Deborah P. Brunt

  

God doesn't enter covenant lightly. In scripture, he made covenant with one nation only: Israel. In 1 Chronicles 16 and again in Psalm 105, God called that covenant everlasting:

 

"He remembers his covenant forever,

the promise he made, for a thousand generations,

the covenant he made with Abraham,

the oath he swore to Isaac.

He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree,

to Israel as an everlasting covenant."

(1 Chron. 16:15-17 and Ps. 105:8-10)

 

At Mt. Sinai, God made covenant with Israel in order to honor the covenant he'd made with Abraham hundreds of years earlier. At Mt. Sinai, God made covenant with Israel in order to prepare the way for a better covenant yet to come.

 

Every aspect of the old covenant foreshadowed the new. At God's appointed time, the old covenant birthed the new.

 

God doesn't enter covenant lightly. How tragic when his people do.

On the seventh day, God called, and Moses entered the glory cloud. Then, for more than a month, the Lord downloaded revelation to Moses. The record of that revelation occupies seven chapters of Exodus (chs. 25-31). Reading those chapters, we might find them tedious. We definitely find them detailed. And we might wonder about their relevance to a nation that desperately needed practical help - to create a governmental structure; to feed, clothe and house millions; to guard against attack by enemy nations and to go forward through a forbidding desert.

Yet instead of offering instructions on any of the above, God spent those five weeks giving Moses detailed plans for building a portable worship tent and consecrating worship leaders. The Lord gave these plans in what may seem a random order:

• Specs for three pieces of furniture: a chest, a table and a lampstand (ch. 25);
• Specs for the two rooms of the tabernacle itself, the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place (ch. 26);
• Details of a bronze altar that would stand outside the tabernacle, and specifications for the courtyard to surround both tabernacle and altar (ch. 27)
• Identity of worship leaders, or priests, and description of their garments: Moses' brother Aaron was to serve as High Priest, and everything he wore had symbolic and prophetic meaning, all the way to the engraved gold plate attached to his turban that read, "Holy to the Lord" (ch. 28);
• Ordination ceremony for the priests (ch. 29);
• Specs for other important tabernacle items: altar of incense (to stand in the Holy Place), atonement money collected from all the people, bronze basin (to stand in the courtyard), holy anointing oil and incense (ch. 30);
• Craftsman assigned to build the tabernacle; and, finally, a strong reminder of the importance of keeping sabbath (ch. 31).

"When the LORD finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the covenant law, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God" (Ex. 31:18). Thus, God ended the visit by doing what he had promised at the very beginning.

Back when the Lord summoned Moses to come up Mt. Sinai for their sixth rendezvous, God said "stay here," but he didn't mention 40 days. Nor did he even hint that the bulk of the time would be given to instructions for a tabernacle and a priesthood. The Lord simply said, "I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction" (Ex. 24:12).

Then, when God began to speak after six days of silence, he described first the item that would hold those tablets of stone. That item - a chest called the ark - would alone rest in the Most Holy Place. The Lord commanded that this ark be made of acacia wood overlaid with gold. Its solid gold cover was to include two winged angelic creatures, or cherubim, one on each end. "The cherubim are to have their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim are to face each other, looking toward the cover."

God told Moses to "put in the ark the tablets of the covenant law that I will give you." Then the Lord said, "There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the covenant law, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites" (Ex. 25:20-22). After weeks of further instructions, God inscribed his covenant words on the stone tablets, and gave the tablets to Moses.

All of it - the 40 days on the mountaintop, the silence, the revelation, the seemingly endless details - all of it had one immediate purpose: to prepare the way for God to tabernacle in the midst of his people.

"There I will meet you and speak to you; there also I will meet with the Israelites, and the place will be consecrated by my glory. So I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar and will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve me as priests. Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. They will know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God" (Ex. 29:42-46).

Every detail was crucial, for the tabernacle was "a copy and shadow of what is in heaven" (Heb. 8:5). Thus, what God described to Moses in Exodus foreshadowed what God revealed to John in Revelation. And what stood in ancient Israel prefigured what is still to come:

"I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.... And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God'" (Rev. 21:1-3 NKJV).

In addition, the details of the Old Testament tabernacle - where God lived among his people and his glory was visibly seen - can give us intimate insights into the earthly life and mission of the Lord Jesus, who is God, who became flesh and "tabernacled (fixed His tent of flesh, lived awhile) among us." John testified, "and we [actually] saw His glory (His honor, His majesty)" (John 1:14 AMP).

At Mt. Sinai, the LORD inaugurated a blood covenant that he invited the Israelites to enter. Immediately afterward, he made a way to dwell among his people. At Mt. Calvary, the Lord Jesus inaugurated a new blood covenant that he invites all who will to enter. By his death and resurrection, he made the way for God to dwell in his people.

Just before his crucifixion, Jesus promised his followers, "the Spirit of truth ... will be in you.... On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you" (John 14:17,20). He added, ""Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them" (John 14:23). The Amplified Bible renders the phrase "our home" this way: "Our home (abode, special dwelling place)."  

Paul wrote, "For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: 'I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people'" (2 Cor. 6:16 NKJV).

In the wilderness, the tabernacle stood in the midst of the camp. There, God met with his people. From there, he taught them. He guided and guarded them. Since Pentecost, God dwells within his people. Spirit to spirit, he meets with us. He teaches us, guides and guards us. He awakens us, for example, to the profound import of the tabernacle. He provides us intimate access to every aspect of our God - his love, his character, his mind, his authority and power, his holiness and grace.

While Moses stayed before God, experienced his presence, heard his words, saw his heart, the people ran amuck. They abandoned the God with whom they had just made covenant.

While the Lord planned a place to live among them, a place from which he would guide and guard them, they approached Aaron, whom Moses had left in charge, "Come, make us gods who will go before us," they cried (Ex. 32:1).

While Moses pressed in to receive every word of God's message for the people, they wrote Moses off: "As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him" (Ex. 32:1).  

While God designated Aaron as High Priest, Holy to the Lord and responsible to lead in worship of the LORD alone, Aaron let the people talk him into making an idol. Fashioning a cow-god from the people's gold, Aaron dared to call it by the LORD's covenant name.

While the Lord himself wrote the Ten Commandments on stone tablets, the people flagrantly violated those commandments. They themselves had heard God speak the Ten Words from Sinai. They had willingly made covenant with him, promising repeatedly to be his people and to keep his every law. Yet, within weeks they had broken their covenant vows. Most flagrantly of all, they broke the two commands on which all the rest hinged:"You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol ..." (Ex. 20:3-4 NIV). 

Reading Exodus 32, we may shake our heads over the people's tragic actions. We may become offended over God's response.

The Lord told Moses, "Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, 'These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt'" (Ex. 32:7-8).

Then the Lord said, "I have been watching these people" (Ex. 32:9 CJB).

So if God had been watching the people, why didn't he send Moses down earlier? Why didn't he stop one of those detailed descriptions somewhere in mid-sentence and say, "Go down, Moses. Your people are about to do something really stupid"?

Why did he wait until the dastardly deed was done, then tell Moses, "Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation" (Ex. 32:10)? Even more confusing, why did the Lord relent and change his mind when Moses himself asked why:

"Why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, 'It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth'? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: 'I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever'" (Ex. 32:11-13).

After God relented and Moses returned down the mountain, why did 3,000 people die by the sword and an unknown number succumb to plague?

Is the God who met with Moses easily offended, violent, temperamental and capricious - or is he just and merciful?

Imagine you're speeding down an interstate, and a highway patrolman pulls you over. After he asks to see your driver's license, he'll likely tell you exactly what justice demands - that he write you a ticket. If it's your first offense and if you respond humbly, he may exercise mercy and give you a warning instead. The officer is not being  mean in promising the ticket, nor fickle in choosing instead to warn.

In Exodus 32, God's people were speeding the wrong direction down a one-way street. The Lord caught them in the act. To have stopped the people before they made the idol would not have changed their hearts. The sin was accomplished - and the penalty demanded - as soon as they made up their minds to do it. However, if they hadn't carried through with the act, they would not have seen  - and would have vigorously denied - how desperately far they had fallen.

When God said, "Leave me alone ... that I may destroy them," he announced what justice demanded. We might not think so. We might think that, in his anger, God over-reacted. But that's because we have no clue the seriousness of the people's offence. They didn't commit a traffic violation. They committed idolatry. Nor did God seek to force a people who had freely chosen other gods to worship him instead. Rather, those who had by their own choice entered the most solemn and binding compact possible - blood covenant with the Lord himself - had, in the most hurtful and blatant way possible, broken their vows.

God views such a trampling of his covenant as more grievous than we would view a terrorist plot to kill thousands. Indeed the whole cow-god incident surely was a plot - not of flesh and blood, but of principalities and powers - to cause the entire nation Israel to self-destruct at the very outset of their relationship with God.

God's anger toward the Israelites reflected his deep grief. He was not a policeman stopping some random motorist. His own people had broken covenant with him and set themselves up for destruction. Deeply grieved, deeply angered, the LORD announced what justice required.

The Israelites could well have answered God with the cry of Psalm 51:4: "Against you, you only, have [we] sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge."

There on Mt. Sinai, Moses responded to the Lord's distress by showing deep concern for his people and profound regard for God's honor. Moses implored the Lord not to destroy the people for the sake of HIS name and HIS covenant. In essence, Moses uttered in the people's behalf the cry of Psalm 51:1: "Have mercy ... O God, according to your unfailing love."  

The God who had declared what justice required then announced what mercy would do.

After Moses descended the mountain, he did not minimize or brush aside the people's sin. He confronted the people and called them to repent. Some even then persisted in unrestrained evil so extreme that it took more than 3,000 deaths to restore order and spare the nation.

And so 40 days of glory ended in tragedy: The stone tablets on which God himself had written lay shattered. The rebuked Israelites grieved their grave unfaithfulness to their God. They mourned the loss of many lives. Outside the camp, Moses lay on his face before God, continuing to plead for mercy. Would the Lord - could he - go forward with his plan to dwell among this people? Would he even remain with them at all?

Of course, we live on the other side of the cross.

"The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: 'This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.'  Then he adds: 'Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more'" (Heb 10:15-17).

We who have confessed Jesus as Lord have a better covenant. We have Christ in us to make his will known to us and to enable us to live it. What a wonder! What a cause to rejoice! Yet with this greater privilege also comes greater responsibility.

In 1 Corinthians 10:14, Paul urged Christians, "Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry." It is an offense more serious than we can imagine when we freely enter the new covenant in Christ, and then allow anything to rival our Lord's place in our lives. Indeed, the same chapter in Hebrews that testifies of the privileges of the new covenant also gives this sobering warning:

"If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think those deserve to be punished who have trampled the Son of God under foot, who have treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who have insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' and again, 'The Lord will judge his people.' It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb. 10:26-31).

In our day, can people who identify themselves as belonging to Christ treat "as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them"? Can individuals and even whole groups who have entered the new covenant in his blood begin to tolerate rivals to HIM in their lives?  Tragically, yes. We can, and we have.

When we who are called by his name trample the Son of God under foot and insult the Spirit of grace, our deeply grieved, deeply angered Lord announces what his justice demands.

He also stands ready to respond in mercy even to these most grievous of sins.

This LORD initiated a lengthy sixth mountain rendezvous with Moses for a reason we haven't yet explored: Knowing his people would quickly turn aside from him, God prepared one man to stand in the gap and turn aside judgment from them. When Moses responded to God's inconvenient call, he had no clue how critical his obedience was to the preservation of his entire nation. Moses' act of intercession began long before he cried to God for mercy. It began when Moses chose to remain where God said to stay for as long as God said to be there. When crisis hit, Moses had authority to plead for the release of mercy and grace.

Today, God continues to seek intercessors who will stand in the gap for his wayward people. Who knows how many will be delivered when even a few answer his call. Indeed, Ezekiel 22:30 says, and Moses' experience shows, it can take only "one among them" to avert disaster. Tragically, God sometimes cannot even find one.

Such intercessors have these things in common:  

God alone is their God.

They desire above all else for his name to be honored.

Regardless how important the people and responsibilities screaming for their attention,

regardless how murky and intense the twilight zone that God summons them to enter

or how long he requires them to remain,

regardless the lengthy silences where they cannot hear him,

regardless how seemingly irrelevant and tedious the "waiting tasks" he may assign -

when he says, "Come and be with me,"

they go and they stay.

. . . . . . .

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures references are from The Holy Bible, Today's New International Version™ TNIV ® Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society ® All rights reserved worldwide. Also quoted: The Amplified Bible (AMP); Complete Jewish Bible (CJB); New American Standard Updated (NASU); New International Version (NIV); New King James Version (NKJV); and New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

"Come up to me on the mountain and stay here" (Ex. 24:12)

Seven encounters with God
September 2010 - April 2011
Olive Branch, MS (outskirts of Memphis)

 

NOTICE: Each time frame is different for these last two!

 

APRIL 14-16

THU 7 pm through SAT noon

Spiritual Roots, Lasting Fruit

On the 150^th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, we'll summon humility and courage. We'll explore how covenant with the Confederacy still hinders revival in the conservative American church culture. As we give God permission to expose and uproot ungodly roots, our true roots will flourish, and we'll bear much fruit.