In the sermon 'The Terrors of The Lord and the Mediator,' Jason Dohm explores Exodus 20:1-21, emphasizing the themes of God's holiness and the fear it instills in humans. The sermon highlights the Ten Commandments as a reflection of God's holiness and a test revealing human sinfulness. The Israelites' reaction to God's presence at Mount Sinai—trembling and standing at a distance—illustrates the daunting nature of God's law and presence. Moses acts as a mediator, a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, who bridges the gap between a holy God and sinful humanity. Dohm stresses the importance of recognizing the gulf between God and humans, and the role of Jesus as the ultimate mediator who satisfies divine justice through his sacrifice. The sermon concludes by urging believers to maintain a sense of God's holiness and to trust in Jesus for salvation.

Alright, the sermon text for today will be chapter 20 verses 1 through 21. And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them.

For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work, you nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger, who is within your gates.

For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore, The Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, you shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbors. Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off.

Then they said to Moses, You speak with us and we will hear, but let not God speak with us lest we die. And Moses said to the people, Do not fear, for God has come to test you and that his fear may be before you so that you may not sin. So the people stood afar off but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was." Let's pray. Father, you are most holy and gracious God, triune God, three in one, loving and just and caring, merciful. Time would not allow us to be able to fully describe you, Lord God.

Do thank you for your word. We thank you for these months that we've been able to study the Ten Commandments. For your people, Lord God, thank you for the blessing it has been, for the sin that you've revealed, for granting hearts of repentance towards the sins that you have opened our eyes to. And Lord God, giving us such a greater picture of you, the one true living God, and what you require of us, and a greater view of the mercy that you have shown to us through your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord God, I do pray for the unbelievers in this room that as this final sermon in the Ten Commandments are preached, Lord God, as our brother Mr.

Lundquist shared this morning from Psalms, Lord God, if the voice of the Lord is heard, oh, may they not harden their hearts. May those that see their sin, when they run to you, the one true living God, repent of their sins, Put all their faith in you. And those of us that are saved, Lord God, may this day just be further, may you further mold us into the image of your Son. Give us strength to obey. Give us hearts of repentance.

Give us ears to hear your word today. Bless Mr. Dome as he preaches. Give him words to speak. Thank you Father for this time.

In your son's name we pray, amen. The title of the sermon this morning is, The Terrors of the Lord and the Mediator. I'm drawing language from what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 11. Paul says, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. We persuade men.

We Spread the Gospel. This is the beginning point of the Gospel. Not Jesus and his work, but God in heaven and his utter holiness and mankind in our rebellion every day against Him, and then what the implications of that are. This is the starting point of the Gospel. The terror of the Lord.

Gospel preachers have to press who God is and who the hearer is and what that means for eternity before the preaching of Jesus and His atoning work has any benefit to the hearer. Paul calls it the terror of the Lord. The people in Exodus 20 in our text experience that. They come away from hearing the voice of God, not feeling comforted, but understanding the utter holiness of God and what those commandments that they've just heard means about them. And the verdict that must be pronounced on their lives against that standard.

They've been given the terror of the Lord. Before we started into the commandment by commandment study, these were the two verses in the chapter. I wonder how many times you've repeated them in your homes. God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. God introduces Himself.

This is actually the first words that He speaks on Sinai, is positioning himself as the God who has brought them out of slavery. The God who is commanding you is the one who in His mercy hasn't left you slaves to a cruel taskmaster, but has released you, has brought you out. This was God's own preface to the Ten Commandments. In a way, these verses that we're studying coming out of the commandment by commandment study is God's own postscript to the Ten Commandments. As we come to these verses, the exposition of these verses, let's ask for the Lord to help us.

God, I thank you for our time in the Ten Commandments. A time to go through them very slowly, to consider what each one requires and forbids, and how we've violated each one of them in so many ways. Maybe in our doings, but certainly in our motivations and in our thoughts and the words that we've said. And how the Lord Jesus Christ has perfectly obeyed every single one without one blemish on his record, making him fit to go to the cross as a substitute. What a glorious contemplation.

All these things that The commandments teach us about your eternal character. You have never been anything else. You will never be anything else. It's been a sweet time to consider all of these things. God, now we pray that you wouldn't leave us to forget them and move on from them, that you would help us to have these things top of mind so that we love you well, that we love our neighbors well.

We ask for your help in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, it's been a long time since we've gone verse by verse. So it's sort of comforting to me to say we're going to go verse by verse today. So Let's just begin by looking at verse 18.

Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountains smoking. And when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. In verse 18 we have what the people witnessed. So if you're taking notes on the handout by filling in blanks, witnessed fills in the blanks. What the people witnessed.

Let's flip back and look at the details leading up to this in the former chapter, Exodus 19. Exodus 19 verses 12-19 gives us more detail about what we have in this verse. Exodus 19, 12-19. God says to Moses, You shall set bounds for the people all around, saying, take heed to yourselves that you do not go up to the mountain or touch its base. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death.

Not a hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned or shot with an arrow, whether man or beast, he shall not live. When the trumpet sounds long, they shall come near the mountain." So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and sanctified the people and they washed their clothes. And he said to the people, be ready for the third day. Do not come near your wives. Then it came to pass on the third day, in the morning, that there were thunderings and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain.

And the sound of the trumpet was very loud so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace and the whole mountain quaked greatly. And when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder.

Moses spoke and God answered him by voice. And then follows the giving of the Ten Commandments. The text says that the people trembled and stood afar off. When you read that description of God descending on the mountain in fire, and this growing louder and louder sound of the trumpet, lightning flashes and thunder, You can't blame them. I submit there are two things at work causing the people to tremble and stand at a distance.

One, the law is daunting all by itself. So I'm asking you just for a moment to set aside the thunder, the lightning flashes, the smoke, God descending on the mountain in fire, the blast of the trumpet. Just set that aside and consider what the law of God is and what the law of God does. The holiness of God expressed in the Ten Commandments is a fearful thing. If you set aside all those signs and you just give us the words of the commandments what you find is an utterly holy God.

God is light and Him is no darkness at all. He requires that holiness of His creatures. This is a fearful thing. Remember in Nehemiah 8, in Nehemiah 8, the people say to Ezra the scribe, bring the book of the law. And he brings the book.

The people, the nation is gathered. He brings the book. And he and some other Levites, there's a half day reading of the law in Nehemiah chapter 8. And then we read this in Nehemiah 8 Verse 9, all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. It was just Ezra the scribe.

You peel back all the thundering, the lightning flashes, God descending as a fire on the mountain, the smoke, the sound of the trumpet, none of that, just the voice of a man reading the law. The people wept when they heard the law. Now amplify that by all these other things that are happening. And the voice of God Himself, not the voice of the man, but the voice of God, what must that have sounded like as the law proceeds forth, commandment by commandment? There's no possibility of wiggling out of it.

Is this from God or not from God? There could have been no question of the people at the base of Mount Sinai. They knew that it was from God. James 1.23 says that the Word of God is like a mirror. It shows you who you really are.

You flatter yourself, you deceive yourself, and then the Bible comes like a bucket of cold water to show you who God really is and who you really are. It's like a mirror to you. In Galatians 3.24, Paul says that the law is a tutor to drive us to Christ. The law to the unbeliever has this ministry of condemnation to bring you face to face with how holy God is and that His holiness He requires of His creatures, and then you're left to know in your heart of hearts. You've not kept any of those commandments.

It's designed to drive you to Christ. The law was never given to be life giving to us. To the unbeliever, it is not life giving. It is a ministry of condemnation to send you running to Jesus for relief. So first, the law is daunting all by itself.

In a sense, the law doesn't need the lightning and the thunderings. When it dawns on you that God is like that and God requires that of you, and you know all of your thoughts, you know the things that you've said, you know the things that you've done, not one day but every day, and what that has to mean about you and your eternity. It is a ministry of condemnation. It is a fearful thing. Two, the presence of God is undoing all by itself.

Meaning, if you don't have any of the words of the law, this ministry of condemnation to the unbeliever. Now the law is sweet to the believer. David said, oh how I love that law. It's sweet as honey in the honeycomb. To the unbeliever is a ministry of condemnation.

But if You just take those words away that does all that that I just spoke of, and you talk about just the presence of God, it will undo you without a word. It's exactly what happens in Isaiah chapter 6. In Isaiah chapter 6, The holy man, the prophet, has a vision. The Lord is on his throne and the train of his robe fills the temple. Isaiah the holy man finds out, I'm not the holy man.

I am in the presence of a holy God. I'm an unholy man. And he says, woe is me, for I am undone. Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of the people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King." The Lord of Hosts. At that point in the chapter, God hasn't said one word to him.

He just is in the presence of God and he says, I'm undone. So the words spoken are fearful. The words spoken, the law given at Mount Sinai, the words spoken are fearful and the one speaking is fearful. It's no wonder that the people trembled and stood at a distance. Let's apply this.

I'm just going to apply every verse. I'm going to apply. I won't have A separate section for application at the end I'm going to apply as I go. Is any of this left in your Christianity? Or have the comforts of the gospel which are right and good and wonderful and sweet.

Amen to the comforts of the gospel, but have they stripped you of a sense of this? If God were to come in thunderings and lightnings, descend in fire, the smoke rising like the smoke of a furnace, the trumpet blast. Would that be foreign to you because the comforts of the Gospel have made you insensitive to who God is. That's not good. The comforts of the Gospel are good.

They're wonderful. But when they dull us to a sense of the holiness of our God and make us insensitive to our remaining sins in a way that the fear of God is really gone. And there is never a sense of trembling or feeling the gulf between God's holiness and my holiness because that gulf has been bridged in Christ and so it makes me insensitive to all this thing. That is not good. That's not good.

I hope that commandment by commandment at least a little bit of this has been restored in our Christianity. It needs to be. God is not less holy and less fearful than He was. He hasn't changed at all since Exodus 20. Verse 19.

Follow along. Verse 19. Then they said to Moses, You speak with us, and we will hear. But let not God speak with us lest we die. In this verse we have what the people said to Moses.

If you're taking notes by filling in blanks, it fills in the blank, what the people said to Moses. This is healthily expanded on in Deuteronomy 5. Please turn to Deuteronomy 5. In Exodus 20, it's that one verse about the people calling for Moses to go meet with God, let God speak to Moses, and then Moses relay to them. This is expanded on in Deuteronomy chapter 5.

That's where the second listing of the Ten Commandments is, by the way. This is what we find in Deuteronomy 5 verses 22 through 29. Follow along. This is right at the end of the Ten Commandments. These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly, in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice, and he added no more.

And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me, says Moses. So it was when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, that you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders, and you said, Surely the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire. We have seen this day that God speaks with man, yet He still lives. Now therefore, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any more, then we shall die.

For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire as we have and lived. You go near and hear all that the Lord our God may say and tell us all that the Lord our God says to us and we will hear and do it. Then the Lord heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me and the Lord said to me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They are right in all that they have spoken. All that they had such a heart in them that they would fear me and always keep all my commandments that it might be well with them and with their children forever." Verse 25 zeros in on the people's fear.

Just look back at verse 25. Now therefore why should we die? For this great fire will consume us if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any more than we shall die. This is what is generating the fear. The Lord had descended in fire on the mountain and the smoke is ascending like smoke from a furnace.

And they say, if God keeps speaking to us, this fire will consume us. And God actually commends and not rebukes their call for a mediator. They don't want any more direct communication from God. They want God to speak to Moses and Moses to relay it to them. And God says, they're right and that's good.

Amazing. The people are right to fear me. The people are right to suspect that my holiness will consume them if they remain here. God actually commends, not rebukes, the people's instinct to fear Him. Now, back to Exodus 20, 19.

Just read that verse again. Exodus 20.19. Then they said to Moses, you speak with us and we will hear, but let not God speak with us, lest we die." The people call for Moses to stand between God and all of his fearful command giving holiness and them. And that's actually what happens. Moses subsequently goes up on the mountain and God gives him the rest of the law, the rest of Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Moses comes down and relays it to the people.

What the people are calling for here is actually what happens. In that, Moses is a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. As a mediator who stands between God and all of His holiness and the people who need to hear from God, but who don't belong in the presence of this holy God. Moses is a shadow that points forward, a foreshadowing of what the Lord Jesus Christ will be. He foreshadows this role of a mediator.

Paul in 1 Timothy 2, Verse 5 and 6, listen to this, Paul in 1 Timothy 2 verses 5 and 6. Paul says, for there is one God and one mediator between God and men. One. It's not Moses, he's just the picture. He's the type, he's foreshadowing, pointing forward to the one mediator.

Between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all. Jesus is this sympathetic high priest. God, but God who has left heaven to take on flesh and dwell among us. The man Christ Jesus, the one mediator, the man Christ Jesus, who is perfectly suited being very God of very God to deal with God on our behalf and very suited as very man of very man, as the creeds say, to deal with us on God's behalf. Perfectly suited to be our sympathetic high priest, tested in every way yet without sin.

Turn to Deuteronomy 18 and listen to what God says through Moses. This makes it perfectly clear Deuteronomy 18 is talking about the giving of the law at Sinai and Moses' role as a mediator and then points directly to Christ. Deuteronomy 18 verses 15 through 19. Follow along. Deuteronomy 18, starting in verse 15.

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear according to all you desired of the Lord your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly saying, let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die." He is pointing right back to the giving of the commandments. The Lord said to me, what they have spoken is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. It shall be that whoever will not hear my words, which he speaks in my name, I will require it of him." So you see Moses was just a stand-in for the prophet like Moses that would be sent to be the one mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus.

So the people at Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb, those are interchangeable, it's the same mountain, Have a sense of this great gulf between God and all His holiness and them and what they know they are like judged by those Ten Commandments. They call for someone to stand in the gap. It is Jesus. It is Jesus who stands in the gap to bridge that gulf. He is the only one who can bridge that gulf.

There is a great gulf. You are right to think that. You are right when faced with those commandments, in all their depth and breadth, reaching into your motives and thoughts, you are right to say, I could only be condemned by these commandments. There could only be one just verdict on my life judged by these commandments. There is a great gulf between me and this perfectly holy God.

There is one who bridges that gap. It is Jesus Christ. So let's apply this. So let's apply this. Do you have a sense of the Gulf?

Much like the first one, have to have the comforts of the Gospel. May God so familiar to you that the God of Mount Sinai is so foreign, you've lost any fear of Him. This is like that. Do you have a sense of the gulf? And then is someone standing in that gap for you?

If someone is not standing in that gap for you, just know this day, there is no way for you to cross that gap. There is no way for you to reconcile yourself to this perfectly holy God. There is only one mediator between God and man, but there is one. There is one. There is one who can bridge this great gulf between you and this perfectly holy God.

He's offered himself up to do it. Verse 20. Back to our text. Verse 20. Exodus 20, verse 20.

Exodus 20, verse 20. Moses said to the people, Do not fear, for God has come to test you, and that his fear may be before you so that you may not sin." The exhortation is really, don't fear death, fear God. So if you're taking notes on the handout, fear fills in the blank. Don't fear death. That's what they're fearing.

We're going to be consumed by this fire. God keeps talking to us from the fire. We're going to be consumed by this fire. Moses says, don't fear that. Fear God.

Fear sinning against this God. Moses essentially says, don't be afraid that you'll be consumed by God coming like this. Fear God and let that fear hold you back from sin. God didn't come down that way with lightning flashes and thunder, in fire, in smoke, with the blast of the trumpet to consume them. He didn't come to consume them.

God came to reveal what was in their hearts by giving them the commandments in this direct, personal, fearful way. That's what God was doing. He came that way to reveal what was in their hearts. Not that He didn't know it, but they didn't know it. He came to test them.

To reveal what was in their hearts by giving them the commandments in this direct, personal, fearful way. Do you love me? Then keep my commandments. Do you fear me? Then keep my commandments.

Demonstrate your love for me, your fear of me, by obeying these commandments. Listen to Jesus in Matthew 10 verse 28. Matthew 10, 28. Jesus says, do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body and health.

That's not the devil, that is God. Fear God. Let your life just be in His hands. His to dispose of, determine, whatever he will do with that, you fear God. So the commandments are a test to reveal the heart.

Do you love God? Then keep his commandments. Do you fear God? Then keep His commandments. Let's apply.

How is the test going? How's the test going? What are the commandments revealing to you? God knows. God had the test results before He gave the test.

What are the commandments revealing about your love for God and your love for your neighbor. What are the commandments revealing to you about your fear of God or lack thereof? Most of us in this room have a profession. The commandments tell the tale. The commandments tell the tale.

They either match our profession or they don't. Finally, verse 21. Verse 21. Finally, verse 21. Verse 21.

So the people stood afar off, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was. The text ends with the people standing far off, but Moses going into the thick cloud where God is. It's a representative who draws near, if you're filling in blanks. There are two of them, and draws near, fill them in. A representative, Moses, the type of Christ, the picture of Christ, who draws near.

To me, this is wonderful in one way and sad in another. It's wonderful as Moses being a type of Christ and pointing forward to one who can bridge this chasm between perfectly holy God and what we know we're like. It's sad in that at least here the people are left at a distance. They're left with a system of sacrifices that continues day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. The people always being convicted of sin by the sacrifices, and that message, the wages of sin is death.

But God will accept to substitute, but just having to do it over and over and over again. It just makes me appreciate so much the blessings of living in the New Testament age. One of the shortfalls, one of the advantages that they had, that New Testament saints don't have, is they had this very tangible example of what sin deserves. Example of what sin deserves. Meaning, I've never seen a lamb with its throat cut and its life blood flowing out.

To be brought face to face with the death required for sin. It does make us very comfortable with the gospel comforts. I hope you know I'm not trying to strip away the Gospel conference, but we need to have a sense of this. Turn to Hebrews 12. We'll close at Hebrews 12.

The author of Hebrews is talking about the same scene, the mountain of fire, the smoke, the terrors of the Lord. Hebrews 12, 18-25. Where you have not come to the mountain that may be touched, and that burned with fire, and to blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the words should not be spoken to them anymore, for they could not endure what was commanded, and if so much as a beast touches the mountain it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow." So terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I am exceedingly afraid and trembling, but you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect. To Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. See that you do not refuse him who speaks.

For if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, how much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven?" Just look back at verse 24. To Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. Abel's blood spoke. Cain spilled his blood, his innocent blood, into the earth. And his blood cried out, Justice!

Justice for the spilling of this blood. Jesus' blood speaks something better. Justice satisfied! Wages paid! There is one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ.

Let's apply. Has justice been satisfied for you? It will be. Justice will be satisfied for you. Your sins cry out for justice.

They speak. God has heard them all. Jesus' blood satisfies justice for all who come to him by faith and for no one else. It's so stark. God, I thank you for the blood of your son.

God. Perfectly satisfies the righteous justice of God against the sins, every sin of every one of your people. We do want to have a heightened sense of your holiness and the gulf between us and you. I thank you that you have not left us there. That's just the first great gospel truth.

There's a second great gospel truth. Jesus Christ has left heaven, bled and died for a people. And you are satisfied. All of the debt is paid for your people. Oh God, give eyes to see and ears to hear today.

Let today be the day of salvation. We thank you for it. It is such a sweet truth. We do. We hope that we know the terrors of the Lord.

We thank you for the mediator that comes to bridge the gap. I pray that you would continue to work among us by your spirit today. In Jesus' name, amen.