Pentecost and the Ten Commandments

I have to thank Mr. Haggard. I was a little concerned because I was looking at my notes this morning and I thought, I have too much material. So he got up and basically gave the first ten minutes of my sermon, which makes it perfect. So I really appreciate that. No, I really want to pick up on something he started. It was the perfect introduction of what I want to cover today. You know, we are here keeping Pentecost. There are many churches around the United States keeping Pentecost today. It's unfortunate, though, that many do not understand how all of the ancient Holy Days that were given to ancient Israel have a Christian message. They see the Christian message today because the Holy Spirit was poured out on the church in Acts 2.

But when we look at the Holy Days, the spring Holy Days, and we lead up to this day, we see that each of those Holy Days commemorates something that God did in the past and something he's doing now and something he's going to do in the future. We think of the Passover, in which in the New Testament the Apostle Paul says, Jesus Christ is the Passover Lamb.

And of course, that Passover that ancient Israel went through back at the time of the Exodus was just a type of the great Passover who is Jesus Christ. And because of his sacrifice, God passes over our sins. The Days of Unleavened Bread, which pictured the removal of sin. They removed leavening. And we see in the New Testament that leavening is a type of sin. And that we have to take in the bread of life.

And in the book of John, the Gospel of John, Jesus Christ talks many times about how he is the bread of life. And then we come to this day. We look at the Old Testament application where it was called the Feast of Weeks. In the New Testament because of Greek, it is called Pentecost. Now, Mr.

Haggard said something that I want to really pick up on today. The idea that the Ten Commandments were given on Pentecost as silent. Now, that's not directly stated in the Scripture. But if you take the bits and pieces of the information that is there in the Jewish world, according to Jewish history, he gave the Ten Commandments on Pentecost. Now, what's really interesting, though, is when we look at the New Testament Pentecost, and we look back and we can see that it would have been the time that God gave the Ten Commandments.

That's the great event that happened in the Old Testament that connects to the Pentecost of Acts, Chapter 2. Now, to say that, many people would say, well, that doesn't make sense. How does the giving of the Ten Commandments and the pouring out of God's Spirit, those are unrelated things. One is wall, one is grace. Well, first of all, that's a misunderstanding of grace. The giving of the Ten Commandments was an act of grace. Every time you take a breath, it's an act of grace. God gives us everything. Anything that comes from God is His favor.

That's what the word grace literally means. It means His favor. So, the giving of the Ten Commandments was an act of grace. But something Mr. Haggard touched on, and then I'm going to expand on. Today we're going to go through some rather difficult Scriptures, and we're going to tie back in the giving of the Ten Commandments and the giving of the Holy Spirit.

When God gave the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai, He had told them, I'm going to make a covenant with you. And, of course, Moses went up, came back down, and said, God's going to make a covenant with you in three days. And in three days, that mountain was shaking, and there was thunder, and there was lightning, and everything that He described.

And then the voice of God, it says, thundered out. The people were absolutely terrified. As they heard this voice thundering out, and what did it tell them? The basis of this covenant, this agreement He was making with them. How they were to relate to Him, and how they were to relate to each other. The most basic of concepts. The Ten Commandments are the most basic of all moral law given to the Scripture.

There is one God. Don't have idols. Keep the Sabbath. Don't take His name in vain. Don't kill. Don't steal. Don't commit adultery. The basis of this relationship is contained in those Ten Commandments. He said, this is the covenant I'm making with you. Everything else would come later. In what is called the Old Covenant. But the history of the Old Testament is the history of a people who kept breaking that covenant. In fact, many of the laws that were given to them were given to them because they couldn't keep the basic core laws of the Ten Commandments.

You know, one of the reasons that they were given the law to wear tassels. You go back and read it. It's a punishment. You can't remember the law to wear tassels, so you will remember the law. And so much of the law that was given to ancient Israel, including the entire Levitical priesthood, was given to them so that they would understand and keep the basic core of the covenant. And they could never do it. They could never do it.

Some individuals would do it. And sometimes, for a short period of time, the nation would do it in a very elementary way. But there was something missing. There was something missing. Let's go to Jeremiah 31. We're going to have to see that God told them that that covenant was never meant to be the final covenant God made with human beings. With God dwelling with human beings and in the reality of God dwelling in human beings.

So, Jeremiah 31. Let's go to verse 31. Jeremiah says, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel with the house of Judah. Now, I'm not going to take the time to go through all the Old Testament prophecies, but this covenant was also to expand out to all peoples.

This covenant was to be for all nations. It would just start with them. And in 31 A.D. at Pentecost, when the Spirit is poured out, most of the people there were Jews. Most of the people there were Jews. It started with them, and it wasn't supposed to end with them. And he says, I will make this new covenant, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers. This isn't going to be exactly like the covenant I made at Sinai. In the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.

My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. Now, notice what this new covenant will do. And this is very important in understanding the relationship between law and grace, and between the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai and Pentecost. This is going to be the fourth sermon I've given since I've been here as pastor on Pentecost. In each sermon I covered a different aspect of Pentecost.

I haven't covered this one quite like this. This is the relationship between the two great pinnacle Pentecosts that we see in the Scripture. He says, but this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days. He says, the Lord, I will put my law in their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, no, the Lord. For they shall all know me, says the Lord, with the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin, I will remember no more.

This covenant involves the forgiveness of sin and that the law of God, and this reference is directly back to the core of the covenant. What was given to ancient Israel when God said, I am going to make a covenant with you. And they all gathered together, and they heard it. Every man, woman, and child heard one voice thunder out. The 10th minute. And now we have Jeremiah. Let's not look at this in terms of what modern Christianity would look at this. Let's look at this the way Jeremiah would look at it. If God tells him, write down, I am not going to make the same covenant, it will be a different covenant, and I will write my law in their minds and in their hearts.

Which law is it? Which law is it? The only law that he can be talking about has to do with the old covenant. That I am going to write in the new covenant, and it begins with the 10 commandments. Now that's not everything God wants to do, obviously. I mean, the 10 commandments are like kindergarten. It's the beginning. But it was the core of the old covenant.

It was the beginning of the old covenant. And he says, I am going to bring a time when I put this inside of them. The old covenant ended up with 10 laws on two tablets of stone. It was an external force that had to be enforced on people whether they liked it or not. And layers and layers of law, first of all, in what we call the Torah, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, layers and layers of laws, a temple had to be built, Levitical priesthood had to be built.

All this was to expound upon and protect the 10 commandments. Even with that, ancient Israel never kept it. That's why, at the time of Jesus, you have the Pharisees and the Sadducees who have created more and more layers of law that go way beyond what God told them. Layers and layers and layers to try to protect the core. And here we have a prophecy that says there's going to come a time when it's written in them. The same 10 laws is written in them.

It's going to Ezekiel 36, another prophecy. Now, we're going to move through this, and we're going to end up in the New Testament. And we're going to look at some comments made by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament that tie in what we're talking about here with the teachings of the Apostle Paul to the Gentiles. Ezekiel 36, verse 22.

God is telling a prophecy here to the people of Israel in Ezekiel's time. So this is after Jeremiah. And he's telling them about how he is going to save them. And he's going to do certain things, not because of them, because they have broken his covenant, but because of him, because he made a covenant with them, and he promised a new one. Therefore, say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went. He says, even when I scattered you, when he took Israel out of the land, and eventually drew you out of the land, he says, wherever I scattered you, you still didn't teach people properly about me. You profane my name wherever you go. He says, and I will sanctify my great name, this is verse 23, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. And the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God. He says, I'm going to have to remedy this. I'm going to actually have to show people who the real God is when you were supposed to show them who I am. When I am hallowed in you before their eyes, for I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. This has not happened yet. The restoration of the Jews to Israel, 1948, fulfilled a prophecy, but it didn't fulfill this one. They have not been hallowed in the name of the Lord. He says, and I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean, and I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols, and I will give you a new heart. This hasn't happened in Jerusalem today. There isn't an acceptance of Jesus Christ as the Messiah in Judaism. This hasn't happened. Their sins haven't been forgiven, as Jeremiah said the new covenant would do. And I will give you a new heart to put a new spirit within you, and I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments, and you will do them.

There is a time where God said He's going to create a new covenant, and He specifically here once again talked about Israel and Judah. But the Old Testament prophecies expand the new covenant to all nations. In fact, one of the great messianic prophecies talks about the Messiah being a covenant to the Gentiles. He Himself is the covenant to the Gentiles. And the Holy Spirit would pour out on all people. The book of Joel prophesied that the Holy Spirit will be poured out on all people. It's very interesting. We don't have time to go through it today. But in Acts 2, when they see the Holy Spirit being poured out on people, Peter says in Acts 2, it's recorded in Acts 2, what was prophesied by Joel is starting to happen. This expansion where God was going to include all peoples into His plan. Not just with the law, but with His Spirit that would write those laws in their hearts and minds. So we get to Acts 2. When we are here keeping this day, we zero in on that time. Let's read the first couple verses of Acts 2. So we look at the Old Testament giving of the Ten Commandments on this day and how the people were afraid to even come to God. God was giving them the covenant, the core of it, the basis of it. And they were afraid of Him, the power, the might that they were exposed to. Acts 2. When the day of Pentecost, so this is after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were with one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them divided tongues as a fire, and sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. Like I said, if you read through the rest of this chapter, you see Peter saying, this is the beginning of those prophecies, where the Spirit would not only be poured out in Israel, but He quotes from Joel, where the Spirit is going to be poured out on all peoples. Now that hasn't been completed yet. Just like the Pentecost at Sinai, the Pentecost in Jerusalem was just a step in the process. All the purposes of Pentecost have not been fulfilled. That's why these days are still shadows of things to come, not just things in the past. These things reveal to us the future of what God is doing. Pentecost isn't fulfilled yet. There's still a lot that has to be done before all peoples have access to the Spirit of God.

When we look at the fact that the Ten Commandments were poured out and given to people on Pentecost... This is a small area up here, by the way... ...poured out on ancient Israel when the Ten Commandments were given to them. This new covenant is presented to them. When we look at what happened on Pentecost in Acts 2, what we have... There's lots of things going on here, so I'm just bringing up one point. This isn't all that happens on this day. The first sermon I gave four years ago on Pentecost was how God's Spirit interacts with us. What it does, and how God motivates us and leads us, and what he does with us. But one of the things it does is that Pentecost in Acts 2 was the second giving of the law. Wait a minute. How could it be a second giving of the law? The law was given. Remember what it says. It says in Jeremiah and Ezekiel that when the pouring out of the Holy Spirit happens, what is he going to do? I'm going to write my laws in your hearts and in your minds. The first time it was given by the thundering voice of God, and it was an external force that frightened them. As long as the law is an external force, you will be afraid of it. Or you will find a way to secretly break it. You will find a way to break the law if it's an external force, or you respond out of fear. The second giving of the law, for those people who were there in Acts 2, the Ten Commandments were written in their hearts and minds by the pouring out of the Spirit. That's what happened to you when you were baptized and had heads laid on you. You didn't hear the Ten Commandments thundering out from outside of them.

But they were written in you. They now become an internal force that motivates us, that drives us because they reveal the mind of God. They're the very beginning steps of, this is how relationships work. Verse 4 of the commandments, this is how you relate to me, God said. The last six of the commandments, this is how you relate to each other. This is how you relate to each other.

This is where you begin. Now, it's a whole lot more than that, by the way. The Holy Spirit takes us a whole lot farther beyond that. But it begins with that because it ties back to that time when He gave them the law and they could never keep it. That's good of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 8.

So, in a very real sense, this day represents a second giving of the Ten Commandments. Hebrews chapter 8.

We usually read for passages of Hebrews on the Day of Atonement. Because it describes in Hebrews, in the New Testament, many of the Levitical activities on the Day of Atonement and how they picture the work of Jesus Christ. In fact, the first part of chapter 8 here is the writer Paul saying that the Levitical priesthood has been replaced by Jesus Christ. There is a different administration of the law. This is a very important concept that's in Hebrews 8, and we're going to read it in 2 Corinthians in a moment.

There is a different administration of the law. Therefore, there is a different priesthood. Jesus Christ has replaced Levitical priesthood. That's why, by the way, we are here observing Pentecost. We're not sacrificing animals, are we? There's a lot of things we are doing today that would seem strange to an ancient Israelite. They would say, you're not keeping the Feast of Pentecost at all. You don't even have some Levites here. What are you doing?

And you don't even seem to know what you're doing here. They would be shocked. Even in the Jewish world, I remember talking to a man who would come out of Judaism into Christianity. I remember he said the first time he attended one of our services, he got physically ill. He actually went out and threw up. Because he thought, this isn't the Old Testament at all. He said, then he began to realize, no, we're doing it in a New Testament way.

We're not doing the ceremonies that he was used to in Judaism. And yet, it's the same day, with the same application and looking back at Sinai. But the center is on the New Testament Pentecost and the future of this day. The Holy Spirit is poured out on all people. So he talks about Jesus Christ replacing Levitical priests to it. Let's go to verse 7. For that first covenant, the covenant made at Sinai, if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. If the first covenant had been perfect, then the second covenant would have never been made.

But why would God make a covenant with the people that failed? What was wrong with the covenant? Notice the next verse. Because finding fault with them, he says... Now the rest of the quote, almost the rest of this chapter, is the quote of Jeremiah 31-34 that we just read. And so here we have a New Testament passage that says there was a problem with the old covenant, and the problem with the old covenant was that the average person did not have God's Spirit dwelling in them. Now we know some people did in the Old Testament, but the average Israelite never had God's Spirit dwelling in them.

It might have filled the temple, but it did not dwell in them. And they failed. And he said, I will give you a new covenant, while I will rectify this problem by giving you a new heart and a new mind through what? Through my Spirit, he said. So the old covenant was never meant to last forever, because the people couldn't do it.

Without God, we can't do it. Without God, we can't save ourselves. Without God, we can't live by His ways. Without God, we will fail. And it takes the power, the mind, and the love of God in us through His Spirit. And so he ties this back into Jeremiah 31. Notice verse 13. Last verse here in this chapter. In that he says, a new covenant, he has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. That's very interesting when he says this. The book of Hebrews was written before the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. Once the temple was destroyed, Judaism cannot be the Old Testament religion, let alone Judaism, because Judaism has parts of the Old Testament religion and parts of the art.

But the Old Testament religion cannot be fully practiced without a temple. And when the temple was destroyed, the Old Covenant cannot be kept. You cannot have a Levitical priesthood. You cannot have the sacrifices. You can't do what the covenant requires. But we're still left with the core. We're still left with, this is how we start this. These are the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments have not been done away with. If they have been, everything we've read so far makes no sense. Here's a covenant, and the covenant is the Ten Commandments.

You can't do it. You're going to fail. You fail, because you don't have my spirit. I will now have a new covenant, and I will write those laws on your heart and minds. What laws? The Ten Commandments. Pentecost. All these spirits poured out. The same Ten Commandments are written on the hearts and minds of the people. And as we know, we won't even get into that if we go back to the teachings of Jesus. Keeping the Ten Commandments in the letter really isn't acceptable to God.

We have to keep it in the Spirit. He says, it's not just wrong to admit adultery. It's a longer lust. It's not wrong just to murder somebody. It's wrong to have hatred. Under the new covenant, the law gets expanded into the inner person, who we are in the inner person. And you know what? For us to do that takes the Spirit of God in us. Living in us. It takes Christ living in us as the bread of life. Let's go over here to Hebrews 9.

In fact, it's on the same page here in my Bible. Let's look at verse 1. Then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service in the earthly sanctuary. He talks about the tabernacle here. Like I said, many times we read this on the day of Atonement. But I want to pick out just one little part of this. I'll read a couple of verses here. The tabernacle was prepared, and the first part, which was the lamp stand, the table, the showbread, which are called the sanctuary.

And behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all. Now here's what was in the holiest of all. Which had the golden sensor, the Ark of the Covenant. Okay, now the Ark of the Covenant symbolized the throne of God. This was the Covenant. This was the place of the Covenant. And the presence of God came down into the tabernacle and Solomon's Temple, which was talked about in the sermonette.

It came down upon and rested upon this place. This is the place where God makes His Covenant with people. And the Ark of the Covenant, which has the golden sensor, the Ark of the Covenant overlaid with all sides of gold, which were in it, the golden pot that had manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets...

Notice what it says about the Ten Commandments. The tablets of the Covenant.

Everything else about the Covenant, which many things still apply today to Christians. I mean, there's things in the New Testament you can't find that are in the Old Testament. They were written in a book and set outside.

The book set outside.

The Ark of the Covenant contained the tablets of the Covenant. This is where we start.

This is where we start.

These are the laws written on the hearts and minds of... Now, other things are written on the hearts and minds of people, too. But we're just talking about...we're comparing, remember, that first Pentecost that we see, and the one in Acts 2, and the one that we're celebrating here today.

Go to 2 Corinthians 3.

We're shooting through a lot of Scriptures, but I want... Yeah, sometimes you have to build the story. The story of how this all fits. I mean, we've looked at the Old Testament, we've looked at the New Testament, we've looked at the instructions to Hebrews, but I want to look at now what Paul says to a Gentile church.

2 Corinthians 3.

And let's start at verse 1.

Gotta get the context here a little bit. He's talking about this letter, this epistle that he's written to them.

In verse 1 of chapter 3, he says, "...do he and begin again to commend ourselves?" If I written this letter just to, you know, make myself important, he says, I'm not writing this letter to you to commend myself. I'm trying to make a point to you. Or do we need, as some others, epistles of commendation to you or to letters of commendation from you? He said, do I need other ministers to send a letter that say you should listen to Paul? Paul says, you know, look, I've been there at the Corinth, you know who I am. I don't need someone to commend me or someone to say, hey, you should listen to Paul.

You, Mr. Mary, I love the way he thinks here through this. It's a very, it's an emotional statement. You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men. He says, you know what my epistle is? You, the congregation.

You are what I've written about, because you show who I am. That's what Paul says. You show who I am because you follow God. Remarkable statement of caring that he had and connection he had with those group of people in Corinth.

He says, clearly, you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us. Now, that can be translated, and in many places translated, administered.

Remember I talked about the administration of the law.

The Old Testament law was administered through Levitical priests and elders of the tribes.

It was the legal system of an entire nation.

He says, it was administered by us, written not with ink, but by the spirit of the living God. Now, notice what he's tying in here. Not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of the flesh that is the heart.

He says, you are an epistle to God of Christ because what was written on the tablets of stone are written on your hearts. So, the whole reference point here is the 10 commands.

What was written on that, as we read in Hebrews, written on the tablets of the covenant.

What was written on the stone, he says, are now in you. That shows other men, he says, that you are an epistle of Christ.

And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God. Once again, he's saying, look, I'm not doing this to make myself important. I'm doing this because God wants us to do something. He's trying to motivate them. Who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, administers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, or the Spirit gives life. Remember what the Old Testament prophecy said. Not only will he write what was on the tablets of stone in their hearts and minds, he will forgive their sins. The tablets of stone could not forgive sin.

If you broke... Say you committed murder in ancient Israel. The tablets of stone demanded you be killed. And if you were dragged before a group of Levites, they would say you should be killed. David received, who had God's Spirit, by the way, received forgiveness for his murder. He now received punishment. Terrible punishment. But he did not receive the death penalty. God gave him a different punishment and continued to work with him. There is a different administration. It doesn't change the law. To do away with the law makes us lawless. And Jesus Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount, that there will be many come to him at the end and say, Lord, Lord, and he'll say, I do not know you because you are lawless. So to do away with the Ten Commandments makes us lawless. That's not what this day is about. But the tablets of stone of that covenant could not give you eternal life. And if you broke it, it could take away your physical life. But this administration of the Ten Commandments is different. They become part of us. They become our desire and our will and what we want to do. And when we break them, we are crushed as we go before God and ask for forgiveness. And we can receive forgiveness because of Jesus Christ. Sometimes we're hanging on to our past too much, our past sins. Let them go. For as God's forgiveness is not enough for you. Because if it's not, nothing ever will be. If God's forgiveness is not enough for us, nothing ever will be. Nothing ever will be. He goes on, But if the administration of death written engraved on stones was glorious so that the children of Israel could not look studly on the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away. Mr. Haggart talked about, no, hell, or Moses kept running up and down the mountain. At one point, he actually saw some of the glory of God. And he came down and his face was glowing so much they had to put a veil over it because nobody would talk to him. Everybody was frightened by Moses. Because he had to put a veil over his face. And he says, if that giving, if the giving of the Ten Commandments just on stone and the limited application of just doing them in the letter, that was glorious. And the point here is the glory of God that does this. The Ten Commandments were given by the glory of God. He said, if that was glorious, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect because of the glory that excels. For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious. And once again what he writes here, that temple still exists. That's passing away. The new covenant has started. Holy Spirit has been poured out, and the walls that were on the stone have been written inside people. As they begin now to have a true covenant and relationship with God and with other people, they begin to learn how to love God and love neighbor, which Christ said are the two greatest commandments. Verse 12, therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech, unlike Moses, who put a veil on his face, so that the children of Israel could not look studly at the end of what was passing away.

But their minds were blinded. For until this day, the same veil, the same inability for the ancient Israelites to actually respond to the covenant, still exists among people today. For until this day, the same veil remains un-lifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil was taken away in Christ. It's understanding Christ as the Passover. It's understanding what the days of the bread actually means. It's understanding what this day actually means. And the veil is taken away. We see the glory, even of these holy days. There's a glory in these holy days, given to us because of God.

Nevertheless, well, look at verse 15, but even to this day when Moses has read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. But we are given the Spirit of God, and now God's walls are written on our hearts and minds. And we understand Jesus Christ is our Master, not just our Savior. He is our Savior. Without that, there is nothing. But He is our Master. We are His disciples. We look into a spiritual mirror, and when we do, we don't always quite see ourselves. What we are supposed to see is a reflection of Jesus Christ.

We see this changing taking place in the spiritual mirror as we look into that mirror because of God's Spirit that is in us. The word Torah, that is translated law in the English Bible, simply means teaching. It has a much broader term. It can mean law. Sometimes it is specifically used for law. But it has a much broader meaning. At the Sinai Pentecost, the law was given. As part of a covenant relationship between human beings and God, the teachings were given. In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit was poured out.

That same law was written in the hearts and minds of people so that they now not just understood the teachings, they have a relationship with the teacher. They have a relationship with the teacher. When we look in the mirror, as our lives go on, we are to see the teacher in the mirror. That's what Christianity is all about.

It's about becoming like the teacher. We have this new relationship because of the pouring out of God's Spirit. When the Spirit was poured out, first of all, we have the Ten Commandments. Spirit was poured out. There are other things that are very similar in these two events. One is that the Israelites were afraid and they asked for an intercessor. Let's go back to Exodus 20. We have that the first Pentecost at Sinai, what we see is the giving of the law. The next Pentecost kept in between. The mountain points of the second Pentecost is the writing of God's laws in people's hearts and minds.

There are other things that are connected too, many more than we can cover here. Let's look at Exodus 20. God thundered out the Ten Commandments. Let's look at what happened in verse 18. After He thunders out the Ten Commandments, they hear it.

Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. And then they spoke to Moses, You speak with us and we will hear. But let not God speak with us lest we die. When the people heard and saw the power of God, they asked for an intercessor. Please don't let us talk to God. Please don't let Him talk to us. I mean, we won't talk to Him, but please don't let Him talk to us.

You intercede for us. When we understand the Passover, when Jesus was resurrected, He became our intercessor. You have an intercessor between you and the great God. We're going to finish what's really talking about what that means here in a minute. What that really means. They asked for an intercessor. We're afraid to go before God. You have a privilege and honor of going before God because you have an intercessor that takes you there. Moses didn't take them to God. He actually had to become God's mouthpiece.

You have an intercessor that actually takes you to the Father, where you get to talk directly to the Father. Every time you pray. You know, it's interesting that people were separated from the message of God that it came through Moses. It had to come only through Moses. One of the things in Acts 2 is because of the Holy Spirit giving the people, they begin to speak in different languages.

It says that people all over ran up to where they heard the sound and they heard the words of God. They heard it in their own language. God had lots of people going out and talking now. And he didn't come through Moses. He came through every member of the church in a way. That's why you are. And you have to understand this. You are an epistle of Jesus Christ. You are his letter to the world. Have you ever thought of that before? If the church of Corinth was God's letter to the Corinth, you are God's letter to wherever you live.

You are Christ's epistle. That's quite a weight, isn't it? But it's who we are. We are to be Christ's epistle to whatever community we are in. We represent his writings, his thoughts, his teachings. We represent the teacher because we have a relationship with him. It's interesting, too. Both of these events were accompanied by fire. There was fire on Mount Sinai. There was fire in that room. What appeared was fire. There's all kinds of connections between the Sinai and the Jerusalem Pentecost.

Today we're here to commemorate the pouring out of God's Spirit. The writing of God's Ten Commandments on your heart and mind so that you can become a disciple of Jesus Christ. I want to conclude with a passage I read a couple weeks ago. A couple weeks ago I talked about Zion, Jerusalem, Mount Moriah, and how those places where they are in ancient Israel, and how all of those places are important throughout the Old and New Testaments.

There are prophecies about them and that those places have a spiritual reference also. There is a new Jerusalem. David reigns from Zion. Christ reigns from Zion. Zion was a place. Mount Moriah is where the temple was built. We went through how Abraham went there and all those things. Mount Moriah is where there is a Messianic temple built according to Ezekiel and the Messiah.

I want to end this sermon with the same passage I ended with a couple weeks ago in that sermon. Let's go to Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12. I covered a lot of ground today, but this is the story. This is the story of the Sinai Pentecost, the Acts 2 Pentecost. This is the story of the Old and New Covenant. This is the story of the Ten Commandments.

Chapter 12 of Hebrews. Verse 18. For you, it is applied to everybody in this room, For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched, and that may be burned with fire, and be blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of the words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. You see what he's talking about here? It's Israel before Mount Sinai. He says, when you come before God, because the covenant you have with God, that God's made with you, you're not coming before Sinai, absolutely petrified, because the glory of God, and because they were told, as we're going to read next, you come up onto that mountain, and they are to be killed. If you make it high enough, God was going to kill them. Nobody came to God. The covenant was made by God to these people, then through an intercessor named Moses. But they didn't have direct access to that God. They had to go through priests. Now they could pray to it, but there was always intercessors. He says, for they could not endure what was commanded, and if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stowed to shout with an arrow. What was terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I am exceedingly afraid and troubling. Even Moses said, I am frightened in the presence of God. He says, to us, you have not come before Sinai. Our covenant is a bit different. Same laws, same commandments. But our relationship with the lawgiver is different. But you have come to Mount Sinai. Remember when I gave the sermon, Mount Sinai is where David ruled, is where the Messiah ruled. You have come to the government of God, the seat of the power of God, what the holy of holies represented, what the Ark of the Covenant, what the two tablets of the Covenant represented, where the presence of God came in and filled that temple, filled that tabernacle. You come to the reality of that. When you pray, you go to the reality of Mount Zion. And that's what this day shows us, that privilege, that grace given to us. That you get to go there because of the covenant God made with you. You go to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the innumerable company of angels, to the General Assembly and the Church. Ancient Israel wasn't allowed. It wasn't the General Assembly of Israel in New Jerusalem. It was the Assembly of Israel on Earth. The General Assembly of the Church comes before the New Jerusalem, before the real Zion, before the real throne of God, and a personal relationship. To the General Assembly of the Church of the Firstborn, who are registered in Heaven, your name is there. You come before God, and God doesn't say, I'm sorry, who are you? Jesus Christ is your intercessor, and because you have God's Spirit, you come there with all the power and glory of God.

Because of the covenant that this day represents. What Jesus said when he kept the first day of that Passover with his disciples, this is the new covenant. He started it then. Who are registered in Heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than of evil. Don't just keep this Holy Day as sort of something you do once a year. This day is at the heart and core of your personal relationship with God. And on this day, celebrate it! Celebrate what it means to keep the day of Pentecost, that you have received God's Spirit, that you have a new covenant with God, and you are allowed by the Almighty God to come to his throne, to Zion, to New Jerusalem, where there is a Mediator of the new covenant.