PODCAST
Fear (Exodus 20:18-21)
November 26, 2023 | Brandon Cooper
This sermon discusses how the Ten Commandments are meant to lead people to a fearful obedience to God, intimacy in their covenant relationship with Him, and reliance on Jesus as their gracious mediator. It encourages examining one’s own life and striving to obey God perfectly while also relying on Christ’s atoning work for the forgiveness of failures.
TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Good morning church, want to go ahead grab your Bibles, you can open up to Exodus chapter 20, will be in verses 18 to 21. Today, Exodus 2018 to 21. As you’re turning there, you may remember from your school years, or perhaps you’re still in your school years having assembly days. And occasionally these assemblies were about teaching kids how to avoid certain kind of harmful behavior, maybe it’s bullying, maybe it’s drug use something like that. So you’d get an assembly on this subject. And the point was to communicate the dangers or the harm involved with his behavior, to give the students strategies for resisting and in ways to engage with their friends who might be at risk. These assemblies were not meant to be just interesting information. The point was not that the students would leave these assemblies and go, that was really interesting, I got some good answers for Jeopardy next week or something like that. These assemblies were meant to provoke a response in the students to lead kids to live differently. That’s actually what the word educate means. If you look at its component parts it parts is to, to lead fourth, so to those who lead children into something else away from danger towards good why do I mention this? Because we just finished hearing the law over the last 1011 weeks the 10 commandments here. And what exactly is the purpose of the law? The purpose of the law is not our salvation. That is it is not a list of guidelines where if we keep them to insufficient measure than we will be saved will be deemed good enough to get in or something like that. That’s not the point of the law. So what exactly is the point of the law then? Paul tells us in Galatians, chapter three, verse 24, therefore the law has become our tutor, to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith that same idea of leading in fact, the word tutor there is the word pedagogue like pedagogy. Some of you studied pedagogy, I’m sure in your education classes, it’s the same idea to lead for to lead a child forth. So the 10 commandments are meant to instruct us and lead us like children, somewhere where we’re going to see this clearly in the response to the giving of the 10 words. So how does Israel respond? And why? What about Moses? What is God doing during this time, let me read the passage for us kind of see what happens here in the narrative, and then we’ll unpack it as we go. So Exodus chapter 20, here’s verses 18 to 21. When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear, they stayed at a distance and said to Moses, speak to us yourself, and we will listen, but do not have God speak to us or we will die. Moses said to the people, do not be afraid, God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sitting. People remained at a distance, while Moses approach the thick darkness, where God was. Alright, so we’re gonna see what the law is leading us to. That’s our idea today. So the law leads us to more to look at kind of three destinations or three purposes for the law, I’m actually going to give you you got three blanks there three images that will help us understand the purpose of the law as we go. This is the response that the law should provoke in us. This is what the assembly is meant to do in us to change us. So let’s look at the law leads us to first of all, the law leads us to a fearful obedience, a fearful obedience. You notice that people’s immediate response is fear. They see God’s clouded presence. There’s thunder, there’s lightning, they tremble with fear. It says in verse 18, in fact, they stayed at a distance like they’re, they’re staying far away because they’re nervous here. They’re like little children during a thunderstorm who are cowering under the blankets. There’s no wonder or all at the power of the storm, there’s just terror. Of course, this is not Oh, there is a thunderstorm there, by the way, but it’s not really the thunderstorm that they’re scared of the Israelites. It is a a person, not an abstract power, but a loving person that they’re cowering from. I mean, He is God Almighty. Yes. But God Almighty is speaking to them covenanting with them even. And so aga...
