"You Have Come to the Mount"

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Exodus 19:10-25

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Well, this morning we look to complete Exodus 19 and having a longer week to consider whether we'd jump right into the first commandment or not,
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I'm actually going to extend some preparatory sermons before we come to the first commandment.
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I'll explain a little bit more towards the end of the sermon this morning. We'll just hit the ground running here in Exodus 19.
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If you remember from two weeks ago, we expressed that parsing the matter of the law and the gospel or the relation of the law to believers in this new covenant, which is in Christ's blood, is at the very center of our faith.
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There are many ways that you can make a shipwreck of your faith. Perhaps here is the chief one.
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It's the old tried and true method of our enemy or of all the confusing efforts of the heretics to make a shipwreck of people's faith here.
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And so this is the vital heart of the gospel. As we said a few weeks ago, this is the aorta of our faith.
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I read then from our confession, chapter 19, paragraph 6, although true believers be not under the law as a covenant of works to be thereby justified or condemned, yet it is of great use to them as well as to others in that as a rule of life informing them of the will of God and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly.
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So the great contrast between receiving the law from Moses hands is to receive the law as a covenant of works, whereas receiving the law from Christ's hands is to receive the law as a rule of life.
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Not something that condemns us, nor something that could justify us, but rather a rule of life by which we walk according to God's will.
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And so that great contrast is something we want to fix before us as we work our way toward the commandments.
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Exodus 19, picking up in verse 10, you remember the people have assembled at the base of Mount Sinai where God is preparing them for the reception of the law.
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And the Lord said to Moses, go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow and let them wash their clothes.
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I hope they had washed their clothes at some point in the past two months, but let them wash their clothes at least across these two days and let them be ready for the third day.
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For on the third day, the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.
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The first command we have here is a familiar command. The Lord commands Moses to consecrate the people.
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Now it's familiar if you remember from Exodus 12 that we began to understand the Passover not merely as atonement, but what that atonement was for.
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The atonement was for the purpose of consecration. Let my people go that they may serve me or worship me.
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And how can a unclean people, how can a sinful people be made fit or rendered clean to serve or worship the
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Lord God? Well, they must be atoned for. But the atonement, that cleansing is not just to keep them where they are, now made cleansed, but rather to cleanse them or consecrate them for the service of God, for the worship of God.
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So this is all background to Passover and all context for what it means for our atonement, the atonement of our
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Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this consecration language is a golden vein that runs from Exodus all the way to the
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Gospel. We'll keep rehearsing this as we move forward. The Lord commands Moses, consecrate the people.
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And this is one of the key elements of the Passover sacrifice. And as we see, consecration requires preparation.
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Consecration requires preparation. Even the Passover ritual required what?
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Preparation. It was all manner of preparation that went into that ritual. And then the atoning blood, which cleansed, fully consecrated them.
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But there had to be preparation in order to receive that consecrating act. So this means they cannot bumble their way forward into the presence of God.
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If that hasn't been already made clear by chapter 19, so far it will be made clear this morning.
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God's presence is nothing to be taken lightly. God's presence melts the mountains like wax.
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And so the presence of God on this mount requires preparation. It requires consecration.
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And that, at least in the details we have here, is a laundry load and a three -day wait. That's the consecration thus far.
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In other words, they're bounded by time. There's a separation of time. There's also a separation from the usual way they carried about their day.
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The way that they would work and sweat and soil their clothing, and now it must be laundered.
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They're to be separated. They're to have a holy waiting for this third day to come. So there's a certain decorum that's going to comprise these three days.
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They'll be a clean people. They'll be set apart from their normal way of carrying through the day, their normal duties.
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This is to be a waiting or a yearning, an anticipation for the Lord to meet them and to beckon them.
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So there's a picture of sanctification here in this preparation. What is cleansing?
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Sanctification. To make something clean, to separate something, to make it holy. And you see that this is a holistic sanctification.
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Not just to separate their hearts unto the Lord, but they're to separate their bodies as well. That'll be made clear even further in a moment.
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So holistic sanctification, not just of the heart or their inner dynamics of the worshiper, but the external as well, because the external always bears upon the internal and vice versa.
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They will bumble their way into worship if they're only trying to sanctify a little compartment of their heart.
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God says, your whole body, even your time, everything about you must be set apart and put aside in preparation for my coming.
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So of course there's no virtue in and of washing clothes in and of itself. As we'll see, there's no virtue in abstaining for this period in your marital relation.
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But this outward act, this outward effort is signaling the gravity and the desire of the worshiper.
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And the Lord presses this indeed further. Verse 12, you shall set bounds for the people all around saying, take heed to yourselves that you do not go up to the mountain or touch its base.
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Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. Not a hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned or shot with an arrow.
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Whether man or beast, he shall not live. So these days of preparation for the
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Lord's presence on Mount Sinai, first and foremost require a quarantine from the mountain.
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That's what God says. Set bounds for the people all around saying, take heed, do not go up to the mountain, don't touch its base.
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Anyone that does so must be stoned, must be shot with an arrow, they must be put to death. Whether it's a man or a beast, you'll kill any living thing that comes to the base or touches the mountain.
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Now the key there is you shall not go up, as we'll see in a moment. So the basic idea of separation is held out in this threat.
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God is holy, God's presence is holy, whoever comes to this mountain and makes contact with this holy presence of God must be put to death.
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As if they were a contagion of disobedience. We don't have all the details about what that meant.
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Were they killed and anyone who touched or sought to retrieve them must then also be put to death?
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Or is it simply that they must be put to death as they go forward in the base? You'd have to have some brothers that were pretty good with a compound bow or at least have a good shot with throwing a stone.
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We don't have the details, but the picture is clear, it's a grave threat. You will not enter into the
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Lord's presence lightly. You will not bumble and casually stroll your way into the presence of your maker.
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When God comes on this mount, you must not even be near the mount. You must not even touch it or you will die.
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This is the presence of the Holy One. So Moses, we read in verse 14, goes down from the mountain to the people and sanctified the people and washed their clothes.
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We have this great detail that as the people are waiting for three days, verse 13, they're waiting for the trumpet to sound.
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They're waiting for this long trumpet to sound and that's the signal that now they can come near the base of the mountain.
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They shall not go up, but now they can arrange themselves to the edge of those borders. So first and foremost, for three days they're waiting and on that third day that they're anticipating the trump sounds and they go to the edge of that border.
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But even then, they must not touch, they must not ascend, they must not go up to the presence of God.
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Verse 15, we read, of course, between verses 14 and 15, as Moses goes down the mountain to give the people this word from God and as he sanctifies the people and as they wash all their clothing, we don't read of them murmuring.
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Thank God for that. Things wouldn't have gone well in chapter 19 if the people began to complain and murmur or doubt the word of Moses.
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And then he gives this further instruction which seems to be an elaboration on this command to sanctify themselves and prepare for the
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Lord's presence. He said to the people, verse 15, be ready for the third day, do not come near your wives.
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Now, of course, this is innuendo, right? This is innuendo for marital intimacy. This is not saying, stay away from the women, keep the women away, don't come near your wife.
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You don't want to be literalistic in all of your reading of scripture, like a dispensationalist might be outside the home or sleep on the couch in reading this.
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But this is an innuendo. And the innuendo here is not suggesting in any way that there's something inherently defiling or sinful about marital intimacy.
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That's not the case. Rather, this picture of total sanctification for total consecration requires absolute focus.
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And intimacy, even something good and honorable like intimacy within the bounds of marriage is a distraction.
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It's a way of not giving your absolute focus, absolute attention, absolute urgent desire to the things and preparation of God.
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And so here, even the best form of earthly love, the greatest form of intimacy between a husband and a wife must give way, must bend the knee, as it were, to love for God.
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And so this desire, this preparation, this love for God must set the tone for every aspect of their life across these days.
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By the way, it's a very similar application that Paul makes, that the husband and wife offer not to deprive one another at all, with one exception, with one exception, unless they are devoting themselves to prayer.
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That is the only exception. The idea is, here's something that requires consecration, and consecration requires preparation.
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If you're devoting yourself to prayer, there's something that you're urgently praying, fasting and praying after, something that has happened, something that must happen.
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And this devotion requires such attention, such energy and commitment, that even something good and noble, the highest expression of love in a marriage, must give way, must be sacrificed in that way.
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Verse 16, third day comes. It came to pass on the third day in the morning that there were thunderings, lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain, and the sound of the trumpet was very loud, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled, and Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain.
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Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire.
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Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.
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So here we have a theophany, the theophanic presence of God, God manifesting
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Himself once more in smoke and in fire, not as in a pillar, but rather as a consuming fire, consuming the whole mountain, where He will make
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His presence manifest. And the result of that fiery presence is the mountain is engulfed in thick smoke like a cloud.
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Here you have this whole scene before them, an earthquake with smoke and fire, and the people are melting in terror.
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This is the God who has called them, the creator of the cosmos, rending the mountains by the slightest impress of His glorious presence.
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This is like the afterglow of His presence has this cosmic effect upon the geography, and the people are struck down with terror.
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It's almost like the command not to come near is redundant. No one wants to come near. That's the point Moses will make in a moment.
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Commentators say, oh, here is a primitive experience of volcanic activity. Volcanic activity is something that fills us with awe, but to be at the foot of this mountain, this is something far more than a lava flow or a spectacle like a volcanic activity.
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This is the creator again splitting the fabric of what He has made to make His presence manifest.
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On this mount, unlike that first Theophany in Exodus, it's not this bush that is consumed and yet not consumed with the fire of God's presence.
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It's not this relatively small, contained manifestation of God's presence, which is enough to cause
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Moses to bow down his face in fear. Now, this bush, as it were, has consumed the whole mountain, so all of the people are filled with the awe of the
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Lord who reigns. Psalm 97 picks up worship in this very direction, the
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Lord reigns. Many, many years ago when Elisha and I were first together, we went to hear
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Steve Lawson preach through, I think it was five different psalms at a conference. I used to take the
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CDs from that conference and put them in my car on the way to work. There's something about his thick Alabamian accent saying the
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Lord reigns that is just ingrained in my memory. I wish I could do a good impression of it, but that was the chorus to my commute almost daily for several years until the
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CD got scratched and skipped a lot. The Lord reigns, clouds and darkness surround
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Him, righteousness and justice are the foundations of His throne. A fire goes before Him, it burns up His enemies round about.
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His lightnings light the world, the earth sees and trembles, right? There's a microcosm in Exodus 19 of what
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Psalm 97 is describing. The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the
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Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. Here He's manifesting Himself at one particular place to one particular people.
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But the presence has this kind of effect. Even the angelic host cannot bear to look upon Him who's unapproachable.
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He dwells in ineffable light. This is the Lord who reigns. You've seen videos perhaps.
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I remember going to the Imperial War Museum in London several years back and they had one display where they had recorded footage as well as all sorts of information material on shell shock victims from World War I.
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You have to picture of course that this is coming off the heels of the Industrial Revolution. Many of the young German, French, English soldiers that were drafted to the trenches in the
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European soil had never experienced the sounds that machines made out of steel could manifest.
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They still grew up going to wells, churning butter, having cattle. They hadn't experienced something like locomotive noise, certainly not the noise of artillery on these little farm fields all around Belgium or France.
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And so to be put in a trench and be bombarded day after day and night after night until they lost all manner of sanity and you could see the footage of these shell shocked men who were ghosts of men.
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They were shook to the core and that would have been the effect here at the foot of Sinai.
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The Israelites would have been shell shocked, trembling. They would not have been able to hold this spectacle before them and live.
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God's presence is a terrifying prospect. This profound display is meant to sober the
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Israelites to the magnitude of His holy presence. This is what it means to prepare yourself to engage in encounter with the
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Holy One. He's about to reveal the perfections of who He is in these tablets of stone.
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The law reflecting the perfections of His character. This is not something they are to take lightly and to guarantee that He sets the bounds and He manifests
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His presence even in this cloaked way, this filtered way, this padded way.
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It's enough to rock them to the core. It's enough to melt them like the mountains are melted.
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And then the blast of the trumpet. Some of you would have remembered going to IMAX back when
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Lucasfilm had the THX intro. If anyone, I hope someone's following along with me. You'd sit in the big scene, the big, you know, 55 millimeter, you know, film about to explode and all that great thunderous sound.
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And usually the first logo was THX. And it would come and there would just be this kind of eerie noise that would start and it would just get louder and louder and louder.
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And it would soon shake the whole, you'd almost put your fingers in your ears.
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That must have been what this trumpet was like. Faint as they drew near. That's the trump and it becomes so thunderous.
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The blast of the trumpet sounded long, we read verse 19, became louder and louder.
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So here this scene is picking up and the visual spectacle is now met with the auditory spectacle.
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They're rocked not only by what they see, but by their ears being pierced by this trumpet.
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And then Moses, we read, speaks out and God begins to answer him by voice. And this is all done, by the way, at the foot of the mountain.
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Remember that God had said earlier in chapter 19 that he would vindicate Moses as the mediator.
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That he would speak to him and the people would know and believe him forever, the words that he would speak. So before he calls
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Moses to come forth, he in front of the people speaks to Moses as a way of signifying this one is the one
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I've appointed, this is my mediator, hear him. Hear him.
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When he returns from the summit, hear him. He is my appointed spokesman.
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He is the mediator I have counted worthy to receive my law. Verse 20, then the
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Lord came down upon Mount Sinai. He hadn't even come down yet. All of this, again, is just the edges of the afterglow of his glory pressing in on the summit.
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Now he comes down on the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain and Moses went up.
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Keep track of that. The people must not go up. Moses went up.
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And the Lord said to Moses, go down and warn the people, lest they break through to gaze at the
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Lord, and many of them perish. So the Lord descends upon the top of Sinai.
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And what do we have emphasized again? Remember in Hebrew, emphasis comes by repetition. So what's repeated again?
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Separation. Separation. Warn the people not to break through.
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Warn the people not to even look at me, lest they perish.
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And this command, this warning is going to be warned three times, that threefold emphasis to make it crystal clear
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God is holy and we are not. The boundary between the
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Israelites and the Holy One of Israel is nothing to be taken lightly. Even to gaze upon him is to risk their own lives.
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And though this is a theophany, this is a manifestation of God's presence, that's enough to kill them.
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God is so utterly holy. This repeated warning actually demonstrates not only
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God's holiness, but God's concern. He hasn't brought them out of Egypt into the wilderness to kill them.
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That's what they thought in their complaint, wasn't it? That's what they almost accused him of. Have you brought us out here just to watch us die of thirst?
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Well, God has not done that and he will not allow them to be at the foot of the mountain and be killed either.
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So out of concern he warns them, don't come near, don't break through. You must not come up.
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It's for your sake I tell you this. It's out of love, out of concern that he warns his people.
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These boundaries have been established so that they might live. Exodus 19 beginning in verse 22.
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Also let the priests who come near the Lord consecrate themselves, lest the Lord break out against them. Again, second warning.
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These priests, we don't have a priesthood established yet. There is no Levitical priesthood yet. So these priests may be elders.
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I think more likely firstborn sons because when the priesthood is established, the
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Levites are taken in place of the firstborn sons of Israel. And that whole consecration ritual is echoing the
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Passover of Exodus 12. When we get there, we'll get there. But the point is the Levitical order is not established yet.
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So who are these priests? Either elders or the firstborn sons. These are the ones that were acting representatively before their families and the
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Lord God. And these priests were to sanctify themselves, consecrate themselves, lest the
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Lord break out against them. Moses says to the Lord, the people cannot come up to Mount Sinai.
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I hear you, Lord, loud and clear. You keep saying the same thing. Don't come near. Don't come near. Don't come near.
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We can't come near. You warned us saying set bounds around the mountain and consecrate. He's saying, trust me, no one wants to come near.
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But the Lord knows how fickle and stiff necked this people are. And so the
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Lord knows better than even Moses how disobedient and rebellious these people might be. He's trying to give this grave warning.
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My presence is nothing to take lightly. My presence is something that can kill you.
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Keep warning the people to stay back. Moses says, they've got that message.
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And he's saying, you don't understand. You've already dealt with me all these months as if I'm something that can be taken lightly, something that can be ignored or neglected.
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You don't know who I am. I'm about to reveal in the greatest way yet who I am with the law.
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The Lord said to him, away. Get down and then come up, you and Aaron with you.
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But do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the Lord, lest he break out against them.
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That's the major emphasis. Not even the priests that have consecrated themselves are worthy to come up.
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They must not come up, lest I break out against them. So here at the end of chapter 19, we have this repetition of separation.
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Israel will be consumed by the holiness of God. They must stay back. And when we put that together with the first 10 verses of Exodus 19, it's somewhat contradictory, or at least it initially seems that way.
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God first is drawing his people out of the house of bondage, out of Egypt, to himself, that they might serve him.
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It seems like all along he's been wooing and carrying them to himself, that his people would come to him.
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And then at the beginning of 19, he says, see, haven't I been like one who bears you up on eagle's wings?
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In other words, I put you to my very bosom. I've drawn you to myself. I've said that you are my people and I am your
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God. I've drawn you to me. But in this drawing to himself here at the end of chapter 19, he says, stay back.
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Don't come near. Do not come up. The tone has completely shifted.
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We go from the imminence of God, who intimately desires to dwell with his people.
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And then we transfer or transition to the transcendence of God and the holiness that would destroy any who dare approach, unless he himself has called and made the way.
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So God's imminence, his presence that desires to dwell intimately with his people and his transcendent holiness that requires his people to stay away, even consecrated, they must remain separate for he is holy.
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Calvin says this terrible spectacle was partly to set the presence of God before their eyes so that his majesty in receiving the law would compel their obedience, but partly also to express the nature of the law, which in itself produces nothing but terror.
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We sang that in hymn 449 this morning, right? The law of God. It can produce nothing but terror when we receive it from the hands of Moses.
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And that's made evidently, painfully clear here in chapter 19. So here we are at the foot of the mountain.
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If I can put it this way, we have come to the mount here in Exodus. What I want to do in the time that we have remaining is take stock of this picture of coming to the mount and point it forward to the greater reality that is manifest and realized in the new covenant.
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So here we are about to receive the covenant at Sinai. Here we are at the foot of the mount.
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We have come to the mount in the text, and yet in a very different way, in the fulfillment of all of this, we as believers in the
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Lord Jesus Christ have come to a different mount, in a different covenant. And we have different terms with our
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Lord. And that's what we want to rehearse as another way of preparing for the law. So the first way to think about that is focusing on that word consecration.
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Consecration. And then consummation. So consecration, the idea of preparation, of making holy as a way of preparing or a way of serving, and then consummation, meaning the fulfillment or the realization.
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And when we look at Exodus 19, not only do we see consecration in terms of the people consecrating themselves, but also this whole part of Scripture, this whole part of redemptive history is a consecration or a preparation for its fulfillment.
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So I'm using consecration in a few different ways. We read in verse 22, the
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Lord commanding, let the priests who come near consecrate themselves, lest the
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Lord break out against them. Verse 23, Moses replies, you warned us saying set bounds around the mountain and consecrate it.
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So we have consecrated people. We have a consecrated place. The mountain itself has been consecrated by the presence of God.
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Mount Sinai has become a holy mountain. Remember in Exodus 3, when
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Moses drew near to the bush and God commanded him, take off your shoes. The ground that you're standing on is holy ground.
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It wasn't holy before God's presence was manifest there. It was holy because God's presence was manifest there.
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Now, this whole mountain filled with the fiery presence and smoke of this theophany is a holy mountain.
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The mountain itself has been consecrated by the presence of God. This holy mountain prefigures
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God's dwelling place. This is the place where in Exodus 19, God is dwelling.
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And this is going to be established further in Exodus in the tabernacle. So here
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God is dwelling upon the summit of Mount Sinai. This is a holy mountain, God's holy dwelling place.
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And as we move to the end of the story of Exodus, God's going to have the tabernacle constructed as his dwelling place.
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The tabernacle will now be where the Holy One manifests his presence and this tabernacle will be a holy place.
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And as we will see when we get there, Aaron and his sons and the elders will have access to the mountain, just like they will have access to the inner court.
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But Aaron and his sons and the elders will not have access to the holy place, just like here they don't have access to the summit.
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Only Moses has access to the summit. So the summit corresponds to the most holy place.
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The rest of the people stay at the base of the mountain, which is corresponding to the outer court.
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Let me say that again just to make sure that isn't lost. We're here at this holy mountain and it's prefiguring the tabernacle, which prefigures the temple.
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And you always have in this holy architecture a dwelling that is tripartite, three stages of separation.
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So you're completely cut off unless you're of the people of Israel. You can dwell in the outer court.
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All of the people of Israel can come to the outer court, but only the priesthood, only the Levitical order can enter into the inner court.
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And even then, only the high holy priests can go into the holy place. The most holy place is where God alone abides.
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Only on the day of atonement can the high priest enter the holy presence of the holy one, the most holy place.
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The most holy place here is signified by the summit, where Moses will go up to encounter the
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Lord God. So this, when we look at Mount Sinai, when we look here at Exodus 19, we're looking at the temple presence of God.
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He has made Sinai into his temple. Another link from chapter 19 takes us all the way to the end of Exodus, when that glory cloud of the
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Lord's presence descends from Mount Sinai and then utterly covers the newly built tabernacle.
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And the tabernacle we read there is filled with his fiery glory. So just another link where what's taking place on the mountain at large is going to be fulfilled even further in the tabernacle.
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And that tabernacle will be fulfilled in the temple, and that temple will be fulfilled in the presence of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew Henry said of Exodus 19, never was there such a sermon preached before or since as this, which was preached here to the church in the wilderness.
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God himself was the preacher, and his pulpit was Mount Sinai. And what is the sermon?
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To take a step further than the Lord did on Mount Sinai, or Matthew Henry did in his commentary.
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What is the sermon? Do not come up. Stay back.
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I am holy. This is not a seeker -sensitive sermon.
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In fact, it keeps all seekers away. You are not worthy to come if you touch the base of the mountain, you die.
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Though I'm desiring to dwell in the midst of my people, I am holy and my people are not holy, and therefore they must be separate, they must stay back.
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And this is the dilemma. One of my OT profs in seminary, Jeffrey Niehaus, he wrote his dissertation on this encounter at Sinai, God at Sinai, still printed by Zondervan.
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He said, this is the Old Testament dilemma. God wants to reveal himself to humanity, and humanity needs to have a revelation of God.
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But in the Old Testament, God's presence must also be in part his absence.
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The self -revelation of God must also be the self -concealing of God.
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And so God desires to make himself known, but he cannot make himself truly known, lest the people perish, lest they be destroyed.
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So even as we see in this theophany, even as we see in the tabernacle, to make himself known would be to kill them, because of their sin, because of this separation, because of his holiness.
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And yet his heart, his desire is to make himself known. And so he manifests himself by concealing himself.
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He makes himself known by hiding himself. This is the great dilemma that finds its yes and amen in Christ Jesus.
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The people are trembling because of this display, and this display is a grain of salt on a thimble, on the finger of the
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Pacific of God's presence. Moses alone is invited to ascend.
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He and Aaron with him are called to begin the ascent. No one else can touch the base, no one else can come near.
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Do not let even the priests come and break through. Don't even let the people gaze at me, lest they die.
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And so we come to look at this, this temple presence of the Holy One. This idea of the salvation storyline being
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God's desire to dwell with his people. What we have compacted in Genesis 1 through 3.
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God made us for himself, his desire is for us to be his people, for him to be our
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God, for us to dwell with him in the beauty and glory of his creation and the radiance of his holiness.
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That's God's desire, the fall ruins all of that. Man is cast out from his holy presence.
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And then, of course, as we move forward, we see that repeated even here. God calls to himself his people Israel.
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He desires to bring them to a place where he will dwell with them. This goodly land, this promised land, where they will be his people, and he will be their
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God, and they will dwell with him in holiness, in the glory and the radiance of what he has made.
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But, of course, sin there also fouls, though here this great promise made to the woman is carried through the people of Israel.
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And this is all compacted in this picture of the holy mountain. And these words, do not come up, do not come up, do not ascend to my presence.
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Of course, a mountaintop for every ancient religion was a place where you made sacrifices. You read constantly of the sacrifices, of the idols that were worshipped in the high places.
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The idea is you're that much closer to the heavens, to that which is beyond you. It's a picture of transcendence.
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And so God comes down upon this summit of the mountain, he who dwells in heaven, descending, as it were, upon this mount, and yet still there's this gulf of separation, for the summit is far from the base, and no one at the base can ascend.
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Do not come up. So the geography, the terrain of the mountain is prefiguring this picture of who is worthy to dwell with God.
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Who is worthy to behold God? Who is worthy to be with God? To put it in terms of Psalm 24, who will ascend the hill of the
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Lord? Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? All of these pictures, all of these layered images are coming together in Psalm 24.
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Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who can stand in His holy place? This is the dilemma.
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The Israelites are not able to come near. If they do, they die. And so the psalmist is saying, who's worthy?
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Who can go to the holy place? Who can stand where He stands? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted his soul to an idol, who has not sworn deceitfully, he shall receive blessing from the
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Lord. He shall receive righteousness from the God of His salvation.
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The psalmist seems to understand something about the Gospel. This person who has clean hands and a pure heart has actually had their hands cleansed and their heart purified because they've received their righteousness from God.
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And this God is the God of their salvation. And all of Psalm 24 moves to behold not the worshipper who's entering in, whose righteousness has come from God, whose hands have been cleansed by God, whose heart has been purified from the
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Lord of His salvation, but now the whole Psalm 24 shifts to the one who's actually ascended. So as the worshipper is contemplating, who's able to stand where the
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Holy One stands? Who can ascend? Who can climb to the summit of the presence of God? And verse 7 reverberates,
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Lift up your heads, O you gates. Be lifted up, you everlasting doors.
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The King of glory shall come in. What's the holy hill? It's Zion. The holy hill, the dwelling place of God, the temple of God's presence.
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And so the gates are now opening. There's one who's worthy, one who God does not say, Stay back!
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But one where even the gates themselves make their way. There's no obstacle. The stones themselves melt and bow before Him.
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Who is this King of glory? The psalmist says, Lift up your heads,
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O you gates. Be lifted up, everlasting doors. The everlasting doors that were closed to a sinful people.
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The everlasting doors that said, Stay back! Don't come up lest you die. But now one has ascended the holy hill, and the doors fly open.
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And the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty.
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We thought the Lord's presence was at the summit. So why is it the Lord who's now ascending and entering?
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Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the
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King of glory. A hymn that has meant a lot to me over the years.
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I was introduced to it by Paul Stenstrom, who was an elder at First Baptist. And he was a very dear saint who took a lot of time to take me under his wing at pivotal times in my life.
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And he introduced me to a little hymn book from 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. And there was a hymn in it written by Edmund Clowney, who was the first president of Westminster.
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And it was a hymn composed around Psalm 24. And Edmund Clowney, who by the way, has a very good book on the
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Ten Commandments, how Jesus transforms the Ten Commandments. I'll probably reference it further down. I don't agree with everything, but I think it's very good.
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Edmund Clowney was very concerned that we understand
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Christ as the yes and the amen. And so this is how he depicted
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Psalm 24, right? The same dilemma. We must receive the revelation of God, but as a sinful people, we are not fit to dwell with God.
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We cannot receive from Him who is holy. There must be a mediator. There must be one who is worthy to mediate who
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God is and what He has done to us, all the benefits of His salvation to us. We must have a mediator. And this mountain is quaking, it's melting us.
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We're terrified. It's full of threatening thunder and fire and smoke and we can't even make our way up.
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And if we just stumble through the smoke to touch the base, we die. So who's able to go up to that mount?
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Who's the pure one with a pure heart who's never known an idol? Who worships God in perfection? Who's able to dwell with Him?
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That can stand for us. Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord to search the mystery in heaven stored?
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The knowledge of the Holy One adored. One King alone whose hands and hearts are pure.
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One servant of the Lord with purpose sure can enter in that glory and endure.
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He only can ascend to God's right hand who first came down as His high mercy planned.
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True God and man has earth and heaven spanned before the clouds receive the
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King on high. A cross lifts up His form against the sky. The framer of the worlds has come to die.
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He shall ascend the mountain of the Lord. The King of glory whose own blood outpoured paid that dear price that mercy did afford.
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Alleluia. The redemptive historical storyline is woven with this picture of the dwelling place of God as the great dilemma of humanity ever since the fall.
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We who have been made to inhabit God's creation with the full presence of God made manifest to us, having
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His righteousness inherently, reflecting His holiness innately, intrinsically.
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All of that that corresponded to what it means to be an image bearer, and yet from Genesis 3 -3 forward, that was not a possibility.
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And here at Exodus 19, we have another anchor point in this gospel display. Mount Sinai then becomes contrasted with Mount Zion.
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Mount Zion, this place where God will make His presence known. And again, we have the same layers of separation, but because of the sacrificial cult,
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His people may draw near. Zion is, if I could put it this way, the eschatological
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Sinai. Zion is the end -time Sinai, or the fully realized
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Sinai. Sinai, in what we're reading in Exodus 19, is a shadow giving way to this bigger reality.
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Moses is a shadow giving way to a very different mediator, as we rehearse from Psalm 24.
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And what he's spanning and what he's entering into and what he's bringing back is entirely different.
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This is what Isaiah 2 is depicting. Now it shall come to pass in the latter days, we are in the latter days, that the mountain of the
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Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it.
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Many people shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the
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Lord, the house of the God of Jacob. So again, just notice where we are in Exodus 19.
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You shall not go up. Only the mediator goes up. So here we are in these former days.
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We're at the mountain where God's presence is dwelling, His house presence, if we could put it that way, the mountain of the
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Lord's house. And the command is, do not come up, lest you be consumed. And this is just for the people of Israel.
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They alone have been set apart and consecrated by the promises made to their forebears. They alone are even worthy to gather, but they're not to go up.
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But what is Isaiah seeing? He's seeing in the latter days this mountain of God's dwelling place, the mountain of the house of the
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Lord, is extended above all. And what is the word? Many people.
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People of every tribe and tongue gather to this mountain and say, look at how freely they say this, come, let us go up.
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How could that be? Moses looks at the
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Israelites and he says, Lord, you can stop repeating yourself. No one's coming near. They're all shell -shocked and they're tense.
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They don't even want to be at the base. They don't even want to be in Sinai. They want to be back in Egypt rather than here.
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But what do these Gentiles say who come from all over the far ends of the world, from the east and the west, so freely and joyfully, come, let's go up.
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Let's go up to God's presence. Let's go boldly to the throne of His dwelling place.
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Let's go with praises, with joys, with hallelujahs and amens. Let's go. And what's going to happen as they go?
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What's happening here at Exodus 19? What's happening at Sinai? God is revealing His law,
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His will. You've consecrated yourself. I've atoned for you so that now you may serve me.
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Here is my will. Here is my law. And what takes place at Zion?
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Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways.
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We will walk in His paths. For out of Zion will go forth the law and the word of the
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Lord from Jerusalem. It's the same thing. This is the realization of Sinai. You get to the top of Zion, just like Sinai, and the law comes forth.
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The difference is now the people in the freedom and the joy are saying, let's go up and we will walk in His paths.
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We will walk in His paths. We will keep His statutes. He will teach us His ways. So there's this beautiful compliment.
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If we just press a little bit forward in Isaiah in chapter 4, it has this picture of Zion being restored. What Sinai was meant to be and meant to accomplish is actually realized in Zion.
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And this is what Isaiah is picturing from Isaiah 4. The Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion, above her assemblies a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night.
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For over all the glory there will be a covering. Do you see what he's picturing? It's the same presence of God the people had in the wilderness.
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Now they've come to Mount Zion and the law has gone forth and God says now with all these assemblies that are coming out of this
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Mount Zion encounter, I put my fiery presence, my Shekinah glory, my cloud -like covering.
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I hem them in. So Exodus being realized in this way. Complimenting but also contrasting and that brings us to Hebrews 12.
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In Hebrews 12 we read you have not come to the mountain.
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Alright, beginning in verse 18. Hebrews 12. He's making this great contrast between this
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Sinai covenant, the old covenant and this new covenant. So as believers we have not come to Mount Sinai.
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That's the first thing to make clear. You have not come to the mountain. You have not received the stone tablets from the hands of Moses.
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You have not come to this mountain. For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire and to blackness and darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken anymore.
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For they could not endure what was commanded. And so much as a beast touches the mountain it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.
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Where's that from? Exodus 19. We just read it. And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said
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I'm exceedingly afraid and trembling. Right? Now the least, the least in the kingdom from Isaiah 2 the most half -hearted, sluggardly among themselves.
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Let's go up to the mountain. Even Moses, the one that God had appointed to be the mediator, even he's shaking to the core.
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Verse 22 But you have come to Mount Zion. You have not come to that mountain.
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You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God. To the heavenly
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Jerusalem. To an innumerable company of angels in the general assembly and church of the first born who are registered in heaven.
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When you come up, it's not this solitary thing. It's not Moses clutching with trembling hands his way to the place where he has to be hidden in a cleft to watch the afterglow pass by.
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You come up to the radiant glory and look who's there. The innumerable host of angels and all those who had been, as it were, enrolled.
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All of the elect. Those that outnumber the sand of the seas. Outnumber the stars in the sky.
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They're all here at this summit too. And who else have you come to? God, the judge of all.
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The judge of all. The one that sinless seraphs can't bear to see.
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You've come to him on this mount. To the spirits of just men made perfect.
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Who else have you come to? And more importantly, why have you come up? Why have you come up this mount?
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You've come up to the one you came up through. Jesus. The mediator of the new covenant.
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And to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. Now what we've seen at Sinai is
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God preparing and sobering His people for the reality of who He is and what
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His law must mean. Nothing to be taken lightly. This is why they've been freed from the house of bondage.
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This is why the atoning blood has been poured out upon them. They've been brought to this place that they might receive
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His law and serve Him. The Exodus storyline has not changed.
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The weight and demand of God's law has not changed. The purpose of our atonement has not changed.
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How does Hebrews 12 end? Just like Exodus 19 ends.
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Our God is a consuming fire. We have come to a different mount through a different mediator in a different covenant.
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But God is still a consuming fire. So let me back up a little bit from Hebrews 12 and explain where we're going in the next four weeks.
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And let me do that by just, if you have a pencil you can write this out, if not just mentally track with me. In light of everything
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I've said so far, in light of what we've seen from Isaiah 2 or Hebrews 12, let me give you a sentence and then
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I'll give you a moment just to think how you'd fill in the blank. In light of the mountain you have come to, as opposed to the one you have not come to, in light of who you've come to and why you've come, fill in the blank.
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Let us have blank, by which we may let us have in light of all of this, let us have what?
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By which we may what? For our
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God is a consuming fire. So that's the end. It's the end of Exodus 19.
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It's the end of Hebrews 12. Because God is this consuming fire, let us have by which we may.
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Everyone have a moment to think. What I'm doing in the next four weeks is
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I'm expanding on this idea of evangelical obedience. Remember we talked about legal obedience versus evangelical obedience.
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Something that Brooks put out in the book that the men are reading. Something that I want to rehearse because it's so vital to not misapplying the law.
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Actually receiving the law rightly. And so what I want to do is I wanted to find a way to break it down and I felt,
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I felt like I couldn't do better than Hebrews 12 28 to give a working definition of what evangelical obedience is.
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If you asked me what do you mean by evangelical obedience? What does evangelical obedience look like?
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My answer right now is Hebrews 12 28 is about as good of a definition as you could get.
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So what I'm going to do in the next four weeks is I'm going to break Hebrews 12 28 into four parts and do a dive in each of those parts to try to give you a constellation or composite picture of what evangelical obedience is.
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Therefore since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken let us have grace by which we may serve
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God acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our
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God is a consuming fire. Amen. So that's where we're going.
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Let me just close with this exhortation. Brothers and sisters if you are a believer in Christ Jesus you have come to the mount.
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You have come to the mount. You have come to the mount and as cheerily as readily as voluntarily as freely as we saw in Isaiah 2 you can say, you can look right next to the person next to you and say let's go up to the mount.
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Let's go up to the presence of God. When Christ died when that cross was lifted against the sky and the framer of the world gave himself to die what happened was the everlasting doors split open.
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What happened was the veil of the temple that separated God's holy dwelling place to the rest of the people that he had made was split into, torn into.
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So now we can freely go up. We have come to the mount, the writer of Hebrews says. You have come to the mount and you've come to the mediator of the new covenant.
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You've come because one was counted worthy to ascend the mountain of God. One was able to go in the perfection of the purity of his heart in the perfection of his righteousness he was able to ascend.
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He was able to go to the very dwelling place of the Holy One. Not as a visit, not to hide not to peer, not to bow but to actually be seated at the right hand.
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Let me tell you something else about this mediator. As he ascended the mountain he did it carrying a cross and when he made it to the summit of the bliss of the reward of that righteousness we don't find him initially as it were at the top of Mount Zion we find him instead at the top of Mount Golgotha pouring out this blood of sprinkling that speaks better things so that we can be atoned and consecrated to ascend this mount so that he can teach us his ways and we can serve
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God acceptably with reverence and fear. Let us have grace.
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We've been given grace. We've come to Jesus. Have you come to Jesus?
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Have you come to the mount? Have you come to this perfect mediator? Have you been sprinkled by the blood?
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Let's pray. Father thank you for your word. Lord prepare us now even as we prepare to ascend this mountain in the text of Exodus 19.
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Lord to receive from you the law refracting the perfections of who you are and what it means for us to be your people.
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Let us receive this law gladly freely, willingly, desiringly with urgency from the nail pierced hands of our own savior, our mediator
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Lord Jesus who loved us, gave himself for us who ascended the mount as everlasting doors bent before him and gates fell at his feet and is seated even now at your right hand not to rest but to intercede on behalf of us still.
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It's in his name that we pray Lord. Prepare us even now. Be with us. For those that are struggling in conscience
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Lord for those who feel the quaking of the mountain of your law for those who feel the gravity of being separated from you and the terror of what it means to need to ascend to your dwelling place and yet be cast away by sin.
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May they realize that Jesus has opened up a new and better way by his own blood and that we can go boldly to the throne of grace because of his great sacrifice.
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Let that be all of our joy, all of our hope, all of our comfort and peace, the justifying blood of our savior.