Moses Makes New Tablets 34 The Lord said to Moses, “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. 2 Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. 3 No one shall come up with you, and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain.” 4 So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. 5 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.” 8 And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. 9 And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.” The Covenant Renewed 10 And he said, “Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you. 11 “Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 12 Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. 13 You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim 14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, 16 and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods. 17 “You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal. 18 “You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt. 19 All that open the womb are mine, all your male livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep. 20 The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. And none shall appear before me empty-handed. 21 “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. 22 You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year's end. 23 Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. 24 For I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year. 25 “You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover remain until the morning. 26 The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.” 27 And the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. I put these two passages together today, because I think it is important for us to not disassociate God's name and character from the Law that He gave. His commandments like His works naturally flow out of who He is and since He is unchanging, and immutable, then we should not expect His laws to change.
Moses cut new tablets like the first ones to replace the ones that were broken--remember though, God's intent was never for the Law to be written on the tablets of stone and be something external, we know that His intent was always for the Law to be etched on the hearts of His people where it would not be something external that they would have to be taught, but that they would have new and clean hearts that would desire to do the things that God desired instead of being controlled by the flesh which was in opposition to the Spirit of God and His will and works--stealing the glory for self that only God deserves. We see God again forbids anyone and anything other than Moses from approaching the mountain. This time though, there will be no wild parties down below while Moses is up on the mountain. Moses goes up the mountain while the people wait and once again the cloud envelopes Moses and hides him from the sight of the people. There God speaks His name and His covenant to Moses and Moses makes intercession for the people of God, asking God to continue to send "the Lord" (not the LORD) before them--I talked about what I think this means--and for Him to continue to go up with His people and be with them, even though they are rebellious, stubborn and stiff-necked, and to continue to take them for Himself as an inheritance from among all the peoples of the Earth. God responds by renewing His covenant once again with Moses--a covenant that we know should never be in doubt because God cannot lie and His words are consistent with His character, and once He has chosen a people for Himself, He does not abandon the--but the people at that time did not know God like we do, because they had not had the benefit of Jesus coming in the flesh to show, demonstrate and teach all these things. Even though it had been hundreds of years since God had revealed Himself to Abram (later Abraham), and Isaac, and Jacob (later Israel), the nation is still in its infancy when it comes to its relationship with God and is still figuring out who God is, what pleases Him, how serious He is about His rules and the threats that He makes about punishments for those that break the rules, and everything else--much like a child figuring out his parents and how the relationship between the child and parent changes over time and grows eventually to the point where (hopefully) the child loves to do what pleases the parents and hates to do the things that the parent hates or that hurt the parent and they incorporate the values and nature of the parent--in a way, they become "one" with the parent and people can look at the child and know who they belong to because they look, act, and sound so much like their parent(s). Then the Law is given for a second time, and like the first time, God reminds the people of who He is and what He has done and this time what He is going to do. Before God ever asks us to accept His Law, He wants us to first have experienced the transformation that comes from experiencing the Passover and the passing through the Red Sea--in other words, the Law was never meant for those who had not been "born again" and given a new identity. We fail at understanding the Law when we think it was an external force to try and make the immoral nations of the world into moral people without those people first turning and repenting and believing in a living God that controls even life and death and brings His people out of their slavery to sin and causes them to pass from death to life--even if it means them wandering in the wilderness with Him leading them every step of the way and giving them manna from heaven and water from the rock and all other kinds of miraculous signs. They worshiped a God that did not live in one place and was not attached to a land or to an idol--this was quite different and unique for the people around them. "...The LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9) God tells them specifically to not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land of Canaan (we see later the Gibeonites would trick them into doing this anyways, but this should be a warning to modern-day Israel as well). The people of that land would be a snare for the people of God and would lead them to worship false gods, so the Israelites were to tear down and destroy all the idols and high places. Our God is a jealous God who will not allow the glory that He deserves to be given to any other, nor will He be okay with us coming to Him in worship with pagan practices that glorify man and sin and the forces of evil, nor should we partake in sacrifices that were made to idols (Paul will come back and address this again in the New Testament, but it's clear looking at both places that this command is given for the good and protection of God's people to keep them form getting mixed up in idolatry. Paul makes the argument that some of us will be able to eat meat that's been sacrificed to false gods without being tempted to worship or pay homage to the false gods, but that something that each man's conscience and the Holy Spirit will let them know--God would permit this so that the gospel would go forth into regions where idolatry had a stronghold, but God's people should never be identified look like the "go along to get along" crowd that appears to participate in the practices of the world during the week only to come to church and worship God one day out of the week. Our lives should be marked and different every day of the week, including who and what we make peace with and associate and identify with). We should only be known as God's people as God is a jealous God and He's specifically jealous about His name which now resides on and in us. Again, the people are told specifically not to make any kind of idol for themselves--God doesn't have to spell it out like last time with saying not to make an idol out of wood, or stone, or metal and not to make an image of anything in the air or on the earth, or in the sea--they had just broken this law. Just don't make any idols or graven images of anyone or anything. Now we see something different--we normally think of the Law as the 10 Commandments, but we now see that God commands His people to keep the Passover (for the Church this would be for us to keep the ordinance/sacrament of The Lord's Supper/Communion/The Eucharist). We don't normally associate this with the commandments of God because we focus on the version from Exodus 20, but this is one of the reasons we are told "not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together as some are in the habit of doing" in the epistle to the Hebrews and we are told to celebrate the Lord's Supper (that's the name I'll use for it because that's what my local congregation calls it) regularly and faithfully until the Lord Jesus returns. We are not commanded a specific routine for it, but rather it is something it seemed that the early Church did whenever they got together, because it was part of celebrating their new identity and remembering what God had done in and through them by and for Jesus Christ. We also see along with the Feast of Unleavened Bread that God's people are commanded to remember to redeem their firstborn which is also part of their Exodus story and keeps them focused on the story of the gospel--all of us are under a death sentence and need to be redeemed and covered by the blood of a Lamb God then commands His people to keep the Sabbath (I wrote nearly a whole blog on this recently the first time that God gives commandments about keeping the Sabbath) and three pilgrimage festivals (we'll see later in Deuteronomy these are the festivals of Passover, Pentecost, and The Feast of Tabernacles/Booths). These were the ones that most exemplified the gospel that God wanted to make sure that everyone participated in and that no one forgot them or missed them, because they pointed to what God did, what God is doing and what God is still about the business of doing until Christ returns, and they even point to truths about what God will be doing for His people in all eternity. We'll try to specifically "camp out" on the Feast of Pentecost and The Feast of Tabernacles/Booths when we come to them like we've done already with the Feast of Passover. There were other Fasts and Feasts,and other very important days on the Jewish calendar (like The Day of Atonement), but God had reason for the people to all be gathered in one place together for these events--and this may explain now why so many people were gathered together on the day of Pentecost in the book of Acts. Pentecost is not a New Testament holiday, but it has come to its fulfillment through the coming of the Holy Spirit and it means something new to the Church (the fulfillment of the people of Israel as the elect from among the Gentiles have been grafted into the Vine that is True Israel to make the Church) than it did for ethnic Israel. God commands the people not to bring any leavened bread to the altar where it will be mixed with the blood of the sacrifices used for atonement, because the people are supposed to associate "leaven" with "sin." That which is offered to God as a sacrifice is to be different than everything the world has to offer and needs to be free from the corruption of sin. Again, we cannot approach God in any way we want and give to Him in any way we want and expect Him to have to be happy with it. We must approach God on His terms in a way that makes it obvious to everyone in the Church and outside the Church that He's a different kind of God that deserves a pure and holy sacrifice that is worthy of Him--that's not a sacrifice we can offer of ourselves though because we are tainted with the leaven of sin, so only Jesus can be that sacrifice for us. He was The Bread of Life that was untainted by sin whose life could be given in a way where His life did not contaminate the blood offering of The Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. God commands the people not to let any of the feast of Passover remain until morning--it is to be eaten quickly as one mean because the people could not take leftovers with them on their journey. Everything that could not be eaten was to be shared with those who had nothing and anything leftover was to be burned in the fire. God commands them to keep the sacrifice of the firstfruits and to always give God their first and best. I'll be completely honest with this next one--I have literally no idea what the command about not boiling a young goat in its mother's milk is about. I'm pretty sure it does not mean that I can't eat a cheeseburger, which is what it's turned into with people that obey strict dietary laws (Kosher), but this commandment is given three times in the Law--twice in Exodus and once in Deuteronomy. I have to assume that the people of the time knew what it was about and it's simply one of those things that you say, "Okay, don't understand it, but I'm going to obey it, because clearly it's important to you, God." I've heard lots of people claim this had something to do with a pagan Canaanite ritual, but can find no hard of evidence of the specific ritual or practice anywhere. The citations are ambiguous and cite nameless "credible" sources, so I'm not inclined to believe that explanation without something that is scholarly and verifiable (I could do the same research as the author of the article and get the same evidence without making assumptions). There is some believe that this is actually some kind of idiom that has lost its original meaning over the years. Speculation for this is that it doesn't really seem to "fit" in the context of the other commandments when it's given. When translated literally it feels like it came out of nowhere each and every time that the command is given. It's possible that the command was clear to the people at that time, but is no longer clear to us. The Bible is full of other idioms, some of which would make little to no sense to us when translated literally (and we've seen this issue with some Bible translations). I don't love this answer because God is not the author of confusion and He works to preserve His Word and make it clear to us, so if I take this view, then I have to assume that whatever this prohibition is, the Holy Spirit keeps us from violating it to this day. I'm not willing to write this off as being unimportant though simply because the commandment isn't repeated elsewhere in the Bible or in the New Testament. We make much more out of commandments that are only given one time and this is given both times God gives the Law and again when the Law is given to the new generation of Israelites in the book of Deuteronomy. One little bit more about this "strange" phrase and then we'll continue with the rest of the passage. Each time the phrase is used, it seems to be used in connection with the offering of firstfruits and giving our first and best to God. It seems most logical then to associate this phrase somehow with that commandment and to say that its original meaning probably had something to do with that command that is common in all three instances. One possible explanation I've seen is to not try to mix the leftovers from last year's harvest with the "firstfruits" of this year's harvest to try to make make your offering less valuable--something we see that God specifically abhors later in the Old Testament, or "don't try and mix your old religion with the new thing that I'm creating" that's also fitting and something that we see repeated several other places including the parable of the wineskins that Jesus gave. Again, I don't think it really has anything to do with eating meat and dairy at the same time and I'll happily eat my cheeseburgers and not be convicted of sin. Let's take a moment to see what God didn't repeat here and see that the idea of God not repeating something meaning that it's not important is foolish. God did not repeat the commands of: "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain," "Honor your father and mother," "You shall not commit manslaughter," "You shall not commit adultery," "You shall not bear false witness," "You shall not steal," or "You shall not covet." The only commands that He repeated out of the 10 Commandments were the 1, 2, and 4--everything listed here was about how God's people were to be unique and different form everyone else and what it means to be God's covenant people and how they would be recognized by the world. We are not recognized as God's people for not being thieves and murderers because every decent human being is expected to do those things, but how we worship God and the relationship we have with Him and why we worship--now those are unique qualities to God's people as part of His covenant relationship with us that the world does not share and cannot understand. They can only view what we have and marvel and wonder at the mystery that is the gospel (even the angels see it and are in awe and do not fully understand). (Some of my thoughts I've shared are in line with things I read on this article:; https://seekingscripture.com/do-not-boil-a-young-goat-in-its-mothers-milk-another-possibility/) And Moses was on the mountain with God for forty days and forty night without food or water (much like Jesus was in the wilderness forty days and forty nights without food or water after His baptism and before His temptation). This was definitely something supernatural, but it might be worth our time to investigate this connection later because Jesus comes back to the Law--to the book of Deuteronomy specifically--to thwart all three temptations of Satan. Jesus being full of the Holy Spirit and driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit is probably in deep communion with God much like Moses was here (we're going to see the physical manifestation of that close communion next time) and God was preparing both Moses and Jesus for their mission that was ahead of them, but all of this was ultimately about preparing the people that they were leading to be the people that God had chosen them to be--a people fit for a kingdom not of this world.
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Moses' Intercession 12 Moses said to the Lord, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ 13 Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” 14 And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. 16 For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” 17 And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” 18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” 19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” 21 And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.” An interesting passage here as Moses once again pleads for God to go with His people and says that they would rather not leave Mt. Sinai then have to go into the Promised Land without God going with them. Moses also says that cannot make the journey alone and needs God to be with him every step of the way (even though God had promised His angel to go before them, that was not enough for Moses). Moses says that it is the presence of the LORD living among the people and leading them that made them different from every other people and nation in the world--think about that and let it sink in. Is it still not the same way with us as the Church? Should it not be obvious to the outside world that the Spirit of God lives in and among us and leads us in every way that we should go and is also our Provider, Defender, and Protector? Should not the same fear of the LORD be upon our enemies that was upon the enemies of Israel at that time because God is the same yesterday, today and forever and He will one day judge the nations with plagues just like those that He judged Egypt with--just all the more powerful because their wickedness and rebellion for rejecting the God and gospel they know is worse than rejecting the God and gospel they did not know in Egypt? (see the book of Revelation)? Then God says He will do this for Moses because He loves Moses (Moses has found favor in His sight) and God wants to do good things for Moses because of that love and because God knows Moses intimately (remember, someone's "name" is their identity so God is saying that He knows Moses better than Moses even knows himself). Moses is grateful, but not satisfied, because Moses wants to know God in the way that God knows Moses. He asks to be shown God's full glory (because he had experienced the glory of the LORD on the mountain veiled by smoke and in the Tent of Meeting veiled by the pillar of cloud and he wanted to experience it unveiled) and to know God by name. God said that wasn't possible for a man to look on the fullness of the glory of God and live, but that God would cause all of His goodness to pass before Moses and that He would proclaim His name before Moses--but this is not the same name that God gave Moses at the burning bush. Notice it says "The Lord" and not, "The LORD." That may not seem like a big deal to you, but I promise it is and I'll explain why in a second with a reference to something from the Psalms. "The Lord" is the Hebrew word Adonai. It is used mostly to refer to a sovereign (king, master, or other ruler) when his subjects or servants replied to his command with, "Yes, my lord," so it is not a title used exclusively for God. I believe that Moses saw a preincarnate appearance of Christ here because "no man has seen God (the Father)." Even Jesus will come back and say that later. We also know that Jesus is the embodiment of all of God's goodness, and we've already talked about the LORD sending "His angel" before Moses and the Israelites. But what is it specifically about saying "The Lord" and not "The LORD" that makes me think this--honestly, even if the passage said "The LORD, I might still think this, because Jesus also claimed to be the "I AM" several times--specifically His seven "I am" statements that He made in the gospel of John--two of which will be in The Gospel Project's lesson for this week--"I am the Door/Gate" and "I am the Good Shepherd." But here's a passage from the book of Psalms where the Father is talking to the Son and David is listening in on the conversation and records it. Psalm 110 English Standard Version Sit at My Right HandA Psalm of David. Psalm 110:1 The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” 2 The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies! 3 Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power, in holy garments; from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. 4 The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” 5 The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. 6 He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. 7 He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head. Notice how the title of Adonai is used to refer to the Son, but YHWH or "I AM" or "The LORD" is still used to refer to the Father. We know Psalm 110 to be a prophetic and Messianic Psalm talking about someone greater than David--Jesus would point this out to the Jews later that God was not talking to David here, which was the traditional interpretation given by the scribes and religious leaders of the time (and maybe even to this day). Bear with me for a minute here. Is it possible that "The Lord" that is mentioned here in Psalm 110 (that is the Christ) is the same person that Moses saw pass before him? I have one more passage for you to consider before wrapping up here today. Hebrews 1:3, speaking of Jesus, says, "3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high," Did you catch that? He is the radiance of the glory of God! Isn't that what Moses had asked to see? There are a few other passages like this one, but I would like you to dig deep and find them on your own. Do a word study on "glory" in both the Old Testament and New Testament sometime and see where are the places where "gory" is described as a person or group of people (very few times and they seem to have something in common) So, it's my opinion (not something that I'm stating as incontrovertible fact) that Moses saw the preincarnate Christ pass before Him. Actually, a couple more verses that I hinted at earlier to wrap up. John 1:18--"18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known." John 10:30--"30 I and the Father are one.” (Keep reading after this because it's clear the Jews understood what He had said by their reaction of picking up stones to try to kill Him) John 14:1-14 (ESV) I Am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life 14 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. 12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. I hope you don't walk away today feeling that I "majored on the minors" but I believe we need to see Jesus as the visible glory of the LORD and God is also going to say this about the Church (one of the reasons I wanted you to do the word study I mentioned). It is our job to be the visible representation of the God that people cannot see because God is Spirit and those that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. We cannot see the Father or the Holy Spirit, though some people saw the Son in the flesh and that flesh was a sort of veil to hide His full glory that we could not possibly look on (see the Mount of Transfiguration and the accounts of Jesus immediately following His Resurrection where He was emanating glory and His face and clothes were a brilliant white). Even if we get just a partial glimpse of God's glory and character and nature through Christ and the Church, is that not enough for the rest of the world to know that God's people are unique and special because His presence and glory dwells among them and leads them every step of the way? Would this be something others would say about you?
The Tent of Meeting 7 Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. 8 Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and each would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. 9 When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. 10 And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent door. 11 Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent. There is some debate as to if "The Tent of Meeting" here is the Tabernacle, Moses' tent, or something else completely. I don't think it's the Tabernacle, because we don't even see the people make the contributions for the Tabernacle until chapter 35. All the instructions that Moses received on how to build everything were probably on those stone tablets that were just broken, and Moses is about to have to go back up the mountain to get new ones (coming in chapter 34). Whether this was Moses' tent or another special tent they had with them to this point that was larger and meant for public gatherings, who knows--just understand that at this point, it's not the Tabernacle, but at least seems like in some way it's going to function as the Tabernacle temporarily as it's the place where Moses is going to go to get away from the people and pray to God and intercede for the people--doesn't that sound like Jesus? Jesus often would get up early in the morning or stay up late at night and go away to a quiet, desolate place, away from the crowds and spend many hours in prayer.
The people know that when Moses went out to the Tent of Meeting that he was going to meet with God and that meant they should expect something important to happen and they stood at the entrances of their tents just watching this strange kind of fellowship that Moses had with God--a God so terrible and terrifying to them that Moses did not seem to fear in the same way and that Moses would talk to face-to-face (in a sense, though Moses never saw God's face from what we'll see later in Deuteronomy). The "Shekinah" glory of the LORD which took the form of "the pillar of cloud" would come and cover the Tent of Meeting and fill it in the same way that we see the glory and the presence of the LORD fill the temple during the time when Isaiah the prophet was called. We also see similar situations later when the Tabernacle is dedicated and on the Mount of Transfiguration when the glory of Jesus seems to shine through for just a little bit and the pillar of cloud is needed to hide the fullness of His glory so that the sinful disciples that were with Him would not be killed by coming in contact with the glory of God. Notice that the pillar of cloud stands at the doorway and guards Moses while he meets with the LORD. I find this amazing to see that even at this time the LORD is our Shield and Defender (see Deut. 33:29) and as we'll see later in the Old Testament "The name of the LORD is a strong tower, the righteous run into it, and they are safe." (Proverbs 18:10, also see Psalm 61:3). Then we see something most interesting--Moses would return to the camp to attend to the people, but Joshua would stay behind and would refuse to leave the Tent of Meeting. Perhaps now you understand why Joshua had a different perspective on the spying mission into Canaan and why he would be chosen to lead the new generation of Israelites that during the time of Conquest of the land of Canaan (all that is coming later, but there is a lot of foreshadowing even this early to keep your eyes on Joshua, whose name means "Savior," just like Jesus' name does--they are both forms of the name Yeshua in Hebrew and you may actually hear Messianic Jews call Jesus by the name "Yeshua."). Joshua too will be a "type" of Christ in the Old Testament just like Moses and Aaron have been and just like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Noah Adam and so many others have been. The Command to Leave Sinai 33 The Lord said to Moses, “Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give it.’ 2 I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 3 Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” 4 When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. 5 For the Lord had said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel, ‘You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.’” 6 Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward. There are places in our lives where we wish we could "camp out" and stay there forever, or maybe places where something so bad happened that we are afraid to move on from. Either way, Mount Sinai fit both categories for the Hebrews. People had a radical encounter with God there that that "messed them up" and made it hard for them to move on. They either were in love and in awe of Him, or they were terrified by Him and His power and wrath that had been displayed or maybe a little of both.
Usually God would just make the pillar of cloud or pillar of fire move and the people would follow it, but this time God spoke audibly to Moses to tell him to tell the people it was time to break camp and to get up and go. It was finally time to make progress towards the Promised Land (though did you notice that once again God tested Moses to say "you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt"? This time it doesn't seem that Moses replied as he had before). The LORD promises to send His angel before them (probably the preincarnate Christ) and that He, the LORD, would go up before them as well. This greatly distressed the people because of the words that Moses had spoken to the people during their rebellion with the golden calf. Moses had promised that if God went up with them in the midst of their rebellion that He would consume them all (because His holiness could not live among their "stiff-necked" rebellion). This seems like it should have been good news to them that they were making progress towards what God had promised, but they were almost certain that God was leading them away from this place to kill them all, and it caused a time of great mourning for them--we see this by their removal of all of their jewelry and what is called "ornaments" here--from that point forward, they would no longer adorn themselves with these ornaments and would very soon give all of them to the creation of the Tabernacle. The people wouldn't even want these treasures anymore and Moses would have to tell them to stop giving because they had given more than enough. This is the spirit of the people as they departed--they were scared or what lay ahead and they knew they would not survive without God's help, but they were afraid to be near to Him because of their sin (much like how Adam and Eve's first instinct after they sinned was to cover themselves and hide from God in the Garden of Eden). Now that we've read the entire account of what happened at Mount Sinai from Exodus 19:-32, reflect on what the author of the epistle to the Hebrews says to those of us who are in Christ: Hebrews 12:18-29 English Standard Version A Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken 18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. 20 For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” 21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” 22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. 25 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. 26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” 27 This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire. The Golden Calf 32 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2 So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” 6 And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. 7 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” 9 And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.” 11 But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14 And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people. 15 Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. 16 The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. 17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” 18 But he said, “It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.” 19 And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. 20 He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it. 21 And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” 22 And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. 23 For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ 24 So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.” 25 And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies), 26 then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord's side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. 27 And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.’” 28 And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell. 29 And Moses said, “Today you have been ordained for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day.” 30 The next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” 31 So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. 32 But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.” 33 But the Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. 34 But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.” 35 Then the Lord sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made. I've been pointing to and hinting at this event ever since the people got to Mount Sinai around Exodus 19. They swore they would obey everything that God commanded of them, and God sent Moses down more than once to confirm and renew the covenant with them, but they were there a very long time--this last time he was gone on the mountain for 40 days! They assumed the worst had happened to him. Having not been given any instructions directly from God other than "hold" and "wait" and "keep your distance,"
The people got tired of obeying this command and looked to their leaders for a "new" and "fresh" word--something that gave them something to do. But waiting sometimes is part of being careful to do everything exactly as God has commanded of us because God usually says, "Wait and see what I will do."! The people turn to Aaron and demand that he make idols for them to worship--the very idols that they left behind in Egypt that were unable to save the Egyptian people from the plagues there, and the very idols that God had commanded His people to never worship and never make in the first commandment and second commandment. Remember that the Ten Commandments had been confirmed orally with God's people in chapter 24, so they knew these commandments and had sworn and agreed to follow them and their agreement was marked with sacrifices and they were sprinkled with blood--it was no trivial promise or commitment they had made. But how long could they keep this law? Not very long (and that's all of us, not just them). We know our own human nature to know that they likely sinned before this, but this corporate rebellion against the Law of the LORD was the first obvious sin of the nation (God's people) and it happened before God even finished writing out the Law on the stone tablets, "before the ink dried" or "while the ink was still wet" if you will--there was no ink in this process though as we read last time that God etched the Law into the tablets of stone with His finger--I think much the same way that He has written His Law onto our hearts of stone and given everyone (but especially this people He had chosen for Himself) a conscience that was meant to work in concert with the Law of God and let men know when they were violating it, or about to violate it. We see that the items that God had provided to the people during their Exodus that were to be used for the building of His tabernacle and for His worship were turned into making false gods and objects of paganism and debauchery. They ascribed to the idol the works of the LORD (and remember He was known by His works, so they are giving the idol the identity of the LORD, though He's specifically told them He is spirit and has no form for them to make an idol of), and they made for themselves a god that would allow them to do as they willed and worship it in the way that they wanted and pretend that they were celebrating God while they were really celebrating themselves and their carnality. They were choosing to make gods like the Canaanites did and worship in the way that the Canaanites did--the very people that God said to them for them to never be like. The very influence that God has tried to keep them away from for 400 years and the very kinds of sins that God is about to judge the Canaanites for are now not only within the people that call themselves by His name, but have now been incorporated into their acts of worship. The Hebrews were not alone in this though--this is much the same problem that the Corinthian church faced as it tried to be an "emerging church" to use today's language and tried to adapt it's methods to allow people to worship in a way they knew and felt comfortable with--but we already talked about with the altar of incense that God has a very special recipe for the worship that is offered to Him and it's not to be mixed with or substituted with or substituted for anything else. God sets the rules on how we approach Him and what is glorifying to Him and what isn't, and that is the litmus test here--the people were out to pretend they were glorifying God while acting in a way that was completely inconsistent with His law, His nature, His character, and everything that He had done and said so far. Therefore, they were not really out to worship God and praise His great name, they were out for some other reason--maybe to worship pleasure, or maybe to make a name for themselves, or maybe they wanted some control over God because if they made and fashioned their god then they can control it--if it does what you don't like, just melt it down and make a new one. 7 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” (emphasis added) I find it interesting here that God seems to be testing Moses to see if he yet understands that the people belong to God, not to Moses, and that it is God that lead them up out of the land of Egypt, not Moses. Even in the days of Jesus, the Jews would get this wrong and would say that Moses gave them bread in the wilderness--that's wrong! Moses gave them nothing unless the LORD first provided it for them. The bread came down from heaven every morning--just enough for each day--and yet they refused to give glory to God for the daily provision they received and chose to worship and elevate the created man rather than the Creator God. Moses responds correctly to the test and asks God why His anger burns so hot against His people the He brought up out of Egypt? Then Moses asks God what would happen to His name and reputation among the people of Egypt and all the other nations if God would simply kill His covenant people that He had just saved and said that they were a son to Him? Is that the God that was to be so much superior to the gods of the Egyptians and the Canaanites? Well, surely God's wrath would have been warranted and just in this case, but it would go against the covenant that God had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--an everlasting covenant that could not be broken. In fact, it would go against the covenant He had sworn to Noah and Adam as well, and even go against the covenant that was sworn within the Godhead before the beginning of time (the gospel) and God is not a liar and will never do anything to break His covenant with His people. I'll say it again--God will never break covenant with His people! The teaching that somehow God got angry at the Jews for killing Jesus and has somehow broken covenant with them and replaced them with the Church is a lie from the father of lies--the devil. If God can so easily break His covenant with Israel, what makes you think that He can't just as easily break His covenant with you? That is not what Jesus taught--Jesus taught that the wild branches (Gentile believers) were grafted into the Vine (true Israel, which is really Him) and that they would change the makeup of the entire organism, but it would change them and they would become one people in Christ with one Spirit moving through them all to produce good fruit. (See John 15). As I said, Moses responded correctly and passed the test and God "repented" here (not really because God didn't change His mind), but He did not bring about the plague that it seemed apparent He was going to bring and that He had promised the people that would come if they broke the Law they had been given--again, remember chapters 19 and 25 where the people swore that all the plagues that came upon the Egyptians should come upon them if they broke God's Law and failed to obey every commandment that He gave to them. But then Moses had a little bit of an issue. He experienced some righteous indignation for sure, but we know from the past that Moses is a bit of hot-head and that he's already let his temper flare up to the point of killing an Egyptian taskmaster that was beating a Hebrew slave. In both cases, he has a right to be angry, but it is God, not man, who will bring ultimate vengeance and justice and our responses should keep us in control of our emotions and not be controlled by them. It appears that once again, Moses lost control, and this will not be the last time that this happens--and this will be his sin that will keep him out of the Promised Land. Joshua, who had been with Moses hears the noises the people are making in their worship of the false god and thought that there must be some great battle going on--that such noises could only be attributed to war cries of victory or shouts of agony of being overrun, but Moses corrects him and says that it is the people "singing." Moses is so angry about what He has seen that He throws aside God's Law and the tablets are broken--the very tablets that God just spent 40 days and 40 nights to write with His own finger. And Moses is going to make the people pay for their sin and give an answer--especially his brother Aaron. Notice he assumes the people had to do something to Aaron to make him do this, but it appears from the account earlier that Aaron willingly complied and immediately came up with a plan--maybe in an attempt to show that he too knew how to lead and give instructions. After all, he was Moses' older brother. While Aaron did try to shift the blame to the people and say they had their hearts set on evil, he freely admitted that it was his plan for them to make the golden calf. Moses grinds the golden calf to powder and spreads it out over the water and makes the people drink it. I love this next part (for the question, not necessarily the bloodshed)! Moses saw that the people had "broken loose" and needed to be reined in. He draws a line in the sand (maybe literally) and say asks, "Who is one the LORD's side?" We have a great hymn that asks this same question which I'll post to my Facebook page today. The sons of Levi are quick to respond (the tribe to which Moses belonged) and Moses instructs them to quickly put their swords because the LORD has commanded that the people are to die for their sin (I would assume those who would not repent since a significant number but not all of them were killed). The tribe of Levi was asked to patrol the gates of the camp (again, assuming this was to kill anyone that was trying to desert and turn their back on Israel and God and try to escape God's justice). About 3,000 men died at the hands of the Levites that day. This is not the first time that we've seen the tribe of Levi take up the sword in righteous indignation--in fact we saw it play out with Levi, the son of Jacob, when he and his brother killed a whole clan of Canaanites for the sin committed against their sister. We'll see later that a plague will come upon the camp because of a rebellion and one of the Levites will run a spear through the one who was guilty (see Numbers 25--a very similar situation where the people worship Baal, one of the Canaanite gods, and possibly the same kind of golden calf from here in Exodus, at Peor). While the loss of 3,000 people seems extreme, remember that the whole nation deserved to die for their sin, and God spared hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people that day. You would hope this would teach them their lesson, but as I just mentioned about Numbers 25, the people did not learn and would turn back to idols as they mixed together with the women of other cultures and religions and were "unequally yoked with unbelievers." The next morning, after the Levites had slain the 3,000 men of Israel and ordained the Levites for the LORD's service, Moses returns to the LORD with a most unusual request. "Forgive their sin, but if you will not forgive their sin, then transfer their sin onto my account and blot my name out of the Book of Life. Let me be damned so that these people, Your people, may be saved." Wow! Have we seen such a picture of Christ and His work of substitutionary atonement yet in the Old Testament?!?! The problem is that Moses could not pay for the sins of the people, because he had his own sins, but one day, God Himself would come in the person of Jesus Christ with no sin nature and no sin of His own to pay for to be The Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world--not just the nation of Israel. But God doesn't give Moses this hope. God tells Moses that all sin will be judged both now and in eternity and if these people die in their sins that their names will be blotted out of the Book of Life because of their own sin. God instructs Moses to just continue to obey Him and continue to lead the people and that God would send His angel (I've already talked about how I think this is the angel of the LORD who is the preincarnate Christ, the second person of the Trinity, in the Old Testament) before Moses and the people to lead them in the way they should go. However, God does promise that one day He will visit them and deal with their sin and rebellion. And the account ends with God sending a plague on His people not to destroy them, but to correct them because of the great sin and wickedness which they had committed. We leave this portion of Scripture feeling that all hope is gone. God's people are the walking dead because God has promised to visit them and judge them both in the here and now and in the life to come, and there is no sacrifice that could be paid for their intentional, volitional sin. If there was, Moses would have simply offered it as atonement for the people--instead he tried to offer himself, but as I said before, he could not because he was an imperfect sacrifice. We do get some hints that God is going to continue to be faithful and lead the people to the Promised Land, which seems to indicate that He's not going to destroy them (or at least, not all of them), but Moses probably has no idea that nearly everyone there with the exceptions of Joshua and Caleb would die in the wilderness for this sin and many others that they would commit in rebellion against God and God told them, "You shall never enter my rest." (That was not only the land of Canaan, but the Promised Land of heaven). We talked about this a bit yesterday in the blog about the Sabbath and heaven being our Sabbath rest from all the work of this life. The Sabbath 12 And the Lord said to Moses, 13 “You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. 14 You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. 15 Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. 16 Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. 17 It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’” 18 And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God. The Sabbath is not a topic that most Christians think is vital or important--in fact, many Christians like to say that it is not important because the fourth commandment is not repeated anywhere in the New Testament, but that's not exactly true. We see Jesus and the New Testament saints living out the commandment to honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Many will probably argue with me that Paul's letters teach that people can worship on any day they want and no day is more important than another or that keeping the Sabbath is somehow enslaving them to the Law and the practices of the Judaisers, but you have to read that into the passages and is clearly not he practice of Jesus, Paul, or the other apostles throughout the New Testament, nor is is consistent with the teachings of Jesus that He did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it or the teachings and practices of the New Testament apostles and saints.
With that said, this blog is not about guilt-tripping anyone who worships on Sunday. I just wanted to make the point that I see the shift from worship on the Sabbath to "The Lord's Day" as an attempt to make sure that Christians were not just a radical sect of Judaism but that you won't find a clear abolition of adhering to the Sabbath if that is what your conscience convinces you of, but you will find a clear abolition of judging someone's salvation by what religious days they observe or don't observe. I think I made my personal views quite clear, but for those who feel they need to know, I would prefer to worship on the Sabbath as it has always been understood. However, I've never belonged to a local church that gave me that option and I've never found it to be an issue to break fellowship with a local congregation over. I can understand where others that I worship with are coming from on why they worship on Sunday and that they are choosing to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus on a weekly basis, not just an annual basis, because that event changed everything. But isn't it interesting that Jesus "rested" on the Sabbath, even when He was in the tomb? He did the work of dying on the cross on Good Friday and He rose from the dead (something He said that He Himself did--He would lay down His own life and take it back up again), yet He did no work on the Sabbath day, but rose again "very early in the morning"--as soon as it was clear the Sabbath was over. Now that we have all that out of the way, let's talk a bit about what God's Law teaches us about observing the Sabbath, what we should learn from that as Christians (how it can be fulfilled in Christ and in the Church) and how it points us to the reality of the New Creation--as we've tried to do with everything else we've studied so far in Exodus. God tells His people that above all they are to keep the Sabbath--now that's very interesting given the discussion we just had about how many people today which to abolish the idea of the Sabbath, and the purpose of God's people keeping the Sabbath is so that they may know that God sanctifies them (makes them holy). It is something unique that only God's people can experience. While everyone else in the world might understand that God made the heavens and the earth in six days of creation and rested on the seventh day, only God's people can rest in the finished work that God has done in and through them to make them a new creation and a people unto Himself. God is not just about the work of creation in the Bible, but of salvation, sanctification and recreation. One, we will eventually all those who are in Christ will enter God's Sabbath rest (see Hebrews 4), but some who live in rebellion like the Israelites in the wilderness will be told, "You shall never enter My rest." (See Hebrews 4:1-13). We are not only told to keep the Sabbath but told that anyone who claims to be one of God's people and whoever profanes it or breaks should be put to death--Sabbath-breaking is a capital offense to God, just the same as murder, adultery, homosexuality, or witchcraft--"cut off" means to be put to death, not kicked out (we'll see God repeat Himself to make it abundantly clear in a few verses). Does that change the way you think about it? It is no small thing to God. If this law hasn't changed and God says that the identity of His kingdom citizens will be known by their observance of this command, are you willing to stake your citizenship on that? I'm not going to pass judgment on you, but I'm just asking the question. We then have one of the clearest indicators that the creation account of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 is six literal, 24-hour days (evening and morning) because God uses that to say that because He worked for six days and rested on the seventh that His people two should work for six days and rest on the seventh. The seventh day is to be a day of solemn rest and holy to the Lord--meaning it is set apart from every other day and is for Him and His word and His word alone. Nothing "common" should take precedent over this. Now, the Jewish leaders got tied up in knots over this and made up all kinds of rules and traditions to make sure they didn't break the Sabbath and Jesus had to correct them that God, not man, makes the rules. He also made the point that He, being God in the flesh, was the only Man that had any right to define what was or wasn't a violation of God's Sabbath, but He never actually broke the Sabbath--if He did, He would have been a sinner and not eligible to be our substitutionary atonement on the cross and would have deserved the death that He received for that sin--as that is the punishment for doing work on the Sabbath. Now comes the part where people do some "gymnastics." God said, "Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever." Is God only talking about "ethnic Israel" or is He talking about "spiritual Israel" which would include the Church? Which covenant is God referring to? There is a lot of "spin" that happens here in both camps, but let's suffice it to say that whatever God meant it to mean that it's still part of His covenant with that group of people to this day because Jesus said that not one iota of the Law would be changed until everything was accomplished--then your question has to be when did that happen? Was that at the crucifixion, because surely God changed the sacrificial system at that point and tore the veil to the Most Holy Place to allow access? Is that part of the meaning when Jesus said, "It is finished?" Did He possibly mean that all had been accomplished? If so, then which parts of the Law have changed? How do you know? Who gets to decide? Again, I'm asking questions and hoping that you seek for answers in the Word of God and not commentaries or the traditions of men or even in the bylaws of your local congregation. This was the last thing on God's mind before He finished writing the stone tablets that not only contained the Ten Commandments, but the entire Law that we've studied up to this point--a Law that was written with the very finger of God. There's no chance that Moses heard God wrong or wrote it down wrong because God cared so much about getting this right that He wrote it out Himself. We are absolutely sure that God said what He meant and meant what He said. Don' you usually save one of your most important points for last? What does that tell you about if this was the last thing God wanted His people to hear? Wouldn't that imply that it has some huge significance because He wants it to be the foremost in their mind after listening to everything--sure the first point(s) also bear some weightiness, but the last point of a lesson is usually where you want to hit a home run with the bases loaded. Again, I ask you, does any of this change how any of you feel about the Sabbath? I'm not here to judge you--we have but one judge--but please listen to the Holy Spirit and your conscience on this matter and don't be convinced by lofty arguments of man one way or another--let the Word of God be that which guides and directs your paths and defines what the Lord does and doesn't require of you. Oholiab and Bezalel 31 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 3 and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, 4 to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, 5 in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft. 6 And behold, I have appointed with him Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. And I have given to all able men ability, that they may make all that I have commanded you: 7 the tent of meeting, and the ark of the testimony, and the mercy seat that is on it, and all the furnishings of the tent, 8 the table and its utensils, and the pure lampstand with all its utensils, and the altar of incense, 9 and the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the basin and its stand, 10 and the finely worked garments, the holy garments for Aaron the priest and the garments of his sons, for their service as priests, 11 and the anointing oil and the fragrant incense for the Holy Place. According to all that I have commanded you, they shall do.” This is a very comforting passage to me, not simply because it is a break from the schematics and instruction manual that we've been studying, but because the task that God had laid before the people would have been impossible if God had not already equipped people with the right gifts and talents to accomplish the work that he wanted them to do. Imagine if there had been no metal-workers, tanners, tailors, or perfumers (for example). How would the furniture and tent and incense and anointing oil get made?
God told Moses not to worry about any of that because He already knew who He had prepared to take care of this. Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur and Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan had been given all the gifts and talents to take care of everything on God's to-do list. Moses would oversee and inspect everything to make sure it was according to God's specifications, but Moses wouldn't have to do it all alone. What a great blessing! Isn't this how we are supposed to operate, and forget to operate in the Church? We are supposed to be the Body of Christ--one body made of many parts all with their own gifts and talents and specializations, and each Christian with his or her own duties to perform for the good of the entire body while still being in submission to the Head which is Christ (See Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4 for some more information about spiritual gifts and how we use them in the Church to accomplish the work of God and glorify God). We sometimes thing that our pastors are supossed to be super-human and super-Christian and that we are supposed to be spectators, but "Christianity.is Not a Spectator Sport." (main title of a book by Kenneth McFarland. The subtitle is "God Needs Players, Not Cheerleaders"). I also like the book entitled "I Am a Church Member" by Thom S. Rainer (a PDF outline/summary is available here: https://www.ebenezerbc.org/Portals/0/ChurchMember/I_AM_A_CHURCH_MEMBER_-_Outline.pdf). The basic premise is that we are called to serve, not to be served--there is no such thing a "country club Christianity" where you pay your dues by way of tithes and offerings and everyone else serves you and waits on you. God has specific work that He has prepared for you to do--God has saved us for a special purpose (Ephesians 1) by grace, through faith and unto good works that He has prepared for us (Ephesians 2). What would have happened if these men would have refused the task that God had laid out for them? Well, we already see what happened when Moses tried that earlier when God tried to send Him back to Pharaoh and Moses made excuses. God's anger burned against Moses and God prepared someone else to do the work He had prepared for Moses and it would be Aaron and not Moses that would get the "glory" of people God's spokesman--yet somehow to this day, we forget to talk about Aaron in any role other than High Priest. Aaron was there to fill the gap that Moses left. God could have and would have done the same here and will do the same in the Church today--no one is irreplaceable, but God wishes for you to share in the glory of seeing His kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven, not for your glory, but for His glory. How amazing is that? God chooses to use imperfect people like us to accomplish His perfect design and will! As my friend Patrick from Lynchburg, VA would say (rather loudly), "HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!?!" (He got very excited about God and seeing God work in Him and seeing God work in and through other people, and I don't think there was much that excited him more than see God at work in this world.) God has made all kinds of people to fill all kinds of roles for all different kinds of jobs that He's prepare. To tie this into our lesson from The Gospel Project this week--don't covet anyone else's spiritual gifts or talents and don't desire to have anyone else's job. Be content to do the work that God has called you to do while God has still permitted you to be alive and do it, and do it with joy and gladness that you get to serve Him and do it in a way that points people to Jesus and brings glory to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Do not use your gifts for making yourself rich or famous and do not use them in a way that steals glory from God because the God that gave you that gift can take it from you and give it to someone else (the parable of the talents). Be good stewards of your time, talent and treasure so that you remember God is owner of all and be about His work that He would be doing with that which He owns (including you, because He has bought you with a price) and do it in a way where people know that you are just about doing your Master's business. I'm sure these two men were just happy to be available and part of God's plan to build His Tabernacle and display His glory to His people and to the whole world--and in doing so to give people a taste of the gospel and what the new heaven and the new earth would look like one day when God would once again dwell among men and we would tabernacle with Him as we dwell in the place in which the Lord would reside--the Most Holy Place--forever and ever. |
Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
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