Pointing to Jesus (Exodus 20)

Summary:

Exodus 20 recounts God delivering the Ten Commandments to the Israelites at Mount Sinai through Moses. 

God begins by reminding them of His deliverance from Egypt, then lists the commandments: no other gods, no idols, no misusing God’s name, remember the Sabbath, honor parents, no murder, no adultery, no stealing, no false testimony, and no coveting. 

The people, terrified by God’s presence in thunder and smoke, ask Moses to mediate, and God instructs on building simple altars for sacrifices.

Pointing to Jesus:

The fourth commandment on the Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-11) points redemptively to Jesus as the ultimate source of rest. 

As John Calvin emphasized, the commandment calls believers to find their spiritual rest in Christ not just on one day, but every day of the week, fulfilling the shadow of the Old Testament Sabbath in the substance of gospel grace. 

Reflection:

Exodus 20 reveals God’s holy standards, which expose human sinfulness and our inability to obey perfectly, driving us to rely on Christ’s perfect obedience and atoning sacrifice. 

In daily Christian living, the commandments guide us toward loving God and neighbor, not as a means to earn salvation, but as a grateful response to grace, fostering holiness, community, and worship in the freedom of the new covenant.

GENESIS 21: Devotion

As promised, Sarah had a son: Isaac. Sarah had Hagar and Ishmael sent away but God preserved them. 

"God is in no hurry in the working out of His plans. Man may fret and fume, hurry and bustle, but Jehovah has all eternity at His disposal and works leisurely and with deliberation. Well for us to mark this attentively—"He that believeth shall not make haste."~Isaiah 28:16

(A.W. Pink)

GENESIS 18: Devotion

Three visitors came and said that Sarah would have a son next year. Sarah laughed within herself at this promise. Sodom was very evil; Abraham pleaded with the LORD for the city.

"The problem was that Sarah’s laughter reflected her unbelief in the promise of God. By nature we all trust in ourselves most of the time, and in God only when we really have to. If we trust in ourselves, then we glory in ourselves. But God’s purpose is that we glory in Him alone. So through various means He graciously brings us to the place where we have no hope except in Him, so that we trust in Him and He gets the glory."

(Steven J. Cole) 

GENESIS 16: Devotion

God has promised Abram offspring over and over again but his wife Sarai has not yet born a child. Sarai takes matters into her own hands and offers her slave girl to Abram. Hagar conceived, then ran away, but an angel sent her back. Hagar's son was Ishmael.

"God is sovereign and we have a hard time accepting that.

We must not only trust God's promise, but we must obtain God's promises in the way, by the method which He says we are to obtain those promises."

(Ligon Duncan)

GENESIS 13: Devotional

Abram went up from Egypt with Lot. The two argued and Abram said separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right. Lot chose to make Sodom his home where it was watered well. Abram settled in Canaan. 

“In the end, he who sought this world lost it, and he who was willing to give up anything for the honor of God found it.”

(Alexander Maclaren)

GENESIS 12: Devotional

God called Abram out from his country, "Go. I will make you a great nation. You will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 

God is the sovereign God who calls men to Himself with authority. He didn’t suggest, “Abram, if you’d like a happier life, you might try moving to Canaan.” He commanded, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you.” It was a command that demanded a response. Abram would have been in disobedience to the sovereign God if he had not obeyed. In the New Testament, the word “call” or “calling” is most often used of God’s call to salvation. It is not a helpful hint for happier living. It is the authoritative command of God. When Jesus began to preach the gospel, Mark 1:15 sums up His message: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” It was the word of the King calling rebellious subjects to quit their rebellion and bow before His rightful sovereignty. It is a command with serious consequences. If we disobey, the day is coming when the King with force will squash all rebellion and punish those who have refused to yield to Him. The gospel call isn’t a nice option if you decide that maybe Jesus can help you be happy. It is the authoritative command of the King, calling you to stop going your own way and to come under His rightful sovereignty. Once you have heard that call, as you have today, you must obey or you are in rebellion against the sovereign God."

(Steven J. Cole)

GENESIS 10&11: Devotion

Family history of Shem, Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah. One named Nimrod founded Babel where the people began building a great tower for themselves, but God scatters them over the whole earth and confused their language. 

"God’s will for human beings is not that we find our joy in being praised, but that we find our joy in knowing and praising him. His will is not that we find our security in cities but in God whom we gladly obey. 

So God's response to the presumption and arrogance of man was to make it harder for man to communicate and thus to unite in God-belittling global plans. God has built into the world a system by which the pride of different groups of people restrains the pride of other groups of people. God knows the immense potential of human beings created in his own image. And he has given them amazing liberty to exalt themselves and design their own security systems without trusting him. But there are limits. Thousands of languages around the world and thousands of different peoples limit the global aspirations of arrogant mankind. 

The praise that Jesus receives from all the languages is more beautiful, because of its diversity, than it would have been if there were only one language and one people to sing. “And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:9-10). “After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10).

(John Piper)

GENESIS 9: Devotion

God blessed Noah and set the rainbow as a sign that He would never flood the earth again. 

"As the rainbow is the joint product of storm and sunshine, so grace is the unmerited favor of God appearing on the dark background of the creature’s sin. As the rainbow is the effect of the sun shining on the drops of rain in a rain cloud, so Divine grace is manifested by God’s love shining through the blood shed by our blessed Redeemer."

(AW Pink)

GENESIS 8: Devotion

The flood abated. Noah sent out a raven and two doves. When the earth was dry God called them all out of the ark. Noah built an altar.

"Noah was now gone out into a desolate world, where, one might have thought, his first care would have been to build a house for himself, but he begins with an altar for God. He begins well, that begins with God."

(Matthew Henry)

GENESIS 7: Devotion

Noah and his family went into the ark with two of each creature. And God shut the door. It rained for 40 days, the earth was covered. All creatures with the breath of the spirit of life outside the ark were destroyed.

"Noah did not have to shut the door on anyone’s salvation; God did it. After the same pattern, it is never our job to disqualify people from salvation. We let God shut the door."

(David Guzik)

GENESIS 4:

Eve's sons made offerings to God. Only Abel's was acceptable, so Cain killed him. Abel's blood cried out and God sent Cain away. Cain complains of the severity of God’s judgment.

 “One of the clearest marks of sin is our almost innate desire to excuse ourselves and complain if we are judged in any way.”

(James Boice)

GENESIS 3:

The serpent deceived the woman; "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." she and Adam ate from the tree. The earth became cursed, and God sent Adam and Eve out of the garden.

"Notice how Satan puts a wall between holiness and happiness. He in effect says your adherence to God's standards is going to keep you from true fulfillment, true happiness, true satisfaction. If you will reject God's standards you will find happiness and satisfaction. That is Satan's strategy always. He's always saying, if you follow those rules that God gave you, it's going to ruin your life. Whereas God tells us that there is an inseparable connection between holiness and happiness, between obedience and satisfaction, between doing the will of God and receiving a blessed eternal reward. Never forget that Satan will always work against you by trying to get you to buy the lie, that holiness will keep you from happiness. The truth could not be further from that. Only in holiness do we find perfect happiness."

(J. Ligon Duncan)

"Grace and Glory"; Archibald Brown

 "For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD will give GRACE and GLORY; no good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless. O LORD Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in You!" 

(Psalm 84:11-12)

'Grace and Glory'— "I know not which of the two words after all is the sweetest; there is all the delicacy of the honeycomb in both 'grace' and 'glory'.— I know not how this verse can ever be forgotten, because every hour of every day I shall need the grace — and every hour of every day I ought to be longing for the glory — 'Grace and Glory'."

(Archibald Brown)~1906

What could man have been to Him? Archibald Brown 1868

"Sing, O heavens, for the LORD has done this wondrous thing. Shout for joy, O depths of the earth! For the LORD has redeemed Jacob and is glorified in Israel."

(Isaiah 44:23)

"What could man have been to Him? What shadow of obligation was there on God's part to put forth the slightest effort to save a single rebellious sinner? What could it have been to God whether man was saved or damned? He would have been glorified in either case, and still remained "The blessed (happy) God." 

But sweet thought! It was much to him; his sovereign unaccountable love said, "Deliver him from going down to the pit — I have found a ransom!" The Lord has done it, and done it alone. With whom did he take counsel in this matter? Who paid part-price with him? Redemption is no work of the many; it is God's own in plan and execution; he came forth to the work "in the greatness of his strength," "mighty to save."

(Archibald Brown)~1868

B.B. Warfield: Miserable Sinners

"When you have done all that you were commanded, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.'

(Luke 17:10)

It belongs to the very essence of the type of Christianity that the believer should feel himself continuously unworthy of the grace by which he lives. At the center lies the contrast of sin and grace; and about this center everything else revolves. This is in large part the meaning of the emphasis put in this type of Christianity on justification by faith. It is its conviction that there is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only “when we believe.” It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in Christian behavior may be. It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest. There is never anything that we are or have or do that can take His place, or that can take a place along with Him. We are always unworthy, and all that we have or do of good is always of pure grace. Though blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ, we are still in ourselves just “miserable sinners”: “miserable sinners” saved by grace to be sure, but “miserable sinners” still, deserving in ourselves nothing but everlasting wrath."

(B.B. Warfield)

Devotional: B.B. Warfield

The LORD of hosts has sworn: "As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand,"

(Isaiah 14:24)

"In the infinite wisdom of the Lord of all the earth, each event falls with exact precision into its proper place in the unfolding of His divine plan. Nothing, however small, however strange, occurs without His ordering, or without its particular fitness for its place in the working out of His purpose; and the end of all shall be the manifestation of His glory, and the accumulation of His praise."

(B.B. Warfield)

Devotional: B.B. Warfield

"[Jesus] is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them."

(Hebrews 7:25)

"Had He not emerged from the tomb all our hopes, all our salvation would be lying dead with Him unto this day. But as we see Him issue from the grave we see ourselves issue with Him in newness of life. Now we know that His shoulders were strong enough to bear the burden that was laid upon them, and that He is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God through Him. The resurrection of Christ is thus the indispensable evidence of His completed work, His accomplished redemption."

(B.B. Warfield)

The Helper

"When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come."

(John 16:13)

"How can we who are so weak in ourselves, so inferior in power to the enemies confronting us, bear up under our trials which are so numerous, so protracted, so crushing? We could not, and therefore Divine grace has provided for us an all-sufficient Helper. Without His aid we had long since succumbed, mastered by our trials. Hope looks forward to the Glory to come; in the weary interval of waiting, the Spirit supports our poor hearts and keeps grace alive within us."

(A.W. Pink)