OVERVIEW:
God gives examples of His “judgments” by which to judge right from wrong; Israel agrees to obey God’s commands; Moses goes up again to meet with God on Mount Sinai.
HIGHLIGHTS & INSIGHTS:
As we came through Exodus 21 in yesterday’s reading, God began giving Israel “judgments” by which to judge right from wrong. He lays down specific commands for how the nation of Israel was to function in their relationship with Him, and thus, with one another. It is important to recognize that, in this nation that God was forming in Israel, the blueprint for their governmental structure would be different from any nation in the world. This nation would not be a democracy, a dictatorship, or a republic. Israel was the first and only Theocracy, meaning that God Himself would serve as their King, Chief Executive, Ruler, Legislator, and Judge. The plan was simple: they were to obey God, and the result would be protection and blessing. As God recounts the establishment of this Theocracy in Jeremiah 11:4, notice that the key to their “society” wasn’t first and foremost how man related to his fellow man, but how man related to God. God, of course, knows that when men are rightly related to Him, they will be rightly related to one another. God also knows that the opposite is also true: if men are NOT rightly related to Him, no amount of laws can keep a society functioning properly. Romans 1:16–32 explains the inevitability of the moral decay of society when sinful human beings disregard the God who created them.
It is interesting to note that the very first thing God emphasizes after giving the nation of Israel the Ten Commandments was the admonition to treat their servants properly. (Chapter 21) Keep in mind that this instruction comes immediately after they had been delivered from 400 years of abusive servitude at the hands of the Egyptians! The fact was, Israel’s mindset concerning the treatment of servants needed serious renovation, or in the words of Romans 12:2, the people of Israel needed to be “transformed by the renewing of their minds.” Being delivered out of the bondage of our own particular background, each of us would do well to consider what areas of our life God knows we need to be “transformed by the renewing of our mind”, lest sinful behavior be the result of our old patterns of thinking.
What follows, in this section in the book of Exodus, are various laws that appear to be random, yet God was very calculatingly laying down each one, not only because they were essential examples the people of Israel needed in order to understand God’s holy character and values, but because they were essential for how God wanted to put His holiness on display to the watching world through this unique nation! Keep in mind, that though God will ultimately fulfill His promises to the nation of Israel during the Tribulation Period, right now, according to 1st Peter 2:9, we (the born-again body of believers, the church) are that “holy nation” through which God wants to put His glory on display to a watching world through our holiness!
Notice also, in this section, that God begins to reveal the fact that He has a special place in His heart for “the fatherless and widows”, as well as for “the poor”. In 22:22–24, He mentions the “affliction” of the fatherless and widows and takes up the cause of the poor in 22:25. God continuously reveals His heart for these three groups of people throughout the Old Testament and continues His revelation even on into the New Testament. He tells us in James 1:27, that “pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their AFFLICTION”, and in Galatians 2:10, He tells us that as believers in Christ, we are to “REMEMBER the poor”.
In 23:20–23, we are introduced to “the Angel of the Lord”. He is none other than a pre-incarnate appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Galatians 4:14) Note in verses 20 and 21 of chapter 23 that this “Angel”…
- Is “before [us]”, just as our Lord Jesus Christ went “before us” as the “Author of our faith”, or the “race” we’ve been called to run. (23:20a c.f. Hebrews 12:1-2)
- Is the One who will “keep [us] in the way”. (23:20b c.f. Hebrews13:5–6)
- Is the One who will “bring [us] into the place which [He has] prepared”. (23:20c c.f. John 14:1–3)
- Is the One of whom we must “beware”. (23:21a c.f. Galatians 6:7a)
- Is the One whose “voice” we must “obey”. (23:21b c.f. John 14:15)
- Is the One we must not “provoke”. (23:21c c.f. 1st Corinthians 10:1–11)
- Is the One who is an “enemy unto [our] enemies, and an adversary unto [our] adversaries”. (23:21d) Note in Ephesians 6:10–18, that in our battle with Satan and his network of demonic forces, we have not been called to “fight” but to “stand”! Jesus has already fought our enemies/adversary and won!
The three “feasts” mentioned in 23:14–17 held at three different times in the year (23:14) obviously fulfilled an HISTORIC purpose, and yet, they also fulfill a PROPHETIC purpose:
- The “feast of unleavened bread” (23:15) is the passover feast held in the spring and is representative of the grace and forgiveness found in the offering of Christ as the true Passover Lamb. (1st Corinthians 5:7)
- The “feast of harvest” (23:16a), also known as “the feast of firstfruits” (23:16b), or “the feast of weeks” (Deuteronomy 16:16), represents Christ’s resurrection and the subsequent coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, 50 days after passover. (Note: the word “pentecost” means “fiftieth day”, and was held the day AFTER seven weeks, or the day AFTER 49 days had passed from passover.)
- The “feast of ingathering” (23:16b), also known as the “feast of tabernacles” (Deuteronomy 16:16), pictures the crowning of our glorious King, the Lord Jesus Christ, at His Second Coming when He will “tabernacle” (“dwell” – John 1:14) on this planet with His “gathered” saints for a period of 1000 years.
What an incredible response the people have after hearing “the words of the Lord” in 24:3. With complete unity (“one voice”) they declare to Moses with their mouth, “All the words which the Lord hath said will we do”! (24:3) Moses then wrote the words the Lord had spoken to him while on the mountain and read them to the children of Israel, and once again, the people declare with their mouths, “All that the Lord hath said will we do and be obedient.” Wow! That is the simple essence of the Christian life! Oh, that that were not only the declaration from the mouth of every believer in Christ but that it were the determination in each of our hearts! It is easy to BELIEVE every word of the Bible, and it is easy to SAY we will OBEY every word of the Bible, but it is quite another thing to actually DO it! That’s exactly the case with the children of Israel here in Exodus 24. Just 40 days after making this incredible declaration, Exodus 32:1 says, “And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.” As the old saying goes, “Talk is cheap.”
One of the most simple, yet profound (and blessed!) verses in this entire section is found in chapter 24 and verse 12. God is inviting Moses to come up to Mount Sinai to receive the infamous “tables of stone”. It is obviously a very significant piece of the entire puzzle concerning God’s dealing with man. The wording of verse 12, however, not only screams out the heart of the passage, but the very heart of God! Notice that God DOES NOT say to Moses, “Come up into the mount, and I will give thee tables of stone.” What God says to Moses is, “Come up TO ME into the mount, and BE THERE: and I will give thee tables of stone”! God lets Moses know that even more than giving him the incredibly significant tables of stone, what was important to His heart was that Moses come into His PRESENCE, just to BE WITH HIM! So often we relegate the Christian life to “DOING”. God wants us to know that, though there are certainly many, many important things that we need to DO, what is vitally important to His heart is that we simply desire to BE with Him, like He desires to BE with us!
As we continue to make our journey through the word of God, remember that what is in God’s heart is not simply that we DO our assigned daily readings, but that every day we come up into His PRESENCE through the pages of His glorious book, to BE WITH HIM!
CHRIST IS REVEALED:
Through MOSES who delivers God’s commands, consummates a blood sacrifice, and communes with God for 40 days – Exodus 24:2, 3, 8, 18 (Hebrews 10:12; Mark 1:13)