Come Up to the Lord

So I went to Woodstock High School in Woodstock, Illinois, graduated there a long time ago.

Anyway, and our assistant principal at the school was a man by the name of Mr. Devon.

Mr. Devon was not a tall man, not tall like some, not a huge muscular type guy.

But you might not know this about

me, but I got called to the assistant principal's office a few times.

Once in a while, not very often, not more than a couple times a week.

But anyway, I got called to the assistant principal's office,

and there were various reasons for being called to assistant principal's office.

You know what those are. There's sometimes you have this fear about going to

the assistant principal's office, but there was one time that I was called to

the principal's office.

Mr. Maxwell was our principal. Mr. Maxwell was a big guy. He was in our church in Woodstock.

He was a big guy with a big voice.

And Mr. Maxwell called for me to come to the office.

Hmm. What do you think my thoughts were? Well, it happened to be that when he called me,

into his office, he knew our family, and he called me and had me sit down,

and it was the The week before our state cross-country meet that we were going

to, he called me down. It was on a Thursday.

He called me down to the office, and he said, I need to let you know that your

grandfather passed away.

And your mom and dad are picking up your brother and sister,

and they're heading up to Minnesota for that funeral.

And you are to stay home, go to the cross-country meet on Saturday in Peoria,

Illinois. And then your brother or sisters and their husbands will come pick

you up and take you up to Minnesota.

So that was the reason for that call. It wasn't like the ones to Mr.

Devon. But, you know, you always have this kind of thought when somebody calls

you to come stand close to them.

You have these little thoughts in your minds that kind of go on.

What did my brother do now?

Isn't that what we do? We think of that, right?

Well, if someone asks you to come close to him, would you do it?

It all depends probably on the knowledge, your knowledge of that person and

your interpretation of the reason for his request.

If that person were a complete stranger, you probably wouldn't get very close.

We tell our kids if somebody comes by in a car and says, let me take you to

your parents, you're to stay away from them, right?

So if some stranger comes up and asks you to come close to them,

you might even move in the opposite direction. you probably should move in the opposite direction.

If he were somebody you were acquainted with, you'd probably still be a little

hesitant, especially if they called you to get up.

To them. Even if someone you were had an intimate relationship made that request,

you might be a little bit reluctant unless you were somehow convinced of that

person's good intentions.

After all, the closer you get to someone, the more damage they can do to you.

He can't punch you from 10 feet away, but if they get right up close to you,

they could certainly do something thing to you, right?

We're going to read Exodus chapter 24, verses 1 through 18 in the Old Testament.

Exodus 24 · chapter mention

Then the Lord said to Moses, Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron,

Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel.

You are to worship at a distance, but Moses alone is to approach the Lord.

The others must not come near, and the people may not come up with him.

When Moses went and told the people all the Lord's words and laws,

they responded with one voice, everything the Lord has said we will do.

Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said.

He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain

and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel.

Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed

young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord.

Moses took took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he

splashed against the altar.

Then he took the book of the covenant and read it to the people.

They responded, We will do everything the Lord has said, we will obey.

Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said,

This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel.

Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli,

as bright blue as the sky.

But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites.

They saw God, and they ate and drank.

The Lord said to Moses, Come up to me on the mountain and stay here,

and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commandments I have

written for their instruction.

Then Moses set out with Joshua his aid, and Moses went up on the mountain of God.

He said to the elders, Wait here for us until we come back to you.

Aaron and Hur are with you, and anyone involved in a dispute can go to them.

When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the

Lord settled on Mount Sinai.

For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord

called to Moses from within the cloud.

To the Israelites, the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain.

Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain, and he stayed on

the mountain forty days and forty nights.

So in Exodus chapter 24, the Lord says, come up to me. If you were Moses, would you have done it?

Exodus 24 · chapter mention

If you probably would have, then it all would have depended on whether or not

you thought you were on pretty good terms with the Lord or not.

I mean, if the Lord bellowed out of a cloud, come up here, Tim,

or Andy, or Mike, or whatever, might be a little bit, yeah, you might be a little bit afraid.

It probably would depend on if you felt like you were hiding something.

If you would always depend on whether you believed that the Lord's intentions

were good or you had acted up in business class or math class or whatever it might be,

Moses believed that the Lord's intentions were good, not evil,

so he marched right up that mountain, didn't even hesitate.

The Lord does not intend to destroy us, but to have a relationship with us.

In Exodus chapter 20, verses 22 through chapter 23, 33, the stipulations of

Exodus 20:22

the covenant relationship between the Lord and the Israelite people are spelled

out. God expected obedience.

He expected the Israelites to do what he told them to do. Remember,

he had told them, I will bless you and make you a blessing to all nations.

But part of that comes with us being obedient to him.

Exodus chapter 24 records the consummation of this fellowship.

Exodus 24 · chapter mention

Two groups and one individual were involved.

The people, the leaders, and Moses. In Bible study, one of the first things

you do when you're studying a passage of Scripture.

Is you read that Scripture, and then you want to list who are the people involved,

who are the people mentioned, and who are the people that are involved.

And then you ask, who are the players in this situation? situation,

the Lord speaking to Moses instructs Moses, Aaron, Nader, and Abihu and the

70 elders to come up to the mountain to him.

As I said last week, you know, when you get this sense to come up to the mountain,

and we talked about the consuming fire that was on the mountain,

the smoke that was on the mountain, Mount Sinai, and this apprehension to go.

And when God said to the the people come up to the mountain, there's some concerns.

The 70 elders that were listed there represent the people.

Seventy is a number that stands for the entire nation.

And all of those were told to worship at a distance.

They were told that only Moses alone was to proceed further up to the mountain.

The people were not to come up. The people remained somewhat at a distance from the Lord.

The leaders got a little closer to the Lord, and Moses still came near to the Lord.

If you look in the Scriptures and follow what is long,

when they came to Mount Sinai in the wilderness, wilderness

they were to set up barricades stone pillars

that were in front of the people and the people themselves

were not to go any farther than these stone these stone blocks that were kind

of like like you'd have in a median where you have a a stone thing although

i didn't have cement at that time but anyway they were to set these up and the

people the the general israelites the two million plus.

We're not to go farther than those barriers to go toward the mountain.

So who are the players in this story?

First of all, we have God, and then we have Moses, we have the leaders,

and then we have the people.

We have God, we have Moses, we have the elders, and the people.

And so these were the ones that were represented in the story.

The text will account each individual and group's encounter with the Lord.

The specter of death seemed to loom over each encounter.

God is holy, man is not.

And so there's a certain amount of fear that comes in us, a healthy fear that comes to us.

It's a pretty fearful place for man to be in the presence of God when you think

that God is holy, completely holy, all good, all righteous, and we're not.

It's kind kind of like going into the principal's office.

The principal's got all the power, right? He's got the standard of excellence.

He's got the standard of proper behavior.

And when you, as a little munchkin, which was my nickname,

as a little munchkin get called up to the assistant principal's office or the

principal's office, you know that at some point or other, he's got got something on you, right?

You have this concern.

So the Israelites had a pretty good handle on this disparity.

They wondered, how can any human stand in the presence of God?

They understood that the prospect of death loomed over anyone who got too close

to God, and no one could see God, no one could see God's face without death

occurring. They were taught this. They knew this.

So drawing near to God was not necessarily done with happy feet.

I'm sure they wondered, how close could someone get to God without dying?

Well, they're about to find out.

In Exodus chapter 24, verses 3 through 8, the people encounter the Lord.

Exodus 24:3–8

In chapter 24, 9 to 11, the leaders encounter the Lord.

And in Exodus chapter 24, 12 through 18, Moses encounters the Lord.

Exodus 24 · chapter mention

In each case, we want to observe three things, or two things.

How close can one person or person group get to the Lord?

And two, what's the specter of death in each encounter?

The people related to the Lord, but the relationship is somewhat diverse and distant.

The people did not go up to the mountain. They did not see the hand of God in

the presence as Moses did. Any relationship with them is defined by the communication

that takes place between the two parties.

In this section, words came from the Lord.

The people answered the Lord's words. But the communication is not direct.

The Lord doesn't speak directly to the people. He speaks to Moses,

and Moses recounts or writes down and speaks these words to the people,

refers them to the people.

When the people answered the Lord, they don't speak to him directly, but to Moses.

We will obey what the Lord says.

Moses, who is the mediator of the covenant then, is something of a middleman.

Even where their somewhat distant relationship is concerned, death is required.

God is holy, man is not. God cannot tolerate sin, man seems to do it all the

time. One cannot enter into relationship with God without dying unless,

of course, he is without sin.

And if he has sin and draws near to the Lord, he dies.

That's another way of saying that it is simply impossible to have a relationship with God on our own.

We all have sin. If every one of us draws near to God, we'll die.

And how can a dead person have a relationship? It's pretty tough, right?

Israel was in a dilemma, but the Lord had made a way for Israel.

Death is required, but the Lord provides a way, just as he did with Abraham

and Isaac on the mountain.

God provided a way for the people to offer up animals as a sacrifice to pay

the price for their sin and separation from God.

So God is good, God is holy, man's not.

God provided a way for man to take part in the covenant by the sacrifice of animals.

Their death, the animals' death, was a substitute for the death of the people.

The Lord accepted the death of the animals at that time.

Therefore, the people could then re-enter into a relationship with God.

And remember, I said re-enter, because man was created in the image of God,

and man had communion with God from the very beginning, but man has walked away

from that relationship with God by disobedience to God's Word.

And here, God is providing a way for man to come back into relationship.

That's what he's all about. He's not about religion. He's about relationship.

God is not about the sacrifices.

The sacrifices are a way for man to come back into relationship with a holy God.

So Moses builds an altar to the Lord and 12 pillars for Israel,

which constituted the 12 tribes.

He sprinkles both the altar and the pillars with blood. Both of them are covered with blood.

Literally, if you think about this, all of the animals that were sacrificed

feist and all the blood that was thrown and splattered on the altars,

it had to be a pretty gruesome sight, and I can't imagine what that smelled like.

Burning flesh all the time. In order for the nation to enter into relationship with God,

death had to take place, and the smell of the burning flesh reminds us of how

putrid our sinful lives are in the eyes of a a holy God.

Nothing now exists between the people and the Lord but blood,

symbolizing that death has taken place.

Death has happened, and now relationship can happen.

So Moses said of the sprinkled blood, behold the blood of the covenant.

But still, it's somewhat a distant relationship.

The people cannot go up to the mount. They cannot come near to God. Why?

Because there is this sense that the blood of bulls and goats just doesn't quite cut it.

You have to sacrifice them over and over. Well, not the same one, obviously.

But you have to sacrifice over and over for this blood of bulls and goats to

cover over the sin of the people.

It's more than a sense, actually. It's a fact.

Hebrews 10, verse 4 says, For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.

Hebrews 10:4

It only covers it up. so

although the people must stay below the

leaders are called up to come closer to the lord

and this is found in in chapter

24 verses 9 through 11 the leaders

got closer to the lord for provoking or provoking god the leaders get closer

there's a remarkable encounter really it's it's it it provokes fear within them

because they see god they see his hand in things well they they don't actually

see God himself or God as spirit, and no one can see him, right?

But they can see the effect that he has when what the people see is a vision of God, not God himself.

Just like a painting represents the thoughts of the artist, but it is not,

in fact, the real thing that the artist is painting.

The description of this vision focuses solely on what is under God's feet.

They see what looks like a pavement of sapphire as clear as the sky itself.

And what's underneath God's feet is stunning.

It's as if they were so taken in by the awesomeness of what was below God,

they couldn't even work their eyes up to see God.

They were just amazed at the sapphire that was underneath him that was clear.

Well, even his footstool is more beautiful than anything they'd ever seen.

Where's the specter of death in this encounter? Everything looks beautiful.

It's in verse 11 when it says, Yet he did not stretch out his hand against the

nobles of the sons of Israel.

This description of stretching out one's hands against somebody was a euphemism

for a ruler ordering the death of the subject.

In many days like that, when a ruler came out, you came into their presence,

and they put their hand out like this.

And they would either go like that or like that. That woe to be to the one that the ruler does this.

Now, thankfully, Mr. Devin never did that to me.

But we can understand that, that there's this sense, there's this implication

in the text, then that as the people would expect to be killed by the Lord,

they would expect, they know what they've done.

They know that they've grumbled. They know that they've displeased the Lord.

They know that they've not trusted in

him and they're expecting death when people

see jesus when people see god they are

overcome by their own uncleanness and expect to die isaiah saw this well after

seeing a vision of the lord in isaiah chapter 6 we verse 5 it's isaiah says

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

this woe is me for i am ruined because i am a man of unclean lips and i live

among a people of unclean lips,

and yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

What an awesome, fearful situation this must be.

This is surprising enough, but what happens next is astounding.

The people not only see God, they eat and drink. They sit down for a meal.

Well, I like meals. It shows.

This is part of the covenant consummation of Genesis 26, verse 30,

Genesis 26:30

so that they are not only sharing a meal with each other, they're sharing a meal with God.

It's high fellowship. Not only does the Lord spare their lives as they move

toward him and see him, but they sit down and have supper with him.

It's becoming clear the Lord, holy though he may be, is not out to destroy.

He's out to relate.

The Lord then asked Moses to come up to the next level.

And this is where last week I said to you that if I were Moses and the Lord

called me up to the Smoky Mountain.

And we talked about last week that what they think is Mount Sinai now or Mount

Poreb at that time, there were black basalt rock up on the top.

They believed it was probably some volcanic action that pushed those basalt

rock up to the top through the younger rock.

And it's blackened on top of this mountain. Everything is blackened.

So if I saw, whether it was a volcano or just simply God breaking out in fire,

if i got called up to a fiery mountain as i said last week i'd say terry you go first.

So here moses is called to come near

to the lord earlier when the lord addresses moses he says come up to the lord

now he says now he says come up to me early he referred to himself in the third

party their third sense come up to the lord now he says come up to me this is

personal this is this is meaningful.

The address is more intimate. This is a personal intimate invitation.

The Lord asks him to come up to the mountain and remain there with him.

This is more than a quick hello. Here's the tablet of stones.

Now go back and make these people obey and goodbye.

The Lord called him up and he wanted Moses to dwell with him.

He has seen Moses' heart, knows his intentions, and he wants to dwell with Moses.

He intends to give Moses the stone tablets upon which he has written the law,

which is intended to instruct the people.

The tablets contain what are commonly called the Ten Commandments,

but what the Scriptures refer to as the Ten Words.

Although they take the form of commandments, they first and foremost are God's

words to his people, his speech to them that tells them, if you want to get

along in this life, if you want to get along with me,

if you want to get along with your neighbors, these are the things you must do.

This is how you should act.

Jesus summed that up, love the Lord your God with all your heart,

soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

These are the commandments, he says.

So, although they take the form of commandments, they first and foremost are

his words. These are his words of instruction.

The ten words then represent the Lord's best hope for his people.

Written on these two stones of tablets is God's heart for his people.

The Lord then is telling Moses, come up to me and I'll show you my heart.

I'll show you my love. I'll show you my concern.

I'll show you my care. I will build a relationship with you.

And with the people. Whereas Moses wrote down the Lord's words for the people

who received God's words indirectly,

Moses was directly receiving the word of God that the Lord was written,

and it says later on that the words were also written on their hearts.

If death would be the expected result of the previous encounter with the Lord,

wouldn't a similar fate be expected from this more intimate setting?

If you were Moses, Moses, what would you do? Moses, like I said about Terry,

Moses takes somebody else with him.

Moses takes Joshua with him and tells the elders, wait here for us until we return to you.

Moses goes on. Not only does he go, he expresses confidence that he will return.

I will come back to you. I will be back.

Moses, who shoulders immense responsibility for leading the people,

leaves those responsibilities behind. and he leaves Aaron and Herod to take charge over the people.

If Moses, a man who is leading two million plus of God's chosen people,

can find time to spend in relationship with the Lord,

shouldn't we take time to come up to the Lord?

Our responsibilities are probably nowhere near as pressing as leading the most

important nation in the world in history.

As Moses ascended the mountain, the presence of the Lord is described as extensive and lasting.

The cloud covered the mountain. It covered it for six days, and the glory of

the Lord rested on Mount Sinai. The Lord is there.

He is there strongly and is there lastingly.

And on the seventh day, the Lord calls Moses to come even closer.

The seventh day is the holy day, the Sabbath day, which is a set apart for worship.

It's appropriate, therefore, that God asked Moses to approach him on the seventh day.

This is worship. This is adoration. This is relationship.

So on the seventh day, the Lord calls to Moses from the middle of the cloud,

from the center of his glory, from the center of his being.

On the seventh day, the Sabbath day, God calls to Moses to spend the day intimately

in his presence. Now, Mr.

Devon did not call me up to the office to spend the day intimately in his presence,

but God calls us to spend the day and our lives intimately in his presence.

Before the text describes Moses' reaction, it describes a scene from the perspective

of the sons of Israel, the people who are down on the bottom of the mountain looking up.

They are too far away to see Moses, but they see this manifestation of the glory

of the Lord, and it looks like, it says in Scripture, it looks like a consuming fire.

What exactly is a consuming fire? Well, obviously, it's a fire that consumes.

Where else did Moses see a burning fire?

The the burning bush, similarly in the same area.

He saw that first burning bush, and he looked at this bush, and he went over

to see it because here was a bush that was on fire that was not being consumed.

It was not burning up and dying out. It was continuing to burn.

And when these people looked up on that mountain, they're probably remembering

the story that Moses told them about a bush that was on fire that just didn't seem to burn up,

And yet they're looking up at this fire, and they're seeing this fire on top of the mountain.

They called it was like a consuming fire. What is a consuming fire?

It's a fire that burns up everything around it.

I don't know if you've ever tried to burn some brush out in an open field on a dry day.

It may have a little bit of wind. What happens?

That fire begins to spread very rapidly, and it becomes a consuming fire, and you can't stop it.

And they are looking up at this at this consuming fire and from their perspective

it seems as if moses just disappears into the middle of this burning of this consuming fire.

I can imagine there are people out there down there thinking moses would you

quick get out of there we need you as our leader says then moses entered the

midst of the cloud and walked right into the midst of the fire.

The symbolism is staggering.

God is calling us to walk into his consuming fire, to walk into his presence,

to come to him, to let him burn away anything that is impure in us.

We can only imagine what this encounter was like, entering into the very center

of God's being. And this lasted for 40 days and 40 nights.

The number 40 is often used as a symbol of testing.

The test is not for Moses, but for the people, so that they can see for themselves

whether or not they trust the Lord.

40 years, the Israelites were in the wilderness being tested.

40 days, Jesus was out in the wilderness being tested and tempted.

Despite the specter of death when the lord

says come out to moses or come up to me moses went

he left all the responsibility beside because

he thought i want to be with god he simply trusted the word of god he believed

the lord's intentions were good and he delivered the believe the lord wanted

to share his heart with them and so he went eugene peterson the writer of the

bible I will paraphrase, called The Message,

was a boy growing up in Montana when he had an encounter with a Norwegian farmer named Leonard Storm.

He says, when I was five years old, I would walk across the meadow between our

backyard and his fenced fields.

I would stand at the barbed wire strand and watch the farmer plow the field

with his enormous tractor.

The thing I wished for most in those days was to get a ride on that John Deere tractor.

One day, one summer day, he says, I was standing at the fence.

I would never have dared to climb through that fence into his field,

but I was watching Brother Storm plow the field.

He was probably a hundred yards away from me when he spotted me.

He stopped the tractor, stood up in the seat,

and made strong waving motions with his

arms like this i'd never seen anyone use gestures like that before he looked

mean and angry like the kids tell me in in kids camp when i take off my glasses

they say mr mr ward you look old and angry i don't get it but anyway.

He said he looked mean and angry. He was large and ominous in his big overalls and straw hat.

He was yelling at me, but the wind was blowing against him, and I couldn't hear anything.

I knew that I was probably where I shouldn't be. Five-year-olds often do that.

And he said I turned and left, sadly. I hadn't felt I was doing anything wrong.

I was only watching from what I thought was a safe distance and wishing that

someday, somehow, I would get to ride on that John Deere tractor.

Had went home feeling rejected and rebuked.

Eugene Peterson questioned the farmer's intention.

Did those huge gestures and booming voice mean that he wanted him to come and

ride the tractor, or did it mean that he was angry at him?

The frightened little boy thought he was angry at him and ran away.

Similarly, we question God's gestures, don't we?

As he calls to us from Scripture? Is he calling because he wants to relate to

us, or is he telling because he's angry and wants to destroy?

Do we have an angry God, or do we have a loving God?

I wonder, how close do you care to get?

Who do you want to be like? Do you want to be like the people distant from the

Lord, the leaders closer to the Lord, but still at the foot of the mountains,

or Moses really up close and personal with God?

If you want to be close to the Lord on one level, how do you deal with the fear

that we might get destroyed in the process?

After all, God is holy and man's not.

I've said that a lot today. And beside all that, how do we deal with the fear

that when God calls us to come to him, his intentions may not be good?

And if all those those questions are answered, this one remains,

is it even possible to get really close and personal with the Lord?

Where do we find the answers to the questions that we ask? We find them in one place.

It's the place of the skull, Golgotha or Calvary. We find them when we look

up from the foot of the cross and we see the one who was hanging there on that cross.

We find them in the blood that poured out from his bruised and broken body?

We find them in his words when he says, it is finished.

The answer is yes, you are holy before the Lord because Christ's blood has made you holy.

The answer is yes, God's intentions are good, for if he gave up his son so that

we could be with him, how could they have anything better than that?

The answer is yes, it is possible to draw near to the Lord because of Jesus.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

The answers to all these questions are yes, if you believe that Jesus shed his

blood for you so that you could know God.

If any doubts remain, consider how the New Testament treats the thieves in Exodus 24.

It says, if the blood of bulls and goats sprinkled on the people couldn't take

away their sin so that they didn't have confidence to come near to the God without dying.

How about the blood of God's own Son?

Once and for all, the sacrifice was made for us.

Hebrews 10, verse 22 says, Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance

Hebrews 10:22

of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. conscience.

Jesus, taking up the cup of wine on the last night he was with his disciples,

told them, drink from this, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant,

which is shed on your behalf, on behalf of many, for the forgiveness of sins.

The Israelite leaders ate a meal in the the presence of God up at the foot of that mountain.

Do we see Jesus sharing meals with anyone in the New Testament?

All over the place. All over the place.

He fed 5,000 men plus women and children on a mountain.

But most poignantly, he had an intimate meal with his disciples on his last night.

We too share a meal. We call the Lord's Supper.

The Lord said to Moses, come up to me. Jesus said, come to me,

all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

The Lord showed Moses his heart as he wrote the 10 words onto stone tablets.

Jesus said that the Lord has written his words not on tablets of stones,

but on the tablets of human hearts.

So we can draw near and we can come to the Lord's presence. We can eat with

the Lord as the apostles ate.

So come out to me, the Lord said to Moses.

He intends not to destroy, but to relate. Come to me, Jesus says to us.

There's an end of the story, as Harvey used to say, and now the rest of the story.

Eugene Peterson's story doesn't end the day that he ran away in fear from Leonard Storm.

He goes on to say, The Sunday after my disappointment at the edge of the field,

Brother Storm called me over after worship and said, Little Pete,

that's what he always called him, Little Pete. I hated that.

Little Pete, why didn't you come out in the field Thursday and ride the tractor with me?

I told him that I didn't know I could have, that I thought he was chasing me

away and he was angry at me.

He said, I called you to come and I waited for you to come.

Why did you leave? I said that I didn't know that that's what he was doing and I was afraid.

A few days after my disappointment at the edge of the field and his reprimand

in church, I was back at the fence watching, hoping I might get a second chance.

The giant Norwegian saw me, stopped the tractor, and did again,

making that sweeping motion of imitation.

I was through that barbed wire fence in a flash, running across the furrowed

field and then up to the big green John Deere tractor.

He let me stand in front of him, holding the steering wheel,

wheel, pulling the plow down that long stretch of field, my smallness was now

absorbed into his largeness.

When the Lord calls us, he may look big and scary.

It may look like he wants to inflict damage. It may look like his holiness is

going to destroy us and destroy our sinfulness.

But the The blood of Jesus removes all doubt because it removes all sinfulness,

and it proves beyond question that God wants to relate and not destroy.

When God is calling us with his big arms that we're on the cross.

He's motioning for us to come to him, not once, but every day.

Come to the presence of the Lord. Throw your sacrifices on the ground,

your sinfulness, and let God's blood wash over you and be in relationship with you.

Jesus said, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we close this time in worship,

these pictures of the old testament and all these things are just just precursors

to the new testament and we thank you for those the stories of you relating

with man from the very beginning we have walked away in our disobedience but

you're calling us home as your children,

we couldn't be more grateful in jesus name amen you are dismissed to go serve

a world that desperately needs Jesus.