Sermon Supplements – Page 31

Don’t Use Pencil, but Indelible Ink (Exodus 23:10–19)

God’s calendar certainly seems to intrude on their time doesn’t it? There’s the rub. “Their time” is a myth. Time is one of God’s biggest blessings, for any time that we’re given means that we’re not suffering the eternal hell we deserve. Time is grace. Time is His. By these Sabbaths and feasts, God isn’t imposing on their time, He is giving them time—sacred time.

Time, as given to all humanity, is a common grace, a grace that saints and sinners alike share. These Sabbaths and feasts were grace saturated time. They were times of special grace. When Israel followed God’s calendar, the poor were fed, the livestock flourished, the land was fruitful, all enjoyed rest, and celebration was mandatory. When God puts you on His calendar, you don’t want to miss it.

God doesn’t intrude on our time, we’ve intruded on His. Grace resets our calendars around God. For those who have eyes of faith, these celebrations were a command to rejoice and rest. By these feasts God was inviting them to taste the future when all time would be all holy; a day when sins’ curse would no longer blight the harvest and death would not eat at time. The church now assembles on the Lord’s day to feast over the Word and Sacraments as a foretaste of that same future. For those with eyes of faith, there is resting and rejoicing. If you feel God intrudes on your time, beware your soul. If God isn’t lord of your time, He isn’t your Lord and you know neither real rest or joy.

Patriarchy means Protection and Provision (Exodus 22:16–23:9)

When it comes to laws concerning widows and orphans (Exodus 22:22-24), God breaks protocol. The ten words from the fire came directly from God to the people and were written by Him in stone (Deuteronomy 10:12–13). The Book of the Covenant runs from 20:22–23:33 and came to the people through the mediation of Moses and were written by him on parchment (Exodus 24:4, 7). This means most of the Book of the Covenant is in the second person, but when it comes the fatherless and husbandless, the first person is resumed.

“If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless (Exodus 22:23–24).”

The cry of the oppressed orphans and widows would rise to God the same way Israel’s cries came to God under their Egyptian oppressors. God is telling them there could be an Israel within Israel and they might find themselves to be Egyptians. In the prophets a frequent reason given for the exile is their treatment of orphans and widows.

“For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever (Jeremiah 7:5–7).”

When father’s are absent, God is a father to the fatherless in a special sense. This is patriarchy, which is to say this is fatherhood. We style ourselves complementarian contra egalitarians, and that’s all well and good, but there is an older term, a more descriptive term, though a more offensive one: patriarchalism. Patriarchalism doesn’t men that women are used and abused but protected and provided for. It means that there are fathers.

The reason why widows and orphans were so vulnerable is because they were fatherless (also meaning hudsband-less).Why do so many women and children tremble behind locked doors? Because there are too few men inside as protectors and too many men outside as predators. The problem isn’t patriarchy. The problem isn’t fatherhood. That’s the solution. The problem is the absence of patriarchy. A father-ful society is the best one for widows and orphans. Father famine abounds, but to the hungry we say there is a Father feast above. The only hope of impacting father famine on the ground is for men to be transformed by the Father in the Son through the Spirit so that they show forth His image in the world.

“When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it afterward. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this (Deuteronomy 24:19-22).”

The Most Important Responsibility Lesson: You Can’t (Exodus 21:33–22:15)

Man is responsible, therefore he should be responsible. That’s not a tautology. The child who just makes a mess is responsible—for the mess. The child who cleans up his mess is being responsible. God is sovereign over all, and owns that responsibility. Man, made in his image is given dominion as a steward king. He’s responsible. You’re responsible for how those things under your dominion—be they your arms, or the arms of an employee—you’re responsible for how they effect things under other’s dominion. To steal, is to sinfully use your dominion against another’s.

Exodus 21:33–22:15 deals with responsibility issues that are an application of God’s eighth word from the fire, “You shall not steal.” Certainly having a sheep who got out despite good fencing and devoured the neighbor’s garden is no theft, but failure to take responsibility for the sheep’s damage is. You should make restitution, and to go further, invite your neighbor over for some roast mutton. He did help to fatten it after all.

To illustrate the various situations at play in this passage, lets jump out to jump back in. Something like what the Pevensie children did, when they jumped into Narnia only to jump back as better persons into their world, only our venture will be much less fantastical. But we need something to jump from, so let’s use the principle of responsibility and jump from theft to parenting.

Parents are responsible and part of that responsibility involves teaching their children responsibility. If a child knows a pencil sharpener is broken, so that it will eat up the next kid’s pencil and he’s done nothing, he’s been negligent. He should make restitution while he receives the damaged pencil (Exodus 21:33–36). If he steals a pencil, he should give it back, plus one (Exodus 22:4). If he steals the pencil and destroys it, he should make something like four-fold restitution (Exodus 22:1). If a pencil was entrusted to him, and it was stolen because of his carelessness and the thief isn’t caught, he should give the owner one of his pencils (Exodus 22:10–12). If he borrows a friend’s pencil and damages it, he should give a new pencil to the owner (Exodus 22:14). If he tries to rent a pencil (Exodus 22:15), well, then you tell him that he is to refrain from such activity until he can read and understand a rental agreement contract.

Imagine the societal impact if parents took responsibility to teach their children responsibility. But, if parents only teach their children to take responsibility, they’ve failed miserably short in teaching them about responsibility. The most important lesson is this, they can never, ultimately make their wrongs right. What they stole on Monday, should they return it on Wednesday, they can never give back Tuesday. Part of the evil of theft is that something is always stolen that cannot be returned. Destroy a pencil and you can never return that pencil. Steal a pencil, and there’s always a little less lead; there’s never enough to get you out of the red.

Remember, all stuff is God’s stuff. Theft is rebellion against His distribution, a belittling of the wisdom of His providence, and a mockery of His power to do anything about it. Worse yet, all sin is theft. All sin is a stealing from God what is His due, and He is due all. Do you have some “all” in your back pocket? Obey perfectly from this point forward, still you cannot give back 1996, the year of stupidity. God deserved 1996, and you tried to embezzle it. You can’t make your rights wrong, but you should. Anselm said it something like this: no one should make payment but man, no one can make payment but God. The debt we cannot pay, God did in Christ Jesus. If a thief sold himself into slavery to pay his debts (Exodus 22:3), then a near kinsman may purchase him out of his slavery by paying the redemption price. Jesus took on flesh that He might be our kinsman redeemer and ransom us by His precious blood (1 Peter 1:18–19) so that the record of our debt was nailed to the cross (Colossians 4:13–14).

We’re not redeemed because God made a settlement. The debt was fully paid. All that was owed in both obedience and damnation was fully rendered and suffered by Christ in out stead. Such redemption not only pays our debts, it transforms us to be, as best we may to our neighbor, debt payers. Redemption makes us responsible.

Bloody Justice and Bloody Grace (Exodus 21:12–32)

Give God’s law a fair shake and I believe you’ll be struck with the fairness of it. A cursory glance looking for barbarisms and inconsistencies won’t suffice. That’s not fair. Study it. Generally our society agrees that law takes some of that. I don’t want to argue for this here, rather, I want you to be struck with where you see this in the Bible.

After God’s mighty redemption of His people He gives them these laws of justice. After grace, justice. After mercy, righteous judgment. Grace isn’t allergic to justice. Mercy isn’t polarized against righteousness. Remember that the salvation of God’s people came by judgment. Justice fell on Egypt that Israel might go free. But this wasn’t justice enough. The death penalty hung over Israel’s head as well. If they were to go free, redemption must be paid. A lamb must bleed. There will be blood: bloody justice and bloody grace. The only reason any get grace, is because God upheld justice.

“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3:21–26).”

God compromises no justice in His grace, and His grace instills justice into His people. We who are saved by grace should seek justice. When one son harms another, a good parent punishes the guilty not only because they love the innocent, but because they love the offender. We should lovingly seek for justice to be done in society by the proper authorities, all while declaring the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel of Christ who shed his blood in payment for the eternal death penalty that stood over our heads. May God’s redemption make us people of righteousness.

Y = Blue (Exodus 21:1–11)

Ideate one of those paint-by-number jobs. 1=B, 2=R, 3=Y, etc. Got it? You follow the directions and its hideous. You blame the publisher; it was published in some backwater country after all. But then you learn that it was published in that country, for citizens of that country, and that “Y” stands for a word in their tongue that corresponds to your blue.

Folks can get all twitchy when you get to passages in the Bible that talk about slavery and they start doing all kinds of weird things to the text. Some have proposed that we replace the word “slave” with “servant.” This is taking a play out of the postmodern politician’s playbook. When you want to legitimize evil, give it a slick name. But we don’t need to fool people into liking the Bible. The way forward isn’t to impose some new word on the Scriptures, but to immerse people in the world of the Bible. In other words, the way to paint the picture correctly is to inform them what “Y” looks like in that other world.

The reason even Christian’s get slavery jitters when dealing with the Scriptures is because their trying to paint ancient slavery with modern colors. But this isn’t that. Let us all agree that the African American slave trade was an abomination and that modern human sex trafficking is horrendous. But this ain’t that. Those aren’t the colors that the Biblical canvass is calling for. For example, in Romans slavery, not ancient Old Testament, Moses-given Scripture slavery, but in Roman slavery, consider that a slave could be better educated than his master, hold esteemed positions and vocations such as being a doctor, and have a higher social standing than a free man. Picture a slave in Caesar’s household, living in luxury, carrying out important duties for the state, looking down on the free man who is a day worker living in poverty. This isn’t to defend the institution of Roman slavery, nor to say that all Roman slaves were treated well—many were not. The point is simply that when you read “1=B,” B may not mean what you think it does.

Slavery is our history and we want to revise. Slavery was their story and they preserved. God redeemed His people out of slavery and into a slavery to Him. The only way to really begin to paint this picture rightly is to see the glorious gospel colors with which the law paints slavery. The Hebrew slave sold himself into slavery (Leviticus 25:39–40). Seven years later, all debts are cancelled (Deuteronomy 15:1–2). He is set free and sent out liberally (Deuteronomy 15:12–15). All these laws are in place to provide and care for the poor and to bless the slave. Now imagine you’ve struggled to eek by. You’re in continual fear of what you might loose due to debt. You’ve sold yourself for the second time to a generous master who cares for you and your family better than you’ve ever been able to do yourself. As his slave, your total well-being is his responsibility. Under him, you feel most free and loved. You bind yourself to him forever (Deuteronomy 15:16–17).

The boring through of the ear likely represented an open ear towards your master. This is likely the imagery at play in Psalm 40:6, “In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.” Hebrews 10 quotes this verse with a slight change and puts the words in the mouth of Christ. “Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.’ ” Jesus’ body was an open ear of obedience unto the Lord for us. In Isaiah both the Messiah and Israel are referred to as the Servant of YHWH. They have the same title because the Messiah stands in place of the people being the servant they should’ve been. Jesus obeys for us and purchases our redemption with His own blood. To call Him Lord is our joy and to live unto the Father following His example is our heart’s desire.

Once you’re painting painting Biblical slavery with these vivid gospel colors, colors of deep and glorious red, richest royal purple, mingled with the humblest of earth tones against the darkest backdrop contrasted with bright resurrection light, well, then you don’t hesitate to introduce yourself as Paul did, as “a slave of Christ Jesus (Romans 1:1).” We sing with the psalmist, “To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he has mercy upon us (Psalm 123:1–2).”

Gaudy Ungodly Worship (Exodus 20:22–26)

Who you worship determines how you worship. God spoke, therefore, they shall not make an idol of silver (Exodus 20:22, 23). Capiche? Deuteronomy teases out the logic a bit more.

“Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth (Deuteronomy 4:15–18 ESV).”

Because they saw no form, but only heard a voice, they are not to make an image. Our God is a talking God, therefore our worship is a listening worship. The worship of God’s people is to be centered in God’s word. Who you worship determines how you worship.

Allah is a monad. Our God is triune. Allah cannot be love. He can be power, but he cannot, in his essence, be love. This impacts how Muslims worship. When you worship Molech, you sacrifice babies. When you believe in evolution, you abort them. How is an outworking of who. If the how is ugly, the who is ugly. When the Who is beautiful, the how will be beautiful.

There is an elegant simplicity to Christian Worship. We gather to preach the word, read the word, hear the word, sing the word, pray the word, and see the word (in the sacraments). When the visual begins to dominate our worship, idols of silver and gold are being crafted. When man’s production dominates and draws, when we want less holiness and more Hollywood, then like Ahaz we’ve brought a Damascus altar into a Jerusalem Temple. We didn’t choose the altar simply because of its practical superiority; it was aesthetically appealing because of our idolatry. Desiring to be like the cool Canaanites we loose what makes us distinctly Christian. Man’s fog and lights replace the revelation of the God of flashes and smoke. We work our altars of stone, chiseling the names and images of our gods on them—ourselves. Our work, not the Word of His work receives the limelight.

How you worship reveals who it is you’re really worshipping. Does your worship speak of a God who spoke from the fire (Deuteronomy 4:11–12)? Does it tell of a God whose word is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16)? Does it demonstrate that you really believe faith comes by hearing the word (Romans 10:17)? Does it testify to the God who causes dry bones to live by His word (Ezekiel 37:1–14)? Does indicate trust that the new birth comes by the word (1 Peter 1:23)? Does it display that the sanctifying of the church happens by His word (John 17:17)? Does it evidence the sufficiency of the word to make us complete (2 Timothy 3:16)?

Holy Beyond Words Known by Words (Exodus 20:18–21)

God is holy. Israel was staggered by the manifestation of this truth at Sinai. It wasn’t just the production that jolted them, it was the propositions. God’s holiness was manifest not just in His delivery, but the content delivered.

Smoke and fire—we’ve seen these before at this mountain. At this mountain God declared His name to Moses, YHWH, built on God’s declaration, “I AM WHO I AM (Exodus 3:13–15).” The manifestation matched the declaration, and the declaration is the clearer and fuller revelation. The Words are not a less, but a more explicit and a more abiding revelation of the holiness of God. In His name are implications for many of God’s attributes, including His incomprehensibility, immutability, eternality, and aseity. The bush that burns without being consumed harmonizes with His name. The words give clearer perception into the manifestation. A picture is worth a thousand words they say, but Biblically, it’s words that give the clearest picture.

And so at Sinai, there is smoke and fire, thunder and lightning, trumpet sound and trembling earth, but the words, well, they are words from the fire. The propositions themselves, even more than the production, speak to God’s holiness. By this I do not mean that they simply reflect God’s moral purity as we are called to be holy as He is holy. No, holy fundamentally means that God is other. From the very first command we see that God is so other that there is not another. A NBA star stands out from many, but there are others. He is other, but there are others. God is so other, there is not another. He is God alone. Likewise with the other commands we see the majesty, glory, holiness, and beauty of God. The second table of the law is just as potent. The imago Dei is what underlies the seriousness of the commands to love our neighbor. Slaughtering an animal is different from murdering a man, because man is made in God’s image. Man’s uniqueness speaks to God’s uniqueness.

The words tell us that the flames and cloud, the flashes and crashes, the shaking of earth, and booming voice are not just a production. This isn’t pomp and ceremony for the sake of a special covenant ceremony, though this is a manifestation for a special covenant ceremony. My point is that God didn’t get all did up only to go home and let loose. God is holy. This is God all natural. We say clothes make the man, but when God puts on clothes, it is a veiling, a coming down, an expression of humility. This is who God is, or rather, it is a limited manifestation of His infinite glory. God is not less than this, He is more; and it is the words from the fire that more fully disclose just how Holy the God who is a consuming fire is.

All Sizzle and No Bang? (Exodus 20:17)

Bursts of swirling blue, splatters of crackling gold, and explosions of racing red fill the sky, and then, for the finale, some kid comes out and twirls a sparkler. Is that what we have with this final word from the fire? Has the fire died so that were left with only smoldering embers. No, we may have left the glories of the heavens, but now we are plunged to the depths. These ocean depths can be as mysterious as the starry heavens.

All the other commands, taken on the surface, deal with external obedience, this one goes down to the heart, and thus, acts as commentary on all the Decalogue. Listen to the testimony of M&M&M:

“The tenth commandment is where the Decalogue ends, but it is, in fact, the point at which every breach of the law begins—when by our ‘own evil desire’ we are ‘dragged away and enticed’ (Jas 1:14). —Alec Moyter

“Improper desire is the root of all evil. It can seldom be reached by human legislation, but it is open to the Searcher of hearts. The intent is that which, in the last resort, determines the moral character of the act. This last ‘word’ is, therefore, the interpreting clause of the whole Decalogue (Rom. Vii. 7).” —J.G. Murphy

“It [the tenth commandment] is presented here as the last commandment because it points to the root of all breaches of the covenant as coming from wrong inner disposition.” — John Mackay

You must read all other commands in light of this one. You don’t understand God’s law until you see it as dealing with the heart. All the law is only a sizzling fuse with no bang when read heartlessly. When Jesus says, “You have heard it said, but I say unto you (Matthew 5:21–48),” He isn’t contradicting the law, but the Pharisees heartless reading of the law. His disciples are to display a righteousness superior to that of the Pharisees (Matthew 5:20), a righteousness that is superior, that is true righteousness, because it springs forth from the heart.

God’s love kindles our love. God’s love both ignites and fuels ours. We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). Redemption sets the heart right (Deuteronomy 30:6). Redemption replaces a heart of stone with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 11:19). We come to these words of law through a preface of grace, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery (Exodus 20:2 (ESV).” When the redeemed heart hears, “You shall not covet,” it responds, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you (Psalm 73:25 ESV).” When a redeemed heart meets the law of God its like sparks of love meeting a powder keg—from the depths, glory to heaven.

Cleveland Is More Potent than Camelot (Exodus 20:16)

Each one of God’s ten words functions like a set of big brackets to bundle families of sin together. Thus anger was a violation of God’s command to not murder (Matthew 5:21–22). The head of each family was listed as a federal head representing all his lesser offspring. Murder heads up hatred, anger, wrath, malice, and cruelty and so on.

Who is the head of the family of lies? Spiritually, it’s Satan of course (John 8:44), but I’m speaking of the sin itself? What form of lies causes the greatest potential physical harm to our neighbor? Legal lies. That’s what is with the odd language of this command. Often this command is summarily cited as “You shall not lie,” and this is entirely justified, because daddy lie here brings all his kids in tow.

But we shouldn’t opt for the shorthand. Memorize and site the full thing. The legal context of the original commandment is best recalled because it speaks of the power of lies and truth. “You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit (Exodus 23:1–3 ESV).” By lies, evil is done and justice is perverted. A false accusation could mean death. Lies ultimately always bring about some form of death. In God, truth and life are linked together. To take the lie, is to reject the One who is life. Lies run in the opposite direction of life. All human suffering and evil were birthed into this world through a serpent’s lie.

Words are powerful. We serve a God who spoke and there was light. We serve a God of powerful words, and we are made in His image. Our words have immense power. In a passage in Reflections on the Psalms, where C.S. Lewis is making a point that is completely wrong, He says something brilliantly right, “Myth can be truer than historical fact.” As one of Lewis’ disciples put it, “A good adventure story is truer than dull history.” Here’s my point, in the magical tales we see that words have power, but here we’re told, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” Bah! Your words, my words, man’s words are much more powerful than that—for good and ill. If Camelot were real and Cleveland the tale, Merlin would blush with envy over the power of our words.

We’ve not only believed a lie, for which we are culpable because we loved the lie, we’ve also spread the lie, a lie about God. For our loving and believing the great lie, for our rejecting the God of all truth in who is life, we are dead in our sins. But in Jesus, truth and life have come for our Redemption. When Jesus says “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” He is saying that He is truth and life for dead liars. As by believing the lie of Satan we died, so by believing the truth of the Savior we live.

Theft Royal (Exodus 20:15)

God owns everything. It’s all His stuff. This is the basis for human ownership, the only basis. God entrusts man with dominion as a steward. Man is a small “k” king. God takes from Canaan and gives to Israel. The true test of ownership isn’t if you took, but if God gave. If dualism or polytheism is true, then the strongest wins, and so it shall be in creation: might makes right. If atheism is true then the chaos remains. No God, no ultimate ownership, no reference point. Winner take all. If you’re smarter, faster, sneakier, meaner, or tougher, it’s yours. It’s no coincidence that atheism and communism rhyme and travel together, married couples like poetry and gallivant, and these two are definitely wed and in love.

But if God is, then ownership can be. All is His, and He thus has the right to freely distribute and entrust as He will. God is no egalitarian. To some He gives much, to others He gives little, but to every son of Adam He gives lavishly. He makes His sun to rise on the just and the unjust. Hell on earth is short of the hell of hell we deserve.

This means that all theft is sin against God, and all sin against God is theft. All theft is against God because it’s all His stuff. Queen Elizabeth has given certain items to the British Museum on long term loan. Should a thief steal them, he’s not only stolen from the museum, he’s stolen from the Queen. But that is not as high as the crime goes, for a majesty greater than even the British Empire at its height could muster is involved. An infinite majesty is involved in the theft not only of earth’s sovereigns, but also of her peasants. Indeed, God may very well count the penny entrusted to the lowly serf the greater treasure, and thus robbery of that penny as the greater crime.

All sin against God is theft. God is due, and He is due all. Sin incurs a debt you cannot repay. You may be able to repay the human victim. You may even be able to pay the double, quadruple, or quintuple the law specifies, but you can’t repay the debt you owe back to God. Do you carry extra time in your back pocket? God is infinitely worthy of worship now. Should you worship him perfectly now and forever forward, you would only be rendering unto Him what is His due then. Can you reverse time? Do you have some infinity in the bank? Because that is how worthy He is.

Sin is a debt only man is obligated to pay, but only God can pay. Glory be to God, He did. “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross (Colossians 1:13–14 ESV).” Dead men can’t pay back debts, but, because Jesus paid our debts, we can be made alive.