Exodus 19 • Mount Immanuel

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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)

Wow, God is good all the time. You can do better. God is good all the time. Amen. Let's look at His goodness. Exodus 19. Exodus 19. As we recognize how good He is by how gracious His provision. At a time when our nation, a large portion, is struggling with a hurricane, it adds new meaning to a children's song. The rain came down and the floods came up.



 In Exodus 19, it's not about the rain, it's about who comes down and who goes up. Let's read it together where you stand as we honor God's Word. Exodus 19. Exodus 19. We'll read just portions as we get the scope of the hole. Verse 2, "They set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai, and they encamped in the wilderness. There Israel encamped before the mountain while Moses went up to God. The Lord called to Him out of the mountain, saying, "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel, you yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine. And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel." On to verse 9, "The Lord said to Moses, "Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud that the people may hear when I speak with you and may also believe you forever." When Moses told the words of the people to the Lord, the Lord said to Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people." On to verse 16, "On the morning of the third day, there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of the kiln and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him in thunder. The Lord came down on Mount Sinai to the top of the mountain, and the Lord called to Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up." Verse 23, "And Moses said to the Lord, "The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for you yourself warned of saying, "Set limits around the mountain and consecrate it." And the Lord said to him,



 "Go down and come up, bringing Aaron with you, but do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the Lord, lest he break out against them." So Moses went down to the people and told them." Let's pray together. "Heavenly Father, you who sent Jesus down to be Emmanuel, God with us, portrayed your holiness in a mount so long ago, so that we who could not come up to you would trust the one that came down to us. Teach us your will, your ways, and your salvation, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen." Please be seated. The water is so pure it will kill you. The water that is used for the washing of microchips and their production in the Oregon laboratory of Intel, the water is so pure that if you were to drink it, it would draw essential minerals out of your body, and you would die. It is lethal purity. And it is not just the water. The air in the production plant is the cleanest you would ever breathe. Class 10 purity, meaning that in a cubic foot of air, there can be no more than 10 particles of matter more than a micron. In the normal cubic foot of air, there are 3 million micron particles, meaning that the air of the laboratory is 300,000 times more pure than what you and I regularly breathe, which is great for your allergies, except for the fact that life as we know it cannot exist in air that is that pure. There can be no cosmetic, no perfume, no skin exposed that might slough off, no paper used that the cells might fall off. A cough would be a crisis, a sneeze, a disaster. And so, more than a football field in length is the cleaning station that you must enter before you go into the laboratory. You begin with a storm blast of super pure air that's supposed to take all pollen and lint and lashes off of your body before you put on the spacesuit that will keep you from even breathing on the microchips. Let's be clear, the goal is to not protect you from the microchips. The goal is to protect the microchips from you.



 And you might think something similar is happening in this passage on the extreme holiness of God, as His purity is being described to His people in such a way they can hardly stand it. It's a process of cleansing them that they cannot miss in what is expressing. The camp is close enough to the mountain that the people can hear God speak, but they cannot even come close or even touch the mountain. Listen to me says God, but don't you dare get close enough to touch me. Do not even allow your beast to come on the mountain. Take three days to clean up so that you'll be ready even to come close enough to hear me. You would think it's all about protecting God's holiness from our impurity. It's actually the reverse, the holy pure God whose purity is lethal,



 is trying to protect us from Himself. He actually says that, verse 23, "Moses said to the Lord that people cannot come up to Mount Sinai for you yourself warned us saying set limits around the mountain and consecrated and the Lord said go down and come up bringing Aaron with you, but do not let the priests and the people break through to come up against the Lord, lest He break out against them. If you come close enough to touch me, my purity will kill you." Holiness is on display. Why? And Vosskamp writes, "Until you know what's coming at you,



 you cannot understand who is coming for you. What God is saying here is understand my holiness, not just so that you will have regard for me, but so that you will understand what you must be rescued from by the one I will send for you." What is God telling us about Himself in this passage? Surely, just this simple holiness requires holiness. It's an old message, but God is making it clear to us. What is holiness? It's an old Hebrew term that means to be cut off separate from everything else. And the separation is made clear to the people, even in the opening verses, verse 2, "They set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai, and they encamped in the wilderness." They are cut off from places of civilization. They are cut off from Egypt, cut off from wealth and wisdom of the world. They are in this isolated place as though we are being separated apart to understand the holiness of God which is itself separate from the world. We learn the lesson over and over again. How do I understand God? Why did I feel close? Why does He seem removed from me? And sometimes the question is, have we actually set ourselves apart to understand a holy God? We gather here on a picnic Sunday, but we gather regularly on a Sunday. Why? Not because we're getting brownie points with God, not because we're earning His favor, because we're actually trying to understand a holy God. And there is this measure of stepping apart from daily activities, regular occupations and recreations, so that we will have this opportunity to understand a God who is Himself apart. And in that separation, we're understanding more about God. We do it as families. So that in our houses, we sometimes perceive them not just like the rest of the world, but sanctuaries where our families begin to understand their God. We more and more, I so admire young couples who are taking control of the media. And they're saying, "We're not just going to accept what's on the networks. We're not just going to accept what's on the web." But we begin to discern what our children will see and provide what we want them to see. We'll pause the server at meals so that it's just a time of sanctuary oasis in our family. Why? Because we just need a little time apart from the world that's pressing in all the time, that's calling for our attention, distracting us, occupying us, polluting us. We just need some time apart so we can perceive the God who is truly holy and apart Himself. And not only is He telling us in His holiness that He is separate, but He is elevated as well. Verse 3 happens so fast, "While Moses went up to God, the Lord cowed out to Him out of the mountain." Here is this notion not just of separation, but elevation. Why is God elevated? It's not as though we understand that God is up there in the sky somewhere. No, God is omnipresent. All of Him is always in every place. And yet here is God bending to the weakness of His people so that they will understand He's above the things of the world. It's an object lesson for their own understanding at this point. We'll see it even more clearly in the ministry of Isaiah the prophet. As he goes into the temple one day and in a vision the ceiling opens and he sees the Lord seated upon His throne and the prophet says, "High and lifted up as though earth's taint cannot touch Him." He is unpolluted by the sin of this world, by the corruptions of our lives. He is holy other, high and lifted up. And the angels recognizing that holiness of God circle Him and sing, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. He is separated from the world. He is high and lifted up." And the consequence of separation and elevation is absolute purity.



 God says to Moses, "Set limits around the mountain so that the people don't get close enough to touch the mountain where I myself are and keep them from breaking through so that they don't look at me." Because the ancient Hebrews understood God's purity was so intense you could not look at Him and live. It's what Daniel the prophet would explain as he envisioned would see the ancient of days seated on His throne clothed in absolute white, His hair and His beard white. But more than that, so intense is the purity of God. The radiance breaks out in fire and the throne itself is a throne of fire and the throne on wheels of flame. As though God is saying, "Not only is my holiness beyond you, it can go everywhere it needs." This is pervasive purity and it is so intense that even the angels that circle God, you remember, have to cover their eyes and cover their bodies with their wings so that they will not experience the intensive radiance of the fiery glory of God.



 And it is His holiness on display. It's glorious, but a huge challenge for His people.



 After all, what is the challenge of holiness? You cannot touch it. You cannot even look on the radiance of God in an unqualified way and live. And so God providing for His people whose imperfections would not allow them to come near His purity begins to show us His grace. What does He do? He provides safety glasses first. Verse 9, "What does God do in His holiness? He said to Moses, "Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud." It's like the glasses of the welder, right? Here's this provision that you cannot even see through to see who God is because there's this this filter, this safety goggles between the people and God. And He's not just providing safety glasses, but safe distance. In the ninth verse, they need to be close enough to hear me. Why? Because Exodus 19 is preparation for Exodus 20 in which we will get the Ten Commandments, one of the most important chapters in all the Bible. And God is saying, "You need to be close enough to hear my instruction, but far enough away that you are not killed by my holiness. So set limits, close enough to hear me, but safe distance so that my lethal purity does not touch you, nor do you come near me as well." Ultimately what God is saying so that we will understand His holiness is He is requiring us not just to wear safety glasses, not just to be a safe distance,



 but to be perfect mirrors of His own holiness because of who He is and what He requires of His people. Verses 5 and 6, "Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." God looks at His people and He says very simply, "I am holy, so you be holy." You want to be my people, my treasured possession, a kingdom of priests, every person among you with a sanctified, consecrated life before me. Then live as I call you to live, be consecrated and holy before me. He doesn't just say it in the Old Testament. He has Peter the Apostle repeat the same words in the New Testament. "You be holy, for I am holy."



 I hear the instruction. One little problem. Who can live it?



 "Lord, if You should mark iniquity," says the psalmist, who could stand? Who can endure this purity that when we hear, "If You keep my covenant, if You obey my commands, then You will be my treasured nation, a holy people unto God." Not a single one of us to say, "A piece of cake."



 Totally doable. Got it checked off. Instead, we recognize what God is calling His people to do, is recognize not only does holiness require holiness, holiness requires deep humility.



 "God, if that's what You require, if that's what I have to be, to relate to You, to be to be in union with a holy God, I must be holy." Oh, Lord, who can keep that standard? Who can do this? I can't. A single one of us should deny it. Even when Isaiah the prophet walked into the temple and saw that vision of God seated upon His throne, holy, holy, holy in His glory, the first words out of His mouth were, "Woe is me, I am ruined, for I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and I have seen the Lord." I'm not going to be able to stand this because not only is He holy, but His radiance of holiness illuminates who I am. I cannot perceive who He is without the recognition of who I am, and I am not that holy.



 It's a pattern that we should begin to recognize. Isaiah says, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips." When he has seen the holiness of God, his response, as he recognized the sinfulness of not only himself but others, is not "me too, I just am among a people of unclean lips," his actual first response is "me first. I am a man of unclean lips." It's really the mark of Christian maturity that when we hear about the holiness of God, when He studies His standards, as we will next week, our first response is not, "You know, they should listen.



 They should straighten up. They should do better." The first mark of Christian maturity is to say, "God, I am the greatest sinner I know. I'm a man of unclean lips." Does that mean I've done the worst sin possible? No. But it means with the knowledge that I have of the Lord, with the background that many of us in this church have, our sin is a greater betrayal of God than those who operate with disadvantaged backgrounds or less knowledge of God.



 For those of us who recognize, "I have seen the glory of God. I've had it witnessed. I've had long patterns in background of that." My sin is a greater betrayal of God than those who operate in ignorance or disadvantage. "Lord, when I see Your holiness, I can only say the first one who should be falling down in humility is me." It's not necessarily our pattern. And so God has an instruction to say to Moses, "You must tell the people they must be made clean before a holy God. Take three days to become pure, a three-day mark that will become prophetic for the future. It may take three days to clean you up. But what will you do in that time? Not only stay apart from God's holiness. Wash your clothes. Wash your bodies. Let what you do physically indicate what's supposed to be happening spiritually, that you recognize you have to be cleaned up. It's what the Hebrews would begin to celebrate for centuries to remind themselves of what they had to do for the holiness of God to be truly understood by them and acknowledged by them. For centuries now, when Israel would have built the temple on the holy mountain, Jerusalem, Mount Zion,



 what would happen is they would make pilgrimages to the temple. And as they are going to Mount Zion, where the sacrifices are being offered day after day, the smoke is filling the sky. But even the ancient secular sources would tell us because of the ivory and the gold in the temple of Solomon, you could see for 15 miles the sun reflected on the clouds as great lightning through the storm cloud of the smoke of the sacrifices. As though God is reminding the people over and over again of Mount Sinai where he had revealed his holiness. And as the people are going up Mount Zion in Jerusalem, what are they seeing? Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? But he who has clean hands and a pure heart, and even as they would sing it, they would recognize there is not a single one of us who qualifies. But we are ascending the Mount of the Lord, what shall we do? And so along the great temple steps of the southern wall, there are ritual baths where a Jew would wash clothes and wash body before entering the temple mount. As if to say, "I must confess to myself, to my family, to my peers, and to God himself,



 I have to be made clean. If God is so holy, I have to be made clean." And we never stop the pattern. When every person who becomes a Christian joins themselves to the body of Christ, there is a process of baptism where we're not somehow earning points with God. But we are again confessing to the world and family and ourselves and God. I have to be made clean. And I am made clean by what this water symbolizes. The blood of Jesus Christ shed for me. I do not stand on my merit, on my ability. God must make me clean. We even do it in our worship services, remind ourselves over and over again what it means to recognize the holiness of God and what it does to us. You may not recognize it, but every Sunday morning we start a service in the same way. We start by giving glory to God for His greatness and His holiness. We do it every Sunday morning, sometimes in songs, sometimes in scripture reading, sometimes in ways of just confessing to Him. We say, "Our God is great in His holiness and we adore Him." But there is a necessary second step in our worship. The worship of God begins with God. And then I look at me,



 if He is so glorious and if He is so holy, who can approach the hill of God? Who can stand? Who can be here? And so we confess by song or by scripture or prayer our need of the grace of God. It's the normal movement of the heart of God's people as we are saying, "If He is so great and He is so glorious, woe is me. I am ruined. I need the grace of God in my heart and life." And we need that cleansing revealed over and over again as these people did. God says, "You can be my people, a holy nation, holy unto me, as long as you keep my law and keep my commandments." What's the problem there? Who are these people? They've already struck out over and over again. They complain about God. They complain about His leaders. They threaten to stone those who do not meet their criteria. Over and over again, these people of God who have seen the holiness of God know nothing but whining and complaining and sarcasm and mockery and blaming others. And they're the ones that God is calling to be holy. I was at an event yesterday with Pastor Devereaux Hubbard and he and I just pastors were talking and he said at some point, "What are you preaching on?" I said, "Exodus." He said, "Oh, I did that years ago." He said, "Let me tell you what I called my sermons." He said, "The whole series I called The Complaints of the Congregation."



 And I thought to myself, "I'm nicer than you." No.



 But maybe not for good. Because what God is revealing to His people here is as His holiness is revealed, the spotlight, the radiance of the glory of the holiness of God is inevitably revealing who we are. The people who are so ready to point at others, the people who are so willing, they straighten up. Instead of saying, "First of all, Lord, forgive me, I blame others for their insensitivity without recognizing to myself. I call other people to courage. I call other people to service when I will not myself serve or stand." God, I'm so anxious to say what other people must do. But Christian maturity begins when we say, "I must be made clean." And to make sure that we will say it, God has these people as well as us focus on the one who redeems.



 The focus comes in words that we don't like so much. He reminds us, verse 4, "You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you up on the eagle's wings. I have redeemed you." And here you are complaining again and looking at other people again, more than yourselves.



 What has to happen? You have to look at me and remember who I am and focus on me. So verse 14, "Moses went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated the people, told them to set apart themselves for God's worship. And they washed their garments and He said to the people, "Be ready for the third day. Do not go near a woman." Here is this focus upon God so much that they are not only cleaning clothes, not only cleaning their bodies, but there is a time in which they are consecrating themselves even away from regular marital relations. Is that because that sex inside of marriage is evil or dirty or impure? No. The writer of the book of Hebrews says it so plainly, "The marriage bed is pure and undefiled before God." And Paul the Apostle says, "It is so important that we give ourselves in union to one another, that we should not deny one another in marriage, save for a brief time for the purpose of prayer and consecration." When God is saying to the people, "I want sexual abstinence for a time, even within marriage." He's not saying the sex is evil. This is a form of fasting. I don't want you giving yourself to another in this very focused time that I want you to be giving your full focus, your full attention to me. Because you have something to learn about your God that becomes absolutely necessary. It is that your God, when you begin to focus on Him and you see His holiness, you begin to recognize how much you now need His help, which if all you think about is what you're getting, you will not remember.



 And so God says to His people, "You must focus on the one who redeems," and that means you must learn not to put God on your string, as though He is the one to your beck and call. Verse 9, He says, "Listen to My word. Come close enough to the Holy God that you can hear what I'm saying."



 Because chapter 20 and the Ten Commandments are coming. But even as God is saying, "You need to come close enough that you can focus on My words," He says, "You must yield to My wisdom." Verse 21,



 "The Lord said to Moses, "Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to the Lord to look, and many of them perish." It's hard for us maybe to put ourselves back in the context. There's the lightning and the thunder and the fire and the smoke and you think they would just run. They do tremble. But apparently there are some people who are going, "Man, what a great laser show."



 This is like a circus sideshow or maybe some combination of a genie in the bottle and the Wizard of Oz. If we can just get through to Him, we can get what we want. It's the perception that is far more modern than we may think. God is just kind of hanging out there up above, being ready to bless people who are basically good when they get in trouble and need His help. And God is saying, "You must recognize I am holy other." And this is lethal.



 Purity. And you are not basically good before Me. And you must recognize how much you need My help. I am not on your leash. I am not here to perform for you. I am here to transform you. And you have to recognize who I really am before you get the message. There was a time that we used to, every summer, a camp in the Colorado Mountains. And one particular summer, the bears were coming down out of the mountains to eat food in the trash barrels behind the cafeteria. And the first time that that happened, I remember how so many of the families first ran to their cabins to get their cameras and then ran at the bears. You know, we had to block some and tackle some. You know, kind of like, "What are you doing? This is not a petting zoo. That's the real deal. They are bears."



 And they will not pose for you.



 And God is saying, "I am the real deal. I am the holy, holy, holy God. And I am not here to approve whatever you choose. I will not pose for you. I certainly will not pose for your selfies."



 I am here to transform you. And when God is making that clear, He is telling us what His holiness is supposed to be doing to our hearts. Not put God on a string, but ultimately yield to the reality of who He is. Matt Schneider of the Mockingbird website puts it this way, "One of the great problems of our culture is the pervading ethic, which says the most important thing anyone can do is just be myself. What's the problem with that?" He says, "You are not what God intended you to be. That is the problem." And yet, no matter where we look in our culture, the ethic of just be yourself is the highest ethic, whether it's the movie Frozen or The Greatest Showman or Prince of Egypt or A Wrinkle in Time or The Color Purple. Everybody is singing Frank Sinatra.



 "I just gotta be me."



 You cannot just be you and stand before God. And He is reminding you of that. That if we have truly seen the holiness of God, we ought to be apologizing to a spouse and to our children every day, "I am not what I'm supposed to be." And to a boss and to co-workers and neighbors, "I've seen the holiness of God. I have seen what He requires. I know what He requires.



 And that is not who I am." So easy to look at others, call them to straighten up, say that they ought to fly right, to identify those who are leaders. They're not doing what they ought to be doing. And yet God is saying, "Are you?" Because in light of His holiness there is not a single one who can stand. So holiness is not only requiring holiness, holiness is not only requiring humility.



 Ultimately, the holiness is requiring rescue. Who can stand? Who can be right before God? Who can rise to Him? It was way back in the fourth verse God explained. "You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself."



 It's not what you did. I'm the one who made you right. I'm the one who brought you near. I'm the one who brought you to this place. And I did it by lifting you up. I must tell you, the commentators have debated for generations, does this actually ever happen that an eagle bears one of its eaglets up in its own wings? And you can find commentaries that argue it one way or another. I didn't know until I actually saw it a couple of years ago. When those eaglets are falling out of the sky and you'll see a parent that comes down and swoops down and practically just for a second lifts the one back up. For it begins to fall and flutter again and then swoops and lifts up again. And you recognize that it's the parent that's providing the means for the child to soar.



 Now if I were a preacher worth my salt, I'd have Josh Groban playing in the background.



 "You raise me up so I can stand on mountains. You raise me up to walk on stormy seas.



 I am strong when I am on your shoulders." And now for Christians, the important line,



 "You lift me up to more than I can be."



 God, if you mark iniquity, who can stand? In the light of your holiness, how can I be a person of hope, a person of holiness? How can I stand at all? How can I find my way back to you? God says, "I lift you up." Not just on eagles' wings, but by providing that go between.



 God comes down, it said over and over again here, verse 3 and 4 and verse 20 most particularly, "The Lord came down on Mount Sinai." But it's not going to work because the people can't come to Him. And so what does God provide? He provides Moses. And what is Moses going to be doing? Moses is the one who can go up. And in verse 20 right at the end, just read it, Moses went to the top of the mountain and Moses went up to do what? God says to Moses, "Bring the people to Me." In verse 17 and verse 24, "But do it in such a way that they are protected from Me."



 Moses will do it all for a while until he himself will fail so miserably to be the mediator who can go up to God to bring people to him and protect people from him until Moses himself sins greatly. And then says to God's people and to us, there has to be a Moses greater than Moses. There has to be another. And it's God preparing the people who are about to hear His law to understand, "I must provide a mediator to. I must provide the one for you who will make you right with Me. You know My requirements. You know My holiness. And you cannot live before lethal purity. You need My help." It's Ann Voskamp echoing again, "If you don't take time to see what's coming at you, you will not understand who's coming for you." He came for us knowing we did not deserve it, knowing that God's purity would be lethal to every one of us. And therefore the one who could go up came down for us to lift us to God. Seared into the consciousness of two generations is that most repeated image of the Vietnam War, of a little girl running from a Vietnamese village that is in smoke and fire due to napalm behind her. And as she runs, clothes and skin have been burned from her. Her name, Kim Fong-Thai,



 raised in the religion of Kow-Dai, which teaches that all religions have the same origin, basically the same God. And she learned early in life from parents and grandparents the mantra, "You are God, and God is you." There's no separation. There's no elevation. But that view of God no different from herself did not explain. She said, "Why do I have to wear these scars? I craved relief that could not come. I was angry, bitter, alone as a person could be. I was atop a mountain of rage." And then one day inside Saigon's central library she found a Bible and read the claims of Jesus.



 He presented himself, she says, as one coming down from God to be the way, the truth, and the life. And he suffered in defense of that claim and to claim a people who were as broken as I. Why would he endure those things if he were not in fact God who had come down to lift us up?



 No other reason. He would come down, the mediator between God and man, for people who do not qualify but trust. He will lift me up. He came down to lift me up. Praise God that a holy God provided a holy Redeemer so that lethal purity would not touch us, but rather the hand of God would lift us up. Father, so work in us to understand that we who would confess our need are rescued, not because we have stood tall, not because we say to others we've qualified in some way for the holy God as though your holiness is lot like us.



 We confess the opposite. We have to be cleaned up. We have to be made right, but we also confess the reality that you did it through your Son. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you have lifted us up on eagle's wings, made us your own through the work of your Son,



 died for our sin, then went to be with you to lift us up as we trust in Him. We do so now in Jesus' name. Amen.