The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1901-05-22
SERMON BY
REV. ]. SHAPE.

in Exodus 20: 2.3:
II am Jehovah thy God, VIII
brought thee out OF the land o
Egypt, out Of the house OF bondage
Thou shalt have no other Gods be
fore me.
Let lis 60 back in thought thi
evening many centuries, say 3, 30
years, and stand at Sinais bast
with the nation whose God wa,
Jehovah. We stand IN a plain two
miles long and perhaps half mile
wide. 1900 feet above the Mediter
raean Sea. Two millions Of people
may find standing room in the
plain. Two thousand two hun
dred feet above this plain in which
we stand is a massive mountain
peak. 1t is Sinai. Take off the
shoes of thy feet, tor the place
whereon thou standest is holy
ground. Uncover thy head for
thou art in the presence OF Jehovah.
This is the roy al seat whence the
King OF Kings sent for his roy
commandments. Solemn and preg
nantly important are the proper
tons for this great and memorial BILE
proclamation. Moses meditation,
Jehovah's condescenslon, the peo-
PIES publication, the prohibition
aud threat against touching the
holy mount, the lightning, the
thunder, the thick cloud, Sinal's
smoke, a terrified nation-all this
is preparatory to the solemn enun-
citation of the law, Familiarity
known as The Ten Command
mcnts, aud to every Bible school
scholar as The Ten Words, or
1.-THE Decalogue. -
On this very mount Moses had
kept the flock of his father-in.law,
the priest Of indians, here be twice
tasted forty days and tights; here
Elijah found refuge from the wrath
Of Jezebel; here Paul when it had
pleased God to reveal his Son gin
him, spent three years in prepar-
ing Tor his ma icstic calling, ,and
here, perhaps, also Jesus went to be
tempted OF the devil forty days,
that "amid the memories of thun-
der and law" he might be tested
and equipped for the stupendous
task for which he came to earth.
The decalosue was written by the
finger OF God land the word used
describes an immediate act on two
stone slabs, which were broken in
anger by Moses, and renewed in
patience by God. Prof. kell, a
painstaking German scholar. says
"f the tablets were y inches long
by Is inches wide, the IT, Hebrew
words of the Decaloguecould easily
have been written on the four faces
Of the two tablets, which Moses
carried lr his hands
With revercnt hands let us lit
these pri celcss tablets, and stand
ing among the two millions of peo-
pie at the base of that ancient
mount, listen with awed solemnlty
to the PRONUNCIATION oil the Coyen-
There are two questions it would
be interesting to ask before we
come formally to our text. First,
"Wherc are those stone tablets
now We do not know. After
forty DAYS communion with Jeho-
yah in the mount, Moses descends
to the waiting people in the plain
with two tables Of stone upon which
Gods own hand inscribed the Ten
Words" AS he descsnds he sees
the people worshlpping and dane.
ing around the golden calf set up
during his absence. This so Gu.
RACES him that IN hot Impotence
he hurled the two tablets from him
and broke themin pieces. Jehovah
Furnishes the people tor their idola-
try-bids Moses hew two new
tablets, aud again Gods hand in
scribed the words Of the Deca-
logue. After the tabernacle ia
built, they are deposited in the ark
OF the covenant where they remain.
ed during all the wilderness wan.
behring's Of ancient Israel across
Jordan, around Jericho. at Shiloh,
in the hands Of the Philistines, in
the house OF Abin adab, in the
house Of Obededonl, in the house OF
DAVID until they are eushrined in
Solomon $ temple. Here they re-
manned for centuries until in 5oS
B. c., ACKNOWLEDGMENT sacked and
pillased the temple and carried as
stolen trophies to Babylonia the
precious temple relics. Did he
carry away the two tablets? We
do not know. Who can tell but
amid the ruins of Baby lonia, where
explorations never cease, the iden-
teal tablets upon which Deitys
hand inscribed the Ten Command
mcnls, may vet be found?
Aud another question which we
may ask ourselves is this? Are
the Ten Commandments binding on
Christians today! We may ask
this question LATER in the series
dor God willing we hope to preach
a sermon on each Of the Ten Com
mandmcnts during the ten weeks)
but we answer with sufficient EN-.
phasls for our purpose today: In
their letter, No. In their spirit,
4 thousand times, Yes. To take
ones stand with the acrimonious
of pronounced type and declare Il
am not under law but under grace"
is but weak excuse for reckless
individualism that does as it pleascs
because 1t may.
II 10 the ten weeks just before we
shall catch the spirit Of this COW
enant made SO long ago in Sinai's
mount we shall be satisfied and
profted. The Ten Comma d ments
considered as a whole presents, as
DR.. Parker shows, four things, "A
l. 49,