The Magnificent Meal
Exodus • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 40 viewsJesus Christ sprinkles us with his blood, cleansing us from sin, and welcoming us into the magnificent meal with God.
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
1 Then he said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. 2 Moses alone shall come near to the Lord, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.” 3 Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.” 4 And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. 6 And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. 7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” 8 And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” 9 Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, 10 and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. 11 And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.
1 Then he said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. 2 Moses alone shall come near to the Lord, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.” 3 Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.” 4 And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. 6 And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. 7 Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” 8 And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” 9 Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, 10 and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. 11 And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank. 12 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.”
I am one week into a nutrition challenge at my gym. Now when Pastor Ray invited me to come down and preach during Mardi Gras, I didn’t know that I’d be participating in this nutrition challenge. How many of you know that it’s hard to be watching your caloric intake in New Orleans during Mardi Gras? In fact, it’s hard to be watching your caloric intake and be in New Orleans at any time during the year!
We love to feast! If we don’t eat on a given day there’s a reason for it. We may be on some kind of voluntary fast. Or, there are many places where, for whatever reason, food is scarce. Still further, if people don’t eat it may be due to their not having enough money to buy an adequate amount of food. It never ceases to amaze me how replete the Bible is with food and eating from beginning to end! Food is a gift from God, and eating is not only for nourishment, it’s for our delight.
It’s often the case that when God wants us to get excited about his promises, food is regularly included. The prophet Isaiah looks forward to a time when all the nations will glorify God because he has delivered them, and they will joyfully worship their King, the Messiah. The picture he paints in chapter 25:6 is of a great feast.
6 On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
Do you want to imagine what heaven is like? Isaiah says, “Don’t think about getting some wings and plucking a harp and being an angel. Think about the best banquet you could ever imagine; good food and fabulous wine, and you’ll be getting close!”
“On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.” Do you want to imagine what heaven is like? Isaiah says, “Don’t think about getting some wings and plucking a harp and being an angel. Think about the best banquet you could ever imagine; good food and fabulous wine, and you’ll be getting close!”
Here in , our text ends with a magnificent meal on the mountain of God. This is no metaphorical meal. It’s a magnificent meal because it’s the people of God sitting down on the mountain of God eating a meal in his presence. The last words of v. 11 are, “They saw God and they ate and drank.”
I want to share these three things with you in the next few minutes, The Model (vv. 1-2), The Mission (vv. 3-8), and The Meal (vv. 9-11).
The Model
The Model
The first 18 chapters of the book of Exodus are primarily about deliverance. God saves the people of Israel. He frees them from slavery and oppression in Egypt just like he promised. Chapters 19-24 are primarily about the Law. The Lord doesn’t just free his people from slavery and say, “Now that you’re free, go do whatever you want, live however you want to live.” No. He is a missional God. They have been set apart by him, for him, to be a light for the nations around them. So he gives them his law to say, “This is how you live as a congregation of people who belong to me.” Then chapters 25-40 are all about worship. They’re given instructions for the building of the tabernacle. The tabernacle would be set up in the midst of the nation, and the Lord would dwell in the midst of his people. Exodus ends with the glory of the Lord filling the tabernacle.
Well, transitions us into that final section of the book, in part, because Mt. Sinai serves as the model for the tabernacle. Moses is on the Mountain, and the Lord gives him instructions in vv. 1-2. To Moses he says, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. You all are to worship from afar. Moses by himself shall come near to the Lord, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.” There is a three-part division to the mountain that serves as the pattern for the tabernacle and later for Israel’s temple.
Moses gets to go the furthest up the mountain and get closest to the Lord. Aaron and his sons, who will become priests, are allowed to come up, but not as far up as Moses. They and the seventy elders are allowed to come part of the way up. The rest of the people are not allowed up the mountain at all. Starting from the bottom of the mountain, fewer and fewer people are given access the closer you get to the top. There is a three-part division to the mountain that serves as the pattern for the tabernacle and later for Israel’s temple. The top of the mountain was the model for the tent of meeting, with the very top representing the most holy place. Only the high priest had access there. So, Moses is the only one who allowed that far up the mountain.
This mountain model emphasizes God’s holiness. It emphasizes the fact that he dwells in inapproachable light. It emphasizes that you only get to come to him on his terms. This covenant that we’re talking about is not on Israel’s terms. All the way up to this point in the book they have been passive participants. What do I mean? They didn’t play any part in their deliverance. They didn’t do anything to save themselves. God did it all. Therefore, they don’t get to set the conditions for the relationship.
It’s always been that way. You and I don’t get to set any of the conditions for a relationship with God. Israel had nothing to bring to the table. There wasn’t any competition when it came to their salvation. There was only God. There was only his love, and his power, and his mercy. And it’s just like that with Jesus Christ. We don’t bring anything to the table. There’s only his love, and his power, and his mercy, and his grace. Therefore, he gets to set the conditions for the relationship.
The Mission
The Mission
The people realize that they are recipients of God’s grace; that he sets the conditions for their relationship. So, in this text they get a grasp of the mission. In v. 3 Moses comes and tells the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules. And what do the people do? They respond, it says, with one voice and they said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.” They say it again down in v. 7, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” They’re saying, “We’re on board with your law.”
So the mission is, “Israel, you are to be my witnesses to the peoples around you in the way you live out your love for me and for one another.” They say, “Yes. That’s what we want to do. We’re in agreement with all of it.” When it says, in v. 3, that Moses told the people all the words of the Lord. That is a reference to the Ten Commandments in 20:1-17.
What we need to realize is that those laws would cause Israel to stand out from her neighbors. It was a different way of doing things. Even those laws we might not agree with was an application of loving their neighbors, particularly those who were the marginalized among them, that stood in stark difference to what people usually did. The marginalized, people who were without resources, who were poor, were treated as though they were deserving of no dignity at all. These laws included God’s mission to elevate the dignity of all people in Israel’s eyes.
The people agree, and in v. 4 Moses writes down all the words of the Lord. He rises up early in the morning and builds and altar at the foot of the mountain with 12 pillars representing the 12 tribes of Israel. Then burnt offerings and peace offerings were made to the Lord. Burnt offerings were made for devotion and commitment to God. Peace offerings celebrated fellowship with God. So half of the blood was put in basins in v. 6 for sin atonement. The half of the blood from the peace offerings was sprinkled on the people in v. 8. It was all about fellowship with God.
Sin had been atoned for, and there was peace with God. This is why, when Moses sprinkles the people he says, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” This is not a nice little dainty scene. Get the image in your mind as if you were standing there at the foot of the mountain. There are basins full of ox blood. How many oxen were sacrificed? I don’t know. But it wasn’t a little bit. It was enough to make sure that everybody got sprinkled. What was it like to have ox blood thrown on you? For Israel it was joyful. They got it, at least at this moment, that because of what the Lord had done, they had peace with him and fellowship with him.
The Meal
The Meal
They came to God only by the blood. They had peace with God only by the blood. In the NT book of Hebrews, the writer looks back on this event saying,
19 For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20 saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.”
HEB9
He tells them this so that they will realize that without the shedding of blood, without that bloody mess, there is no forgiveness of sins. There is no fellowship with God or peace with God if there is no shedding of blood. So, he says,
13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
We heard the writer to the Hebrews look back on this event reminding them that when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” He tells them this so that they will realize that without the shedding of blood, without that bloody mess, there is no forgiveness of sins. There is no fellowship with God or peace with God if there is no shedding of blood. So, he says, “if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” In other words, you’ve always had to come by the blood. There’s no way to God except by the blood of his sacrifice. You’d better want to be sprinkled by the blood of Christ. In fact, that’s the only way to get to the banquet God keeps talking about.
In other words, you’ve always had to come by the blood. There’s no way to God except by the blood of his sacrifice. You’d better want to be sprinkled by the blood of Christ. In fact, that’s the only way to get to the banquet God keeps talking about. Coming by the blood is the only way to get to eat the magnificent meal. Look at the end of our passage. Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders went up. And it says they saw the God of Israel. The sight was something that was hard to describe. Words were hardly adequate. The best they could do was to say that under his feet was something like a pavement of sapphire stone as clear as the blue sky. They don’t even see God in all his fullness. Moses can only describe it as seeing his feet and the pavement below. And even that vision is almost too much for words. In response to this sight they get to eat a covenant confirming meal. This meal is magnificent because of what it says in v. 11. He, that is God, did not lay his hand on the chief men of Israel. They beheld God and ate and drank. How do they get to eat and drink on the mountain of God in the presence of God without God laying his hand on them? That “laying his hand on them” is not meant in the sense of a blessing. It’s meant in the sense that the Lord did not raise his hand to strike them dead. The only reason they get to enjoy this magnificent meal is because they are sprinkled with the blood.
“if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” In other words, you’ve always had to come by the blood. There’s no way to God except by the blood of his sacrifice. You’d better want to be sprinkled by the blood of Christ. In fact, that’s the only way to get to the banquet God keeps talking about.
I want us to grasp what it means to be a Christian. The Church celebrates a magnificent meal every week? We eat and drink in the presence of God without fear of him raising his hand against us because Jesus takes the cup and he says, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” This meal we eat is even more magnificent than the meal they ate on Mount Sinai. The meal is more magnificent because the covenant is better. The meal is more magnificent because Jesus’ blood speaks a better word than the blood of bulls and goats and oxen. The meal is more magnificent because Jesus has a better ministry than Moses. It’s enacted on better promises.
We don’t have to have literal blood sprinkled on us because Jesus didn’t take his blood into an earthly tabernacle and put it on an earthly altar; which was only a copy. He took his blood into the real deal heavenly holy of holies once and for all. Therefore, if you’ve come by his blood you have peace with God. The Lord says, come let me quench your thirst and satisfy your hunger.