Thru the Bible

Steve Schwetz: As Christians, do we live by grace or by law? Welcome to Thru the Bible. Our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, answers this question as the Bible bus arrives at Exodus 20 and God speaks the law, also known as the Ten Commandments, to the Israelites.

I'm Steve Schwetz, your host, and I'm so glad that you're here for another great study in God's word. So as you grab your Bible and get settled in, let's hear a few thoughts from Dr. McGee on the important subject of memory.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: It's a wonderful thing, this business of memory. Someone has said that God has given us memories that we might have roses in December. And that is true in Toronto, Canada and true in Chicago in the wintertime.

But it's not true in Southern California because in December we have roses, the real article. I guess that's because we here in Southern California have such short memories. We do not remember very long, do we? And someone else has said that memory is something that only a good man can enjoy.

But again and again, the word of God enjoins us to remember. God appeals to our memory. You will recall that the Lord Jesus, in giving not a parable but that which was an actual fact of the rich man that died and Lazarus that died, and our Lord said that Abraham, in speaking to the rich man who was in torment, he said to him, "Remember."

Now, that apparently is the one thing that the lost are going to carry over into eternity is memory. And that of course is going to make it quite terrible that they will remember. They'll remember many things. They'll remember the opportunities they had of turning to God. They'll remember what Christ did for them, dying for their sins. They'll remember that they rejected Him. You see, memory is a wonderful thing, but it's also a terrible thing.

Every now and then, somebody says, "Well, I think that the only hell any person will endure is that which he makes himself." Well, actually, there's an element of truth in that. Now, hell is a place, and those of you that study Revelation with us will know that we will emphasize that and do emphasize that a great deal. Hell is a place, definitely a place.

But it's also a state. And it'll be a place where they'll remember. That's the word that Abraham gave to this rich man that was lost: "Remember." And that's going to be part of the awful torture, is to remember.

Steve Schwetz: That's the difficult part of memory. But join us next time as Dr. McGee concludes these thoughts and then shares about the sweetness of memory, especially when we focus on our relationship with God.

Let's begin our study by praying for one another. Heavenly Father, keep us focused on the important things, those that bring You glory and honor and praise. Help us to remember Your goodness in our lives and to keep our eyes fixed on You. In Jesus' name, amen. Open to Exodus 20 as we go through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now today, friends, we come here to the 20th chapter of the book of Exodus. And here we have the giving of the law. That is the beginning of it. Now, the first that's given are the Ten Commandments. This is a moral code. And let me just begin reading: "And God spake all these words, saying, 'I am the Lord which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.'"

Now, on the basis of that, God says, "I want now to give you My law. You've asked for it, and this is the basis now that I want to put you on." And He gives here, first of all, these Ten Commandments. Now, I can't go into a great deal of detail today, but we can mention certain things, and especially in this day when we're told we have a new morality.

Well, the new morality goes back before the giving of the Ten Commandments. And it was not even new then. It came right out of the Garden of Eden when man disobeyed God. It was before the flood, and it was after the flood. And it's not new. But this age, we love to think we're sophisticated and refined sinners. We're not; we're just crude sinners in the raw, natural sense.

And this now puts before us God's standards. And no man can play fast and loose with the Ten Commandments and get by with it. I don't care who he is; he doesn't get by with it at all. Now, there was a graveyard for criminals on Blackwell's Island, and on one of these graves, there was this marker and these words: "Here lies the fragments of John Smith, who contradicted his maker, played football with the Ten Commandments, and departed this life at the age of 35. His mother and wife weep for him; nobody else does. May he rest in peace."

Well, that is something that reveals that here is a man that tried to defy the law of God. But nobody can play football with the Ten Commandments and escape the punishment of God. Oftentimes, the charge is made against those of us who preach the grace of God that we do not have a proper appreciation for the law, that we actually despise it, we reject it, and actually teach, because we are not saved by law, that we can violate it at will, break it with impunity.

Well, may I say to you that that's not true at all. On the contrary, every preacher of the grace of God who has a true perspective of the nature of salvation by faith realizes likewise the lofty character of the law. And Paul's answered that for us. "Shall we continue in sin?" and that's because we've been saved by grace. The answer is "God forbid," or "let it not be; it cannot be." If you think you can continue to live in sin and break with impunity the Ten Commandments at will, then, my friend, you're not saved by the grace of God, because when you're saved by the grace of God, you'll want to please God. You'll want to do His will, and the Ten Commandments certainly reveal the will of God.

And therefore, today, I think every preacher of the grace of God has a respect and reverence for it. The Psalmist says, "Oh, how love I Thy law! It's my meditation all the day." Well, what is the law? Someone has defined it as the transcript of the mind of God. Well, that's a very defective definition. The law is the expression of the mind of God relative to what man ought to be, His will for man and His nature and character. But there's no grace or mercy in the law at all.

The law made it very clear; it's an expression of the holy will of God. And the Psalmist says in Psalm 19 that the law is perfect. That means it requires perfection on your part. And believe me, I've never met one yet that measured up to it. It's not some vague notion. It doesn't have anything to do with good intentions; it requires perfect obedience. The law is perfect. And then it's right. And that means that our notions of right and wrong are colored by our environment and by the fact we have a fallen nature.

Now, the law is a revelation of God, and God has drawn the line between right and wrong. How do you know what's right? Well, because God says it, friends. And that right now is the question that's being asked by this generation that wants freedom. They say, "Why is it wrong to steal?" They don't mind stealing, and yet they are using the "thou shalt not murder." Boy, how inconsistent this crowd is and how ignorant they are of the law!

Why is it wrong to lie or to steal? Because God says it's wrong. No other reason, friends. I see no reason for that. Oh, you say, "Well, it's for the good of mankind." You bet it's for the good of mankind because anything God wants is for the good of mankind and to keep it. Well, it'd be a wonderful thing if man could keep it. But man doesn't keep it. And the jails and the locks on the doors and the fact that you have to sign about ten times today when you go to a bank to borrow money—why? Because they don't trust you, friends.

There was a day when it was said a man's as good as his bond; that's not true today. We find, therefore, that the law is an expression, and it is a norm for human conduct, right and wrong. And stealing's wrong because God says it's wrong. Lying is wrong because God says it's wrong. Adultery is wrong because God says it's wrong.

And then the law never enforces itself. The lawgiver must have power. And therefore, you'll find that the laws of God's nature, they really enforce themselves with a tremendous impact. Take the law of gravitation, for instance. You can go up as high as you want to go, but you better not turn loose, and that law of gravitation is in operation. You can't break it. You may think you can. A great many people think they can break the Ten Commandments, live by the new morality today and get by with it.

Reminds me of that whimsical story of the man who jumped off the Empire State Building in New York City. When he went by the 50th floor, a man looked out the window and saw him. He says, "Well, how is it?" "Well," he says, "so far, so good." May I say to you, that's not where the law of gravitation enforces itself. 50 more floors down, the man'll find out "so far, not so good."

The interesting thing is that laws must be enforced to be a law. And therefore, God says, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." There must be the enforcement; there must be the penalty. Now, there's another prevalent viewpoint concerning law that needs to be corrected. And that's confounding law and grace, confusing them into one system. And that's confusion confounded. The law is robbed of its majesty and meaning when you try to think you can play fast and loose with it. And there's no love in law. There's no grace in law.

Grace is robbed of its goodness, its glow and glory when it's mixed with law. It's robbed of its wonder and worthwhileness, its attractiveness and its desire. The claims of law are unanswered and the sinner's needs not met when they're brought together. The law sets forth what man ought to be, and grace sets forth what God is.

And the majesty of the law is something that we do need to recognize. Now, the law reveals, therefore, who God is and how vast the gap and the yawning chasm is between God and man. Paul asked the question, "Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law?" You better listen to it. Because man's been weighed in the balances by the Ten Commandments and found wanting. And you don't measure yourself by others.

It's very easy for the man on Mount Whitney to look down at the man on an anthill and say, "I'm higher than you are." But the man on Mount Whitney didn't make it to the moon, and he didn't make it to heaven either. You don't measure up to God's standard. Now, the law reveals who man is and his inability to bridge that gap. "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world become guilty before God."

And Paul says in Romans 8:3, "What the law could not do." It's not the fault with the law, but there's a great fault with us. The law's a mirror, as we've seen. And we're told, don't be a hearer of the word, but a doer, because it's like a man looking at himself in the mirror. And that's all a great many people who talk about the law do: they look at themselves. They look in the mirror and they think that they are all right.

And they remind me of that fairy story years ago of this ugly queen. I think she was a queen. And she'd look at the mirror and she'd say, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" And she wanted the mirror to say that she was. But the mirror told the truth and said she wasn't. It was someone else. And the interesting thing is a great many folk look at the mirror today of the word of God or the Ten Commandments, and they do the same thing. They say, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" And the only difference is they say, "Well, I am." They think they keep it. My friend, you need to get a little different perspective of yourself there.

Now, the law never made a man a sinner, just revealed he was a sinner. And the law was given to bring a man to Christ, as we've seen. It was our schoolmaster, our pedagogos, to take us by the hand, bring us to the cross, and say to us, "Little man, you need a Savior because you're a sinner."

Now, let's look at the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are divided into two major divisions. One is a man's relationship to God, and the other is a man's relationship to man. Now, let's look at this, and we'll find that we have four commandments, man's relationship to God.

Now, the first: "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." Now, He condemns polytheism. You see, there's no commandment against atheism. Why? Because there was no atheism in that day. They were too close to the mooring mast of revelation. You have to wait till you get to the time of David, and at that time, atheists began to appear, but he was called a fool. David said, "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God."

Now today, he can be a college professor and considered to be an intellect, a brain. And you wonder whether he's so smart after all. Frankly, I've had to move with that group. I taught for a while in seminary and college, and I've moved with a few of these PhDs and these fellows they call brains, they call them an intellect. And may I say to you, some of the dumbest I've ever met are those that have a PhD degree. That is, they may be smart in one line. They may have a photographic mind, but boy, are they stupid in other relations.

So that atheism was not prevalent then. It's prevalent in our day because we're too far from the mooring mast, and men not willing to accept the revelation of God in His word. He says, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" because in that day, the pendulum of the clock was in polytheism, the worship of many gods. And today, it's the worship of no God.

The important thing to note here is that God condemns polytheism, that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God. They became vain in their imaginations, their foolish heart was darkened, and they began at that time to serve and worship the creature more than the Creator. That's what He's talking about here.

Now, this deals with idolatry: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that's in heaven above, that's in earth beneath, or that's in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me."

Now, someone says, "Well, that sure doesn't touch us today, because we don't worship idols." I think we do. We're told today, covetousness is idolatry. And anything that you give yourself to, especially in abandonment, that's your God. And a great many people today, they don't worship Bacchus, the cloven-footed God, but they worship the bottle just the same, friends.

Just think of the millions of alcoholics in this country right now, and that's one of the big problems. The liquor interests like to tell us about how much taxes they pay. They are not even paying today one-hundredth of the bill of the casualties they're causing in the world. That is one of the propagandas that is being fed this generation. And if there ever were a group of people that were being brainwashed, we're those people today.

And people worship the bottle; they worship the God Bacchus. And some worship Aphrodite; that's the goddess of sex. There are those that worship there. Some worship the almighty dollar. That's a great God today. Anything you give your time to. God says you're to have no other gods before you.

And then He says here in verse seven—I'm just lifting out these commandments—"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain." And that means in the way of blasphemy. And today, that's becoming very prevalent. It's still a commandment of God. Why is it wrong to take His name in vain? Because He's God and He's holy. And it does reveal a lack of vocabulary. A great many people can't express themselves without using profanity.

A man that was wonderfully converted several years ago down in Texas, he was telling me in the little town we lived in, he said that when I got converted, I lost over half of my vocabulary. And that's what he meant; he was taking God's name in vain.

And then the fourth: "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and He rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."

Now, we're going to see in this book of Exodus that the Sabbath day was given to the nation Israel in a very unusual way. God says that it is a covenant token between Me and the children of Israel. Now, the day, I don't think, is important after all the change of calendars makes it impossible for us to know whether the seventh day is today our Saturday or not. I think it's not. But that is beside the point because, as far as we're concerned, it makes no difference what day you observe.

Now, we observe what we believe is the first day of the week, and it may or may not be, but we recognize it as the first day of the week and because our Lord came back from the dead on that day. And that's the reason we observe it. We'll see all of this later on in this book of Exodus.

Then we come now to man's relationship with man. It begins in the home: "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." And a father and mother should be worthy, by the way, of that honor. And we'll come to all of these again.

And the sixth commandment: "Thou shalt not kill." This is being used by quite a few today. I've had any number of young men that have come in and talked to me about it. They said, "Well, you shouldn't kill; therefore, you shouldn't be a soldier." May I say to you that "thou shalt not kill" was not given to a nation; it was given to an individual. The individual shall not kill as an individual; they have no right to do that. And a nation is given an authority today to protect human life by taking human life when one murders or does that sort of thing. Therefore today, one is serving his country. This hasn't anything in the world to do with soldier service or the execution of a criminal at all.

Thou shalt not kill. Our Lord said that it comes from anger, and we're not to be even angry with our brother. And "Thou shalt not commit adultery." And we're living right now in this sex revolution, it's called. It's not a revolution; it's something that's been coming down through the ages. Sex is certainly not new, but it's still adultery when this is committed outside of wedlock. God makes that very clear. And you may think you've changed it; you haven't changed it, friends, at all. This still stands.

And then "Thou shalt not steal." And my point is that you ought to be permitted if you can commit adultery today, then you ought to be permitted to steal. And if you're permitted to steal, you ought to be permitted to kill, by the way, even personally. May I say this is a package that goes together.

The ninth commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." That has to do with lying. Then the tenth: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, manservant, maidservant, ox, ass, or anything that is thy neighbor's." Now, these are the Ten Commandments. And covetousness—remember, Paul said that idolatry's covetousness, and that's one of the great sins of the present hour.

Now these things God condemns. We'll have occasion to look at all of them in a different way later on. But that brings us to the end of the Ten Commandments. Now, in this chapter, we're going to see instructions concerning an altar, because you need an altar to go with the Ten Commandments. You need a Savior, friends, today. The law revealed we've come short of the glory of God. So until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

Steve Schwetz: If you'd like to know more about the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who died for you and for me, click on "How Can I Know God" in our app or at ttb.org. And if you already know our Savior, but maybe you want to know more about how you can live your life with Him and for Him, browse through our many resources, including Dr. McGee's free digital booklet download, "Living the Christian Life God's Way."

Again, you'll find all our free downloads in our app or at ttb.org or call us at 1-800-65-BIBLE if we can help you find it. And while you're in touch, tell us how you hop on the Bible bus. Do you join us on the app or online or on radio? Some people listen on Alexa or on YouTube. Knowing where you tune in really helps us to serve you better and it helps us keep the Bible bus rolling in the right direction. Our study on Exodus continues next time. I'm Steve Schwetz, and I'll be here saving a seat just for you.

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