Where Will You Be Found In Relation To God? Series

Where will You be Found in Relation to God

God sends Israel on

God speaks with Moses

God leads the way for Moses

DBF Sermon, 4/13/03, Exodus 33

I hear continually of Tribal justice and some of its methods and practices at least in Bristol Bay.

If the tribe of Togiak banishes someone from the tribe then that person must leave…the only problem is they can go to Twin Hills, Manakotak or Dillingham.

You see these people are found to be “In violation” of tribal customs in relation to their relationship to their communities. The banishment often is hoped to be able to bring about a repentance of their actions against the community and a change in their behaviors. These are indeed good goals yet what often occurs is:

This type of justice transfers one village’s problem to another neighboring village.

Does this really address the needs of the offender and the victims?

I do not think so, because a 15 to 20 minute flight will bring them back to the village, or they can take a boat or a snow machine depending on the time of year and be right back in the offending village.

Likewise, we see that Israel was found in violation of God’s laws and in need of repentance and change.

We will learn from what God commands and Moses’ actions the means by which God brings some to repentance in the nation of Israel, and as always look towards the perfection of the plan of the tabernacle as realized through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Let’s walk with Moses and Israel in Chapter 33 of Exodus.

God sends Israel on

Exodus 33:1-7 (KJV)

And the Lord said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I sware unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it: [2] And I will send an angel before thee; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite: [3] Unto a land flowing with milk and honey: for I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiffnecked people: lest I consume thee in the way.

[4] And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned: and no man did put on him his ornaments. [5] For the Lord had said unto Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiffnecked people: I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment, and consume thee: therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee. [6] And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the mount Horeb. [7] And Moses took the tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass, that every one which sought the Lord went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp.

And the Lord said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence…After the testing of Moses, God commands him and the nation of Israel to go to the land that God has promised.

God commands us also to make ourselves ready on our journey to go to this “promised land”.

Isaiah 14:1 (KJV)

For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.

Isaiah 57:13 (KJV)

When thou criest, let thy companies deliver thee; but the wind shall carry them all away; vanity shall take them: but he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain;

Jeremiah 7:7 (KJV)

Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.

Jeremiah 11:5 (KJV)

That I may perform the oath which I have sworn unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then answered I, and said, So be it, O Lord.

Acts 7:3 (KJV)

And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee.

Acts 7:5 (KJV)

And he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child.

Romans 4:13 (KJV)

For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.