Ex 20:1+2, Then 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 slavery. 
We are considering the fact that God spoke directly to His people in the giving of His commandments. He blessed them with a very visible and audible presentation of Himself in the smoke and fire as He spoke forth those truths by which they would be blessed and protected. He opened Himself unto them in this desired relationship for them to be His people and He would be their God and their King. Despite this sanctified and consecrated expression of His heart, the people chose rather to have Moses be their intermediary because not only did they fear the consequences of their sinful nature before the Most Holy and Just Lord God Almighty, but they wanted an escape clause from His Truth. They wanted to be able to state categorically that those elements of God’s commands and law that they did not like were just Moses’s interpretation and not really the expressed heart of God. 
To hear directly from the mouth of God left no leeway and no wiggle room for their conscious disobedience and feigned ignorance of what was true and right and just. While this was their attitude and their refusal to accede to all that God ordained, they were continually reminded, over and over again by the many prophets as to what was true. 
As well, as we read in Acts 7:51-53, Stephen declared this same truth unto those men who would shortly shatter his body and life with flinty stones hurled in anger and hatred. Acts 7:51-53, "You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. "Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become; you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it." 
	The Writer to the Hebrews, in Heb 11:35b-38, also testifies to how the prophets who declared the Word of God unto the seared consciences of the people, were treated. Heb 11:35b-38 …and others were tortured, not accepting their release, in order that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. This was the earthly treatment of those who continually reminded the nation that God had directly given them the Law and the righteous commandments by which to live on this earth in order to be the true witness of God’s holiness before all the other nations.  
	What was it that the prophets shared from the Lord? Please turn to Ps 147:12-20, as we want to read a few of the Lord’s statements to His people that they could not ignore. Ps 147:12-20, Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion! For He has strengthened the bars of your gates; He has blessed your sons within you. He makes peace in your borders; He satisfies you with the finest of the wheat. He sends forth His command to the earth; His word runs very swiftly. He gives snow like wool; He scatters the frost like ashes. He casts forth His ice as fragments; Who can stand before His cold? He sends forth His word and melts them; He causes His wind to blow and the waters to flow. He declares His words to Jacob, His statutes and His ordinances to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any nation; And as for His ordinances, they have not known them. Praise the Lord! 
…He declares His words to Jacob, His statutes and His ordinances to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any nation; And as for His ordinances, they have not known them. The people could not ignore the fact that, despite their faithlessness, God had chosen them and set them apart from all the other nations by speaking directly to them. 
	Then hear the Prophet Isaiah, who had so very much to declare from the Lord to the people. Please open to the very first chapter of Isaiah, verses 16-20. Isa 1:16-20, "Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless; Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow. "Come now, and let us reason together," Says the Lord, "Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool. "If you consent and obey, You will eat the best of the land; "But if you refuse and rebel, You will be devoured by the sword." Truly, the mouth of the Lord has spoken. 
	Again pay attention to the heart of the Lord through this prophet in Isa 44:2-8. Isa 44:2-8, Thus says the Lord who made you And formed you from the womb, who will help you,' Do not fear, O Jacob My servant; And you Jeshurun whom I have chosen. 'For I will pour out water on the thirsty land And streams on the dry ground; I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring, And My blessing on your descendants; And they will spring up among the grass Like poplars by streams of water.' "This one will say, 'I am the Lord's'; And that one will call on the name of Jacob; And another will write on his hand, 'Belonging to the Lord,' And will name Israel's name with honor. "Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel And his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: 'I am the first and I am the last, And there is no God besides Me. 'And who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it; Yes, let him recount it to Me in order, From the time that I established the ancient nation. And let them declare to them the things that are coming And the events that are going to take place. 'Do not tremble and do not be afraid; Have I not long since announced it to you and declared it? And you are My witnesses. Is there any God besides Me, Or is there any other Rock? I know of none.'" 
	The prophets consistently encouraged the people to know that they belonged to the Lord. They reminded the nation over and over again that the Lord had committed Himself to them and, even though they did not want Him to speak directly to them, He was giving them His Word through the mouths of those whom He raised up to deliver it. They could not stop God from revealing the way that they should go for their own benefit and for His Name’s sake. 
	This, then, brings us into the New Testament, as God made known His Word through the giving of His Only Begotten Son. John 1:1-4. John 1:1-4, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 
	God chose to manifest Himself in an even more gracious and wonderful manner through the very source of all life, the One by Whom all has been created. God spoke, and it came into being. Gen 1:3, Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. This is so fully detailed in all the gloriousness of God in John 1:9-18.     
John 1:9-18, There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of Him, and cried out, saying, "This was He of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.'" For of His fulness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. 
	It is by Jesus Christ that the very Word is explained. God is revealed in fullness and reality and grace and mercy in all the vast truth as demonstrated in the life of His Only Begotten Son. Again, as described by Stephen in Acts 7:37+38, Jesus is the One Who was  raised up to show forth to the nation the fullness of God, like Moses, and Who would, like all the other prophets, be persecuted and killed because He so revealed the manifest truth of the Word of God. Acts 7:37+38, "This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel, 'God shall raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren.' "This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who was speaking to him on Mount Sinai, and who was with our fathers; and he received living oracles to pass on to you. 
	And Stephen continues, in verses 55+56, But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." 
	We again refer to the Writer to the Hebrews, in Heb 1:1+2, as he details the specific reality of God talking with His people, including us, through His Son. Heb 1:1+2, God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. 
It is in Christ that we are enabled to hear the Word spoken and confirmed by God into our very hearts of hearts. When we turn to Jesus and call upon His wonderful name as Our Lord and as Our Savior, we hear the very soft and still voice of God, Himself, reaffirming, Spirit-to-spirit, that eternal life has come into our mortal bodies. There is that transformation from a natural being into the spiritual life of Jesus Christ. 
	Our eyes and our ears are opened to the voice of God Himself, affirming that we now fully and eternally belong to Him. We are not filled with fear and dread and trembling, but rather we recognize that we are covered in the righteousness and the holiness and the justification of Jesus Christ. He gave Himself in death that we might have life through the power of His resurrection. As the people of God, we now come to Him freely and unreservedly to hear and rejoice in everything that He has to say to us.
Please turn to Heb 12:18-29 and follow along with me in this wonderful spiritual relating of the access we now have in Jesus Christ. Heb 12:18-29, For you have not come to a mountain that may be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word should be spoken to them. For they could not bear the command, "If even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned." And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, "I am full of fear and trembling." But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel. See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less shall we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven. And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven." And this expression, "Yet once more," denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire. Amen.
	Ours is the very blessing of the relationship that God has always planned and purposed and that could only be brought into place through the death and resurrection of His Only Begotten Son. The nation of old refused to hear when He spoke because they knew their sin was so great as to make them completely unworthy to commune with Their Creator. 
	We also know that we, of ourselves, are so unworthy of this relationship. However, by the perfect blood of Christ shed for you and for me, Jesus has made us worthy to be called the very Children of the Living God. It was all at the behest and the majesty and the grace and the mercy of God, Himself, that caused us to be brought into this rapport wherein we can commune with Him and hear Him as He speaks His Word into Our lives through His Own Holy Spirit. We no longer tremble at the thought of the Holy and Almighty Lord God speaking directly to us, but rather relish and adore the every time that we are in such intimate communion with Him. As individuals, as families, and as a fellowship, let us always seek to hear and to obey His every directive as His own beloved Children! So be it!
	Then 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 slavery. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Neh 8:10. Then he said to them, "Go, eat of the fat, drink of the sweet, and send portions to him who has nothing prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." Amen.