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GOD REVEALS HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS TO DISPLAY HIS HOLINESSEXODUS 19:9-25INTRODUCTION The Pulitzer Prize winning author, Annie Dillard, writes this about coming to church on Sunday morning: "Does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of power we so carelessly invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews." The world-renowned pastor and theologian, John Stott, has said in his book, “The Cross of Christ”, “The kind of God who appeals to most people today would be easygoing in his tolerance of our offences. He would be gentle, kind, accommodating, and would have no violent reactions. Unhappily, even in the church we seem to have lost the vision of the majesty of God. There is much shallowness and levity among us. Prophets and psalmists would probably say of us that ‘there is no fear of God before their eyes’… It is more characteristic of us to clap our hands with joy than to blush with shame or tears. We saunter up to God to claim his patronage and friendship; it does not occur to us that he might send us away.” In this mornings passage it is my hope and prayer that we will find an antidote to our madness and a corrective lense for our loss of vision. We have recorded for us this morning one of those rare occasions, prior to the coming of Jesus into the world, when God shows up and manifests his glory publicly. God is not particularly friendly or gentle or accommodating when he comes down on Mt. Sinai . Make no mistake, God revealing himself to these people in this way on Mt. Sinai is amazing grace. Moses himself when commenting on this event 40 years later says, “Has anything so great as this ever happened or has anything like it ever been heard of? Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived?” What astonishes Moses about this encounter is that they survived it and lived to talk about it. God graciously accommodates himself to us in revealing himself as he does on this mountain, even though what we discover about him threatens us as nothing else can. In God’s coming to Mt. Sinai he reveals himself as completely “other” than we are. He is not like us. We are like him, but he is not like us. He is different and unique and set apart from us in every way imaginable. He is a person of such extraordinary otherness that creation itself cannot handle his presence. In his appearance on Mt. Sinai God shows himself to be holy. He is utterly unique in his being and it is his holiness that he aims to impress upon Moses , Israel and us. He is infinitely high above us and we are only sane and safe when we understand and relate to him as the one who is Holy, Holy, Holy, to use the words of the seraphim that perpetually dwell in his presence. In this passage God reveals how to live sane and safe lives in the world created, sustained and redeemed by this Holy God. MAIN POINT God is holy, therefore…I. We can only approach him as he commands (vv. 9, 12-13, 20-25) Verse 9 is God telling Moses why it is that he is going to come down upon Mt. Sinai in such a dramatic fashion. He says that he is going to do this so that the people will hear him speaking to Moses and thus they will trust in Moses forever. God is putting on this audio-visual show so that the people of Israel will know that Moses speaks for God and they will treat the words of Moses as if they are God’s very own words, which they are. The display on Mt. Sinai is God doing for Moses what he did for Jesus in the miracles that he performed. In John 14:11 Jesus says, “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.” In John 5:36 he says, “…the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me.” And in John 10:37 -38 he says, “Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” Then in Romans 1:3 Paul says that Jesus “was declared with power to be the Son of God through the resurrection from the dead.” The difference between Jesus and Moses is that the visible manifestation of God’s presence on Mt. Sinai was to inspire faith in Moses’ words, the miracles & resurrection of Jesus were aimed to inspire faith in who Jesus is. While Moses isn’t Jesus yet Moses stands out as the preeminent prophet in the Bible, next to Jesus. God does for him what he does for no other prophet (except for perhaps Elijah on Mr. Carmel) by personally and publicly manifesting his presence so that all will know without question that Moses is to be trusted as God’s spokesperson. It isn’t Moses that God aims to glorify but Moses' words. God does this because Moses’ words are the foundational words for the nation Israel and for all of his future words, including the revelation of his final Word, Jesus Christ. As Christ himself said, Moses wrote about him. The words of Moses in the Pentateuch are the beginning of the gospel of Christ. Notice that God attaches that word “always” in the NIV. Literally the word means forever. God is not only concerned that the sons of Israel trust the words of Moses but that all people throughout history have assurance from his Mt. Sinai appearance that the words that Moses writes are indeed the very words of God. We are to trust in Moses and what he said along with Israel . The words of the first five books of the OT, which Moses wrote, are trustworthy words. They are words that we can be confident came from God himself. The evidence of this assertion is this historic event that occurred on Mt. Sinai when God came to the top of the mountain and spoke to Moses in the presence of Israel . But not only does God’s presence on the mountain confirm that Moses can be trusted to be speaking for God but that no one else can make that claim. God very emphatically tells Moses to set up a boundary around the mountain over which no one but he and as we find out at the end of the chapter, Aaron can cross. God is insistent that no one else but Moses be permitted to come up the mountain and into his presence. He is so serious that he says that if anyone or any animal touches the mountain beyond the limits set by Moses that person or beast is to be killed by either stoning or shooting with arrows. In fact, as far as God is concerned, a man or animal that crosses those boundaries is guilty of a sin so great that if another person has physical contact with that person or animal then that person also becomes defiled. In v. 21 the Lord says that what he wants to prevent is anyone else crossing over the boundary in order to see the Lord. Why is it that God doesn’t want anyone else to see him? This is especially puzzling when we consider that the verb "to see" is often used in the Scripture as a metaphor for knowing a person. Why is only Moses permitted to see God and to receive God’s word? This isn’t very democratic or egalitarian. Doesn’t God want people to know him? You’d think he has a tremendous opportunity with over a million people whom he could directly instruct. Why does he just choose Moses? Why does he restrict his revelation of himself through his word to only Moses? This is the great scandal of particularity that is so offensive to human beings but especially to human beings living in western culture at the beginning of the 21st century. It is incomprehensible to the people who are our neighbors, coworkers and friends that God would choose one nation, Israel , as his people and that God would limit the revelation of himself to one man within that people, Moses. It is this claim that God chooses just one people to save and one man through whom that salvation comes that our culture views as the worst form of bigotry, pride and intolerance. Our culture, more than any culture before it, would wholeheartedly endorse the actions of Korah, Dathan and Abiram which are recorded in Numbers 16. They came to Moses and Aaron with several hundred other Israelites and said to Moses, "You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them and the Lord is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord's assembly?" All humans, but especially the humans living in our culture, believe they have the right and the ability to know God by themselves. We all naturally presume that we have the right to "see" God on our terms and no one, not even God, has the right to tell us that our efforts or our person are unacceptable to God. Anthropologists have long acknowledged the universal religious impulse in human beings. There is no human culture, no matter how primitive that does not have a religious component. In fact, until the advent of the modern secular state, all societies were primarily organized around the religious worldview of the culture. Many have sought to argue that this is evidence of human goodness, that we all know there is a God and are trying to find him. That is not true. The universal human impulse to worship and sacrifice to the "god" as defined by each culture is evidence of human arrogance. It is the assertion by humans that we have the ability and the right to know God. We can approach him on the terms and conditions that we set up. What we are witnessing on this mountain is that no human has the right to approach God. God is in charge of the terms and conditions upon which people may approach him. He is holy and we are not and we do not have the right nor the ability to know God apart from God's taking the initiative to reveal himself to us. We do not decide what God is like or what he wants from us. He tells us how to approach him and all who seek to know him apart from his revelation of himself will die. God says that he will break out against all who attempt to break through to see him, apart from his mediator and contrary to his instructions. Every movement of humans to "know" God that is not a response to God's unique revelation of himself through Moses, the prophets and ultimately his Son Jesus is an act of arrogance. Even in our text today you can see God's rejection of human religious impulse. In v. 8 the people all say that they will do everything that the Lord commands. At the end of 8 Moses tells God that the people have said this. God ignores Moses’ report and tells him what he is going to do in order to ensure that people trust Moses. Then Moses again tells God about the people’s enthusiastic declaration of obedience. But God again ignores him and continues to talk about his requirements. Then in vv. 21-22 God tells Moses for a second time that he must tell the people not to try to cross the boundary. Notice what Moses says in v. 23, “The people cannot come up Mt. Sinai , because you yourself warned us, ‘Put limits around the mountain…’” Moses is convinced that the people get it, that they will obey. However, God does not hold such a high opinion of the people. He knows that they are untrustworthy. God knows that the religious impulse of these people is a perverted impulse and thus he forbids their approaching him in order "to see." The selection of only Moses and the exclusion of all others, forces us to examine ourselves: Are we coming to God on our own terms or are we submitting to his revelation of who he is and how he commands that we come to him? The fact that you say you want to know God does not mean that you know God. The fact that you are a religious person; by that I mean, you pray, go to church, talk about God does not mean that you have been accepted by God. The question all of us must consider is this: Do I think about God and approach God in submission to God's revelation of himself or are my religious impulses of merely human origin? God is holy, therefore…
II. We must be holy if we will meet with him (vv. 10-11, 14-15, 22) If there is one thing that comes out very clearly in this passage it is that God expects the people to be made holy, or as the NIV translates it, "to be consecrated" by the time that God comes down on Mt. Sinai. The need for the people to be made holy prior to their meeting with God is stated four times. In v. 10 God commands Moses to go and make the people holy for two days because God is showing up on the third day. Then in v. 14 Moses does what God commands, he makes the people holy. Then in v. 22 God tells Moses that even the priests who worship the Lord must be made holy. They are not holy merely by being priests. (NOTE: These "priests" are not the Levitical priests established by the law but are men who have been leading the people in worship and sacrifice. They are priests in the same way that Jethro was a priest.) Then again in v. 23 Moses as he is explaining to God why it is that he doesn't need to repeat the warning again acknowledges that he has by God's command set the entire mountain apart as holy. What does it mean to "consecrate" or to make someone or something holy? To say that someone is made holy is to say that the person has been set apart to God and for God according to God's conditions. While being made holy produces moral transformation, the act of consecration is not primarily a moral transformation but rather making a person or object clean and fit for God's presence and use through cleansing and atoning for defilement. The first thing to notice in this account is that God commands Moses, the Savior and Mediator of Israel to go and make the people holy. Here again we see Moses foreshadowing the work of Christ. Hebrews 13:12 says, "And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood." Heb. 2:11 says, "Both the one who makes men holy (Jesus) and those who are made holy (all who trust Christ) are of the same family." Col. 1:22 says, "But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight…" Just as God commands Moses to go from the mountain and make the people holy so that they can safely come into his presence, so God the Father sent God the Son down from heaven to make his people holy by his suffering and death on the cross so we can safely meet with God. In the case of Israel Moses has the people wash their clothes and the married couples are to abstain from normal sexual relations as the physical and outward symbols of the spiritual and internal holiness that God gives to his people through his mediator. It would be wrong to conclude from these external acts that washing our clothes or not having sex are the things that make us holy. Rather they are the external symbols of that objective work of holiness that God grants to those who approach him through faith. In addition we should not conclude from this that God requires of us these same physical symbols before we come to church or participate in other acts of worship. This is the first of the many external religious acts God commands in his law that are fulfilled in, by and with Christ. As the author to the Hebrews says, "This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. They were only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings, external regulations applying until the time of the new order." Or as Hebrews 10:1 says, "The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming, not the realities themselves." However, these acts do point to the fact that all those whom Christ makes holy perform external acts that demonstrate that internal and objective holiness we have through Christ. Consider this admonition from 1 Peter 1:14-15, "As obedient children do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he called you is holy so be holy in all you do; for it is written: 'Be holy, because I am holy.'" Or again from the book of Hebrews, "Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord." There is a holy way of life that corresponds to the holiness Christ grants to us. It is not the ceremonial acts of holiness given in the OT but rather the moral, ethical holiness that is produced by the Spirit through faith in Christ. This performed moral holiness is the fruit of being made holy by Christ. We do not make ourselves holy, Christ makes us holy and we perform acts of holiness as the result. We become more and more like the one whom we call Savior and Lord in our love for God and neighbor. In the coming weeks we are going to be examining how the Law, particularly the 10 commandments describes that holiness which Christ performed and which we increasingly emulate. There are two questions that each of us need to ask of ourselves in light of this holiness that God requires to enter his presence. First, am I depending upon my own acts of holiness to make me right with God or upon being made holy by the work of Christ? Another variation on that question is do I believe I am acceptable to God just as I am, without Christ and with no concern to be holy? Millions of people in the world think they are acceptable to God based upon their own holiness. I was reminded of this again this last week as a friend shared about his friend who insisted that he was acceptable to God without Christ, even though he was engaged in an adulterous relationship. People naturally assume that they are "good enough" for God, regardless of their moral performance. Do you think you are good enough for God or do you know that only Christ is good enough and only by faith in him can you be made holy? The second question we each need to ask ourselves is this: Am I striving to live a holy life, like the one who called me, as the fruit of his making me holy? None of us will ever perform perfect holiness but as those who are made fit for God by Christ we all yearn to be like him in his perfect holiness. Is that what your life is about? God is holy, therefore…
III. He is terrifying in his majesty (vv. 16-19) Look at vv. 16-20. The morning of the third day begins with the sounding of the ram's horn and the appearance on the top of Mt. Sinai of a dense cloud filled with lightning and accompanying thunder. Away from Mt. Sinai the sky was blue and the sun was shining, but on top all was dark and lit by terrible flames of lightning and the peals of thunder. People stopped whatever they were doing and cowered in fear before this awesome display of the majesty of the holiness of God. This was an infinitely greater shock and awe than that experienced by the inhabitants of Baghdad when the U.S. military unleashed the terror of its bombardment. The top of mountain begins to burn with fire as of a violent volcano and there is an earthquake of ferocious proportions. What these Israelites are witnessing is worse than a tsunami, worse than a hurricane, worse than an earthquake. It is as though all of creation will disintegrate in the presence of its Creator. All this is happening as Moses commands the people to leave their tents and to gather at the foot of this frightening mountain. It is an astonishing thing that Moses does, commanding these people to draw close, along with him to this blazing and brooding presence. Men, women and children huddle together in a great mass of humanity before the fierce presence of God. It is into this maelstrom that God summons his Savior and Mediator, Moses. He does this in an audible voice that all the millions of Israel witness together. And so we discover that only God's chosen one can safely enter his presence and return to give instructions to the people. Why does God appear in such a fierce and overwhelming way? What are we to learn from this creation rending appearance? Why such intimidation? We've already seen that one of the reasons for this appearance is to convince the people and us to trust in Moses. However, there is more to this. I want you to notice that God sends Moses down the mountain at the end of this chapter and then chapter 20 begins with "And God spoke all these words…" What words did God speak from the midst of the fire for all Israel , including Moses to hear? The words God spoke out of the midst of this tempest were the 10 words, the Law, his 10 Commandments. The 10 commandments were not first spoken by God to Moses and then Moses to the people but were spoken by the Lord directly to all his people from the midst of his fierce and flaming presence. The terror of God's appearance on Mt. Sinai is the terror of his law threatening eternal condemnation for even one infraction. "Our God is a consuming fire" and "It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God," as the author to the Hebrews says. We do not physically see the mountain on fire and hear the thunder and feel the earthquake but we ought to tremble with the same horror as we listen to these commandments and recognize that failure to obey will cast us into the maw of this blazing furnace of God's holy wrath. It is this fierce God who gives these commands and requires perfect obedience and who threatens eternal condemnation for even one failure to keep his commands. It is this same ferocious God who comes to us in Christ and commands that we repent and believe the good news. There was a day in the church when the severe holiness of God was clearly set before the people of God, but that day is no more. I know that many who hear how much we talk of sin and judgment at RHCC object. You need to know that we do not even approach the level of ferocity with which the church used to describe God's judgment. Nor do we even begin to approach the language used by the prophets of Israel . It has often struck me as I read through the OT prophets each year of how much help reading them would be for most American Christians. Just listen to a brief snippet from Jeremiah: "This is what the Lord says about the sons and daughters born in this land and about the women who are their mothers and the men who are their fathers: 'They will die of deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried but will be like refuse lying on the ground. They will perish by sword and famine, and their dead bodies will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth." The prophets are merely declaring the consequences upon the people for breaking the commands of this God who appeared to them and spoke to them from the fire on Mt. Sinai . I want to close this morning by reading for you a small portion of Jonathan Edwards' famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." I do not doubt that for many here this language will be shocking; but you need to understand that he is merely seeking to communicate the terror that passages like this one ought to hold: "The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course, when once it is let loose. It is true, that judgment against your evil works has not been executed hitherto; the floods of God's vengeance have been withheld; but your guilt in the mean time is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; the waters are constantly rising, and waxing more and more mighty; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, that holds the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward. If God should only withdraw his hand from the flood-gate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it. The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those who used to think like you but are now dead, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, Peace and safety: now they see, that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows." It is necessary for us to feel the power and justice of this great God and the horror of condemnation if we are going to trust and love Christ who entered into the midst of these burnings and was consumed by them for us. Israel heard God speak out of the fire and they lived by God's grace through the mediation of Moses. We hear God speak out of the fire and we will only live because we trust in Christ who entered that fire and was ruined by it. I pray for you as I pray for myself and my family that we will not be so dull as to not feel the terror of this holy God's wrath against all who break his law. I pray that we all will be overcome by the knowledge that one day we will stand before this same God who blazes in the fire of his holiness and give an account of our lives. May this reality drive us to Christ as the only hope we have of safety. God is holy, therefore…
© Copyright
2005 John Swanson.
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