Participants: Pr. Ezra Mendinghall (Host)
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 ¤¤ |
Revised 2014-12-17