The Covenant

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If you had 7 weeks and unlimited funds what would be your ideal holiday destination?  Long enough to have a proper life changing experience, enough money to finance any thing you really wanted to do: What would you do?

What would be the ultimate experience?  A trip up Mt Everest?  There might be time for a few of the world's highest peaks… or maybe you could experience the Arctic, or Antarctica.  Perhaps a safari through Africa, or a trek in South America; you could tour the pyramids or do a pilgrimage to the holy lands.  In seven weeks you could maybe do a glamour cruise. Maybe you'd just like to sit on a beach and read books.

What about a trip into the middle of the hot dusty desert to camp? Doesn't sound so wonderful does it… but what about if God had arranged to meet you there.  What about if you could spend that time in the very presence of God?

I wonder if that was on offer would you want to take it?  We'll come back to that, but, whether we would want to or not, that is what Moses experienced in the passage we're going to look at this evening.  And what I want to say is that what we'll see in Exodus 23 and 24 is a remarkable picture of the undoing of the effects of sin –a remarkable reverse of Gen 3.  What God does in these chapters is a dramatic, live action illustration of what it means to have our sins washed clean and to be re-united with God.

Now the action takes place in a couple of distinct, but related sections, and we'll work our way through them.

First there is the promise of the personal presence, protection and provision of God –ch 23.20-33

Second there is the ceremonial sacrifice that seals the covenant– ch 24.1-8; and

Third there is the illustration of intimacy with Almighty God – ch 24. 9-18

And what is going on in all these episodes is that God is explaining and graphically illustrating the priceless privileges of being his people.

So let's have a look at each of those scenes in turn and consider what they teach us. We'll kick off with the first scene, where God promisesIsrael that he will provide for them through being present with them.

Point one – the promise of the personal presence, protection and provision of God.

Have a look with me at 23.20 -33:

20 "See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. 21 Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him. 22 If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you. 23 My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. 24 Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces. 25 Worship the LORD your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, 26 and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span. 27 "I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run. 28 I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way. 29 But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. 30 Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land. 31 "I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the River. I will hand over to you the people who live in the land and you will drive them out before you. 32 Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods. 33 Do not let them live in your land, or they will cause you to sin against me, because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you."

This is a long passage, but the gist is clear isn't it?  God will provide for them in the new land that they are going in to possess, and that he will do that through his representative, his angel, his messenger.

But if God is going to send an angel to protect and provide, why have I said that this is about the personal presence of God?  Well this angel of the LORD is an interesting character isn't he - look at what is said about him - he is so closely associated with God that it is difficult to distinguish him from God, though he is distinct from God.  God says you must listen to him – do what he says and do not rebel against him – distinction from God – because my name is in him – identification with God.  God doesn't say if you rebel against him I will not forgive you, he says if you rebel against him he will not forgive you.  Isn't that interesting? The angel carries the very name of God, and he has authority to forgive or to withhold forgiveness.  This is in keeping with the appearance of God to Abraham Genesis (we saw it this morning in Gen 22, at the beginning of the chapter it was God, the LORD who spoke to him, by the end of the chapter it was the angel of the LORD who spoke to him and it is the angel of the LORD who says 'I swear by myself, declares the LORD … that because you have not withheld your son from me I will surely bless you etc…);

and it's consistent with God's first appearance to Moses in the burning bush – where it was the angel of the Lord who appeared to Moses in the bush, but yet we say God appeared to him; and consistent with the descriptions of the angel of the LORD going with the Israelite camp as a pillar of fire or smoke – and again this is said to be God going with them, the very glory of God present in the smoke and the cloud.

In every instance this angel of the LORD manifests God's own glory and somehow makes God present by his presence (remember the burning bush – take off your shoes Moses because you are standing on holy ground says the angel of the LORD from the bush).  This angel of the LORD will also make regular appearances to his people in Joshua, Judges, and Kings; as promised here the angel fights for Israel, the Angel reveals God's will; the Angel also accepts the worship of God's people, such as when he appears to Sampson's parents and then disappears up into heaven in the fire of their sacrifice prompting Sampson's Father to say 'we are doomed to die because we have seen God!'

Who is this angel of the Lord?  How can he be both God and not God – how can h e accept the praise that belongs to God alone, and yet not be guilty of rebellion against God as Satan was when he tried to take God's place of worship???

This is one of the tantalising hints in the OT that God is more than a simple entity.  In the NT this theology will overflow into a full blow Trinitarian understanding as both Christ Jesus and the Spirit manifest the same characteristics of distinction from God the Father, but of somehow sharing in his unique power and privileges as God.  When Paul discusses the events of the Exodus in 1 Cor 10 he says that it was Christ who accompanied the Israelites in the desert (1 Cor 10.4).

So when God promises that his angel, the angel of the LORD will go with them he is saying more than that he will send a messenger, or even a representative.  Somehow this angel of the LORD going with them means that God goes with them.  God is promising something amazing – he is offering his own presence withIsraelas they go on into the promised land.

And God's personal presence with them has very significant implications – firstly they must obey the angel of the LORD, for he speaks God's words.  But more than that he will provide for them in every sense.  Their enemies will be his enemies. This land that they are going to is not empty, nor will God empty it before they get there – but it will be progressively emptied by God for them.  The angel will enable them to conquer the land – bringing fear and dread to it's inhabitants, even fighting for them.  And more than that the presence of the angel of the LORD will mean blessing for them – taking away sickness and miscarriage and early death, and establishing a peaceful kingdom from one border to the next.

It's not too much to say that because of the presence of the angel of the LORD the land they are going to enter is described for us as something of a return to the garden of Eden – not quite as good perhaps, but what God is promising to Moses is a partial reversal of the effects of the fall.

If you remember Gen 3 – shouldn't be too hard if you're coming in the mornings because we looked at it last week – if you remember when Adam and Eve fell into sin God cursed the land and made it unfruitful, but here God's blessing will be on their food and their water; God cursed Adam and Eve to conflict and sickness and death – here God will govern their conflicts to bring peace so that will have with a land of their own.  But most significantly, most importantly, most tragically they were banished from God's presence, shut out from him and removed from him.  Their sin made them unfit to walk with him and dwell with him.  But remarkably now God will go with them – the angel of the LORD will go with them, they will be his people and he will be their God.

Does it need to be said that the promises God makes here are all fulfilled as Israel enters the promised land – the fear and dread of them falls on the inhabitants of the land (Rahab describes it in Joshua 2.9); the angel of the LORD defeats their enemies time and again in the time of the Judges and eventually, under David and Solomon God stretches their borders out to the exact borders described here – from the Red sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the river.

But it also hardly needs to be said that the promise was never tested fully – because they certainly did not do what they were told – they didn't fully remove the inhabitants of the land, they did make treaties or covenants with them, and they did not worship the LORD only, instead they ran from God and worshipped the gods of the people of the land – starting right after Moses comes down from the Mountain – and just as God said those gods became a trap and a snare to them.

What is promised is a sort ofEdenlike paradise with God at the centre of it, if only they will remain faithful.  But the problem, the only problem, withEden, was that mankind could not remain faithful.  And so it will be with this return toEden.  The problem is not on God's side – he is always faithful.  The problem is that whenever promises are conditional on consistent, faithful, scrupulous obedience – really on any sort of obedience at all – they are doomed to failure.  Because we are not faithful, we can not keep faith with God.  Never have and never will.

But I'm skipping ahead.  The point here is not our unfaithfulness, norIsrael's unfaithfulness, but rather God's gracious promise. God knows their character, their propensity to sin.  And yet he has graciously chosen to make them his very own people, and to be their God.  Despite their rebellion and wickedness he is going to go with them, to protect them and to provide for them.  To make the land a sort ofEden, if only they will let him.  How remarkable that is – by Sin we ran away fromEden, but God keeps at us, pursues us to bring us back and make us his own.

But how can this Edenever be while ever we are predisposed to sin?  How can we ever come back into the presence of a holy God while we so readily run to sin? And in the two scenes that follow God reveals the startling truth – he will bring us back, bring us back to himself.

So let's have a look at scene two – the ceremonial sacrifice that seals the covenant

Look with me at ch 24 verse one:

  1 Then he said to Moses, "Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. You are to worship at a distance, 2 but Moses alone is to approach the LORD; the others must not come near. And the people may not come up with him." 3 When Moses went and told the people all the LORD's words and laws, they responded with one voice, "Everything the LORD has said we will do." 4 Moses then wrote down everything the LORD had said. He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the LORD. 6 Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he sprinkled on the altar. 7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, "We will do everything the LORD has said; we will obey." 8 Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, "This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words."  

What are we seeing here – God has made the covenant requirements clear, here is the seal on that agreement.  Like a marriage ceremony, a sober, solemn ceremony that makes clear that both parties are freely committing to keep the terms of this agreement from this day forth.  They will be his people and he will be their God; and that means that they will do everything that God has said – notice that, everything the LORD has said, we will do, everything.  God will keep his side of the agreement, and they will keep theirs.

That is the effect of the ceremony – now look at the details of it –the ceremony itself, though in one sense like our marriage ceremony – it is a solemn occasion, there are vows exchanged etc.  – it is also very unlike any marriage ceremony that I've ever been to.  At the heart of this covenant ratifying ceremony there are these sacrifices.  And they are bloody and gruesome aren't they?

There are two messages that are being sent by these sacrifices.  In the first instance they are a well recognised way of making a covenant agreement.  The blood of the sacrifice is applied to both the parties in the agreement as if to say 'cross my heart and hope to die' – that is we pledge our life to keeping this agreement on pains of death.  If we fail in our obligations we deserve to die, we will do what we have promised, or forfeit our lives by breaking our promise.  As I said it's a solemn vow, a serious matter.  It is no small thing to become Yahweh's people, it is a massive thing (again there are echoes of the garden of Eden here aren't there – do not break my command or you will surely die).

But there is a second thing communicated by these sacrifices, not just a warning of judgement, but a promise of grace – because we know that sacrifices were given by God for the cleansing and forgiveness of his people whenever they went astray.  Compare this covenant with the covenant God made with Abraham in Gen 15 – there the animals weren't sacrificed, simply cut in half and Abraham and God both walked between them – communicating the pains of death idea, but there is no sacrificial element.  Here it's different, the animals are not just killed, they are killed as part of a ritual sacrifice.  So even in the midst of the drama and the excitement of meeting with God himself, even when they make these astonishing promises to be faithful to God there is at the heart of it all this reminder that they can only stand in God's presence if they have been cleansed, if they have been set right with God by a sacrifice.  They promise to be God's people and to do all that he commands, but they can only even make this promise because he has already provided forgiveness by the sacrifice.  As with all the sacrifices in the OT God is pointing us forward to the true sacrifice that will set all things right, that will truly cleanse the consciences of the worshippers – to Jesus, the true sacrifice.

See in both these points God is promising a newEden, and making demands that we can not meet precisely because this covenant is meant to point us forward to something bigger and better.  This covenant, this promised land, this fresh start was always going to fail, always going to disappoint.  But by it God was showing two things:

1) just how far we have fallen, just how hopeless we are in sin and so just how much we need outside help, not just a patch up job, but a whole new heart; and

2) showing us just what should be looking forward to – in the way in which the book of Hebrews says that Abraham was looking forward to anew city, a heavenly city.  So it was designed to point forward we weren't supposed to put our trust and hope in the promised land, but to look beyond them to the eternal city, the real hope, the true Eden.  If you want to explore this idea further – it's exactly what we're looking at in our morning services at the moment – catch up online if you want to see it unfolding in Gen 22 this morning, and join us for the next couple of weeks.

This covenant, this agreement with God is pointing forward to something greater. What will it mean for us when God rescues us – we get a remarkable picture in the second half of this chapter – we can be restored right into the very presence of God.

This is Point three:

Third there is the illustration of intimacy with Almighty God – ch 24. 9-18

Look at verse 9 with me

9 Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up 10 and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. 11 But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank. 12 The LORD said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and commands I have written for their instruction." 13 Then Moses set out with Joshua his assistant, and Moses went up on the mountain of God. 14 He said to the elders, "Wait here for us until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur are with you, and anyone involved in a dispute can go to them." 15 When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, 16 and the glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the LORD called to Moses from within the cloud. 17 To the Israelites the glory of the LORD looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. 18 Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

This is so significant that I wonder why I haven't really noticed it before.  Isn't it awesome – they go up the mountain and they see God – it wasn't just empty words, God will be their God, they will be his people – and so he invites the elders of the people up into his throne room for a meal.  And Moses gets to hang out there in God's very presence for forty days and nights.

What did they see?  Could they really see God – the passage is emphatic 'they saw God but God did not raise his hand against them – they should have died for getting that close, for seeing what they should – for as God says just a little later in Exodus 22 to Moses 'you can not see my face, for no one may see me and live'.  God is so holy, so glorious, so perfect that we can not look on him and survive the experience.  But that is exactly what these 70 elders ofIsraeldid.  And they ate and drank there in God's presence.

What we are seeing  here is a very real and graphic illustration of the reverse of the fall.  Somehow God is undoing the fall – after the fall Adam and Eve were expelled from God's presence, excluded from his place.  They gave up walking with God for frustration, struggle and alienation – for slavery to sin and death.  But God is showing here that he is opening up a way for that exchange to be reversed – they can escape sin and death, walk away from frustration, struggle and alienation and instead walk with God, live with God, dwell with God in his very presence.

This is a remarkable illustration of what it means to be set right with God again, to be his people, and for him to be our God.

But it gets better – Moses is invited to an even greater intimacy, an extended stay with God in his glory.  From the outside it looked like an invitation to death – the consuming fire resting on the mountain.  But for Moses it was unimaginable privilege – he goes into God's presence and stays there.  We will never know what he saw there – until the day that God calls us up into the very same privilege.  What Moses enjoys by going up into God's presence is a foretaste of heaven.

Wouldn't you love to have an experience like that?  That would be a life changing holiday wouldn't it?  Well don't you know that the NT says that when we come to church we enjoy a privilege that even Moses longed to have?  When we meet here in God's name and meet around his word and meet with each other we enjoy even greater privilege than Moses and the people ofIsraelgathered around the mountain and listening to God's actual voice – that's Hebrews 12 if you want to check it out.

All this was pointing forwards to a better covenant, one that was not dependant on our obedience for completion; to a better sacrifice, one that truly cleansed our consciences, and to a better experience of intimacy with God – when God would make us his sons and put his spirit in us so that we would be one with him as he is one with his son.  The promise is of staggering intimacy with God – in the future when we live with him forever in heaven, but also now as he lives in us and changes us and speaks to us and sheds his love in our hearts.

So my question as I read this is this – what's gone wrong?  Why don't I long to spent time with God, to know him, to listen to him, to speak to him and to listen to him?  I wonder why I don't use my holidays to pursue experience of God in his word by his spirit, why when he's given me the gift of this intimacy of prayer I find it so hard to use it?

If we saw God as he really is, in all his glory and majesty, unsurpassed in power, in love, in kindness and creativity and patience and strength and every other good thing – if we could conceive of God as the celebrity par excellence, the hero par excellence; the saviour par excellence – if we could just catch a glimpse of his glory then we would long for him with every fibre of our being.  The very rumour of him, the merest passing of his shadow would thrill us.  We would read this and think 'I wish I had that, I wish more than anything that I could go into God's very presence and ate and drink and just stay there and listen to him and be with him and drink in everything about him.'

So let me ask a diagnostic question.  On your Christmas break, when you were relaxing and reviving, did you pick up your bible, or your TV remote?  Did you spend extended sessions in prayer, or go to the movies, or enjoy a dinner and a glass of wine.  If you're like me the answer to that will be all wrong, because we don't value God like that, we don't find reading the bible relaxing, re-juvenating, re-energising.  We don't look forward to hanging out with God in prayer, to shutting everything else out so we can enjoy his presence.  What that says to me is that I don't know God as I should, and I don't love God as I should.  He's not my highest goal, my deepest love, my greatest passion, my joy, my delight.  When Australia is playing cricket I'm hungry for information about how we're going.  If I could, I'd stay up through the night listening to the radio. I'm passionate about it.  If I've recorded match of the day I don't want to talk to you about football, or listen to the radio or do much of anything because I don't want to spoil it. That's what it's like when you're passionate about something.  I'm crying out to God to change my heart and take the place of those things that are passing away so that he can sit on the throne – the throne of my passions, my desires, my hopes, my dreams.  And I'm praying the same for you.

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