Exodus 20-24; Hebrews 12
You could be seated. Please turn in your copy of the
scriptures to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12, verse
18. As you’re making your way there,
remember, for the last six or seven weeks or so, we’ve been
thinking through the concept of covenant. Simply put, a relationship
that God establishes with us and guarantees by his word or
guarantees by his son, the Lord Jesus’ blood. These covenants
in the scriptures are basically two. There’s the covenant of
works that God made with Adam in the garden. Adam obey and
live, disobey and die. Obey meant not eating the forbidden
fruit. We know that Adam and Eve disobeyed
and so they ultimately died, Adam being our representative.
We were born with his original sin and from that original sin
proceeds actual sins. But God also promised a covenant
of grace whereby faith, instead of having to obey his law perfectly,
which was not possible, we would put our faith in the one who
did obey his law perfectly. And that would be Jesus who was
born without sin because he was Conceived by the Holy Ghost and
born of the Virgin Mary, and he did not sin. In paradise,
Adam sinned against God, and in the wilderness, Jesus kept
the faith, and he countered the temptations of Satan with scripture.
Now, in the book of Hebrews, whoever the writer of Hebrews
is, some of you probably think it’s Paul and that’s okay, but
you’re wrong. Whoever the writer, I’m joking, whoever the writer
of Hebrews is was trying to say to the Jewish folks in the early
church days who wanted to revert back or regress back to old covenant
practices, don’t do it. Why don’t do it? Because Jesus
has come. all those types and the shadows,
all the, all the, um, sacrifices and all the things that, uh,
pointed to the coming of Jesus are now fulfilled in him. And
so you get through, uh, the book of Hebrews and you figure out
Jesus is better than angels. Jesus is better than Moses. Uh,
Jesus is better than the priesthood of Aaron. Jesus is better than,
uh, the blood of bulls and goats and turtle doves and all the
rest. And in Jesus, we find the sufficient one who wants in for
all laid down his life. for the sins. And so in the covenant
of grace, we put our faith, not in ourselves and our abilities,
because we have none, but we put our faith in the one who
does have the grace and the ability to live and obey and die in our
place. And therefore we are granted
his righteousness. And so we come to Hebrews chapter
12, verse 18. And in the midst of telling these
folks, don’t regress into old covenant practices, he tells
them of the greatness of the kingdom of God, the greatness
of life with God. And he says, for you have not
come to what may be touched. That was Mount Sinai, right?
You’ve not come to a blazing fire. You’ve not come to darkness
and gloom and a tempest. And the sound of a trumpet and
a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages
be spoken to them, for they could not endure the order that was
given. Even if a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.
Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble
with fear. But you have come to Mount Zion.
You’ve come to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
and to innumerable angels in festal gathering and to the assembly
of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge
of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. and
to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled
blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. See that
you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not
escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much
less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At
that time, his voice shook the earth. But now he has promised,
yet once more, I will shake not only the earth, but also the
heavens. This phrase, yet once more, indicates the removal of
things that are shaken, that is, things that have been made
in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.
Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that
cannot be shaken. And thus, let us offer to God
acceptable worship with reverence and awe. For our God is a consuming
fire. Amen. May God bless the reading
of his word. I was listening this past week
to a preacher that I admire and have enjoyed hearing over the
years. And he was giving preaching advice and he said, only preach
one topical sermon a year. And after you do that, quickly
repent. So we’ve been doing like, what,
seven or eight topical sermons on covenant. So I’m in big trouble.
Can’t wait to get back to Thessalonians and we will pick up Thessalonians
in a couple of weeks. But we do want to next week look
at God’s covenant with David, the Messianic covenant, the covenant
that God would give David a throne that would last forever and he
would always have an offspring on that throne. And then we’ll
think finally of the new covenant that God promises in Jeremiah
and in Ezekiel. But today we want to think about
the progression of the covenant of grace. The further revealing
of the covenant of grace as it was promised to Adam and Eve
when God took their fig leaves, their self-righteousness, and
he gave them the skins of animals that died in their place to cover
their sin, their shame, and their nakedness. Also that covenant
of grace that was unfolded a bit more with Abraham. We want to
think more about the three G’s. Last week I mentioned to you
grapes. That’s the promised land. Grandkids, that’s the offspring
that outnumber the sand on the seashore. And then the good,
the blessing God promised. I will bless you. Whoever curses
you, them I will curse. And in you will all the families
of the earth be blessed.” So grapes and grandkids and good. And we remember that though these
things in a small way were promised to Adam and Eve, and maybe in
a little bit brighter way were promised to Abraham, and Moses
and David. These things are ultimately fulfilled
when we get to the end of the Bible and Revelation 21 and 22
remind us that now the dwelling place of God is with man. He
will be our God and we will be his people. He will delight that
we are in his presence and we will delight in the vision of
his face. So you think about the Christian
life. If somebody asked you tomorrow,
why are you a Christian? You can give them a thousand
reasons. The great Puritan reason was something like this. The
reason I’m a Christian is so that I can see the face of God. Or you could put it this way.
A lot of ministers, you know, when you get asked, you know,
sitting on a bus or an airplane or doctor’s office, what do you
do for a living? We get real sheepish and say
we sell insurance or something like that. Well, the Puritans
would say something like this. I teach the way to a blessed
eternal life. And that’s the goal, isn’t it,
of the Christian. It’s to live forever in the presence of God.
That’s the goal of the Christian. Our job as a church is to get
you safely there. It’s to nurture faith in you
and growth in grace. And so while you’re a pilgrim
and a stranger and a sojourner, you live life well. And then
when it’s time for you to go to your heavenly home, you see
the face of God. It’s our job to lead you to the
way of salvation. And so grapes and grandkids and
good ultimately ends when the family of God surrounds the throne
of God. And he delights in the presence
of his people that he promised his son, if you go and if you
live and you obey and you suffer and you die in their place, you
will receive them as an eternal inheritance for keeping the covenant
of redemption. So back to Abraham for just a
moment. He was promised great grandkids
and good. And God said to him, here are
your stipulations. Walk before me and be blameless. Walk before me. I am your God. You’re no longer worshiping idols
and Ur of the Chaldeans. You’re not going to worship the
gods of the Canaanites and all the other ites in the land. And
then be blameless. Keep my statutes. Now we come
to the 10 commandments and say, here’s the law of God on steroids. This is new. No, Abraham had
commandments. I mean, after all, he built altars
and made sacrifices and worshiped. Cain and Abel had commandments.
Adam and Eve had commandments. We just don’t have them written
down. So when we come to the Mosaic covenant, the covenant
with Moses and Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai, it’s almost
like the CliffsNotes. Here’s everything you need to
know to live for God. Here’s the 10 commandments and
all the regulations that come. But the commandment to Abraham
was to walk before God and to be blameless. And the rite or
the sacrament was circumcision. You and your household, whether
born or bought, shall be circumcised. And thereafter on the eighth
day for all the males. And so we’re told in Hebrews
11, by faith, Abraham went from his land. He walked with God.
He was blameless. Yes, he wavered some. He was
threatened by famine. He was threatened by the barrenness
of his wife’s womb. He was threatened by the riches
and wealth of this world. Yet he sojourned and received
Isaac and he became a wealthy man and he from his own loins
came a son who would give him Isaac and Jacob and Joseph. And
you remember all the way through the end of the book of Genesis,
where Joseph kept the people alive by being the great steward
of Egypt. And Jacob and his brothers came and Egypt was kept alive. He and his brothers, 70, family
members and all, not yet outnumbering the sand on the seashore, not
yet outnumbering the dust of the earth, not yet outnumbering
the stars in the heavens, but these 70 lived in the land of
Goshen, the brothers of Joseph, the sons of Jacob, the sons of
Isaac, the sons of Abraham, and they were fruitful and multiplied. Now remember, Pharaoh had been
favorable to Joseph because he was the great steward who built
the cities and kept the stores. of grain for those seven years
of want. And Joseph died. The Pharaoh who favored him was
no more and a wicked Pharaoh rose up. And because the people
were many, Because they did now outnumber the sand on the seashores,
outnumbered the dust of the earth, outnumbered the twinkling stars
in the sky. What did Pharaoh say? They’ve
become too many in number. They’ve become mighty. more, they may make an alliance
with our enemies and our dynasties will come to an end. You’ve probably
seen, you know, the British museums. You’ve watched, you know, traveling
with Rick Steves or watched, you know, one of these Discovery
Channel things about ancient Egypt. Pretty amazing what they
did. you know, these pyramids 400
feet tall, the blocks of stone as big as this little section
of the room that I’m standing in. Amazing what they were able
to do along the river Nile in the midst of a desert, but it
was on the backs of the Hebrews. It was on the backs of the Israelites
because they put them to the hard task. They put them to the
hard work of building the Pharaohs, government and storage and temples
and all the rest. And so the people became many
and mighty. Well, what did Pharaoh say? He said to the Hebrew midwives,
every boy that is born, you must kill. Every child that is born
that is male must be thrown into the river. And then there’s a
little twinkle in the darkness. It says there was a man from
the tribe of Levi. And he married a woman also from
the tribe of Levi. And you began to think with your
Bible brain, ding, ding, ding, the lights come on and you say,
Ooh, this is the priestly line. This is the line of Aaron. This
is the line of, of, of, of the priest who will serve the people
of God. And so, uh, they had a son. The scripture says a fine son.
And after three months, They could no longer keep him quiet.
I see about a one month old back here and you got two months to
go right before the carrier. And there’s another one over
here, right? You’re, you’re just waiting for the squawk. And so
what did they do when they couldn’t keep Moses quiet? They built
a little boat and we know that Bible story so well, they built
the boat, they stuck the little boy in the Nile. Pharaoh’s daughter
was bathing with her, her servants. And she heard the cry of Moses.
She drew him out of the water. That’s what his name meant, drawn
out. Moses’ sister was standing by, take this baby to your mother. I’ll pay her wages to raise him. Moses was raised by his mother,
weaned as a child, and then sent to live in the palace. And he grew up. And around the
age of 40, he’s out one day and sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew
slave. And he takes matters into his
own hands, recognize God has not yet called him to be the
mediator, to be the deliverer of the people. There’s more time
of oppression yet for the people to undergo. But he kills, he
strikes down a Hebrew. And he gets tattled on, so he
has to flee to Midian, where for 40 years he led animals in
the wilderness for Jethro, his father-in-law. It’s there he
met and married Zipporah, and they had the two boys. And so
he learns to be a shepherd. in the wilderness of Midian,
right there near the mountain of Sinai, where he’ll spend 40
years with Israel in the desert. And the scripture tells us so
well, God heard the groanings of the Israelite slaves. God
heard the groanings of the people of Israel under the whip and
under the scourge and under the heavy task of making bricks without
straw in the land of Egypt. And the scripture tells us God
remembered the promise that he had made to Abraham and the promise
that he had made to Isaac and the promise that he had made
to Jacob. And so when the cries of his offspring promised to
him, the grandkids. He remembers and he goes through
Moses to bring them into a land that flowed with milk and honey,
that’s the grapes. And so he promises to do them
good after this great evil. I love how the scriptures in
the early chapters of Exodus say, God saw the plague or the
plight of Egypt on Israel. And it simply says, and God knew. And perhaps you’re sitting here
with some burden, some prayers, wondering, has God heard? Has
God remembered? Has God forgotten? Maybe like,
Joseph, after his brother, Sodom, and he remained in jail, the
cupbearer or the baker forgot him. And he languished in jail.
God never forgives. God’s timing is always perfect.
God is always on time. And so our prayers, the prayers
and the cries of Israel were heard. And your prayers are heard
for the same reason. You, by faith, are a child of
Abraham. And so God remembers his covenant.
We sing from time to time his oath. His covenant, His blood,
support me neath the whelming flood when all around my soul
gives way. He alone is my hope and stay.
And so for 40 years, Moses has been a shepherd. He’s been training
for the job of leading Israel out of Egypt and he’s out watering
the animals of his father-in-law and he’s at the watering hole
out in the middle of Nowhere, perhaps you’ve been to Sinai,
you’ve been out in the middle of nowhere in Egypt and it is
just nowhere, nothing but dirt, nothing but
rocks. And he’s at Horeb at the mountain of Sinai and he sees
a burning bush. And God identifies himself as
the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.
He’s the God who sees, he’s the God who knows, he’s the God who
remembers. And it’s in this moment, that
he tells Moses that you will deliver my people out from under
the house of bondage, out from under the house of slavery, out
from under Pharaoh. Now remember, Moses spent his
first 40 years in Egypt. First 40 years, 37 and a half,
36 or so in the palace. Some will tell you if their history
is right, and we have every reason to believe, Moses had been a
mighty man of war. Moses had been trained in the
education of Egypt, he’d been trained in the military of Egypt,
he’d been trained in the royalty of Egypt, and he had probably
been on some pretty serious campaigns as a man high up. He knew how
to organize, move, and fight. And so remember that as he prepares
to lead Israel out of Egypt, they’re gonna go out in tribes,
they’re gonna go out and move in order and arrangement as a
people of God, as a military people. And remember, they’re
going to conquest. They’re going to take the promised
land that God has given them. They are the mighty people of
God who have Yahweh, the man of war, with them. And so this
God says, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Moses, I’ll
be with you. and you’ll go speak to Pharaoh. Well, fast forward
through Moses, fast forward through Aaron, fast forward through Pharaoh,
fast forward through the plagues and the Red Sea and the water
from the rock and the manna from heaven. You’ve got millions of
people now at the foot of Mount Sinai. You remember last week
we talked about Abraham who was old and the book of Hebrews says
he was as good as dead. And the way of women had ceased
with his wife, Sarah. That’s what Hebrews tells us.
Yet God gave them a child, Isaac. And remember when Abraham was
in the act of offering up Isaac, he reckoned that God could raise
him from the dead. Here was the child of promise
that would end the promise of a future seed who would be a
blessing to the people, that would be Jesus. And Moses believed
God could raise his son from the dead. I’ll kill him because
he said to, but God will raise him from the dead and the seed
will continue till Jesus comes. Well, here’s all these millions
of people now. Abraham is no longer childless. Sarah is no
longer barren. And these millions of people,
men, women, and children are at the foot of the mountain where
God further unfolds his covenant of grace, the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. He had rescued the people,
he had adopted the people as his own, and he had redeemed
them through his mighty hand and his outstretched arm. And
he says, I’m going to take you, I’m going to put you in the promised
land, the land promised to Abraham. And so here we are at the foot
of the mountain on the cusp of grapes and grandkids and good. Why does God give them 10 commandments?
Is it to burden them? Is it so they can’t go shopping
on Sunday? Is it so they can’t get mad and kill somebody, just,
you know, road rage? No, he wants them to live in
covenant with him. And so we get the 10 commandments
and the additional regulations for ceremonies. and the additional
regulations for civil laws in the land of Israel. And so there
at Mount Sinai, with all the thunder, all the smoke, all the
fire, all the terror, we get a law. Ten commandments, I’m the Lord
your God, no other gods. You shall not make graven images. Don’t take my name in vain. Remember
the Sabbath. Keep it holy. Honor your parents.
No murder, no adultery, no stealing, no lying and no coveting. So
you get the law. And the purpose of the law was
to shine on their hearts and say, this is sin in your life.
And then he gives them an altar. So he gives them a law. It shows
them their sin. Then he gives them an altar and says, this will
wash away your sin. And there’s going to be all kinds
of laws about how to build it, how to bless it and how to offer
on it so that God will accept it. And then, He guides them
in all holiness. And so what’s the point of the
commandments? It’s to show us who God is and what He’s like,
and it’s to show us how we live in a way that pleases Him. But
perhaps right on up there with importance, it shows the watching
world, this is what living for Yahweh looks like. You know,
sometimes we think, how can we be a great witness? Well, let’s,
you know, let’s buy a bus and ship people to church. Let’s
start a basketball program and bring families in on the weekend
and, you know, a little basketball in Jesus. Let’s get send some
missionaries. Great, great, great. Wonderful,
wonderful, wonderful. How about just live a godly life so that
your neighbors say, who are you and where have you come from?
You know, in a couple of weeks, you know, some of y’all’s New
Year’s resolution resolutions are really going to pay off.
You know, you’re going to read your Bible. every day, right? So you’re going to
be holy. You’re going to go on to the, the treadmill and, you
know, got yourself in shape. Um, keeping those resolutions
and, and, and, and your hope is not just to look good, feel
good and act good. That’s great. But you’re hoping
somebody is going to say, what have you been doing? Right. And
you can tell them, well, this is it. Think about that with
your Christian life. Why are you not anxious? You
know, this world is one of the most anxious, and medicated for
it worlds, especially the young generation. Why are you not anxious?
Because I trust in the living God. Why are you not anxious? Because I believe in my heavenly
father who numbers the hairs on my head. I believe that he
takes care of the birds of the air. I believe that He’ll call
me home when it’s time. I’m not anxious at all. So keeping
the commandments is a way to live life before God and please
Him, but also to show the watching world Yahweh is superior to the
Canaanites. Yahweh is superior to, you know,
Christian science or whatever the soup du jour is in our religion
today. And so, These 10 commandments
show the character of God in them, but as you live them in
you. Now, didn’t Jesus affirm this? Jesus says, if you love me, you’ll
keep my commandments. The scripture says, and his commandments
are not burdensome. In fact, sometimes we think about
the law, the law, the law, what a burden, what a burden, what
a burden. It is if you’re trying to obey it for righteousness.
But under the covenant of grace, that’s not the way it works.
Under the covenant of works, Adam had to obey God perfectly
or else, right? Eat and die. Don’t eat and live. He had one shot at it. Wasn’t
baseball, three strikes. It was one strike and you’re
out. He failed. He struck out. But with the covenant
of grace, Jesus keeps the law, but he gives us his spirit. He
writes his law in our hearts. He gives us his spirit and the
fullness of the spirit helps us and blesses us. Well, you
say, why the 10 commandments? Why all the laws about altars
and all the laws about ceremonies and bulls and goats and whatevers? Well, these all pointed to Jesus. These all pointed to something
that could cleanse them from their sins. Hebrews chapter nine
says, if the blood of bulls and goats could cleanse the conscience
of a saint who had lived by dead works? How much more can the
blood of Jesus, how much more can the once and for all sacrifice
of Jesus Christ who shed blood can cleanse our sins? So therefore
we live under a better covenant. But in these days, all these
bloody sacrifices pointed to Jesus. all these sacrifices and
types and shadows pointed to the one who would come. And we’ve
seen him, we’ve seen his work and are blessed by it. Well,
you get to chapter 24 that we did read, and there was that
strange ceremony where they build an altar, they have some sacrifices,
they get a bunch of blood, they put some on the altar, and then
Moses throws it on the people. Now, I don’t know how that worked.
How did he get blood on A million and a half people.
But then there’s the question, why did he do it? Because the
only other place in the Bible where blood is spattered on someone
is it’s Aaron and his sons, the priest. And there’s a sense,
and I think Bible scholars have it right when they say this,
God was consecrating Israel. You are a kingdom of priests.
And as you go into the promised land, and fast forward on through
the church to us today, as we go into the world we live in,
God has splattered the cleansing blood of Jesus on us. And he’s
made us priests. Now we don’t, you know, do all
the crazy priestly stuff, but what do priests do? They represent
God to people. And so as you walk out these
doors with the blessing and the benediction of God, and you’ve
heard the word, you’ve got your marching orders and you go into
the world, you may be the only thing. You may be the only touch
of reality from heaven that people see. And God has consecrated
you. He has saved you. He has set
you apart for this great life. And so the life of the believer
is one of faith in God. The life of the believer is one
of obedience to God. And the life of the believer
is one of repentance. And it’s a rinse and repeat thing.
Our faith gets weak and we need to strengthen it. Our repentance
is up and down. Repentance is a grace. You think
about the kid who gets confronted by the parents, you know, you
did this wrong thing, say you’re sorry. And what does the kid
do? They stomp their foot and say, sorry, they don’t mean it. And
us big people are that way too, aren’t we? But we need the grace
of God to lead us to repentance. So we strengthen our faith by
the word. We strengthen our faith by study of the scriptures and
our doctrine and By the ministry of the church, we are granted
repentance by the Spirit and we repent of our sins. And then
we strive to live a life of obedience. And it’s rinse and repeat because
our faith gets weak, our repentance gets weak, our sin goes up and
down. And we’re like the Apostle Paul
in Romans 7, who says, I know the thing I ought to do, the
law of God, and I don’t do it. And I know the thing I ought
not to do, the thing contrary to the law of God, and that is
the very thing I do. Oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver
me from this body of death? Oh, let me get a bull. Thanks
be to God for Jesus Christ. And so a life of faith, a life
of repentance and a life of obedience. Yes, it does lead to grapes and
grandkids and good, but only because of the gospel. And right
now we live in a sin filled fallen world. And yes, we have our ups
and downs. We have our great blessings. But we have the law
of God to restrain us from evil. We have the law of God to lead
us in all righteousness. But we have most importantly,
Jesus, who has fulfilled that law for us. We could never obey. Doesn’t matter what our New Year’s
resolutions are. We could never obey the law of
God. And so at the beginning of the giving of the commandments,
God says to Israel, I am the Lord, your God, who brought you
out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, out
of the house of slavery. Therefore, live and obey me.
Now, fast forward to Jesus and he’s up on the Mount of Transfiguration
and he’s talking with Elijah and he’s talking with, who’s
the other person? Moses. And what is Jesus speaking
of? He’s speaking of his exodus,
little exodus in the Old Testament, the greater exodus at the cross. And so think of your Christian
duty this way. I am the Lord, your God, who
saved you by my son, the Lord Jesus. Now, therefore, because
he has covered your guilt, because he’s given you his grace, live
a life of gratitude. Live a life of conformity to
the law by the spirit of God. Walk before me, God says to us. And as he said to Abraham, be
blameless. Let’s do pray together. Lord, we thank you for the gift
of grace. You could have left every one
of us dead in our sins and trespasses. You could have left every one
of us in the grave. You could have left every one
of us in our chains and in our bondage and in our slavery and
in our futility, working for Satan and building his kingdom.
But you have seen fit to rescue and to redeem. to give us your
spirit, to give us your word, to give us your church, to give
us a new life, a new heart, a new way. And Lord, much like the
Israelites, we find ourselves messing with idols. We find ourselves
kind of not believing you that you’re serious about your law
and your ways. And we need to constantly to
be rescued and redeemed. So strengthen our faith, grant
us repentance. and help us to obey, we pray
all of this in Jesus’ great and mighty name, amen. We have, is
our last hymn, one of the best songs, I think, to help us think
through what Jesus has done for us. And the great statement of
this song is that he has hushed the law’s loud thunder and he
has quenched Mount Sinai’s flame. Let’s sing now to the praise
of our great God.