THE LORD'S PREAMBLE

We in this American Republic are no doubt most familiar with the preamble to our Constitution which was ingrained in our memories at a very early age. That preamble, like the very ancient ones carved in mud copies in Palestine a hundred years before the coming of the Israelites, sets forth a binding principle that the source of our sovereign powers as a nation rests ultimately in the people and not in the wisdom and power of any self righteous leader.

Before us is a similar document which leads up to a constitution of greater impact. The preamble to the Lord's sovereign covenant of law with His people in all times and places. The preamble or as our confession has it, the preface to the ten commandments establishes the relationship between God and His people for all time. Patrick Fairbairn, one of the great nineteenth century Scottish theologians describes the magnificence of this passage in these words:

"it is that same glorious and unchangeable Being coming near to Israel in the character of their redeeming God, and by the very title, with the incontestable fact on which it rested, pledging His faithful love and sufficiency for all future time, to protect them from evil or bring them salvation."

"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."

The Jewish Church appreciated this revelation so highly that they regarded it as the first commandment. This awe and respect thus distorted the numerical sequence of the divine stipulations. How awesome indeed is this revelation that the minds of the Old Covenant elders would unknowingly distort the whole decalogue. Do we read from these words with the same awe struck sensibilities?

"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."

From the Egyptian panalopy of gods and goddesses, the Hebrew people were miraculously freed. And in the plagues of Egypt, the whole order of Egyptian gods were declared powerless before the awesome Name of Israel's one and only true God. How is it, that the One Creator God should intervene in the lives of ordinary people and redeem them from their life of unwilling servitude? Isn't it because He is a loving God, who will not see His own people suffer without hope? Isn't it because He is a sovereign God who will not see His purpose thwarted by any petty tyrants, no matter the size or color of their houses? Isn't it because, this Mighty all powerful God will not allow His will to be denied by any living human?

There is a second purpose to the preamble stated here. And that purpose is the freedom within the law that the God of heaven would have His people enjoy. One commentator on the law asked his students what a society would be like if all ten of the commandments were followed. After some thought, one of the students said that life would be like heaven! Isn't that an absolutely amazing idea? If everyone followed the principles of the moral law, paradise could be restored! I wonder why the humanists haven't stumbled upon this concept in their ongoing ruminations about perfecting mankind and life on this earth?

Unfortunately, the worldly new agers have no use for any laws derived from the just and righteous decrees of our Father and our God! They seek slavery to sin instead of liberation through the Law of God. When the Vice merchants of Atlantic City promised more jobs if they could only open their casinos, most of the people who voted for such a prosperity didn't realize that much of the increase would be in police protection, parole officers and related employment. All of the popular sins leave their broken, dying victims much worse off than they had any right to expect.

Compare the society that will willingly obey the precepts of God and thus know that there is no slavery in the redemption of our God and King. He it is who would deliver us from the godless destruction of human life practiced in every social imitation of the ancient Egyptian humanism. Fairbain again comments on the blessings of accepting the sovereignty of our God and King:

"in coming forth in such a character to declare the law that was henceforth to bind their consciences and regulate their procedure alike toward Himself and toward one another, there was embodied the all-important and salutary principle, that redemption carries in its bosom a conformity to the Divine order, and that only when the soul responds to the righteousness of Heaven is the work of deliverance complete."