Seven The Seventh Mountain Rendezvous
|
Deborah P. Brunt
Moses finished. Joshua finished. Naaman finished. Saul did not.
Each had an assignment of seven. That is, they had to keep pressing in for seven days or seven times, or both, in order to finish. Each had powerful reasons for not finishing. Fear, pride, weariness, discouragement and doubt warred to stop them short. Each had to continue pressing in with no visible evidence that his actions were accomplishing anything. After two, four, even six repetitions, nothing had shifted. Then came seven.
Naaman had an incurable disease. Stricken with leprosy, the commander of the Syrian army went to the Israelite prophet Elisha, seeking healing. When Elisha told Naaman to wash seven times in the Jordan River, Naaman angrily refused. Yet, urged by his servant, Naaman reconsidered. He washed all seven times - and was healed (2 Kings 5).
Saul faced a vast enemy army. His own small, terrified army was scattering. The prophet Samuel had told Israel's new king, "Go down ahead of me to Gilgal. I will surely come down to you to sacrifice burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, but you must wait seven days until I come to you and tell you what you are to do" (1 Sam. 10:8). Saul waited into the seventh day - but then gave in to fear. Panicking, he offered the sacrifices himself. Saul lost a kingdom because he gave up just minutes too soon (1 Sam. 13).
Joshua faced an impenetrable city. At God's order, Joshua and his troops marched around the city every day for seven days. Each of the first six days, they circled Jericho once. The seventh day, they circled the city seven times. Throughout, seven priests marched with the army, blowing seven shofars. All the way through the seventh march of the seventh day, nothing happened. But immediately afterward, as the shofars sounded and the army shouted, Jericho's walls fell flat (Josh. 6).
How different things would have been if Saul had finished - if Naaman and Joshua had not! How different, if Moses had quit after climbing Mt. Sinai the sixth time!
|
The shattering |
In the first months after the exodus from Egypt, as the Israelites camped at Mt. Sinai's base, Moses climbed the mountain seven times to meet with God. Every time, Moses went when God summoned. During the sixth meeting, the Lord gave detailed instructions for building and furnishing a sanctuary where he would dwell. Then, after 40 days and nights, God abruptly announced,
"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).
Moses went down, only to find everything he had worked for shattered. All the time he had spent confronting Pharaoh; all the intensity of bringing an entire nation out of Egypt, across the Red Sea and into a vast desert; all the trips up and down the mountain to establish a covenant between the Lord and the people - all seemed lost.
Desperately, tenaciously, Moses fought to undo the damage. He confronted the people. He dismantled their idol. He pled with the Lord.
Then, the Lord told him, "Be ready in the morning, and then come up on Mount Sinai. Present yourself to me there on top of the mountain" (Ex. 34:2). As all the other times except one, Moses had to go alone. This time only, Moses had to carry something up with him. He had to cooperate to undo the shattering he himself had done.
During the sixth mountain rendezvous, the Lord had written the covenant law on two stone tablets. He'd given the tablets to Moses, who carried them down the mountain. Then, seeing the people's flagrant idolatry, Moses had thrown down the tablets, breaking them to pieces.
Now, God commanded Moses to chisel out two stone tablets and carry them up the mountain. Moses might have wondered, "What's the use?" He might have thought, "I'm done." Instead, for the seventh time, he said yes.
|
The Presence |
Before ascending the mountain, Moses prayed to know God's ways and to see his glory. In answer, God promised his Presence and rest, as well.
Moses said to the LORD, "You have been telling me, 'Lead these people,' but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, 'I know you by name and you have found favor with me.' If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people."
The LORD replied, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."
Then Moses said to him, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?"
And the LORD said to Moses, "I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name."
Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory" (Ex. 33:12-18).
When Moses descended the mountain, he carried the two stone tablets, now inscribed with the Ten Words of the covenant. "His face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD" (Ex. 34:29). Moses had spoken with the Lord many times previously, on the mountain and off, but during that seventh mountain rendezvous he encountered God more intimately than ever before.
Both the sixth rendezvous and the seventh lasted 40 days and 40 nights. Yet we know far more of what happened during the sixth. Seven chapters in Exodus contain the instructions for tabernacle-building that Moses received during his sixth visit with God. Only 23 verses summarize the entire 40 days of the seventh rendezvous.
Intimacy involves mystery. Just as Moses passed along God's instructions to Israel, others may explain God's instructions to you. But no one can convey to you God's glory, his ways, his Presence, his rest. You will know those only in personal encounter with him.
|
The Name |
"So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the LORD had commanded him; and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands. Then the LORD came down in the cloud ..." (Ex. 34:4-5).
How little time had passed - and yet how very much had happened - since Moses the shepherd had first encountered God in a burning bush at the base of this same mountain. There, God first told Moses his most intimate Name, his covenant Name, the Name that usually appears in our English Bible translations as "the LORD," printed in all caps.
We've explored the Name before, but we must look again. What appears to us an impersonal title is translators' attempt to render God's personal name.
No one today knows how to pronounce that Name. From early on, the Jews considered it too holy to write or speak. Instead of writing the entire Name, they wrote only the four Hebrew consonants, transliterated JHVH. Instead of speaking the Name, they said Adonai (Lord) or HaShem (the Name), or they said the four Hebrew consonants, YUD-HEH-VAV-HEH (pronounced yude-heh-vahv-heh). Today, people attempting to approximate the sound of the Name may render it Jehovah or Yahweh.
However we say it, God wants us to know his covenant Name. This is what the LORD says. This is what HaShem has promised: "Therefore My people shall know what My name is and what it means; therefore they shall know in that day that I am He who speaks; behold, I AM!" (Isa. 52:6 AMP).
God's Name reveals his nature. Knowing how to pronounce the Name is a different thing entirely from knowing it. By mental exercise, we learn to pronounce. By hearing God speak Spirit-to-spirit, we recognize what he is revealing of his nature through his Name.
Wherever the Name JHVH appears in scripture, it holds out a key to our knowing more intimately the multifaceted nature of our Lord. It opens a door into his Presence, his rest, his glory, his ways. It reveals facet after facet of his intimate, covenant identity. Every time we carelessly read past the Name, we bypass an entryway to knowing him.
Moses, writing Exodus, struggled to describe the encounter that literally left him glowing. In that encounter, God proclaimed his Name, declared his ways, revealed his glory. The Complete Jewish Bible uses two different renderings of the Name (Adonai and Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh) in seeking to convey what Moses wrote. We cannot enter the moment if we try to do so mind-first. Receive what God is speaking, Spirit-to-spirit. Invite him to breathe his covenant Name into your inmost being:
"Adonai descended in the cloud, stood with him there and pronounced the name of Adonai. Adonai passed before him and proclaimed: "YUD-HEH-VAV-HEH!!! Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh [Adonai] is God, merciful and compassionate, slow to anger, rich in grace and truth; showing grace to the thousandth generation, forgiving offenses, crimes and sins; yet not exonerating the guilty, but causing the negative effects of the parents' offenses to be experienced by their children and grandchildren, and even by the third and fourth generations" (Ex. 34:5-7).
Moses responded as we will when we present ourselves before Adonai and he reveals himself to us. "Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped" (Ex. 34:8). Prone before God, Moses cried out, speaking only briefly, yet interceding powerfully. "'Lord,' he said, 'if I have found favor in your eyes, then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance'" (Ex. 34:9).
Then YUD-HEH-VAV-HEH said the words Moses thought the Israelites had forever forfeited: "I am making a covenant with you" (Ex. 34:10). By "you," God meant the nation Israel. When the Israelites had done nothing to deserve it and everything to destroy it, God made a covenant he is still keeping.
In Jesus Christ, the same LORD has made a new and better covenant. The same Yahweh whom Moses met on Sinai has entered covenant with all who confess Jesus - in Hebrew, Yeshua - as LORD.
"Here is a statement you can trust:"
[it will jar and puzzle your mind, but receive it in your spirit]
"If we have died with him, we will also live with him.
If we persevere, we will also rule with him.
If we disown him, he will also disown us.
If we are faithless, he remains faithful,
for he cannot disown himself" (2 Tim. 2:11-13 CJB).
|
The shift |
In Exodus 34:10-26, Jehovah reiterated the bottom-line tenets of the covenant. As we read them, our minds have trouble grasping why these particular commands carry such weight, why they should be the basis of such a solemn, binding agreement. The commands have to do with treaties and festivals, goats and yeast. They deal with firstborn and firstfruits and with God's chosen times. But most of all, they call for true worship of the true God and him alone, on the part of those with whom he's entered covenant.
Take a few minutes to read these verses, asking the Lord to speak. Receive by faith what you do not understand. Ask the Lord to show you more. JHVH is faithful. He keeps covenant. And he will make clear to those who seek him what that covenant involves. Faithfully, he reveals himself through his word. But we will misunderstand and misapply his word if we try to do so mind-first. Thus, he reveals himself by another Name we've thought a title - Ruach JHVH, Spirit of the LORD. Press in to hear him, Spirit-to-spirit.
Whatever else happened in that 40-day span, Moses descended the mountain with a twofold mission: teach the people to live in covenant relationship with the LORD and build the tabernacle God himself had designed. Moses and the people pressed in to accomplish the work. A year after leaving Egypt, they set up the tabernacle exactly as HaShem had commanded.
"And so Moses finished the work. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle" (Ex. 40:33-35).
God came to dwell in the midst of his people after Moses responded in obedience to all seven invitations to rendezvous on the mountain.
Because one man finished a sevenfold mission, a nation experienced the Presence - not once, but perpetually. YUD-HEH-VAV-HEH no longer came down on a mountain they couldn't approach. He remained visibly present in the center of their camp. As his Presence lifted, they moved. As his Presence settled, they stayed.
"So the cloud of the LORD was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel during all their travels" (Ex. 40:38).
|
The assignment |
And so, weary one, I have a word from the LORD for you: Do not let fear or pride, discouragement or doubt stop you short. Pursue every mission he entrusts to you. Complete any mission he has given you. Remember that the mission is, first and foremost, the Presence, the rest, the glory, the ways of the God of the covenant Name.
Discern what is truly from him. His assignments do not rob you of intimacy with him, but rather propel you into it. His assignments originate in his Presence. They depend on your returning to rendezvous with him as often as he may call.
They change you as you see him. Even when he is silent, even when he seems distant, you're gripped in your inner being by him. You're being interwoven with him.
His assignments require your cooperation in what he alone can do. They do not hurry or overburden you. As you listen to Ruach Yahweh, you will know the difference between a schedule he is orchestrating and one that religious spirits are pulling you into. Do not let your soul out-shout your spirit. A frantic religious schedule will keep you busy boxing the air.
Remember: Your spirit will grab hold of a God-assignment long before your mind and emotions can fathom or desire it. What's more, you will likely have to keep going forward by faith way past the point you expect to begin to see change. Sometimes you'll be overjoyed at what God says, shows, does. Sometimes, you'll be overwhelmed with the impossibility of the task. Sometimes you'll be overcome with who JHVH is. Sometimes you'll be overtaken with doubts.
Continue to believe that Jehovah exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Seek to know his ways. Ask to see his glory. Stay in his Presence. Relentlessly seek his face. Obey what he tells you face-to-face, even when it conflicts with what you thought obedience meant. Work from a place of rest. Refuse the pull of the frantic. Even when nothing has changed - even when all seems lost - press in to finish.
Seven completes. After the seventh washing, Naaman was healed. After the seventh circling of Jericho on the seventh day, the walls fell flat. After the seventh mountain rendezvous, God moved in.
Finish the assignment of the LORD. And watch what the God of the covenant Name does next.
. . . . . . .
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: Complete Jewish Bible (CJB).
|
Treasure Hunt |
"Come up to me on the mountain and stay here" (Ex. 24:12)
Previously in the Seven Mountain Rendezvous series The Seven Mountain Rendezvous Get away with God - and open the gateway for him to manifest his presence in you every day, everywhere.
Becoming Who You Are (The First Mountain Rendezvous) Inheritance hinges on identity. Identity hinges on covenant. Covenant hinges on relationship.
Prepare to Meet Your God (The Second Mountain Rendezvous) The God who comes in the cloud invites his people to meet with him. He sets the standards. He draws the boundaries. He chooses how much time to give us to get ready.
Love Affair (The Third Mountain Rendezvous) When God shows up, you never know what to expect. The lover of our souls may do things we would never have equated with love.
Laying Down the Law (The Fourth Mountain Rendezvous) If we suddenly, clearly saw what has caused what - in our lives, in our world - we'd be stunned, overwhelmed, and perhaps ... delivered.
The Covenant Meal (The Fifth Mountain Rendezvous) God loves to paint pictures. He works in real time, so what you see is what you get. See with your physical eyes, and you get a true story that happened at a real time in a real place in history. See with the eyes of your heart - and you get much, more more.
The Covenant Crisis (The Sixth Mountain Rendezvous) When God told Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain and stay," Moses had no clue how critical his obedience was to the preservation of his entire nation.
|
We Confess
| God is revealing what we haven't wanted to see in order that we can become who we truly are. He holds out this promise:
"I will cleanse them of bloodguilt which I have not yet cleansed" (Joel 3:21 CJB).
Crying to him for a spirit of grace and supplication, we explore how covenant with the Confederacy still hinders revival in the conservative US church culture. As we confess, cleansing, healing, life, identity, oneness, witness and true worship flow.
As we confess, our LORD is honored and his kingdom furthered.
Teaching on DVD. 90 min. Purchase at keytruths.com. |
|