Exodus Chapter 19 Verses 14 – 15

• God says here, “Do not come near your wives…” This command was peculiar for this event and not repeated otherwise in scripture. Perhaps it was God’s desire for the people to demonstrate not only purity but also restraint of physical desires…at any rate, it’s mysterious and we simply don’t know…

Exodus Chapter 19 Verse 16

• It’s interesting that God chose the third day to reveal Himself to the people because there is possibly an alignment there with the revelation of the resurrected Savior. And, pretty cool here, the trumpet sounding does not appear to be coming from the camp of Israel…

Exodus Chapter 19 Verses 17 – 20

• (What was a burning bush a year ago is now a completely consumed mountain) There is a neat picture here…at the trumpet blast from heaven, the people of God are gathered together to meet with God…and Moses, representing the law, representing righteousness and mediation between God and man, ascends to meet with God.  This is all a pointer to the rapture of the church.  1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

Exodus Chapter 19 Verses 21 – 22

• The people were no doubt in awe of the presence of the Lord but there is more required from man towards his God than adoration and awe. Obedience and submission of will is also required.  Absolutely impossible if you are not born again…if the Holy Spirit has not taken residence in your heart, then your flesh will not allow you to have a heart to obey and/or submit to anything or anyone except for yourself.
• (In this scene we also see a parallel to the veil in the temple…)

Exodus Chapter 19 Verses 23 – 25

• I like that…Moses repeats what God had already said and in that he passes the test himself, expresses his alignment to God’s Word, and is returned to his work. The people saw…there was no mistaking what they heard, what they saw at the foot of the mountain that day…they were permitted to see but not permitted to gaze…the word in the Hebrew could mean, “To force one to show or reveal…”  Enough was provided to them…they had received enough…in the things of God there is a danger in demanding God to show us more or reveal to us more than we ought to know…and that danger is that we lose trust in Him…what He has allowed us to see is enough and He is working a greater work than if everything was simply put out there for you to judge…remember, forcing God’s hand in terms of knowledge was the downfall of the first humans…
• Jesus said in John 20:29, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Exodus Chapter 20 Verses 1 – 2

• The following revelatory statements of God are known commonly as the Ten Commandments…but God didn’t called them that. To me, when I hear “ten” I’m   Like why not 9?  What’s number 11? But that was never God’s title for these words.  The phrase the “Ten Commandments” only appears three times in the entirety of scripture…truly pointing to the Triune God as the Answer…and when that phrase is seen in scripture, it’s man’s referral.  This was the mirror that God gave to man to hold up to his face and see the shrapnel left from that fall.  And God begins with His own broken heart…

Exodus Chapter 20 Verse 3

• Perhaps the most important, central, critical verse to be found in all of God’s Word. Eight words that truly cause the condemnation or salvation of all  The decline and cyclical repetitive collapse of a person’s character and life…or the growth and cyclical increasing of character and life-profitability of a person.  Have no other Gods before Me.  Place nothing before God in your life.  In fact, this actually means no other gods at all.  Herein is the central diagnosis of too many trials and sufferings of mankind.  Really its not even these whole 8 words…its just one.  No.    
• The word every human ear has to learn early…in the first years of life…and the one word every human hates to learn. But the issue really is that one word.  Will you obey you or will you obey your Creator.  Take the “no” out and you are left with the problem, “You shall have other gods before Me.”  It’s just simply “No.”  When your heart pulls you towards foolishness of the flesh…will you agree with God and obey Him…will you use that word…, “No.”
• Why is this the one? Is it because the flesh is so strong?  Maybe…although in honesty, for the Christian, the flesh is weak.  I think it could be because when a man or a woman lives with no other god but God…their life will probably look like Jesus’.  And there will come a cross…and fear lies and tells you that’s all there is.  But the life that looks like Jesus’ has more than a cross…there’s also a resurrection.
• And yet that wasn’t the end of the Gospel…turn with me to Luke 24 Verses 44-53. After the resurrection, Jesus went to be with the Father.  I think that’s grand.  Because for you and for me, this is the ultimate goal of it all, the ultimate profit…that where He is, I may be also.  Fellowship and relationship and that relationship being close…Psalm 16:11 says, “You make known to me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy…”  Saturation, satiation, satisfying…abundance…of joy and the word for pleasures is simply sweetness…
• All of this after you have left the world behind man…said no to the flesh for the final time…you (the flesh) are not who I am, you are not who I will be, you are not what controls me…you are not my master. I serve Another…and then there at the end of Luke, those that were a part of the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus…were themselves filled with great joy, praising and blessing God.  That is as much a part of the Gospel as any other…that folks around you…if you choose to have no other god but God…folks around you will be served as well.