90 Day Bible Reading Plan Devotional Day 9

Exodus 20

If there was any doubt to anyone that salvation is wholly of God, let them here reflect upon the admonition of the Lord who said, "And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.”

Within the scope of the redeeming work of Christ, there is absolutely no room whatsoever for the works of men's hands. And we see this in type from the very outset of mans fall. In every account, the works of men's hands has been utterly rejected by God.

Adam and Eve made fig leaves to "cover" themselves.

Cain brought to God the "works" of his own hands.

Both were rejected by God.

As the hymn write notes: "Nothing in my hands I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling;"

C.H. Mackintosh in his Notes on Exodus says, "God will meet the sinner at an altar without a hewn stone or a step--a place of worship which requires no human workmanship to erect, or human effort to approach. The former could only pollute, and the latter could only display human 'nakedness.' Admirable type of the meeting place where God meets the sinner now, even the Person and work of His Son, Jesus Christ, where all the claims of law, of justice, and of conscience are perfectly answered! Man has, in every age and in every clime, been prone, in one way or another, to 'lift up his tool' in the erection of his altar, or to approach thereto by steps of his own making; but the issue of all such attempts has been 'pollution' and 'nakedness.'"

"There are only two religions in the world:

The TRUE and the FALSE.

All phases of FALSE religion are alike. They all say:

'Something in my hand I bring,'

The only difference between them being as to what the 'something' is.

The TRUE religion says:

'Nothing in my hand I bring.'"

-H.A. Ironside, The Only True Religion