April 17, 2016 Christ - Tabernacling Among Us by Eric Hollingsworth

The Problem of Idolatry and Broken Relationships

Our Old Testament reading comes from Genesis chapter 35, and we'll be reading verses 1 through 4. So, please stand if you're able, in honor of the reading of God's Word. That can be found in the Red Book Bible on the page 5, if you're using the Red Book Bible.

Genesis 35, verse 1. "...in the day of my distress, and has been with me in the way which I have gone.". So they gave Jacob all the four cuts, which were in their hands, and the earrings, which were in their ears.

And Jacob hid them under a terrible tree, which was by Shechem. This verse will be in Matthew chapter 6, starting in verse 9. "...break in and steal, where neither moth nor rust destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be lost.

How great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters, but he will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and men.". Thank You, Lord, that You are the wellspring of life. That You have appointed us to You as our treasure.

We ask, Father, that You would bless this time, Lord. That You would give us ears to hear, Lord. That You would, by Your Spirit, make us fertile ground for Your Word, Lord. And that we would heed Your Word, and not only the ears of Your Word, Lord, and so deceive ourselves, but also be doers of Your Word, Lord.

Help us to love You, and to express that love in obeying You as Father. Thank You, Lord, for Your provision and Your Word. That You have spoken and spoken clearly. We pray that You would strengthen Pastor Eric Arnold-Hollinsworth today, Lord, to deliver us Your Word, Lord, faithfully.

That you would find, Lord, those eager and willing and zealous listeners, Lord, and be doers of Your Word. We ask these things in Your name, say, Lord.

Self-Blame, Pride, and the Roots of Sin

Open your Bibles, if you would, please, to Exodus 33, verse 1. You know, sometimes it's a wonder that we can have any relationships at all. I mean, look at yourself, honestly. Look at me. We went camping a while back.

And packing up to go home, we had to cart our gear out a couple hundred yards. Because we don't like to camp in those cheek-to-jowl places. We like to camp off to ourselves. They call them environmental campsites.

So there's this great spot that we really like at Humboldt Redwoods. Big, huge campsite, trail on one side, stream on the other. Redwood canopy above, no one else around. You just have to pack your stuff in a ways.

And so we box everything up and use a cart to haul it in and out. But the trail at a campsite is not so smooth that you can just pull the cart and nothing will fall off. So packing out our stuff that day, one of our boxes of gear fell off the cart.

I was pulling the cart, and Maria was behind me, tasked with telling me if a box started to lean so far that it was about to fall off the cart. That was her job. Next thing I know, I hear a box hitting the ground.

And big crash, broken glass. Okay, the glass was my favorite. Rice-cooking saucepan. The visions one that you can see through so that you know when the water is just about cooked off so you can turn off the heat and have perfect rice.

But now it's broken. Shards of glass in the ground. So what is my first act as a loving husband? Check to make sure my precious wife hasn't been cut by flying glass. I wish that were true. Now instead I ask, why didn't you tell me the box was about to fall off?

Like I said, it's a wonder I have any relationships at all. Her response, it all happened so fast. And she was right. Because after thinking about it for two seconds, looking down at the cart, I could see that I had run one wheel off the trail into a ditch, so it was leaning way far over.

No box could possibly stay on it. Furthermore, I was the one who forgot to bring the bungee cords that we normally use to secure the boxes to the cart. Furthermore, I was the one who, in my haste, had forgotten to seal the box with packing tape so that objects can't fall out onto nearby rocks.

Furthermore, I was the one who brought the stupid glass saucepan camping in the first place, rather than saying, hmm, maybe we should bring the unbreakable stainless steel saucepan since we aren't even going to be cooking rice.

And so I quickly apologized and hoped that my dear long-suffering wife would not hold my outburst against me. My outburst, which was rooted in what? In my desire to find someone else to blame, anyone but me, for anything that goes wrong in my life.

Which in turn is rooted in what? In my idolatry of self, in my prideful insistence that I'm the person who doesn't make mistakes, that I'm the person for whom everything must go right, and if it doesn't, someone convenient around me is going to pay for it.

James 4 says, Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires that war in your members? Yes, they do. My interpersonal conflicts stem from my desire that I be justified all the time.

From my insistence that I be proven right all the time. In my idolatry of self that exalts me above others, even above the Lord. So not only is it a wonder that I have any human relationships, it's a wonder also that I have a relationship with God.

With a holy God, whose law I persistently break as I chase after my idol. Think about this, please. We have a problem. We are not that easy to get along with, you and I. We daily ignore others' needs and see to our own.

We daily snap at people who irritate us, if not outwardly, then inwardly. We daily murder or lust or steal or lie or covet in some form. All of it injures our neighbor. We daily love self more than we love our neighbor.

And then, think of all the times this past week, perhaps this morning, that you loved self more than you loved God. All the times you've sinned against Him. Sometimes deliberately and even with forethought.

Serving me rather than serving Christ. Maybe serving the idol of fleshly indulgence in some form. I will pleasure myself rather than give pleasure to God through my obedience. Or maybe it was the idol of entertainment of some form that consumed my attention which rightly belonged to Him.

Or maybe we were consumed by fear, worry, or anxiety rather than trusting in God's Word. Or maybe our idol was controlling others so that they would do what we want. Or maybe it's been hoarding our possessions as if we owed nothing to God.

Or maybe it's a chronic resentment towards God for failing to give me what I think I should have. A better wife, a better husband, better children, better job, better health. Or maybe it's nursing a bitterness towards someone that I've been commanded to love.

I've served every one of those idols in my life. So then marvel and wonder and stand in awe that God does not give up on us. That He does not cast us away in His wrath. That He still wants to have a relationship with us.

That we can disobey and we can serve our idols. We can serve our kingdoms. We can be thankless for His gifts and still be given eternal life. This is where Israel found itself after the events of Exodus 32, the golden calf idolatry and the intercession of Moses.

Moses interceded so that God would not consume them in a moment. But even now in Exodus 33, all was not yet made right. Things weren't back to square one, to normal. For Israel's holy God could not dwell with them after they had sinned so greatly against Him.

But praise God, even when His people push Him away, He still makes a way for us to enter back into full, close fellowship with Himself. God does not give up on His people. Exodus 33, verse 1. 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 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.

For the Lord had said to Moses, Say to the children of Israel, You are a stiff-necked people. I could come 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. Here's the setting. Israel had tried to serve two masters, both the Lord and their own desires, their idol. But as Jesus said in Matthew 6, we just read this, no one can serve two masters.

Either we love one or love the other, but we can't love both. So because the Lord knows this, after Israel chose another master, their golden calf, he withdrew himself for a season. Why? Because he knew that it wasn't in Israel's best interest to pretend otherwise, to let people think that, hey, if you want to go ahead and serve your own passions and still have me, your Lord, around as a security blanket, as if everything's still fine, no problem.

I'll be here. Go ahead and serve that idol. Everything's fine. No. That would not be loving in the least. For Israel to commit such great sin, but then not have the Lord show them the great cost of their sin, the great sinfulness of their sin, would have been the opposite of love.

Not to show them that when they serve an idol, they cut themselves off from his righteous character, from his holy goodness, from his close fellowship. That would have been negligent, even hateful. So even though these six verses at first glance sound very ominous and cold and foreboding, what they really are, and all the way through chapter 33, is a testimony that God does not give up on his people.

He keeps his promises. He protects us, in fact, from the destruction of our own continued idolatry. We know this because in verses 1 and 2, the Lord reiterates his commitment to bring Moses into the promised land flowing with milk and honey, the land he swore on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, end of verse 1, to your descendants, I will give it.

And he will send his angel before them to drive out the inhabitants of the land, but wait. In verse 2, if you have the New King James, my angel, the my is italicized, but it doesn't mean to be emphasized.

It means that the italicized word is not in the original Hebrew. So when I believe every other translation leaves the my out, rendering it correctly, an angel. And I will send an angel before you, an angel.

This is important. Why? Because whereas before, the Lord had promised the angel of the Lord, most likely the pre-incarnate Christ, to lead them, now it's merely an angel who would bring them in, one step removed from God.

Why? Because Israel had committed idolatry, so that now, verse 3, look at it, for I will not go up in your midst, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people. As if the Lord were saying to us, to one of us, to all of us, look, the Lord says, I keep my promises.

Christ died for your sins, and so you will be entering into the new heavens and the new earth someday. You will. But for the time being, our relationship is going to be distant, because you need to understand the loss of blessing that's entailed when you chase after idols.

You need to understand the gravity of your sin, how much it hurts you, how much it hurts those around you, how much it separates you from all that I am for you. What exactly was Israel losing when the Lord withdrew His presence?

In Exodus 25 .8, the Lord had told Moses, And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. So with this declaration in chapter 33, that He will not go up in their midst, the Lord is telling Moses that the tabernacle is on hold.

It would not be built. That there would be no need of a priesthood to mediate their worship, to help Israel draw near, because God would not be near. Compare this to being estranged from your best friend, or from a parent, or from a spouse, because there's something you did that really, really hurt them.

They withdraw from you. There's alienation. There's distance between you. Close fellowship is gone. But at this point, I have to wonder, if one day we heard this news from God, if I was really sunk in idolatry, if you were really, really sunk in idolatry as a Christian, if we heard this news from God, that in response to our idolatry, that He would now withdraw His intimate presence from us, how disappointed would we really be?

Is His presence so important and vital to us that we couldn't be happy without it? Or might we be secretly glad that the Lord was no longer around to be offended by our sin, to be grieved by our self-worship, to be quenched by our...

I mean, maybe we'd no longer have to feel guilty, right? No more Holy Spirit to convict us of our sin, to bring us to repentance moment by moment. No more Holy Spirit to remind me that snapping at my wife over a shattered saucepan is harmful to my relationship both with her and with Him.

Hmm, but maybe I don't want that. Maybe God's intimate presence through His Holy Spirit is a good thing. Maybe, just maybe, if He wasn't dwelling within us, we would ultimately destroy ourselves, wouldn't we?

The Tabernacle, the Gospel, and What Israel Was Losing

What was Israel losing by losing the tabernacle? In that tabernacle, every piece of furniture represented something crucial, having to do with our new covenant relationship with Him. Each piece of furniture was a picture of our relationship with God.

The tabernacle in the wilderness, God dwelling with us. All of the fullness of the Gospel, the presence of the triune God dwelling with us, available to us. The tabernacle was a picture of that. And the fiery bronze altar of sacrifice.

If we lost the tabernacle of God's presence, we would lose the constant reminder of the cross, of the Gospel itself, that we are so deeply loved by God that He sent His Son to die in our place. And the bronze laver of water, of washing.

We would lose the conviction of the law as in a mirror. We would lose the opportunity for confession of sin and then for cleansing from sin. The washing of our hearts and minds in the Word of God. In the lampstand, we would lose the Holy Spirit's empowerment and light in our daily walk as we follow after Christ.

In the table of showbread, we would lose the Son's sustaining daily sustenance. The knowledge that our sins are forgiven and His righteousness is our covering. In the Ark of the Covenant, we would lose the Father's throne of grace.

And with the golden altar of incense, we would lose our access to the Father through prayer, our only means of putting away our anxieties, our only means of leaning upon His omnipotence. Does this upset us to think about?

Without the presence of the Lord, we would lose the Gospel in our daily lives. Yes, we'd be saved in the end, because God keeps His promises, but we would have no assurance of it in the presence. And we'd lose the effect of grace in our lives, the certain knowledge that even if at times my sin abounds, His grace abounds much more.

We'd lose the satisfaction of His grace being sufficient. We'd lose the strength to forgive others just as God in Christ has forgiven us. Without the presence of the Lord, we'd have no relationship with Him, no growing intimacy with our Beloved, no growing confidence in His great and precious promises.

Yes, we'd be saved in the end, but we'd have no hope to sustain us, no faith to uphold us, no love to empower us. It's an oxymoron. It doesn't work. And yet with our daily idolatry, we push Him away anyway.

I want what I want in this moment. And yet even as we push Him away, He never gives up on us. Even as we seek to destroy ourselves with sin, He does not allow our destruction. And just for this, we ought to worship Him, which is what happens.

We're about to see. Verse 4. Finally we see evidence of Israel's repentance. And when the people heard this bad news, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. Even the news of this withdrawal of God's daily presence evoked a response in Israel.

It reminds me of Genesis 35, right? Hundreds of years before, Jacob, Israel, telling his family. Israel, before they were a nation. He told them, remove your earrings. The earrings, the ornaments that were connected with idolatry.

Rachel, with the household idol. They gave to Jacob all their foreign gods, their earrings from their ears, and he buried them under an oak tree at Shechem. So this removal of jewelry in Genesis, I'm sorry, Exodus 33, 4, was the first step of their repentance.

An outward display of mourning over the gravity of their sin. But is there yet an inward reality? Is there with us? Verse 5. For the Lord has 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. You don't even seem to realize that. Or you wouldn't be acting this way. Now, therefore, take off your ornaments that I may know what to do with you.

In other words, so the Lord could look for genuine, inward, true repentance. See, a stiff-necked people is a proud people. A people who say, Lord, I will not submit myself to your plan and purpose in this moment.

I don't like this. My saucepan is broken. I will not submit to that. I insist on my own way. So rather than me bowing my neck to plow in the Lord's field, I say to the Lord, why don't you plow in my field?

Use your omnipotence to give me the desires of my heart. That's what the bull represented. The golden calf, right? All the power to help me to plow my field, but none of the holiness, none of the love, none of the closeness.

Just God is a bull who will plow in my field. Idolatry. So the Lord waited to see if the people would actually bow their necks to Him from the heart. He waited to see if His presence could return amongst them.

Moses, Joshua, and the Tent Outside the Camp

Because a proud people must be humbled before they can be blessed. Just as the Lord waits for us to turn from our idols so that we can be blessed with Himself. Let's continue reading at verse 7. Moses took his tent and pitched it, look, outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of meeting.

He called his tent 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. And it came to pass when Moses entered the tabernacle that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle and the Lord talked with Moses.

All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door and all the people rose and worshipped each man in his tent door. So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend.

And he would return to the camp but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle. Now we're going to get into this passage but when I first looked at that last part about Joshua I thought, I have no idea why that's there.

Why all of a sudden is there this random mention of Joshua as a young man serving Moses in his tent, never leaving the tent. So I asked Michael Phillips, what do you think? And he put me on to something.

He said both Moses and Joshua are types of Christ in the Old Testament. Both are old covenant pictures of our Lord Jesus Christ. But since no one man can fully portray the God-man, sometimes the old covenant pictures of Jesus, our mediator, like here in Exodus 33, are split between two men.

One Joshua who stays in the tent representing the people to God and one Moses who returns to the camp, verse 11, representing God to the people. So this is one of those times when it required two men to adequately portray Christ.

Which makes it clear to us that Exodus 33 is a major, big deal picture of the person and work of Jesus Christ. That plus, look, we have this amazing, incredible vision of God in a pillar of cloud standing at the door of Moses' tent speaking to him face to face.

Just picture that. God is standing in the form of a pillar of cloud and light speaking to Moses. And everyone can see it. And so you have all this watching going on. You see all the times in these verses where the people are said to be watching at the doors of their tents, looking at what Moses is doing, seeing the pillar of cloud descend, and then worshiping what's happening.

This is a very big deal. Here's the setup. The relationship between God and his people has been severely tested through their idolatry. And Moses saw this stalemate, as it were, Israel serving two masters, God waiting for true heart repentance.

So Moses takes action. Moses bridges the gap. Since Moses knows that God will withhold the blessing of his presence to a rebellious people, therefore for their good, Moses brings God's presence as close as he can.

He pitches his own tent outside the camp so that he and Joshua, as the mediator between God and man, can tabernacle with both God and man. Moses is the bridge. A temporary tabernacle, a trial tabernacle, as it were, so that the Lord could wait to see Israel's response, so that Israel would have an opportunity to truly repent, seek the Lord's presence, and worship him, which is just what we see happening in verse 7.

And it came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting, which was outside the camp. Right there, seeking the Lord. This is not just an outward display. Not just, you know, pictures of remorse with the removal of jewelry, but this is a magnetic pull of hearts desiring to regain the relationship that they have profoundly injured.

Moses' tent gave the people a visible, tangible way back into the presence of God, just as our Lord Jesus, who said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So that every one of us who yearns for a restoration of intimate fellowship after a time of wandering, or perhaps after a sudden sinful outburst of idolatry that comes out of nowhere, so that everyone who yearns for a restored relationship with our Father in heaven can find their way back through Jesus Christ.

Because why in verse 10 did the people worship this sight? God was no longer way up high on Mount Horeb, because they were witnessing a foreshadowing of the incarnation of Christ, of the Son of God tabernacling with us.

Because they were witnessing a picture of the way to the Father through Jesus. Why did they worship? Because they were witnessing Jesus' constant mediation between God and His new covenant people. Because they were witnessing a portrait of Christ whom the author of Hebrews tells us, Hebrews 13, 12, that Jesus suffered outside the gate so that we might be restored to God.

Look at the people in verse 7 again. Who are they? Who are the everyone who sought the Lord, who went outside the camp? Who are they? Hebrews 13, 13. Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.

The picture of us, of our yearning, of our hearts pulling, gravitating to God from our sin. Before I originally preached this text, I didn't want to. It sounds too bleak, too dark, too depressing, how cruel of God to withdraw Himself.

I will not go with you. I will consume you in a moment. Moses is the only one with fellowship with God. But in reality, God was doing only good. First, He keeps His promise of salvation to a rebellious people.

Then He protects them from the utter destruction that they deserved, and in fact have chosen for themselves through idolatry. Then He makes a way for them to come back to Himself through a Mediator, through the tent of Moses, this picture of the Lord Jesus.

Can you see it? The incarnation of our appointed Mediator. God in Christ, in that pillar of clouds, standing at the door of meeting, coming down to us. Remember in Luke 1, when the Holy Spirit came upon Mary, and Christ was born, that was the pillar of cloud coming down.

Remember in Matthew 3, when Jesus went to John to be baptized, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him as a dove, that was the pillar of cloud coming down. Remember in Matthew 17, when Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a high mountain, and suddenly His clothes became as white as light, and Moses and Elijah appeared, and the Father spoke from heaven, this is My beloved Son, that was the pillar of cloud coming down.

And remember on another mount called Golgotha, outside the gate of Jerusalem, when the pillar of cloud came down once again, this time in wrath upon His Son, as He bore our sins, as He was punished for our idolatries, that was the Son of God.

Christ Outside the Camp and the Way Back to God

This isn't a message for unbelievers. Israel was already God's people. This is a message for us, for the many times we stumble into sin. And then we perhaps wonder, how can I ever be okay again? How can I ever recover from my foolishness and my folly?

How can I ever restore my intimate relationship with God? How can I ever make this right? How can I ever know for sure that He will never give up on me? Hebrews 13, Therefore Jesus also that He might sanctify the people with His own blood suffered outside the gate.

Therefore let us go forth to Him outside the camp bearing His reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.

That's how we can know. Continually going to Jesus. Let us go forth to Him outside the camp of our stubborn sinful pride where God will not dwell. Verse 10 of our text,. And all the people rose and worshipped.

That is the way to restoration. That is the way to confidence and hope. That is the way to mercy and forgiveness. Through seeking Him who is there waiting for us. Through thanking Him for His amazing mercy.

Through praising Him for His gospel grace. Through gazing upon the cross on our knees before Him and simply worshipping. Even as Christians just like Israel we do push the Lord away. We tell ourselves just a little more sin.

Just a little more idolatry. Just let me gain a little more satisfaction out of this world. Let me stay in the camp of stubborn sinful pride a little bit longer. We try to serve two masters. We try to love two masters.

Yet even in our rebellion there He is tabernacling outside the camp every day making our way back to the God that we pushed away never giving up on us. Father thank You for showing us so clearly the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Encourage us through this text through Your Holy Word to draw near to You to lay aside our idols to worship the Lord Jesus from the heart. For we ask it in His name.