The Ten Commandments

But speaking of ancient Israel, I want you to join me, if you will, in your imaginations. This is an account you probably read of, so hopefully it won't be hard for you to remember. Not of the children of Israel coming to Mount Sinai, but a generation later, the children of Israel were finally entering the Promised Land. Joshua had assumed the leadership, replacing his longtime mentor, Moses, who had ended his life after 120 years. So he looked on as a process of crossing the River Jordan began. Priests bearing the Ark of Covenant on poles on their shoulders walked towards the river first.

They waded in, and as they did, something miraculous happened. The water suddenly stopped at their feet and began to pile up. It was not permitted to go down any further. So the priests continued out into the middle of the river, and they stood there in what was now a dry river bed, because the rest of the water flowed on down and the other water piled up like a huge wall. And they stayed there as hundreds of thousands of people began in an orderly way, going down the bank, across the river, and up on the other side, doing something that would have been impossible.

But while they did that, twelve burly men, some of the probably strongest men they could find, one from each tribe, performed a pre-assigned task. They each picked up from the river bottom one of the largest rocks they could find and carry. And they each brought that rock to where the priests were standing, and they made a heap right there.

Then they also found another large rock, probably again about as large as they could carry, and they brought it out the other side. And on the other bank, the western bank, they made another large heap of these rocks. Both heaps would serve as memorials of the great miracle that God performed that day. They were intended to provoke questions, so that later, hundreds of years perhaps, even people would look and say, what's the deal with this big pile of rocks?

And those who knew would answer. They'd say, this is where Israel crossed the Jordan River. God worked a miracle. Even though the river was at flood stage, He stopped the water so they could walk across.

Now I wonder how long those stone memorials might be, and I wonder, are they still there? And we just don't recognize them. We build stone memorials and monuments to help us remember things. It's something that's built into human nature. Now this was done at God's instruction, but we do them on our own many times. If anyone's been to Washington, D.C., it's famous for many memorials. The Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, they're part of our national heritage.

Now these stone monuments endure. They last through the ages. Human beings do not. We get old. We start to deteriorate. Our memories don't endure either. Even before our bodies are gone, we start to lose track of things. And you all know what that's like. I'm learning what that's like. And that's why we create memorials, and we write on them to remind people things.

If anyone's been to a cemetery, that's exactly what a grave marker is. It's a stone monument with the words written to make sure that people don't forget. One of my favorite memorials I've ever seen. It's interesting. It's in London, and it's not the most prominent place, but it's not far from Westminster Abbey. There's a statue of a man, and many of us would recognize him because we've seen photos.

But hundreds of years from now, I wonder if they'll recognize. There's a picture of the man, and the plaque says one thing. It says, Remember Winston Churchill. It doesn't say anything else about him. It says, Remember this man. And of course, it provokes you to go do the study if you don't know who he is. Now, you might wonder why all this talk about monuments and memorials. It's because one of the most famous memorials written or made of stone were the Ten Commandments.

Two tables of stone with God's writing on them. Now, we've lost those actual tables. We don't know if they still exist, but they might someplace. But we've all lost them. We've lost the gold-covered ark that was made to carry them. But it's interesting, we've remembered that they existed because we have the written account. And there are replicas of what we think they might have looked like all over the place. Many public buildings have these. Now, that displeases a lot of people.

There are those who think that any type of religious iconography should not be associated with government buildings. And so, they're upset that the Ten Commandments might be posted in a courthouse. But I wonder, are there also a lot of religious people who also, perhaps, they don't oppose the thought of getting rid of them also because they're not so sure that these Ten Commandments are still worthwhile? Let's turn to the Bible. Let's go to the book of Galatians, chapter 3. Let's look at the reasoning why some who profess to be Christians still want to get rid of these images of this law.

Galatians 3 and verse 13. Here it says, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse. For it's written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. So here Paul talks about the curse of the law. A couple of scriptures earlier, it says in verse 11, No one is justified by the law on the side of God. It's evident, for the just shall live by faith. You just read these, you might say, okay, the law is a curse. The law is the opposite of faith, and we want to have faith. Let's also go to 2 Corinthians.

I'm going to jump you back and forth a little bit here early on. 2 Corinthians chapter 3, and we'll begin in verse 6. I think there's something interesting about law and writing in stone. 2 Corinthians 3, beginning in verse 6. Breaking into a thought here, talking about God, it says, Who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For their letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

But if the ministry, or the old King James says, ministration of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses, because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away. How will the ministry of the Spirit be more glorious?

It seems to be talking about this law written on stones might have been glorious, but it's not that good. It says it's what killed. Let's also look to chapter 8, Romans 8 and verse 3. Oh, I'm sorry. Not just chapter. But let's go to the book of Romans. Now, we're still early on. I don't want anyone to think that I'm preaching heresy that's against the teachings of our church. But I want to see that a lot of people look at these same Scriptures and say, well, that's why we want to get rid of the Ten Commandments. We don't need that old law.

Romans 8 and verse 3. For what the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son and the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin, and He condemned sin in the flesh. So with all this, it looks like there might be a problem with that law that was written in stone.

So, are the Ten Commandments then abolished? Does grace, through Christ's sacrifice, eliminate any need to obey? Well, unless we think that Paul was entirely antagonistic towards the law while we're here in Romans, let's look to chapter 7 and read verse 12. Because here we see a different perspective on law. Here it says, the law is holy, the commandment holy, and just and good.

Okay, so is the law this curse, or is it holy, just, and good? What was Paul trying to say?

Well, I think to get to the bottom of this, we need to understand that the word law is somewhat generic. It can be, it can apply to more than one thing. There are different systems of law. For an example, the command, thou shalt have no other gods before me is a law. But likewise, so is green means go and red means stop. That's a law. Two very different laws from two different systems of law.

Ancient Israel became subject to different types of law, too. And it's important to realize that more than one type of law, or more than one system of law, is described in the Old Testament. We know of the Ten Commandments. They were spoken by God Himself, and He wrote them on those two tables of stone. It's important to remember, people talk about how Moses did that, but it says that God wrote them with His own finger.

But we read in 2 Corinthians 3 of an administration of death written and engraved on stones. Is that speaking of the Ten Commandments? Or it said, written and engraved on stones? Well, you can say, well, the Ten Commandments were on tables of stone. But was there something else? Let's go back to Deuteronomy chapter 27 and look at something interesting that God commanded Moses to do.

Deuteronomy chapter 27 will begin in verse 1. I want to look at this in a fairly academic style, but I think it's important for us to break this down, especially as we're leading to the Passover. We want to know what we're doing. Deuteronomy chapter 27. Now Moses, with the elders of Israel, commanded the people, saying, Keep all the commandments which I command you today. And it shall be on the day when you cross over the Jordan to the land which the Eternal your God is giving you, that you shall set up for yourself large stones, large stones, not tables of stone, whitewash them with lime, and you shall write on them all the words of this law, when you crossed over, that you may enter the land which the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord your God of your fathers promised you.

Therefore it shall be when you crossed over the Jordan that on Mount Ebal you shall set up these stones which I command you today, and you will whitewash them with lime. And there you will build an altar to the Eternal your God, an altar of stones, you shall not use an iron tool on them. So their whole stones not work with any tools. And you will build the altar and offer burnt offerings to the Lord your God. You will offer peace offerings and eat there and rejoice. And you shall write very plainly on the stones all the words of this law.

So here's an instruction to make this big altar out of whole stones, whitewash it, and write the law on there. Now, that doesn't sound like the same thing as the Ten Commandments. You could say that, and we noted, a memorial being built when the children of Israel crossed the Jordan River.

We started off talking about memorials. I think the two tables of the Ten Commandments, tables of stone, were one memorial. This is describing a different memorial. So perhaps the law written on each of them was different law. Israel joined in a covenant with God. While we're here in the Old Testament, let's go to Exodus chapter 19. Israel entered a covenant, which is a mutual agreement. It's not a one-way thing. It's an agreement. And if, by definition, sometimes we refer to the covenant as the written document that records the agreement, Exodus 19 will begin in verse 5.

Now therefore, if this is God speaking, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my commandment, then you'll be a special treasure to me above all people, for all the earth is mine, and you'll be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. These are the words which will speak to the children of Israel. So God told Moses this. It records Moses went back. So here God is proposing a relationship. If you'll obey me, you'll be a special people.

If we go to verse 8, it says, all the people answered together and said, all that the Lord has spoken will do. And Moses brought the word of the people back to the Lord. So they accepted God's terms. They're entering an agreement. God says, if you do this, I'll give you blessings. They say, okay, we're all for that. Now we know, following this, Exodus 20, is when God came down on Mount Sinai and spoke the Ten Commandments.

We're going to come back to Exodus, but I want to go to Deuteronomy chapter 5. Look at the version there. Deuteronomy 5, and I'm not going to read all of the account of him speaking the Ten Commandments, but at the end of it, Deuteronomy 5 and verse 22, there's a special thing that Moses noted in this version when he was retelling of this account that I want us to note.

Deuteronomy 5 verse 22, at the end of speaking the Ten Commandments, it says, these words the Eternal spoke to all your assembly in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud and the thick darkness with a loud voice, and he added no more. God spoke them and he stopped there, and he wrote them on two tables of stone and gave them to me, which I mentioned before.

God spoke these words that says he stopped and added no more. He wrote those laws on these two tables of stone. So that indicates that the Ten Commandments were one complete unit, one whole system of law. He didn't have to add any more to that set of laws.

You skip ahead a couple chapters to Deuteronomy 9 and verse 9.

We'll note that these are indeed the basis of that covenant, that agreement.

Deuteronomy 9 and verse 9, here again, Moses says, When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant, which the Eternal made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. So the Ten Commandments are referred to as this covenant. The tables that have them recorded are the tables of the covenant. But, if you want to flip back to Exodus, I want to go to chapter 24.

Because if you read, you'll notice if you continue reading after Exodus 20, there's a lot more laws. It doesn't stop there. There's lots of things. Matter of fact, let's go to Exodus 24 and read in verse 3. I'm trying to indicate there's a distinction here. The Ten Commandments were spoken by God, written on two tables. They were whole and complete. But there's something else going on.

Deuteronomy 24 and verse 3. So Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments, all the words and all the judgments, and all the people answered with one voice and said, all the words which the eternalists said will do. And Moses wrote all the words of the eternal. So we know that God wrote the Ten Commandments on the tables of stone, but here, Moses wrote a bunch of judgments and laws that God had given them. It says, he rose early in the morning and built an altar. So obviously, the thing that's referred to here is not the Ten Commandments. It's something different. Oh yes, let's read also in verse 7. Here, speaking again to Moses, I told you he wrote all these. It says, he took the book of the covenant and read in the hearing of the people. And they said all that the Lord has spoken will do. And Moses took blood and sprinkled it on the people and said, this is the blood of the covenant. So the people entered into an agreement. They've already said what God says will do. But we've got the Ten Commandments, which says God's spoken added no more written on tables of stone. And now there's this book of law that Moses wrote. And what was written in this book? Was it the Ten Commandments? I don't know why it would bother. And I'm guessing a lot of you are ahead of me. Let's go back a couple chapters to Exodus 21. As I said, God spoke on the mountain, spoke to where everyone could hear him. All of Israel heard. And there's an account where they said, Moses, that's enough. Please don't have God speak to us anymore. You go talk to him and bring back the words that he tells us. And this is what happened, of course. They do that. Moses goes and talks to God in Exodus 21, verse 1. He says, now these are the judgments which you shall set before them. And God proceeds to give a whole set of rules and regulations that are not the Ten Commandments. And some of them are pretty particular, and many include the death penalty. Let's go down to verse 23. Well, actually, yeah, I was going to read... this speaks here immediately in verse 2. If you buy a Hebrew sermon, he'll serve six years, and the seventh he'll go out free. And it goes on to give particular demonstrations about that. And actually, one of the reasons I wanted to read that, it fits very well with what Mr. Bongardner brought out in the sermonette, the whole idea of the Jubilee year. That's a particular thing that the nation does. It's not part of the Ten Commandments, but it was a law. We'll come back to that in a moment. Let's look at verse 23.

Verse 23, I want to break in halfway through, because he's talking about what happens if someone harms a woman who's pregnant, and it says, if any harm follows, you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. What this is, basically, is several pages, several regulations that form what we call a civil law. They're how to govern a nation. And many of them include the death penalty, because the power of enforcing the law was given to the government. But Israel was a nation, and God was designated the king, and he appointed judges, including Moses and later those that Moses would appoint. You could say that the Ten Commandments were, and they still are, a set of laws governing how to live. They apply to individuals. They tell us what to do and what not to do as people.

But Israel's covenant with God included not only that, but also a set of rules for how to run a nation. And it's worth noting that some of them did include the death penalty. They included the punishments that were brought out. It's worth noticing also that if you read through these, and we don't have time to do, they included physical obedience and brought physical rewards.

You can read through what we call the blessing and cursing chapters in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28.

God promises all these great blessings for obedience, but nowhere does he promise eternal life at that time. That's something we have to go to later for us to learn. But he also didn't require what we would call now the spirit of the law. There's a command against murdering people, but Moses didn't say, you shall not hate your brother. That wasn't part of the Ten Commandments. Later, Christ would add that dimension that's possible through the Holy Spirit.

Let's consider also, and keep in mind, that Israel did not have separation of church and state.

We're comfortable with that in the United States. It's been that way for generations. The government is one thing and the church is another, and they keep their business separate. Israel was a nation with a civil law, but it was also a church. They were one and the same.

Did God give a separate set of rules, or we could say laws, for how to worship him? How the church would function? Oh, I would say yes. Now, the Ten Commandments, of course, were that, but God added later some more particular rules to govern the specific function of worshiping him. Let's go back to the New Testament and read in Galatians to get an idea of how this would work. You might wonder why I'm going there, since he would have given those laws in the Old Testament, but let's get a perspective. Galatians 3 and verse 19.

What purpose, then, does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made, and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now, there seems to be a contradiction here, because I'm not going to turn there. Most of you have these scriptures memorized. We know that Romans 6.23 says sin is the transgression of the law. Okay, well here it says the law was added because of transgression. Well, sin is transgression of the law, but law was added because of transgression. You've got an apparent contradiction. This thing, sin was added, or the law was added because the law was broken.

Well, then there must have been a law to be broken, and then a different law was added.

And here we come down to talking about, are there different systems of law? Let's go to the book of Romans. Actually, we're going to come back to Galatians, but if you want to keep a finger there, probably I said that too late, but Romans chapter 5. Romans 5 beginning in verse 13.

This is going to say something similar. For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law. Now, that's bringing out the same contradiction I just said. He said before the law, meaning before Mount Sinai, and God spoke, and children of Israel heard, he said sin was in the world. But we know sin is the transgression of the law, so how could there be sin which is breaking the law if the law hadn't been given?

Well, he says, and let's continue, verse 14, Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses. That means people were dying, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam.

Now, what that means is sinned according to the likeness, Adam directly disobeyed a command from God. God said, don't eat of that tree, and Adam and Eve went and ate of it. And God told him, if you eat it, you're going to die. He didn't say they'd die immediately like it was arsenic or strychnine, and they wouldn't live eternally. If they ate that fruit, they were mortal. They would die eventually. But he said, everybody after them also died, and they didn't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We know, and I said, remember Romans 6.23, sin is the transgression of the law. Romans 3.23, many of you also have memorized, says, no, no, sorry, sin is the transgression of the law, the wages of sin is death. It's 1 John 3.4, sin is the transgression of the law. I misquoted that, didn't I? Thank you. Sean's nodding. You know, Mr. Dunkle's supposed to have these straight. That's why I need the cards. Okay, sin is the transgression of law. Romans 6.23 is, the wages of sin is death. You break the law, you die. Here he's saying, well, all those people were dying. If there was no law before Mount Sinai, why would they die? Well, the answer is there must have been a law. Now, that sounds confusing, but there must have been some law. And as we saw in Galatians, because of transgression, because of breaking whatever law that was, a different law was added. Here is where I was going back to Galatians. Galatians chapter 3 and verse 23. I didn't keep my finger there either, so we're all in the same boat.

Galatians 3.23. Before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith, which would afterward be revealed. Therefore, the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we're no longer under a tutor, for you are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ. So, what we have here is, there's some law that was in effect before Moses' time, because otherwise people would not have been dying since the wages of sin is death. But also, some law was added because of transgression. And one of these sets of laws seems to be a tutor to point us to Jesus Christ. Now, let's go to Jeremiah chapter 7 to see the Word of God to help us straighten this out. God Himself speaking, Jeremiah 7 and verse 22.

If I gave this properly, it would almost seem like a whodunit, but a lot of you have read the end of the book already. You know where this is going.

But this is important to be able to understand why we do what we do. Jeremiah 7, verse 22, this is God speaking in first person. I did not speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. This is true. We read that account. Remember, God brought them out and He said, I'm making a proposal to you. If you'll obey my commands, I'll make you a special people. He says, this is what I commanded them. Obey my voice and I'll be your God and you shall be my people and walk in all the ways that I've commanded you that it may be well with you. Yet they didn't obey and they did not incline their ear but followed their counsels and dictates of their evil hearts and went backward.

And if we look, that law, of course, the Ten Commandments is fairly concise. It's summed up. We can find it in Exodus 20 or Deuteronomy 5. And if you continue reading all those judgments that were given starting in Exodus 21 through Exodus 24, there's no discussion of sacrifices or burnt offerings. Just as it says here in Jeremiah, God said, I didn't talk to them about sacrifices or burnt offerings. I just wanted them to obey. Well, that starts to fit with what we read there in Galatians where it said something was added. After the covenant was ratified, then God gave instructions for building the temple. Then, after all that, remember Moses was up on Mount Sinai. He came down and discovered they made this golden calf. And they were worshipping it. They were breaking one of the commands already. Thou shalt have no graven images. Well, actually two of them. No other gods before me. They were breaking that law. So another set of laws would be added, as Galatians 3.19 says. A sacrificial system, a system of animal sacrifices and purification as a tutor to show them that sin brings a high cost. It causes death. And that would continue until Christ's time. This seems much more clear when I was sitting at my desk writing this out. But let me break it down. We see then three distinct sets of laws, all described in the Old Testament within the first two books. First of all, the Ten Commandments, which God spoke and then ceased. They're a complete unit. And they're based, Christ would later say, on two great laws, love God with all your heart and love your neighbors yourself. So the basis of the Ten Commandments is love. We also see then a civil law, how to run a nation, which includes how long you can keep a servant. Every 50 years, have a Jubilee year. It talks about various other things. But then we also see the third system, a set of sacrificial laws, how to worship God in the absence of the Holy Spirit and understanding of Christ's sacrifice. Interestingly, I've been reading a book by one of the academic critical scholars about Exodus. And this is one of those scholars who doesn't believe that there were any real miracles or that the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea. And this debates whether there was an actual Moses or not. But near the end of the book, I came to a point where he says, we see if we study Exodus three sets of laws. And I had already written the sermon. I said, well, he's right. And he described the same exact things that I'd written. So someone not in God's church can just academically look at them and say, okay, there's three different sets of laws described there. I found it reassuring, although it was reassuring to see that an academic agreed with my interpretation. But also I thought, well, this guy didn't have a lot of faith in the Bible. So I hope that's not a bad light on me. Anyways, understanding all this, maybe we shouldn't be surprised if some people have read the Epistles of Paul and been confused. Paul's saying the law, we don't need the law anymore. It's a tutor. And at the same time, he's saying the law is just and holy and good. So what do we do? We don't want to be confused. We want to have life.

Well, in asking what do we do that we could live, we're not the first to ask that question, are we? You know a story. If we'll turn to Matthew chapter 19, let's see someone famously ask that question to Jesus Christ himself. Matthew 19, beginning in verse 16.

Christ was speaking, and this is near the end of his ministry.

He'd been confronted by the Pharisees at various times and lawyers, and now at this point says, Behold, one came and said to him, Good teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? He wasn't asking a small thing. How do I live forever? Jesus corrected him on one thing. Jesus was in the flesh. So he said, Why are you calling me good? No one is good but one, and that's God. But aside from that, if you want to have life, keep the commandments.

Now we said we want to have life. Jesus didn't say, All you have to do is believe on me. Faith is all you need. He said, If you want to have life, keep the commandments.

But now, after all that I've read and going back and forth to the different scriptures, maybe it shouldn't be surprising that this young man said, Well, which ones?

You know, there's three sets of laws back there. Are there any particular ones? And Jesus said, Well, you shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother. Love your neighbor as yourself.

And it's interesting. He didn't cite any of the commands from the civil law or the sacrificial law. All these are from the Ten Commandments with the exception of, Love your neighbor as yourself, which we see as a summarization of several of those commandments.

Matter of fact, just to show that, if we go ahead a couple chapters to Matthew 22 and verse 36, another encounter Jesus had with one of the lawyers, a lawyer here says, Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? No. Jesus didn't say, which law are you talking about? But Jesus very quickly knew the answer. He said, The answer is, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. This is the first and the greatest commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. So if you're doing these two, everything else is based on that. You'll be okay.

These are the bases. They all rest on love. But you can say, well, I love God, I want to love my neighbor, but how do you express that love? That's why we have more laws. But we can see that in the Ten Commandments, and you've probably heard it broken down this way before. It's obvious the first four explain how to love God. They show us they say, don't have any other gods. Don't make any graven images to worship. You know, don't take my name in vain. Honor the Sabbath. Keep it holy.

The next five discuss how you deal with other people. Don't murder. Don't commit adultery. Don't steal. Don't steal. Lie. Covet. Actually, ten I find interesting, because we always break it down as the last ones. I'll deal with how to love your neighbor. Covet really comes down to the only one that hurts if you covet is yourself. Unless you act on that, and then of course you're breaking other laws. But I wonder if you're coveting, you're hurting yourself. And you belong to God, so you're sinning against God when you destroy your own mind by coveting. So you could break it down. You know, there are five laws for how to honor God, and five for loving your neighbor. In Jesus' day, I think the Pharisees were doing a reasonably good job of obeying the letter of the law for how to love God. They were keeping the Sabbath very scrupulously and doing all the things. But they were missing the mark in a lot of ways on how to love their neighbor. So perhaps, and I'm just saying perhaps, this is my own theory, that's why Jesus listed those five commands. They said, you know, love your neighbor as yourself. Don't steal, don't murder, don't commit adultery, rather than saying keep the Sabbath. He didn't have to remind them of that. They were doing that quite well. But this could give us something to go by. If we want to have life, we should obey the command to love our neighbor as ourself. Let's also consider something we'll see in Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews 10, beginning in verse 1. So they said, this is by way of answering the question, what laws should we obey? Knowing there's three sets of laws and lots of individual laws, as Christians living in the New Testament world, Christ has already been sacrificed, what do we have to do? Christ answered, in some particular things, he didn't say that was all, necessarily. Do we need to sacrifice animals when the Passover comes? Do we need to take a lamb to slaughter and put the blood on our doorstep, or on our lintel in our doorposts? Well, Hebrews gives us an indication here. It says, for the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never, with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually, year by year, make those who approach perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? In other words, if sacrificing an animal could make you perfect, you'd only have to do it one time. But you'd sin again, and he says they kept on offering them. For then would, no, would they not cease to be offered? For the worshippers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year, for it's not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

So the law here, he's talking about, obviously, is the sacrificial law. He's not talking about the civil law, about freeing a Hebrew servant after six years, not talking about the Ten Commandments.

Continuing in verse 5, therefore, when he came into the world, he said, sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you've prepared for me.

Now, this matches with what we've read in Jeremiah 7, where God said, when I first spoke to the children of Israel, I didn't talk about sacrifices and offerings. That's because that's not what God was primarily interested in. Where it says, in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, you had no pleasure. God doesn't have great pleasure in the penalty for sin. He has great pleasure in people not sinning, so that there's no need for the penalty. In verse 7, it says, Then I said, Behold, I have come, and the volume of the book it has written of me, to do your will, O God. Previously saying, sacrifice and offering and burn offerings for sin, you did not desire, nor had pleasure in them, which are offered according to the law. Which law? Obviously, that sacrificial law. Then he said, Behold, I have come to do your will, O God. Well, he takes away the first that he may establish the second. Here Paul is making that point. The sacrificial system was inferior to obeying in the first place. So he says, once the Holy Spirit is available to us, we can obey and we can repent and have our sins covered with Christ's perfect sacrifice. Then the sacrificial system is not necessary anymore. Let's read in verse 9. Oh, I've already read that.

Go down to verse 15. But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us, for after he said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the eternal. I'll put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds I'll write them. Put the laws in their hearts and write them in their minds. Which law? We've got three sets of laws. Well, what we just read would indicate not the sacrificial law, because he's already saying we've seen that described as a tutor, temporary, as something God doesn't prefer. He prefers obedience. Some law will be written in our hearts. And we'd like to think those who are baptized and have God's Spirit are having it written right now. Well, I'd like, I would think that at the very least, the commandments that Jesus cited to that young man must be written in our hearts. You know, he said if you want to have eternal life, do these things. Matter of fact, to support this idea, let's go back a few pages to Hebrews chapter 8. Hebrews 8 beginning in verse 6.

But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, and as much as he is also mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises, for if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. You know, the agreement that God made with the children of Israel, Mount Sinai. But finding fault with them, now a lot of people say finding fault with them, they think he's talking about the commands, the Ten Commandments, but it seems that the fault was with the people who did not obey. So finding fault with them, those people that didn't obey, says, Behold, the days are coming, says the Eternal, when I'll make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant I made with their fathers, and the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them. But this is the covenant that I'll make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Eternal. I'll put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts. I'll be their God, and they shall be my people.

So God's law obviously can't be just done away if he plans to write it on people's hearts. Pardon me.

When God led Israel out of Egypt, he made a covenant. He gave them 10 commandments, and then a civil law, and then a sacrificial system was added later. So then the law to be written on our hearts is more likely the same law that God gave at first. He gave the 10 commandments at first and spoke no more. That's a whole system. It talks about how to relate to God, how to worship Him, and how to love each other. Now, we might wonder, though, what about that civil law? How does that fit in here? I hope that you're right with me on the need to obey the 10 commandments. Most people are saying, yeah, murder is bad. Even if they don't attend our church, murder is bad, stealing is bad, having false idols is bad. What about all that stuff we read in the rest of Exodus through Deuteronomy? Let's go back to Exodus. Take a look at some of that.

Exodus 21. Actually, I'll just refer to that here because I'll make a quick reference because we read it earlier. Exodus 21 in verse 2, if you buy a Hebrew servant, he'll serve six years, the seventh he'll go out free. We read in verses 23 through 25 about an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth. Let's go to 22 in verse 9. Exodus 22 verse 9, For any kind of trespass, whether it concerns an ox or a donkey or sheep or clothing, for any kind of lost thing which another claims to be his, the cause of both parties will come before the judges, and whomever the judges condemn shall pay double to his neighbor. Okay, that sounds very judicial, doesn't it? You come to the judges, you say, he took my thing, and you say, no, I didn't. You come to the judges, and the judges will make a determination, and they'll say whoever they find guilty will pay double. That's interesting. If we have to go into a court of law, can we show the judge the scripture and say, I want to be judged by this law? No, they don't do that. They've got a set of laws. The judges and the civil officers today, they obey the municipal laws we have, county laws, state and federal. Many of these laws that we read here in verses 21 through 24, they're only possible, many of them, for us to obey as a government. They're instructions to a judge, not to individuals. They're instructions to a government. Now, we as Christians make up a church. We are the church of God, but we're not really a nation, are we? If we, I don't know, we could attempt to enforce some of these things, but we might end up in jail because we'd be violating some civil laws. Philippians 3, verse 20, and I'll just quote it here, basically it says, our citizenship is in heaven. Our citizenship is in heaven. Similarly, when Jesus Christ was on trial and Pilate asked him, are you a king then? Jesus said, my kingdom is not from here. If my kingdom were from here, my servants would fight. And we're those servants. Our kingdom is not from here, but rather, and by the way, that's in John 18, verse 36, if you want to note that. And Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 20, that we are ambassadors for Christ. Okay, so we belong to a kingdom. Our citizenship is in heaven.

So we're not administering a civil government here. Remember the old King James, where it talked about the administration of death written and engraved on stones? A good translation could be the administration of death, because a civil government administers the law and administers the penalties. But we're not the government here and now. It's enough to make you wonder, will all these laws be strictly enforced in the kingdom of God when Christ returns for those who are mortal, and possibly so? And a question came up, actually. Well, last week was in the Bible study we had after services, so you weren't there. Someone was asking about, there are some prophecies that seem to indicate that the sacrificial system might be in place after Christ returns. And they looked at me and I said, well, I'm not certain about that. There will be mortal human beings if a tutor was useful in some cases. Perhaps God will reinstitute the sacrificial system for those who are immortal humans to learn the price of sin. But I'm not going to make a strict statement on that. I said, when Christ returns, we'll know for sure. I'm just pretty certain that He doesn't require us to sacrifice animals now. I don't have any doubt on that. Now, are there some of these civil laws that we can and should obey? Do we just ignore everything that's not in the Ten Commandments? Well, I believe there are some that we can, that we don't have to be running a government to do. While we're here in Exodus, let's go to chapter 23 and verse 1. Here it says, You shall not circulate a false report. Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. This is an elaboration of the Ninth Commandment that says, Thou shalt bear no false witness. He's just putting it into more elaborate specific terms, but don't lie and don't commit perjury. Down in verse 4, If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall surely bring it back to him. Now, he's your enemy. You might say, Boy, I'm so glad his donkey's wandering off because I don't like him. But here it says, No, be a good person and bring it back if you see it. You don't have to be running the government to do that. And so that's something I believe we should. In verse 5, if you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under his burden and you would have refrained from helping him, you shall surely help him. It's like, well, some people keep livestock in this part of the country. If you were going by and somebody you didn't like but you noticed the gate to their pasture was open and their cows might wander off and you say, No, don't just drive by and leave it open. Go shut the gate. Go help out. That's the right, that's really the Christian thing. They didn't understand about Christ in that time, but it's the right thing for us to do. That's having the law written on our hearts.

Let's look at verse 10. Six years you shall sow your land and gather in the produce, but in the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat, and that they may leave, and what they leave, the beasts of the field shall eat, and like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove. This is what's called the land sabbath. Plant your land six years, but every seventh year let it lie fallow. This is another thing some people say that doesn't apply anymore. It's part of the old law, but it was part of a civil law. In a perfect government everyone would be doing this, and at the end of 50 years you'd have seven land sabbaths and then you'd have an extra jubilee year. And God's Word says that He would bless you so much in the 48th year that you could go for two years without having to work your fields, which as far as we know the ancient kingdom of Israel never fulfilled God's law long enough to go through a jubilee year. But what a wonderful thing it would be. Imagine having so much success in your farming that you could take two years. Maybe you could repair your fields in such one year, and then you could go visit your grandkids and travel, and who knows what all you could do. It would be a great thing.

But what I'm saying is we can keep that, and I kept it. As a matter of fact, last summer we didn't know we were going to be moving when... well, at one point we did, but Sue and I have a garden in our backyard, or we did in our old house, and last year was our land sabbath year. So we had this nice garden plot, which is amazing how many volunteers came up. We had tomatoes and squash and lettuce, and we just left it there. The rabbits feasted last year, and the people that bought our house ended up with a nice garden plot that already had had its sabbath. In Exodus 23 verse 14, three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread, and which will eat unleavened bread for seven days. Interestingly, this appears here, but it also appears before the Ten Commandments were given, when God first gave instruction for the Passover. So we can make a good case that the Holy Days are apart from the civil law, but they were worked into the civil law. It talks about the Feast of... in verse 16, the Feast of the Harvest of the First Fruits, which we call Pentecost, when you've sown the field and the Feast of In-Gathering at the end of the year, when you've gathered the fruit of all your labors from the field.

We keep the annual Holy Days, and we consider them, in some ways, an extension of the fourth commandment. They are annual Sabbaths. So we can see that, you know, there are some laws that there's no question about whether we obey them, because they're instructions to a judge, and they talk about wound for wound and strike for strike. That... those are not... we're not in a position to enforce and obey those laws, but laws that apply to an individual within the civil law, we can obey, and we'll be blessed for doing so. The way I sum it up, there may occasionally be a command or instruction that we could have some confusion on. There might be some where we say, well, I'm not sure should I obey this, or how do I obey it. But when it comes down to it, there's surprisingly few. When you understand that there's sacrificial law that is not enforced now, there's civil law that was for a nation, and if you understand that we are not a government here on this earth, so we look at the law as such and see is it for the nation or is it for individuals.

And of course, there are the Ten Commandments which always take precedent. We always want to obey those.

So this should help us, I think, reconcile any seeming contradictions in the New Testament about the law. We know that the law is holy, just, and good. It's a spiritual law to be written on our hearts. Now, there is a law that was a shadow of things to come. It was a tutor until the fulfillment of Jesus Christ. That was the system of sacrifices that is no longer enforced.

But that same spirit that writes the laws of God in our minds can be summarized pretty easily. And that's what I want to come down to. What boils down to? What were the two great commandments?

Love the Lord your God with all your mind and all your heart and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. If we do those, we'll do well.