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Good Monday morning to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends. As you step into a new busy week, are you ready for whatever you’ll face this week?
To help us with that, I’m asking that we spend this entire week up on the pinnacle, a high place, where you and I can look over the journey of our lives…past, present and future…with God!
Let’s do it this first time with Moses and see what we can learn from one of his “Pinnacle” experiences. By my count Moses hiked up Mount Sinai 8 times to meet with God! The first was his unexpected burning bush encounter we find in Exodus 3, and that changed the rest of His life, didn’t it? The second was when he arrived back at that mountain with 1 million Hebrew slaves running from Pharaoh’s Egypt, and I see that in Exodus 19:1-4. Then in Exodus 20, the people all gather at the base of the mountain and they hear the voice of God proclaim His 10 Commandments which would be the fundamental principles of life which would distinguish them from all other peoples on earth.
When we come to Exodus 24:12, God invites Moses to come up the mountain for an extended visit. “The LORD said to Moses, ‘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 for their instruction.” In the earlier verses of this chapter you’ll notice Moses had led the people in a ceremony of consecrating themselves to the God who had delivered them from slavery in Egypt. They didn’t know too much about God yet, but they sure were grateful to be out of slavery. So God was now prepared to explain to Moses, in great detail, how He, the Almighty, Creator, Holy God was to be worshiped by His people, and how this worship would become the central, covenant aspect of their relationship with God and their identity as a unique people. No other people in the world would honor their god in worship as the Jews.
Notice Moses did not go up alone. Joshua went with Moses, and on that mountain they sat outside the cloud of God’s presence for 6 days together, just waiting for God’s instruction and invitation, do you see that in verse 15: “When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day, the LORD called to Moses from within the cloud. To the Israelites the glory of the LORD looked like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain. Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain with God forty days and forty nights.”
Now I wonder how your mind imagines this scene? What did Moses see and experience inside that cloud? Joshua remained just outside the cloud, for when Moses came out of that cloud 40 days later, Joshua was there and joined him in their descent back to the people. I’d like to invite us to sit with Joshua for a while. Down below at the base of the mountain let your eyes scan over the scene… more than 1 million people! What type of shelters had they built? They’d rushed out of Egypt in the middle of the night, almost 90 days ago. Can you imagine what Joshua saw? And then behind Joshua, just a little further up the mountain, a thick fog cloud with what appears to be a fire inside, that he catches a glimpse of from time to time. And Moses was in there!
This week I’m going to invite us to spend some time on various Pinnacle places in the Bible, with great heroes of our faith, and not only look at what they see, but look at our own lives, and the world all around us. So look out today across the landscape of your world, where-ever you live in our world. What’s the condition of society where you are? How are people living? What are attitudes, relationships, respect for law and order, education of children, health care, and business… how has this Coronavirus affected it all in the past several months, where you live? Now along with Joshua, who was looking at his world with the Presence of God right near him, how does your world appear to you when you consider the Presence of God with you? Joshua was asking himself ‘what is the spiritual condition of these 1 million runaway slaves‘? Let’s you and me do the same… what’s the spiritual condition of your part of our world, in July 2020?
From Exodus 25-31 Moses gives us remarkable detail of 40 days of the conversation God had with him. It was an extended instruction of how God wanted the slaves to build a place of worship. They called it the “Tent of Meeting” or “Tabernacle”. A portable worship place, since they would be traveling for the next several years. And in that special place, two rooms with very special artifacts including golden lampstands, and an altar of incense, and a table of shewbread, and finally, in a very special holy room, the Ark of the Covenant and inside that Ark Moses was to place the tablets of stone, which God Himself would inscribe the 10 commandments with His own hand. If there was one word that would summarize this 40 day conversation it might be HOLY!
Let’s remember for several centuries all these slaves knew was that their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had received visions and instructions from God about this unique nation of people who would be their descendants. But there was nothing about how to worship God. So while in Egypt, the only worship they knew was Egyptian worship of man-made golden statues of oxen and other images. Egyptian worship was more like an out of control riot or even orgy.
So the worship Moses was hearing described from God was something no human being had ever experienced before. Holy worship. Awe inspiring worship. Worship which challenged the people to consider their sinfulness and God’s holiness, God’s justice and God’s mercy. May I ask, when you think of the word “WORSHIP” what happens in your heart and your spirit? When you engage in worship, not just Sunday morning worship, but your own private, personal worship with God, what happens deep inside you?
Finally 40 days later, Moses came out of that cloud carrying two tables of stone! We don’t know if Joshua had been able to hear any of the conversation between God and Moses, but Moses’ head was so full of God’s instructions, it took him 6 chapters to record it all! (Ex. 25-31) Can you imagine how excited Moses was to tell Joshua all about it, and then invite the people to understand how HOLY God is and how He loved them and wanted them to worship Him in holiness and honor?
But look at what happened as Moses and Joshua started down the mountain together… “The LORD said to Moses, ‘God down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I have commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it, and have said, ‘These are your gods O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt. I have seen these people and they are a stiff-necked people, the LORD said to Moses. Now leave Me alone so that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation.” (Ex. 32:7-10)
I’m going to ask you to read all of chapter 32 of Exodus, carefully, slowly, and as you do, imagine you are walking with Joshua & Moses, but instead of looking at the city of Hebrew slaves, look at your city, your country. What does God see where you live? What is God’s attitude toward your part of the world? The reason God said what He did to Moses is that He had rescued these slaves from Egypt with 10 powerful plagues which demonstrated His power and His love for them. He had delivered them in the Red Sea miracle. He was providing a daily bread delivery of manna to feed them and providing water as they needed it, even springs pouring out of rocks. He had proclaimed His loving 10 Commandments and they had responded “Everything the LORD has said, we will do” (Ex. 24:7) but in only a few weeks, they had turned their back on God and made a golden calf idol and worshiped in the style of Egyptian immorality.
Remember John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He sent His only Son…” & 2 Peter 3:9 “…The Lord is patient not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” Pray for your city today my friends, and listen to what God says to you about His love for you and your city. Here’s a song to help you gain God’s perspective:
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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