Hello my “Walking with Jesus” friends, hey it’s the weekend and I hope you have some special things planned!
I wonder if you’ve ever had the experience of someone speaking great words of blessing over you, or perhaps what you might call ‘prophetic’ words? Perhaps at a graduation or retirement event someone cast a great vision for your future or challenged you to live up to your great potential. If so, how did those words affect your life after they were spoken into your heart and mind?
This weekend let’s step into one of the greatest times this ever happened in human history. Let’s rejoin Moses where I left you yesterday, on Mount Sinai in the cloud of God’s Presence. This is his 8th and final trip up this mountain, although I’m not sure he knew, at that time, that he’d never climb Sinai again. The record Moses gives us of this experience is in Exodus 34. This trip is unique for several reasons.
First, God invited Moses to chisel out of the mountain two stone tablets like the first ones God had given him, but which Moses had broken in anger when he saw the golden calf idol.
Second, God had promised Moses he would have an encounter with the “Glory of God” unlike any previous time in his life.
Third, God promised He would inscribe the tablets Moses would bring up with him, as He had those first tablets, with the 10 Commandments, the unique guidelines for living as God’s people.
The fourth unique thing about this trip was what we’ll look at right now… the words of God which commissioned Moses and these people into their future unlike any other people on earth.
And the fifth unique aspect of this hike was Moses’ appearance when he came down from this 8th time up Sinai and being 40 days in the cloud of God’s Presence.
Moses records for us what happened up there…
“Then the LORD said, ‘I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you.“ (Ex. 34:10) God paused, Moses reflected. It was true… since the first time Moses encountered God on this mountain at a burning bush several months before, the wonders and miraculous things God had done for Moses and the people have never been experienced, before or since, by any nation, any group of people, or even any person on this planet.
That’s the story of the Exodus which to this day, 3400 years later, is celebrated every year by Jewish people around the world, as they gather their families for the Passover celebration, the Feast of Unleavened Bread. But just now, God had promised that His miracles for Moses and this people were going to continue. There was much more ahead! Can you imagine the confidence and excitement this awakened in Moses for the journey before them in the desert and beyond?
God continued: “Obey what I command you today.” Short, simple, powerful, clear. This Covenant between God and the Hebrews came with expectations. Moses and the people had heard this several times from God in the past few months. It was intended to be a very special, living, authentic, Covenant relationship between Almighty God and these Hebrews. But the Covenant required commitment and action from both God and the people! The people could expect that God would do amazing things on their behalf, as long as God could count on their obedience in following His commands, which would always be for their best.
Ah, there it is, the challenge. Your heart, my heart and every person who has ever existed has a problem with these words God spoke to Moses. Why? Because we do NOT want to live as slaves, even slaves to God. We want to be in control of our own lives. We want freedom to think, choose and do whatever we want, all the time, without accountability to anyone, isn’t that true?
But that is too often selfish and even self destructive, or hurtful to someone else. Right? Truth is, we want God’s blessings, God’s provision and protection, but we don’t want this requirement of living in obedience to God. Even the word ‘obedience‘ causes something to rise up within us. What is that? I think we should call that emotion REBELLION! Truth is we’re all 2 year olds, down deep inside, who insist ‘I can do it myself, I don’t need your help’. But we can’t do life ourselves and we do need God’s help!! In fact God made us that way. From the time we are babies to the day we die as old people, we need relationship to survive and many relationships to flourish, starting with a three dimensional relationship with God!
Our physical bodies depend on God to survive… we don’t keep our organs functioning, God does that! Our emotional souls depend on God to help us reason, find hope, and maintain relationships with other people. Our spiritual lives depend on God for without God there is nothing but hopelessness and death. In these trips up Sinai God was working deeply to outline the process of developing a powerful, fulfilling relationship with Moses and the Hebrew people in all three of these areas essential to life. May I ask, how are those three dimensions of relationship with God working for you this December 2021, my friends?
God then pointed Moses forward to the land God had promised Abraham 500 years before, the land to which God would lead these 1 million Hebrews. But the land wasn’t as it was during the more than 100 years Abraham and his miracle family lived there. In the 400 years since Jacob took his family from that land and moved them to Egypt to escape the famine, many other people moved in! But God promised “Obey what I command you and I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.” What a remarkable promise. If the Hebrews followed God carefully, God would lead them forward to resettle the land their ancestors had abandoned so long ago, and God would clear out the people who had moved in and settled there. Perhaps you are wondering why? Why can’t they just live together in peace both then and now? The answer is in what God said next… it’s the power of social influence!
“Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going or they will be a snare among you. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles. Do not worship any other god, for the LORD whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God… for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and when those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same. Do not make any cast idols…” (Exodus 34:12-17) There it is my friends. May I call it a “Covenant Pure Relationship”? From day one this has been God’s deep desire for us humans. It began with Adam and Eve as they and their creator God had a pure, utopia relationship, until their hearts turned away toward the promises of a talking serpent. This has been God’s desire for every person, every family, every generation since. A pure Covenant relationship between us and Holy, Almighty God. But you don’t have to look far or deep to see all the things, the attitudes, the entertainment, the lifestyle issues, the social opinions, the politics, and the cultural trends which push God away. Am I right? So what’s contaminating the pure, covenant relationship God desires with you and me? Do you recognize it and what will you do about it this Christmas season?
If you read through the rest of what Moses recorded for us in Exodus 34 from this conversation with God, you’ll see God re-affirms much of what He had told Moses and the people before, re-emphasizing the importance of Sabbath and annual festivals which call them to celebrate all God had done for them. I’m sure it’s only a fraction of all Moses heard in these several weeks with God on that mountain. Perhaps we have more record of other details of this conversation in the book of Leviticus. But “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.’ Moses was there with the LORD 40 days and 40 nights without eating bread or drinking water. And God wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.” (Ex. 34:27,28) I have often imagined myself sitting with Moses watching an invisible hand carve out each letter of every word of those Commandments on those solid stone tablets. For the rest of his life that memory would be forever engraved in Moses’ mind.
Then God’s voice grew silent. This final encounter with God on Sinai was finished. Moses picked up those precious tablets, looked around the fog-draped hillside one last time, and began his hike down, returning to the 1 million Hebrews whom he’d led out of Egypt, now waiting for his return from his latest encounter with God. The record says: “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD. When the Israelites saw Moses they were afraid to come near him…” (Ex. 34:29,30) I can’t fully explain this, my friends. This is not recorded any other place in the Bible, as ever happening to any other person. Somehow Moses’ encounter with the “Glory of God” so powerfully impacted him that he actually ‘reflected‘ some of God’s glory by a shine on his face! In fact in the final verses of Exodus 34 we find it lasted for quite some time. Moses needed a veil to be made to cover his face at all times… EXCEPT when “he went in to speak with the LORD.” (Ex. 34:35) When Moses entered that little ‘tent of meeting’ he removed the veil so nothing would come between him and God as they met with each other! WOW!
Let’s spend this weekend reflecting on this remarkable description of Moses’ final Sinai trip and the radiating result. As you anticipate your worship experience this weekend, wherever you are in the world, how will your experience compare with Moses’? Here’s a song to help you consider such an encounter, and my prayer is you have a great worship weekend!
Today’s Scripture is Exodus 34:11-35.
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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