Drawing Near

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Exodus 20:21

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Well, this morning we look at verses 18 through 21.
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We begin the Book of the Covenant proper with verse 22 next week as we round through chapter 20 and then jump over to the
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Sermon on the Mount beginning in Matthew chapter 5. So we'll have a little respite from our time in Exodus, perhaps several months of respite as we consider the way that the
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Lord Himself applies so much of what we've received through the Book of Exodus in Matthew.
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On Exodus 20 beginning in verse 18 we see these dynamics of God's presence enveloping
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Mount Sinai, of the people being struck to the very core with terror at His presence standing afar off, and yet Moses being that spokesman on behalf of the people, being
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God's own appointed mediator, draws near even through the thick darkness where God's presence can be found.
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And there in verse 21 I think we have a vignette of the great picture of redemption, of the effects of the fall upon sinful men and women and their great need for one who will draw near on their behalf.
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In other words, in Exodus 20 verse 21 we really see the Gospel shining through the storyline of Exodus.
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And that's what I would like to help shine even further upon us this morning. Let me begin reading in verse 18.
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Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet in the mountains smoking, and when the people saw it they trembled and they stood afar off.
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Then they said to Moses, You speak with us, we will hear, but let not God speak with us lest we die.
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And Moses said to the people, Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin.
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So the people stood afar off, but Moses drew near.
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The thick darkness where God was. Now you'll notice between verse 18 and verse 21 we have this doubled emphasis, this repetition.
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They stood afar off. And so it's emphasizing within this passage the fact that the people are distant from the presence of God.
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And that highlights again the fact that Moses will be the one who draws near. And so this morning just two basic parts, standing afar off and drawing near.
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Two step movement, one step away, one step forward in my mind, verse 21.
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So we begin with standing afar. Israel is playing the part of fallen man.
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Israel of course is representative of God's Son, something that Matthew's Gospel makes very clear.
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For out of Egypt I have called my Son. And the reference in the context is actually
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Israel as a nation, and yet Matthew says this is fulfilled in Christ, Christ as the true
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Son of God. So we're meant to look at Israel as it were as the Son that God has promised, the
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Son that will bring righteousness to the nations. And of course Israel is taking the mantle of Adam.
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And so Israel is quite literally playing the part of fallen man.
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Israel being called, being ordained as the Son of God, and yet here, just like the first man, just like God's first Son, just like Adam, we find
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Israel slinking away from the presence of God, terrified because of the own torment of their guilt to stand in His presence.
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As we see, it's not merely the spectacle that has given them fear. Have they not seen spectacles?
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Did they not see ten plagues poured out upon the land of Egypt? These are people that are weary of the presence of God rather than the spectacle of God because of what the presence of God means to them.
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They had no fear of God's presence when they were watching plagues being poured out because they were unaffected by those plagues.
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God had them secure. But here, they feel as though they'll die if God even but speaks to them.
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So the scene is profound. Of course, the spectacle is worth mentioning. We saw already in Exodus 19, verse 18.
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Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke. You kind of have to set the scene.
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Have you ever, like we have, you know, a little too much grease hits the bottom of the oven and you go to cook something a few days later and the whole room is filled with smoke?
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You're going around trying to put a bag over the fire alarm. The whole mountain is filled with smoke.
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Why? Because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Smoke ascending like the smoke of a furnace.
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The whole mountain quaking. This is the scene. The people recognize, as we said, the fear of the
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Lord has come upon them to prove them. This was something we saw last week.
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Something that Calvin recognized, by the way, in his own commentary. He says they were terrified only that they might be humbled and submit themselves to God.
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And this is actually a privilege. That the majesty of God before whom heaven and earth tremble would not destroy them but rather prove and search them as his children.
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We see this fear has come that they might be proven. We also see that this is a theophany. This has all the elements of theophany.
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The pillar of cloud, as it were, the cloudy presence of God and the presence of fire.
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We saw that not only in Exodus already, the burning bush that consumes the thicket in this very place earlier on for Moses, but we also saw it in the storyline of Genesis.
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We see it, for instance, in the horror that falls upon Abram in Genesis 15 when he has that dark slumber and he beholds this flaming torch passing through his midst.
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In the midst of that thick darkness there is this burning fire. It's actually the same term in Hebrew that we have here for the mountain being set ablaze.
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So God's self -revelation. And yet as we see, God revealing himself is
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God actually hiding himself. God reveals himself on this mount and he reveals himself as a cloak.
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He shows himself by hiding himself in the smoke. And so we see God's self -revelation is also
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God's hiddenness. Who can approach the presence of God? Who can find him? Who can search the deep things of God?
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Psalm 97, verse 2, clouds and darkness surround him. A fire goes before him.
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In Deuteronomy 4, in recounting this very scene, Moses says, you stood at the foot of the mountain and the mountain burned with fire in the midst of heaven with darkness, cloud and thick darkness.
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That darkness, it's not simply that the lights went out. There's some element of horror.
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There's something disturbing about this darkness. Just like Genesis 15,
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Abraham is troubled. His heart sort of melts within him. A great horror falls upon him.
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It's that kind of darkness. It doesn't translate very well in our translation, but ESV captures this a little bit better in Deuteronomy 4 .11.
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It says, the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven. That's taking it a little more literally.
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The heart of heaven wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. There's something disturbing about the presence of God.
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As we saw in Michael Reeves a few weeks ago, we're living in the age of comfort.
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For that reason, people have less and less comfort. More and more anxiety is riddling through our civilization in the
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West. And yet in this quest for the therapeutic, we find that God's presence actually disturbs before it can comfort.
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It brings fear before it brings peace. The Lord in this enigmatic presence with this dark overtone is something that God's people have always recognized.
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When the temple is filled with this cloudy presence, this smoke -like presence of God, in 1
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Kings 8, Solomon says, the Lord said He would dwell in a dark cloud. A relatively rare term in Hebrew.
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Solomon knows it's not the warm fuzzies where God first discloses Himself.
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It's the darkness. It's the disruption of your life. It's the shattering of that little glass pain you had where you thought you could contain who
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God is and what He's like and work out this little bartering system with your life. And He comes and smashes that pain.
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Now you've been disrupted. Now you're in the presence of God. Now you feel something like the
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Israelites here in Exodus 20. This is not the simulated awe of an
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IMAX movie. It's not Oppenheimer with the nuclear test going off, the atomic test going off.
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It's not rumbling in the seats, but the safety of knowing it's just on the screen. This is something life -threatening.
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This is an encounter that is life -altering. And with it we see what we could term a dilemma.
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If this is God's Son, if this is a step further out of Genesis 3, we find that Genesis 3 itself introduces us to a dilemma.
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And that dilemma is the presence of God to sinful humanity. That's a dilemma.
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How can those who are made to enjoy the presence of God forever enter that presence once they're cast away in darkness and exile?
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How can sinful man close in to the very nearness of God?
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The things that we should enjoy, the things that were meant to satisfy our soul, the things that we try to amount and amass in this world that slip through our fingers and never nourish us, but fade away like sand between our knuckles.
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How can the thing that we were made to enjoy become the very thing that we dread, the very thing we avoid, the very thing that we flee?
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The presence of God. The nearness of God. Communion with the
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Holy One. Most people avoid coming to church for this very reason.
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They want to keep distance from God. They want to keep distance from any reminder of God.
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However muted it may be, if there's some sense of the presence of God, it troubles them, it disrupts them, it disturbs them.
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This is something they want to avoid. This is something they dread. The strange thing is, so often the same people will talk about heaven as if it's a place they want to go.
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They're terrified and flee His presence here and now. Then they talk about heaven as if, you know, one day we'll be up there.
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It was at a funeral a few months ago. The eulogy that went forth was essentially family members saying, we know
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He's up there playing guitar and drums in heaven. If you're fleeing from the presence of God here and now, why would you want to go to the place where His presence is unveiled, where all behold
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His face forever? Here and now, sinners are alienated from the life of God, Paul says in Ephesians 4 .18.
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Alienated. Exiled. Distant. Disturbed. Dreadful.
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The presence of God reminds them of this provocation of their guilt. It reminds them of that sinfulness, just like Adam seeking to flee
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His presence in the garden. It wasn't that he longed and pined to be close to God, but God said, no, you must leave the garden.
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And he was there clawing through the fiery swords of the seraphs. Adam had exiled himself long before God exiled him.
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Adam had alienated himself from the life of God long before God said, I cannot dwell in the presence of a sinner.
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And we see the alienating effects of sin shown forth in this very way.
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It's the plight of fallen man. It's the dilemma of God's presence. It's captured so well in Psalm 139.
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Where can you flee from the presence of an omnipresent God?
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Where can you go? What corner of the cosmos can you find to burrow yourself away from the presence of Him who is present in all things?
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Where can you flee from His Spirit? Can the wings of the morning take you up and hide you?
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Can you cast yourself into the uttermost depths of the sea? Even beyond the sea. Could you plunge yourself into the bottomless pit of hell itself and flee from His presence?
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And Psalm 139 says resoundingly, no. There's no place you can go to flee from the presence of God.
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And yet there's no way for you to draw near to His presence in your sin. Not unless He provides a new and living way.
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Not unless He appoints a mediator, as we'll see. And so for fallen man, hell would be a heaven as long as God's presence wasn't there.
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Doesn't the world have some twisted conception of hell being somehow Satan's domain? He kind of runs the show down there.
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The yin and the yang. God runs the show in heaven. Somehow Satan's presence is the thing that matters in hell.
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God is only present in heaven. That's not the picture we get from Psalm 139. Hell in that case would be a heaven for the lost and the damned.
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What makes hell hell is the fact that sinners are in their sin and they can no longer avoid the presence of God.
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That's why in Revelation they cry for the rocks to crush on them, to sort of extinguish them, to hide them from the presence of God.
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They'd rather be obliterated than have to deal with this dilemma. And of course the opposite is very true.
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As a result of God's grace for believers, heaven itself would become a hell to us if God's presence wasn't there.
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I don't know about you, but I'm not going to bear a cross in this life to go play drums and guitar on a cloud. No thank you.
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Heaven would be a hell if God's presence wasn't there for me. Sinners don't want to draw near to God.
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They want more distance. It's for this reason that when anything even remotely comes with His presence, or a reminder of His demand, they shriek, let not
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God speak with us. Let not God's presence come to us.
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So as we said, most people avoid coming to church for this very reason. They want more distance. They claim they want to draw near.
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It's the last thing they actually want. On the other hand, some people happily come to church so that they can keep their distance from God.
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They figure as long as I'm going to church, I'm soothing my conscience. I don't actually have to deal with my life.
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I don't actually have to keep a watch over my soul. I don't actually have to have a genuine heart for the
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Lord. As long as I'm going through these routines, my conscience is sated. I'm comfortably distant from God while I have all the trappings of appearing as though I'm close to God.
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There's no responsibility. There's no accountability. There's no fear. There's no life. There's no zeal.
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They come to the house of God, but their hearts are far from Him. They like it that way. Casey Ryle points out from Luke 18.
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You remember this parable of Luke 18 where you have the tax collector and then you have the
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Pharisee. And Luke says in v. 9, Jesus spoke this parable to those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.
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You should see that these things always go hand in hand. How will you know if you're trusting in yourself that you're righteous?
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You'll despise others. So much of the way you come to despise others is because you're saying,
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I can't believe they're like this. I would never be like that. Oh, there's so much they don't see. There's a way that you're trusting in your own righteousness.
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It causes you to look down in condescension and despise others around you. And Jesus has this parable to address that.
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And what does the parable say? Well, this is J .C. Ryle's words. Notice they both come to the temple.
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In the parable, both the tax collector and the Pharisee, they both come to the temple. They both come to draw near to God.
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They use the same prayers. They bow the same knee. They move the same lips together in unison, and yet they couldn't be more different.
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Ryle says we learn this in the parable, not all are Israel who are of Israel. Not all are
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Christian because they name Christ. Some come as Pharisees.
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Some come as tax collectors. Some appear with a broken and contrite heart, the things that the
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Lord will never despise. Others come with an unhumbled and self -exalting spirit, wise in their own eyes, pure in their own sight.
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And though they think they're drawing near to God and sacrifice quite satiated with themselves, God abhors what they bring in offering.
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And then Ryle turns this to application. He says, oh, that you would try to bear this in mind. The Lord sees not as a man sees.
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The Lord looks not upon the outward, but looks upon the heart. And to Him all hearts are open.
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All desires are known. No secrets are hid. This is the dilemma of God's presence. And so Ryle says if you felt it more, you would be very careful about the spirit in which you draw near to His throne.
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So let's talk about drawing near. Drawing near. Well, the first point that's on the very face of Exodus 20, verse 21, is the only way the
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Israelites have any hope of drawing near to God is through a mediator. Drawing near through the one that God appoints.
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Drawing near through Him. At Mount Sinai, the Lord comes as near as He possibly can to sinful, fallen man outside of Christ.
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And as was seen in this passage, He comes in a way that man couldn't bear Him to come any nearer.
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That's why they're standing afar off. If He draws any closer, they're going to stand even further. So the question that is always rising, bubbling up from the very event of Genesis 3 with the fall of man into sin, the question arises, who is able to ascend the mount?
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Who's able to return us to the presence of God? Who can overcome this exile, this alienation, and draw us to that nearness which is meant to be the very height of our soul?
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Who's able to ascend now that the law has been revealed? Now that the fire and the smoke terrify the children who have heard the
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Word of God corresponding, resonating, to the very marrow of their bone, this is what
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God requires of you. These are the things that you've broken. They don't have to speculate about who
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God is or what He's like. He's revealed Himself in all of His holiness. And they can only stand afar off.
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Who's able to stand before the Holy One? And the answer in Exodus 20 is no one but a mediator.
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No one but a mediator. Moses, in other words, shows us this vital need.
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He approaches God as the type and shadow of the greater mediator yet to come, the
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Lord Jesus, who Himself says, no man comes to the Father except through Me. And we have to have the full weight of what
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He's saying there. Listen to what He says. The full weight of it. No man comes to the
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Father. No man comes to the
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Father except through Me. Moses himself dare not approach the presence of the
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Holy One unless in the mystery of redemption he's drawing near through the promised work of Christ, the mediator.
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No man comes to the Father except through Jesus. Moses himself is amazed.
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He knows that he should be consumed. He knows he's unworthy. He knows that the law has condemned him as much as any other
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Israelite, as no flesh can stand against the law of God. It shows us our sinfulness.
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In Deuteronomy 4, he says, ask from one end of heaven to the other whether any great thing like this has happened.
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Whether anything like this has ever been heard. Did any people ever hear His voice speak from the midst of the flame and live?
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He's amazed. The fact that we're not consumed, Moses says.
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This is incredible. This is all a result of the grace of God that was promised at the very fall of man.
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That grace that has broken into Moses' life has actually trained him to now seek and desire the presence of God.
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When he gets to chapter 33, that's all he wants. Show me Your glory. But again,
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Israel is playing the part of Adam. Israel is playing the part of fallen man. Israel is playing the part of hardened and ruined sinners.
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Not only do they keep away, notice, they instinctively acknowledge that they need a mediator.
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They know the thing they need most is for God to be their God. But the dilemma of God's presence means they cannot approach, nor can they abide with Him.
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They instinctively know we must have One who stands before us. You speak with us.
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We will listen. You go before us. We will follow. You draw near to God.
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We will draw near to You. We need a mediator, but don't let God's presence come upon us. We'll die.
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They instinctively know what fallen humanity instinctively knows. There must be One that God has appointed.
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There must be a mean that only God can provide. Job himself in chapter 9, he sort of recognizes this in his own way.
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He says, if I wash myself with snow, if I cleanse my hands with soap, and you plunge me into the pit, my own clothes will abhor me.
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For God is not a man as I am that I can answer Him, that we could just go to court together, and there is no mediator between us.
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Job's recognizing I can't approach God like I can approach a superior court judge.
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It's not like I can be a plaintiff and we can work these things out. It's not like he's just a man, a really great man, a man of great authority, a great man of integrity.
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He's God who can mediate between God and man. Job's recognizing if he plunges me into the pit, that's it,
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I can say nothing in response. So here in Exodus 20, the terror of Sinai is the dilemma of God's presence.
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And that terror of Sinai shows us the need for Golgotha. At Golgotha, we see the yes and amen of Exodus 20.
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At Golgotha, we find the truth of Exodus 20. We find 1 Timothy 2 .5. There's one mediator between God and men.
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The man Christ Jesus. We find the truth of 1 Peter 3 .18,
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for Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust. Why? That He might bring us to God.
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This is not just a transaction. It's not a mere cancellation.
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Christ didn't come just to give us a get -out -of -hell -free car. Just keep that in your pocket for when the time comes.
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Thanks, Lord Jesus, I'm just going to go on my own way living for myself. He came to bring us to God. He was the only one that could pierce through that veil and enter into the very presence of the
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Holy One. Because He had the righteousness that God required. But because He faced the curse at Golgotha, He now has opened a new and living way.
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He brings us to God with Him. The whole design of salvation was the
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Father sending the Son into this fallen world. And the Son sending the
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Spirit to apply His work of redemption. Why? So that the Spirit can bring us up to Christ who brings us to the presence of the
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Father. Christ, by His Spirit, bringing us again to God.
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The whole design of salvation held on. And even now, He ever lives to make intercession for His people.
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So the question is, do you know Jesus as mediator? People call
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Jesus a savior, and I think they put that in very small font. It's easy to say
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He's a savior. Oh yeah, no, yeah, we're on the sidewalks of Worcester for so many months, so many years.
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How many hundreds of times would you approach someone and say, I'd just like to talk to you. We're Christians, we're talking to people about the
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Gospel. Do you know the Gospel? Oh yeah, yeah, no, I believe in God, yeah, Jesus saved me. Very small font.
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The question we ought to ask is, is Jesus your mediator? Is Jesus your mediator?
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Not your life coach, not someone to take the wheel. Is He your mediator?
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Is He the only way you can abide in the presence of God? Do you know Jesus in this way?
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Do you pray to Him as though He alone can mediate you to the presence of the Holy One? Do you live out the words of Charles Wesley in your prayer life?
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Father God who sees in me only sin and misery, turn to the
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Anointed One. Look on Thy Anointed Son. Him. And then the sinner see.
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Look through Jesus' wounds on me. You see, he understands something about what it means to know
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Jesus as mediator. He's saying, Father, if I draw near to Your presence without a mediator, all you find is sin and misery.
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I dare not draw near to You. But I draw near to Christ. So look to Him before you look at me.
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And if you're looking at me, look at me through His wounds. Take the cross and the flesh that was opened up and the blood that was poured out, and only look at me if you're looking at me through that.
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That's what Wesley is saying. Draw near through Him. And if you're drawing near through Him, second point, you'll draw near to Him with a true heart.
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With a true heart. Hebrews 10 .22 and 23 says, let us draw near with a true heart.
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In full assurance of faith. Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.
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Our bodies washed with pure water. You can just think back to Luke 18. Isn't this exactly what we were talking about?
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Both go to the temple. Both draw near. But only one draws near with a true heart.
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Only one recognizes the horror that his conscience alarms. Only one, for that reason, comes humbly and full of repentance.
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Only one draws near in a way that there can be a sprinkling and a washing and an assurance of faith in all of God's mercy.
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Notice that. A true heart is a heart that has been sprinkled. Cleansed from an evil conscience.
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To draw near to God with a true heart is not counting all the things that are, you know, well, yeah, that's not as good as it could be, but I mean, that's true of everyone.
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I'm really no worse than anyone that I can think. In fact, I'm actually doing things really well.
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Not many people would do the things that I do, put up with the things that I put up with. This is how I'll draw near to God. The proud
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Pharisee. That's not drawing near with a true heart. I don't know what you're drawing near to, but you're not drawing near to the
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Holy One. When you recognize you need a mediator, you'll draw near with a true heart.
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And the writer of the Hebrews is tying in this picture of baptism. It's essentially saying the same way that you became a
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Christian is how you draw near to Him. You know that you had this confession of faith, and with that you had full assurance, and that was shown forth publicly when you were baptized.
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There was this cleansing of your body. In a way it was saying, as surely as you went into the water and came out, as surely as you've been cleansed by a water, rather than anything you have done, could do, promised to do, you were just plunged into something that didn't belong to you, taken out, cleansed.
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As surely as that has taken place, you can have full assurance. And so he's tying in this baptismal picture to say that's what drawing near with a true heart looks like.
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It's always and ever been the way to draw near to God. There is no other way to draw near to God than in faith and repentance in the
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Lord Jesus as your mediator. In the same way that baptism points to the blood of Christ completely removing our guilt, not because we aren't guilty, but because God has appointed a fountain filled with blood for the cleansing of sinners.
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You see that with your children, or at least I do, this time of year especially. You give them an ice cream cone.
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The younger they are, it's just all over their face and their shirt. You turn the corner for two minutes and you look over and the ice cream's all over the ground and it's all over their face and it seems like it's gotten in crevices and things that don't make logical sense.
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How did it get in your earlobe? How are you eating this? And as soon as they sense like, oh no, mom and dad are stressed because I'm dripping everywhere and we're about to get in the van, what do they try to do?
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They try to start cleaning it up. Don't worry dad, and they're scooping it. They're just moving it around.
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They're not actually cleaning anything. And they can't. They can't deal with that mess themselves.
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They're just making it worse. It's just spreading further, getting more sticky, having more consequences. Everything they touch is becoming defiled.
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There's only one thing that can clean a child in that state. Plunging them in a tub.
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Taking them out clean. They can't do it themselves, but if you plunge them, if you wash them, they'll be clean.
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That's essentially what's taking place here. A true heart recognizing, I can't clean up my own act.
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I don't have anything that gives me the right to access the presence of God. And I own that.
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And I feel the weight of that. My heart breaks over that. And where my heart breaks,
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I actually come back to the very thing that gives me assurance that I'm not my own, but I have a faithful Savior who bought me with His own precious blood.
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And that gives me a true heart now. Now I can approach the presence of God. Now I can draw near to Him in a way that He won't despise or praise or turn away.
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He welcomes broken and humbled sinners into His presence. He feasts with them.
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So a true heart longs for this fellowship with God. It cannot settle for a comfortable distance like the
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Pharisee. It will not live for long standing afar. That one will be consumed with sorrow.
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No, he knows the Lord Jesus Christ is full of grace and mercy. And though there's trepidation and torment of conscience and he's standing far off, it cannot last.
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And something will break. He must close near the Savior. Even Peter can have a night of bitter weeping.
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But the Lord won't allow that bitter weeping to be the remainder of his life. Nor will He allow Peter to wipe his tears and become hardened and callous about his relationship with the
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Lord. No, the Lord Jesus Himself will make sure that Peter is restored. A true heart knows it's been cleansed by the blood.
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And for that reason, it longs to be in even closer communion. The knees are weak.
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The arms are drooping. It's exhausting. It's hard when you feel exhausted to desire
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God. I don't just mean the weariness of a long day or a long week. I just mean you just feel burnt out.
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Lord, I can't keep going. You feel the power and the weight of the flesh more than you feel the power of the
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Spirit compelling you and moving you. And it's coming back to this thing. Coming back to the mediator.
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Coming back with a true heart that knows it's been cleansed. Gives you enough strength to press forward and say like the hymn, draw me nearer, nearer, blessed
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Lord. And where does the hymn understand that drawing power, that drawing influence, that compulsion to be toward?
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Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer, precious Lord. Where? To the cross where Jesus died.
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That's where. You see, that's always how it is for one drawing near to God with a true heart.
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It's not just, oh Lord, just make me feel happy today. You'll never draw near to the
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Lord when you're drawing near to the cross where He died. When you can say, draw me nearer to Thy precious, bleeding side.
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That's the presence of God. And so it's the cross that generates this thirst, this longing.
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You become like that deer in Psalm 42. Your soul is thirsting. It's dying of thirst to return to the living
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God. What does the psalmist cry out? When shall I appear before the face of God? Now the one that had been so far off and distant from God, because he's been drawn nearer through the mediator with a true heart to the very cross, is crying out from the shadow of the cross, when will
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I see His face? When will I be near? It's just like Moses drawing through the thick darkness saying, show me
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Your glory. Or another hymn by Sarah Adams who's weaving through the scene of Jacob having that dream in Bethel, the ladder opening up with angels ascending and descending, the opening as it were to the very presence of God.
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Just such a beautiful moment in the storyline of Genesis because Jacob has done absolutely nothing to be worthy of having that kind of promise and revelation given to him.
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What has he done to earn that promise, that presence? What has he done? He's lied.
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He's deceived. He's run away. His brother's out to kill him. There's nothing but sinfulness and misery and damage in his past.
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He's disrupted his whole family. He's put a curse on his whole future as it were as a result of his own sin.
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And he just goes to sleep, dejected, miserable, not sure how the next day was going to work out, hardening his heart, stealing his conscience, going whatever,
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I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. And what happens that very night? God shows up.
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Says, I'm going to be your God. I'm going to bless you.
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I'm going to do good to you. And Sarah Adams, reflecting on this, she says, though like the wanderer, the sun gone down, darkness over me, my rest a stone.
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Right? His conscience so wounded that he's sleeping on a stone.
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This will do. Yet in my dreams I'd be nearer my God to thee.
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There let the way appear, steps to heaven. All that you send me in mercy given, angels to beckon me, nearer my
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God to thee. And then my waking thoughts bright with praise. Out of these stony griefs,
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Bethel I raise. And so by my woes, I'm nearer my
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God to thee. That's how the presence of God shows up in a sinner's life. It's not because they finally mastered and got past their woes.
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You know what? He cleaned up all those sins. He cleaned up his act. He untwisted himself.
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He changed his heart. The leopard changed his spots. The Ethiopian changed his skin.
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Don't worry, mom and dad, you can be a lot closer. Don't worry, brother, we can be really close again.
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We don't see any of that. All he has is his sin and his guilt. And God says, for that very reason,
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I have come and allowed you to draw close to me. Jacob drawing near.
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In fact, in chapter 27, where all the tragedy, all the lying and deception plays out, in chapter 27, that's a thematic word, the same word, to draw near, negash in the
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Hebrew. If you look at where that word appears, it's very rare. And then in the story of Jacob at chapter 27 and at chapter 33, it's everywhere.
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It's constantly repeated. Jacob drawing near to his father. And then the father saying, come near, my son.
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And then Jacob drawing near. And then saying, come here. Let me feel your skin. And so he draws just everywhere, this word drawing nearer, nearer, nearer, nearer.
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And the only other place it appears is when God has untwisted him, sanctified him, put fear in his heart by ambushing him and breaking his hip and saying, walk after me.
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The only time we come back to this word with all of that vibrancy and frequency is when he draws near to Esau.
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Draws near to Esau. Draws near to Esau. Nearness to God is nearness to neighbor.
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And that's the third point. Drawing near requires a mediator first.
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Drawing near requires a true heart. That comes from knowing the mediator. Comes from drawing near through that mediator.
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But then thirdly, if you've done drawing near through a mediator, drawing near with a true heart, you'll be drawing near together.
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Let me show you this. Hebrews 10 .22, right? We were just there. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, our bodies washed with pure water.
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Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promises is faithful. And let us consider one another.
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In order to stir up love and good works, you see where the mind of the writer goes?
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Let us draw near. Let us draw near. And let us consider one another.
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In our drawing near, nearness to God is nearness to neighbor. Jacob cannot draw near to God if he doesn't draw near to his brother.
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The parallel passage to Exodus 20. And the reason we didn't go there this morning is because a few months ago we went there in chapter 19.
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But the great parallel passage to Exodus 20 is Hebrews chapter 12. And in Hebrews 12, we find this great contrast.
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The writer says, you've not come to the mountain that can be touched, burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest?
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What does he say? Verse 22. You've come to Mount Zion. Now notice this language here.
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Again, the point here is we draw near together. There's no isolated path to nearness to God pure and simple.
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Merely or exclusively. To draw near to God is to draw near corporately as much as it is individually.
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As much as it pertains to your own soul, it pertains to God's desire for a body to draw near.
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And your place, your gifts, your function within that body is to be part of the drawing near to God.
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Let me just show you that. You've come to Mount Zion. Look at this communal language. To the city of the living
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God. To the heavenly Jerusalem. To an innumerable company of angels.
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To the general assembly and church of the firstborn. To the spirits of just men.
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This is all communal imagery. In Hebrews 12, it's a city drawn near.
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It's assembly, it's a church. It's the spirits of just men made perfect. So the question is, are we considering one another in the way that Hebrews 10 exhorts us?
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Well, I'm sure we're considering one another. I don't doubt that for a moment. The problem is we're more likely considering one another in all the wrong ways.
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In all the wrong reasons. It's easy to consider one another out of irritation or grumbling.
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And in that way, we become much like the Pharisee that Jesus warns us about. Remember, it's those who trust in themselves.
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Those who are wise, pure in their own sight that despise others. We may be considering one another, but are we considering one another in order to grumble?
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James 5, 9 says, don't grumble against one another, brethren. You'll be condemned.
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Are we considering one another in this church?
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I don't doubt it. How are we considering one another? Why are we considering one another?
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Is it so that iron can sharpen iron? Is it so that when a brother leaves your presence, he's been edified?
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Encouraged? Has his iron been sharpened or has it been dulled? Has there been a word that's exhorted, built up?
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Has there been a pledge of prayer, a word of comfort? When a woman leaves the presence, is there a consideration of the other that encourages watching over the ways of the household, not eating the bread of idleness?
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Are our hands strengthened in the labor or are they pulled back from it? In other words, we have a perennial need to consider the deep things of what the gospel means corporately.
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We have a perennial need to understand that drawing near to God means drawing near together.
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And that's in God's design. Why do we need to learn how to minister God's grace to one another in this way?
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Because it is impossible to draw near to the holy and living God if you're not drawing near together.
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It's why we're commanded to consider one another in this way. Hebrews 10 goes on to say, not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together, as is the manner of some.
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Is it your manner? It's not possible for us to say,
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I have no need. If you would draw near to God through Christ the mediator with a true heart, you will draw near with other brothers and sisters.
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But let me close now addressing perhaps the most important point of this, which is your soul.
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James 4 .8 says, draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
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Are you standing far off this morning?
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You have a promise written in gold in James 4 .8. It is not
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God who causes you to stand far off if James 4 .8
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is true. Hearing my words, you yourself desire that distance, maintain that distance, keep
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His presence and its dilemma away from your life if you draw near to Him. He will draw near to you.
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Do you doubt it? Try Him. Prove Him wrong. Moses drew near, or we could put it this way more accurately,
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Moses was made to draw near. Because God's grace had already disrupted him, laid hold of him, drawn him.
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It didn't mean he wasn't trembling. Hebrews 12 says he was shaking with fear. But as we saw in Deuteronomy 4, when he says, has any people ever heard
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His voice speaking from the fire and lived? It's almost him saying, why was
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I made to hear His voice? Why was I made to hear His voice? Why am
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I drawn near to Him when so many would rather starve than come? That's what it looks like to draw near to God.
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Hebrews 11 .6 says the one who draws near to God must believe that He is and that He's a rewarder of those who seek
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Him. Have you sought Him? Are you seeking Him? And then the writer says, see that you do not refuse
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Him who speaks. God does not come on Mount Sinai with that thunder and fire and smoke and say, just let me know when you're ready.
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I'll be here waiting. Don't you read in the
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Gospels that Jesus passes by villages and towns? God has no problem shaking the dust off His sandals just like He commands
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His disciples to do. If they don't receive you, leave. And the writer of Hebrews says, see that you do not refuse
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Him when He speaks. So have you come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living
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God? Have you come to the fountain for the blood that sprinkles your evil conscience and washes your body pure?
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Have you come to the Mediator? The God -Man. Christ Jesus.
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When we look at Moses as the Mediator here in Exodus 20, of course, we see that shadow, that type of the greater
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Mediator yet to come. Moses broken into the presence of God. The burning bush, of course, was
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God just giving Him a microcosm of this is what it's like to enter My presence. If we had gone instead straight to chapter 20,
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Moses might have melted like wax. But he could handle burying himself in the dirt at the sight of that burning thicket.
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How much grace God has shown and trained him up in that now when the whole mountain is enveloped with that presence,
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He'll go through the dark. Tripping as it were over stones, feeling His way forward to the fire that would consume
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Him. But even this gives way, as a weak shadow must give way to the substance, to the reality.
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What made Moses a great Mediator was He pointed to the great Mediator. The only
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Mediator. And Jesus enters into the fullness of the presence of the
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Holy One on the terror of Sinai. If Moses is fearful to enter into the darkness, it's just a darkness that he cannot see.
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All Moses has ever known is relative alienation from God. Relative distance from God.
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But the true Mediator, Jesus Christ, all He had ever known was perfect nearness. Perfect communion with God.
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It wasn't that He couldn't see when the sky went pitch black, so much as that He couldn't be in the very place that He had always known.
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The bosom of His Father. The fire and the light that would break forth from heaven and say, my son,
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I'm well pleased, is now in iron -thick darkness.
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And the fire is not just the fiery presence of the
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Holy One, it's the very fire of the Holy God. The very fire of hell.
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A hell full of His wrath now poured out upon the cross. Poured out upon the
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Mediator. The horror of a depth of blackness we cannot imagine. Abandonment.
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Rejection. Being nailed to the tree in our place. The place where His closest friends abandoned
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Him. That would be enough. The closest, the people you love, you trust most when that shepherd is struck, they scatter.
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That would be enough. Enough darkness.
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But for His Father to abandon Him. The darkness here, it's so profound, all of creation is abandoning
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Him. The Creator. Every creature should be lurching toward nearness to the
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Holy One. And when He's lifted high on that cross, all of creation is slinking away from His presence.
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This is the one supremely stricken and cursed by God. We don't want anything to do with that.
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And the one that all of creation was made to adore repudiates and dejects itself from His presence.
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And so we see this paradox of God's presence on the Mount of Calvary. Sinai points us to Calvary.
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There is no mount more bereft, more absent of the presence of God than Calvary.
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And yet, and yet, there's no mount more replete, more full of God drawing near.
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The very place of rejection and abandonment and exile and shutting out is the very place of God drawing near, coming close, tearing the veil of darkness, coming into the very hearts of His people by His Spirit.
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The place of abandonment, of being forsaken, is the very place of God's nearness, of God's presence.
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Moses, as a mediator, he passes through that darkness into the presence of God. What does he tell the people?
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Don't be afraid. The great mediator goes with boldness into the darkness that repels sinners.
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And he turns and he says, don't be afraid. See that I'm going. See that I speak.
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I intercede. What happens when he comes out of that darkness? What happens to his face?
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It shines. Jesus passes through an infinite darkness.
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The one who had only known the nearness of God crying out, why have you forsaken me? Not knowing a way that He had known from all eternity in that darkness.
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And how does He return? What does Revelation 1 say of the Son of Man? John says,
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I turned to see a voice that was speaking with me. The Son of Man. His face was like the sun shining.
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All of its brilliance. And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though dead.
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And what does this great mediator with this burning star of a face say in Revelation 1?
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I'm the first and the last. We're all standing afar off at the scene of Calvary.
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Not daring to come near to this One who's bearing that kind of wrath. And it's as if He's on the tree fully submerged into that darkness.
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Fully consumed by that fire. He says to you, don't be afraid.
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I'm the only way to the Father. Come to me. Whoever the
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Father gives to me will come to me and by no means will I cast them out. And so, brothers and sisters, are you still standing far off?
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Sinner, are you standing afar? What prevents you from drawing near when
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He's opened this way to God? Let me tell you one last point as we close.
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Drawing near to God is not some future prospect. We shouldn't conceive of the walk of faith or the journey of a
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Christian life as though it's all transcendence. We just trudge along because one day we'll have
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His presence. No. It's as much transcendent hope as it is imminent reality. God's presence is something you have now if you're a believer.
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Something you're meant to have more of now if you're a believer. And you have
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His promise. Not only will He draw near to you if you draw near to Him, He says
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He'll be with you. You're not some hobbit trying to make his way to a mountain far away all on your own, just trudging along and hoping to get there.
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He says, I will be with you. Lo, I am with you even to the end of the age. And so His presence, brothers and sisters, listen very carefully.
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His presence, His nearness in your life is not a promise to be waiting for.
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It's a blessing to be enjoyed even now. Do you know that nearness?
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Have you drawn near to that mediator? Has His blood given you a true heart? A new heart?
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Will we draw near to Him together? Let's pray. Father, thank
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You for Your Word, Lord. As it says, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace,
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Lord. Not because we have any confidence in ourselves, but because all of our trust is stayed upon Him who died and rose again.
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Our great mediator, the perfecter, the author, the finisher of our faith. May we look to Him and draw near to Him that we might be in Your very bosom communing with You, the triune
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God, enjoying the bliss of Your redemption, finding its fruit in all of the dark corners and locust -ridden areas of our lives,
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Lord. May we draw near. That's all of our satisfaction and peace in this life.
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Other aliens, exiles, foreigners, to Your nearness, to Your mercy, here this morning,
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Lord, may they come to the One who speaks not out of the fire, so much as out of the cross, being consumed by fire.
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And even there is able to say, do not be afraid, but come. Come to me and I will bring you to God.
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May our heads, may our hearts, may our lives bow down in adoration to Him, the slain Lamb, the risen
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King who sits at Your right hand forevermore to bring us to You where we may be in that blessed place.