Is God's Presence A Desirable Thing? (Exodus 20:21-26) Series

Christians often have negative attitudes about sacrifice in the OT. There's maybe four reasons for this:

(1) We don't really understand sacrifice very well at all. It's foreign to us, and confusing. And I include myself in this.

(2) We maybe know that the OT has a number of really barbed attacks on sacrifice. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and some of the psalms sharply attack sacrifice as not being the thing God most wants. God places a higher priority-- a higher value-- on people acting rightly toward each other. And if they refuse to do this, and instead act unjustly, and violently, God will ignore anything people sacrifice to him (Isaiah 1:10-17).

(3) When we think about sacrifice, we think about the Pharisees-- about people focused on external acts of obedience, at the expense the heart. We think of sacrifice as being legalistic, or maybe "works-based."

(4) We know that Jesus died as a sacrifice in our place, and that we Gentiles aren't expected to offer God any literal sacrifices. We also know that we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, instead of animals.

The bottom line, is that when we think about sacrifice in the OT, we come at it with a lot of baggage, and our baggage often keeps us from really taking the time to understand sacrifice, or appreciate it.

So when we get to passages that talk about sacrifice, what do we do? Maybe, we think about other aspects of the text. Maybe, we just cruise over the verses quickly. That's what I tend to do, at any rate.

But I've put myself in a bit of a pickle this morning. I didn't leave very much of Exodus 20 for today. And Exodus 21 not only has a different heading, but an entirely different subject matter.

So I found myself thinking, I should really teach only on Exodus 20:18-26. And the only way to do that, I thought at first, was by focusing on OT sacrifices-- something I knew very little about.

What I found, as I studied, is that all Scripture is useful. And what I learned is so interesting, and helpful, I might end up rabbit trailing for two weeks after this and talking about two different sacrifices-- the burnt offering, and the peace/fellowship offering. The whole subject is fascinating. This will end up being a little mini-series on sacrifice, within the Exodus series. And, amusingly, in the end, I'm not really going to talk about those two sacrifices today at all. I should. The passage would make a lot more sense if I did. But I'll save that for the next two weeks.

So for this morning, let's start by reading Exodus 20:18-20. We read these verses last week-- they form a transition of sorts:

(18) Now, all the people [were] seeing the thunder and the lightning and the sound of the horn, and the mountain smoking,

and the people saw,

and they trembled,

and they stood far off,

(19) and they said to Moses,

"Speak-- you-- with us,

and we will listen,

and may God not speak with us, lest we die,"

(20) and Moses said to the people,

"Don't fear,

because, in order to test you the God/Elohim has come,

and in order that his fear/reverence would be before/upon your faces,

so that you don't sin,"

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William Propp, Exodus, notes that the preposition here usually translated "upon" ("upon your faces") often has the sense of "before." Reverence of God is something you keep in front of your faces, as you go through life.

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There is a wrong reason, and a right reason, to "fear" Yahweh. When Yahweh reveals himself-- even in part-- through the thick cloud, and thunder, and lightning-- it's scary. You find yourself thinking you are going to die. You find yourself wanting to create distance between yourself and God. And this is true for almost everyone who encounters God, throughout the OT.

But here, Moses reassures the people that they don't need to fear God killing them here. Or maybe, better, they don't need to fear that they will die, from simply being that close to God. God designed this encounter for two reasons: The first, was to "test" them. God wanted to know how they would react to his revealing himself. How do you respond, when God overwhelms you with his glory, and power? God wanted to know. And the second reason God designed this encounter, was in order that they would fear God from this point forward, so they don't sin. The rest of their lives, they will remember this day, this mountain. And if they keep that in mind, they won't sin.

And if we could do the same, I think it would have the same effect on us. It's hard to sin against God, when you keep in mind what God is really like.