God

Psalm 47:1-2 “O clap your hands, all peoples; Shout to God with the voice of joy. For the Lord Most High is to be feared, A great King over all the earth.”

Praise & Worship

Psalm 47:7 “For God is the King of all the earth; Sing praises with a skillful psalm.”

Thank you. Be seated please.

Last week if you were here, we went before the Lord for healing for our hearts and souls. In that service, many of you heard the Biblical Gospel for the first time. It’s always a blessing to see the Elect of God awestruck by the personal knowledge of the unmerited grace God has shown to us.

Today, let us learn who it is who condescended in love to choose us by name, and die for us, exchanging His righteousness to us in return for our guilt laid upon Him at the Cross.

Very soon, I’m going to preach a sermon to this church that will feature very little Scripture. It’s going to be a history of the church of the 20th century, and it will be one of the most important sermons you’ll ever hear. You’re going to learn the truth about some of the men who claimed to be teachers of Christ. I’ve given this talk once to someone who’d never heard it, and he was devastated. Much of this has never been heard in the pulpit of American churches.

But before we do this, it’s very important for the health of this church to reflect upon Scripture, and upon whom it is we serve.

R. C. Sproul said once “one of the problems of the Church is we’ve forgotten who God is, and who we are.”

Today, we’re going over that.

This is one of the first sections of Scripture I memorized the address of. The first one I memorized was the location of the Flood - Genesis 7. When it comes to truly understanding who God is, this passage is another one to memorize. Over the next week, I’m going to ask you to read this passage every day, and try to commit it to memory. You don’t need word for word, but I’d like for all of you to memorize the thought, the theme of each section.

It’s easy. Trust me.

Please open your Bibles to Exodus 19:18-25

Exodus 19:18–25 NASB95PARA

Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently. When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him with 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. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, “Go down, warn the people, so that they do not break through to the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish. Also let the priests who come near to the Lord consecrate themselves, or else the Lord will break out against them.” Moses said to the Lord, “The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for You warned us, saying, ‘Set bounds about the mountain and consecrate it.’ ” Then the Lord said to him, “Go down and come up again, you and Aaron with you; but do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the Lord, or He will break forth upon them.” So Moses went down to the people and told them.

This is the children of Israel - B’nei Israel in Hebrew - gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai - notice there’s no “knee” in that name - in Arabia. The entire mountain here is consumed in fire.

If you accept the traditional Sinai, we have to assume Arabia was a much bigger territory than it was a century or so later. I prefer the earlier date of the Exodus, by the way, because Moses’s name is consistent with the family name of Pharaoh at that time - Tutmose. Moses in Hebrew is Moshe, and in Coptic would be pronounced as Mose.

God here warns Moses, speak to the people and warn them. If they approach the mountain, they will die.

This is the God we serve. In Hebrew, the name of God is considered far too holy to be used in everyday speech. Even in prayer it is never said, lest you not be in full reverence and speak God’s name when unworthy.

I hear people all the time say, “Yahweh is God’s name.” Begging their pardon, it’s a fact there is no W in Hebrew. It is a V sound.

I really want you to think about that for a few minutes. God is so Holy we dare not speak His name irreverently. It is my preference that I not speak His name carelessly, so I use the term “Adonai” when referring to God’s divine name

This name is called the Tetragrammaton in Greek, which means “four letters”. Yod Heh Vav Heh are the four letters. Literally, take the first letter of Shaddai and insert it into the divine name and you end up with Yeshua.

Jesus.

There’s a grammatical oddity in Hebrew, in which a feminine case word ending in Heh takes on an ayin instead. That’s way beyond my level of Hebrew learning to explain it. Yod Shin Vav Ayin. If you retain the final Heh consonant, you end up with the word Salvation.

And you don’t need to remember any of that, we’re just setting the scene for what we’re about to learn.

The Sovereign God

Exodus 20:1 AFAT

וַיְדַבֵּר אֱלֹהִים אֵת כָּל־הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה לֵאמֹר׃

V’yidaver Elohim et cal-ha’devarim ha’eleh l’omor.

Exodus 20:1 “Then God spoke all these words, saying,”

Elohim. God here is called by the title God. It is plural for emphasis. It’s misleading to point out that it refers to the Trinity to say God is plural. Does it refer to the Trinity? Probably. But Hebrew - to show emphasis or power - uses plural or repetition to demonstrate its importance.

Then spoke God all these words.

Will it change your perception of these words to know that these words were spoken by the pre-incarnate Christ?

Exodus 33:11 “Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses returned to the camp, his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.”

John 1:18 “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”

John 5:37 ““And the Father who sent Me, He has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form.”

John 6:46 “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father.”

What is God?

The first of the Christian confessions was the Apostle’s Creed. It answered the question, what beliefs are mandatory for a person to be called a Christian? And so they were taught to recite this creed, as it had everything in it they considered orthodox. If you rejected this, you rejected Christianity.

Historic Creeds and Confessions Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth

And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord

Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost

I mention this, because I’ve met people in this very town, who attend this very church, who held beliefs about the Trinity that are not orthodox. The real horror of this is that this man died of cancer, and would not budge on his beliefs.

Unless something happened in his last two months I don’t know about, we won’t be seeing him in Heaven.

God is one being revealed in three persons.

There is no other god or gods besides these. It isn’t politically correct to say this - but I have no choice. This must be said. Technically, since political correctness is actually communism, belief in God is not politically correct either.

Confessing the Faith: The 1689 Baptist Confession for the 21st Century II. God and the Holy Trinity

This divine and infinite Being consists of three real persons, the Father, the Word or Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three have the same substance, power, and eternity, each having the whole divine essence without this essence being divided. The Father is not derived from anyone, neither begotten nor proceeding. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. All three are infinite and without beginning and are therefore only one God, who is not to be divided in nature and being. Yet these three are distinguished by several distinctive characteristics and personal relations. This truth of the Trinity is the foundation of all of our fellowship with God and of our comforting dependence on Him

We’ll be going over this later in much more detail later on. Suffice it to say for now that God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent - in other words, God knows everything, God can do anything, and God is everywhere.

There are certain things God will not do, but nothing God cannot do. God will not violate His word, God will not forsake you and God will not sin.

Any Bible teacher that tries to tell you that God is powerless worships a different god. It’s not the God who created the Universe. It’s not the God of the Bible. And since there is no other god, then the god they worship is in their own imagination.

This is why the God of the Bible is so painstaking to identify Himself. There can be no other belief - if you have any other belief you can call yourself what you like, but you are not a Christian. And there remains only a certain fiery condemnation that will last forever.

So, let’s examine what God required of His people.

Israel should obey God alone

Exodus 20:2–3 AFAT

אָנֹכִי יהוה אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתִיךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עֲבָדִים׃ לֹא יִהְיֶה־לְךָ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים עַל־פָּנָיַ׃

Exodus 20:2–3 NASB95PARA

“I am the Lord 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.

Exodus 20:2 ““I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

and Exodus 20:3 ““You shall have no other gods before Me.”

Set the stage thematically for the rest of the Bible. The Bible displays contrastive thought. In this case, the commandments feature a contrast between God and His attributes, verses man and his fallen nature and sinfulness.

God makes statements of being - I AM - and then issues imperatives - “Thou shalt” and “thou shalt not”.

It’s interesting that fallen man, in his fallen state, reveals how fallen he is by saying, “I don’t want to get caught up in a lot of “thou shalt not’s”.

It’s too late for that since about 1448 BC. You’re caught up in it, like it or not.

You’ve already violated the ten commandments, every day of your life. You were born in sin, conceived in sin as the Psalms say. We are dead in trespasses and sins, Romans says.

All we like sheep have gone astray.

I AM THE LORD. You shall not have any other gods before my face.

Now that you’re aware of it, you’re going to spot contrastive thought in every passage of the Bible. From darkness into light, death to life. Israel just watched judgments on all the false gods of the EGyptians. God was victorious, and brought the Israelites to this spot, where God finally answered Pharaoh.

“Who is this God?” Pharaoh asked. “That I should obey him?”

I AM the Lord your God.

God has answered, after absolutely destroying Pharaoh and all the might of the strongest nation on earth, in a month. The other nations had to be asking, “how? How could this have happened?

Exodus 20:2 tells us. “I am the Lord thy God.”

Idolatry forbidden

Exodus 20:4–6 AFAT

לֹא תַעֲשֶׂה־לְךָ פֶסֶל וְכָל־תְּמוּנָה אֲשֶׁר בַּשָּׁמַיִם מִמַּעַל וַאֲשֶׁר בָּאָרֶץ מִתָּחַת וַאֲשֶׁר בַּמַּיִם מִתַּחַת לָאָרֶץ׃ לֹא־תִשְׁתַּחְוֶה לָהֶם וְלֹא תָעָבְדֵם כִּי אָנֹכִי יהוה אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֵל קַנָּא פֹּקֵד עֲוֹן אָבֹת עַל־בָּנִים עַל־שִׁלֵּשִׁים וְעַל־רִבֵּעִים לְשֹׂנְאָי׃ וְעֹשֶׂה חֶסֶד לַאֲלָפִים לְאֹהֲבַי וּלְשֹׁמְרֵי מִצְוֹתָי׃

Exodus 20:4–6 NASB95PARA

“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

The Faithlife Study Bible says that this passage “...Illustrates the concept of corporate responsibility: In addition to the individual being accountable, the community is responsible for the behavior and sin of its members. This passage does not suggest that future innocents will be held morally accountable for the sins of ancestors but refers to the mutual consequences of sins.”

Deuteronomy 24:16 NASB95PARA

“Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin.

The community is responsible. This is something the Lord speaks of several times. the effects of idolatry upon Israel would last several generations. however, it is offset by the blessings that Israel would get if the people would worship God and seek Him alone.

Exodus 32:1–8 NASB95PARA

Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Aaron said to them, “Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” Now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” So the next day they rose early and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!’ ”

This was the very same people who saw the ten plagues of Egypt with their own eyes. And Aaron never stopped to argue with them!

An entire people who had seen God’s miracles with their own eyes, seen the Red Sea part, seen the mountain catch fire, heard God’s voice - all turned to Idolatry without Moses present.

Idolatry starts in the heart. You dwell with an idol in your heart long before you carve one out of wood.

Leviticus 19:4 NASB95PARA

Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods; I am the Lord your God.

1 Corinthians 10:7 NASB95PARA

Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play.”

Philip Ryken writes that during a time of increased church attendance, and Bible reading was accompanied by declining morality. And these words were written in 2001. Just two years ago, we saw the great divide that closed the doors of thousands of churches worldwide.

Ryken’s conclusion was that respect for God’s law always accompanies regard for God. If you have a low regard for God’s law or God’s word, it is because you have low regard for God.

In many cases, it’s because people have invented their own god whom they turn to, rather than the God of the Bible. If anything else today, I challenge you to turn to God. No emotional music, don’t raise your hands, simply forswear silently any false gods you have been worshipping, and turn to the living God, the God of the Bible. Don’t come up to me and say, “I prayed.” It’s not me you’re getting right with, it’s God.

This is reality.

This is no illusion, no game, no “let’s pretend.”

If you do not have Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, life will be horrible for eternity. Today you must get right with God.

And let me make this clear. When a church turns to God with their whole heart, those who are reprobate within the church, tares and goats will cause trouble. They will rise up and try to force out God from the house.

Be prepared to take a stand against unGodliness. Be prepared to take a stand for Christ. Jesus Christ is God, one third of the Trinity. Those who confess Him before men, He will confess before His Father.

New American Standard Bible, 1995 Edition: Paragraph Version Chapter 30

But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. 19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, 20 by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days

We must place the fear of God ever before our eyes.

Let us pray.

Lord, turn our hearts to serve You. Let us be a church that embraces You and serves you. As the days draw closer and closer to the End Times, let this congregation draw together to serve you O Lord, and be a beacon of light shining for all who You have elected to draw unto. O Lord, protect us from the evil ones, from the reprobate who will oppose You and Your word as this church turns to you. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.”

Conclusion

Please stand for the benediction.

New American Standard Bible, 1995 Edition: Paragraph Version Chapter 6

The LORD bless you, and keep you;

25 The LORD make His face shine on you,

And be gracious to you;

26 The LORD lift up His countenance on you,

And give you peace.’

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