Why the Ten Commandments Were Given

0:00How firm a foundation is saying, So the Lord is laid for your faith in His excellent Word. If you've ever tried to measure up, to be good enough, faithful enough, then you know how exhausting it can be. And deep down most of us know that we all ultimately fall short. But what do we want to do about that? Welcome to the Sunday Sermon on through the Bible. That's exactly what our teacher Dr. J. Vernon McGee explores in his message why the Ten Commandments were given from the Book of Exodus. And as we'll learn, the Ten Commandments aren't just a list of rules for us to try and keep. Dr. McGee helps us to understand why God gave the law in the first place. Not to save us, but to show us our need for a Savior. You know, the law reveals the holiness of God, the reality of our own hearts,

1:00and then the distance between the two. But praise God, the story doesn't end there, because that's what the law could never do. Because what the law could never do, grace has done through Jesus Christ. I'm Steve Schwarz your host, and I'm so glad that you're here for this amazing, never-before-air study. So welcome to the Bible Bus. And as you find your seat and get comfortable, Greg and I would love to introduce you to a few fellow passengers who are riding along with us. Yes, and we are particularly excited today because the letters we're going to share are from Sunday sermon listeners, right? And I think most of our listeners know what we call our flagship program is Monday through Friday, 30 minutes, through the Bible, Dr. McGee teaching. And some of our daily listeners don't know about the Sunday sermon. And once in a while, I think maybe the Sunday sermon listeners may not know about the daily. But these are people that are referencing, they're listening to this program. Yeah, I'm excited. I think it's also unique because Dr. McGee's, has got a very different speech.

2:01Oh, yeah. And in the Sunday sermon, he's much more of a fiery preacher on Sunday than he is in his through the Bible program Monday through Friday. So I know we're speaking to the Sunday sermon audience. That's right. But maybe if you have not been exposed to Monday through Friday, listen to Dr. McGee on a Monday through Friday program, and you're going to hear a much more intimate conversation, I believe. I'm talking to you, where's he or he's preaching. He was preaching in a church. So shall we start off with a Canadian listener? Yes, let's hear from Randy in Manitoba, Canada. Greg, why don't you start it? He writes, good morning, Greg and Steve. Oh, good morning, Randy. Sorry that I procrastinated for so long and writing to your team and telling you how encouraging and vital the teachings of Dr. McGee are to me. I'm a truck driver in Canada and the US. And I started listening about five years ago after the Bible bus was about three weeks into Genesis. After some binge listening, I caught up, and now I feel like something is missing. If I don't start my day with Dr. McGee's voice,

3:03and of course, you guys intro. I love the app and the resources in it, especially when I have questions about the Bible or interesting topics that come up at church. I love being able to find Dr. McGee's biblical and personal perspective on things. His teaching feels safe and unadulterated in these times when it's starting to be hard to know what's true anymore. My wife listens at home, and at bedtime, we usually put on a Sunday sermon or a questions and answers program. I'm amazed by the wisdom of recording all those questions listeners asked over the years and how relevant Dr. McGee's answers still are for our day. We financially support the program, love the testimonies from all over the world, and look forward to meeting this great through the Bible family in heaven one day soon. Keep up this wonderful program and may God, Richly Bless all of you. Randy, thank you so much for that encouraging letter and for listening. I mean, Sunday sermon, Q&A, supporting the ministry financially, we really do appreciate it.

4:03We call that a power listener. Exactly. And even some binge listening in there along the way. Here's a letter from Bill in Gainesville, Florida. Hello, Steven Gregg. I heard what you said this morning about binge listeners. How we just talked about that. And that term reminded me of myself recently. It's interesting how life comes together and sometimes breaks apart. I had friends who mentioned Dr. McGee decades ago and even though I was born again and felt the Holy Spirit in me, I didn't quite get it when they would mimic his closing prayer for listeners and may God, Richly Bless You, My Beloved. That was back in 1986. It wasn't until 10 years later when I was in Bible College that I began hearing Dr. McGee's name mentioned several times by my instructors right alongside Billy Graham's. Sometime after that, I started paying close attention and by 1998 I was hooked. That's when I listened every day, sometimes twice a day, for the entire five years without fail. Through the Bible became the priority of every day. Everything else could wait.

5:05My life suddenly had structure and may I say meaning. It was during that season that I truly understood what the meat of the word meant and boy was I hungry. Dr. McGee had an uncanny ability to move seamlessly from what seemed like casual down home working class conversation to the diction and insight of a highly educated scholar. I mentioned binge listening because two years ago, I got way laid and completely lost touch with through the Bible because of where I was living. There was no radio reception and the library in that little Poe Dunk Town couldn't really accommodate someone like me coming in every day to use their computers to catch the program. I was absolutely blessed not long ago to hear Dr. McGee's Sunday sermon on Psalm 18. Stephen Gregg, I have never heard anything in my life and I'm 79 that comes even remotely close to that sermon. Wow, that's quite the doors. That's a statement, yeah. What a remarkably gifted man, Dr. McGee, is I love listening to through the Bible and whatever hardships I've faced in life,

6:05we've all got them. I thank God above all else that he led me to you. Wow. That is a great letter. Thank you so much for writing and I don't think we've ever read a letter that had the word Poe Dunk in it. That's interesting. But what a tremendous insight into the privilege that we get to be alongside of our listeners with the level of depth that was in that lab. Also, I appreciate just his perspective on life and whatever hardships I've faced, we've all got them. And this world is full of toil and trouble. And that's just life. Yeah, it is. And as I often say, I love that our listeners aren't presenting some whitewashed version of their life, they're honest with us because that's the word of God. It deals with us as we really are. Here's another letter we receive that says this, I've been an often on listener for over 40 years. Recently I started re-listening while on my lunch walk. One day I heard an awesome Sunday sermon on Edak

7:07called The Man Who Never Died and oh, how that blessed my spirit. Praise God. I gave a financial gift today. Also my first time and I owe this ministry much more. 40 years, wow, that's a long time. Thank you for writing to us and thank you for that support. Let me pray as we begin. Heavenly Father, we are so thankful for the opportunity that we have together as a body of Christ to study your word. I pray that you would open our eyes to see the truth of your word and that you would use it to give us greater insight and wisdom and that you would be glorified in all that we do in Jesus' name, Amen. Here's the Sunday sermon on through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee. Our subject is why the 10 Commandments were given and our message is a introductory message to the 10 Commandments. On Blackwell's Island in New York, where prisoners are confined, there is a graveyard bar criminal.

8:09If you should walk through that cemetery, you would see the rather unusual epitaph on a tombstone that reads like this, here lie the fragments of John Smith, who contradicted his maker, played football with the 10 Commandments and departed this lie at the age of 35. His mother and wife we parted. Nobody else did. May he rest in peace. Nobody can play football with the 10 Commandments and escape the judgment of God. Oftentimes the charge is made against those who preach the grace of God that they do not have a proper appreciation for the law and especially the 10 Commandments

9:12that they actually despise and reject it and teach that because we're not saved by it, that we can violate it at will and break it with impunity. On the tongue, Terry, every creature of the grace of God who has a true perspective of the nature of salvation by faith realizes likewise the law, the character and the majesty of the law. And they maintain a proper respect and reverence spot it and they can stay with the psalmist. Oh, how love, I, thy law, it's my meditation all the day. How it might be well as we begin to inquire as to what is the law or the 10 Commandments

10:12to be specific. You can find misdefinition given and it's one of the oldest but the law is a transcript of the mind of God. May I say that that is a very defective definition. The law is the expression of the mind of God relative to what man ought to be but nothing else. It's his will for man and the law does express part of the nature of God and part of the character of God. But nowhere in the law can you find mercy and grace and love and help my beloved. Not in law, it is the norm for human conduct. This is the thing that God says very specifically over in Michaelist 6 chapter 8 verse,

11:15he has showed the old man what is good and what does the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk normally with thy God. May I say that that is law that's undiluted and law as God must give and the law my beloved is down through human affairs today like a two-edged and it says what is right and wrong. I remember instead of course in sociology and the state university when I was in college that the professor insisted that there was no norm for right and wrong. That there was no way of telling it except by custom. May I say to you that God has given his law

12:15to let man know what's right and wrong and stealing is wrong because God says it's wrong. Lying is wrong because God says it's wrong and adulterous wrong because God says it wrong. My beloved and no man can change that. Now there's another aspect of law that we need to mention and that is the law never enforces itself. That was one of the reasons for the failure of the 18th Amendment. A great many good people thought after the 18th Amendment was passed that meant we had prohibition but it had to be enforced my beloved and therefore a law giver must have power and God as the law giver has power. You see him wrapping up even in the laws of nature and material universe. The panel is that go with breaking laws.

13:17We call them laws of science or laws of nature today and we see them in operation. They do not deviate. They're inutable. They're unchangeable. My beloved one of the characteristics of any law is it knows no person. It plays no favorite. It has no pets. If it does, it's not law and a judge that will do otherwise is a crooked judge. The picture that Rome had and the world has adopted as the picture of justice. I've gone by the city hall in Memphis, Tennessee many times and have seen these two statues and what an ironical place to put them at the entrance to the city hall in Memphis, Tennessee. As they are, the assets are one side and the other there's identical statues of justice. They said that justice is a woman.

14:17She's seated. She's blindfolded. She has balances in one hand and at her side and holding it is a stone at justice. As to be that way, woman because the judgment must be tender judgment. It must not be a judgment that comes from some archbaces or hatred or wrath or bitterness. And she's blindfolded because she's not to recognize any person that comes before it, all or alive. She has balances because whatever she weighs must be weighed equally and gently. Then my friend at her side is a sewage because when the law is violated, there must be punishment.

15:19It's not law if it's otherwise my beloved and in the moral realm you find a day that same thing that is penalty for the breaking of the law. God has made it that way. The writer to the Hebrew says he that despises Moses' law died without mercy. It had to be that way. Art wouldn't be law. And then again in Leviticus God says the men that do at least things shall live by them. My brother, that means you can't break them if you do. The penalty must be enforced. Therefore he had to say in Deuteronomy, cursed it is everyone that's contentious not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them. And one day a man went out to gather sticks on the Sabbath day and he broke God's will and that man was stone to death.

16:22Because that's what the law says. It's law. It just plays no faith. And it does not play down to man one with at all. May I say that there's another prevalent viewpoint concerning law that needs to be directed today and that's confounding law and grace. Using them together one system I have here, this little booklet. It's put out by what the new church teaches. And in it for salvation it mentions three things you do and one of them is a life according to the ten men. I say to you this morning that a man that will make a statement like that is either ignorant of the law or as an ego maniac. Because no man can ever stand up and say before God, I keep the law.

17:23God says the law is perfect. That's what you have to say when you stand before God by law that you are perfect, my beloved. May I say to you that to say that you believe in Christ and then keep the law as a way of salvation. And here's what the little book says. It's still thought that the keeping of the ten commandments is not essential to salvation. That we're saved but fight alone. This is the most destructive and devastating heresy that has ever invaded the church. May I say in face of what Paul has written in Romans and Galatians. You see there's confusion when you attempt to bring them together and fuse them together. Law is robbed of its majesty and its meaning. It's designed and it's dignity. It's purpose. And my beloved, there's no law in law.

18:24There's no grace in law. And when you try to bring the two together, grace is robbed of its goodness and its glow and its glory. It's wonder and its wonderment and its worth fileness. It's attractiveness and its desirability. And after you brought them together, the claims of the law are uninstead and the sinners need not met. My beloved, when you attempt to fuse both of these together, law sets forth what man ought to be and race reveals what God is. Oh, I do want to show the majesty of the law and its law deposition and that no man dare trifle with its precepts. And no man dare attempt to bring it down to his level and say, I've measured up to this. No man dare today think that he can be saved by keeping the law.

19:24Then somebody says, why was the law given? Well, why was the Ten Commandments given? Well, we're going to look at that. But may I say this as we look at three reasons and it's well to keep this in mind. The law is good for the purpose for which it was given and it was never intended for any other purpose at all. I think of two very homely illustrations. One I heard years ago in Tennessee of the country lady who was standing washing machine. She'd never seen a washing machine. Didn't even know what it was. It's in the days when it was run by gasoline motor. All she saw on the machine was the label washing machine. So every Saturday night she put the kids in it. And believe me, they came out clean but they came out black and blue also.

20:26Now, washing machine's good, but it's not the place to put the kids on Saturday night. And then I heard the story of the country boy that came to a crossroads and a sign said there, five miles to the county wanted to go to and it's fed on the sign, cake with. And he climbed up on it and sat down. May I say to you, my beloved, that sounds utterly preposterous and ridiculous but there are great many people today sitting on the Ten Commandments and saying we expect to go to heaven that's way. You better take another vehicle. It won't take you but it will point you in the right direction. Now, I want to mention three reasons why the law was given. The law was given first of all to reveal who God is and the vast gap in yawning chasem between God and man.

21:29All says in Galatians, tell me ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? And you go back to Mount Sinai and it's not a pretty sight, my beloved. And did you notice that when God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, how patient he was with him, that night he delivered them and their firstborn because the blood is on the doorposts. And by mighty power he took them across the red sea and brought them to Mount Sinai. And then he sat Moses down to say this to them, ye see how I have brought you on Eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Would you like to continue on Eagles' wings or would you like to have my law? These people with bolder frontery were audacious to say the least. They said to God,

22:29all at the Lord commands will do it. And they asked for it, they got it, didn't know why it was. My beloved, their story is this sword and the story has ever been written. That nation even today scattered throughout the world and fundamentally the trouble in the narrowest is because they broke God's law. And yet today there are people who say, we want to get on your it to be saved. Oh, my beloved, the giving of the law was frightful. Will you notice the first thing God said when they asked for the law? He says, you go set bounds on Mount Sinai and tell them not to come. And if father of the mat let's they be killed. 3,000 worst lying that day. And then we're told that when God came down upon the mountain to give the law that there was thunder and lightning and a thick cloud in the voice of the trumpet, exceeding loud so that the people

23:30that was in the camp tremble. My beloved, it was not a glorious happy occasion. It was a frightful occasion. Moses has no notion to give you the impression here today that the giving of the law was just about as nice and as ducky as anything possible to be. It was a frightful thing, my beloved. I will you notice here in the 20th chapter, I just give another excerpt at the giving of the law. And all the people saw the thunderings and the lightens and the noise of the trumpet and the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it, they removed instead of far off. They didn't come there. God, they got away from him. They sent word back and said through Moses, tell the Lord not to come to us. You speak to us, but we are afraid. And the men, the day really knew what law was. The law of God, they'd be afraid, my beloved.

24:31Because the law, you see, with condemnation. What a picture is given here. And then we call your attention to Psalm 19, where it says the law of the law is perfect. It's perfect. It demands perfection. And our Lord Jesus Christ, you remember, when they came to him and asked him about the law, which is the great commandment in the law. And he took the 10 commandments and sum them up because we'll see in the 10 commandments they're divided in the two parts. The first four of them is a man's relationship to God. The last six of them is a man's relationship to man. The Lord Jesus says, when they came to him and said, master, which is the great commandment in the law, Jesus said unto him, thou shall love the Lord by God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment and the second is like unto it, thou shall love thy neighbor

25:34as thyself on these two commandments, hang all the law and the profit. Do you want come to God on that kind of basis and are you prepared to tell God that you do love him and every moment of the day and have loved him with all your mind, your heart, and your soul, and you've never loved anything else or put anything ahead of him? Are you prepared to say to God that you do love your neighbor as thyself and unless you are my beloved, then stay away from the ten commandments as a way of salvation, they do not say to you they will condemn you. Wade and the balances to found warning was the experience of a king in the spawning when they ten commandments have put on one side of the balances. You step in or I step in, we come short. We've been found wanting my beloved and there's no use for you to look at me

26:35and say, and I'm so much better than you. That won't help you a bit. May I say to you today, the man on top of mount, what can maybe be a great deal higher than the man on top of an angel, but both of them are a long way from heaven, not much different. And today, we've come short of the glory of God. You may have a mount, Whitney character, and boast of your life, but in God's sight, you stand condemned by the law. The law reveals who God is, and it reveals how far man and God are apart. The second thing that the law does, the law reveals who man is, and his inability to bridge this gap in his own strength. This is the way the Scripture reads, and will you listen to it very carefully now? Paul says in Romans 3.19,

27:38and listen carefully now we know that whatsoever fails the law says, it says to them who are under the law, that every mouth might be stopped and the whole world becomes what? Save, become guilty before God. Thanks for, but the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight or by the law is the knowledge of sin. You see the law reveals the man who is. The law was never given, you see, to save us, it was given to reveal who we are. You remember the Paris story in which I'm not sure who it was, but it must have been the bad queen

28:38that stood before the mirror and said, mirror, mirror on the wall who's the Paris of them all? Well, she wasn't. The mirror told her she wasn't. My beloved, the law is a mirror. It's called a mirror, by the way, that's what James said that the word is, for if any man be a hero of the word and not a doer, he's like a man they're holding his natural face in a glass or he behold it himself and go it this way and straight away forget it, what manner of man is? You see, the law is a revealer. Not a remover. You go to the mirror to see the spot, but the mirror won't take it all. You have to turn to something else. The law reveals the ten commandments reveal who we are, as the old powder about the angel who appeared to a man

29:39and they looked way down the road, seemingly in the distance, they saw a man that looked like the neighbor of this man and the angel began to say, you see that man, Yonder? And this man said, yes, my neighbor. He says, well, that man you see Yonder, he is lie, he's cunning, he's lie, he's not to be trusted and it might just fall a field for it good. I wonder if it makes us feel good to hear something bad, somebody else. This man felt very good, that his neighbor, the angel said that about his neighbor and he was talking about this man, they were approaching this neighbor, as they were walking along and when they came right up to him, the man saw that it was not his neighbor, they had been walking toward a mirror all the time. May I say that the word of God is a mirror

30:39and it lets us see our lives and the law is a mirror of search light but down upon us and it reveals us my beloved. For the law can't save us, but what the law could not do, Paul said. It just couldn't save us. And the law never made us thinner though, the mirror never makes us spot on you, the mirror reveals the spot on you and that's again what Paul said. I turn over to the third chapter of the epithel to the Galatians and that Paul writes in the ninth verse, so then that which be a faith or blessed with faithful Abraham, and there should be, I think, four or nine, but now after that we've known God or rather a known of God, how turn you again to the weak and bangerly elements we're unto you desire again to be in bondage for the law condemns my beloved

31:41and the law never made us thinner, the law reveals to you and me that we are sinners today it never made us a thinner at all. And really, sometimes we pride ourselves on some particular accomplishment. We say we've never stolen, I know a man that fides himself that he never in his life told a lie. He's like George Washington. He says he's never misrepresented at the same. Well, that's a very fine reputation to have. But you see, he forgets about some other of the law. Because James said this, that if a man would keep all the law, yet he broke one, just one part of it. He'd be a lawbreaker, you see. He'd be a lawbreaker. One little hole in the dam will let all the water out. The rest of the dam may be good. There may be one little hole in the radiator

32:41in the rest of it may be fine, but the water will run out, might be loving. We have famed even in one part. We're guilty of all. The law reveals who man is, and then lastly, will you hear this? The law was given to bring a man to Christ. Did you know that's the reason God gave the law? To bring a man to Christ. Will you listen to this? I turn to Galatians now. The third chapter, the 24th verse, listen to the language, wherefore the law was our schoolmaster, and the word that I really is pedigogus, and the Greek, its pedigogus, means pedigog, and that was a fella that took a little child and led him to school. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ, but we might be justified by faith, but after that faith has come

33:41where no longer under the schoolmaster, the law was given. In order that a man might see who God is, and he might see who he is, and he might see the great chasm between the teeth cannot breath, and the law was a slave, if you please, for that was the schoolmaster that spoken of you, a pedigogus, is a slave that was given a little child in a Roman home, and he took that child, he dressed him, and he washed him, and he taught him many things, he taught him to be polite, but that came a day when the child started to school, his slave did not teach him, and so the slave washed his face, that day, little clean clothes, and took him by the hand, and took him to the schoolmaster, the one who could take the little file and teach him. Now my friend, if you take the law, for the reason,

34:43and the way God gave it, you come to the law, and if you're very honest, you see the gap, you see how high God is, I can't measure up, you see your hopeless, helpless condition, and the law then becomes one that takes you by the hand, and it brings you to Christ, the one who now, because he kept the law, and because he died on the cross, is the one to pay the penalty for your sin, to make it possible for a holy God, not to lower his standard, the penalty's fate, and it can take you a while, then a law breaker, a transdresser, and bring you a man to the presence of God. Oh, my friend, this morning, let the law fulfill its purpose in your life, and if it does, it will this morning, bring it to Christ, bring it to the Savior,

35:43and turn you over to Him, and there you'll find love. God's so love, he gave, he didn't love on Mount Sinai, friend, it was the law of Mount Sinai, and the people moved back, but now he says, come, oh, me, come, or it's love, and it's grace now, that he's bestowing upon it. Law could never save us, grace can save us, the law reveals man's a sinner, and this morning, we're not going up to the top of Mount Sinai, to get the law, we're going to cow, to get hard, to get forgiven, to receive mercy, to get help from God, and we're not gathered around cold tables of stone,

36:46written under upon the mountain with a fiery finger, but we're gathered around the table on which there are elements that speak of his death. The bread speaks of a body that was broken, water, some of the blind speaks of the blood that was shed for us, that we might have forgiveness of there. This table here speaks of his warm blood and body, in its expression of his passion and compassion, and his love for us. I don't know about you. I don't want to come to God by law if I do I'm condemned, I'm lost forever. The law condemns me. But this morning, I come to Calgary, and I found forgiveness there in part, and the love of God displayed there, and he's even said to me to you,

37:48Oh, oh, oh, when I was a student in seminary, I was driving from Atlanta, Georgia, to Nashville, Tennessee, and I went through the Chattanooga, and came up over look out and mountain on that old highway in those days, was during the depression, and that highway was very narrow, and I saw a head out of me, as I got over to there, started down on the other side, coming up a car that was broken down in an old Model T, and it was a truck, and it was occupied, obviously, but what we call in the South, a trucker, poor fella, you could see, Brow was furrowed, he was worried about it, looking down in the car and I had to crawl around and as I did, I heard somebody talking,

38:48and I looked sitting in the seat, a little girl, she must have been about six years old, ragged a little girl, and she had in her arms, a dolly, and I have never seen a dolly, that was this body, this that dolly, one of its arms was gone, didn't have a stitcher clothing on it, and it's head, it was one of those chimed dolls, the head was practically broken off, just parts were jutting up, but I never saw such affection, that was bestowed, by anyone, that little girl was oblivious to what is going on, the car is broken down, anybody coming, she just had that little broken dolly up in her arms, and flooring out a little mother heart, just telling it, how much, she loved it. And I thought, as I left there, I thought, that they rode on alone, what love, like a love of a thing like that,

39:48but I want to tell you friends, I know I love greater than that. May I say that, when we were dead in trespassies and sin, lots more unattractive than that little dolly, God put His mighty arms around us, and said, I love you. I love you. Even while we were dead in trespassies and sins, Christ died for the ungodly. God's soul loved that He gave, very calvary is His mighty heart of love, or doubt today, a little broken doll, receiving all that love and affection. That's only half of it.

40:50My little dolly could not respond, what a tragedy. And God this morning loves many of you the same way and you have never responded. What a great message from Dr. Mickey. You know, if there's one thing that we've heard clearly, it's that the law was never meant to save us. The Ten Commandments reveal the holiness of God and our desperate need for a Savior. Left to ourselves, we come up short every time. But praise God, the story doesn't end at Mount Sinai, does it? It leads all the way to Calvary, where grace meets us in the person of Jesus Christ. You know, maybe that's exactly where you find yourself. Have you spent maybe years trying to measure up, trying to be good enough, faithful enough, only to discover that peace still feels just out of reach? Well, if that's so, we want you to know that God's imitation isn't to try harder,

41:50but to simply come to Him. To learn more about what it means to know God through a relationship with Jesus Christ, you can click on how to know God in the through the Bible app or over at ttb.org. We've got some free resources that are designed to help answer your questions and point you to the hope and assurance found in God's word. Or call us at 1-865 Bible and we'll put a packet in the mail to you. Now, for those of you who already know God and you simply want to grow deeper in your understanding of Scripture, well, let me encourage you to download one of our favorite study tools. It's the Bible companion for Exodus. It includes helpful summaries of Dr. McGee's teaching, Scripture references, thoughtful reflection questions, and practical tools to help you continue your study, whether on your own, with your family, or my favorite format with a small group. And best of all, it's completely free. Just download it from our app or at ttb.org. And if you couldn't tell earlier, one of the great joys of this ministry is hearing from listeners like you.

42:51So whether you're listening in your car right now during your commute or maybe at your kitchen table with a cup of coffee or on a truck route across the country or maybe through headphones on a walk or through the app in the middle of the night when you can't sleep, we've all been there. And we'd love to hear your story whatever it is. You can reach us in a bunch of different ways. The easiest might be directly through our app. You can also email us anytime, BibleBus at ttb.org or send a good old fashioned letter by mail to box 7-100, Pasadena, California 9-1-1-09. In Canada box 25325, London, Ontario, and 6-C, 6-B1. We're called 1-865 Bible anytime and leave us a message. And if Sundays are your usual stop with us, why don't you keep traveling through the week? After all, the BibleBus doesn't just roll on Sundays. You can join us as we continue our journey through Exodus with Dr. McGee as our faithful guide. There's so much more ahead in this incredible book. And there are plenty of seats so be sure to invite your friends

43:51and family to hop aboard with you. I'm Steve Schwetz and I'm so grateful that you joined us. And as we go, I want to leave you with this prayer from Ephesians 3 that Christ made dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may be strengthened to comprehend the breadth and length and depth and height of his love for you. Amen. Jesus, take it home, all to be my home. Sin and let the prince of say, sing, we worship quite as small. Through the Bible exists to take God's whole world to the whole world. And we invite you to stand with us with your faithful prayer and financial support. Where will God's word go today?