Exodus 33 - God's Presence Removed (Part 1)

All right, let's turn to Exodus chapter 33 Exodus chapter 33

Dennis you want to open us in prayer and then we'll we'll get started. Sure Father in heaven, we thank you for your precious

Holy Word and What a privilege What a liberty and a freedom we still have to sit here and to open up your word and allow you

To speak to our hearts by your Holy Spirit. So thank you for this time Thank you for your servant pastor and the things we're going to listen to and And talk about together and we'll give you all the glory and thanksgiving

For this time in Jesus name. Amen Amen Exodus chapter number 33

Lord said to Moses Depart and Go up from here

You and the people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt to the land of which

I swore to Abraham Isaac and Jacob saying to your descendants,

I will give it and I will send my angel before you and I will drive out the

Canaanite and the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the

Jebusite Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey

For I will not go up in your midst Lest I consume you on the way

For you are a stiff -necked people And when the people heard this bad news

They mourned and no one put on his ornaments But the

Lord had said to Moses Say to the children of Israel you are a stiff -necked people

I could come up into your midst in one moment and consume you Now therefore take off your ornaments that I may know what to do to you

So the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by Mount Horeb Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp far from the camp and called it the tabernacle of meeting

And it came to pass that Everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting which was outside the camp

So it was Whenever Moses went out to the tabernacle That all the people rose and each man stood at his tent door and watched

Moses until he had gone into the tabernacle We're gonna stop there. I apologize.

So we're gonna have to have a part two for this chapter So the past two weeks we've been looking at Exodus chapter 32

Where the people did what what's Exodus 32 known for? Right the people worship the golden calf and we saw the judgment that came as the result of that which is 23 ,000 people who died

So remember the children of Israel are still at Mount Sinai And now in chapter 33 they are commanded to depart from Mount Sinai but because of their rebellion

God was not willing to go with them and dwell in their midst

So while on the one hand God made a covenant to Abraham and he is not going to revoke that promise

However, the Israelites are forfeiting Blessings and privileges because of their because of their sin.

So look at Exodus 33 starting in verse 1 Says then the Lord said to Moses depart and go up from here

You and the people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt to a land To the land of which

I swore to Abraham Isaac and Jacob saying to your descendants I will give it and I will send my

Angel before you and I will drive out the Canaanite and the Amorite and the

Hittite and the parasite and the high bite and the Jebusite go up to a land flowing with milk and honey

For I will not go up in your midst lest I consume you on the way for you are a stiff -necked people

Okay, so so here's where we're at with all of this Children of Israel have been delivered from slavery in the land of Egypt They've entered into a covenant relationship with God God has given the law to Moses which we kind of compared to like their

Constitution if you will so the the point is the nation is starting to take form They have their their leaders

Moses and Aaron and in Joshua. So the only thing they're lacking now is what?

Land they just need the land God made a promise to give them this land

But he and he isn't going to revoke that but he's not going to turn a blind eye To all of the things that they've been doing.

So now I think he's giving them another opportunity Another another test.

So leave Mount Sinai Enter into the land But notice he says even though he's not going to be dwelling in their midst.

He is going to send his angel Ahead of them to fight for them. So who do you think?

This angel is it's just a a random angel. Is it

Gabriel? Is that who who do you think this angel is? Okay Okay.

So does everyone agree that this angel is the pre incarnate

Christ? Does anyone have another another view on that? Jim Angel to be the people and they had a strict they had a very strict restriction

Right Okay, let's go back to Exodus chapter 23 so turn back there

At least the New King James Version translators chose to capitalize

Angel so that's a pretty good indicator that they believe this is the pre -incarnate

Christ, which I believe it is So when you compare scripture with scripture

That's the conclusion that obviously most of us have come to and remember what does the word angel mean?

Messenger, right So don't be confused that well, wait a minute

You're not saying that Jesus is an angel because angel doesn't always refer to a created being like the rest of the

Holy Angels sometimes the word angel can refer to a human being so it's really more generic as a

Messenger could be different types of messengers. Not necessarily angel as we normally

Think of so look at Exodus 23 verses 20 and 21 The Lord says behold

I send an angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which

I have prepared That's what we're seeing in chapter 33. God says beware of him though and obey his voice

Do not provoke him for he will not pardon your transgressions for my name is

In him so the fact that God's name is in this angel And that this angel is able to forgive their sin that's almost certainly

Proof that this angel has to be Christ Christ is

God right? He's part of the Godhead. Only God can pardon sin

I don't know that you could come to any other conclusion that this is Christ. Yes Chapter 23 doesn't do that The New King James it does and obviously that doesn't prove anything.

That's the translators Right, that's the translators choice, but it tells you that the

The translators of the New King James that's that's where they're coming from Dennis The name is that very likely

Yahweh Yeah, my name I I would say yes, because remember back in chapter 3 of Exodus when

The Lord appeared to Moses in the burning bush It said the angel of the Lord appeared in the bush, but then when he speaks to Moses, he says

I'm Jehovah, I'm Yahweh. I'm the Lord so Jesus Christ is what we call him the

Lord Jesus Christ and this is this is the doctrine of the Trinity.

That's really the only explanation that he can be God and yet distinct from God at the same time that we say that maybe doesn't make any sense

Well, if you believe in the Trinity, it makes sense to the best ability that we have to Understand it

So let's go back to Exodus 33 So if I can put it this way

Christ or the angel of the Lord will go before them To fight for them, but God is not willing to dwell in their midst

Why because of this pattern it's it's a clearly established pattern now with the children of Israel that they they sin they rebel

They're stiff -necked. It's just one thing after another Look at the second half of verse 3

Lord says for I will not go up in your midst Why? Lest I consume you on the way for you are a stiff -necked people verse 4 and when the people

Heard this bad news they mourned and no one put on his ornaments

What does that mean? Put on the ornaments is like ladies don't get made up and put on your jewelry

There's nothing to go out and celebrate and the men I don't know what the I guess the men wore jewelry back then too

I don't know but Yeah, this is kind of a similar idea of putting on sackcloth and ashes

This is something to lament Over God is not going to dwell in our midst verse 5

For the Lord had said to Moses say to the children of Israel. You are a stiff -necked people

I could come up into your midst in one moment and consume you Now therefore take off your ornaments that I may know what to do to you so the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by Mount Horeb Well, I thought they're at Mount Sinai.

Well, which is it Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb? Yes same thing

Good good So what's the reason God is not going to dwell in their midst because if he did he says

I'm going to have to do what? Consume you and we've talked about this.

I think many times how God is a Consuming fire. This is how

God is depicted in the Old Testament that God is completely unapproachable

Today is that how God is is Spoken of and God depicted today is unapproachable

Now in in churches In the world we're not concerned with what we know what the world does right

God is Yes, he's Santa Claus. He's like a cosmic vending machine

But even even in churches, right? God oftentimes is depicted as a grandfatherly figure who has no wrath

Jesus is depicted as he's like your boyfriend, right? That's how all not all but much of the modern contemporary praise music kind of pictures.

Jesus says like you're Your boyfriend so God is depicted even in the modern

Evangelical Church as kind of a big softy. God is God is a big softy.

You don't need to worry about him And or they say, okay, maybe God is still kind of tough but Jesus is the big softy

Is that true? Right, I mean it's all but it's love

God is love period there's nothing there's nothing else Right, he's not our grandfather either.

Well, here's the thing. Yes. God is love But it's because of his mercy

Lamentations 322 it's because of his mercy and his love that we are not consumed

It is because of God's love that the children of Israel Was not that they were not consumed.

So going back to the previous point. Jesus is God and yes, God the

Father is Unapproachable and He's displaying that here.

He's displaying his holiness and his wrath, but you know Jesus because Jesus is

God guess what? Jesus also has wrath Revelation chapter 6 verse 16 talks about what the wrath of the lamb

So the point is we have to teach and communicate the whole counsel of God.

We have to give both sides of The story because if you only give one side you get a totally distorted idea of who

God is Now I think most people would say what's

God's primary attribute What do you think the typical answer would be?

Love right, but that's not true. Right the primary attribute of God is what?

his holiness That's the only attribute of God that's elevated to the third degree if you will

Isaiah chapter 6 God is holy holy holy we have a

Him a song that we sing. Holy. Holy. Holy Here's why that matters the only way a person can really appreciate the mercy of God is to first understand the wrath of God To really appreciate your salvation you have to understand what you are saved from So in the

Old Testament God is unapproachable, but God is also Immutable.

What's that word immutable me? Yeah, he doesn't change

Malachi 3 verse 6 I am the Lord I change not

So God is still that way God is still Unapproachable But it's because of Christ because God's love and sending

Christ because of Christ now we can Draw near to God. So once you understand that and I think we all do

It helps us to better appreciate What Jesus did and of course

Moses is acting as a type of Christ. It was last week I think we talked about how

God He was ready to just do away with all of them We're going to just wipe out the entire nation and start over Right and then

Moses the type of Christ steps in and mediates the situation and the children of Israel survive because of Christ or Moses in that case any questions or comments on any of that and I don't want to be unfair

But I think that's how God is depicted in in many churches even evangelical churches

Now we don't want to only talk about his wrath. That would be bad, too Yeah, if it's just hellfire and brimstone 24 -7 that ain't right either.

So we want to do Do both? Okay Exodus 32 verse 11

Says So the Lord spoke to Moses Face to face as a man speaks to his friend

So Moses as a type of Christ, it says that Moses gets to speak to God Face to face now did

Moses actually See God's face. No, we'll get into that next week where he's put in to the cleft of the rock and and all the rest

Has anyone ever seen God Seen God's face, right?

Jesus He dwells in unapproachable light like no man has ever seen

God Christ heads Right No man has ever seen

God. No man can see God's face and live except Christ But Moses spoke to God in a sense like face to face like a friend speaks to a friend now at this moment

No man has ever seen God's face. We've talked about this before but in eternity That's the believers greatest reward where we will be like Christ and then we will see his face

Let's look at verse 7 go back to verse 7

So Christ or the angel is going to go before them Says Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp far from the camp and called it the tabernacle of Meeting and it came to pass that everyone who sought the

Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting Which was outside? the camp

So this is significant when God showed up to speak to Moses Where did it have to be?

Yeah had to be far away couldn't be in the middle it had to be on the outskirts

And just remember we've talked a lot about the tabernacle and the furniture of the tabernacle and going through all of that We might have the idea

That well the tabernacles already there. It's it's no the tabernacle has not yet been built

The plans were given to Moses, but at this moment the tabernacle has not yet been Had not yet been built so the tabernacle of meeting is basically

Moses Or Joshua's house, which is outside of the camp

Jim Right Right.

So when we talk about like the tabernacle, it's that main structure that God Gave all the instructions to to build it

But yeah, Moses 10 is called the tabernacle because that's what the tabernacle means. Okay, John MacArthur writes this about verse 7

He said in the time prior to the car to the construction of the tabernacle

Moses 10 became the special meeting place for Moses to talk

Intimately with God no doubt the people watching from afar were reminded of the removal of God's immediate presence

Okay, so let's try to get into some of the application of the text because as I said last week

We're always trying to do two things Try to communicate how this points ahead to Christ.

So Moses the type of Christ We I think we understand that the angel of the Lord is Christ. We believe but we always want to try to make application to The New Testament Church to us today before I give

What I'm seeing as an application. Does anyone want to maybe take a Take a stab at an application or two.

Yes, Dennis. Yeah, just a couple of verses from Hebrews 13 Okay. Yeah, where it says we have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat

Oh Right, yeah keep going for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned outside the camp

Therefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered outside the gate, right?

so Jesus when he was crucified he was crucified outside The city right good any any other ideas

Okay One thing that I would say is that like the

Israelites Because they they have all these promises from God God wants to dwell in their midst

But they keep they keep rebelling keep sinning. They worship the golden calf. They're forfeiting their privilege and their blessing

So I think like the Israelites sometimes Christians We forfeit some of the blessings that we have

We may not lose our salvation But just like God is not going to nullify the covenant that he made with the children of Israel or through Abraham There are consequences to the

Israelites behavior. There's consequences to our Behavior, so we might not lose our salvation.

We might not have to worry about that but there's still going to be things that happen if we sin or certainly live in a pattern of Rebellion, let's turn to Revelation chapter 3 for a moment

We may always have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit But that doesn't mean we're always going to be filled with the

Spirit Being filled with the Spirit is a privilege that every believer has

Every believer can be filled with the Spirit but if you sin if you

Are living in rebellion to that you're not going to be filled with the

Spirit So the Spirit of Christ may be with us He may be on our side like the angel was fighting for them

But God is not going to be as near as he could be right Okay, Revelation chapter 3

Jesus is speaking to the church at Laodicea. It has some pretty

Strong things to say to this to this church If you want to look at the

Israelites like they through their actions they're pushing God outside the camp Almost well, that's kind of what the church at Laodicea did they kind of kick

Jesus out of the church That you know, they think they're so wonderful What do we need

Jesus for? Little did they know Jesus said no, you're actually pretty pretty wretched look at Revelation 3 verse 20

Jesus said behold, I stand at the door and Knock Anyone hears my voice and opens the door

I will come come in to him and dine with him and he with me to him who overcomes

I will grant to sit with me on my throne as I also overcame and sat down with my father on His throne he who has an ear let him hear what the

Spirit says to the churches now, I know how this verse is usually Used we've all seen that little card in the painting and the track right where Jesus is standing outside of the door

Knocking and there's no doorknob and people always point that out So this is how this verse is usually

Taught that he's he's knocking on the door of the lost sinner's heart

Saying let me in so I can save you right? We've all heard that That's the most common interpretation of this verse and metaphorically

Jesus He's doing that. I believe he's knocking on the door of lost sinners heart

That's all fine and good, but that's not what Revelation chapter 3 verse 20 is saying.

What's the actual context? What's Jesus knocking on the door of the lost sinner's heart?

No, he's knocking on what door He's knocking on the door of the church like hey

Let me in Let me you You've kicked Jesus out.

You've pushed Jesus out of his own church Or I think this is very common today

It you could say Jesus has been kicked out of churches or Jesus is replaced

By going back to this theme of idolatry that churches will replace the real

Jesus with another Jesus with fake fake Jesus the

Jesus they have concocted in their own imagination and this fake Jesus It just so happens that he's just like them and he agrees and affirms with everything

They think it's funny how that works This is of course a form of idolatry where you shape and mold a

Jesus or shape and mold a God of your own Imagination and then that's the

God that you're worshiping. But in reality that God doesn't exist and the

God that exists once people kind of go down that road the God that Exists is actually held in contempt because these people hold parts of the

Bible in contempt There are a lot of churches. That would be Absolutely enraged if certain parts of the

Bible were preached on Sunday morning What has happened

Assuming that some of these places are still You know, they still have their lampstand which obviously many of them don't

Jesus is outside Knocking on the door wanting to come back in and they're saying no. Thanks.

We got this. We don't need you now They would never say that the church at Laodicea.

They obviously wouldn't say that. Hey, we kicked Jesus out But that's what they did because Jesus says so All right, any comments on that?

Am I being too harsh or is that true? Is that is that happening? It's happening

Yeah, just one more Statement on this. I think this is one of if not the biggest issues that we have to deal with We live in a very ungodly culture

We all know that so that kind of way it affects us and we have some ideas that aren't quite lining up with Scripture Or maybe you know someone comes to faith in Christ and they're they just don't know any better regarding some things

What people end up doing they try to make the Bible fit what they already think You try to interpret the

Bible into what you know You want to be true instead of what the Bible says is is true

So we just need to be aware of that and on guard because I think that that's always a struggle

Let's go back to Exodus chapter 33 Dennis this is this could be a subtle thing, but I think it's possible for a church to Become devoted to the church right and forget

Why it's there and forget Jesus Christ really right and it's so subtle because they talk about them

But they're really just devoted to the church and not to Jesus Christ very very subtle, right?

Absolutely All right. So in Exodus 33 This is kind of how the

Israelites were. I mean, they weren't saying hey God, we don't want you But through their actions they there's consequences.

They were kind of pushing God away So without the Lord just like the church at Laodicea without the

Lord, they're wretched. They're poor. They're miserable They're naked and and all the rest and what does

God call them? He doesn't use those terms He uses this other phrase that we see often throughout obstinate or stiff -necked

Right if God calls you stiff -necked you're stiff -necked that's that's all there is to it

And because of it they were forfeiting Privileges they were forfeiting many of the blessings that God wanted to give them and we all know the story how for the next 40

Years they wandered in the wilderness and that generation that entire generation saved

Joshua and Caleb They all died in the wilderness. Of course, it didn't have to be that way

God wanted to dwell in the midst of his people

They could have experienced that if they would number one acknowledge their sin confess repent seek the

Lord's forgiveness But they weren't willing to do that because they were Stubborn they were they were set in their ways

But God still loves them and that's really a wonderful testimony of God's love that You read all the things they said and did and God God still there

He still cares about this people But because of their rebellion and because God has wrath he dealt with them 23 ,000 people were judged but because of his mercy, they're not consumed.

So all of that to say this The New Testament Church, we need to learn from this

We look at them and say what's wrong with these people why don't they just see the problem and fix it right?

Well, we need to take that as a mirror and be like, okay, what about us? That's that's the hard thing first Corinthians 10 11 says now all these things happen to them as Examples and they were written for our

Admonition, I think I've quoted that probably 20 times so far going through Exodus But this is an example of what not to do

So not only should we not worship a golden calf. We should not set up idols in our heart

We should not try to make God fit our image of what we want him to be. I think he should be if our

Opinions thoughts attitudes are not in line with the Bible the Bible's right and you're wrong

The Bible's right and I'm wrong. That's that's the bottom line If we permit that, you know going back to the golden calf and how they rose up Play and all the rest if we permit the dancing and the carousing and the fornication and the adultery

God is going to be dwelling outside The camp He's not going to be in our midst

He's going to be over there yonder with Moses and the two or three people who are trying to remain

Faithful. So in conclusion if we feel convicted about some of these things

This is the example for us to not be stiff -necked for us to actually do the the right thing

And we'll just close with verse 8 so it was whenever Moses went out to the

Tabernacle that all the people rose and each man stood at his tent door and watched