we'll come back to this text in just a little bit but I want to show you this.

Paul writing about the super apostles and you have to put the word super apostles in quotes because these were guys who are literally the devil's instruments.

He says, I wish you would bear with me a little foolishness, do bear with me. For I feel a divine jealousy for you since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

But I am afraid that as a serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

So we see this theme in scripture where fidelity to God, true worship of God is likened to being a virgin.

Remember in the Olivet Discourse, you have those parables, the parable of the 10 virgins, the parable of the talents.

And so the virgins fall asleep. So there's another kind of picture of this motif. In the

Old Testament, when Israel engages in idolatry, what does the

Lord use as the physical way of describing idolatry? You're like a whore.

That's what, so it's like, whoa, kind of graphic thing. So the opposite of being promiscuous is being a virgin.

Promiscuity being idolatry, being forgiven and worshiping the true

God is likened to being a virgin. Does that make sense? Let me show you in Revelation 14 then.

Here's our other cross -reference. Revelation 14, you again see this same kind of motif being borne out.

Here it is. Okay, so starting in verse one. I looked and behold, on Mount Zion stood the

Lamb with Him 144 ,000 who had His name and His Father's name written on their foreheads.

You're thinking, what's the 144 ,000? The 144 ,000 is a symbolic group.

It symbolizes all who are saved. Does that make sense? And in Revelation 7, we see that these are all of Israel and there's 12 ,000 from the tribe of Judah, 12 ,000 from the tribe of Naphtali, 12 ,000 from the tribe of, and it lists them out.

The 144 ,000 is a numeric picture of all who are saved, all of Israel.

That's what it represents. The 12 times 12, if you would. The 12 ,000 times 12 ,000.

Huh? 12 times 12 ,000. 12 times 12, it's something, it's big. I don't do math, it's dark stuff, but you get the idea.

I'm a theologian, so. So, so with the

Lamb stood the 144 ,000 with His name on their, and their Father's name written on their foreheads.

Think baptism. I heard a voice from heaven like the sound of many roaring waters and like the sound of loud thunder.

The voice I heard was like the sound of a harpist playing on their harps. They were singing a new song before the throne.

So notice, the sound, like this ginormous crowd, right? They were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders.

No one can learn that song except for the 144 ,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins.

And you're sitting there going, do I have to be a virgin to be a Christian? No, that's not the point. It's not about physical virginity, it's about being betrothed to Christ as a spiritual virgin.

What Paul is talking about in 2 Corinthians 11. So you see the theme, the motif. So there's the children of Israel coming back then to Exodus.

Coming back to Exodus, he wants the people to wash their garments, be ready for the third day.

Oh, and don't go near a woman. Now you're starting to see what's going on here. This is all pointing to something.

So on the morning of the third day, there were thunders and lightnings and the thick cloud on the mountain, the very loud trumpet blast.

So all the people in the camp trembled. So the giving of the law, really scary.

Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God. And they took their stand at the foot of the mountain.

Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because Yahweh had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln.

The whole mountain trembled greatly. So notice, the whole top of the mountain, according to this text, says, covered with fire and the smoke of it looked like the smoke lifting of a kiln.

Does this mountain look like it's experienced that? Yep, yes, it does.

And this is not a volcanic mountain. Uh -huh. They haven't just explained it. They haven't.

There is no explanation given. God did this. God descends, the whole mountain is ablaze, the smoke is going up, and the people are going, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.

Yeah. I don't think a rock burns. Right. Yeah, this is why

I'm sitting here going, this has gotta be Mount Sinai. There's like no other explanation for it.

Mountain in the middle of nowhere where the whole top of it's burned and it's not volcanic? Hmm, I think it fits.

That's the idea. So then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, wrapped in smoke, went up, okay.

Verse 19, as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke.

God answered him in the thunder. The Lord came down on Mount Sinai to the top of the mountain, and the

Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. And the Lord said to Moses, go down, warn the people lest they break through to Yahweh to look, and many of them perish.

Also, let the priests who come near to Yahweh consecrate themselves, lest the Lord break out against them.

Moses said to the Lord, the people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for you yourself have warned us, saying, let's set limits around the mountain and consecrate it.

And the Lord said to him, go down and come up, bringing Aaron with you. Don't let the priests and the people break through to come up to the

Lord, lest he break out against them. So Moses went down to the people and told them. Chapter 20, let's see if we can do this again.

Listen for the gospel. Note the order.

God spoke all these words, saying, I am

Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

You shall have no other gods before me. Which one's the gospel, which one's the law?

I brought you out of slavery, right. You see, in this context, the gospel precedes the law.

The law is not the condition for being set free from slavery.

It is given because you have been set free from slavery. Gospel first, then law.

This is why Paul, writing in Galatians, if a law had been given by which men must be saved, then

Christ died for no reason. The purpose of the law was not to save them.

That's not why God gave it. So we hear gospel, I have set you free.

I brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Is that you?

Yes. Not physical Egypt, you can say spiritual Egypt. Under Satan, the false pharaoh,

God King, you have been brought out, you have been washed, you are redeemed, you are fed the heavenly manna.

You drink from the spiritual rock. All of this is you. We're a part of this. Yeah, exactly.

So commandment number one, and this is where we'll drill in just a little bit, you shall have no other gods before me.

Let's go back to 2 Corinthians 11. I said earlier that the human heart is a factory that makes idols.

2 Corinthians chapter 11 is gonna help us get something here. I've made the claim before and I'll say it again and I stand by what

I've said. Idolaters are lazy nowadays, really, really lazy.

Used to be, if you were an idolater, you were a hardy fellow and you would go out and you'd find some ginormous stone monolith.

You'd hack that thing out and bring it to your town and then you'd grab a chisel and a hammer and just start going to work on that thing and fashion it into something and then you'd give it a name.

That's Molech. And then you'd bow down to it. Oh no, you had to be a hardy guy, right? Or you'd chop down a tree and pull out the chisels and work on that thing that sawed us flying everywhere.

You got big biceps working on it. Then you'd raise that fucker up, then you'd give it a name and you'd bow down before it.

Idolaters today are just so 21st century.

I mean, couch potatoes. Laziest people on the planet. But here's the thing.

Here's what they do. You know, the God I believe in, the

God I believe in, well, he doesn't have a gender. I'm not into binary gods.

So the God I believe in would never have a gender and it would never send anybody to hell.

That's just so negative. Really? Really, what's your God's name? Well, Jesus, duh.

They make up idols that are, it's just theological words. And it's the

God I would believe in. So the God I believe in, he'd be vegan. He really wouldn't like NASCAR and would be totally against guns.

And pro -abortion all the way. Now, I'm giving you a caricature, but here's the thing.

This thing's hitting close to home for somebody who's listening on the podcast because they're going to a church right now where their pastor is teaching this stuff.

They've been listening to the apostle Rob Bell. And they believe that love wins.

There's no hell. Love is God. All we got to do is get along and sing that song from the commercial from the 70s.

I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. I'd like to buy the world a

Coke and keep it company. Sing along. Let's call that thing what it is.

Are you ready? That's an idol. That's an idol.

That's the God of the Sosthenian heresy, if you want to give it a technical name. But I want to pull this up real quick.

There's this wonderful quote from H. Richard Niebuhr, who was not exactly a conservative, in describing the

God of liberalism. The God of liberalism is a God without wrath who brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment to the ministrations of a

Christ without a cross. A God without wrath who brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment to the ministrations of a

Christ without a cross. That's not the God of scriptures. That's not the

Jesus of scriptures. That is an idol. Janet.

You're talking about the idols. And you mentioned that the 21st person, the

God doesn't have a gender, or doesn't have that. For the congregations, the churches, denominations, whatever it is, for them then to say that you can have a homosexual as a minister, or even you can have a minister that is a female, is that ideology, that word?

That's a false theology. But it's driven by an ideology. Okay, it's not, yeah, it's driven by the ideology.

Yeah, it's driven by an ideology, and it is idolatry. That's exactly what it is.

Idolatry is the worshiping of a God of your own making rather than the one who is.

Right, but I was wondering about the churches that let the same sex marriages, and let those people be ministers, and then the female pastors and everything.

That's not the same thing, or that is, or I'm confused. Okay. The problem, the confusion is caused by this.

They say they believe in Jesus. They say they believe the Bible. They say they believe in the

Holy Spirit. But the details are different. Now, let's read the text, and see if this clears it up for you a little bit.

2 Corinthians 11, let's come back. Paul is talking against the super apostles, and I want you to note some very interesting words.

I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness, Paul writes. Do bear with me, for I have a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.

But I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you received a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

Different Jesus, different spirit, different gospel. Now, Janet, I know your husband,

Gary. Yeah, I know, he's now a cold survivor, or at least really close to having survived the cold.

And I appreciate that very bit of information. But if I told you, last

Tuesday, I had breakfast with Gary. That's when he was on his deathbed.

You're saying he was on his deathbed, and I would say, well, no, no, I had breakfast with Gary. And you might be going, well, is it my

Gary? Well, you know, Gary, he's about four foot 11, weighs 160 pounds, likes to jog, and eats granola every day.

I need new glasses. Yeah, you say I need glasses, right. No, I had breakfast with Gary, that's

Gary. No, why aren't you believing that I had breakfast with Gary?

Because he was on his deathbed. Because he was on his deathbed a week ago, right? Okay, and he doesn't weigh 160 pounds, and doesn't like jogging and granola.

So here's the idea. Although I said I had breakfast with Gary, when you compare notes, which

Gary I'm talking about, it's clear I'm not talking about your Gary, I'm talking about a different Gary.

When someone says, I believe in Jesus, it's best to ask the question, which one?

Please describe this Jesus you believe in. Now, Mormons, they claim to be the church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day

Saints. The Jesus they believe in is not God the

Son, second person of the Trinity, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, that's not who

Jesus is. Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer. The two of them are the sons of a

God named Elohim who lives near a star named Kolob. And he and his spirit wives have been procreating ever since he became a deity.

Elohim was once a man, and he earned the right to become a

God by being obedient to his God. Am I talking about the same

Jesus? That Jesus, although it's named Jesus, I think we should call him

Jesus to help clarify, it's a different Jesus. That Jesus is an idol, and it can't save.

That Jesus doesn't exist. Okay, Christina first. Really, really bad fan fiction.

Yeah, it's a fan fiction, right, yeah. God's word forbids it,

God's word forbids it. All right, good question. Let me show you a couple passages.

Our first passage is going to be in 1 Corinthians 15. Oh, wait, nope, sorry, 14, my bad.

Got a little, just went just a little too far. 1

Corinthians 14, partway through verse 33. The apostle

Paul writes, as in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches, they're not permitted to speak, but should be in submission as the,

I'm gonna say Torah says, if there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home.

It is shameful for a woman to speak in church. And it continues, or was it from you that the word of God came?

Or are you the only ones it has reached? If anyone thinks that he is a prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things

I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.

So that's the first passage. The second one expands on this and helps us understand what the apostle

Paul meant when he said that they should be in submission as the law says. And I translate this instance of namas as Torah, as the

Torah says. And there's a reason for this, because we could talk about the law, we could talk about the law in the sense of a commandment, or you can talk about the law being the

Torah itself. Okay, and that we'll see from the cross -reference that Paul makes this very clear.

1 Timothy 2, verse 12. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.

Rather, she is to remain quiet. Verse 13. For Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

1 Timothy 2, 12 and 13. So when he talks about in 1

Corinthians, as the Torah says, he's talking about creation itself. This is a creation order thing.

And then when you look in like 1 Timothy and Titus, the requirements that make somebody qualified to be a pastor.

This is an office in the church. In order to be a pastor, you have to be above reproach. Husband of one wife.

Over and again, these two passages of Scripture, 1 Corinthians 14, 1

Timothy 2, combined with the actual qualifications to be a pastor, always make it clear the pastor is to be a man, not a woman.

A woman is not permitted to exercise authority over a man in church. Now does that mean that women cannot tell people about Jesus?

No. Of course they can. But when we gather as the body of Christ, the pastor is, in a sense, a stand -in for Jesus.

Kind of a good way of putting it. And so I speak on behalf of and in the stead of Christ, in particular functions in the pastoral office.

And so Christ has forbidden women from holding that office in the church.

Does that make sense? 3 .2 is one that says, I don't know, I'm a wife. Yeah, yeah. So in 3 .2,

we get the qualifications. The only other question I have is they are not allowed to...

And I think Torah would be the right way of understanding it. And that's what that's trying to get at, as the

Torah says. It's ha -namas in the Greek. It has the definite article, so it's not just talking about law in general.

It's talking about specifically the Torah. So you would say the Jewish law. What is the Jewish law?

The first five books of the Bible, right? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. That's the

Jewish law, the Torah. That's the referent. I heard an interesting explanation of why a woman should not be pastor.

As far as the picture goes, that the bride of Christ is the church and the pastor is supposed to be a stand -in for Jesus.

So it makes sense that the bride of Christ is a man. So if it's a woman pastor, it would make it a lesbian relationship.

And that's actually a correct way of understanding it. Yeah, that's kind of how the, because the body of Christ gathered is the bride of Christ.

So the bride and the bridegroom meet together. I'm a stand -in for Jesus. It starts to confuse things when it's a woman.

So we have clear passages that forbid it. If you want to see a day -to -day example of making up your own definition of Jesus or your own definition of Christianity, read the comments of any

Washington Post article that has to do with religion. Yeah, yeah. And you will see the whole range of people's own interpretation of religion and specifically

Christianity. Yeah, and I would note this. My job as pastor is to not give you my opinions.

My opinions don't count for a hill of beans, period. When it comes to the discipling task,

I'm to disciple you in the words of Christ. I only know one place to go to find that, the written word of God.

And so you'll notice, we spend a lot of time in the text. You want to know why?

Because my opinions don't count for nothing. And this is not about what I feel or I believe or this.

No, this is about the text says God has spoken. He has revealed as Christians, we hear his voice.

And you sit there and go, but the Bible contradicts what I believe. Right, it does.

So you need to repent. Yeah, I'll leave off with this story. Years ago,

I used to work for Focus on the Family back when they were in Pomona, California. And talk about the

Wild West of Christianity. I mean, we had just pretty much every flavor of Christian working in my department, which was the listener services department.

We answered the mail. And so we got the mail, processed the mail, processed the orders, answered the correspondences.

It was a very hoppin' place. I worked in the large donor division. But there was a woman who worked in the cubicle next to mine who was an older lady.

And she was charismatic, speaking in tongues, Pentecostal. And she pulled me aside one day.

She says, you know, Chris, I can just feel the Holy Spirit on you. You really have the Holy Spirit. But do you speak in tongues?

No? Oh, can we meet sometime so I can talk to you about this?

I'm all, okay. So we met. We had a break together.

And she just said, Chris, you know, the Bible talks about the gift of tongues. And if you want it, you can have it.

And I said, well, actually, that's not what the Bible says. And at this point,

I was a first -year Greek student. Let's take a look at 1 Corinthians 12. And I had taken enough

Greek to know how to translate some parts of Scripture. And when you read 1

Corinthians 12, which is kind of like the go -to passage to begin the discussion of the gifts of the Spirit, it's very clear that the gifts of the

Spirit, that there are varied, and that God gives varied gifts for this purpose so that the body of Christ can function like a body.

If the whole body of Christ were made up of left thumbs, would we be able to get our work done?

No, we need some fingers and a nose and some eyeballs and a mouth and some feet and things like that, right?

So the gifts of the Spirit are likened to different body parts within the body of Christ.

And the idea then is that the Holy Spirit gives different gifts. And I'm gonna point this out, and I wanna make this big enough so y 'all can see it.

Here's what it says, starting at verse 27. Now you are the body of Christ, and individually you are members of it.

God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.

I'm very thankful for those who have the gift of administration, because I don't. Okay, and then he asks a series of questions.

Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? And our first inclination is to say, well, the answer to the question has gotta be no.

Now, the fun part is, take a look right there. Let me point to it here.

That is the Greek particle me. It doesn't get translated.

And when a question is asked and it has the particle me in it, the answer to the question must be no.

So I pulled out my Greek New Testament, and I showed this lady this Greek, showed her what it meant, and then asked the questions.

We were playing along, okay? So let me ask you, are all apostles? No. Tell my bookie,

I'm not voting on the Falcons. You know, there's no way I'm, anyway. So, are all prophets?

No. Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing?

Do all speak in tongues? No joke. When I asked the question, her answer was yes.

She went no, no, no, no, yes. And here's what I said.

I said, but that's not what the text says. She says, but that's not what I believe.

Right? So here's the idea. When your beliefs come in collision with the written

Word of God, what's gonna give? If you don't give, you're in the process of creating an idol.

The God I believe in gives tongues to everybody. That's not the

Holy Spirit. That's a different spirit. You see it? So, part of what we learn along the way is that we approach the text with all kinds of crazy ideas about how we think

God is and what He does or what He doesn't do. And as we read the text, and I walk us through it, there's going to be a collision between what you believe and what the text says.

And part of my job is to facilitate that collision. And when that happens, here's what you say.

Lord Jesus, your Word has just shown me that I'm guilty of idolatry.

And I've sinned against you. In this way, I have made my own

God rather than believe in the one who is. Forgive me of the sin of idolatry.

I will have no other gods before you. And then receive the forgiveness of Christ.

He's bled for, died for this idolatry. And then repent and believe the truth.