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Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
This week I’m inviting you to climb pinnacles with me to reflect on the past 7 week journey we’ve had together which I called R E S T O R E. For the final letter ‘E’, I’m suggesting two words “Epilogue” and “Engage”.
From the pinnacle yesterday we sat with Joshua looking down from Mount Sinai over the 1 million runaway slaves who’d been out of Egypt about 90 days. They would end up spending several months camped there, as God led them through an extended reorientation about their core identity... no longer being slaves, but now a people of God. And reorientation about their style of worship… no longer being immoral, out of control near riots, but holy, celebrations of God, which lead to introspection and sin repentance. And they would receive many instructions from God about living lives with totally different value systems and even world-views from what they had known as slaves.
So their time at Sinai was intended to be a type of “Epilogue” as they closed out centuries of slavery existence in Egypt, and prepared to move forward from Sinai with God toward their Promised Land, ready to “Engage” a whole new lifestyle in a new place.
Today let’s look at Exodus 32 and let’s climb up Sinai again with Moses. This time Moses goes alone. You’ll remember yesterday we ended our time descending that mountain with Joshua and Moses who was carrying the stone tablets which God had personally cut out of the mountain, and upon which God had engraved the 10 Commandments for His people. However Exodus 32:19 says “When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. And he took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire, then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.” Wow, now that is quite a reaction and a scene that’s simply hard for me to fully imagine! But clearly God honoring, strong leadership, was desperately needed. Aaron had failed miserably in Moses’ 40 day absence.
As you read the remainder of Exodus 32 you’ll see some amazing things took place. But I invite you to focus on verses 30&31: “The next day Moses said to the people, ‘You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.’ So Moses went back to the LORD and said ‘Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. But now please forgive their sin – but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.” While Moses was very angry and deeply disappointed in their moral failure, do you see that his deep grief and compassion for the people moved him? Do you see his true leadership character, as he is willing to do anything for God to RESTORE them and give them another chance at being His people. As you and I watch the news around the world, what is your heart for the people who are so very, very lost without Jesus?
Did you know Moses stayed with God up Mount Sinai 40 days and nights, interceding for these sinful, rebellious people? It was a ‘watershed’ time. Their very lives and the future of this ‘people of God’, hung in the balance. Deuteronomy 9:18 is Moses recounting this experience to the people several years later: “Then once again I fell prostrate before the LORD for 40 days and 40 nights. I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the LORD’s sight and so provoking Him to anger. I feared the anger and wrath of the LORD, for He was angry enough to destroy you. But again the LORD listened to me..”
May I say it was an “Epilogue” and “Engage” 40 day experience for Moses. Things had to change. God was making a decision, but also the people had a decision to make. Would God forgive them and lead them forward? Would the people renounce their evil ways and trust and honor Holy God? Or… would it all go up in flames right here, right now?
As we sat with Joshua, yesterday let’s now sit with Moses in this agony of grief and repentance. Would the people ‘confess’, acknowledging their sin and wrong and God’s holy justice? Would the people “repent” turning from their sin to trust God and yield fully to Him? Would God forgive…why should He? As we sit with Moses, let’s look at our own lives, our families, our churches, our cities… how does it all look to God? Do you see and hear much “confession” or “repentance” going on in your part of the world? What should God do with us and our world, in view of our recent history?
The end of Exodus 32 shows us God’s response to Moses’ 40 days of intercession on behalf of the sinful people. Then in Exodus 33, two significant things occur both of which flow out of this pinnacle intercessory experience. First, Moses erects a small ‘tent of meeting’ outside the camp, to which anyone can go, at anytime, to meet with God. Moses and Joshua go there often. God not only extended forgiveness, but God came down to “dwell among His people”, just as He had promised in Exodus 29:45,46.
Second, Moses urged God NOT to send them from the mountain into whatever the future might hold for these people, unless God would accompany them and lead them. Moses said to God “If You are pleased with me, teach me Your ways so I may know You and continue to find favor with You…If Your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here…What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth.” (Ex. 33:13-16)
And God’s remarkable response to Moses was “I will do the very thing you have asked… My Presence will go with you…”
It would be yet several months before they would actually leave Sinai and begin their trek toward the Promised Land, but on this monumental day, Moses had received the assurance that God was willing to forgive, and willing to continue building His unique relationship with these runaway slaves, and more… He was willing that His Presence would reside with them and lead them.
Sadly, history shows us most of the people didn’t change much and that entire faithless, rebellious, stiff-necked generation ended up wandering the desert for 40 years, until they all died and finally their children were given the opportunity to enter the Promised Land. BUT, during that long time, living among this rebellious people were Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Caleb and many others, who sought to honor God with their lives, and God’s Presence was among His people.
As you look over your family, your neighborhood, your church, your city, is your heart broken like Moses’ was, and do you intercede like Moses did, pleading for God’s mercy? Are you one, like Moses, Joshua, Caleb and others, who frequent your ‘tent of meeting’, seeking the face of God on behalf of people who don’t know Jesus and don’t care? Do you celebrate a strong sense of God’s Presence in your home, your family, your church…and through them, in your city? What does the future look like for the place where you live? What “epilogue” would God write over your city if the world ended tomorrow?
What does God desire to do there for HIS glory and what is your part in that, in your city? I have another song for you to consider, as you pray… for God’s touch on your part of our world… and I ask this: what hope would there be ‘Without The Cross’?
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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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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