the lessons of Mt Sinai
The lessons of the children of Israel in the wilderness, are varied and many.
But the lessons at Mt Sinai, are special.
Here, they heard the voice of God themselves….here, they became, officially, a nation, under God….here, they built the Tabernacle, where God dwelt in the midst of them….here, they spent one year (half of the time it would have taken them to get to the promised land, if they had entered it in believing obedience, the first time)!
One year spent in the shadow of the Mt of God! (Exodus 19:1-2)
They came to Mt Sinai, right after the first battle they had to fight,which was over the water the Lord gave them….from the Rock.
What a lesson!….after the battles we have, The Lord often prepares to lead us on in communion with Him…that we can know Him better for the life He calls us to.
When they came to the Mt., Moses was given instruction that they were to wash themselves…and their clothes. A sign of inward cleansing from sin, and an outward setting of things right.
They must not come near the Mt. Neither them or their animals were to come within a certain distance….for…
…the first lesson God prepares His people to know,…is His holiness. God must be God to us.
He is certainly our Savior….but we must come to adore, love, and submit to His holiness…and rule…if we are to worship Him.
He was to be their King….and He begins to show them His kingdom…and how they were to be HIs citizens.
Then the magnificent and terrifying sight: The third day, God came down on Mt Sinai!
Thunderings, and lightning, and a thick cloud on the mountain, and a very loud trumpet!
(Exodus 19:16-18)
The people who had gathered to watch….were terrified….but so was Moses! (Hebrews 12:21)
God’s Holiness does this….it shows us as sinners before His sight….unable to stand in His gaze.
Then the Voice…. God speaking directly to His people. (Deuteronomy 4:32-33)
Before, He had spoken to Moses,….now He would give His people the Ten Commandments….whereupon all other good laws have been built. (Deut.4:8)
The first: “you shall have no other gods before Me.” The Lord was to be first in all things.
The people were afraid…and instead of drawing near, they pulled back…telling Moses he could talk to God on their behalf.
But though Moses, too, was astonished….yet he came near to God when He called….for he recognized that the Lord was giving them a trial…
…”Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that His fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.”
Here was a lesson, unfortunately they refused…and unfortunately led them to unbelief and sin, many times. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
We, too have been called to be the Lord’s people…to hear Him, and know Him.
Hebrews 10:22 “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.” …Hebrews 10:22
(How do we want to know Him?
There are two ways to know God. To know about Him through the words of others (including the Bible)….
…or to know Him in all His characteristics,…personally by fellowship….Holy, Mighty to save, King)
The next lesson was….they were to be His people by covenant of blood. It was based on His Holy laws….and their obedience to Him,… in them.
Exodus 24:4,7-8 “And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain,….
Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.
And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you….”
(I want to mention that this covenant was imperitive. God could not claim a people that would not submit to His laws.)
Here they became Israel, the nation under the kingship of God,….His nation, by the shedding of the blood (Exodus 24:5-6) of the covenant.
They were no longer Jacob’s children. They were no longer the slaves of the Egyptians….they were Israel….under the rule of God.
Then the Lord begins to teach them about fellowship with Him…what it would be like to “draw near”…..and He began with the elders.
Moses and 70 elders, were called to go up into the mountain a ways,….and eat before God!
Here they saw a magnificent sight! And ate in the Presence of God! This should have given them a look into the character of their King….He would be honored,…but He extended His hand for fellowship and closeness with Him! They should have loved this closeness….and been willing to learn how to have it in their everyday lives!
Exodus 24: 9-11 “Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up,
And they saw the God of Israel. There was under His feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.
And He did not lay His hand on the chief of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.”
(Here was an amazing example of what the life before the Lord could be. “..and I will come into him and sup with him and he with Me.” Revelation 3:20 is extended to us, as well.)
Have they learned anything from this lesson?
But as Moses was called to go further on the mountain, and the seventy went back into the camp….
……these same men….did not call this to heart and mind…or even tell others of this wonder.
Moses was only up there forty days…..it could have been a time for resting, caring for their livestock and family, discussing their new role as a kingdom under God, and what that would mean for them. The elders could have told how they saw Him and ate before Him….
…….but…they did not exercise faith….but was ruled by sight.
…they did not want to wait for Moses to come down. Really, they just did not want to wait on God…..sad!
Exodus 32:1″When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
And it says “the people”….perhaps if the elders had stepped forward here, with a testimony of their experience…. this terrible apostasy would have been stopped!
(We will not go into the terribleness of what they did….suffice it to say, that the idol was one from Egypt….the rites truly horrible.
Though they were nothing but slaves there, yet the people kept looking back to it. A true wile of the devil. How many times we are warned of the same thing….not to look back, but to go forward in the things of God. Philippians 3:13 The answer is a communion and fellowship, with the Lord. That is what keeps us from the world, and sin.)
But God in faithfulness does not leave them in their sin.
As He always does, He moves first….sending Moses down to deal with them. To show them their sin, and present a way of forgiveness.
(And when we were at our worst, He sent His only begotten Son down to earth to do the same. Show us our sin, and give us salvation from our sin.John 3:16)
Moses came down, having already prayed for their forgiveness (Ex. 32:11-13)…..and breaks the stones of Ten commandments (Ex.32:19)….showing that they had already broken them….and turned aside.
They were in desperate circumstances, having made an idol and worshiped it….after God had showed them Himself!
The next lesson God teaches them is:
Sin is death.
First Moses made them eat the ground up idol.( Exodus 32:20)
( It is often the case that the Lord makes us “eat” our sinful words or our actions. Making us look as silly as we have been.)
Then, Moses, stands at the entrance of the camp…and gives a call here.
All could have answered this call:
Exodus 32:26 “Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me. And all the sons of Levi gathered around him.”
If they had all come, Moses would have known that the sin was seen by Israel and repented of. They would have learned a bitter lesson…..but they would have learned and gone on.
But only the sons of Levi came…and the bitter task of teaching that sin is death was given to them.
Exodus 32:27-28 “And he said to them, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from the gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.
And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses and that day about three thousand men of the people fell.”
I want to mention here that these men had also sinned…..they were no better than the rest! Yet when the call came to leave their sin and stand with the Lord (they did not know what the Lord would do to them)…..they came, willing to receive from His hand whatever He willed.
That day they were ordained to stand before God as priests,…because of their repentance and obedience.
The next lesson was of forgiveness…
…..how could they stand and live before their King, as guilty transgressors? How could they go on and have the inheritance that the Lord called them to?
The forgiveness was prayed for,…. by Moses. Here Moses is seen as a type of Jesus Christ, our Mediator (1 Timothy 2:5)….going before God for the people.
When Moses went to see the Lord for the people….the Lord said, “Go up…but I will not go up among you…” (Exodus 33:1,3)
(Important!) But Moses cried, “If Your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.” What good is anything without the Presence of God in it?
“Is it not in your going with us?, so shall we be seperate, I and Thy people, from all the people that are on the face of the earth?” (Exodus 33:16)
And is it not the same with us? His Presence with us by His Holy Spirit is what separates us from the world….and keeps us throughout our journey to heaven!
And the Lord said, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do….for you have found favor in my sight..” (And isn’t for Jesus sake that we are forgiven, and taken into fellowship with Him, even after we sin? 1 John 2:1)
So after forgiveness….the Lord led them into knowing His worship.
Moses then went up into the Mt. again for forty days and forty nights…receiving the second tables of stone, whereon the Ten Commandments were written….that it might be with them, as His law and sign of His presence.
Here, the next lesson…..with Moses on the Mt., God gives the pattern of the Tabernacle.
But the first thing He mentions in connection with it,….is “willingness” to give and do for the Lord and the work.
Exodus 25:2 “Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take My offering..”
Exodus 35:21 “And they came, everyone whose heart stirred him up, and everyone whom HIs spirit made willing, and they brought the Lord’s offering to the work….”
Many men and women brought a free-will offering to the Lord, for the Tabernacle. They had been at Mt. Sinai for a few months….and the rest of the year was in seeing the Tabernacle built from their gifts…and learning to worship.
The lesson of learning to worship : There is a time and due order for all the work of God:
Exodus 40:2 “On the first day of the first month you shall erect the Tabernacle of the tent of meeting.”
Tent of Meeting! This is what God wanted with Israel….and wants with us….”where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20)
Moses was the one who assembled the Tabernacle, and washed and anointed the priests. Piece by piece the Tabernacle was put together and finished….the first piece being the Ark of the Covenant. He set the veils, and all the rest…”So Moses finished the work”
And Jesus on the cross said, “It is finished.” Will we enter into our part of it?
“Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.” (Exodus 40:34)
Then….Moses instructs concerning the sacrifices….”If any man of you bring an offering unto the Lord,..”
And the Lord begins with the whole burnt offering….which speaks of the person’s consecration….wholly unto the Lord….and he ends with the sin offering. All these sacrifices were to be done, that they might come before their God, in fellowship….all of the people could come….and bring a sacrifice.
How the atonement of the Christ was being taught here. They could not come without a sacrifice….but when they did, there was peace and blessing for them.
And all of these happened in one year! So many lessons, that the Lord wanted to teach His people. All for His glory and praise….all for their peace and good.
If they had learned the lessons of Sinai, they would have been ready for the lessons to be learned in the promised land.
How many times does the Lord have to teach us something….he already taught us? So many lessons are based upon what we have learned before.
What is a lesson from God?
It is a necessary part of the purpose of God, that we have the experience in knowing and doing.
What is a lesson from God?
It is Him reaching out through His Spirit or Word to take us by the hand and lead us out of ourselves and what we have known…..into that strength and wisdom that He has for us next.
His lessons come many ways….but all with one Purpose….to bring us to the place where His glory and grace are our everyday circumstances. We begin to live in the awe and joy of His salvation and fellowship…and worship.
This was what He wanted Israel to know….Him….as their God, as their Savior, as their King.
What is He teaching us?
Preaching, Teaching, and Notes 