Special Feature

Raising the Commandments

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Pr. Ezra Mendinghall (Host)

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Series Code: SF

Program Code: SF000036


01:10 I wouldn't want to live in a society where stopping for
01:13 red lights is optional. I wouldn't want to live in
01:15 a place where the speed limit was up the knee.
01:18 I really want to live in a place where everybody's obeying
01:22 the law so I am kept safe.
01:28 That' s why I love The Ten Commandments.
01:30 I long to see a society that lives by them, so I think
01:34 while others are trying to ignore them, or they are
01:37 trying to tear them down, there ought to be a place
01:40 that is hanging them up so when people can see them
01:42 they will know that we are living by a standard
01:45 that is ordained and commanded by God. That's why they are
01:49 called Commandments and not suggestions.
01:59 You must know that God is God and our opinion does not count.
02:14 A group of atheists are suing because of the fact that they
02:16 have the Ten Commandments in front of a
02:19 public court house. Um...No one's following
02:21 the Bible. You've got the organizations that hide behind
02:25 words like marriage and family and all this nonsense
02:28 These Ten Commandment plaques have been in class rooms
02:31 for as long as he can remember. Students signed a petition
02:34 at school today asking the administration to re-think
02:37 the position to take down the signs.
02:39 I was raised on the Ten Commandments as was
02:42 this sponsor, this amendment. In 1980 the court ruled that
02:46 The Ten Commandments can not be shown
02:48 in public schools because displaying them shows support
02:52 of religion.
02:55 There are so many voices crying out saying
02:58 "There are no more absolutes." Well I say to you
03:03 if there is no more absolutes, then we're on shaky ground.
03:07 If a church does not have some absolutes, then we are
03:11 desperately wicked as a society.
03:13 The cities are run by laws, governments are run by laws,
03:18 in fact, in every house there must be laws just for the people
03:23 to survive in the house. The laws might be crazy,
03:26 they might be wrong, but laws are what keep you together.
03:30 Even gang bangers have rules that they live by,
03:32 and it's upon life or death if you break those laws.
03:36 The law is the heart of a society.
03:40 Is our sense of right and wrong, it is innate to us
03:44 is it our pride, our property. This is the love of God.
03:48 Read that we keep His Commandment!
03:50 That we keep His Commandments!
03:52 We live in a day where it is hard to find the
03:54 Ten Commandments. I remember the Ten Commandments
03:56 being in High School.
03:58 I remember the Ten Commandments being in the
03:59 court room. I remember the Ten Commandments
04:01 being in church. I remember the Ten Commandments
04:03 and I memorized them by seeing them.
04:06 And so now that you don't see them,
04:08 we act like they don't exist.
04:10 So the last thing, while others are trying to ignore them,
04:14 while they are trying to tear them down,
04:16 there ought to be a place that is hanging them up
04:18 so when people can see them they will know that we are
04:21 living by a standard that is ordained and commanded by God.
04:31 ¤¤¤
05:23 You know when I first got to Las Vegas,
05:25 one of the first things that really intrigued me is coming
05:29 you know...out of the airport, or coming out of the terminal
05:33 and bumping into slot machines and I was wondering,
05:38 what is this, what is this all about?
05:41 And I looked and I saw a sea of slot machines in the airport.
05:46 I saw these lights, spectacular lights the buildings just
05:51 illuminating. But I see a great deception,
05:54 because beyond all the lights I think that many people are
05:59 being deceived.
06:06 One of the first things that intrigued me when I first came
06:09 into this church and walked into this sanctuary is to see
06:14 this awesome commandments, the monuments just in the church
06:22 and I thought that was a statement.
06:24 I understood that Dr. Rock had a vision to have
06:30 the Ten Commandments in the church.
06:33 This vision was brought out and carried forth with
06:36 the assistance of the then youth pastor, associate pastor,
06:40 Pastor Leroys. When we started this journey
06:46 to install the Ten Commandments in Abundant Life Seventh Day
06:52 Adventist Church, it was one of excitement and at the
06:58 same time trepidation in terms of how it would be done.
07:04 Pastor Rock always wanted to have a set of the
07:08 Commandments in our church.
07:11 The church board wanted to find a way in which to
07:15 fulfill this dream that he had. Pastor Rock had always had
07:20 the vision of displaying the Commandments in the sanctuary
07:23 of the Abundant Life Church, and now he was retiring and
07:27 they really wanted to get this done for him.
07:30 There was a brick wall in terms of how do we get it done.
07:36 I had been working with this group in our community
07:41 and I said well let me have an opportunity to talk with him
07:45 to come up with a recommendation.
07:48 Through a lot of prayer, I was stuck with the idea of
07:56 having it done in concrete, you know the good old
08:00 Ten Commandments movie from the 50's.
08:03 When you think Commandments, you generally have this typical
08:07 traditional tablet Commandments in mind.
08:11 Tombstone like solid granite or marble, definitely dangerous
08:16 and very difficult to do.
08:18 I would get these two tablets somewhere in the church
08:25 so that they are symmetrical, we are not interrupting
08:30 any other functions, or the audio/visual that just
08:33 installed in less than five years ago.
08:35 So you have cameras, you have monitors, microphones,
08:39 all of these things in the sanctuary, we wanted to create
08:42 a design that could literally disappear.
08:46 I get a call from Ryan and he's got this idea to take
08:52 the tablets and make them translucent.
08:55 We thought it would be a great opportunity for us to employ
08:58 some of the unique concepts that we had been working on.
09:03 They said, "what does that look like"?
09:05 I said well, it's going to be a clear medium and immediately
09:08 the question comes out... If you are going to put up
09:12 clear Commandments, how will they be seen?
09:15 When it was suggested that we might consider a clear medium
09:19 it was, well how will we be able to see the letters?
09:23 Will we be able to read the words?
09:25 At the church in Abundant Life, the back wall is mostly white
09:31 so we decided to go with black decals in order to produce
09:36 a contrast. We took it to the board, we had an almost
09:40 unanimous vote on installing God's Word and His Commandments.
10:01 On Sabbath morning you could feel the excitement in the room.
10:06 There were these on the wall... was this white fabric,
10:10 this cloth that was hanging there. Pastor Lee Wards called
10:15 up Pastor Rock and proceeded to have a brief conversation
10:20 about his desires and what he had wanted for us
10:24 and for our church, then the tablets were presented.
10:33 As people come in, they cannot help but see
10:38 the Ten Commandments, to see that there is a God that
10:42 loves them. This basically is what the whole Commandments
10:46 is all about.
10:54 Here are the ones that we know the best:
10:55 Though shall not kill, commit adultery, steal,
10:57 bear false witness. But this is the commandment that is getting
11:01 all the attention: Though shall have no other God's before me.
11:05 Cut down the first four Commandments,
11:07 just get rid of them. Therefore that would eliminate
11:10 the four Commandments that mention God by name.
11:13 God wants to give the children of Israel a real picture
11:17 of who He is and who He wants them to be.
11:20 He takes them to a mountain called Sinai and Moses goes up
11:23 to meet with God and the people have been instructed
11:26 to build a fence around the bottom of the mountain
11:30 and don't come near. No one was supposed to pass that fence
11:34 but Moses, Aaron, and Joshua for a little peace.
11:37 But there they are, there is fire and smoke, trembling,
11:42 the ground under their feet was shaking and they are now
11:46 trying to get to know a new God that they had
11:48 never known before. They heard in the distant past about Him,
11:52 now they got Him as a personal friend and they are moving
11:56 with Him, and they got evidence that He is with them
11:59 because they got a pillar of fire by night
12:01 and a pillar of cloud by day leading them step by step
12:04 so God brings them to a mountain called Sinai...
12:06 Moses goes up to get this precious gift called
12:10 The Ten Commandments.
12:12 These Ten Commandments are the character of God.
12:30 About a year after we had completed our project
12:33 a friend of mine who is a pastor in North Carolina decided that
12:37 he wanted to do the Ten Commandments in his church.
12:43 Our pastor, Pastor Ezra Mendinghall was there and he saw
12:48 these Commandments, and he said, you know, I'd like to have
12:52 Commandments hanging in my church.
12:54 So we had this conversation the Sunday following
12:58 the unveiling of the Commandments in Las Vegas
13:01 and he says, I believe people are putting the emphasis on
13:05 the wrong thing. Everyone wants a bigger screen,
13:08 everyone wants louder speakers, everyone wants glitzier
13:12 clothing, because they believe that's what will
13:15 draw people to Christ.
13:17 What the pastor's vision was at the Northeast Church
13:19 was that if we hang the Word of God and make it prominent
13:24 in the church, that people would be brought here to see and
13:29 experience the Word of God. But I believe he said
13:34 that if we take all of the effort and the energy that
13:37 would ordinarily be put into something else and we infuse it
13:42 into a large project to put God's words up,
13:46 people will be drawn to Christ.
13:49 We thought it was a good idea although we had a few wranglers
13:54 but I felt it was a good idea to have it placed up there so
13:57 every parishioner would be able to see why we do what we do.
14:03 There is an effort to remove the Commandments,
14:08 the very very character of God out of it's institutions.
14:13 There are many churches that have crosses up there,
14:17 they have statues, they have all kinds of different things,
14:20 but to see the Commandments, that was a very good thing.
14:23 In fact, I believe that every church should have
14:28 the Commandments... If we could take this kind of
14:31 energy and put it into the elements of the church
14:34 that we've just let wash by because we are so used to
14:37 doing them and get that kind of newness, that kind of
14:42 new focus towards God's Word, or the elements of God's place
14:47 in the church for a reason.
14:49 The church in North Carolina is essentially a dome,
14:54 it slopes in the back, it slopes in the front,
14:58 the shape of the church is known as a truncated icosahedron.
15:03 You can actually look at the ceiling and you can see these
15:07 hexagons interspersed in which are these pentagons.
15:12 It's the same shape that a soccer ball has.
15:14 there is no big wall in the back to hang some Commandments.
15:20 If the Commandments are to far apart, then it looses the
15:25 majesty. If the Commandments are to small, then it looses the
15:28 majesty, so where would we put these Commandments?
15:32 Well after looking at the church it became apparent that
15:37 the best thing to do would be to hang them from the ceiling,
15:43 literally suspend the Commandments in mid air
15:47 and we knew the moment we came up with that,
15:50 that the answer was going to be NO, let's try something else.
15:55 As many know, if we do this, and it can be read anywhere
16:01 in the church, they are going to dominate the space.
16:05 Meaning if someone comes in the church and leaves,
16:09 that's what they are going to remember,
16:10 these Commandments, and he looked at us very sternly,
16:13 didn't take much time to think about it, he said,
16:15 "That's what I want". When someone walks into this
16:19 space, that's what I want them to see, when they leave,
16:21 that's what I want them to remember.
16:29 Looking at the way our church is made, I could not envision
16:32 how the Commandments were going to be suspended
16:34 and then thinking about the material that it was going to
16:37 take, I could not envision that. And so I was restlessly
16:42 awaiting to see what was going to happen.
16:44 That was exciting when I heard that it was coming,
16:47 even though I didn't know what it was going to be,
16:50 what it's like, you know. But when I saw it,
16:55 then I understand what it was all about.
17:02 The Word is likened unto a lamp and Christ Himself
17:07 is called The Light. Just talking about light
17:11 is intriguing to understand that we are told that we should
17:15 worship the true light that is Jesus Christ, and He wants
17:20 our light, the light that He has given us to shine forth...
17:24 What we wanted was for the words of God to not require
17:28 an external source to shine upon them, but for them to
17:31 literally glow as if they had an internal light.
17:35 We began to have an idea that there could be a way on acrylic
17:41 that would allow a prominent display of the actual
17:46 Commandments in the church.
17:48 What if we could etch every word of the Commandments
17:51 into these two large acrylic slabs and then what if we could
17:57 create an internal lighting system and turn them into
18:02 the Commandments so that no could see the light shining.
18:05 Acrylic is like a window pane where you want light to pass
18:11 through and it's just totally transparent. But we realize
18:14 that if you put a scratch on a window pane that that scratch
18:18 will show up. And then the lights would shine through
18:22 the material and hit these etched words and cause the words
18:26 to illuminate. Use light to bring that etching out
18:31 to the audience. This was the idea, but was it possible...
18:37 So, first we had to convince the people at North East
18:42 that this was the way to go. We're going to make some
18:44 Commandments, hang them in the middle of the air,
18:48 each tablet being larger, much larger than a grown man
18:54 and the words are going to glow like God had written them with
18:58 His own finger. How do you explain that to a church board?
19:02 Well, we had to figure out a way of exploring that so
19:06 we found one of these cubes, these acrylic cubes that you
19:09 see in a souvenir shop and we used the LED light from
19:14 a telephone. We put the cube on the top of the telephone,
19:19 turned the light on, we took that little cube into a meeting
19:23 and we set it on the desk and we were trying to explain
19:26 what we were trying to do with these huge tablets...
19:29 then we turned the light on that little cube and suddenly
19:33 people's eyes just got wide. He showed us some of the things
19:40 and I said you know, I've seen what he's talking about
19:43 earlier, but then once he came that day with that sample
19:46 and did it with the sample and I said yes, "this is what I
19:50 had in my mind and this is exactly what it looked like
19:53 plus some.
19:59 There are thousands of religious monuments across the country
20:02 and around the world... Why was this one of the
20:06 Ten Commandments to much to bear enough so to make you
20:08 bring up a lawsuit. It's to show that the Bible is a primitive
20:11 and brutal document that people...There's this idea that
20:16 the Bible, the Ten Commandments specifically are...
20:20 a good moral code that we can agree on, but that's not true.
20:24 The rich young man that we often hear about,
20:26 he came to Jesus and said, what must I do to be saved?
20:30 And Jesus gives him words that we ought not to ever forget,
20:32 He says, Thou shall love the Lord thy God,
20:35 with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all
20:39 thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor
20:43 as thyself. On these two commands hang all the law.
20:47 and God is trying to get us to be just lovers,
20:50 lovers of Him, and lovers to mankind.
20:52 God would accomplish this if we would but yield to Him,
20:57 understanding that these laws have not been done away with,
21:01 and they shall not be done away with, and God requires
21:04 them, and this is Jesus talking in this text telling us,
21:08 what is required to be saved.
21:33 This was a massive project, and we had to engineer everything
21:38 to the T. The only problem was, the ceiling being so high,
21:43 getting up there was out of the question.
21:46 We could not just go up and measure the beams that
21:49 we needed to measure. Hanging from the ceiling,
21:52 I think the weight of them... I'm thinking can the ceiling
21:58 hold these? So we had to ghost engineer
22:02 a way to calculate all of the measurements we needed.
22:06 So imagine, we are sitting there on the pew, and instead of
22:11 a ladder and some tape measures, we're sitting there with pencils
22:15 paper and a phone calculator trying to get the measurements
22:19 that were crucial to this project.
22:21 Well, we had a team of people that we were working with
22:28 and the funniest thing happened. It was as if everyone that was
22:32 involved in this project had a spiritual experience.
22:37 There were people who would call and say,
22:39 you know I've never really been a church goer,
22:42 I've never really been all that religious, but just working
22:45 with you guys on these Commandments,
22:47 I felt the urge to be better, I felt the urge to go to church.
22:51 So we found a guy in a shop in Las Vegas whose name was
22:55 Paul, and Paul was of Asian decent and Paul took
22:59 great pleasure in explaining to us that even though he was
23:01 of Asian decent, that he was a Christian, and he understood
23:05 the importance of the Commandments.
23:07 As we talked with him, we began to describe to Paul
23:11 what it is we were trying to do. He listened and this just began
23:15 to sink in. So one day I'm talking to Paul and the phone
23:19 rings and he answers the phone and says, oh yes,
23:25 Senator McCain. It was one of the representatives
23:28 from Senator McCain's office, and apparently Paul
23:32 was doing some work on Senator McCain's furniture,
23:36 he had some fine antiques that he wanted to have
23:39 refurbished, and the senator wanted to know what the progress
23:43 was on his stuff, and Paul says senator, I'm going to
23:48 have to call you back because I am working on the
23:52 Ten Commandments. Paul said well, I'm writing the
23:54 Commandments, and this has to be perfect,
23:58 so there is no room for error.
24:05 Paul took it upon himself to get a sample of an acrylic sheet
24:11 that was maybe one foot long by two feet wide,
24:14 and we came and we had a sample of the LED lighting...
24:20 Would this concept hold up? The church had already invested
24:26 so much in it. We needed this to work, so I took this sample
24:32 over and we hooked up a very small LED strip and put the
24:38 Commandments atop and when we turned these LED's on
24:42 those words blazed in the middle of the air
24:47 1,000 times more than we even hoped for.
24:55 So what I have here is a sample of what the Commandments
24:58 will look like, and it is only a sample.
25:00 This is acrylic, and it's just a fraction as thick as the
25:04 final product would be, but I'm going to shut the lights off
25:07 and I want you to see what happens when I shine the light
25:10 into the edge of the Commandments
25:12 see exactly what happens with the lettering.
25:15 So you can see the sign is invisible here in the dark,
25:19 but once I have the LED lights come on, it completely
25:27 illuminates the letters as the light passes invisibly through
25:31 the acrylic.
25:43 The final design of the Commandments has ten hidden
25:47 theological and scriptural concepts in the actual
25:51 architecture of the Commandments.
25:53 I won't tell them all to you, you will have to go to
25:56 North Carolina and have that experience for yourself.
25:59 So when you look at the Commandments, there are
26:02 three wing sets. There is an inner and an outer and an
26:06 outer most wing set. Each half is a single wing,
26:11 and then the other half put together will create a set of
26:14 wings, for a total of six wings representing the six wings of
26:19 the Three Angels on the Three Angels Message
26:22 that can be found in Revelation.
26:28 When you go into the church, you would see what we called
26:31 auxiliary lights...Three point lighting systems.
26:35 A light in the upper right, a light in the upper left,
26:38 and a light directly above the Commandments,
26:41 and they shine in such a way that the beams intersect.
26:46 At the intersection of these beams form a cross that can only
26:51 be seen if there is a little dust or haze in the air.
26:55 We put this cross there to remind us that we are not
26:59 saved by works, we are saved by grace.
27:02 Each of those lights represent a member of the Trinity Godhead,
27:09 God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
27:16 I don't know if you are familiar with the Golden Ratio,
27:20 this is denoted by the Greek character of phi.
27:26 You can find this ratio by inspecting aspects of nature.
27:32 Things such as the distances that stars are from each other
27:37 in galaxies, the shapes of the galaxies themselves,
27:40 This ratio shows up in the spiral of an nautilus shell,
27:45 it is evidence of intelligent design.
27:48 We wanted to give honor to God as our Creator
27:53 by infusing every single element of these Commandments
27:58 with this Golden Ration. We had so much fun putting together
28:05 significant parts so that people that have an experience
28:08 when they see these Commandments.
28:24 You know every Sanctuary I believe ought to focused on
28:27 God's Word and of course the Ten Commandments
28:30 is a summary I think of all God can ask us to do.
28:33 So, as I look in the sanctuary here in the quietness of the
28:36 moment, I can envision the Ten Commandments hanging
28:39 in there, and we know they are in the process of being
28:42 built, and I tell you, to see them hanging there as a message
28:47 from God every time anybody stands in that desk,
28:50 they are going to get the Ten Commandments.
28:52 The Ten Commandments are the heart of all that God would
28:56 have us do, the heart of His government.
28:57 And so it certain it ought to be central in our worships,
29:00 central in our sanctuary, and I just see those crystal
29:05 plates with the words of God popping out at us indelibly
29:10 imprinted on every mind and every heart.
29:12 But I think this is going to be an unusual experience
29:15 because you see the Ten Commandments only in
29:19 a very few places and then you hear these messages
29:21 coming from all kinds of places saying that they aren't to be
29:24 kept any more and that they are meaningless.
29:26 Well, it's time for us to put meaning in Word's,
29:29 it's time for us to see them on a regular basis,
29:31 it's time for us to look up before this earth's history is
29:37 finally concluded. It would be nice to see the Word of God
29:41 displayed in this way, so that people can prepare for
29:44 His soon coming.
30:00 We decided that we had to personally drive these
30:04 Commandments out there, because they were so fragile
30:07 and so important that we couldn't risk a crack, a chip,
30:13 or any type of injury to these Commandments.
30:16 So we got up 4:00 in the morning, double checked,
30:22 triple checked, made sure everything was in the
30:25 right place and that we had everything we needed to
30:27 get them safely out to North Carolina.
30:30 We had maybe two or three days in which to get the Commandments
30:36 out to North Carolina, and so we embarked on this journey,
30:40 driving essentially non-stop. We knew it would be a long trip,
30:46 the sun wasn't even up yet. We loaded up the truck,
30:50 I waved goodbye to my husband, said a little prayer,
30:55 and had faith that he would get there safely.
31:07 Coming up on Flagstaff, 340 miles or so outside of
31:14 Albuquerque.
31:33 Well, it's night time, it's coming up on midnight,
31:37 I'm somewhere in Texas.
31:42 Do a little work here. If I can get it through...
31:47 If I can just get it through this little stretch right here,
31:50 get some rest early in the morning, the rest should be ok.
31:54 I would check in periodically, "Bellum One are you there"?
31:58 Are you still awake? Any troubles?
32:02 Alright, coming up on my second sunrise here.
32:07 Oklahoma sunrise!
32:39 Alright, bringing these Commandments home.
33:06 I think the truck was already here when I got here,
33:08 and it was time for us to go out and look at these things
33:12 and to bring them into the sanctuary.
33:14 All of a sudden, I know I myself and a few others,
33:18 got this sense of awe and reverence, because now you are
33:23 handling something that is symbolic in a way
33:27 of what Moses and God handled back on the mountain.
33:31 When I saw them, I had no idea that they were so heavy.
33:35 You know I saw it and they looked like glass to me,
33:42 but I had no idea that they were so heavy.
33:45 We're pretty much all the way to the top of the ceiling which
33:49 I'm guessing is about maybe 20- 25 feet all the way
33:53 up there hanging them you know, and you know it got to be
33:58 a little bit going up and down the scaffolding,
34:00 but it was well worth it.
34:18 Then I realized that it's not going to be to much of a strain
34:24 on us to manually lift it up because the lift was kind of
34:29 gradually pulling it up, so all we have to do is keep it
34:33 in place until it goes to the roof.
34:45 I remember when we got the first one to hang completely
34:50 by itself. I made a statement... something like
34:53 the Ten Commandments is now suspended on it's own weight,
34:57 something to that effect... and that was quite an exhilarating
35:00 feeling because you are doing it not quite sure...
35:03 Is everything going to work and to hold the weight that you
35:08 envision it holding, but when it did, it was quite a relief.
35:11 Well, this is a moment that I think all of us kind of
35:15 relaxed, because we realized that the Commandment is up.
35:19 I think this was the ending of the hardest part of the work.
35:33 It was awe inspiring to see the lights come on to see
35:38 the lettering in the Commandments itself...
35:40 It's something that you really...It's hard to describe,
35:43 you had to have been there to feel it, to see it,
35:46 and here you have all of the Commandments lit up.
35:49 For me to explain it, it's more than word,
35:55 it is more than word. But to see it, it's something else.
36:07 When you are dealing with something as similar to a glass
36:11 surface, any fingerprint, and smudge will show on this,
36:15 so we had a bit of time to trying to make sure we got
36:18 all the smudges, all the little haze of grease or smudge of oil
36:23 on it anywhere. Elder Boyd and Brother Basil were trying
36:29 to make sure that they were perfectly clean, and they were
36:35 looking for ways of wiping the Commandments, and they had
36:39 special solutions and some things that were made for
36:41 acrylic and what have you and as we tested different parts
36:45 of the Commandments, things weren't working.
36:49 So finally they said, why don't we just try water.
36:52 We figured out that some plain water works best just to wipe it
36:57 off and it...You know, when you are up close,
37:01 you still see some of it, but when you are standing back
37:04 from it and the light is on it, you don't see it.
37:06 I'll never forget the sight of them manually holding
37:11 the edges of these Commandments with these gloves, while one
37:15 would wash it and wipe it, trying to make sure that
37:18 every little smudge was off of those Commandments,
37:21 this went on for hours and hours.
37:24 It's not very easy to hold back like this you know...
37:29 so every so often we have to take turns...It was very tiring
37:35 just to hold it back for the boy to clean.
37:46 We were trying to figure out how we are going to display
37:49 the Commandments on that Sabbath morning.
37:51 We don't want people to come into the church and suddenly
37:55 see the Commandments there. We want them to be a part of
37:58 the ceremony where the Commandments are revealed
38:01 and we are talking about how do we cover them.
38:04 Well, what do we use, do we use a sheet...
38:06 Do we drape a sheet over the Commandments and pull it down?
38:09 Do we do something else? And we are looking around,
38:15 trying to figure out what kind of material would be best
38:18 for these Commandments, to hide these Commandments.
38:22 We finally went to a fabric store and we searched in this
38:26 fabric store and it turns out that they had these panels,
38:31 these huge panels, nine foot panels that we could hang
38:37 over the Commandments. We brought that fabric back...
38:41 when we brought that fabric up to the Commandments...
38:43 What we saw was that when we draped the Commandments...
38:46 We could see the fabric, we could actually see through
38:49 the fabric, but because the Commandments were acrylic,
38:54 they were transparent, we could not see them.
38:56 So they were the perfect material for covering
39:00 the Commandments until we were going to then unveil them
39:05 on that Sabbath morning.
39:17 I was excited, I knew that visitors had been invited,
39:20 I knew visitors that were coming and I knew it was going to be
39:24 something that no one else in the city was doing.
39:26 It was a fantastic day... Well, when you walk into the
39:32 church, the Commandments were veiled with a thin sheer...
39:36 I believe it was light lavender and white material with
39:41 the ties on it, and the curtains hang from the ceiling
39:45 to almost the floor, so you are kept in suspense
39:50 which is one thing.
39:51 The church has been in anticipation for weeks
39:53 and they are here, they are actually hanging and
39:58 they are covered in this sheet, which I feared at first
40:03 that they would be obvious, you could see what was going on
40:05 as you walked in, but you couldn't. You couldn't really
40:08 see anything but glass figures and because it was clear
40:12 no one really took notice of anything except for there was
40:16 something big that's here, we don't know what it is.
40:19 The Commandments are now draped with this fabric...
40:25 We have special music that has been orchestrated and
40:31 personally written for this day, for this moment.
40:36 and then you have the choir who came in that had the
40:40 similar colors that the curtains were that were
40:44 veiling the Commandments. So, everything was colorful
40:48 and bright, and the church was getting really crowded
40:51 and a little warm. There are so many people there
40:55 from other churches, from the community, they have come to see
40:59 this thing that Pastor Mendinghall has been describing
41:04 for the last year, this thing that the church committees
41:08 have been broadcasting into the community.
41:10 Knowing that we are going to unveil the Ten Commandment...
41:14 You want to tell somebody, you want to tell somebody,
41:17 listen, I've seen it, I know what it is, but you have to
41:21 reserve that excitement because you know it is going to...
41:26 The pastor is going to unveil it, and you don't want to
41:29 break the surprise for everyone.
41:35 The communications department has been working by now to
41:40 make sure that the lighting is correct, that the sound
41:44 is correct. We have a choir in place behind the
41:49 Commandments. We were just waiting and it almost felt like,
41:53 if you can recall the children of Israel at the bottom of the
41:56 mountain waiting for Moses to come down and reveal
41:59 what God had given him, that's how I personally felt.
42:02 I can't experience what the children of Israel go through
42:05 when they see the lightening from God.
42:09 It brings up a feeling. People again describe it as
42:15 feeling like the children of Israel must have felt
42:20 when Moses brought the Commandments down from the
42:22 mountain. And then the time for the unveiling comes.
42:36 And they dimmed the lights of the church such that it is
42:39 completely dark, as dark as it could get in the day time...
42:43 They have pulled the shutters, they have closed all of the
42:46 curtains and you could just hear this murmuring among the
42:51 congregation you know...So what's going on you know,
42:53 what's going to happen? So when the lights were dim
42:56 we are already again in suspense and we had been moved
42:59 spiritually the whole day. I felt like God's Holy Spirit
43:03 was with us from the beginning of the service and that this
43:07 truly was His moving. The place is packed,
43:10 it's standing room only, and they are wondering,
43:12 where are the Commandments? Because again,
43:14 you can't see them because the fabric is covering them,
43:18 but also because they are transparent.
43:21 So people are literally wondering
43:23 " Are the Commandments going to come down out of the ceiling"
43:25 or where are the Commandments going to come from?
43:26 There was certain individuals chosen to release the ribbons
43:30 so to say, and pull the curtains down and again the
43:34 whole service we're holding our breath to see what this is
43:37 going to look like.
43:40 That was part of the day because I has said, I have never seen
43:43 I have been chosen to uncover them, but I was really excited
43:49 when I went up...
43:53 And at the proper time, instead of just removing
44:00 the veils and showing the Commandments,
44:02 the communications team turned on those LED's.
44:08 They light the Commandments still underneath the sheet,
44:12 and you just see this glow of words.
44:16 You can't even tell that there is any acrylic structure there,
44:21 you just see the glowing of the Commandments.
44:23 The words of the Commandments shown through the fabric
44:27 and it looked as though the Commandments and the
44:30 Word of God were literally floating in the air,
44:34 that they were just suspended.
44:36 I saw the Commandment in it's glory, and I says
44:43 "This is amazing".
44:46 This is something to call friends and talk about
44:51 and that's exactly what I do. I start calling friends and
44:55 I said listen, I saw something that I have never seen before.
44:59 The whole church went into an automatic Ahhh!
45:05 It was almost like a release. I mean we could hear
45:10 crying, we could hear people talking, cell phones went up,
45:15 people began taking pictures of the Ten Commandments.
45:18 Sitting behind me were some visitors that we knew and had
45:22 invited, and they had their camera phones and they were so..
45:28 you could just hear them Oooing! and Ahhhing!
45:31 and everything that took place.
45:32 And then we turned on the auxiliary lights
45:35 which then filled in the other spaces around the
45:38 Commandments. And when that happened, there they stood
45:41 in "Full Glory". It was just the most amazing
45:45 that many of us had ever seen.
45:47 I think it took a moment for us to take it all in
45:52 because here all Ten Commandments
45:54 are hanging from the ceiling, and lit up.
45:59 So you could see it from all over the Sanctuary, it was
46:03 something we hadn't experienced before,
46:06 we knew no one else in the city had it..
46:08 You know, you want to tell them, this is the only place,
46:14 this is the only church that has this.
46:18 I think I was more excited for my guests than I was for myself
46:23 because I knew this was an experience of a life time
46:26 that they were taking part of.
46:28 And it was something, and even the lady behind me who was
46:31 a visitor said, "I've got to go share this with someone".
46:35 "I've got to go show this".
46:58 I just hope that we don't, you know, take it for granted
47:01 that we really put the Commandments where they belong,
47:03 and that's in our hearts and in our lives,
47:05 you know we don't want to walk the street I guess and fight to
47:08 keep the Commandments in the yard and keep the
47:10 Commandments when in reality they are not even in our lives.
47:13 So when you walk into the sanctuary now there is a
47:16 different reverence, you see kids, the adults, they walk by,
47:23 the first thing they do is look up.
47:25 We should put this kind of energy back into God's word
47:30 or the elements of God's place in the church for a reason.
47:42 You know, I have worked and been involved with other
47:45 church related projects from my child hood, but being there
47:50 handling the Ten Commandments, mounting it, working from
47:54 up there, it was quite an experience.
47:59 It's hanging daily, you know, and as the pastor said before,
48:03 when everybody is taking it down, we are putting it up.
48:10 When I think of the impact that this project has had on
48:14 the church, it's members, and the members of the community,
48:19 I see how it has pulled them together, and I look at how
48:25 God's word is influencing them, I just, it leaves me speechless.
48:30 This was an opportunity to put God's Words up in the sanctuary
48:35 and we didn't want to do it in a small way.
48:38 Just the situation itself merits you giving it the very best
48:43 that you have.
48:52 It is very difficult to be here in the North East Church
48:57 now and not have the Commandments on, and every time
49:02 we turn that dial to turn the lights up, you still feel that
49:07 sense of awe, that personal gasp that we heard from the
49:13 audience on the day that we unveiled those Commandments.
49:16 The power of God through the Commandments has revealed here
49:21 is always, always fresh, every single Sabbath.
49:32 You know, while this world right now is being challenged
49:36 by what they believe, it is important for Christians
49:41 of every religious persuasion to go back to the Bible
49:46 and re-discover even these very Ten Commandments,
49:49 the transcripts of God's character.
51:01 If we will just humble ourselves and plead for God to make these
51:07 Ten Commandments a part of our living,
51:10 rivet them in our minds and cry out to Him to help us to obey
51:16 them, because in our obeying them, that we shall be saved.
51:26 God is the author of eternal salvation for all those
51:30 who obey Him, and it's talking about obedience to His
51:34 Ten Commandments and His Word. Let's give God our very best,
51:40 let's make Him our God, let's let Him rule and reign
51:44 our lives, let's not have any part time lovers,
51:47 or any sacred thing that's above God.
52:08 For God so love the world, that He gave His only begotten Son
52:11 that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish,
52:14 but have everlasting life. God wants to make us
52:17 His sons and daughters. God wants us to be Number One
52:21 for Him, so He asks us to make Him Number One.
52:25 You can be God's firstborn and we all can be firstborns
52:28 if we make God firstborn in our lives, first and best always
52:33 and let's worship God with our whole heart, and life itself
52:37 will be altogether different for God is coming back for
52:40 His children and love Him and serve Him.
52:44 Let's serve Him with all of our hearts for He is worthy
52:47 to be praised by the way we live, not just by our singing,
52:51 let's bless God with all our energy.
53:12 ¤¤


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Revised 2014-12-17