Moses On The Mountain With The Lord - Part 6 Series

Moses on the Mountain with the Lord - Part 6

Exodus 24:1-18

Sermon by Rick Crandall

McClendon Baptist Church - July 7, 2010

BACKGROUND & INTRODUCTION

*The LORD God of the Old Testament who appeared to men was God the Son, the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. We are studying these appearances because each of them has something to say to us today.

*Nobody in the Old Testament had more meetings with the Lord than Moses. Tonight we continue looking at Moses on Mount Sinai with the pre-incarnate Christ. We will see the end of Moses’ fourth visit up the mountain and the beginning of the fifth, with a pause in the middle for the people to worship the Lord and confirm their commitment to be in covenant with God. (1)

*The events in Exodus 24 are very important to us today. Bob Deffinbaugh stressed the importance of this covenant with these words:

-“We can recall or read of the treaties which have been signed, concluding the two world wars of the 20th century, but they pale in the light of this chapter. . . The events of this chapter are critical in the history of Israel. . . The ratification of the Mosaic Covenant here is the key to the remainder of Exodus. . . We cannot possibly understand the meaning of the Old Testament apart from an understanding of the old covenant here in Exodus 24. And we cannot understand the New Testament apart from an understanding of the Old.” (2)

*This crucial time between Moses and the Lord speaks to us today.

1. First, it speaks about sprinkling of the blood.

*In Exodus 24:3, “Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments.”

*Over the last couple of weeks we studied the Lord’s detailed laws from Exodus 20-23. In those chapters, God talked about a lot of different things: Proper worship, idols, sacrifice, slavery, stealing, how to treat strangers, honesty, the Sabbath, being sympathetic to your enemies.

*How can we boil it all down? -- The Lord Himself did that for us in Matthew 22, when a lawyer came to Him and asked:

36. "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?''

37. Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’

38. This is the first and great commandment.

39. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

40. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

*The bottom line is this: God cares about relationships. God cares about how we treat Him, and how we treat other people.

*When the people heard the details, Exodus 24:3 tells us that: “All the people answered with one voice and said, ‘All the words which the Lord has said we will do.’” This was the same commitment they made back in Exodus 19:8, and here in Exodus 24:3&7 they repeated their commitment twice.

*Now the covenant would be sealed in blood:

4. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. And he rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel. (Those stones represented all the people of the 12 tribes of Israel.)

5. Then he sent young men of the children of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord.

6. And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins, and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar.

7. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read in the hearing of the people. And they said, "All that the Lord has said we will do, and be obedient.''

8. And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, "Behold, the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words.''

*J. Ligon Duncan explained this amazing scene: “Moses takes the hyssop branch and dips it in the blood and begins slinging it out on the people of God until the blood has been spread on the people of God, symbolically indicating that they have been brought into a blood relationship and life and death commitment with the God of Israel.” (3)

*Rodney Buchanan explained the death commitment by saying, “A covenant is not just an agreement between two people, like a contract. It was a binding agreement committed to under the penalty of death. (4)

*So the blood of the sacrificed animals showed the seriousness of the covenant. But the sacrifices were also a shadow of the sacrifice that Jesus would make for us on the cross.

*As J. Ligon Duncan said: