Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Morning. We are going to be in Exodus 24.
[00:00:03] I was just thinking. So I was a student minister for seven and a half years here at North Ferry. Tracy took a chance on a guy who was not even finished with seminary and said, here, we'll entrust all of our children to you. Right? It's like, great.
[00:00:16] But I did student ministry here for seven and a half years. And when you stick around that long in one place, then what translates to the next thing is that you get to do a lot of weddings. And so it's a great honor that I get to be a part of a lot of weddings of a lot of students that I walked with. And some of them are even here. They've gone to college. Then they moved back and I get to do their weddings. And now they're members here. And it's one of the incredible blessings people ask me sometimes. Do you ever get nervous preaching? And I don't really get nervous preaching because I always get next Sunday. Like, if I totally lay an egg, I'm coming back next week.
[00:00:52] But with weddings and funerals, you get one shot.
[00:00:56] And they make me nervous because there's so much that goes into it. There's so much anticipation, there's so much money. There's so much just excitement and build up to this. That it's supposed to be this incredible moment. And it's because there's something very real happening at a wedding. That there is a covenant ceremony, that there are vows which are shared, which we will spend a lifetime then living out. That in this moment something happens which then the rest of your life is lived in light of.
[00:01:31] We're going to see in Exodus 24 that there is a covenant ceremony that happens. That it's going to be a review of some of the things that we've already seen in Exodus because they've been pointing to this moment where the covenant is ratified. Right? That engagement is one of the most terrible times. I'm sorry if some of you all are engaged. It's one of the most weird, awkward times. It's like I'm fully committed and yet I'm not really committed yet, right? That something else is coming which will solidify these commitments. And it's not until those vows are exchanged. And then there's a proclamation of like that. Now, by the authority vested in me by preacher of the Gospel and by the power of the state that you are now, that there's something that's changed, that your status has changed.
[00:02:20] Husband and wife.
[00:02:22] The scripture actually uses marriage as one of its most loved and talked about covenant ceremonies. And so we get a feeling for just the significance of this moment in Exodus 24, because we understand the significance of a marriage ceremony.
[00:02:41] I heard one commentator say it like this. A covenant ceremony as a definition is a binding living relationship with blessings and obligations.
[00:02:53] Let me say that again, that a covenant ceremony is a binding living relationship. It's not just something that's sterile. It's not something that's done once and then you don't think about it again. It's a binding living relationship with both blessings and obligations. And so we're going to see that in our text today.
[00:03:17] Let's pray, and then we'll read this text and then we'll start to unpack it together. Would you pray with me, Lord? We come to you, Lord, asking that your spirit would move in this place, Lord, that your spirit would give us eyes to see and ears to hear as your word is read and as we study your word together, Lord, that you would you would give us understanding, Lord, that by your spirit you might convict our hearts in places where we're blind, or that we've been rebellious against your will and your ways. But Lord, that you might encourage us with your love and your faithfulness, Lord, to endure and to keep going and to believe with faith the things which you have called us to, Lord. So this morning would you move in our midst that we might be transformed by having encountered you? This morning we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:04:17] Let's read our whole text. We're going to be covering the whole chapter, so 18 verses. We'll read this and then we'll begin to unpack it together. If you'll look at verse one with me, it says this.
[00:04:29] Then he said to Moses, this is the Lord come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and 70 of the elders of Israel and worship from afar.
[00:04:42] Moses alone shall come near to the Lord, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.
[00:04:50] Moses came and told the people all the words that the Lord and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said all the words that the LORD has spoken, we will will do.
[00:05:05] And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord, and he rose early in the morning and he built an altar at the foot of the mountain and 12 pillars according to the 12 tribes of Israel. And he sent young men to the people of Israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. And Moses took half of the blood and he put it in a basin, and half of the blood he threw against the altar.
[00:05:28] Then he took the book of the covenant, and he read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do, and we will be obedient.
[00:05:39] And Moses took the blood and he threw it on the people. And he said, behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. Then Moses and Aaron and Nadab and abihu and the 70 of the elders of Israel, they went up and they saw the God of Israel.
[00:05:58] And there was under his feet, as it were, a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.
[00:06:05] And he did not lay his hands on the chief of men of the people of Israel, for they beheld God and they ate and drank.
[00:06:15] The Lord said to Moses, come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone with the law and the commandments which I have written for you for their instructions. So Moses rose with his assistant Joshua. And Moses went up into the mountain of God. And he said to Joshua. And Moses went up to the mount of God. And he said to the elders, wait here for us until we return to you. And behold, Aaron and Hur are with you.
[00:06:41] Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them. Then Moses went up the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. And the glory of the Lord dwelt on the mount Sinai. And the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day, he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.
[00:06:55] Now, the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of all the people of Israel. And Moses entered the cloud, and he went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights.
[00:07:11] The way that I hope to unpack this is that we might see in this covenant ceremony four aspects of this covenant ceremony. These are things that we've kind of seen before. But I want to draw out four aspects of this covenant that God makes with his people.
[00:07:32] That what is needed in this covenant that God makes with his people. The first one is, we see that a mediator is necessary. This is verse one and two. And then we see it again in 13 and 14. And then we could see it again in verse 18. But if you look at verse one and two, a mediator is necessary for this covenant. God is speaking to Moses. And God tells Moses to come up to the Lord with him, Aaron and Nadab and Abihu and 70 of the elders of Israel, and that they should worship from afar. But listen to this, verse 2. Moses alone shall come near to the Lord.
[00:08:10] The others shall not come near, and the people shall not go up with him.
[00:08:15] That Moses is the mediator. Throughout the rest of scripture in the New Testament, Hebrews talks about Moses as a mediator. That there is a mediator necessary to bridge between a holy God and a sinful people. That this is needed.
[00:08:29] But one of the things that I think is helpful here is we begin to see this idea of a graded holiness. Okay, this is something that we're going to get into a little bit more. But I just want to wanna plant a seed today, this idea of graded holiness. That if you think of this mountain, there's a vertical climbing of the mountain. And so down at the bottom is the people of Israel. And God has specifically given them instructions that they shall not come near. Don't go near the mountain. They were supposed to set boundaries that not any animals, not any people, that if they came near to the mountain, if they touched the mountain, then they would be put to death because of their sin.
[00:09:09] That they shall not come near. But then we see here that God is calling Moses with a group of 70 that now they shall come near to the mountain. And so he tells them what they should do, that they should come this far, and that they. They should be there. But they can't go all the way up the mountain. They can't transverse all the way up. So the people are out there. Then you've got this group of 70 and Nadab and Abihu and Aaron.
[00:09:36] And then we see a little bit later, if you look at verse 13 and 14, we see that. So Moses rose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God.
[00:09:49] And he said to the elders, wait here for us until we return to you.
[00:09:54] And so what's happening here is that the people are there. Then you've got this group of 70 that's here, but then you got a little bit closer, a little bit farther up the mountain. Then you actually get Moses and Joshua, they go a little farther.
[00:10:10] And then as you get to verse 18, then you see that Moses enters the cloud, the glory of God, that he goes up into the mountain, into the glory of God.
[00:10:23] Now we see this. And if you just turn this vertical and you lay it on its side horizontally, then we actually see what we're going to see in the laying out of the tabernacle in the temple, that there was an outside of the Tabernacle in the temple.
[00:10:40] But then in order to come in, then there was a washing, a ceremonial washing, a cleansing for the people to come in. But then as you transgress into the inner sanctums of the tabernacle or the temple, then the. And there were more and more, and it was limited and limited and limited. The closer you got to the holiness of God.
[00:11:01] To the very extent that there was a holy of holies, the very presence of God, that the curtain divided and that once a year, then one person could go in after having offered sacrifices for his sins and for the sins of others, after doing all of the ceremonial cleansings, he could go in. But the people, they tied a rope around him in case he went into the presence of God in an improper way and he was killed, then they could drag him out.
[00:11:27] One person could go in on behalf of the people and offer sacrifice for the people, atonement for the people in the very presence of God. That there was a mediator necessary to go into the presence of God to have access to God himself.
[00:11:48] You needed a mediator. This, and this is a setup for what we see in Christ.
[00:11:53] That we have a better mediator is what Hebrews says. One who has gone on our behalf, who then gives us full access because of what he accomplished for us.
[00:12:07] The second thing that we see in this text is that for this covenant ceremony, then a substitute was required. A substitute was required. Look at verse 4 through 8 of this section. A substitute is required. There's actually gonna be two offerings that we see here. Beginning in verse four, it says that Moses, he writes down all that the Lord has said. He rises early in the morning, and he builds an altar. Now, we know that God has already given instruction on how to build an altar. That they're not supposed to carve on this altar. They're not supposed to use a tool on this altar. It's supposed to be an earthen altar. And so he builds this altar at the foot of the mountain, and he puts 12 pillars there, which are the representation of the. The 12 tribes of Israel, which is a representation of all of Israel. And so you have in this. There is a representation of all the people of Israel at this altar.
[00:12:59] Moses builds this. And then here's what he does. He sent young men of the people of Israel. Okay, so this is interesting. Why would he not send the priests? Aren't priests supposed to be the ones who offer offerings? Well, the priests haven't been designated yet. This is Aaron and Nadab and Abihu. They're going to be commissioned as priests, but they're not priests yet.
[00:13:20] And so there's some people there doing the ministry. And so Moses sends these young men. This was a dirty job. It's a young man's game in one sense. They go and they slaughter this oxen as a burnt offering and as a peace offering.
[00:13:39] Now, thank goodness we don't still have to do this.
[00:13:44] Like, this is rough. Can you imagine like a wedding ceremony, covenant ceremony happening? And like, I gotta go kill some goat or oxen and then I'm gonna splatter you with blood like, no thanks, right?
[00:13:59] But in here, a sacrifice, a substitute was required that this oxen was an offering. And let me just tell you a little bit about these two offerings, this burnt offering. What we learn about in Leviticus 1 is that a burnt offering was offered for atone.
[00:14:16] That this word atonement, this covering idea, that this washing clean, that this atonement, what would have happened is that they would have slaughtered this oxen, they would have collected the blood, then they would have put this oxen on this altar and they would have set fire to it.
[00:14:35] And this oxen which gave its life would be completely and utterly consumed, devoted to destruction, nothing left. Totally burned up and consumed.
[00:14:51] It paid the price of the judgment which those that offered it deserved.
[00:14:59] It was a substitute for their sins, that what their sins required was the giving of life.
[00:15:08] And so this burnt offering makes atonement. But then there's this other offering that we see here actually made. So they offered this burnt offering, and then they also offer a peace offering. This peace offering is also known as a fellowship offering.
[00:15:26] That this is a relational harmony offering. This is more of an understanding of good old fashioned barbecue, right? Like, we got the oxen and now everybody come and let's eat. It wasn't gonna be completely consumed. The part that was for the Lord, his part of the peace offering relationally was consumed with fire, but the part for the people was consumed by them. And so you would have gathered these people and in sharing of the meal together, you would have said, we're in harmony together. We have peace with each other. We can eat together and not fight, that there's harmony between us. And so we see these two offerings that Moses offers these for the people as a substitute that's required for their relationship with God.
[00:16:15] But what we see in this is that then Moses, what he does is he takes this blood and half of it he throws against the altar and he says this, that that's. That's what satisfies God's requirement that he has entered into this, in this covenant of the blessings and the obligations that he is obligated.
[00:16:39] And then you got this other side where he sprinkles it on the people, that he showers them with this blood. But it comes after he's read what. What they're required to do.
[00:16:54] He reads all of the things that are required of them, of the covenant, the blessings and the obligations of them. And they respond, we will do it.
[00:17:04] They're eager to obey.
[00:17:08] But I want to point us to something else as we understand this idea of a substitute that's required, that we see as we jump to the New Testament, that Jesus Christ gathers his people in this upper room.
[00:17:22] And as he gathers them in this upper room, and this is incredibly powerful moment, they're celebrating the Passover together.
[00:17:31] A symbol which says that God would pass over in judgment all those who are covered by the blood.
[00:17:38] He then picks up the drink and he quotes Exodus 24, except he changes one word.
[00:17:49] He said, this is the covenant of my blood.
[00:17:57] This is the blood of my covenant.
[00:18:01] It's his blood which is sealing the covenant. That it's not the sprinkling of blood of bulls and goats.
[00:18:08] It's a sprinkling of his blood which binds him to his people in all of the blessings and all the obligations that it's his covenant that he enters into.
[00:18:25] Hebrews is going to talk about this. That through the blood of bulls and goats there is actually no forgiveness of sins.
[00:18:34] That God in his former days passed over their sins, looking at their actions of faith to offer the sacrifices of blood. But it clearly tells us that that didn't forgive your sins, that it was the blood of Jesus Christ that forgives sins, that it was faith in him. And as First Peter one would tell us that then he encourages the people. He says, you've been sprinkled with the blood of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
[00:19:04] That it's his blood which was sprinkled on you that bound you in this covenant to him all the blessings, all the obligations, see? But a substitute was required.
[00:19:21] Third thing that we see in this is that grace produces obedience.
[00:19:27] We see this in verses 3, 7. And that the people, as they hear the word spoken, they respond, we will obey. This is actually. There's three times it says this. Actually in chapter 19, verse 8, the people hear the covenant. And then they say, we will obey. And then here in verse three, we see that all the words that the Lord has spoken, we will obey. And then we see again in verse seven that all that the Lord has spoken. We will do and we will be obedient.
[00:19:57] This is a willing obedience of the people because they have seen demonstrated the power of God.
[00:20:07] Just think about this.
[00:20:09] These are people that have seen God speak.
[00:20:14] And crickets and gnats and frogs and everything obeys him, that he speaks. And darkness comes.
[00:20:23] That he speaks.
[00:20:25] And hail obeys him.
[00:20:28] That this is the one who speaks. And the sea parts.
[00:20:35] This is the One who speaks. And bread comes down from heaven. This is the One who speaks. And water turns from bitter to sweet. This is the One who has all authority and power to speak.
[00:20:50] And he speaks on their behalf.
[00:20:53] That all things were created in him and through him, that he has all power.
[00:21:01] But this is the One that they've also seen.
[00:21:04] Be so faithful that he has said, I will do it. And he accomplishes it. That he said, I will bring you into this land. And he's accomplishing it. I will make you into a great nation. And he's doing it. That I will be with you. I will provide for you. I will protect you. I will fight for you. That he crushed the Amalekites, he crushed the Egyptians. That he has been faithful even when they're not like. Even when they grumble and complain that even when he could have been like, man, I thought y' all were going to be different.
[00:21:41] Even when they accuse him, he brought us out here to kill us.
[00:21:48] Even when they grumble against him, he has been faithful to who he is.
[00:21:55] And we go, why?
[00:21:58] These are the people who have seen that God is love.
[00:22:02] Like, there's no explanation for why God would continue with these people.
[00:22:08] And there's no explanation for why God would continue with with me.
[00:22:13] There's no explanation for why he would send his Son to pay the penalty that I deserve.
[00:22:20] There's no explanation for that except that he set his affection upon us.
[00:22:26] He said, I love you.
[00:22:28] That's the only reason. That's the only explanation for why God would send His Son to redeem a people and then be faithful to us and continue to fight for us.
[00:22:39] That's the only reason that God has done all these things.
[00:22:46] Catch this. The order is important not in order that we would earn grace, but because grace has been shown to us.
[00:22:55] Right? Like our obedience doesn't earn grace, our obedience doesn't earn acceptance. All of those things happened despite our disobedience.
[00:23:12] So we see in here that obedience to God is produced because of the grace which we've been shown. Now, let me just get really practical. How does this play out?
[00:23:24] Listen, if you're battling sin.
[00:23:26] It doesn't mean you clean yourself up outside to earn the right to come in.
[00:23:33] That's got it backwards.
[00:23:35] It means you come in and you throw yourself at the feet of Jesus and go, God help me, obey. It doesn't mean you clean yourself up there and then pretend you got it all together in here, that this is a gathering of people who show up all messed up and go, I can't do it on my own.
[00:23:52] But he did it for me, and I want to obey him, but I don't know how.
[00:23:57] And that's what this is.
[00:23:59] Not that your obedience earns you the right to come to him.
[00:24:03] Know that it's his love and his faithfulness, it's his power and his provision in our life that fuels our obedience to him.
[00:24:12] That's because of what he's done. We see this just reflected in the text that he saved them and then he calls them to obey. He doesn't say, clean yourself up a little bit, start doing all the right things, and then I'll show up for you. That's not it.
[00:24:28] In our culture, we get that messed up far too often.
[00:24:31] We think that we've got to fix it before we can even come. So that maybe God can clean up our small problems rather than our big ones.
[00:24:39] That's not it. Grace produces obedience in us.
[00:24:44] God, he acted and then he offered, and then he called them. You know what the people did?
[00:24:52] They responded, they accepted and they agreed. That was it.
[00:25:00] The order is important. Obedience doesn't get you access. The author of Hebrews catches this, and he says that we have full confidence to enter the holy of Holies, not because we obeyed, but because we're his children, because we've been covered, sprinkled clean by the blood of his covenant. That the substitute fully satisfied that the substitute paid the price so that we have confidence. And Hebrews says this. To enter, that we may find grace in times of need.
[00:25:36] You don't clean yourself up in a time of need and then get the grace. You show up and he gives you the grace.
[00:25:43] The fourth aspect that we see in this is that communion is the result.
[00:25:48] Mediator was necessary, substitute is required, that grace produces obedience, and then that communion is the result.
[00:25:58] The whole purpose of this, if you think back to God saying to Pharaoh, let my people go, that they might travel into the wilderness and worship me, that they would have communion, that they might be with him, their God.
[00:26:14] But look at this. In verses 9 through 11, I love this says then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and 70 elders of Israel.
[00:26:26] They went up and they saw the God of Israel and they were under his feet a pavement of sapphire stone. Like the very heaven of clearness. Like, just imagine this scene. Like this is a great.
[00:26:41] Like the people come back down and they're like, what was it like? They're like, we saw God. They're like, what was it like? We're like, let me tell you about what was under his feet. It's like, huh? What was under his feet like? Tell me about him. What'd you see? Let me tell you what was under his feet. The heavens were under his feet.
[00:27:00] That the Lord sits enthroned on the heavens and that earth is his footstool, that he stands upon the heavens.
[00:27:12] That they were in awe of him.
[00:27:18] But look at verse 11. This is incredible.
[00:27:22] And he did not lay his hands on the chief men and. And the people of Israel.
[00:27:30] That these people went into the presence of God and he didn't smoke them.
[00:27:38] A sinful people in the presence of a holy God in communion with him.
[00:27:47] That he knows all things and has all authority and all power. And he didn't just smoke them like that. They could go with confidence.
[00:27:56] Like, I know what I've done.
[00:28:01] I know who I am at the core.
[00:28:04] The easiest person for me to deceive is me. And yet I know how wicked and sinful I am. And that I could go into the presence of a holy God without getting smoked.
[00:28:15] What?
[00:28:16] How does that happen?
[00:28:19] Only by a mediator.
[00:28:21] Only by a substitute who paid the price.
[00:28:25] The communion could be ours.
[00:28:28] That he says he gave the right to be called children of God.
[00:28:35] That he didn't lay his hand on them. But then look at how it continues. That he didn't lay his hand on them and they beheld him. I don't know if you've ever experienced that. Maybe in nature or something where you see something just majestic and you're just in awe.
[00:28:48] You beheld it takes your breath away. There's just no response. It's just a response of worship that goes, whoa.
[00:28:56] It's incredible that they beheld him and then look at this.
[00:29:03] And they ate and they drank.
[00:29:06] That they had fellowship and communion with the holy God in his presence without him destroying them.
[00:29:15] How can that happen?
[00:29:17] Only by a mediator who fully satisfies, and not just satisfies the penalty but gives you all the rights and access.
[00:29:27] Man.
[00:29:32] Points us actually forward to the one who became our mediator. As Hebrews says. A better mediator than Moses who not because of the Blood of bulls and goats could satisfy the penalty of sin. But because he chose to go to a cross in full obedience and suffer and die and shed his blood for the forgiveness of many, that John says that he became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen or beheld his glory, he offers us communion. And what we see actually in Revelation is we see this picture.
[00:30:13] It's a picture of a wedding not sprinkled with crimson blood, but sprinkled clean, white as snow because of the crimson blood.
[00:30:27] That there's this picture of a wedding feast that we're invited into, where Jesus will stand in his bride, the church adorned in white, pure and holy.
[00:30:42] What is his bride? It's the church. It's the church that's made up of believers who have put their faith in Jesus Christ, the mediator, the substitute on their behalf.
[00:30:53] And you know what it is? It's a wedding supper where we dwell and dine with the King of kings, where we behold his glory.
[00:31:07] Exodus 20:4 gives us a setup that points us to that.
[00:31:11] That we would live that life out, that we would live lives of obedience, not in order to earn that, but because that's our identity.
[00:31:21] It's who we are.
[00:31:23] Fueled by his grace, produced because of his mediation, produced because of his substitution in order to purchase for us communion.
[00:31:38] We live that out.
[00:31:42] There's one last piece that we see in this text.
[00:31:46] When Moses appointed the people.
[00:31:50] Catch this. This is important.
[00:31:52] There were no priests.
[00:31:55] There were a kingdom of priests.
[00:31:58] The priests hadn't even been appointed yet.
[00:32:01] We see this same ceremony actually take place in a couple chapters where the priests are then commissioned to go and live out this purpose.
[00:32:12] But before the priests are ever commissioned, the people were commissioned.
[00:32:17] They entered into this covenant to be a kingdom of priests to live on mission for what God had called them to in the identity he called them to, with all of the access that he had given them.
[00:32:30] We see the same thing happen in the New Testament. The pastors, they don't do the ministry.
[00:32:38] They equip the saints for the work of the ministry that you guys are commissioned to do the work, to live out this identity everywhere you go. Because God's calling us to live it out for his glory and our good.
[00:32:57] He's provided everything we need to do it. We just have to walk in the identity he's given us. If you've never trusted in Jesus Christ by faith, he's calling, he's offering.
[00:33:09] If you've gotten off track in that, he's calling and saying, come back. This is who you are. This is what I've made you for. To live out this identity in the places where I've sent you. Would you pray with me?
[00:33:27] God, we thank you for your word, which teaches us.
[00:33:32] Teaches us that which is true.
[00:33:38] God.
[00:33:39] That we needed a mediator to mediate this covenant for us.
[00:33:47] That we needed a substitute to satisfy the cost of what it required to dwell in your presence, your holy presence. We needed a substitute and you provided it.
[00:34:03] God, I pray that that might fuel our obedience.
[00:34:06] Not in order to earn grace, we can't do that.
[00:34:10] But fueled by your grace.
[00:34:14] That we would be a holy people. It's what you called us to. It's what you commissioned us to.
[00:34:20] That we would be set apart and different. That people might see our lives and see your character in us.
[00:34:29] That they might be drawn to you, God, who's powerful, faithful, loving Lord. And that we might dwell in communion with you.
[00:34:42] We would behold you.
[00:34:45] We would make it our dining place to meet with you every day.
[00:34:50] To dwell in your presence.
[00:34:53] That we would be your people and you would be our God. We ask it in Jesus name, Amen.
