Meeting God
Exodus 19:1-16
What do you expect when you come to church on a Sunday morning? Do you come for the fellowship with like-minded believers? Singing songs you've learned to love over the years? Maybe listen to a sermon that encourages and makes you feel good? Or maybe you prefer to listen to a sermon that steps on toes, not yours, but someone else's? Is all of this just habit? You don't really think about it, but you do it because, well, that's just what you have always done?
There are a lot of other questions like this that we could ask ourselves about our religious practices and why we do them and what we expect to get out of them. Now, I'm only asking about church attendance because we're here today and it goes along with our text about the Israelites going to meet God on the mountain, their church, so to speak, but these same questions could be asked of any of the spiritual or religious disciplines we practice. We could also ask ourselves why we take time each day to read or study the Bible. Why do we pray? Why do we tithe? What do we expect to get out of any of these things that we do?
In our text today, Exodus 19, we see a pivotal moment in the life of Israel. Three months earlier they had been freed from Egyptian slavery. They crossed the Red Sea and Pharoah's army was devastated when they tried to follow but drowned instead. They have traveled through the wilderness to Mount Sinai, which is also known as Mount Horeb. Mount Horeb is the same mountain where Moses had his burning bush encounter with, I Am that I Am. It was in that encounter that God commissioned Moses to go back to Egypt to free the Israelites and then return to Sinai. God told Moses,
Exodus 3:12 ..."Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain."
So, here in chapter 19, verses 1-16, Israel has reached the mountain, and God has called Moses to communicate His covenant to the people. In essence, God was going to define His relationship with His people. He had gotten them out of Egypt and saved them at the Red Sea, but that has been their relationship so far. Sure, God loved their forefathers and had made covenant with them, but these people had been in slavery for 400 years. From all their complaining and wanting to return to Egypt during their wilderness wanderings, there is no doubt they had picked up some of the religious practices of Egypt. If they had any relationship with the God of their fathers, to many of them at least, it had been syncretized with pagan beliefs and idolatry. After 400 years, I would imagine that their form of worship was more closely related to Egyptian worship than Hebrew.
In all honesty, they probably didn't know the God of their fathers very well, and God needed to introduce Himself again and then teach the people how to be in a relationship with Him. Their journey through the desert had led them back to this place. So, God fulfilled His promise to bring them to this holy mountain where He would enter into a covenantal relationship with them.
Now, a covenant is basically a promise where God is involved. As I said earlier, God had made an unconditional covenant with their father Abraham where his offspring would be as numerous as the sands of the sea, and that his descendants would be the channel of blessing to all people of the earth. This time however, to Abraham's offspring, He will extend this relationship to them through a conditional covenant, which means that certain terms would be involved. A conditional covenant typically involved some form of, “If you do this…then I will do that.”
God brought His people to Sinai so He could meet His People and lay down some ground rules. So, lets read our text today, and see what terms the Lord has laid out for them...
Exo 19:1-16 In the third month after the sons of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. When they set out from Rephidim, they came to the wilderness of Sinai and camped in the wilderness; and there Israel camped in front of the mountain. Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain, saying, "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel: 'You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you to Myself. Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel."
So Moses came and called the elders of the people, and set before them all these words which the LORD had commanded him. All the people answered together and said, "All that the LORD has spoken we will do!" And Moses brought back the words of the people to the LORD. The LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people may hear when I speak with you and may also believe in you forever." Then Moses told the words of the people to the LORD. The LORD also said to Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments; and let them be ready for the third day, for on the third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. You shall set bounds for the people all around, saying, 'Beware that you do not go up on the mountain or touch the border of it; whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. No hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through; whether beast or man, he shall not live.' When the ram's horn sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain."
So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated the people, and they washed their garments. He said to the people, "Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman." So it came about on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud trumpet sound, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled.
Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the people came to the mountain to meet God, and you know, this is why we should be coming to church. Sure, there are many reasons why we go to church as I mentioned earlier, like fellowship, singing, Bible study, and things like that. But the primary, the first and foremost reason to go to church is to meet with God. If any reason other than meeting God takes over as our primary reason for being here, then church is turned into just a social gathering. The number one reason we should be here is to seek an encounter with the holy.
And friends, the Israelites were going to discover that the God of Abraham is not like any other god of the nations. You can't just come however you want. He is the one and only true God, and we are to strive toward His standards, not the other way around. We can't approach Him just willy nilly, because...
I. Meeting God Requires Consecration
This speaks to how God views us. In verse 10 God told Moses to consecrate the people, which means that they were to be set apart, purified, so they would be qualified to meet with God. You see, the central thought to this passage is the over-whelming and awe-inspiring holiness of God. He wants to transform His broken people into His "treasured possession." Exodus 19:5 "Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples..."
Think back when your children were little. They would go outside and play in the mud. They would build mud castles, mud pies, squish their toes into the mud to feel them being swallowed up with that wonderful dirty stuff. Then when they're finished playing, they come to the door to come into the house, but you catch them before they can track that mud all over the place. They are totally covered in that stuff and all you can see are the whites of their eyes. What do you do? What did you do? Did you hose them off? Did you make them change on the back porch our out in the garage? Did you make them live outside forever?
Well, Israel had a similar problem. Exodus 19:10 The LORD also said to Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments; You see, Israel had been walking around in the desert for weeks. They were covered in dirt, but that wasn't the real issue. That desert dirt symbolized their heart dirt.
They were covered in sin, but unlike mud, sin can't just be hosed off. God is most holy and the purest of all beings. Israel wasn't fit to come into His presence to meet Him, so God said that He would come down to them, but they needed to be cleaned up first. Exodus 19:11 "...on the third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people."
They needed to be cleaned up. They needed to be consecrated and wash their clothes. Now, we aren't told what Moses did to consecrate the people, but the washing of their garments symbolized washing their sins. However, even though they washed, they still needed to be careful in approaching God, so Moses had signs put up to warn the people against getting too close to the mountain. He knew that even if they washed, if they got too close, they still weren't clean enough to approach God, and they would die.
The lesson for us here is that meeting with God requires preparation. It means that we must seek Him with undivided heart and mind. It means not allowing anything else, no matter how blessed or wonderful it may be, to distract us from preparing to hear from God.
Beloved, if we want to experience God like the believers of old did, we must be prepared to meet Him. We must be consecrated. In James we're told to do 4 things as we prepare to draw near to God.
James 4:8-10 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
He tells us to cleanse our hands, which means to stop sinning. Then we are to purify our heart, because the heart is the realm of feelings and attitudes. So, check your attitude and make sure it aligns with the Spirit of God. Then we are to be "miserable and mourn and weep", and this speaks to taking your sinfulness seriously, understanding the Jesus took our sins upon Himself on the cross so that we could live to Him. And then finally we're told to humble ourselves, which brings us to the heart of the matter. To live rightly before God, we must be humble because a prideful heart elevates itself above God.
Approaching God requires consecration--being set apart from all that profanes us and separates us from the One who makes us holy. And next we discover that...
II. Meeting God Requires Veneration
While consecration speaks to how God views us, veneration speaks to how we view God. In verse 12 and 21-25, God told the Israelites that they needed to keep their distance from the mountain, so He set boundaries, or limits all around the base of the mountain to keep the people from touching the holy and incurring the death penalty.
Exodus 19:12 "You shall set bounds for the people all around, saying, ‘Beware that you do not go up on the mountain or touch the border of it; whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death.'"
Exodus 19:21 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, "Go down, warn the people, so that they do not break through to the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish."
Meeting with God requires veneration because God is the Supreme Being, infinitely holy, powerful, and worthy of the highest respect. Veneration is an expression of reverence, humility, and recognition of God's greatness. It reflects an acknowledgment of human limitations in the presence of divine perfection.
Throughout history, religious traditions have emphasized reverence in encounters with the divine as a way to demonstrate love, submission, and faith. Consider throughout the Pentateuch, Moses displayed the highest regard toward Yahweh. Even though he was the Lord's chosen vessel to free and lead God's people for 40 years, and then deliver God's law to them, even he had to keep a certain distance from the Holy One. When Aaron and Miriam tried to usurp authority from Moses, God told them that He spoke to Moses as with a friend, face to face, but later, when Moses asked to see God's glory, the Lord told him that no one could see Him, or they would perish. So, Moses was limited to seeing God's backside glory, but even then, he had to hide in the protection of the cleft of the rock with God's hand providing shielding.
God is infinitely holy and glorious beyond human imagination, and this is why He has set boundaries for anyone who wishes to approach Him. When we get a glimpse of the holiness of God, we can't help but approach Him with veneration. His holiness fosters a deep sense of spiritual connection, gratitude, and awareness of His majesty.
When Isaiah received his call to prophetic ministry, God allowed him to have a vision of Him and His throne room. He wrote, Isaiah 6:1 In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. And then upon seeing this vision of God, His throne room, and the angelic beings crying "Holy, Holy, Holy", he was so unsettled that he cried out, Isaiah 6:5 "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."
Friends, meeting God requires our consecration and veneration, but we've got a problem. No amount of washing can ever make us clean enough to approach Yahweh. We are sinners at heart. Above, on the outside, we might look pretty good, but both we and God know the truth. We know that we're not good enough. This is why we need a Savior. We need a Savior because...
III. Meeting God Requires Mediation
Consecration speaks to how God views us, and veneration speaks to how we view God, but mediation speaks to how we get to God! The message is clear. The only way we can get to God is through a mediator, Jesus Christ. He is the only one who makes it possible for us to get to God. And the reason we have access to God through Him is because it's His blood that consecrates us. His blood sanctifies us or makes us holy, cleansed of our sin so we can enter into the presence of the Holy.
Now, a mediator is someone who brings two enemies together and makes it possible for them to be friends again. Moses tried to do it, and as many advantages he had, he still wasn't good enough. Three times he went up on the mountain, and three times he came down the mountain. He was 80 years old and even if he could have kept going up and down that mountain, acting as a mediator between God and the people, the people still weren't going to keep the conditional covenant. In less than 40 days after they all declared Exodus 19:8 ..."All that the Lord has spoken we will do!" They worshiped, danced, and partied around a golden calf that Aaron build.
No, Moses may have acted as a mediator for God's people, but we don't approach God like the Israelites did at Sinai. We approach God through the Son of God, our Mediator, Jesus Christ. It was through the law of Moses that the people would come to God with the blood of bulls and goats, but it is through Jesus Christ and the blood He shed on the cross for our sins, that we now come into God's presence unafraid. Our Mediator doesn't have to wear a veil to hide the glory because the veil is taken away in Jesus Christ.
And now, instead of coming to God on Sinai, we Hebrews 12:22-24 ...have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.
Through the blood of Jesus Christ, our sins are washed away, and we are made whiter than snow. Moses couldn't take us to the top of the mountain, but Jesus lifts us up into God's very presence because the Scripture tells us that Ephesians 2:5-6 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
Friends, we can approach God in His holiness because Jesus approached us in our dirt! So, remember when you're overwhelmed by your sin and dirt, remember that God carried the Israelites out of Egypt on eagle’s wings before He ever asked them to obey Him. He carried you far away from your sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He's cleaned us up on the inside, but we're still learning not to play in the mud. When we sin, the temptation is to run from Jesus, but we should run to Him, because when we do, He'll carry us.
Are you ready to run to Jesus today?
