Why Do I Feel So Far From God?

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome back to True Word, Faith for Life. I'm glad you're here today. Because today we stand where the whole world has stood and listened. Today God speaks ten words. The ten words. We call them the Ten Commandments, and that's not wrong. But it's not quite what the Hebrew says. And you'd never know that. Unless you study the ancient Near Eastern language, culture, and context. The text calls them Azaretav Devarim. Azareta Davarim. The ten words. Devarim is from Davar, spelled Dalet Bet Rish, which means a word, a thing, a matter. And Sarna points out that these ten are the foundation, the constitutional words out of which everything else in the covenant grows. Not ten rules pulled off a shelf. Ten words spoken by God's own voice. The only part of the law the entire nation hears directly from him. There was no prophet in between. Moses was not in between. And before God says a single you shall, listen to how he opens. Verse 2 I am the Lord your God, which have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Stop there. Don't rush past it. Before one command, before one prohibition, God introduces himself. And he introduces himself by what he has already done. I am the one who brought you out. I am the one who already rescued you. I don't know if you'll notice, but the Ten Commandments don't begin with, do this and then I will love you. They begin with, I have already loved you. I have already carried you out of Egypt. And now here's how a rescued people live. Before we go any further, I want to pray. Stop everything you're doing if you can. If you're driving a car, don't close your eyes. You don't need to. That's a construct of other things. I do a whole thing on prayer, on true word, faith for life with Dr. Sean, SHAWN. If you go there and you search prayer, boom. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, for those who are hurting in the audience right now, for those who are facing massive struggles right now, I ask that you be present with them. Be a comfort to them. Through pain, I ask that you give them supernatural comfort, despite the pain. Through grief, I ask that you give them supernatural comfort despite the grief. And if they're facing fear, I ask that you give them the comfort only you can. Thank you for your word on that mountain. I pray this in Jesus your son's name. Yeshua. Amen. So that's the same order. It's the same order. We saw it yesterday. Today's, I think, day 77. They're all running together for me. It's the same order we we saw at the foot of the mountain, and it's the order of the entire Bible. Grace first. Always grace first. The law isn't the ladder you climb to reach God. The law is the shape of life. For people God has already reached down and pulled out of the house of bondage. If you forget anything else, look, you forget everything else. Forget everything else today. Don't forget the order. Rescue. Then response. He carried you out. And now he tells you how to live free. How beautiful that is. He doesn't it? Tell you how to live bound. He tells you how to live free. He doesn't tell you how to live maudlin. Frown always on your face. He tells you how to live with joy. He tells you how to live free. This lesson is for many very difficult. So let's walk through the ten words, and I want you to see how they're built because structure preaches. Structure teaches. A lot of times we don't want to learn these things because they're complicated. But I've tried very, very hard to make them as uncomplicated as I possibly can. Not because I think you're unintelligent. I have a very intelligent audience. It is because you must know this in order to understand it. Okay. So open your minds. Allow yourself to feel all of it. It'll all find its way in. I promise. It'll find its way in. This is not impossible. So the first word the first word in Can you tell I go to my speech therapist today? Man. Good thing, or I'd be babbling by tomorrow. The first word, verse three. You shall have no other gods before me. The Hebrew is stark. No other gods before my face. Everything begins here. Because everything else falls apart without it. If God is in first, nothing else lands in its right place. The second word. Verses four through six. No carved image. No likeness. No bowing down to made things. And notice, notice the reason God gives in people who don't want to believe in God. It's not that they don't, they don't want to. He is El Ghana, a jealous God. Now that word makes people flinch, so let me let me help you with it. Gana is spelled Kuf Nun Alef. We hear jealous and we think of the petty insecure thing, right? The whole ancient Near Eastern. The whole ancient Near Eastern picture. It points somewhere else. It's not the you were you were where and you were with who? Where were you? Who's that? Who's that guy? Who's that? Who's that girl? It's not that. The language, culture, and context point somewhere completely different. And it totally changes the meaning that we perceive. Because it's the correct one. And we've been thinking all these years of something different. Not what it was. This. This is the jealousy of the covenant, the jealousy of a faithful spouse, the fierce refusal to share what it what is meant to be exclusive. God isn't insecure, not remotely. God is committed. He won't share your heart with a block of wood. Because he loves you too much to watch you bow to something that cannot save you. The third word. I hope this is hitting. I hope this is resonating with you, and I hope it's helping. The third word. Some of you may know. I have probably 4,000 different messages or things that I've written. Um they were uncompiled, but I did a ton of research many years ago on and I did it for this book, True Word, Faith for Life. You can find it in TruewordfaithforLife.com under the store. And I did it uh for a project in uh Divinity School called the Bible Mastery Product uh Project. And everyone that goes to masters has to complete that. You don't just have to complete it, you have to pass it. And I was so moved by what I found. I'd ridden, I've read the Bible many times. Many times. And then when I was reading it through for this project, it rocked me. Little did I know where my life would turn. I said all of that to say this. I had I have thousands of writings. And this is in part how I'm able to do this. I use a lot of tools. Um there's a lot I don't remember moments later. I can't, as you some of you know who know me personally, I can't I have a brain injury and a spinal injury, and I can't hold a thought for very long. And um Susan and uh Susan and Linda can probably say, well, hey, pre-pre-injury, we we sat under your teaching at the KLA, and you chased, you chased a lot, you went through a lot of back fences and through a lot of gates, but I always brought it back around. That's a difference I could remember back then. I can't now. So I have all these writings and I have all these tools, and I said that so you can get the picture here. I had this all written, and I had kind of mellowed it out a little bit, cut off the sharp edges, the difficult things. I said, man, they're not gonna want to hear that. Plus, it's a little heady, it's a little academic. And uh, but then I thought, you know what? Yesterday, I thought this stupid. I make things harder on myself. Yesterday I thought, you know what? I have an intelligent audience. I have an intelligent audience. Yeah, so I rewrote it. So, the third word. Now you'll understand why I just said that. Verse 7. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. This is this goes so it's it's so much bigger than swearing or cursing. The Hebrew Lashav means for emptiness, for nothing, falsely, to carry his name emptily. Sarna notes, it covers false oaths, using God's name to deceive, wearing his name while your life empties it of all meaning. It's a word to everyone who claims to belong to God. Don't carry the name and hollow it out. Now, the fourth word, verses eight through eleven. Like it or not, this one seems to be the one commandment, not suggestion, commandment that people feel is optional, and it has nothing to do with attending church. By the way, how is the sound and can you hear me? I'm only speaking barely above a whisper. I don't have much of a voice today. That's why I have this microphone in this special cage and all that. There's a there's a purpose to it. And it's just go, oh, that looks cool. Let me buy it. This mic can pick up the smallest sound without me having to turn the game way up. So the fourth word, verses eight through eleven, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Thank you, Robbie. By the way, good morning to you all. I see the live chat is rolling. There's a lot of joy, a lot of care. There's a lot of love despite struggle. God bless you all. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Thank you, Joe. Zakur. Zakur. Remember. Remember. And here's the beautiful thing. The Sabbath is grounded in creation itself. Six days God made, and the seventh he rested. So the rhythm of rest is woven into the fabric of the world. For a people just out of Egypt, out of a place where slaves never stopped, where there was no rest ever. God says, You will rest now. You aren't a slave anymore. And rest is the proof of it. Now, don't miss this. Watch the hinge. The first four words are about God. How we love him. We honor him. We refuse to replace him. We rest in him. And then the commandments turn. And the next six are about people. You and me. The very first one, the very first one on the human side is the bridge between the two tables. The fifth word. Verse 12. Hello, Miss Sheryl. We are counting down the days with you. Seven to go, I believe. Or no. No, twenty-fourth or twenty-eighth. I have it in my calendar. And Miss Sharon, same for you. We continue to pray, and we will pray all the way through. The fifth word, verse 12. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land. In Hebrew, it's kabed. Honor from a root that means weight, heaviness. To honor is to give weight to, to treat as heavy, as substantial, as worthy. It's the hinge between loving God and loving people. Because the family is where a child first learns that other people carry weight, that other people matter. And then the rapid fire of the second table. Verse 13. A lot of dispute over this one. You shall not murder. And I want to be careful here because the Hebrew matters. The word is Ratsuch, which is the taking of innocent life. Murder specifically, not every kind of killing. The commandment guards the image of God stamped on every human being. By the way, welcome. Palamaragun 8707. Thank you for joining us. Listening on True Word, Faith for Life with Dr. Sean. S A J W N. Thank you for joining. If I could encourage, by the way, we have something coming up. Um, there'll be a time period between August 15th and I think maybe August 22nd, where I will only be broadcasting to YouTube. After that time frame, I will be um streaming to the ones I can stream to, but half the time, most of them don't work. It's very, it's a very tricky thing to make the link happen. And it can be any number of things I've learned. So that said, to say this, if you're not a subscriber to True Word, Faith for Life with Dr. Sean on YouTube, it's the primary channel. Uh, just under 4,000 subscribers. I encourage you. It doesn't cost you anything. We don't capture any of your personal information. Um, it makes such a massive difference. You have no idea. Truly, it's crazy. The image of God. Lest you think you're not important, you are important to God. Every human being. Verse 14 You shall not commit adultery. The covenant of marriage guarded. Because faithfulness between two people mirrors the faithfulness. Of God to his own. Verse 15, you shall not steal. What belongs to your neighbor is protected because your neighbor carries weight. Your neighbor matters. Verse 16, you shall not bear false witness. Truth between people, because a community built on lies collapses. And because our God is a God of truth. And the tenth word, verse 17, you shall not covet. And notice how it's different from all the others. Every other command can be seen. You can watch a hand steal. You can hear a mouth lie. A body, break faith, but coveting happens when it happens where no one can see. Good morning, good morning. Coveting happens where no one can see. It reaches past behavior all the way into the heart. And in doing so, it tells you the truth about all ten. These were never only about your hands. They were always about your heart. And that is exactly where the chapter goes next. And it's the part most people usually skip. Verse 18. And all the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off. They stood far off. Welcome, I be hunger pain. Thank you for listening. Listening through YouTube. And if I if I miss any of any of the ones, it's the thing moves so fast, I don't I can't keep up with it. Amen. Praise the Lord. Balamarugan 8707. Praise the Lord. Amen. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Wherever you're listening, and whatever time it is where you're listening. They stood far off. In verse 19, they say to Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear, but let not God speak with us lest we die. Here's the ache of it. God said back in chapter 19 that he carried them out on eagle's wings to bring them to himself. And now, given the chance to hear his voice, the people back away and they beg for a mediator. Don't let God speak to us directly. Put someone in between us. We can't bear the nearness. Do you understand why? It's the tenth word. It's the heart standing in the presence of a holy God, the holy God. Having just heard a law that reaches all the way into places no one can see. They know. They know they can't keep it. They know the distance between his holiness and their hearts. It's a chasm and it terrifies them, and they step back. Good morning, Miss Colleen. And here's where I have to tell you the truth about the ten words, the truth that turns them from a burden into the best news you'll ever hear and especially today. The law is a mirror. It's perfect and it's holy. And it shows us exactly who we are. It shows you who you are. It shows you the gap. And it was never able by itself to close that gap. It could show you the disease, but it couldn't heal it. The people stood far off and asked for a mediator. And God, in his mercy, gave them Moses that day. But Moses, Moshe, he was only a shadow of the mediator who was coming. Because the tenth word exposes a heart problem, and a heart problem needs more than a rule. It needs a new heart. It needs someone who could keep every one of those ten words perfectly in our place. And then take the penalty for our breaking any of them in our place. And God and Yeshua said, Then I will come near, and I will be the one who dies, so that you don't have to stand far off ever again. So the ten words do their work in you and me today in one of two ways. Either you hear them and you think, I'm doing fine. I'm doing fine. In which case you haven't really heard the tenth one yet. The one about the heart. Or you hear them honestly all the way down and you feel what Israel felt at the mountain, the distance, the ache, the knowing that you can't close that gap yourself. I can't do it. I talked about this yesterday. If you didn't hear yesterday's episode, please go back and listen to day 76. I think 70. No, 75. I don't know what number. The one before this. We can't. And he knows that. Look, you know you can't do it. You can't close that gap, that chasm. On your own. And if that's you, that's exactly where God wants you. Because that's the person Yeshua came for. Not the one who kept the law. The one who knows that they couldn't. If you're standing far off today, you don't need to stand there. And you don't need to stay there. The mediator you need has already come. And he isn't asking you to climb the mountain. He came down. He came down the mountain. Let's pray together and let's pray where the tenth word found us. Are you ready? Father, you spoke ten words, and I can't stand under them. I've kept some of them with my hands and broken all of them with my heart. And today I'm not going to argue with the mirror. You showed me the gap. I'm not going to pretend that it isn't there, but you didn't speak those words to drive me away, and I thank you for it. You spoke them so I'd stop trusting myself and start trusting you. So thank you for the order. Rescue first. You carried me out before you ever told me how to walk. Lord, for everyone listening, who's standing far off right now, afraid of the nearness, I ask that you come close. Don't let anyone hear this and settle for a mediator made of stone or wood. When the true mediator is already standing at the door, I pray this in your matchless son's name. Amen. Look, maybe you're the one who heard the tenth word and you knew it was about you. Don't wait. The distance ends today. Right where you're sitting. Pray this with me and pray it and mean it. Stop fiddling around with this. Stop going off to the fence and trying to be on both sides. Be all in. We'll help you through it. And so will he. Pray this with me. Yeshua, I need you. I need you. I believe you died for me and rose from the grave. I surrender my life to you today. I ask that you forgive me, fill me, and lead me. My life is yours. In your precious name. Amen. If you prayed that, the distance is gone. Not because you suddenly could keep the ten words, but because he did and he gave you his record in exchange for yours. What's the first step? Tell somebody today that you placed your faith in God. Doesn't matter how they respond. Listen, people are going to respond. You may have family. You may even have believers in your family that you may choose to tell. And they may be like, really? You did that? Really? Because I know you. I know how you live. Don't worry about that. It's okay. It's okay. Tell someone today. Doesn't matter how they respond. The God who spoke the ten words is holy. And in Yeshua, he has brought you near. And this is a great day. If you have any questions, reach out to me. If you have my personal contact information, reach out through that. If not, reach out through Truewordfaithforlife.com. The contact button at the top, you can type it out. There's a little thing on the side that uh you tap on it, and you can leave me a voice message. It's two minutes, make them count. It's your two minutes. I pay for it so you don't have to. The only thing on that entire website with all of those resources that I've built into it is the book. That's what helps us keep doing what we're doing. That and a lot of generosity from several of you all, which blows my mind. I cannot thank you enough. So I want you to hear this blessing. I want you to hear it. I'm gonna pray it first. In Lashon Hakkadesh, the language of God, Hebrew. I want you to receive it in his holy and heavenly name. The one who loves you and will never stop. He loves you better than more perfectly than anyone ever has or anyone ever will. You ready? May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Until tomorrow at 7 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Live. If the Lord tarries, I'll be here. I hope you will too. Thank you for joining me today.