Law, Sacrifice,tabernacle And Jesus Series

Today, we are continuing our series called The Story. If you are visiting with us today, basically The Story is a 31-week overview of the Bible. The goal is helping you connect the different stories of the Bible together and ultimately to see how your story connects up to God’s story. Last week, the part of the story that we looked at was the story of the Exodus, the deliverance, and how God used Moses to deliver the people from the hand of the Pharaoh of Egypt. They had been captive for 430 years and God used Moses to deliver the people to set them free from his hand. Later on, God used Moses to help him part the Red Sea. The walls of water went up on both sides and the people were able to go through those waters to the other side of land while the Egyptians were swept under and drowned.

Today, we pick up the story on the other side of the Red Sea. We pick it up in the Sinai Desert. It is likely when the people got the other side of the Red Sea they were really excited with the whole idea of crossing through. But we know what often happens is the excitement doesn’t last for long. People begin to complain about things. That is really what happened in this situation here. They were excited and all of a sudden they began to shift into complaining mode. They got out in the desert and began to find that there was a shortage of food. Basically, they say to Moses “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt. There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Here again the Israelites are in complaining mode. For some reason, God chooses to accommodate their complaints mainly to remind them that it was by his hand that they were delivered out of Egypt. As the story goes, he decides he is going to rain down quail upon the camps and he is also going to rain down this thing called manna, this bread-like substance. That is what he did. They were satisfied for the next few weeks or whatever. They moved along through the desert and then there was a shortage of water. In a paraphrase they said something to Moses like you brought us all the way out into the desert just so our children and our livestock can die of thirst. What is up with that? If we had time, we would look in the early part of the story and we would see that that initial journey into the desert had a very rocky start. Plus, along the way, they ran into a group called the Amalekites that they had to fight with. They survived it but pretty much that first three months was a really rocky start. After three months, almost three months to the day, they were brought near the mountain of Sinai. It is at that mountain where God called Moses up and told Moses to say these words to the people. He said “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself. Now, if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.” Isn’t that a beautiful imagery, how I carried you on eagle’s wings? What God is reminding the people here is that he has not forgotten the original covenant with Abraham. He told Abraham you would be blessed. You would be a great nation. You would be blessed so that you can bless other nations. This is the reminder of that. So he says these words to Moses and Moses goes down and tells the people. Moses goes back up to the mountain and tells God what the people had said. Then God tells Moses this is what I want you to do. In three days, I am going to appear to the entire Hebrew community. I want you to go down and tell the people to get ready for this event. I want you to tell them to wash their bodies, put on clean clothes, prepare their hearts, and purify themselves, and after three days to come to the mountain. That is where I am going to make my appearance to them. That is what happened. They got all cleaned up and started coming to the mountain. Moses is leading them there. Just as they begin to get close they see this very dense, dark cloud up in the sky. They don’t know what to think of it. It gets darker and darker. Before long there is thunder and lighting. All of a sudden they hear a real loud sound of a trumpet. Then out of the cloud this fire begins to come down on the mountain. The whole mountain is consumed by smoke. The mountain begins to tremble. The people are terrified. I suspect that even Aaron and Moses were terrified. It is about that time that God calls Moses and his brother Aaron up to the mountain where is going to verbally begin to give them what is known as the Ten Commandments.