Have you ever heard of preachers referred to as Bible thumpers? I have. I guess some preachers would take offense to that, but you know, it's better to hear a good, solid thump from the Word of God than it is to hear the hollow echo of an empty mind.
If you look up the word thump, you might find it defined as: "A blow with a heavy, blunt instrument." Another definition I discovered was: "The dull sound made by that blow." I know that sometimes Bible-thumpers tend to sound dull, but let me give you a hint. If you know the Author, this is a much more exciting book.
I'd like to give you a thump today to two great truths in God's Word that blend into one. They all revolve around the Ten Commandments. In Deuteronomy 5, it is years after the Ten Commandments. Moses is underscoring the fact that in the mind of God it's okay for a minister to repeat a sermon. So he's repeating the sermon about the Ten Commandments and reminding these people what it was like.
He says, "You remember when you heard the voice of God? He thundered, and you were excited. You came to me and said," "Go near and hear all that the Lord our God says; then speak to us all that the Lord our God will speak to you, and we will hear and do it" (Deut. 5:27).
The other section of Scripture is the Ten Commandments themselves. In Exodus 20:1-2, the introduction to the commandments goes like this: "Then God spoke all these words, saying, 'I am the Lord you God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."
We Need To Experience God Ourselves
First, I'd like us to see that God may be saying those people and people like us spend too much time waiting for Moses. It may be a bad thing in our lives when we expect someone else to bring us all we need to know about God and give us a secondhand experience with Him.
In Deuteronomy, he's reminding them how they acted on that day. We read the first part of that episode, beginning in Exodus 19. Our Lord told them to get ready to meet Him. I often wonder why sometimes we just stumble into the presence of God without thought.
But God told them that day, "Get ready to have an encounter with Me. I want you to clean your clothes, your bodies, and your souls. For three days, you will make the total commitment of your life to Me. Then I will come to you."
Then in verse 16, READ 16-19
Then we read in Deuteronomy 5 beginning in verse 23, as he's reminding them what happened on that day years later: READ 23-26
Well they had survived, and, of course, Moses had survived. However, they said to Moses, "Go near and hear all that the Lord our God says; then speak to us all that the Lord our God will speak to you, and we will hear and do it. (5:27) Moses said, "And the Lord heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me, 'I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They have done well in all that they have spoken.'" (5:28).
It sounds like He's affirming this, but we find, as we read later verses, He's actually just giving into the fact they were not ready to stand in His presence.
They were not ready to be the kind of people to have a firsthand experience with God. We read that in the very next verse: "Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear (reverence) Me, and keep all My commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!" (5:29).
Then in verse 30, He very sadly said to Moses, "Tell them to go back to their tents, but you stay here. I'll tell you all the things I intended to tell everybody, and you go and tell them."
In school one of the girls goes to one of the boys and says, "If you will say you like Mary, I think she'll say she likes you." And the boy says, "Go tell Mary if she says she likes me, I may say I like her." That poor girl is kept running back and forth between Mary and Jimmy. Mary and Jimmy never even shake hands, but in a short period of time they are already sick of each other. However, Jimmy begins to like the girl who brought the message. That's like the fellow who wrote letters every day to his sweetheart, and she married the mailman.
Tell me, when I say the words Ten Commandments, who do you think of? Moses? Some of you would say Charlton Heston. Why don't you think of God? They're His commandments. They're His Word for us. I think the problem of this event in God's Word underscores the fact that people become a little more enamored with the messenger than they do with the one who sent the message.
For forty years, we find Moses being a kind of ancient Henry Kissinger, doing shuttle diplomacy back and forth. He would go to God, and God would say, "You tell the people this..." Then he'd run to the people and tell them what God said, and they'd say, "You tell God this..." Then he'd run back to God, and God would say, "I heard the people when they said this, and you tell them this...."
The people wasted their lives waiting for Moses when they could have stood in the presence of God. When they could have experienced the love, grace, and power of God, they wasted their lives waiting for Moses to say something to them.
God never intended Moses to be a go-between or a priest. He was called to be a leader but not a priest, not to speak on behalf of God and that be the only word they ever got from God. God intended to speak to the people Himself.
God Wants A Personal Relationship With You
What do you think Jesus Christ is about? God has always wanted to come close to you. He loves you. He wants to know you. He wants you to know Him. He doesn't want you to get this secondhand. God wants to live in you. That's why Jesus came.
What do you think the Holy Spirit is about? It is God living in you. He said, "I want to talk with you. I want to experience you. I want you to experience Me. I want you to know that you are Mine, that you serve Me and love Me. I am yours.
I don't want you to have secondhand religion. I don't want you to depend upon some religious guru, reverend, or priest for your experience with Me.
I want you to know Me."
That's what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about, and we know that's true. We know that was His plan for these people. Just before the giving of the Ten Commandments, He tells the Israelites what He intended them to be. Look in Exodus 19:5-6, "Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."
God intended for all those people to be priests. He didn't intend for them to have a go-between. He intended everybody who knew Him to be someone He would use to bless the world, a special representative of His who would live to the glory of God and understand all the benefits that come from that. And they blew it.
They wasted it because they didn't want to be a people who could stand in the presence of God.
What about us?
What is God's plan for people who are His nation now because we're linked by faith to Jesus Christ? In 1 Peter 2:9-10: "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."
Maybe we're like the people who were waiting for Moses…trying to get by on secondhand religion, trying to live our lives as we want and saying, "I don't want to pay the price to stand in the presence of Almighty God. I want somebody else to tell me what I need to know, and I'd like to have chill bumps when it's appropriate."
Those people walked away from it. For forty years, they were in misery, just like you're going to be in misery if you don't understand this sanctified common sense and give your life to the glory of God. If you miss that, you're going to miss life. If you miss that, you're going to miss what you were made for. You're going to miss the joy, peace, power, and all the things that come from linking your life by faith to Jesus Christ and living close to Him.
But even then, God doesn't give up on us, like He didn't give up on them. He said sadly, "Moses tell the people to go home. They're not ready for this, but you stay. I'll tell you what I intended to tell everybody." So He gave them the Ten Commandments.
The preface to the Ten Commandments is Exodus 2:1-2: "Then God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord you God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." Is that so? Do you really have God?
What Is God About?
Who is God? God is someone who demands we worship and praise Him. God is someone who has power, and you know you need that power and can tap into it to be the people the Lord you God wants you to be. God is someone to whom you know you are responsible. One day, you will have to face all those times He offered His grace and you either accepted it or denied it.
God is about grace. He's about loving you and caring for you. God is about forgiving your sins and infusing your life with joy, peace, long-suffering, happiness, goodness, and all the things you seek in a million, foolish ways to find.
All of it is in God. It's about grace.
Our judgment one day will not be a judgment according to what we've done, even though we'll get that fair trial because some will demand it and no one will measure up. Romans 3:23 says, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." Your judgment will be about either grace received or grace denied, for God is about grace. That's what He's saying in the first verses of the Ten Commandments.
"I brought you out of Egypt. I brought you out of bondage." God is about freedom. God wants you to be free. If He could have had His conversation with those people on that day, I'm sure it would have gone something like this. He could have said to that assembled people who paid the price, consecrated themselves, and stayed in the presence of God, "You are free, right?" They would have said, "Right. For the first time in four hundred years, we are a people who are free."
“The Lord your God made you free. Is that right?" They'd have to remember all that God did in Egypt ... the parting of the Red Sea and the killing of all the people trying to kill them. They would have to say, "Right. We wouldn't be free if God hadn't made us free."
"So I have demonstrated that your freedom is a prime concern to Me. Is that right?" And they'd have to say, "Yes, that's right. God wants us to be free."
The He said, "All right, let Me tell you how to keep it." That's what the Ten Commandments are about. They are ten principles for keeping free. God wants you to be free.
We know that far worse than the slavery of Egypt is the slavery of sin. We know what Jesus said in John 8 is true. Anyone who sins is the slave to sin. And God's Word is, as Jesus spoke in John 8:36, "So is the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." Galatians 5:1 says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free..." Jesus Christ died so you could be free.
Did you see the movie Braveheart, the story of William Wallace who was supposedly the one who brought freedom to Scotland? At the end of that movie, we find William Wallace being pictured as a counterpart of the Savior. He's offered some stuff to dull the pain, and he refuses that. He's tied to a cross-like board, left on his back, and terribly tortured. When he was beheaded, he was put on a guillotine that was shaped like a cross with his arms stretched out. He's tied down, and his head is hanging back. They're about to behead him, and they ask him in this movie account, "Is there anything you'd like to say?"
He said, "Yes," and he shouted one word: Freedom.
When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He died for your freedom. He died to free you from sin and from the consequences of your sin. He died so that you may live free of those consequences in the confidence that you are living with a God who has power. He gave His life so that you could be free.
He gave His life so that you can live life headed toward a beginning and not an end. You can live toward the beginning of life. That's the confidence those who know Christ can have. Even the threat of death is something a Christian is free from.
Winston Churchill was a believer in Christ. Like you and me, he was a sinner. Most of the world knows about his sins, but he believed in Jesus Christ. He believed that in Christ, there is victory over death and victory over sin.
He planned his own funeral service. It was one of those formal services in the Church of England, England's most magnificent cathedral. Toward the end, they did something they usually do when a soldier dies. When a soldier dies they ordinarily play "Taps."
But Winston Churchill had made other plans for that service. He wanted to demonstrate something he believed very deeply. So he had them play the song that means the first assembly is called .... get up for a brand-new day: they played "Reveille."
Is your life moving toward "Taps" or toward "Reveille"? Is it moving toward the end and your having to face the consequences of all the times you decided you did not want to be in the presence of God? Or will it move toward that time of saying, "This is the new day, the getting-up day for me." No one is free whose life is moving toward "Taps." How can anyone be called anything but free when they know their life is moving toward the wonderful beginning of the One they've walked with through life.
