The Foundation of God’s Government - 240209

SPEAKER A Hello and welcome to let God speak. I am your host, Uriah St Juste. One of the most important responsibilities of every government is to ensure that there is law and order in society. Without it, the society could not function and soon there would be a failed state as crime and violence go unfettered. Yet some believe that in the government of heaven, all of God's law is abolished. Today we will examine the place of God's law as we study the foundation of God's government. On let God speak. On our panel today is Rosemary Malkiewycz and Rod Butler. Welcome, Rosemary and Rod SPEAKER B Hello. SPEAKER C Thank you. SPEAKER A Let us pray. Father in heaven, you rule this entire universe and you are everywhere. But we ask that you will come into our presence today as we study your word. Father, be our great teacher. Enter our hearts, Father, illuminate our minds. And may this programme today, this Bible study, be a blessing to all our viewers and listeners, for we ask it in Jesus name. Amen. SPEAKER B Amen. SPEAKER A I once taught the Bible to a group of primary school boys. I posed to them the following. What if the principal announces that tomorrow all school rules are suspended? You can do whatever you want and you will not get in any trouble at all. At first, they thought it would be the best day ever. But as we began to explore what a day like that would look like, they concluded that not only would they not learn anything, but it would not be very safe. As lots of kids and even their teachers could get hurt, they discovered for themselves what a lawless world would look like. Not much fun at all. Rosemary? Moses led a building project to build the sanctuary in the wilderness. Where did he get the idea from? SPEAKER C Well, it wasn't from his own mind. It actually came from God. And we're going to look at Exodus, chapter 25 and verses eight and nine, where God is telling him to do this. God said, and let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them according to all that I showed you. That is the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings. Just so you shall make it so. The idea was purely from God, and he gave all the design of the actual building, plus everything in it, to Moses for Moses to make according to the pattern. And this pattern was not just something in God's mind, it was actually a pattern to work with what God already had in existence. SPEAKER A And it's important to note in the verses that you read, God didn't just tell Moses, he showed him. The Bible says the pattern. So, Rod, does the Bible tell us where that pattern pattern was that God showed Moses yes, it does. SPEAKER B And to understand that, you've got to go to the book of Hebrews. So I'd like to read Hebrews chapter eight and verses one and two. Now, of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum. We have such an high priest who is sit on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched to not man. Now after the cross, when Jesus gave his life for us, he went back to heaven and he serves now in the sanctuary in heaven as our high priest. And in verse two there it says a ministry of a minister of the sanctuary of the true tabernacle, it being the true, the original, the antecedent, the antitype, it being what the pattern was based on. SPEAKER A So there is a sanctuary in heaven based on Hebrews eight one, two, rosemary. Is there any other direct evidence in scripture that there is a sanctuary in heaven? SPEAKER C Well, there actually is lots, but we are going to look at revelation, chapter eleven, verse 19, because this is one of the clearest ones. And it says, then the temple of God was opened in heaven and the ark of his covenant was seen in his temple. And there were lightnings, noises, thunderings and earthquake and great hail. So here John sees the temple of God in heaven and it's opened for his view. He can see the ark of the covenant actually there in the temple as well as it had its replicate in the temple on earth. And so this was the most important piece of furniture in the earthly temple. And there it is in the heavenly temple. SPEAKER A And John sees this very clearly, not just the temple, no, but the ark. SPEAKER C And it was opened for his view to see the ark. SPEAKER A That's right. And that same ark is what God showed Moses to build, the ark in the earthly sanctuary. So rod, tell us now, what did God instruct Moses to place inside of the ark of the covenant in the earthly sanctuary? SPEAKER B Well, to answer that question, we've got to go back to the book of Exodus. And if I look at Exodus 30 118, it says, and he gave unto Moses when he had made an end of communing with him upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone written with the finger of God. So these are two tablets of stone that God wrote the commandments on, and he gave them to Moses. When we go back to now, Exodus 25, and we look at verse 16, it says, and thou shall put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee. So Moses was given instructions. He was given the ten Commandments written with a finger of God in stone and was told to place them inside the ark. SPEAKER A So that means that the ten Commandments did not come into existence when God wrote it. It preceded God giving it to Moses on Sinai because it would have also been in the ark of the covenant in the heavenly sanctuary. And Rod. Now, what was so special about the Ark of the covenant? SPEAKER B Well, the ark of the covenant was a wooden box about 45 inches by 27 inches. And above the ark of the covenant, above that box was a slab of gold, the same area. And that slab of gold was called the mercy seat. And above the mercy seat was where God himself dwelt. And this is very important to understand because the ark of the covenant was in the most holiest of places in the sanctuary. And inside that ark of the covenant were the ten Commandments, showing how important God's commandments are. And above that was this mercy seat or the atonement seat where God could administer mercy. SPEAKER A And that shows us that with God, the law is important. But mercy stands above God's law. That's why we get the forgiveness from. SPEAKER B Let me just read those texts. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER B In Exodus 25 and verse 21, it says, and thou shall put the mercy seat above upon the ark. And in the ark thou shall put the testimony that I shall give thee. And the first pass of verse 22 says, and there I will meet with thee and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat. SPEAKER A Amen. SPEAKER B So there's God in all his mercy, above the ten Commandments. SPEAKER A Amen. And that's where he meets. That's where his presence was manifested at the point of mercy in the ark of the covenant. That's beautiful. Now, many who read the Bible today conclude that God's law, including the ten Commandments, are abolished or nailed to the cross, as some believe. Rosemary, does. The Bible teach us that God's ten commandments are abolished. SPEAKER C If the law of God were abolished, we would have lawlessness and chaos. Because where there is no law, there was anarchy and everybody doing what is right in their own eyes. And so, just as we have laws of the land and most of them are based on the ten Commandments, God has a law for how man is going to live. But let's look at psalm 111, verses seven and eight. And these verses say the works of his hands are verity and justice. All his precepts are sure, they stand fast forever and ever and are done in truth and uprightness. So this is telling us that God's law is forever. It is not done away with. And the Bible doesn't teach that it's done away with. If we go to Matthew, chapter five, verses 17 and 18, Jesus himself said this, do not think that I came to destroy the law of the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Jesus didn't say he came to do away with it. He said he came to fulfil it. And so it can't be the opposite to what he said, but also to fulfil it. He came to live it, to keep it, and to show us how to do it. SPEAKER A Amen. And if you want to look at the values of a country, what a country stands for, what it cherishes, study its laws, because the laws of a land reveal a lot about the lands, the country's values. Rod, what does God's law, if you study, if a person studies God's law, what does it reveal about who God is? SPEAKER B It actually reveals a lot. And just to put a bit of context to what Rosemary's saying, Paul wrote to the Romans about 25, 26 years after the cross. And in that, and I'd just like to read romans seven, chapter seven and verses eleven and twelve. And it says, for sin taken occasion by the commandment, deceive me, and by it slew me. So obviously the commandments are still in place because he's saying it's still relevant. And then he says, wherefore the law is holy and the commandment holy and just and good. So clearly they weren't abolished. And there's something about the commandments which represent God's character because it says they're holy, just and good. God is holy, just and good. SPEAKER A That's it. SPEAKER B And that's really important. So if we now go down to way back in the Old Testament, if we go to Exodus 34, now, in Exodus 33, Moses has the. He actually asked God to show him. That's show Moses his God's glory. And God actually agrees to this, but says, look, you can't see me and live, so I'll have to hide you in the cleft of the rock and I'll pass by you. And then we have in chapter 34, and I'm going to pick up from verses six and seven, and it says, and the Lord passed by him and proclaimed the Lord. Now he's saying his name, the Lord. And we know that the Lord is very important because what's following is what his name means, the Lord God merciful and gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. And that will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children until the third and to the fourth generation. Now, it's interesting when you go through that there's three fundamental characteristics of God. God's character. First is truth, and then we have justice. But most importantly, we have mercy. And the Bible dwells on God's mercy because we need God's mercy. SPEAKER A Very good. So going back to the idea of the ten Commandments being abolished, rosemary, in practise, do most christians sincerely believe that all God's ten commandments are abolished? SPEAKER C Most devout christians believe that we shouldn't be worshipping idols, we shouldn't be telling lies, we shouldn't be taking God's name in vain, we shouldn't be murdering, we shouldn't be committing adultery. These are all part of God's ten Commandments and are acceptable to most christians and God is wanting us to keep those things. I have a quote from John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church, and I'm just going to read that. It says, the ritual or ceremonial law delivered by Moses to the children of Israel, containing all the injunctions and ordinances which related to the old sacrifices and services of the temple, our lord indeed did come to destroy, to dissolve and utterly abolish. So that's all the ceremonial laws. But the moral law contained in the ten Commandments and enforced by the prophets, he did not take away. It was not the design of his coming to revoke any part of this. This is a law which never can be broken, which stands fast as the faithful witness in heaven. Every part of this law must remain in force upon all mankind and in all ages as not depending either on time or place or any other circumstances liable to change. God's law does not change. And the majority of christians believe that? SPEAKER A Absolutely. And we must keep in mind the theme that we are studying this quarter, the great controversy. And in this great controversy, Rod, Jesus is the hero. But who does the Bible tell us the villain is and what's his issue? SPEAKER B Well, the Bible definitely tells us who the villain is. The villain was a beautiful angel called Lucifer who fell. And this beautiful angel, incredibly within heaven, developed pride and wanted to actually have the audacity to want to be part of God's government, be part of the Godhead as a created being. And we pick up in the book of Isaiah more about this account. So I'd like to read from Isaiah, chapter 14. Gonna be reading verses twelve to 14, and it says, how art thou fallen from heaven? O Lucifer, son of the morning, how art thou cut down to the ground which doth weaken the nations? For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend upon the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most high. Now there's five I wills in there. And this goes to show the extent of how pride corrupted this fallen angel. And this fallen angel, Lucifer became Satan, became the devil, is the villain in. SPEAKER A The great controversy, and he's trying to take away the worship that rightfully belongs to God to direct it to himself, correct? Yes, rosemary, looking at worship, do we worship God merely because he is God and he's been good to us? He gives us good things? Or is there a deeper reason why we worship God? SPEAKER C God loves us and we love him. God. Jesus died for us. He is God. He died for us. And because of his many blessings in our lives, we worship God and thank him for them. But there is a deeper reason. It's in revelation. Well, it's all through the Bible, but we'll look at revelation 411. The angels are crying in heaven. You are worthy, o Lord, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created. The bottom line is God is the creator of everything. Satan didn't create anything. And so God is the one who needs to be worshipped because he's created. He is the creator, and we are not an accident. God created us on purpose. SPEAKER A Amen. And Rod, is there anything special about the Sabbath that makes it stand out amongst the Ten Commandments? SPEAKER B Definitely. When you look at the Ten Commandments, the first four deal with man's relationship to God, and the last six deal with man's relationship to his fellow man. And the fourth commandment, which is like the connection between our relationship with God and the connection with man, is the Sabbath. And this is a really important one because it contains God's seal, and that seal contains his name, the Lord. It contains his title, the creator, and it contains his domain, which is creator of the heavens and the earth. And I'd just like to read that. I'm going to read Exodus 20, and we're going to read the Sabbath commandment, which is verses eight to eleven. And it says, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days thou shalt labour and do all thy work. But the 7th day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. There's his title, the Lord thy God in it. Thou shalt not do any work. Thou shalt thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days, the Lord made. There he is. He is the creator. He made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that in them is. There's his domain and rested the 7th day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. You know, if you applied the other nine, it could apply to any other God you want to create in your mind. But the fourth one connects it to God the creator. That's what makes it so special. SPEAKER A Very good. Now, earlier we said when we read from Isaiah 14 that Satan tries to take worship that belongs to God, to himself. Rosemary, how can a sincere christian avoid that, that trap? SPEAKER C Okay, we're going to look at revelation 14, six, seven. Very quickly, very vital verses for people living on earth in the last days, especially. Then, I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue and people saying with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgement has come and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of waters. So there's three angels here. This is the first angel giving very, very important messages to the world at the end of time to worship no one but the God of heaven. Why? Because he is our creator. And it's interesting that the, the wording here is actually very much the same as in the Sabbath commandment. SPEAKER A So, Rosemary, again, I've heard the Sabbath referred to as the jewish Sabbath. You know, christians, for example, like the 7th day Adventists, who keep the Sabbath, people ask, well, why are you observing the jewish Sabbath? Is the Sabbath a jewish Sabbath? And how is that important in the great controversy? SPEAKER C Okay, the fourth commandment tells us to remember the very first words God used. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. And if we go back to Genesis, chapter two, and verses one to three, we learn about the beginning of the Sabbath. Thus the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished. God had created in six days this earth and everything on it. And on the 7th day, God ended his work, which he had done, and he rested on the 7th day from his work, which he had done. Then God blessed the 7th day and sanctified it because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made. So here is God on the very first full day of Adam and Eve's life creating the Sabbath. This was long before there was ever a Jew or a Hebrew, whatever you want to call them, on the earth. This was not brought in at some later date. So God said, remember, because this is what they should have been doing all along, but they've been slaves. It was something that God's people always kept and they were faithful because the Sabbath points us back to the fact that God is our creator. And if we had to stay true to that, the world would not be in the chaos that it's in today. SPEAKER A So the Sabbath preceded Sinai just like all of God's commandment. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER A Now, Rod, surely God would warn his people that Satan is trying to steal his worship. Does God warn us about this? SPEAKER B He does warn us. He warns us that in the Bible, that warns people in the way he operates and how he operates. And there's an example that in Revelation chapter 13 four, and it says, and they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast. He's talking about earthly powers here. And they worship the beast, saying, who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him? Now this is interesting because this is sort of saying that the devil's working through earthly powers. And the people that are worshipping, some of them don't know they're worshipping Satan. They're innocently worshipping a power but don't know the source of that power. Revelation 13 says the source of that power is the dragon. And elsewhere in revelation, the dragon is identified as being Satan. So we do get warnings. And the Bible warns us that we've got to be careful to look at what's behind some of these powers. SPEAKER A And there's another group the Bible identifies, Rosemarie. That is a group of people who consciously refuse to worship the devil. How does Satan feel about those? SPEAKER C Well, Revelation chapter twelve is a great chapter for people to read and understand. God has his pure church represented by a pure woman. And if we read chapter twelve of Revelation verse 17, it gives us an idea. And the dragon was enraged. That is really angry with the woman, this pure woman. And he went to make war with the rest of her offspring or the remnant of her offspring who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. So these people are faithful to God at the end of time, in all of his commandments. They have the faith in Jesus as their God. And so Satan is resisting them. Satan is hating them because they are showing that he is a liar. SPEAKER A So one group worships Satan, another group is faithful to God. Rod, is there a warning that God gives to both groups? And is there hope in that warning? SPEAKER B Well, there's definitely a warning to both groups. Now, Rose, we mentioned earlier the three angels messages, and we're now looking at if I look at revelation 14 and look at the third angels message, and it says, and the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, if any man worship the beast and his image and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation. These shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and the presence of the lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever. And they have no rest day who worship the beast and his image. And whoever receiveth the mark of his name, now there's a warning. You worship the beast. That's what you're in store for. And the hope for us is that if we don't worship the beast, we have everlasting life. And, you know, Romans 623 says, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. So we have hope. We have a lot of hope. And that hope is that if we give our heart to Christ, we have eternal life. But if we ignore that, we have what's left in revelation. The third angels message. SPEAKER A Thank you very much. That's all the time we have for today's programme. As the great controversy edges to an end, God's people will come under the fiercest attacks of the enemy. More than any other group in history, we are already seeing that as the world changes, practising and professing your faith in God becomes increasingly more difficult. Many lose their jobs because they refuse to work on the Sabbath. If you are being persecuted because of your stand for God, be encouraged today, revelation 1412 tells us that this group of people who keep God's commandments are under trying circumstances, but they have great patience. Remember, James one three tells us that the trying of our faith works. Patience be strong in the Lord and the power of his might. We are glad that you joined us today on let God speak. Remember, all past programmes plus teachers notes are available on our website, 3abnaustralia.org.au or you can email us on [email protected]. God bless. SPEAKER B You have been listening to let God speak, a production of 3ABN Australia television. To catch up on past programmes, please visit 3abnaustralia.org.au. Call us in Australia on 02 4973 3456. Or email [email protected]. we'd love to hear from you.