Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20091011.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Exodus: God's Forming The Nation Israel For His Abrahamic Covenant
Part II: God's Training Israel To Heed Him, Exodus 15:22-40:38
E. God's Training Of His People On How He Communicates To Them
(Exodus 19:1-25)
    Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

    The recession has produced great human uncertainty about the financial future, and with it a strain on being sure of the truthfulness of what messengers teach us from God's Word regarding His provisions:

    (1) There is much deep-seated uncertainty about the financial future: Paul Sullivan's New York Times article, "Too Rich To Worry? Not in This Downturn" on the October 6, 2009 finance.yahoo.com web site reported that the richest American families "are not sleeping any better than the rest of America." Uncertainty about future government manipulation of the financial markets and a commercial real estate bust is keeping them from investing their money, Ibid. This is not good for the rest of us, writes Sullivan, for the very rich finance new companies that create jobs and spread their wealth through the economy, Ibid.

    (2) This uncertainty is filtering on down to our level, leading to doubt about the truthfulness of God's Scripture promises that His servants teach us regarding His meeting our financial needs.

    (a) This was illustrated in our Prayer Meeting on September 30th. After I had taught out of Luke 12:22-34 that if we seek the kingdom of God, He will meet our material needs, an attender who had not been employed for months objected to the instruction, saying, "This all sounds very comforting, but it's just not true!"

    In the discussion that followed, the issue of the truthfulness of the Bible itself and thus of what had been taught came to the fore!

    (b) Such uncertainty affects even Christians relative to the issue of investing. I have long taught that Ecclesiastes 11:1-6 holds that we must invest (1) boldly, (2) long-term, (3) into a fully diversified portfolio, and (4) instead of trying to time or forecast the market, to keep systematically adding to our investments.

    Yet, the pressure is on to disbelieve all of this! Simon Maierhofer's article, "Allow Me to Introduce: The Biggest Sucker Rally Since The Great Depression [etfguide on finance.yahoo.com, October 7, 2009] argues that multiple signals show the current market is mimicking the market's moves in the Great Depression, and that its signals all point to a coming market plunge that will last for decades! Opposite regularly investing, then, he calls us to get out of the market!

    Thus, we may ask, "In our financially difficult era, HOW can we be SURE that God's PROMISES in Scripture regarding His meeting our NEEDS as TAUGHT to us is REALLY TRUE?!"

    Need: "In this hard recession, we need to be sure God's promises to meet our needs as communicated to us is true, so how is it possible?"

  1. In Exodus 19:1-25, God was preparing to COMMUNICATE to Moses and THROUGH HIM to ISRAEL the Ten Commandments, His important moral code that would vastly impact world history.
  2. In doing so, God PUBLICLY, EXPERIENTIALLY, POWERFULLY CLARIFIED He would GIVE His Ten Commandments TO ISRAEL THROUGH His MESSENGER, MOSES (as follows):
    1. God produced extensive public signals on Mount Sinai to gain Israel's full attention and respect before giving His Ten Commandments to Moses so that he in turn might give it to her, Exodus 19:1-8, 10-25:
      1. To prepare for the giving of the Law, God had Moses gain Israel's pledge to heed His code for blessing in line with a suzerainty treaty format of their era, Ex. 19:1-8; Ibid., Bible Know. Com., O. T., p. 137. [Such a treaty was made between a great king (God) and his vassals (Israel) where the vassals would heed the king for his benefits, Ryrie Study Bible, KJV , 1978 ed., ftn. to Exodus 19:3.]
      2. In gaining Israel's pledge, and before giving the treaty stipulations in the Ten Commandments, God publicly, experientially clarified to all that He would give his code through Moses, Ex. 19:10-25:
        1. God told Moses to have Israel ready herself in a three-day ritual to receive His Word by washing her clothes (Ex. 19:10-11), by setting bounds against touching Mount Sinai lest the people die (Ex. 19:12) and by avoiding marital intimacy (Ex. 19:15b) to show the importance of the message that was about to be given.
        2. On the third day, when Moses brought Israel out of her camp to the foot of Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:17), she saw the mountain covered in a thick cloud with smoke ascending up as in a huge furnace, and the great granite mountain constantly shake as if it were experiencing a continual, colossal earthquake, Ex. 19:18.
        3. Then the Lord sounded a trumpet that blew long and became louder and louder until it was deafening, Exodus 19:19a!
        4. When Moses then spoke to God before Israel, He answered him before all, revealing Moses was speaking with Him, Ex. 19:19b!
        5. God then descended upon the Mount and, in the sight of all Israel, called Moses up to Mount Sinai to meet Him, Ex. 19:20.
        6. The Lord directed Moses to return and warn the people not to get close to Mount Sinai lest they gaze at His glory and die, Ex. 19:21. Even the priests were to heed this call, Exodus 19:22!
        7. Moses replied that he had already told Israel her need to avoid touching the Mount (Ex. 19:23), but God charged him again to repeat that command in an effort to show the chasm between a holy God and Israel, and that Moses was specially called by God to meet Him and share His words with Israel, Exodus 19:24-25.
    2. The REASON for such public, experientially, powerfully clarified signals were that God wanted (1) Moses and (2) Israel to be SURE He was giving the Ten Commandments to Moses to give to Israel as GOD'S TRUE code that HE required them to obey (3) SO THE COMMUNICATION EFFORT MIGHT EFFECTIVELY OCCUR:
      1. First, God used his public, experiential, powerful signals for Moses to see God was making Israel aware he was His messenger to her, that she was thus obligated to obey Moses' message as God's truth, Ex. 19:9. This would settle what fear Moses had over the Exodus 17:1-4 incident where he feared for his life when the people doubted his integrity, giving Moses confidence to communicate God's FULL MESSAGE UNTO ISRAEL!
      2. Second, God wanted Israel to realize that Moses WAS His TRUE messenger, and the great signals of His interaction with him would convey this so Israel might always trust Moses' words, Ex. 19:9.
      3. Third, Exodus 20:18-20 reveals God used his great signals at Mount Sinai to cause Israel to respect the Lord so she would avoid sinning against His code since it was true and authoritative!
Application: To be SURE in our financially unsettling era what REALLY IS God's TRUE message to us, (1) may we become part of His flock by trusting in Christ as Savior, John 1:11-12. (2) Then, (a) WHEN God publicly, experientially, powerfully reveals what IS His TRUE, AUTHORITATIVE message to us in Scripture, and that by His Biblical messenger(s), (b) may we HEED it! (3) If we are God's messenger, may we view His public, experiential efforts to validate our words to others as His signal for us confidently to GIVE ALL of His Word, and so may we GIVE it ALL as God wills!

Lesson: To COMMUNICATE His KEY Ten Commandments to Israel that she HEED it as GOD'S AUTHORITATIVE, TRUE WORD, the Lord PUBLICLY, EXPERIENTIALLY, POWERFULLY CLARIFIED to ALL that HE would GIVE that code TO ISRAEL THROUGH MOSES !

Conclusion: (To illustrate the sermon message . . .)

 In our sermon introduction, we testified how a financially oppressed party at our September 30th, 2009 Prayer Meeting Service had charged my message out of the Luke 12:22-34 passage was just not true! I had taught that Jesus' words there on seeking first the kingdom of God would lead to His providing all of our material needs, a claim that seemed to be false to the financially oppressed!

Well, since then, the Lord HIMSELF powerfully worked as He did in Moses's case to VALIDATE His Word and our lesson! After the next Sunday Evening Service, October 4, 2009, the party who had made the doubting remark the previous Prayer Meeting spoke with me. This believer claimed the day after making the remark, on October 1st, they got a good paying job! The believer admitted the timing of this provision was embarrassing, that God had supplied it as a gracious rebuke of the remark that had been made the previous night!

I admitted to this believer that I had been guilty of the same kind of doubt myself, that at times God's "correction" is to shower us with His grace, leading us to feel embarrassed and wish we had not distrusted Him! He thus motivates us not to doubt Him again!

Well, BECAUSE this matter was played out publicly in our September 30th Wednesday Prayer Meeting Service, and because today's message deals with God's extensive, PUBLIC works to certify the ministry of His messenger, we have these other lessons from God:

(1) First, like Moses, God wants me to know that I TRULY need not fear to give His Word from this pulpit! He backed up the lesson I had taught from Luke 12:22-34 the very next day, so He plans to keep doing so with all the messages from Him that I give to you!

(2) Second, God wants you to know that He is using me as His true messenger to you like He used Moses to teach His truth to Israel.

(3) Finally, since the September 30th lesson involved God's provisions, (a) HE wants US ALL to know that HE TRULY PLANS to meet all of our material needs IF we make our priority in our lives our God-assigned role of advancing His kingdom interests!

(b) By way of application, then, what we have taught out of Ecclesiastes 11:1-6 on investing long-term [as briefly explained in our sermon introduction] is to be heeded as God's message as well!

May we then heed His Word and believe His messenger.