Good Monday morning to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
I wonder if you like to get away from the noise and rush of life for an extended period of solitude and quiet? If so, where do you go and how long do you stay there? Also… what do you do in that quiet place, and what have you found is the short and long term benefit for such times of quiet rest and reflection?
Yesterday I left you sitting with Moses and Joshua up Mount Sinai. They had climbed up there at God’s invitation, getting away from the noise and ruckus of 1 million people camped at the base of the mountain. For six days Moses and Joshua had just sat inside a fog bank on this mountain waiting… waiting for God to say or do something. Then they heard the voice of God from deep inside the fog calling Moses to come into the cloud. Several times before Moses had hiked up Sinai to meet with God, but this was the first time Joshua had accompanied him. This was also the first time Moses had heard God say “Come up to Me on the mountain and stay here and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commands I have written…”(Ex. 24:12) Neither Moses nor Joshua knew exactly what they should expect from such an invitation.
The Exodus record says: “Then Moses entered the cloud as he went up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.” (Ex. 24:18) Now I’ve taken such personal times of solitude away from everything and everyone for a day or two, perhaps even three… but 40 days of solitude with God, in a fog bank… can you even begin to imagine what that must have been like for Moses? Moses wrote this perspective of these 40 days in Deuteronomy 9:9 as he spoke his recollection of this to the people many years later: “I went up on the mountain to receive the tables of stone, the tablets of the covenant the LORD had made with you. I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water… At the end of the forty days and nights the LORD gave me the two stone tablets of the covenant. Then the LORD said to me “Go down from here…” (Deut. 9:9-12)
Now, I can hear what you are saying, or at least thinking. ‘Come on Pastor Doug… 40 days and nights without water or bread. That’s impossible. Do you really expect me to believe this story?’ Good question my friends. In fact that is one of the most important questions a person could ask. . .is the Bible true? Can I believe it, all of it, even the things like this which seem to be outrageous? Well, the problem with discounting something like this 40 day trip up Sinai because you can’t imagine how a person can stay alive without water, is that if you discount as ridiculous THIS story, then how many other parts of the Bible are not believable? And where do you stop discounting and start believing it as truth, God’s truth?
Yes, in order for Moses to stay alive for 40 days and nights without food or water would require a great miracle of God… just like anyone of the 10 plagues, or the ‘water tunnel’ through the Red Sea, or the bitter water turned sweet at Marah when Moses threw a piece of wood into it, or the water that suddenly gushed out of the rock at Rephidim! Ever since the burning bush that was not consumed, Moses had been experiencing miracle after miracle with God, and this 40 days in the fog bank with God, without food, is just one more amazing, miraculous experience Moses is having with God!! I’m envious, what about you my friends?
So when you are in a cloud bank with God for 40 days and nights, what do talk about? Well, let’s join Moses in the cloud and find out. Moses writes this description: “The LORD said to Moses, ‘Tell the Israelites to bring Me an offering. You are to receive the offering for Me from each man whose heart prompts him to give. These are the offerings you are to receive: gold, silver and bronze; blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen; goat’s hair; ram skins dyed red…and onyx stones and other gems…” (Ex. 25:1-7) Look at Moses, what is that confused look on his face? What an interesting list of things God wants Moses to collect. Why? What could God possibly do with such a wide range of valuable stuff? And why would the people bring an offering anyway? These were slaves. Other than the clothes on their backs and their old used stuff they brought with them, all the gold, silver and precious things they had brought out of Egypt had been given to them as they fled, by the Egyptian people who were terrified by the plagues and grieving the death of their firstborn sons!
For the Hebrew slaves, maybe they held on to these treasures considering it all ‘back pay’ for decades, centuries of slave labor in Egypt! That’s why God said “You are to receive the offering for Me from each man whose heart prompts him to give.” (Ex. 25:2) I imagine Moses sat down on a rock on that mountain, to think. God was not imposing a tax on the people. Nor was God demanding payment for their rescue from slavery which He had accomplished in amazing, miraculous ways. Nor was God demanding payment for how He had destroyed Pharaoh’s chariot army which had pursued them. Nor was God demanding payment for the daily bread delivery they received each morning as Manna fell from heaven, nor for the water which gushed out of rocks, nor for the quail he had brought in at least once for them. So if God was not demanding payment for all He had done for them, WHY was God asking for a voluntary offering and why would God be so specific regarding what types of things the people should bring, IF their hearts prompt them to give?
As Moses deeply pondered these questions, he heard the voice in the cloud again: “Then have them make a sanctuary for Me, and I will dwell among them. Make this tabernacle and all its furnishing exactly like the pattern I will show you.” (Ex. 25:8,9) Ahhh, God wanted a building constructed exactly according to the specifications HE would give Moses. But this was no ordinary building. It was to be a place of encounter for the people with God. Furthermore, it was to be a place where God would take up residence among these 1 million Hebrew former slaves! What? God was actually going to come down and live among the people…right here on earth with them? Oh my, can you imagine all the questions that filled Moses’ mind!?
Moses had only been in the cloud with God a short while, he had only heard a paragraph or two, but these words were so significant, so powerful, it would take a long time to process it all. Never before had any human being heard that the Creator of the universe, God Almighty, wanted to come and dwell on earth among the people. On this same mountain, at the burning bush, several months before, this voice had told Moses: “I have seen the misery of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land…”(Ex. 3:7,8)
On this same mountain a few weeks ago, Moses had heard God explain “tell the people, ‘You have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to Myself. Now if you will obey Me fully and keep My covenant, then out of all nations you will be My treasured possession. Although the whole earth is Mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Ex. 19:4-6) And then Moses and the people had heard God audibly speak the 10 Commandments to them, giving them the starting point of lifestyle guidelines on living God honoring lives. (Exodus 20)
But here, now, God was saying something radically new and different. Here God was saying it wasn’t enough for Him to have His people freed from slavery, He wanted to live among them and have a relationship with them which would be central to everything about their society. He, the God of the Universe, wanted to be CLOSE with these people!! I’m sure Moses simply kept asking the simple yet profound question you and I first learned to ask when we were 2 years old…WHY? Moses knew these people. They were stubborn, hard headed and hard hearted. They were selfish, stiff necked, easily angered by almost anything. They were argumentative and easily fell into grumbling. Why oh why would God want to have anything to do with them, much less come and live among them in relationship with them?
That my friends, is the question you and I should be asking ourselves today, and every day! WHY does God care about us, about our sinful, broken, dysfunctional world filled with so much evil and pain? WHY does God not simply destroy us all, destroy our world and start all over again? If you are a parent or grandparent, you have felt the answer down deep in your heart, when you think of or look at your children and grandchildren. It’s called love… a love that is not deterred when they make childish mistakes, or even when they are spewing teenage rebellion.
A love that is not squelched when the ones we love make stupid adult choices that will ensnare them in debt or entangle them in harsh consequences. A love that forgives even when wounded intentionally! A love that seeks reconciliation and restoration of relationship, even when rejected or abandoned. A 1 Corinthians 13 type of love: “Love is patient, love is kind… Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
These Hebrew slaves did not understand this type of love. Slavery, brutal slavery was all they knew. But God wanted them to understand and begin to live an entirely different lifestyle as His treasured possession, His holy nation! Let’s pause right here with Moses. Do you understand the type of love God has for you my friends, no matter where you live in the world? Do you understand that He wants to dwell in your home and mine, to have a love relationship with you and me that is far beyond any human love relationship? How do you and I respond to the concept of God’s love and His desire for relationship with us?
Here’s a song to help us consider the power of this my friends… Find a quiet place to listen to this. I wonder if this might be how it sounds up on a mountain with God in a thick cloud bank?
Today’s Scripture is Exodus 24:18-25:9.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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