Exodus - God is Holy
Heavenly Father, this morning as we open your word, I ask that we would behold you. Lord, I pray that you would help Pastor Cameron to deliver the word in such a way that elevates you, that you would fill him with your Holy Spirit and that your spirit might be active both in the preaching and the hearing of your word today. Lord, we ask that you might reveal yourself in greater degrees. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Speaker 2:Amen. Good morning, conduit. How are you? Good. It's good to see you this morning.
Speaker 2:We're going jump right in. We're in a series in or through the book of Exodus. And this morning we're going to read the entirety of the chapter of Exodus 19. So if you have your Bible or a Bible, encourage you to open it up to Exodus 19. If not, there should be some Bibles in the pews alongside of you.
Speaker 2:If you don't have a Bible and you want one, you are welcome to take the one that is in the pew with you. Take it home. It's yours now. Or there is some on those white shelves in the back. We want you to have a copy of God's word of your own.
Speaker 2:And we hope you take that if you would like it. So always also be up on the screen. As a reminder, the Israelites have come out of Egypt. They have been delivered by the hand of God, the mighty hand of God. They have crossed the Red Sea.
Speaker 2:They have been provided for with water, manna, and quail. They have gone through their first real battle against a real enemy, the Amalekites. And through the power of prayer, worship, and surrender, as well as the action of Joshua, I'm sorry, the sword, they came out victorious. And so they've kind of gotten through the worst of the first part of their journey. And it's almost like God is like, All right, now that we've done all that, now we have to talk about some stuff.
Speaker 2:And so that's where we find ourselves in Exodus 19. In the third month, after the Israelites left Egypt, on the very day they came to the Desert Of Sinai, after they sent out from Rephidim, they entered the Desert Of Sinai and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain. Then Moses went up to God and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, this is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel. You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, how I carried you on eagle's wings and brought you out myself. Now, if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations, you will be my treasured possession.
Speaker 2:Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that I want you to speak to the Israelites. And so Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the word of the Lord had commanded him to speak. The people all responded together. We will do everything that the Lord has said.
Speaker 2:They're eager beavers, right? Get after everything that the Lord has said. We will do everything that the Lord has said. So Moses brought their answer back to the Lord. And the Lord said to Moses, I'm going to come to you in a dense cloud so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you.
Speaker 2:Then Moses told the Lord what the people had said. And the Lord said to Moses, okay, go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes and be ready by the third day, because on that day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, be careful that you do not go up the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death.
Speaker 2:He shall surely be stoned or shot with arrows, but not a hand is to be laid on him. Whether man or animal, he shall not be permitted to live. Only when the ram's horn sounds a long blast may they go up to the mountain. After Moses had gone down the mountain to the people, he consecrated them and they washed their clothes. Then he said to the people, prepare yourselves for the third day, abstain from sexual relations.
Speaker 2:On the morning of the third day, there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace.
Speaker 2:The whole mountain trembled violently and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. The Lord descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up and the Lord said to him, 'I actually need you to go back down.' And warn the people once again so that they do not force their way through to see the Lord, and many of them perish. Even the priests who approach the Lord must consecrate themselves or the Lord will break out against them.
Speaker 2:Moses said to the Lord, the people cannot come up Mount Sinai because you yourself warned us to put limits around the mountain and set it apart as holy. The Lord replied, go down and bring Aaron up with you. But the priests and the people, again, must not force their way through to come up to the Lord or he will break out against them. So Moses went down to the people and told them, heavenly father, I pray that you would bring clarity to your word for us this morning, but that in our search for clarity, Lord, we do not look past your raw and awesome holiness that is displayed in your word here this morning. Let us grasp in whatever capacity that we have, how awesome you are.
Speaker 2:In Jesus' name, amen. So there's lots of details that we could maybe list and pick out and kind of parse out and try to explain through in Exodus 19. Because there's lots of things that maybe seem a little symbolic or that we see in lots of other places of scripture that have different meanings and maybe try and draw application from them. I'm talking about things like, there's obviously a lot to say about a mountain here and the mountain of God and the holiness of God being associated with a mountain. Mountains and holiness and God's presence are a really big theme in the Old Testament, if you never really recognized that.
Speaker 2:There's lots of talk about clouds and smoke and billows of smoke and fire. There's lots of talk about make sure that you wash your clothing, you consecrate yourself, make sure that you abstain from sex for a while. There's going to be trumpet blasts and it's going to be from a ram's horn. And then, and only then are you to proceed. There's lots of little, what are seemingly little bits of information or things spread throughout this chapter.
Speaker 2:And we could spend hours really looking at all of those to determine what does this mean? What does it symbolize? How does it apply? All of that. None of those things are inconsequential.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that none of them are important. We are going to talk a little bit about some of them this morning. They're not unimportant, but there is a what I would like to focus on this morning is this bigger picture type of what exactly is being displayed in Exodus 19 that maybe we have not encountered yet in the narrative of Exodus or the story of Exodus thus far. If I were to say, if you were to tell me, give me the one sentence description of what Exodus 19 sets out to communicate that can be applicable, that is true of the text, but can be applicable to us now today in this day, it would be three simple words. God is holy.
Speaker 2:God is holy. If you read this chapter or listened as I read it to you and were a little taken aback by the forwardness of God saying things like, Listen, if they touch the mountain, they'll die. If they come near to the Lord, I will break out against them and they will die. If they come and touch the mountain, they should be stoned or shot with arrows, but don't place your hands on them or you'll fall into the same fate. It seems like wording that comes from some other kind of different story or some kind of other different God than the God that we see or the God that we want to believe in that is gracious and good and kind and gentle and compassionate and wants to hears the cries of his people and wants to come and deliver them.
Speaker 2:But when we say something like, God is holy, we are making a theological statement. We are making a statement about what we believe God's character and nature to be like. And very, very clearly the statement of God is holy, carries with it some application for our understanding of our relationship with God, but also our understanding of our own selves. To say that God is holy is the same thing as to say is that God is set apart and not like us at all. That he is utterly and holy and magnificently different and separate than you and I.
Speaker 2:That He has immeasurable goodness and immeasurable power. God is holy. In fact, some of the song, one of the songs that we sang this morning, hear the angels cry, Holy, holy, holy, holy to the King of Kings, the constant refrain is a refrain and a chorus of heaven itself. As Pastor Luke prayed that we joined the chorus of the angels who have for all eternity past and will for all eternity future, sing, fly around the throne of heaven, singing, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. That's Revelation chapter four, verse eight.
Speaker 2:That God is fully and totally different from us. And I'm not talking about different in the way it's like, well, I like the Bills and he likes the Steelers, right? Like that there's some preferential differences or that we have separate opinions about things, but it's all cool because everyone's allowed to have separate opinions or preferences. I'm not talking about He's different from us in that type of way. I'm talking about he's different from us in that his holiness and glory and majesty magnifies our darkness, our hardness of heart, and our sinfulness before him.
Speaker 2:The prophet Isaiah had this encounter with this reality and he himself, he recorded it in his book, Isaiah chapter six. I have it up here on the screen for you. Isaiah chapter six. Isaiah had a vision and the vision is recorded as this. He said, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted.
Speaker 2:He's trying to draw Isaiah is drawing us a picture of the throne room of heaven where the holiness of God is all that exists. Pure, unbridled, uncontained, full holiness in all of its glorious majesty and splendor. And he says, I saw the Lord seated on this throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. The train of the robe was often a way to describe the glory associated with someone. And so kings were known to wear robes or capes with extra long, I guess, tails on them.
Speaker 2:The longer, the more powerful, the more glorifying, the more majestic was the king. Well, Isaiah was like, I saw the Lord and the train of His robe filled the temple. Meaning that the whole temple was full of His glory. All of heaven was the container of His glory. And he said above him were seraphs.
Speaker 2:Think angels. Above him were seraphs. And not the type of angels that we think of in like touched by an angel, right? You see a biblical angel, you'll know it's not of this world, right? Because what Isaiah says is that this angel had six wings.
Speaker 2:With two wings, they covered their faces. With two wings, they covered their feet. And with two wings, they were flying and they were calling to one another, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. And at the sound of their voices, the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke.
Speaker 2:And Isaiah said in that moment, Woe to me, I cried. I am ruined for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have just seen the king, the Lord God Almighty. So in the midst of Isaiah's sinfulness, the uncleanliness of his heart and his lips, when he was encountered with the majesty and the holiness of God, the only thing that he could say is, Woe to me. Or that's colloquial for like, Oh, the Lord is in the room. Now, when we talk about God's holiness here, we're not just talking about a spiritual characteristic or personality trait that He has.
Speaker 2:We're talking about a descriptor of His very nature. It's not God does not decide to be holy on some occasions and decide to be unholy on other occasions. He is always holy all of the time. The Bible says that he dwells in unapproachable light With only the words of his mouth, he speaks universes into existence. When he speaks, he says that the mountains tremble, the thresholds and the foundations of all creation shake before his voice.
Speaker 2:It is not inappropriate to say, as we witness here a little bit in Exodus and as the biblical account is very clear, that God is terrifyingly holy and also immeasurably loving and good. Terrifyingly holy and immeasurably loving and good. Now for us, for me at least, it is difficult sometimes to hold together, kind of hold in the same hands, the dual concepts of God's holiness being terrifying, but also his holiness being good and full of love. Mainly because we don't really have any examples here in our lives or on earth of someone who holds both of those responsibilities or both of those characteristics with full responsibility and integrity and an honor. We don't see someone who has immutable, immeasurable power and someone who is also without immeasurable goodness and love.
Speaker 2:Usually it ends up being one or the other. Someone that inspires fear and trembling is not someone that we would usually describe as good or loving. If we are fearful in someone's presence, it becomes difficult for us to understand how they are at the same time good and loving. But listen, I want you to know that that is only inside of us, that that tension exists, because the scripture, this is a concept that the scripture has no problem with at all. Holding together the fear of God in his holiness and also the goodness of God in his mercy and his grace and his goodness to us.
Speaker 2:You see, we have verses like Isaiah chapter six that give us a small picture into that holy fear and trembling that we experience when we are encountered with the Lord God Almighty. But not too far later, Isaiah, the same prophet, talks about God's holiness again. And just so that we don't get confused about, well, Isaiah must just have had this type of awe inspiring, fear, trembling, woe to me type of relationship with God. That just must be how he experienced Him. That Isaiah later in the same book, Isaiah chapter 57, verse 15 says this about the same God and not even says it about the same God, but he says it about God's holiness.
Speaker 2:He says this, Isaiah chapter 57, verse 15, For this is what the high and lofty one says, He who lives forever, whose name is holy. This is what God says. He says, I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. This is just one example about how God himself says, Yeah, am holy and I live in a high and holy place. And I also live with the one who is contrite and lowly of spirit.
Speaker 2:God himself doesn't hold these two things in opposition to one another. The scripture itself doesn't hold these two things in opposition to another. The author and theologian, C. S. Lewis, famously dealt with this dichotomy of a immeasurably holy God who, where in his presence there is fear and trembling and awe and honor, and goodness and gentleness and love.
Speaker 2:C. S. Lewis deals with this dichotomy in a classic type of way in the Narnia series. You ever Okay, who has read the book, The Chronicles of Narnia? Oh my people, come on now.
Speaker 2:Listen, if you have not read The Chronicles of Narnia, or I will even Listen, I will even say, it's not short, okay? The book is so much better, so much better. But if you haven't read the Chronicle, go home tonight and watch at least The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Audiobooks aren't real books, so it doesn't count. He set me up for that one.
Speaker 2:It's a long lasting argument that Pastor Luke and I have had. You don't read an audiobook anyway, okay? So in the Narnia season, or in the Narnia series, particularly in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we are introduced to this character who you can put that back up for just a second, who you see on the screen here, one of the main character, this lion whose name is Aslan, the supreme leader of Narnia. And he is clouded with a little bit of mystery as to his character. When the Pevensie children are in Narnia, but not yet introduced to Aslan, the great lion, Susan, one of the little children, the youngest, has a conversation with one of the characters named Mrs.
Speaker 2:Beaver about Aslan. Is he quite safe? Susan says. I mean, I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion. Mrs.
Speaker 2:Beaver replies, If there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, either braver than most or else just silly. Then he isn't safe, says Lucy. Safe? Who said anything about being safe? Of course not safe, but he is good.
Speaker 2:He's the king, I tell you. That classic line, is he safe? Of course he's not safe. He's a lion, but he's good. Was Lewis's way of communicating this type of dichotomy here.
Speaker 2:He was trying to say, no, he's not safe. It's He's not a tame lion. He is not one that can be mastered and do tricks under a circus tent. Aslan is not tame. He goes where he wants.
Speaker 2:He does what he pleases. One does not casually approach him. When you come face to face with a lion, you instantly know you have no power at all. And this is honestly what is on full display in Exodus 19 for us this morning. God's terrible, terrifyingness has been on display against the evil and hardheartedness of the Egyptians and the Amalekites, And his goodness has certainly been there.
Speaker 2:His love has certainly been on display in his deliverance and his care for the Israelites. But now maybe for the first time, the Israelites are coming face to face with the holiness and majesty and fear and trembling of the God who delivers. One theologian that I was reading on this this week said this, he said, The heart of the matter is that we are dealing with a holy God and not even the best intentioned sustained and sincere efforts at self sanctification make us fit for his presence or his presence anything less than a mortal danger to us. If we look at the text here, we see that God opens the conversation with Moses and the Israelites in verse four with a brief reminder of their history thus far. He said, You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself.
Speaker 2:You've seen what I've done. You have seen what I am capable of. You have been witness to my deliverance, how I have saved you. And then in verse five, there's this transitional word at the beginning of verse five, which means that it's predicated on verse four. You've seen what I've done.
Speaker 2:Now in response to what I have done, verse five, If you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations, you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, this is a way of God saying, I could pick anyone. I could pick anything. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Moses, go and tell the Israelites these things.
Speaker 2:So God then uses three words or three descriptions of who he desires the people of Israel to be. They mean essentially the same thing. He says, You will be my treasured possession. You will be a kingdom of priests. You will be a holy nation.
Speaker 2:All meant to communicate essentially the same thing. And that is that it both was and is obedience to God's law, fidelity to his covenant that sets the Israelites apart from all other nations or peoples in the world, that takes them and consecrates them, provides for them even a measure of their own holiness and set apartness from the pagan nations that will be around them. The same theologian that I quoted earlier, Alec Moycher says that he says, The first characteristic of the saved is that they possess, know, and live by the word of their saving God. The very first characteristic of the saved is that they possess, know, and live by the word of their saving God. You know what I have done for you, God says, how I lifted you up on eagle's wings.
Speaker 2:Now fully obey my covenant, and you will be set apart among the nations. That is how all the nations will know who you are and whose you are. It will be through your obedience to my commands. This is not an ancient principle either, but for us carries all the way through into the ministry of Jesus and the early church. Jesus himself in John fourteen fifteen tells his disciples, If you love me, you will what?
Speaker 2:Keep my commands. John, the disciple and then apostle in one John chapter five, verse three, echoes these same words and the same sentiment. This is love for God, he says, to obey his commands. And guess what? His commands are not burdensome.
Speaker 2:That for those who have been saved, for those who have been redeemed, for those who have seen the work of the Lord to deliver them from all sinfulness and brokenness and hardness of heart, That love then overflows from their heart in the form of obedience to the commands of God. And what we see in Exodus 19 is not a God that is somehow kind of gently trying to woo his people into like, Oh, will you please just follow me? Will you please just do what I say? Will please come into relationship with me? The overwhelming attitude of Exodus 19, it was like, If you desire to come near to me, you better make sure you're working on this.
Speaker 2:Better make sure that your heart is consecrated, that your mind is consecrated, that your life is consecrated, that your words are consecrated, that your thoughts are consecrated, that your heart is turned towards me. To love me, Jesus says, is to obey my commands. So what is the people's response to this? God sets out this like, okay, I've delivered you. Obey my covenant.
Speaker 2:Fulfill my commands. And what is the people's response? Of course we will. Yeah, sure. Nailed it.
Speaker 2:Got it. Next. Here we go, Lord. We are going to do that. We will do everything that the Lord says.
Speaker 2:Listen, I barely do everything my wife says. Right? But if we're honest, was probably true in their heart. Right? In their heart, it's not like they're like, Oh, we'll tell them yes, but we know.
Speaker 2:No, like it was probably true of their heart. Lord, we will do everything that you say to do. Just as it is in our hearts. Right? Listen.
Speaker 2:The only thing more dangerous The only thing more dangerous than being ignorant of the commands of the Lord is knowing them and choosing not to do them. To saying like, Yeah, I know who you are. Yeah, I know your holiness. I see your terrifyingly awesome power and glory and holiness, but go kick rocks. I'm going to do what I want.
Speaker 2:You put yourself in eternal peril. Eternal peril. What is probably true of their heart is true of ours as well. Lord, we will do everything that you want us to do. Simon Peter, right, the Jesus arguably Jesus' closest apostle was eager to do, Lord, I will never I will never betray you, Lord.
Speaker 2:They will all betray you. I will never ever do it. Do you think Peter meant that in his heart? I'm sure he I'm sure he did. But when rubber hit the road and he came to the moment of decision, we know, just as Jesus did, that he folded.
Speaker 2:But it is the ultimate goal, right? The ultimate goal of the Lord being like, Obey my commands, fulfill my covenant, is to say, like the Israelites said, Lord, we will do whatever the Lord asks and then follow through. We we know that. That's what so the Lord takes them at their word and says, okay. I believe you then.
Speaker 2:I I I believe you. But but that we have some things to do first because we can't just say that. Some things must happen after saying, we will do whatever the Lord commands. And in verse nine, he begins to describe to Moses what Moses is to tell the people about what's coming next now that they have agreed. I'm going to come to you in a dense cloud, he says to Moses, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you.
Speaker 2:Then verse 10. And the Lord continued to say to Moses, go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Consecrate means to set apart for special purposes. So when we say I'm going to consecrate my life to the Lord, it means that I am no longer going to consider my life my own. I am taking my life and all that I would make of it for myself.
Speaker 2:And I would say, Lord, I set my life apart from what I wanted it to be so that you can have it for whatever you want it to be. We'll talk about more about that in just a minute. Okay? But he says, you're go and you're to consecrate the people today and tomorrow, have them wash their clothes and be ready by the third day, Because on that day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai. Right in the sight of all the people.
Speaker 2:Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, be careful that you do not go up the mountain or touch it or the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. He shall surely be stoned or shot with arrows. Not a hand is to be laid on him, whether man or animal, he shall not be permitted to live. Only when the ram's horn sounds a long blast may they go up to the mountain.
Speaker 2:After Moses had gone down the mountain to the people, he consecrated them and washed their clothes. Then he said to the people, prepare yourselves for the third day. Abstain from sexual relationship or relations. So God called Moses to lead the people in a period of consecration, where, like I said, we could get into all the details of like, what's the significance of washing the clothes and what's the significance of abstaining from sexual relations. It's beyond the point of what we're doing this morning.
Speaker 2:But nevertheless, these are the things that God demanded. These are the things that God commanded. Wash That they their clothes, in verse 10, that they should put limits around how far or how close to the descending presence of God the people could get. Put limits or borders or barriers. And listen, understand this as a form of God's mercy to people.
Speaker 2:God's like, Listen, Moses, make sure you put limits on the mountain. Make sure you put boundaries. Moses is like, I did. I I did. Okay.
Speaker 2:Go back down the mountain and remind the people, do not come up and touch it. Do not come up and touch it. Why would God God, in an act of His mercy and His goodness, was telling Moses to tell His people, When my glory comes down upon the mountain, it comes with force and terrifying power. I am not a tame lion. Don't touch it.
Speaker 2:Be careful. God tells Moses several different times. Should not be lost on us. Although God does not necessarily call us to consecration by washing our clothes or putting physical limits on where, what mountain we can climb or not, or all the time or every time abstaining from sexual relationship, although that is found in the New Testament as well. But God certainly does call us to consecrate ourselves and set apart our lives for special purposes with him if and when we want to come nearer to his presence.
Speaker 2:We want to experience the nearness of his presence. You feel far from God? You feel far from God? How much of your life are you still holding onto as purely your own, Unable to be touched by God, unable to be moved by God, unable to be changed by God. No, there's things in my schedule, they move at all, even for the work of the Lord.
Speaker 2:Everything else moves around that thing. There are resources that I have that are not at the disposal of the kingdom of God. They are only at my disposal. My time does not belong to the kingdom or to the Lord. It only belongs to me.
Speaker 2:Effect, see, when we consecrate our lives, all of our lives must be set apart for him. Our affections must change, the things that we love and value and desire and dream about. Our schedules must change, how we use our time, manage our time, work in our time, our motives must change. Why am I doing the things that I am doing? Why am I saying the things that I am saying?
Speaker 2:Why am I living the way that I am living? Our desires must change. Our desires must become His desires. Our relationships must change. Our relationships must reflect His glory and wonder.
Speaker 2:Our words must change. The use of our resources must change. Our time must change. How we view our job and our occupations and our callings must change. All things must change.
Speaker 2:All things. Not the easy things. Not the ones that will make us popular. Not the ones that will put us in the positions of our life that we want to be in. No, all things must change.
Speaker 2:All things now in my life for his glory, not my own, but for his. God required consecration of the people before his presence came down should be an important word for us. That God's presence did not come down until the consecration was over, until the people had showed that they were ready to receive the fullness of God's presence. And when it did, it's described like this in verse 16. On that morning of the third day, was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast.
Speaker 2:How did everyone respond to the falling or coming of God's presence in that moment? Everyone in the camp. Led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountains. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord descended up from it like smoke from a furnace. The whole mountain trembled violently and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder.
Speaker 2:Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered. The presence of God came and descended in that moment, not in a small whisper, not in the gentleness of God's loving embrace. It came in the form of a massive storm, frightening in its power, unpredictable in where it would go or what it would do. And if you've ever been, I don't know if you've ever been like trapped outside or even inside your house, when you've seen the blackness and the darkness of a storm that was powerful and unpredictable, you begin to recognize in that very moment how absolutely incapable of controlling it that you are. Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips in front of what I am seeing.
Speaker 2:Everyone trembled, it says. The same prophet who we've already read this morning, Isaiah, also recounts something very similar here. In Isaiah chapter 64, where's the end of his writings, 64 verses one through nine, he says these things. He says these about the presence of God, about the coming of God. Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you.
Speaker 2:As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you. For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down and the mountains trembled before you. Since ancient times, no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. You come to help those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry.
Speaker 2:Isaiah had also this understanding probably from his vision of the throne room about how the presence of God brings trembling and might when he rends the heavens. So as we go on in Exodus 19, Moses was called to the top of the mountain again in that moment in verse 20. And pretty much as soon as he gets to the top of the mountain, God's like, you're going to get your steps in today, bro. I need you to go back down because I want you to remind the people not to get too close. I do not want to break out against them.
Speaker 2:Even the priests, it says in verse 22, who approach the Lord consecrate themselves. It's not that no one could come into the presence of God. It's that those who did must be fully set apart, fully consecrated. You go back to the way that C. S.
Speaker 2:Lewis described this the line, The Witcher in the Wardrobe. He says here about the presence of Aslan with the children. He says, people who have not been in Narnia, that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time. I'm switching to this. People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time.
Speaker 2:If the children had ever thought so, they were cured of it now. For when they tried to look at Aslan's face, they just caught a glimpse of the golden mane and the great, royal, solemn, overwhelming eyes. And then they found that they could not look at him and went away trembling. See, there is a separation between God and us. It's the separation of his holiness from our sinfulness.
Speaker 2:You are not like God. We are not on the same playing field. Now reading verses like this may seem to be like, well, I mean, God seems Exodus 19, like, bro, just chill. Like, you seem kinda unfair, like, kinda unjust, like, kinda kinda mean. He seems a little full of himself, maybe.
Speaker 2:This may be true if God is lying about who he is. If we believe that the Scriptures are lying about who God is, if we believe that the inner witness of the Holy Spirit upon our lives is lying about who God is, He actually isn't that holy, He actually isn't that terrifyingly awesome, He isn't actually that glorious and wondrous, He's not actually sitting on the throne of heaven, hasn't actually created all things by the breath of His mouth, then maybe if we are to believe that, we can come come away from Exodus 19 being like, this God guy seems a little harsh. But if He is who He says He is, and he has done what he has said he has done, and his holiness and glory is as we believe that it is, Then the ground or the foundation of all things that could be unjust or unfair is found in him and not in you. He becomes the determination of what is fair. He becomes the determination for what is good.
Speaker 2:He becomes the determination for what is just or unjust, loving or unkind or not. Not your opinion in 2025. His opinion for eternity. The one question, as I was reading this, like, I probably read this chapter 20 times this week, and like, the one thing that I came across, the one question that I continued to pray to the Lord about was like, Lord, I believe it in every fiber of my being, that in every chapter of your word, we can find the gospel. We can find the goodness, the good news of God to the people of God.
Speaker 2:Lord, show me your gospel here. Where's good news in a chapter like Exodus 19? What is the good news about God's awesomely, terrifyingly, make me fear and tremble holiness? It's this. God's holiness magnifies our sin and reveals our need for a savior.
Speaker 2:The absolute and utter holiness of God, the goodness of God, the character of God shines a giant spotlight on the reality of our sin and reveals the extraordinary need that you have and that I have for a savior. Woe is me. I am a man and of unclean lips. Before the presence of the holiness of God, my sin is ever before me. My lips are unclean.
Speaker 2:My heart is unclean. My motives, my affections, my time, my my whole life is unclean. Lord, I need you to come and save me now even from myself. Two, when we couldn't approach God because of our sin, God approached us in Jesus. When our sin created a gulf, a gap, a canyon too wide and long and high and deep between us and the Father that we could not traverse it, step over it, travel through it on our own.
Speaker 2:When we were abandoned and dead in our sins, The word says that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus himself has come to reconcile us to God and to present us to Him as no longer sinful but holy. This is what Paul says in Colossians chapter one. He says this, Colossians one nineteen through 22. He says, For God was pleased to have all of His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross.
Speaker 2:Jesus was God's plan to reconcile all that was sinful back to God Himself. And then Paul addresses specifically our condition that this applies to. He says, Once you, you were alienated from God, and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you as what? To present you as holy in his sight, without blemish, and free from accusation.
Speaker 2:So the same holiness that causes fear and brings judgment upon our sin in our alienated state apart from Christ, now God, through Jesus, has Himself made us holy, wiping away every stain and blemish caused by our sin so that we may be reconciled to him through Jesus Christ. And the proverbial boundary, not even the proverbial boundary, the boundary along the base of the mountain that they could not cross was torn into in the temple as Jesus died and said, it is finished, revealing the opportunity to walk into now the holy of holies, God's presence. This is the good news of God's holiness. Is that God's holiness magnifies our sin so that we are unable to squirm away and out of its effects, and its presence in our lives. And then we are then forced to make a decision.
Speaker 2:Will I try to save myself? Or will I call on the name of the Lord and put my trust in Jesus and allow Jesus to come and save me from the sin that I cannot save myself from and reconcile me back to the father, giving me holiness and wiping away every stain and blemish free from accusation, Paul says. This is the good news. It is not good news for a far off people. It is not good news for the person sitting next to you that you're going like this to.
Speaker 2:It's not good news for that guy that you don't like that you hope listen to this sermon someday. This is good news for you. God has come to reconcile you to himself through Jesus Christ. God has come to free you from every accusation that sin casts upon your life and wipe away every blemish, every spot, and every separation that keeps you far from God. And if you would believe in Jesus Christ by faith and come to him for the forgiveness of your sins, you too, the scripture says, can be saved.
Speaker 2:That is an offering of himself, not tomorrow or the next day, but right now. That even today in this time and in this place, everything that has kept you separate from God, everything that has kept you far away from God, Jesus wants to take that for you. Jesus has taken that for you. And if you will step into the reality of what he has done for you in your life, surrender control of your life to him, call out to him by faith to save you from the state that you can't save yourself from. He will come down on the mount from the mountain, and his presence and his holiness will overwhelm and change you.
Speaker 2:If that's a decision that you wanna make this morning for the first time, if that's a decision that maybe you made at one time, but feel like you need to consecrate this moment in this life to make it again, I want you to know that today is the day to make it. Today is the day to say, yeah, I'm no longer walking this life on my own. I'm no longer doing this on my own. I'm no longer trying to get there on my own. I'm trusting in Jesus now for this time.
Speaker 2:I need Jesus in my life. I need to be saved. That God is here to save you, And we are here to walk with you through this. God is holy here in this place and in all of creation. Go from this place, eager to consecrate your lives to him, entering into His presence.
Speaker 2:In Jesus name, Amen. Conduit, you are loved, have a great week, and we will see you next time.
