Institutes of Theology | Session 2 - The Pentateuch (10 Plagues–Joshua)

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Just to remind you, give you some context of exactly where we are, we're looking at nine movements of Old Testament history. Last time I gave you that overview, let me just remind you that when you look at Genesis 1 to 11, you're looking at Universal Dealings as God deals with the world as a whole, then the Patriarchal Period, Genesis 2 to 50. You have one chapter that covers 360 years, and that's Exodus 1, the slavery in Egypt. And then you come to the Exodus and the Wilderness Wanderings, which is the fourth great movement. And that's where we find ourselves. Last time we looked briefly at the bondage in Egypt, and then, and there's not much to say there, because it's one chapter, but we're now turning to the deliverance under Moses, which runs from Exodus chapter 2 through Deuteronomy.

Just to remind you, when we talk about the Exodus, we're talking about the 18th dynasty of Egypt. And let me just say, there is debate among Egyptologists, as well as among Christian scholars, about some of these dates, but I think the evidence points, and there's some resources I can point you to that argue well, that the, at the bottom there, you can see that the Pharaoh of the Exodus was Amenhotep II. That is the Pharaoh that Moses and Aaron encountered in Exodus chapter 5 through Exodus 14. He was the son of Thutmose III, Moses' nemesis. He was in the fourth year of his reign and probably only 22 years old. We find ourselves, and where we left off last time, was looking at the confrontation that leads to the Exodus. And that is Yahweh vs. the gods of Egypt. And specifically, that involves the reality of the plagues, the ten plagues of Egypt. So that's where we come tonight, the plagues in Egypt.

The timeline of the plagues covered about six months when you look at the way they're described in the text from late September or early October through the latter part of March. That overlays with the season for some of these things, but God intervened in a miraculous way to produce them way beyond what was normal in freeing his people from Egypt.

Now just to remind you, the purpose of the plagues, this is where we left off last time, is to provide a knowledge of the true God. In fact, turn to Exodus chapter 5. Exodus chapter 5, the plagues answer this question of Pharaoh. Chapter 5, verse 1, “And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel.’” By the way, men, some of you are newer, but when you see the word LORD in all caps in your Old Testament, that's the translator's way of telling you that that is the personal name of God. Pronounced Yahweh. In older translations, it was sometimes Jehovah, but it's God's personal name. YHWH in Hebrew, the four consonants called the sacred tetragrammaton. God's personal name, which simply translated, when He says it, He says I AM. But Yahweh means He is. That's what we're saying. So when you see the word LORD in all caps, or sometimes if LORD and God appear together, you see the word GOD in all caps in the Old Testament? That's telling you God's personal name appears there. And that's what you have here.

So look again at verse one. “’Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, 'Let My people go, that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.’” Now watch verse two. “Pharaoh said, ‘Who is Yahweh? Who is Yahweh that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know Yahweh, and besides, I will not let Israel go.’” He's making two points there. One is, I don't even know you're talking about it. We have no god in Egypt like that. That's your God, not ours. But the other point he's making is, I don't care who he is, I'm not letting these people go.

The plagues are God's answer to Pharaoh's question. Who is Yahweh? And the answer comes out loud and clear. God proclaims Himself, and he shows throughout these plagues that he is Yahweh, to Israel, to Pharaoh, to the Egyptians, and even to all the earth. Again and again, that's what he says. I am Yahweh. And look and see what I do. But specifically, he provides a knowledge of the true God, while at the same time, destroying the credibility of Egypt's false gods. Turn to Exodus 12, verse 12, because this is the point. “’I will go through the land of Egypt on that night and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast.’” Now watch the end of verse 12. “’And against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgments. I am Yahweh’”. I am God, and your gods are not. That's the point of this contest between God and Pharaoh through Moses.

So let me show you how that plays out. Each of the plagues was designed to show Yahweh's superiority over all of Egypt's gods. God is essentially saying, look, I am the true God, and everything that you worship as god is actually under My control. And each of the plagues makes these points in unique ways. Let me just give you a survey. Let's start with the first plague. And by the way, I'm going to take a little time here at the beginning, because when you read your Old Testament, you will find that both God and the writers of Scripture go back to this event again and again, because this is the event in which God declared Himself and made Himself known beyond the borders of Israel to the peoples of the world. So, let's look at it together. 

The first, the Nile turned to blood. There was an old Egyptian hymn from that period that said, “Hail to thee, O Nile, that issues from the earth and comes to keep Egypt alive.” It's also interesting that Osiris was one of Egypt's greatest gods, and supposedly the Nile was his bloodstream. That's interesting when you think about what God does to the Nile. I'll show you bloodstream. The lessons about God. Look at chapter 7, verse 17. To Pharaoh, “I am Yahweh.” God is saying, look, you don't know Who I am? I'm going to make Myself known to you, and what I'm really like. Now think about what God's doing here. They saw the Nile as the giver of everything good, and God says, that is completely under My control, and in fact, I am the One who gave you the Nile, and I can take it away.

You come to the frogs, and Heqet was the goddess of birth, actually had a frog head. Now, the previous plague didn't dramatically affect Pharaoh, according to chapter 7, verse 23, but this one does. Frogs normally were a sign of fruitfulness in that culture. They came after the annual flooding of the Nile with its fertilization and irrigation of the land. Instead, they become a curse. I love the way one author describes it. He says, “Like a blanket of filth, the slimy, wet monstrosities covered the land until men sickened at the continued squashing crunch of the ghastly pavement they were forced to walk upon. If a man's feet slipped on the greasy mass of their crushed bodies, he fell into an indescribably offensive mass of putrid uncleanness. And when he sought water to cleanse himself, the water was so solid with frogs, he got no cleansing there.” It gives you a little picture of what Moses describes here. What was the lesson? Look at chapter 8, verse 10. Here's the lesson: “There is no one like Yahweh, our God.” But there's also an interesting hint of mercy here, because God, through Moses, invites Pharaoh to let Moses ask God to take it away. And he says, you can set the time. And I've always wondered about why. You ever read this? Okay, you can — you just tell me, Pharaoh, when you want me to beseech God and take the frogs away. And Pharaoh says, tomorrow. I mean, think about that for a moment. One more night with the frogs. Oh yeah, that'll be fun. No, it was probably — and I think a number of commentators are right when they say he was looking for another way out, because he didn't want to give Yahweh the credit. I think that's likely what was going on. There is no one like Yahweh our God. 

The gnats, chapter 8, verse 16, Set, the god of the desert. And here we have gnats, a tiny, almost invisible gnat with irritating, painful sting. And this is an act of creation. Look at chapter 8, verse 17. Moses throws the dust. He hits the dust, and the dust becomes gnats. So the magicians can't replicate it, verse 18, and they have to admit, verse 19, it's the finger of God. What is God saying here? “I alone have the power to create. I can make gnats out of dust.” And think about it. He made us out of dust. 

The flies. Re/Ra, the sun god, is involved in this, and God sends swarms of insects. The Hebrew only says swarms. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, whose translators lived in Egypt, refer to these flies as dog flies, are blood-sucking gadflies. That's what we're talking about. If you've ever had that closest equivalent, I know is like a sand fly, you know, that stings and it bites and it hurts. That's probably what we're talking about here. So Pharaoh begins to negotiate with Moses through this section. But what are the lessons of the flies? Look at chapter 8, verse 22. “I am Yahweh in the midst of the land.” You know what God is saying? “Egypt is Mine. Egypt is Mine. Its land and its people belong to Me.” On the other hand, “My people”. You know, while God's rule is universal, He has especially chosen and identified a specific people for Himself. So verse 22 of chapter 8, “I will set apart the land of Goshen,” where the Israelites live. Moreover, “I will make a division.” Literally in Hebrew, “I will set a ransom. I will redeem and protect My people from My wrath,” is what he's really saying. And I love that because that has implications for our view of the future, doesn't it? 

Number five is the death. Sorry, I got behind there. There's the flies. The death of the livestock, Chapter 9. Hathor was a goddess with a cow head. Apis was the bull god, a symbol of fertility. And God strikes the livestock with a highly infectious and deadly disease. All of the domesticated livestock that were left in the open fields, according to Chapter 9, Verse 3, died. This plague was especially hard on Pharaoh, because he was very wealthy, and the livestock could be also an object of worship. Back in the end of Genesis, we see those things unfold. So what is the point of this one? God sustains, protects, and destroys the animals that he made according to his will. And God permits or thwarts man's attempts to subdue the earth. These were domesticated animals. And God intervenes to express Himself. 

Number six, the boils. Sekhmet was the goddess with power over disease. Sunu was the pestilence god. Isis, the goddess of healing. All of those are involved here. Chapter 9, verse 8, Moses throws soot in the air. The soot may have been from the very kilns that Pharaoh had forced the Israelites to use to make bricks. And this soot, as it spreads out, becomes this terrible disease. The Hebrew in verse nine is, boils. That word occurs 13 times in the Old Testament. These, verse nine says, were accompanied by blisters, perhaps running blistering sores. What's the lesson of the boils? It's a lesson we all need to learn, and that is that God alone has the power over disease and healing. Not your gods, the true God alone.

Number seven was the hail. Newt, the sky goddess. Osiris, the god of crops and fertility. Set, the god of storms. And God sends the worst storm Egypt has ever experienced, according to chapter 9, verse 18. Rain, thunder, lightning, and massive hail. What's interesting about that is Cairo typically has about two inches of rain annually. But God sends the worst storm they've ever experienced. What's the lesson? Look at chapter 9, verse 14, “There is none like Me in all the earth.” This is the worst storm you've ever experienced, and that's because I am the greatest God. There is none like Me. I'm utterly unique, not in any way to be compared to Egypt's God. And notice, I am the God of all the earth. I'm not just the Israelite God. I'm not just Egypt's God. I'm the God of all the earth. And yet, in this, you also see God is merciful. Look at chapter 9, verse 15. God says, look, I'm not really trying to destroy you. If I had wanted to destroy you, I could have done that. “You would have been cut off from the earth.” So, he is showing patience and mercy, trying to lead these people to repentance. Verse 16 of chapter nine, “to show you My power.” And yet, he's powerful but the plagues are in no way the limit of his power. Notice verse 16, “For this reason, I have allowed you to remain.” God isn't capricious. God's not just having fun with human beings, playing around with them. He has a plan. And what is that plan? “To proclaim My name throughout all the earth.”

God's purposes are greater than any individual or nation. It's his own glory, because he deserves to be known. And we find our greatest joy and fulfillment in knowing him. Verse 19, notice God shows grace to those who don't deserve it. He says, “Bring your livestock and whatever you have in the field to safety.” And some Egyptians do, many don't. Verse 29 of chapter 9, here's the key lesson. The earth is Yahweh's. So many of their gods were tied to the earth and its crops, storms, sea, animals, insects. But God says, listen, I made all those things. Everything on this planet belongs to me. I made it. I sustain it.”

Number eight, the locusts. Newt, the sky goddess, and Osiris, the god of crops and fertility. God sends massive locust plague. By the way, I don't know if you know this or not, but this still happens, not at this scale, but it happens at a massive scale. Back in the early 1900s, swarms of locusts roamed Africa for 14 years, affecting 5 million square miles. That's nearly double the size of the US. A locust can eat its own weight daily. Swarms have been reported covering 400 square miles at one moment in time. Each square mile contains somewhere between 100 to 200 million locusts. They can flap their wings nonstop for 17 hours and fly at a cruising speed of 10 to 12 miles per hour for more than 24 hours. Depending on wind speed, their collective movement can range from a few miles to 60 miles a day. And God sends them against the land of Egypt.

Now, why is this important? Well, remember, ancient civilizations were primarily agricultural. You know, when we measure our wealth, we measure it by industry. We measure it by stocks and companies. That wasn't true in the ancient world. In the ancient world, it was about your agriculture. Your wealth was measured in fruit and grain and vegetable produce. That's why in chapter 10, verse 17, notice how Pharaoh refers to the plague of the locusts. He calls it “this death.” Why? Verse 15 says in chapter 10, nothing green was left on tree or plant of the field throughout all the land of Egypt. Now, read that through our eyes. It would be like the crash of our stock market. When that happened, when agriculture was decimated, it meant there would be an immediate rise in poverty, starvation, crime, growing unrest among the population. And on and on it goes. The point of this one is that God in goodness provides financial prosperity to the peoples of this earth, and he can take it away in a single day.

Number nine, the darkness. The darkness. Re/Ra, the sun god. Horus, the sun god. Nut, the sky goddess. Hathor, a sky goddess. This is darkness that can be felt. Look at chapter 10, verse 21. “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand toward the sky, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt. Even the darkness which may be felt.’ So Moses stretched his hand. There was thick darkness for three days,” verse 23, “they did not see one another, nor did anyone rise from his place for three days. But all the sons of Israel had light in their dwellings.” This plague struck at the very heart of Egyptian worship. Ra was one of Egypt's greatest gods, the sun god, and God blackens the sun. During this time, they were unable to worship their gods. All they could do was lie on their beds and wait for the darkness to go. It's interesting. After this plague, Pharaoh no longer refers to the Lord as your God. He simply refers to him as Yahweh. He has come to know him, not in a spiritual sense, but in a sense of who he really is.

Number 10, the death of the firstborn. Min, the god of reproduction. Heqet, the goddess who attended women at childbirth. Isis, the goddess who protected children. And maybe most important of all, Pharaoh's firstborn son was considered in Egyptian theology a god. And God strikes them down.

What were the results of the plagues? Well, the Philistines remembered the plagues 400 years later when they captured the ark. They refer back to this event. Here's the point. Look again at Exodus 9:14-16. “For this time I will send all My plagues on you and your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is no one like Me in all the earth. For if by now I had put forth My hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, you would then have been cut off from the earth. But indeed, for this reason, I have allowed you to remain in order to show you My power and in order to proclaim My name throughout all the earth.” You see, this event, when God redeems his people physically from Egypt, becomes the great reminder in the Old Testament and even in our New Testament. Christ, our Passover lamb, the reminder that God can redeem people from their sins. He can redeem them from a greater bondage than bondage in Egypt, and that's what this becomes. I love, by the way, that Isaiah chapter 19 says that eventually Egypt will be converted. The people alive at the end will be converted, and they will worship the one true and living God. By the way, that's even going on today. There are many genuine believers in Egypt. 

Before we leave this, let me just—I wish I had time to really go through this. I'll just give you these to think about. Here are warnings from the life of Pharaoh. Making commitments, which he made over and over again, is not true spirituality. Verbal confession of sin is not always repentance, because he does that on several occasions. Repentance, to avoid consequences, is not true repentance. You can't bargain with God, which is exactly what Pharaoh tried to do. Wholehearted obedience is all that matters to God. And refusal to hear and heed God's word only hardens the heart. And there's a lot to be taught there about the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. He hardened it, and God hardened it in response to his hard-heartedness. In the end, man's greatest sin is his pride, refusing to humble himself before God. And then the last lesson I would say from the life of Pharaoh is settled rebellion ends in anger against God and his messengers. I see this all the time. The people who are the angriest at Christianity are the people in settled rebellion against him.

So that's God versus the gods of Egypt. Now that brings us to the Exodus itself. You know in response to the tenth and final plague, Pharaoh agrees and allows, under God's direction, allows the people of Israel to leave. This is the route of the Exodus. You can see, they come out of the land of Goshen in Egypt, near Memphis, where Pharaoh was at that time. Amenhotep II was in Memphis. And then they come down to the Sinai Peninsula, and specifically to Mount Sinai. They're on the lower end of that peninsula. And that's what we're going to talk about in this next section. There are other parts of that. We'll get to them in just a few minutes. Now when they leave Egypt, here's what their numbers are according to the text. 603,000 males over 20. There was a mixed multitude in addition to that. In other words, people who were not truly Israelites, but came with the Israelites out of Egypt. There were obviously women. Well, all we can do is estimate how many. I'm estimating conservatively that there are only as many women as there are men. There were likely more, but 600,000 of those. males and females under 20. So you're looking at probably somewhere north of 2 million Israelites come out of Egypt. What makes that remarkable is how many of the family of Jacob had gone to Egypt 430 years before. 70. And they come out more than 2 million. 

God led his people out of Egypt, and throughout the wilderness wanderings. And how did he do that? This is a very important component, and that is the glory cloud. It's also called the Shekinah in Hebrew. The glory cloud. What is the glory cloud? Well, it's a manifestation of God's presence. It's either a theophany, that is, an appearance of God, a visible appearance of God, or a Christophany, a visible manifestation or appearance of Jesus Christ. I personally think that's true. I think when you read the Apostle Paul, he talks about Christ as the one who led them through the wilderness. So I think this is a Christophany, Christ leading his people. I think he was in the burning bush. We talked about that some last time. This glory cloud suggests the nature of God's being. When God manifests Himself physically, he manifests Himself in a way that reminds us that God is spirit. He doesn't have a body like we have. The glory cloud is somewhat analogous to a caravan fire, a cloud surrounding a glowing fire. During the day, it protected them from heat and sunstroke in the wilderness. At night, it lighted their path to show them where to go if they were moving at night. And of course, it directed and defended them. You read those stories. Both of those happened in this period of time. It certainly threatened sudden destruction on God's enemies. Now, this glory cloud first appears in chapter 13 of Exodus. Look at 13 and verse 21. “Yahweh was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night from before the people.” He was always present with his people. But this is the first appearance in Scripture of the glory cloud. Now, that glory cloud will eventually take up residence in the tabernacle in Exodus 40. Later, when the temple is built in 1 Kings 8, the glory cloud takes up residence in the temple. When things go so badly with the divided monarchy and God is done with his people in Ezekiel 10 and 11, the glory cloud departs from the temple and from Jerusalem and exits the city is a statement that God is no longer among his people. It appears again some 500 and almost 600 years later at the transfiguration of Jesus, and then at the ascension in Acts 1. It accompanies Christ's second coming according to Acts 1, Revelation 1, and that glory cloud will return to the kingdom temple during the millennial reign of our Lord, according to a couple of passages in both Isaiah and Ezekiel. So that's the glory cloud that leads them through the wilderness.

Now, just to give you a summary of the journey. Here's the long journey from Egypt to Canaan. Exodus 13 to 40 is one year. If you look at the date markers—I'm not going to take you through all that—you look at the date markers in the text. That's one year. Three months from Egypt to Sinai, and then nine months parked at Sinai. Leviticus is one month. Numbers is 38 years and nine months. And Deuteronomy is two months on the plains of Moab before they go into the land. Add it all up, and there's your 40 years. That's what it looks like. So a little over a year was spent at Sinai, getting to Sinai and at Sinai, and the balance, the major part of the balance, was spent in the wilderness, wandering around. So that's the long journey.

Here is Mount Sinai, and what happens at Mount Sinai? You can read about it in Exodus 19. There, the Mosaic Covenant is ratified. Now what's going on here? They were already a covenant people. Remember, God had made a covenant with Abraham in his offspring in Genesis 12 and several other times in Genesis. But now they are offered the privilege of being a covenant nation in Exodus 19:1-6. And they in turn, verses 7 and 8, accept that privilege along with the responsibilities that it brings. You say, what is the point? Here is God's plan for Israel. This is Exodus 19:4-6. “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. 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.” Now watch this. “You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. these are the words which you shall speak to the sons of Israel.”

“You see, God chose Israel as a nation to be salt and light in the midst of a wicked world. But in choosing Israel, God wasn't neglecting or rejecting the rest of the peoples of the world. No, Israel was to be his witness nation to the rest of the world. By the way, now that's our role, right? The same language is used by Peter of us who are now in the church. It doesn't mean the church has replaced Israel; it means we are now God's witness nation in the world during this time Paul describes in Romans 11. So, Moses was with God on Mount Sinai two times for 40 days each, and between them, of course, the golden calf incident. And if you haven't had a chance to work through those amazing chapters, I preached a series on that a couple of years ago, and it is breathtaking.” (Not my series, the text.) And so, you need to go, and you need to rehearse that, alright, because it's amazing how God reveals Himself even in the midst of the people of Israel's sin. They've just agreed to this covenant, and 40 days later, they shatter several of the commandments that God Himself spoke from Mount Sinai. How does God respond? Well, read it. You know, “I am compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, bounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin.” So, it's breathtaking for all of us. 

So, during his time on Mount Sinai, God gave Moses plans for the tabernacle to be built, and the tabernacle is recorded in Exodus 35 to 40. Here is a model, several pictures of a model of the tabernacle, a couple different types of models, so you get a feel for what it was like.” It was, in fact, a tent with an altar in front of it, and then it was obviously set off from the camp of the people. This is, again, these just give you a glimpse of what that tent was like, and then the place where the ark was kept. 

What's the point of the tabernacle? What's the significance of it? Well, in Exodus 40, after the tabernacle is completed, King Yahweh inhabits it. So the significance of the tabernacle is this. It is a throne room for Israel's king. Exodus 25:8, “Let them construct a sanctuary for Me that I may dwell among them.” He is the king of Israel, and he dwells among his people and has his own throne room. And Yahweh takes up residence there. Once it's completed, Exodus 40, verses 34 and 35, “Ten the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of Yahweh filled the tabernacle.” Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of Yahweh filled the tabernacle.” It was truly astounding. God manifested His presence in the Shekinah, the glory cloud, in the middle of the camp of His people. What a picture. Now fast forward to John chapter 1. “The word became flesh,” and you know what the Greek says? He tabernacled among us. You see, ultimately the tabernacle pointed to the reality, a picture of Christ, who would tabernacle, who was God with us. Tabernacling among His people is one of us. 

Now after a three-month journey to Sinai, Israel remained at Sinai for about a year. And at Sinai, God gave Israel two systems that are absolutely crucial for understanding the Old Testament. Let me unfold them for you. Two systems crucial to understanding the Old Testament. And these two systems occupy the bulk of Exodus 19 to 34. The first system is the sacrificial system. The sacrificial system had one huge point. The only way that sinful man can approach holy God is through sacrifice. Let me say that again. The sacrificial system had one huge point. The only way that a sinful man can approach holy God is through sacrifice. In the directions for the sacrifices given in the Pentateuch, Moses provides us with six foundational truths that are contained within that sacrificial system and the reality that they pictured. You need to understand these truths to understand the entire sacrificial system.

Number one, God commanded it of every person. You see, that's the point of Leviticus. Leviticus 1-17, chapters 1-17, the point of those chapters is that the way to God, the only way to God is sacrifice. And then starting in chapter 18 through chapter 27, we learn that walking with God requires sanctification. It requires holiness. It requires obeying him. So the way to God is sacrifice. Walking with God requires obedience and holiness. That's the point of Leviticus. And in Leviticus 1-7, God prescribes five specific kinds of sacrifice. All five of them were to be a part of the worship of every Israelite.” If you lived in Old Testament Israel, at some point in your life, all five of these would have been a part of your life. In addition, four of the five were to be a part of the national, or the corporate sacrifices for the national feasts. The trespass offering was the only one for individual sins only.  The other four were also national. Let me show you what these look like. 

Here are the five sacrifices. There's on the left-hand margin, you see there's the burnt offering, the meal offering, there's the peace offering, which had three purposes. It was a thank offering, a vow offering, and a free will offering. We'll come back to what that means in a moment. Then the fourth kind was the sin offering, and then the trespass offering. Now, go over to the column next to the last column, and notice what the point of each of these is.

The burnt offering is a propitiation for sin generally. It demonstrates entire consecration to Yahweh. The meal offering, which was unleavened cakes or grains, you offered to the Lord the fruit of your hands. The first fruits express thankfulness to God for what He's provided for you. The peace offering, again, back to those three different manifestations, it could be a thanksgiving for an unexpected blessing. It could be for deliverance when a vow was made, or it could be offered for general thankfulness. The sin offering was to provide propitiation or atonement for a sin for which no restitution could be made. In other words, there was no way you could make it right. There was nothing you could do. There was nobody you could repay the money you had stolen from. There was no way to make it right. And then the trespass offering was for propitiation or atonement for a sin for which restitution could be made.

Those were the five types of sacrifices, and if you lived in ancient Israel, at some point in your life, you made all of them. Now, there were also national sacrifices, according to Numbers 28 and 29. And I won't walk through all of this, but you can see that daily, morning and evening, two lambs were offered on behalf of the nation.” On the Sabbath, two lambs were offered. New Moon, you can see bulls, ram, and lambs were offered. And then for those feasts, you can go down through and see the numbers. I mean, it was astounding. When you look at all of that and you add it up, here's the annual national sacrifices. This is just for the nation. This isn't individuals. A hundred and one bulls, thirty-one rams, twenty-four goats, and a thousand fifty-one lambs. Twelve hundred animals a year sacrificed in national sacrifices before a single individual ever offered a sacrifice. God demanded sacrifice from every person, and he demanded it from the nation.

Secondly, another foundational truth is the sacrifices were for God. The sacrifices were for God, not the worshiper. It's amazing how often this is repeated. Here it is, showing you it's for the Lord. This phrase, “an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord,” occurs in all those texts in conjunction with the sacrifices. See, the sacrifice wasn't for you. The sacrifice was for God. And it was to—notice that expression—to soothe him.” It was a, literally, an odor, in Hebrew, an odor of satisfaction. It was a fragrance that satisfied God's justice. Your sin deserved death. But instead of your dying, God allowed an innocent animal to die in your place, and it soothed his wrath. That's the point of the sacrifices. The sacrifices were for God, not for the worshiper.

Number three, to be accepted, they must come from the heart. Think about 1 Samuel 15:22. This is one of so many texts in the Old Testament, it could be multiplied. Samuel said, “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.” In other words, God isn't interested in some sort of external act that isn't accompanied by a heart of obedience. And again and again, the prophets castigate the people for their offering God sacrifices where their heart isn't engaged. And God says, “I'm sick of it.” So, really important to understand that foundational truth.

Another foundational truth is the animal sacrifices were always substitutionary. They were always substitutionary. In Leviticus 1-7, one thing about the worshipper's connection to the sacrifice stands out. And that is that it was dying in his place. Let me just remind you of the order of events. I've shared this with you before. Some of you are new or may not have heard this. But if you needed to offer a sin offering, a trespass offering, you had sinned against the Lord and you brought your sacrifice. Here's how it unfolded. The worshipper comes and presents his animal, a perfect animal without blemish, at the forecourt of the tabernacle or later the temple. This was referred to as drawing near. Drawing near to God obviously was the idea. Secondly, the worshipper then laid his hands upon the head of the animal. You know, when we lay hands on someone as we did Sunday, we're saying we're transferring the authority given to us to that person.” There's a transfer involved. The same thing is true with putting your hands on the head of that animal. You are transferring your guilt. In fact, it goes further. You were then to confess your sins over the head of that animal. You were transferring your sins, as it were, and your guilt to that animal. And then, the worshipper was handed the knife. You brought the animal, the priest handed you the knife, and you slit its throat. And then he caught the animal's blood in a basin as it poured out and splattered it against the altar.

And then the priest took the specified part of the animal, depending on the kind of sacrifice, along with the portions of fat, and laid it on the altar to burn. Of course, with the burn offering, the entire animal was consumed, but with the other's portions were not consumed. And then finally, the remainder of the animal was eaten by the priest or by the priest and their families, or in the case of a peace offering, by the priest and the worshiper together. Kind of like we're having a meal together with God, was the picture. The point of the entire process, men, what I want you to see, is the point of this entire process, and especially laying your hands on the head of that animal, confessing your sins over the head of that animal, and then taking the knife yourself after the transfer of your guilt to that animal and slitting its throat, was that animal was dying for you. Nobody missed it. Nobody thought something else was going on. The animal died in the place of the sinner who deserved to die.

Number five, animal sacrifices were never the basis of forgiveness. Hebrews 10:4 couldn't be any clearer. “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” You say, what was it pointing to? You know that as a believer, but let me just remind you, animal sacrifices were pictures of the coming human sacrifice of Christ. That's why in Hebrews chapter 10, it says, “when he came into the world, God gave him a body, so that body could be offered as the sacrifice.” And now you see the connection, right? When you come to Christ, when you trust in him, there is just as real a transfer of your guilt that takes place at that moment as took place when you put your hands on the head of that animal. It's as if every guilty thing about you is transferred to Jesus Christ. And when he died, he died in your place, the innocent one for the guilty. And what I love about what the Old Testament sacrificial system says, you can read it. Go back and read Leviticus. If you don't like the rest of it, love this.

And his sin was forgiven. And his sin was forgiven. And his sin will be forgiven.

 Again and again and again. God says, where there's a trusting heart, recognizing you deserve to die, but in faith transferring your guilt to that animal, knowing that animal can't satisfy the justice of God, all the way back in Genesis 3, somebody's going to come and deal with sin, and your confidence is in God, the Savior. That's what happens with us. It's the same with the Old Testament believer.

So, what was the role of the priests in this sacrificial system? Well, understand, because you're going to meet them throughout the Old Testament. The role of priests, they were taken entirely from the tribe of Levi, and specifically, they were descendants of Aaron. They were supported by the tithes. By the way, let me just make this point. I grew up in Baptist churches, where we were taught that every good Christian tithes. The truth is, in the Old Testament, a tithe was your tax. And it wasn't 10%. It amounted to about 32% to 33% of your income. And it was what supported the government, just like your taxes do today. Above that were what were called your freewill offerings, where you freely, without constraint, gave to the Lord because you wanted to express your gratitude and thanks. That's New Testament giving as well. It's the freewill offering. You pay your taxes. That's your tithe. And you give freewill offerings to the Lord. And we give generously based on how He's blessed us, is what Paul says. So, tithes went to support the priests. 

They lived in 48 cities scattered throughout the 12 tribes. And they had two responsibilities, two primary responsibilities. The first is maintaining the sacrificial system. By David's time, they were divided into 24 divisions, and a priest only served at the tabernacle for two weeks a year, or in some cases one month every two years. So, they weren't there very often. They weren't, most priests weren't, day in and day out dealing with the sacrificial system. Most of the priest time was spent in the Levitical cities, those 48 cities, fulfilling their other chief duty, which was teaching the Scripture to the people. Deuteronomy 33:10, “They shall teach your ordinances to Jacob, and your law to Israel. They shall put incense before you in the whole burnt offerings on your altar.” So, understand that when Israel drifts from God's word, guess what isn't happening? They're not fulfilling their duty to teach God's people God's word. And you reach times in Old Testament history when they've forgotten there is such a thing as God's word, because the priests have failed miserably. That ought to be a reminder to all of us that what spiritual leaders do with God's word matters. 

This is the second system. Again, at Sinai, remember that God takes his people to Sinai, and there he is educating them. And in that context, he gives them two systems. The one we just talked about, the sacrificial system, it's obviously huge, and I showed you the magnitude of it. And this is the other system, the law of God, that we want to kind of walk our way through. Here is a classification of God's law, and let me just say at the outset, there's some disagreement about this. I have developed this at greater length in other places that I'm going to be able to do tonight. But let me just say that what you have laid out in the law is you have the moral laws in Exodus 20, the Ten Commandments, and I'll come back to that. Then you have the civil laws, and those intersect with the moral law, because obviously there have to be civil penalties for moral laws and so forth. But you have the covenant code in Exodus 21 to 23, and then you have the ceremonial laws, Exodus 25 and following, where you have the tabernacle, the priests, and all that goes with that system. That has historically been the division of the law, and I think it's legitimate, both from the book of Exodus and from other places, even though I know there are some who would disagree with that classification.

When you look at it, the moral laws still stand. We'll talk about that in a moment. The civil laws have now been transferred from the nation of Israel to government, human government, Romans 13. So the government now bears those responsibilities. And then the ceremonial laws have been completely fulfilled in Christ, and that's what both the book of Hebrews as well as Colossians 3 makes clear, and I'll come back to that. But that's the way the law of God breaks down. I'm going to look at the moral law more, but before we do that, let me just briefly talk about two ways that civil laws are expressed. 

There are two words in Hebrew, the mishpatim and the devarim, the ordinances and the commands, which describe two different kinds of laws. There are case laws, casuistic laws, and those are usually based on if this happens, then this is what needs to happen in response. For example, compensation is described in chapter 21, verses 18 and 19. The lex talionis, the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. If someone takes out another person's eye, then they'll lose their eye. We'll talk about that in a moment. But that's case law, or casuistic law. And then you have the commands, the devarim, which are apodictic laws that simply say, you shall do this, do this, do this. For example, with widows and orphans, you shall not afflict the widow or the orphan. 22:22. Or you shall not boil a young in its mother's milk. Chapter 23, verse 19. So those are the kinds of ways that civil laws are expressed. And in a moment, I'll come back to the lessons from those. But let me just lay that foundation. 

Now, when you look at the case laws, there are these ideals embodied in those case laws. So I'm just kind of giving you an overview. You go through the case laws, this is what you're going to learn. First of all, appropriate punishment. It must fit the crime. That, by the way, is the point of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It's not about revenge. Some people, you know, I used to watch Gunsmoke when I was growing up, an old western, right? And all the bad guys in that quoted the Lex Talionis, and it's like, “I'm gonna get that guy.” That's not the point. The point of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is to counteract the human trend, including in Hammurabi's Code, where the punishment didn't fit the crime. You stole something and they cut off your hand. No, God says you steal something, you're gonna give it back, and you're gonna give it back with interest. The punishment fits the crime. And the same thing, if somebody punches out your eye, you don't get to kill them. All right? That's the point. The punishment fits the crime. That is justice, and that is refreshing in the ancient world with our God and His law.

The sanctity of life is upheld in the case laws. The principle of restitution and compensation. Did you realize that there were no prisons in ancient Israel? I mean, in this period of time in ancient Israel, there weren't prisons. You either died or you made restitution, depending on the crime. Makes a lot of sense to me, instead of throwing criminals together in a place where they can become better criminals. But that's the system we have in place. That's not the system God had in place in Israel.

Preventing abuse of the system. It's built in where it assumes people are evil and are going to be trying to work the system, and there are protections built into the code to guard against that. That's what you're going to see in the case law.

Now, two summary principles I would give you as you think about the law. Think of it this way. The ethical principles of the Ten Commandments are still incumbent on the New Testament believer. And I'm going to show you that. We're going to walk through that in just a moment. The Old Testament case laws, remember, they're civil laws. Those are not directly applicable to us, but they do illustrate ethical principles that are relevant for us today. For example, the ones I just showed you. The principle of justice demands the punishment fits the crime. That's true whether you're a parent, or whether you're a human judge, or whether you're a military commander. On and on it goes. They're clear. While the way that looks is different in our culture, the principle is still very much in play. Relevant today.

So, when we think of the aspects of the Mosaic Law, as I just said, you have the ceremonial, you have the civil or the judicial, and you have the moral. I want to spend the rest of this time looking at the moral law, because it is the part of the law that is transcendent, that is just as true today as it was when it was written. As I said, the case laws, they give us help. They give us insight and instruction. But they're not commanded of us in the same way they were commanded of an Old Testament Israelite in the nation of Israel. And the ceremonial laws have been fulfilled in Christ. They're not, according to the Book of Hebrews, in play at all anymore.

So, let's look at the moral law. Let me give you a series of scriptural propositions. First of all, the moral law of God. And I'm talking here about the way it is summarized in the Ten Commandments, and Jesus summarizes it as love God and love your neighbor. That's what we're talking about. That's what I mean by the moral law of God. First of all, it is based on the character of God. That's why it's unchanging. Those principles are laid out because they're always true of God. God, for example, always speaks the truth. He never lies. He never shades the truth. He never misrepresents the truth. Therefore, he demands and expects that we do the same. God is the only true and living God, so he demands that he alone be treated as God, and that he be respected as he deserves as God. And on and on it goes. He established authority, and there's always going to be authority in the world, and therefore, we're to submit ourselves to that authority. Those are timeless realities because they're based on the character of God Himself.”

Secondly, the moral law of God is written, not each individual command. It's not like God wrote, thou shalt not, each of the Ten Commandments on every human heart. The way Paul describes it in Romans 2:14 is the substance of the law is written on every heart, meaning there is an understanding that there is a God who is a lawgiver, the end of Romans 1, and that there is a consequence of breaking that law, and there is a certain understanding of what those expectations are. That's why you don't find cultures, by and large, with very few exceptions, that say it's okay to lie to your friend. Why is that? Because there is an understanding inbred, written in the heart, a substance of God's law written in the heart. You can go back and listen to that message if you want to sort of get a fuller understanding of that. It was codified, the moral law was, at Sinai as part of the Mosaic legislation. It was affirmed by Christ and the New Testament authors very clearly. Do you realize every one of the Ten Commandments is repeated in the New Testament except for one? And we'll talk about that one in a moment. They're all repeated and re-emphasized. It's still not right to do those things, and it's still compelled upon us to do the positives.

Number five, the law, the moral law of God was never meant to justify. Galatians 2:16 says, “By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” God gave the law after the fall in order to do certain things. Number six says it serves a purpose for unbelievers. The law of God serves a purpose. What is that purpose for unbelievers? First of all, to awaken their consciences. Whether it's a pagan who recognizes the end of Romans 1, that they who do such things are worthy of death, or whether it's a Jew like Paul, a rabbi, a Pharisee who recognizes when he gets to the 10th commandment, “Wow, I'm really not keeping God's law, because they're all internal and I'm only keeping them externally.” The law of God awakens consciences.

It drives them to Christ. Galatians 3:21. It's a tutor to lead us to Christ. When you understand God's law, when you understand what God demands of you, you don't think very well of yourself. By the time I'm done tonight, I hope nobody in here thinks they've ever kept a single of the 10 commandments, because you haven't. It drives us to Christ. And it leaves them without excuse and condemn before God. You know, Romans 3:19-20 says, when sinners stand before God, because he's written the law in the heart, because he's written his reality in the creation, they won't have anything to say. “Their mouths will be stopped,” Paul says. Nothing. There won't be any arguing with God at the judgment.” Every mouth will be stopped. Leave them without excuse. 

Number seven, the moral law serves also a purpose for us as believers. You don't come to Christ by keeping his law. You haven't kept it. Only Christ has, and it's only in him we're made right with God. It's by his perfect obedience and his substitutionary death that we're reconciled to God. But having been reconciled to God, the law now serves a purpose for us as believers. It provides a guide for our obedience. It helps us understand what pleases God, and it produces overwhelming gratitude as we realize that Christ was a curse for us. He was cursed because we deserve to be cursed because we had shattered God's law. 

Number eight, the moral law is most concisely summarized by the commands to love God and love our neighbor. In other words, if you want to know what God's moral law is, there it is. That's what Jesus said. Here's the first and greatest commandment, and here's the second. That's what God expects of human beings. And the moral law is outlined by the Ten Commandments. So understand then that when we look at the Ten Commandments, we're looking at—think of them as hooks. You know, the big overarching expectation of God is to love God and love others. The Ten Commandments are like hooks on which the rest of his law hangs. Each of those commandments represents a category of life that helps us understand God expects something from us in this category of life. And I'm going to show you what those categories are in a moment.

Now when you come to the Ten Commandments, there are three principles of interpretation. And these are imbedded within the Ten Commandments, all right? I'm not making these up. Let me show them to you. First of all, each command is spiritual or internal. Go ahead and turn with me to Exodus chapter 20. Let's look at the Ten Commandments together. This is the moral law of God. Again, the tightest summary is love God, love others. The Ten Commandments is the next tightest summary, giving us categories. So, I want you to look at the 10th commandment. Look at, all the way down in verse 17. Exodus 20 verse 17, “You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” What does that command tell us? How does that command differ from the other nine? The other nine are primarily external. I'm going to show you they're really not, but they're phrased as though they're external. It's like you feel pretty good about yourself if you haven't murdered someone. Well, guess what? That's not all that commandment means. We're going to get there. But once you get to commandment 10, you realize, uh-oh, God is interested in more than my external behavior. He's interested in what goes on in my heart. That means he's concerned about what goes on in my heart in reference to every one of these commands. Now you see why Paul in Romans 7 says it was this commandment that devastated him as a Pharisee, because he was really good externally. And then he came to grips with the 10th commandment and realized, uh-oh, God wants heart obedience in reference to every one of these commands. So that's the first one. So understand, when you read every one of the 10 commandments, they're all not only external, they're internal. 

Number two, each command forbids wrong things and demands right things. You ever wondered why eight of the commands are negative? Thou shalt not. And two of the commandments are positive: Honor your father and mother, keep the Sabbath. You ever wondered why that's true? Why don't he put those negatively, like he did the others?” It's because he's making a point. He's making a point that not only does he forbid the things forbidden by each command, but he's commanding the opposite in the case of each commandment.

And then thirdly, each command has a core theme or message, or we could say category of life that it's touching on, that summarizes many of God's laws.

So when you look at the 10 Commandments, you have to think about it that way. So let me just give you an example. Here's “no other gods.” All right. I mean, clearly, we know that it's negative. Don't have any other gods before me. So look at the second column there. The act forbidden. That's how it's phrased. We are forbidden from having any object of worship in addition to or in place of the true God. That's how it's worded, but that's not all it's saying. Remember the principles we just looked at? Go back to the thought forbidden, the left-hand side. We are by the first commandment, forbidden from allowing anything within the heart that takes the place of devotion or worship due to the true God. That is also the first commandment. Now, because of the principles imbedded in the Ten Commandments that not only is the negative forbidden, but the positive is commanded. Since two of the commandments are positive, right, it teaches us that. So that means, in the first commandment, the act commanded is we must acknowledge Yahweh to be the only true God, and knowing Him as our God, seeking to lead others to the worship of the true God. That's what's commanded in terms of an act.

But what about thought? Well, again, if the thought is forbidden, the thought is required. Here's what's commanded. Adoring, loving, desiring, fearing, believing, trusting, hoping, delighting, rejoicing in God, giving Him all praise and thanks, and obeying and submitting to Him, seeking to please Him in all things. Okay, how many of you have kept the first commandment? You see the point? That's what it's intended to do. Now you see why Paul says the law devastated him, Romans 7, and Galatians 3, it's a tutor to drive us to Christ. When you understand what God really is saying in the law, you realize you don't have a snowball's chance of making heaven. 

So here is kind of a pyramid structure of what I was saying a moment ago. The greatest summary of God's moral law, Jesus in Matthew tells us comes down to this, love God and love others. But what does that mean? Well, love God is fleshed out in the first four words, or the first four commandments. Those all have reference to God. And loving others is categorized or fleshed out in the last six of the Ten Commandments that have reference to how we treat others. And then under the first four commands is all the other commands about God. And under the last six commands are all the other commands about other people. They're like hooks. Think of the Ten Commandments like hooks that the rest of the laws hang on somewhere because they fit in these categories, okay? So with that in mind, and let's look then at the essence of the Ten Commandments.

What is the message? As an outline of the entire law, these ten words really identify ten categories, are areas of life in which God has revealed his will to us. And again, let me back up. If you're here tonight and you're not a follower of Jesus Christ, I hope you can see, by just giving you one commandment and showing you what God really demands of you, that you, like me and every other man in this room, have shattered God's law. There is no way you will ever make heaven based on your behavior, because you have absolutely broken every one of God's moral laws. You have failed to love God perfectly every moment of your life. You have failed to love others every moment of your life. And you have shattered the Ten Commandments as well, just like I have. You will never earn heaven. And that's why God gave us His law, to show you that you need Christ, the only one who has kept them. He lived a perfect life of obedience to God. He did all of these things. And then he died to pay the penalty. Remember the sacrificial system? He died in the place of the guilty, so that God could be satisfied, and his justice satisfied, so that he could still be just and forgive sin and forgive sinners. That would be my plea for you tonight. If you're a believer, most of you here tonight are followers of Christ. What I'm about to show you serves as a model for God's expectations of you, okay? This is a pattern that helps you see what obedience to Christ looks like. So let's look at them. 

Now, let me tell you what I'm going to do before I kind of walk through each of them individually. I'm going to go through each of the commandments, and then I'm going to tell you the theme, or maybe a better word would be category. What category of life are we talking about? And then I'm going to summarize the command, and then at the bottom of each slide, I'm going to give you something for you who have younger kids. When my kids were young, and I was trying to teach them the Ten Commandments, I mean, you know, a three-year-old or a four-year-old child doesn't understand, thou shalt not commit adultery. But what is the principle in what God is saying there that is age appropriate for that child? So the bottom line on each of these slides is not inspired. That's just me trying to teach my kids, you know, what the essence of this commandment is for them at a young age, okay? So let's just walk through them. Look at the first one.

You're still in Exodus 20, verse 3. I'm sorry, let's start at verse 1. “Then God spoke all these words saying”—now, by the way, if you go back to chapter 19, you get a picture of what's really going on here. You have these two million people gathered around the foot of Mount Sinai, and God says to Moses, you go down and tell them, they better not touch the mountain. They better stay away from the mountain, because I'm going to come. And so there's this sense of anticipation that's built. And then, God descends on the mountain in this massive stormy cloud. And there's thunder, and there's lightning on the top of the mountain. The mountain itself is shaking. The people feel earthquakes as God is there. And then there's this trumpet. You can read all of this in chapter 19. There's this trumpet that gets louder, and louder, and louder in the midst of this setting. And then all of a sudden, everything goes quiet, and out of the quietness, God Himself speaks the Ten Commandments from the mountain. And this is what he says.

Verse 2, “I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of slavery.” And here's number one, verse three, “You shall have no other gods before me.” The category of life that's addressed in the first commandment has to do with the person of God. And the sort of essence of this command is that we are to know and acknowledge God to be the only true God and our God. And that's true from our heart out through every expression of every pore of our being. And the way I taught my kids this one was, there's only one God. There's only one God.

That brings us to the second word. The category of life that the second commandment covers is not the person of God. Rather, it is the mode or means of worship. And the point of the command, you'll notice verse 4, “You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them, for I, Yahweh, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” Again, the category here is the way we worship the true God. The first commandment has to do with the God we worship. The second commandment has to do with how we worship him. And that's even clearer when this commandment shows up subsequently in the rest of the Pentateuch. The point here is God is to be worshiped, and he's to be worshiped only in the way that he prescribes. (We were talking about this a couple of weeks ago.) When I taught my kids this, I said, there's only one God, and two, he tells us what he's like in the Bible.

Number three, the third word. Look at verse seven. “You shall not take the name of Yahweh, your God, in vain, for Yahweh will not leave him unpunished, who takes his name in vain.” The category of life that this describes is pretty obvious. It's our attitude toward and our treatment of God. Or we could say the glory of God. It's the protection of God and his glory. It's where the Lord's prayer begins, right? Hallowed be your name. And the point of this command is that God is to be feared and treated with the greatest reverence and respect. And again, for my kids, respect and honor God.

The fourth word, verse 8, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of Yahweh your God. In it you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant, or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, Yahweh blessed the seventh of the Sabbath day and made it holy.” The category of life that's addressed in this fourth commandment is time. It's time. Basically, the point of it is that God is the Lord of our time, and he is prescribed that we devote most of our time to work, six days, shall you work, and that we set aside time to worship him. With my girls, it was we worshiped God on Sunday.

By the way, before I leave this one, let me answer a question that I know many of you have, that I had for years. And that is, okay, so the moral law of God hasn't changed, the character of God hasn't changed. What about this command to keep the Sabbath? Should I be a Sabbath keeper? What about the Christian Sabbath? Well understand this, there are two interpretations of this commandment. Two kinds of interpretations. One says it hasn't changed at all. And if you hold to that view, you need to be worshiping on Saturday, which is inconsistent with the New Testament. The second interpretation is that it has changed. And there are two ways to look at that. Either the day only has changed, and the same restrictions apply that applied to Old Testament worshipers, and now all of that is incumbent on us as Christians for Sunday and not Saturday, which is what Christian Sabbatarians teach, or the principle remains, but the specific restrictions no longer apply. So the day has changed from Saturday to Sunday, and the principle of worship remains, but the specific restrictions are no longer in play.

I struggled with that for a long time until I really came to understand Colossians 2. Turn there with me for a moment. Keep your finger in Exodus. Colossians 2. Again, I wish I had time to take you through this entire text, but Paul is talking about verse 14, “the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us.” You know, the idea that we needed to keep God's moral law to try to earn his favor, that was like a death sentence. But Christ dealt with all of the law. He kept the moral law, and he fulfilled and satisfied the civil and ceremonial law. Look at verse 16. “Therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink [that's the dietary laws] or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. Now, some people will argue, those who believe in a Christian Sabbath, will say, no, this is not talking about the normal weekly Sabbath. This is only talking about special Sabbaths, connected to feasts and all that. And I used to struggle with that until I went back and took these three phrases and traced them to the Old Testament.

Take these three expressions, go through your Old Testament, and you will never find an exception. Every time these three expressions occur together, it's talking about the annual festivals, the monthly new moon feasts, and the weekly Sabbaths. That's what Paul's talking about here. And he says, don't let anyone judge you in respect to those things. Why? Verse 17, “things which are a mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” If you have a New American standard with a reference note, notice what substance is. It's body. It's a play on words. He says, listen, those laws about the Sabbath and the Old Testament, they were shadows, but now the body is here. You know, imagine trying to build a relationship with a shadow. It's like, no, that's just Christ's shadow. And now his body is here. We don't need those anymore. Don't let anyone judge you in respect to those ceremonial laws. So that's a short version. I did like two or three messages on the Christian view of the Sabbath. You can go back and listen if you have any interest in that.

That brings us then to the fifth word, verse 12 of chapter 20 of Exodus. “Honor your father and your mother that your days may be prolonged in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.” The category of life here is authority. Human authority. God has established the principle of human authority. In the home, the father is the leader. The wife submits to his leadership. The children are under their parents. In the church, he's established the principle of elders. Over a church, in the society at large, he's established the principle of government. Even bad government, which unfortunately is what we have right now, is better than no government. God established the principle of authority. So, the point of the Fifth Commandment isn't just about your parents. God has put people over us in a position of authority. This would, by the way, include even in workplaces. Their authority is limited in different ways, obviously.

Verse 13, “You shall not murder.” The category of this command is the sanctity of human life. And the point is, life is divinely given and must be respected and preserved. And that's true of all human life. We don't get to decide that certain human life isn't worth living. Life is divinely given, must be respected and preserved. Again, my kids weren't going to murder anybody. At least most kids don't do that. They may want to. They may think about it, but they're not going to do it. And so my point with my kids was take care of other people. You have a responsibility to take care of them. 

The seventh word, verse 14, “You shall not commit adultery.” Clearly, the theme of this is sexuality, human sexuality, as well as the sanctity of marriage. The point is God has given us the gift of sexuality, and He insists that it be enjoyed in keeping with His design and His intention within the context of one man, one woman married for life. That's what God insists on. I taught my girls, again, when they were 5, 6, 7, 8, they didn't have any sense of what adultery was, and so I simply said, your body belongs to God. He gets to tell you what to do with your body. And of course, the implications of that come out later as they get older and understand all that's involved with human sexuality. Guys, again, let me just emphasize, remember these commands, positive, negative, act, thought, all of it's forbidden. That's why Christ says, you heard that you shouldn't commit adultery, but I say to you, whoever looks upon a woman to lust, who looks upon her to desire to have sexual relations with her, that is the immoral equivalent of adultery. So that's how the law—Jesus wasn't making a new law. He was interpreting the law in its context, the way it should have been interpreted.

The eighth word, verse 15, “You shall not steal.” The category is personal property. And the point is, God has distributed material wealth according to his own sovereign purposes, and he demands that we respect the property of others and that we be wise stewards of our own. It's both. I taught my children, take care of your own things and the things that belong to others. You know, what you have is a stewardship. And what the other person around you has is a stewardship. You need to be a wise steward of your own, and don't be taking his. And of course, there are a lot of ways to do that besides showing up at your neighbor's house and stealing his car. You can steal wages that he deserves, workers deserve from you. There are a lot of ways to take from others, but God will not have it. This is what he expects from us in loving others, is to preserve not only our own property as a stewardship to him, but to be careful with the property of others. That's why, by the way, if you damage somebody else's property, you're responsible to make that good. So, this is what God expects.

Verse 16, here's the ninth word. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Obviously, the category here is speech. God demands the maintaining and promoting of truth in our speech. By the way, I would expand this now. I mean, when you go to Ephesians 4, I love what Paul says there. He basically says, when he's talking about speech, that your speech doesn't exist primarily as a point of self-expression. That's how we think of speech, right? I want you to know what I think, and who I am, and what I like. But it's not primarily a matter of self-expression. It's a matter of administering grace to those who hear. You see, that changes everything. My words now are tools to minister grace to the people around me, as opposed to, “let me tell you what I think.” And to my girls, I just summarized it as always, tell the truth.

Number 10, life circumstances is the category. Look at verse 17. We read it a moment ago. I won't read it all, but just, “you shall not covet your neighbor's house.” You shall not covet. That's it. It has to do with our life circumstances. God demands that we be content with and grateful for our conditioned circumstances in the state. Doesn't mean you can't work hard. Doesn't mean you can't have goals and ambitions. But you need to be content and not be looking at what other people have and wishing they didn't have it or desiring to have what they have. And again, I taught my girls, be happy with what God has given us.

That is the moral law of God. And guys, back to where we started. If you're not a Christian, you have broken every single one of those, and you will never be right with God by being good, because you're not good. I'm not good. Nobody in this room is good. We have all broken every single one of these commands. Your only hope is Christ. But if you're in Christ, if he has paid for your sin, then these commands become like a target for what obedience to him looks like. This is what he wants. He wants us to love God and love others. And what does that look like? Well, look at the Ten Commandments. That's what he wants. It's an outline of our obedience to Christ. 

What should our attitude be toward God's law? Psalm 1:2. “The righteous man, his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law, he meditates day and night.” Of course, that's referring not just to the Ten Commandments, but to all that God's revealed. But you get the point. Psalm 119:97. “Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day.” And Paul in Romans 7:22, as a New Testament believer, says, “I delight in the law of God in my inner being.” Is that where you are? Can you honestly say that learning what God wants from you gives you joy and delight? That you love him in response because he's made it so clear what pleases him? That's how he wants you to think.

So, at Sinai, two systems. The sacrificial system and the law of God. After almost a year, Israel left Sinai in Numbers chapter 10, verse 11 and following. And this is the journey they took. You can see the arrow at the bottom there points to Mount Sinai at the bottom of the Sinai Peninsula. And I was talking in the break with someone here tonight about there is some debate about where these places are, but conservative scholarship has pointed to these, and there really is good and sufficient evidence for embracing the location, for example, of Mount Sinai. When you go up, when they left Mount Sinai, after a year at Mount Sinai, they head north, and you can see that that arrow at the top, and they sort of ricochet into the land. That's when they go to Kadesh Barnea. They go to Kadesh Barnea. The glory cloud led the nation from Sinai to Kadesh Barnea. 

And you remember what happened there. They send the spies in to spy out the land. Ten of the twelve spies refused to believe God, and therefore, you had two reports. It's fascinating to compare them. Here was the minority report. The land is fruitful. The people are strong. Some of them are big. The Anakim are there. Let us go up now. Here's the majority report. The land devours its owners. People are stronger than us. All of them are big. The Nephilim are there. We are not able to go up. Now, what was that? Well, it's fear, obviously, but it was more than that. It was disbelief. God had said, I'm giving you that land. And so, in the end, this was really a rejection of God. After hearing the report of the ten spies, the people rebel, and they threatened to return to Egypt.

Turn to Numbers, Chapter 10. Numbers, Chapter 10. I'm sorry, Chapter 14. I said 10. Chapter 14, Verse 1. “Then all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night, and all the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, ‘Would that we had died in the land of Egypt, or would that we had died in this wilderness, why is Yahweh bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder. Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?’ So they said to one another, ‘Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.’” Now you can see the clear rebellion against the Lord. They refused to believe him, but they're basically accusing the Lord of being a liar, of being against them, of being evil. And so God responds to that disobedience with 40 years of wilderness wandering. 

That, by the way, is a picture of the wilderness in which they wandered. That's a sample picture of a large area where they wandered for 40 years. It's recorded in Numbers 14:26 through Numbers 25:18. And you remember what happened during those 40 years. Forty years. Think about that. Some of you are old enough to remember what you were doing 40 years ago. Think about that. Forty years wandering in that because of their disobedience. The faithless generation dies during those 40 years except for two men, Joshua and Caleb. By the way, they were the minority report. They're the ones who said, yeah, it looks pretty hard, but God's promise, let's go up. Let's go up now. Let's believe God. After nearly 40 years of wandering in the desert, and the death of somewhere around 1.2 million people, Moses leads a new generation to Moab on the eastern border of Canaan. This is described in Numbers 26 to 36.

Now, Moses conquers the kings of the Transjordan, those on the eastern side of Jordan, toward Moab. And then over a two-month period, Moses reconfirms the covenant, Deuteronomy, the second law. He views Canaan from a distance, and then he dies, and God buries him, because he didn't respect God in one of the incidents. You remember the story. God says, “You can't enter the promised land. You can only see it.” And God buries Moses on the eastern side of the Jordan. He only gets to see it from a distance. And that sermon, that sermon series, as I mentioned a couple weeks ago, that Moses preaches in those two months at Moab, is recorded for us in Deuteronomy, where he reiterates to a new generation, listen, this is what God expects. This is who God is. You can trust him. 

What are the lessons for us from the wilderness wanderings?” You know, those are 40 years. 40 years. What should we learn? The New Testament primarily uses the wilderness wanderings to illustrate two great dangers. Number one, the danger of accommodating sin. 1 Corinthians 10. Running your Christian liberty out to the edge, where you end up falling into sin. They did that, and it's recorded in stark terms in 1 Corinthians 10:1-12. That's one danger. That's a Christian danger. But there's another danger, and it's the danger of unbelief. Recorded in Hebrews chapter 3 and 4. It's where you simply refuse to believe God, and in our terms, refuse to believe His gospel in Jesus Christ. You refuse to humble yourself, to repent, to believe in Him, and God eventually draws the line. So we've seen the Exodus under Moses, Exodus 2 to Deuteronomy. That lasts from 1446 to 1406.

The fifth movement is the conquest and division of Canaan under Joshua. And that's where we need to look next. What is the theme of Joshua? It's the Conquest and Division of the land of Canaan. Here's an outline. By the way, it's recorded in the Book of Joshua, obviously. It lasts from about 1406 to 1390 or so, and we'll talk about why that is in a moment. When you look at the Book of Joshua, the author of the book is Joshua, along with perhaps others who add his death at the end, other supplemental material under inspiration. The theme is the Conquest and Division of the land. And an outline would be entering the promised land, chapters 1 to 5, conquering the promised land, 6 to 12, dividing the promised land, 13 to 22, and then hearing the final charge of Joshua in 23 and 24. 

What is the purpose of the Book of Joshua? Here it is. Number one, to show how Yahweh's promises to Israel were fulfilled in giving them the promised land. God promised all the way back with Abraham, and God brings that to fulfillment. Remember when Abraham lived? We talk about those eight dates. 2166. When was the Exodus? 1446. Hundreds of years later, God is fulfilling his promises.

Number two, to show that Israel failed to fully obey God and possess the land. A lot of what we read in the Old Testament comes back to their failure, not to God's faithfulness. And then to provide us with a key spiritual lesson. God's people can overcome the world and take possession of their promised spiritual inheritance, meaning personal sanctification, provided they do what God commanded the people of Israel to do. They trust God's strength. They believe his promises. They obey his commands. In other words, let me put it to you this way. Occasionally, I grew up, again, in Baptist churches. My dad was a Baptist music director, and we'd sing these songs about, you know, I am bound for the promised land. And it meant heaven. Well, I hate to tell you this, but the promised land in the Scripture is not heaven, because they are not enemies in heaven that need to be conquered. No, the promised land in the wilderness, wanderings and afterwards, when God promises them that land, that's the spiritual life of obedience that you and I can live and prosper under obeying God. It's really talking about our sanctification. That's the description you need to see. And so, that's why this is the spiritual lesson. Just like if they would have trusted God, if they would have believed his promises, if they would have obeyed his commands, then they could have conquered the peoples of the land, and they could have lived in peace in that land. The same is true for us in our Christian life and experience. If we will trust God's power, believe his promises, and seek to obey his commands, then we can live in a life that brings peace and satisfaction and benefit to others, because we're obeying him, all right?

So, Joshua at 90 is to lead Israel into the land of promise. Some of you guys think, you know, I'm just too old to serve God. I need to retire. Joshua was 90 when he went from second in command to number one in command. What was Joshua's mission? He had two essential missions, destroy the Canaanites and conquer, divide, and dwell in the land of Canaan. Let's go back to destroy the Canaanites, because this bothers a lot of people. Why would God tell his people to completely demolish the entire race of Canaanites, men, women, and children? Why would God do that? Well there were a couple of things God was doing. Number one, Joshua's responsibility was to destroy the armies of the various Canaanite alliances, which would then prevent each city from defending itself. You know, the cities would join together, form an alliance by crushing those alliances. Now the people of Israel were more than able to conquer the individual cities. But what about women and children? Here's how one author put it, and I love this. He says, “Yahweh, in using the people of Israel to do this, Yahweh was removing a cancerous growth from the human race, and the nation of Israel was simply the scalpel in the hand of the God of the universe.” 

Because of the nature of what was going on in Canaan—we're going to talk about their idolatry in just a moment—Because of the nature of what was going on in there, God said to Israel, you're going to be a scalpel, and you're going to cut those people out of the land. And then he was to conquer, divide, and dwell in the land of Canaan. In seven years of conquest, in the book of Joshua, seven years, it was a long time, you know, some people think, oh, this is just as easy, it happened overnight. No, obedience is hard. It takes time. In seven years of conquest, the Canaanite armies were destroyed, the alliances, and the ability of the population to defend itself was broken, and the land was left ready for the 12 tribes to take their inheritance. Joshua challenges the tribes to possess their land, and then he divides the land. 

And here's how he divides the land. Now a couple of notes, kind of strange things that happened with the tribes of Israel. First of all, because of a sin in the days of the Patriarchs, Simeon wasn't given a section of land. He was only given cities in Judah. That's the first thing you need to note. Secondly, Levi was given no large portion of land, but because of his faithfulness to God in the time of Moses, was selected as the priestly tribe, and Levi was spread out in those 48 priestly cities across the whole land so they could teach the people. Dan, you can see this little yellow sliver right in here. That was where Dan was originally slotted, but Dan refused to drive out the Philistines in that area, so they eventually claimed a northern territory for themselves way up here. Way up here is where Dan ended up, not their assignment. Joseph got a double portion of the land, so his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh get portions of the land. You can see them here in the middle, Ephraim and Manasseh. Those are Joseph's sons. They get a double portion, Joseph does. Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh settled over here. There's the Jordan Rift Valley. You see the Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea. On the eastern side, you have Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh settled over there.

Now, here's the big picture, though. Tragically, the 12 tribes utterly failed to drive out the Canaanites as God had assigned them to do. Then when Joshua died, it gets bad. Turn to Joshua 24. Joshua 24, and verse 31. “Israel served Yahweh all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua and had known all the deeds of the Lord, which he had done for Israel.” But at some point, before about 1350 BC, Israel turned from her God and entered the darkest period in Old Testament history. That brings us to movement number six, the Period of the Judges. This period is described in Judges and Ruth, and Lord willing, that's where we'll pick up next time.

But here's what I want to leave you men with. Look again at Joshua 24:31, “Israel served Yahweh all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua and had known all the deeds which the Lord had done for Israel.” What happens? Go to chapter two of Judges, verse 10. Men, this is what we can't let happen. All that generation also were gathered to their fathers, and there arose another generation after them who did not know Yahweh, nor yet the work which he had done for Israel. May that never be true of the generation that follows us. Let's pray together.

Father, use our time together tonight to encourage us. Lord, I pray for those who may be here who don't know you, who have never come to trust in your Son. Shatter their own hope in themselves tonight through your law. And may it be a tutor that points them, drives them to Jesus Christ. May they put their trust in him even tonight. Lord, I pray for the rest of us that your law, as we've discovered, would be our goal, our path. The way we please you. Lord, may we seek to obey you as our Lord obeys you. Not as a way of earning your favor, but as an expression of our love and adoration for what you've done for us in Jesus Christ.

We pray it in his great name. Amen.”