Last time we were together Moses had just been given the 10 Commandments. He had been going up and down the mountain hearing from God and relaying this information from God to the people.
Now it wasn’t just the 10 commandments. Moses in that short time received 4 chapters of detailed laws about how they are to live as a society. These laws are mostly specific to that culture and deal with the treatment of slaves and foreigners, and other’s property, and what the punishments and paybacks were for certain civil disputes and crimes and so on. Many of our laws come from these.
Now clearly the death penalty was in effect for murder, but look at verse 15 of chapter 21. Striking or cursing a parent was also punishable by death (how many of us would have survived childhood). How about these: mistreat a widow or fatherless child and God will put you to death by the sword. If you lend money to a poor person, don’t charge interest. Very much about how to treat the vulnerable people in society, and about fairness. A lot of critics want to turn God into a mean bigot. But that is far from the case, that’s how humans distort God’s will.
Part of this was also the Sabbath. The part about letting your land, vineyards and orchards rest in the seventh year, and letting the poor and even the wild animals eat from what grows on it in that year.
It talks about resting on the seventh day again and even letting your slaves rest. It mentions the importance of family, specifically letting your female slave rest so that her son may be refreshed. And of course, don’t boil your young goats in its mother’s milk. Anybody ever get caught doing that? Old goats I guess are OK.
Verse 20 begins an interesting part of chapter 23. “Behold I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him.”
He goes on to promise that if you do obey him, he will blot out your enemies, he will bless your bread and water, he will take away sickness and miscarriage, and you will get this vast land that I am preparing for you. That is very much like the description of our future given in Revelation.
Now I believe that this angel is very likely Jesus, because of that phrase, “My name is in him.” Christophonies were not unusual through the book of Genesis and I believe this may be confirmed by Paul’s words in 1 Cor 10 where Paul mentions the cloud quite often, and then in verse 4 he says “these people with Moses drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ”. Now Jesus also calls himself the true manna from heaven. So whether this was an incarnation of Jesus in the form of a man, cloud, rock, bread, angel, it doesn’t matter. Christ is the only real physical manifestation of God himself.
But here’s the real clincher for me. I’ve said many times throughout our study that our promised land – heaven, parallels their promised land. In verse 20 of Exodus chapter 23, God says I have sent this angel to guard you and bring you to the place that I have prepared. Jesus is and always was the way, and no one gets to the place God prepares but through Him. And what is sad is that ultimately only two of the 600,000 men that left Egypt entered the Promised Land. Moses wasn’t even included, all because they did not obey the Lord consistently.
God even tells us why Caleb was one of those two chosen in Numbers 14. “Because he had a different spirit and has followed me completely”. God said he pardoned the people at Moses request which only meant that he did not kill them on the spot and did not punish them to the 3rd and 4th generation. Their children got in.
It’s also interesting that in Numbers 14 God says none of those who saw my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt will enter. Now here in Exodus chapter 24, some of the men actually saw the God of Israel. Now to my knowledge no one could ever see God and live, so who were they looking at?
Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, along with 70 of Israel’s elders saw God and beneath his feet was something like a transparent pavement of sapphire stone with the clearness of the sky. I believe that was Jesus. And it says God did not harm them when they saw him. Now this is interesting, why didn’t God let everyone see him?
Well God never does. These people are to be witnesses to the rest as the leaders of the nation, just like the seventy that Jesus sent out ahead of him to every place he was going to go in Luke 10. Those who listened to the witnesses avoided judgment, those who rejected the witnesses were judged. Jesus says at the end of that passage, “no one knows who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Then he turned to his disciples and said blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it.”
For some reason God chooses to reveal himself only to a few and expects people to witness about him and for people to believe that witness. God chooses 70 here in Exodus, and Jesus chose 70 in Luke.
Then continuing in chapter 24 Moses is told to go back up the mountain so that God can give him the stone tablets on which the law and commandments were written. This time he is gone for 40 days and 40 nights. Now before he left he gave all those societal commandments and the 10 commandments, which of course included the command to worship only the true God and not to make an image of Him right?
What did the people say before he left? They all said twice that we will do and obey all that God has commanded. Now I don’t know if these people had poor memories because of hunger of thirst or what, maybe there was too much aluminum in the water, but somewhere along the way in that 40 days Moses was on the mountain, things went very wrong and they blatantly disobeyed. We will see that next week.
Anyways, Moses is up there for all this time and he receives incredibly detailed instructions for how they are to worship, how the tabernacle should be built and what should be in it, and how the priests should be dressed and prepared to minister.
I won’t burden you with all the details but here is just a little example just for the curtains of the tabernacle (Read chap 26).
Now I’m sorry to burden you with all that, it may not seem very relevant, and God forbid I don’t make Scripture relevant for you, but why on earth do you think God gave that kind of detail – and that’s just for one part of the whole thing, there are nine more chapters like that in this section. Talk about a lot for Moses to remember.
Is it really that important how all of this gets done? Didn’t they just worship in houses in the New Testament? Pastors today are permitted to have untucked shirts and wear shorts aren’t they?
Good questions, what is the point of all this detail? I’m pretty sure it relates to the first four commandments. Think about human nature for a minute. Just about everyone with some exceptions, values the idea of right and wrong, and would pretty much agree with and obey the last 5 or 6 commandments. The majority of people don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t commit adultery, don’t lie in a big way. We seem to have an innate sense of when we go too far with those things.
But this doesn’t apply to our relationship with God. In fact Paul says in Romans 3 that there is no one who understands, and no one who seeks God. God is giving us this extreme detail because we don’t understand and would not seek to follow Him on our own.
More than that he wants to show how important it is to know who He is. He doesn’t need a tabernacle like this, but we do. He is trying to show us how big and majestic and important he is by giving us instruction on how to approach him. Because that is his greatest desire, that we approach Him. By practicing such reverence we acknowledge who He is in perfect holiness and complete authority.
First, God says take an offering from those willing to give. This will be used it says to make a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. Not only are these instructions meant to teach people what it means to have a holy God dwell with them, it is also a test to see how well they will obey the most tedious instructions from God.
Now we don’t need to go through all these details, but I think we do need to know what some of these things represent. Remember all these things are called copies of the real thing in Hebrews 9. We know that in the NT we are now called a tabernacle or temple of God the Holy Spirit, so what do all these other things represent?
Let’s start with the Ark of the Covenant. This was the only thing behind the curtain of the holy of holies and represents the very presence of God. Therefore the Ark clearly represents the Holy Spirit that is in our hearts, at our very core where no one can see.
The Law is in it and the mercy seat is on it between the cherubim. The law is in our hearts, and the mercy of God is protected in believers by the cherubim who are always protectors in the Bible. This reflects the garden of Eden as well, which you will recall had two cherubim guarding it after Adam and Eve were expelled. In some sense this whole tabernacle also represents a recreation of the Garden of Eden, the original Promised Land, and even Heaven, the future Promised Land.
There’s a dining table with twelve loaves of bread. What does that sound like? The twelve tribes, the twelve disciples Jesus chose, eating together as Jesus institutes the new covenant. And it resembles the promise of the future wedding supper with Jesus who is the bread of life.
There’s a lampstand with seven branches that give light. This is fashioned after an almond tree, not a olive tree (which would symbolize Israel) and I think it represents the seven churches or the complete and perfect church, mentioned in Revelation, which will give light to the world. Notice that these lamps were to be burning constantly forever, and that was the job of the priests to keep supplying the oil.
There’s purple and scarlet curtains with more cherubim embroidered on them to separate the inner court from the outer courts. Those colors represent royalty and the fact that God rules in this place. Again we can draw a parallel to our bodies as the temple of God. We are under his authority and rule and that separates us from those outside the covenant.
As we move farther from the center, the metals change from gold to silver and bronze, a little less precious. And we have a bronze altar in the outer court where the burnt offerings are made. Everyone could see this, and it represents us sacrificing our lives as living sacrifices to God for all to see. It’s how we live, what we do, how we worship.
There is also an altar of incense just outside the curtain of the holy of holies. This was only to be used by Aaron the high priest to offer burnt incense, and nothing else. And this of course we know from the book of Revelation represents the prayers before the mercy seat of God. And we know that Jesus has replaced Aaron as the high priest interceding for us.
There was a bronze basin for washing before you could enter the inner courts and of course this represents baptism and the confirmation of your desire to be part of this covenant with God. You get the idea I hope of all these parallels.
So we have the laws and commandments, we have the tabernacle, and the other thing mentioned in this long passage we are going through today, is how the priests are to prepare and minister for the people.
The first thing mentioned in chapter 28 is what the priests are to wear. Notice just before I go into the details, that all the people who were to make all of this stuff, God says they were filled with the spirit of the skill needed to accomplish it. So again people could not take credit for any of it.
Again we start with the colors gold, blue, purple and scarlet, colors of royalty. Remember Peter says that believers are a kingdom of Priests to God. There is a sense that true priests to God are more royal than any political entities.
Now it goes into incredible detail because in order to approach the Holy God you needed to be presentable in a big way. Notice even at the end of chapter 8 the idea of modesty is again mentioned. It says they shall have underclothes from their hips to thighs to cover their nakedness so that they will not bear guilt and die. Not good to come before God naked as that represents the shame of sin in the Garden of Eden.
Not only must they be dressed just so. They must also be consecrated. This involved making some burnt offerings, washing the priests, dressing them in their getups and anointing their heads with a very specific oil of which he gives the complete recipe. Every other priest that comes after Aaron must be anointed and ordained before they can come into God’s presence.
All of this, at the end of chapter 29, so “that people shall know that I am the Lord their God who brought them out of Egypt that I might dwell with them”.
So chapter 30 kind of wraps it up, God tells Moses who he has called and filled with the spirit to do the work he has commanded. Then it ends with, “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. You don’t”
Everyone who profanes the Sabbath shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. And this shall be a covenant forever. A sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made the heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. How many people in this world believe that anymore even in the church? Could it be because we have let the Sabbath slide? And then he sends Moses on his way with the two tablets of stone written on by the finger of God.
The bible is so amazing. Does that last sentence mean anything to anyone? When was the only other time we hear of God writing with his finger? Scholars have wrestled with what Jesus wrote in the dirt when the people wanted to stone the prostitute they caught. Remember they all gathered around and asked Jesus what they should do with this sinful woman. It says Jesus wrote with his finger on the ground. I know exactly what he was writing. The same things he wrote on the stone tablets with that same finger. Then he plainly says, anyone who hasn’t broken one of these can start throwing the stones. And they all walked away, the oldest first, because they knew.
Isn’t that awesome? We spend so much time trying to figure out the Bible, but all we really have to do is read the whole thing and it interprets itself very well.
But we need to clear up one thing. Are we supposed to dress and worship and treat the Sabbath the same way today? My answer is no and yes, but let me explain. The details were never that important. The principle, the heart was what was important, and God knew we would not understand unless he gave us something to do that would test us.
“You say you follow me, you want me to be your God, your Lord. Are you gonna do what I say, or are you gonna be like Adam and Eve and pretty much every human since then. I don’t care how you dress, where you worship, what animals you burn. I want you to love me and love each other, and I want to be with you for eternity. But I have to be treated like God because that’s who I am.
I am God, you can’t come to me on your own terms, I wish you could. I created you and everything around you, I am perfectly Holy and you decided not to be. You decided you didn’t want to live forever and be with me in perfection. I have been trying to get you back since I created you. But I cannot compromise who I am. So there’s my son, if you follow Him you can get back to me. But he is also God and he said you must obey what he commands, your love for him is demonstrated by your obedience to what he says”. That has always been the case since Adam and Eve, and it always will be the case regardless of grace.
So the question is folks, would we do all those things if that was required to be in God’s family. Would we be that reverent, that obedient to insignificant little details? Is that how we treat the God of the universe, or are we extremely guilty of making him almost nothing.
Do we show up for church on time, are we bringing Him our best on Sunday morning if we don’t have something more important to do, how do we prepare for meeting Him? Do we just kind of show up expecting Him to be happy that we chose to come to church as if we are doing Him a favour with our presence? Do we treat hearing His word as something we have to get through so we can go have lunch and socialize?
People would say you’re legalistic if you did all those things mentioned in the Bible. Well let me say it this way. If our attitude toward God doesn’t look like that. If we’re not terrified of Him, in awe of him, that every time we say his name, come to his church, listen to or read his word, pray to him. If that isn’t our attitude, then I suggest we better follow exactly what he says to a tee, because our attitude often follows our actions. He has simplified the commands so much for us in the NT that I am afraid we have become very presumptuous about His grace.
Because as John says in his letter, if we don’t have that kind of attitude and obedience to the commands of Jesus, we don’t know him, and this is the fearful pronouncement he could make to us, even if we think we have accepted his forgiveness. “Get away from me you evil doer, I never knew you”. Why did I never know you? Because you didn’t treat me like your Lord and do what I said.
Now if you don’t like this message, take it up with God because like Moses its not me you have the beef with. When are we going to start treating God the way he deserves in our minds and in our lives? Let’s as Christians stop whining about and judging all the disobedient people who don’t even claim his name. Forget about the homosexuals, the abortionists, you think God won’t take care of all that? Love them and he will take care of the judgment.
We need to focus on how are we loving God and obeying God, and loving other people? And if you’re ever unsure about how to go about doing that, it’s all in here, read it and do it. Don’t worry if it makes you look different, that’s the whole idea. It isn’t complicated, difficult yes, but not complicated. God is not a god of confusion.
