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THE KING’S BUSINESS
in by God from the other nations, a steo at a tijne in the midst of danger and death, through the long night of the world’s his tory, illumined by the Word of God, pur sued by the hungry hordes who would enslave and spoil her, Israel has been de livered through death. This event is also a type of the be liever’s experience. “Israel’s baptism was unto Moses, in the cloud and in the sea.” They died in Egypt; they came through the grave into a new life. So do we in Christ die to the world and by resurrection with Him, we come into the newness of life. “We are buried with Him in baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Here we have a most interesting and instructive lesson on the Grace of God. May we have hearts open to receive it. “You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians.” He culminated His judgments by overwhelming them in the sea. He set His royal seal of disapproval upon their cruelty to His people. He blotted them out. You have seen also, “how I bare you on eagle’s wings and brought you to my self.” God chose them. God called them. God named them, and He took them to Himself. He reminds them of His grac ious dealing. All that had been wrought in their behalf was the fruit of His un merited favor, the manifestation of His great grace. God calls their attention to the evidences of His love for them, which had been extended unconditionally and makes that the basis for their faith in His purpose to continue to provide for them. The past provision was a pledge of future favor. Had Israel had eyes to see and ears to he^r and hearts to understand this mes sage1, they would have thrown themselves upon that marvelous mercy of God and saved themselves from the shadow of Sinai. L esson IX.— A ugust 31 I srael at M ount S inai Golden Text,—Neh. 12:28
There is something pathetic in this picture of God with outstretched wings seeking to take Israel to Himself as a peculiar treas ure. Hear Him say, “for all the earth is mine.” He seems here to be longing for the response of their hearts to His loving pleading, but Israel was blind and deaf and dead to this manifestation of Divine love. God’s covenant was one of grace. His promise to Abram was “For all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it.” Israel boldly vowed a vow, one which they never kept. They promised in an off hand manner to do something that no mere man has ever done. They took them selves out from under the wings of Je hovah and put themselves under the fires of Sinai. They speedily made a golden calf. They trampled under foot God’s Sabbaths, ignor ed His ordinances, dispised his prophets, resisted His Spirit and crucified His Christ. Pity the people who take themselves out of the loving arms of Christ who died to save them and who fulfilled all of the right eous requirements of Jehovah in their be half and who seek to work out a salva tion through the rigid observance of an impossible law and dispise the grace so freely offered them. God has now come to the place in the history of Israel where he proposed to outline to them the law which is to govern their being. He commences by giving them ten words and follows it by a series of regulations which are to control their na tional life. The ten commandments are given as an expression of the character of God—not all of that character, but all that could be revealed at this time. Afterwards when God sent His Son into the world, He gave a new interpretation of the law; He show ed its spiritual significance. The purpose of the law was no doubt to reveal to man the inherent sin of his nature, his hatred of the will of God, his antagonism toward L esson X.— S eptember 7 T he T en C ommandments Golden Text,—Luke 10:27
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