Hello my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
On this day 58 years ago, our world awoke to shocking news. President John F Kennedy, the President of the United States at that time, had been shot the day before and declared dead that afternoon. It was the first dramatic shooting in America during that decade which later saw Robert F Kennedy shot and Martin Luther King also assassinated. The sixties were turbulent around the world and of course was the decade of the Vietnam War. I wonder how that decade looks to you now that it is more than 50 years removed from our present day? Time and stepping away from tumultuous situations can give us a very different perspective from being in the middle of the fray, can’t it?
That’s exactly what Moses was experiencing. I left you yesterday with Moses deep in a thick fog cloud with God. Moses was there up Mount Sinai, at God’s invitation. God had begun what would be a prolonged, very detailed explanation of WORSHIP unlike anything Moses or any other human being had ever imagined! Moses was far enough up the mountain and deep enough in the cloud that God made, that he could neither see nor hear all the commotion of 1 million Hebrew former slaves, encamped at the base of the mountain. These people were about 100 days removed from centuries of enslavement in Egypt. Following God’s rescue of them, they had been led to Mount Sinai by God Himself, using a cloud to lead them in their travels by day and a pillar of fire by night. They were surviving in the desert with food and water provided miraculously by God.
They didn’t know it, but they were going to spend several months here at Sinai with God. Why, you might ask? Because it was time for school! Time for learning and understanding things they’d never heard before. God wanted these people to KNOW Him! God had rescued them from slavery not simply to set them free from bondage, but to teach them to live as the Covenant people of God, in a love relationship with God! God had already begun challenging them to VIEW themselves entirely differently. No longer would their identity be SLAVES in Egypt. God wanted them to know HE viewed them as “…His chosen people, His treasured possession, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Ex. 19:4-6) That statement alone was shocking, almost incomprehensible for these slaves! It would take time, lots of time and a great deal of further explanation for these slaves to understand and really believe it, and then start living this new reality!
God had met with these 1 million people and actually spoken to them audibly. Yes, they had heard the voice of God proclaim to them what we call “The 10 Commandments”. (Exodus 20) These formed the foundation for knowing God and living daily as God’s chosen people, His treasured possession, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation! Then God had given Moses three chapters of much more detail, of how God wanted His people to live daily in COMMUNITY as the people of God. What Moses had heard and proclaimed to the people was nothing short of radical. They’d never heard anything like this in their entire lives. In fact, no other people on planet earth had ever heard it! You’ll find the detailed record of this in Exodus 19-23.
Now, in Exodus 25, Moses is again in the cloud of solitude with God and this time the focus of the conversation is a total spiritual reorientation for these people. For centuries these Hebrews and their ancestors had lived in Egypt, surrounded by Egyptian religions which worshipped man-fabricated images of animals, and human/animal hybrids. The Egyptians worshipped the sun, moon and stars, and the Egyptians of course worshipped their national leader, the Pharaoh. Images of him were everywhere and people bowed to them.
Did you know, at that time of history, the Hebrews did not have a ‘religion’ as such. No formal worship practices, no recognized religious leaders, no formal religious book of traditions or instructions. They had only one thing… STORIES which had been passed down verbally from generation to generation. Stories about Abraham and his Covenant relationship with God, his miracle son Isaac and miracle grandson Jacob, and his 12 sons, and how God continued the Covenant relationship with each of them in their generation. But then slavery…decades, centuries of slavery, and the only physical, tangible thing these 1 million Hebrews had which linked their miserable, present slave existence with these great stories of the past… was a coffin! That’s right, an Egyptian sarcophagus which supposedly had the embalmed body of Joseph. (Gen. 50:26)
Moses and the fleeing Hebrew slaves had brought that coffin out of Egypt with them, because one of those stories was that old Joseph, before he died, had said to his family, “I am about to die. But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land of Egypt , to the land He promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…then you must carry my bones up from this place.” (Ex. 15:19) Now I don’t know what your religious foundations are my friend or what you view as your spirituality, but imagine please these 1 million people and all they’ve experienced in the past few months with God rescuing them from slavery and leading them to Sinai. What can you imagine they are learning about this God of their ancient ancestors? How does THIS God want to be worshipped, especially if God does not want any carved images made to represent Him? How do these adults instruct their children about this God?
THAT my friends is what God and Moses were talking about in the cloud on Sinai!! The God Moses had met at the burning bush had identified Himself by the name “YHWH” translated in English as Jehovah, or “I AM that I AM”. That name is most often translated as “LORD” in our Bible. So I need to ask you…all of you, wherever in the world you are at this moment: WHO do you say God is? Why? Who or what has shaped your understanding of God? What are God’s attributes as you know them and have experienced them? And how does the Almighty God want to be worshipped, at least as you understand it?
You’ll remember this is Moses’ sixth trip up Sinai to meet with God. In this cloud experience the record says the LORD God instructed Moses first to gather an offering of silver, gold, bronze, special gems and other things from those of the 1 million Hebrews who had hearts willing to give to the project of constructing a place of worship for this God. God called it a “Sanctuary” or “Tabernacle“, because, He told Moses, “I will dwell among them. Make this tabernacle exactly like the pattern I will show you.” (Ex. 25:8)
I imagine God paused here giving Moses time to reflect. If God wanted to have a building on earth where God would reside and meet with human beings, how ornate, how magnificent, how spectacular would such a building need to be? I suppose Moses immediately thought of the Egyptian palace where he’d grown up and especially Pharaoh’s magnificent throne room, where the most important man in the world cared for the business of leading the most significant nation on the planet at that time! How much more magnificent would God’s palace and throne room need to be, Moses could only imagine!? Oh Moses had so much to learn about God… and so do we!
God began to speak again to Moses. In fact Exodus 25,26,27,28,29,30, and 31 are Moses’ notes from this very long explanation God gave Moses for this God designed Palace which God called a Tabernacle, and the furnishings God designed for inside it! 7 chapters of detailed information! Now we have an idea of why Moses needed to be on the mountain with God for 40 days! God was designing a worship culture for His people, something entirely different from anything they’d ever seen in Egypt!
I’d like us to pause right here for today. Imagine that you’ve never seen a church or Cathedral or Mosque or Temple. You’ve never been in or observed any religious worship service of any kind. Based on what you know about God, would you first write down in your journal WHY God deserves to be worshipped. And then WHAT worship of Almighty, Holy, Creator God should be like, in your estimation, if God is to be honored and glorified as God alone deserves.
And then one more thing… write a few lines of description of what you think the PLACE of worship of Almighty God should be like if it will be sufficiently honoring to Almighty, Holy God. And here’s a song of worship to help you consider these awesome thoughts:
Today’s Scripture is Exodus 25:8, 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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