Mt. Sinai

Father, you are gracious and merciful.

You did not abandon us to a fragile state that we hurled ourselves into in rebellion against you.

Instead, you sought us out at great cost to yourself.

Lord, we see this and it is wonderful and glorious, and we still see the pains of the world that are ravaged by sin and the terrors in our own lives, the sin in our own lives that keeps us separate from you.

But Lord, we know that you have overcome all of these things in Jesus Christ our Lord.

So, Father, as we gather here today as a church under the name of Jesus, covered in the blood of Jesus, Father, just pray that you would show our hearts, you would give us, you would give us clear eyes, you would it, you would make us no longer blind, but allow us to see the wonder of what we are approaching this morning, that we are surrounded by angels and uh in clothed for a feast, proclaiming your holiness, and that creatures from the dirt like us might be called up into that heavenly place, even this morning as we worship you and hear your word.

Lift this up in Jesus' name, amen.

So we arrive in Exodus 19, and this is really the conclusion of the first half of the book of Exodus.

The first half of the book of Exodus is where it really gets its name, you know, because they're leaving.

But now they've arrived.

They've arrived at the destination from which the Lord called them out.

They've arrived in the very place of promise that God said that he would bring his people to, that he would bring his people to.

You'll remember early on in the book of Exodus, Moses is alone in the wilderness.

He's a shepherd, and he's with his sheep, and he sees something strange.

Something strange catches Moses' eye.

Do any of the kids know what catches Moses' eye in the wilderness?

What is it, Emerson?

A burning bush that's not burnt.

A burning bush, but it's not burnt.

That's the perfect way to say it, Emerson.

Exactly.

So there's this burning bush that Moses sees, and it's not being consumed by the fire.

And so Moses is in the wilderness.

And the wilderness that he's in is the wilderness of Sinai.

He's where the people are gathered together in our text this morning.

He is at the foot of Mount Sinai.

That's where the burning bush event happens.

And so Moses approaches God, who is speaking to him out of the fire.

And the Lord out of the fire says to him, Do not come any closer, but where you are, take your sandals off, because the place that you are standing is holy ground.

And it is made holy ground because the Lord is present there.

And when Moses approaches the bush, he is uh uh he meets the Lord face to face, and the Lord gives him a terrifying instruction.

And the terrifying instruction is to return to the place from which you are presently a fugitive on the run, to return to Egypt, and then to rescue the people, rescue your people, the Hebrew people, out of Egypt by commanding Pharaoh to let them go.

Now the Hebrew people had already rejected Moses at his first attempt at rescuing them.

He was a fugitive on the run from Pharaoh as a rebel, a treasonous rebel from the household that he grew up in.

These are all very bad ideas at face value.

But the Lord, most of the burning bush conversation is Moses saying, I'm not gonna do that.

I would like to not go back there.

And then once he finally overcomes that, he's like, I don't want to talk with anybody.

Would you mind if somebody else did the talking?

And eventually the Lord gives a little bit on that, on that end, that part of the negotiation.

But there's a sign, a sign of promise that the Lord gave to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3, verse 12.

Exodus 3:12

God said, says, He said, But I will but I will be with you.

And this shall be the sign for you that I have sent you.

When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.

Here in Exodus 19, the sign of promise that was given to Moses has been fulfilled.

How can Moses know that God has been with him?

Well, he is standing at the foot of the mountain.

Look at what their rescue has been.

Remember the whole story of the Exodus, the plagues, the staff that turns into the serpent wizard duels in Pharaoh's court.

Those are the it's a it's an incredible event that has taken place.

The parting of the Red Sea, the washing away of the Egyptian army behind them.

But now the sign is finally fulfilled.

They are at the foot of the mountain.

They are at Mount Sinai.

And here it is, they learn not just what they were rescued from.

The emphasis of the first half of the book has been what the Lord has rescued them from.

He has rescued them out of slavery.

He has rescued them from the oppression of the Egyptians.

Now we see what he is rescuing them to.

What he's rescued them to is to be his people.

What he has rescued them to is to meet God face to face.

And what we will discover in this is that what he has rescued them to is far more frightening than what he has rescued them from.

That's what we'll learn this morning.

So this takes place in three phases when uh Moses brings them to worship the Lord at the foot of the mountain in fulfillment of the promise that God had made.

First, vows are made between uh uh the people take vows to God, and then they consecrate themselves before they enter the worship of God, and then God reveals himself, and there is a revelation of God.

So Exodus 19, verses 3 through 4 says, 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.

Exodus 19:3–4

I want to pause there and look at the three things that the Lord first wants to call to mind for the gathered body of worshipers.

He says to them, You yourselves have seen, number one, what I did to the Egyptians.

Before they gather for worship together, before they meet God, he wants to remind them of their story, what the Lord has done on their behalf.

Do you remember what God did to the Egyptians?

There are ten things that God did to the Egyptians.

The people of God are about to receive another ten things.

They're about to receive the ten commandments.

The ten plagues which were laid out against the Egyptians are evidence of God's wrath against them.

The ten commandments which God will lay out for his people are the very words of life that he is giving to them.

But to be able to receive those, they have to first remember the power of God that was demonstrated against their enemies so that they were rescued.

So that's the first thing.

What I did to the Egyptians.

The second thing, how I bore you on eagle's wings.

You know, they they might have been thinking, like, how would we do, how should we describe what happened with our rescue out of uh Egypt?

And God's like, here's what you should say to describe your rescue out of Egypt.

God bore us on eagle's wings.

That's how we were rescued out of Egypt.

God bore us on eagle's wings.

It's the same way you leave Mount Doom.

I know.

I know.

Contractually obligated to mention the Lord of the Rings.

Once a month.

I bore you on eagle's wings.

Why is it important that they were born on eagle's wings?

Well, what that means is they are lifted up out of a circumstance.

You can't lift yourself up out of the circumstances of your life.

This is the strange thing about life.

You are in it.

You're surrounded by it.

This is where the where you find yourself is where you are, for real.

How can you be rescued from something like this?

Well, something must come from the heavens and pull you out.

So they couldn't say, How were we able to escape Egypt?

Well, it was because of our cleverness, and we were able to get so rich because we hoodwinked all those women out of their earrings on the way out.

No, they weren't able to say something like that.

What the Lord says, the way that you describe it is, the Lord bore you on eagle's wings, so that all of the glory of your rescue goes to the Lord.

And finally, what was the per what was God's purpose in doing this?

The last thing he says is, and brought you to myself.

Why did God rescue them from their enemies?

It was so that he could bring them to himself.

Then in verses five and six, it goes on.

He says, Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be, what does it mean that he brings them to himself?

What will they become to God?

He says, 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.

Says, these are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.

If you indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, this is the vow that he is requiring the people of God to make.

They must obey the voice of the Lord, they must keep covenant with him, which means that he will be their God, they will be his people.

And then they will be to him God's treasured possession among all the earth.

They will be to him a kingdom of priests.

Do you know what priests do?

Priests are mediators between God and others.

And that means that they will be a kingdom where every citizen is a mediator between God and the rest of the world.

That they all have direct access to God.

That is who they will be, that is unique within the world.

To have access, to have met, to know God.

To be considered by God.

We are his treasured possession.

I'm going to, this morning, I require all of your imagination.

For the remainder of this sermon, I want you to commit the fullness of your imagination to the text that we are seeing today.

Because we are going to be taken to places here at the foot of Mount Sinai that are nearly incomprehensible, but they are written down and they are for us.

So I want you to imagine what could it mean to you if God would say of you, you are my treasured possession.

And it's on the condition of their obedience.

In Exodus 19, 8, Moses relays this, what the Lord had said to the people.

And he says in verse 8, all the people answered together and said, All that the Lord has spoken, we will do.

And Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord.

Now it's been asked, or people have noticed, that this vow is made by the people before they have heard the terms of the covenant.

So remember, Sinai is where we receive the Ten Commandments.

This is the explication of what it means to obey God and to remain in covenant fellowship with Him.

These are outlined by the Ten Commandments.

They haven't received the Ten Commandments yet.

But God has said to them, If you obey me and you keep covenant with me, you will be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, my treasured possession.

And the people say, before hearing the terms, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do.

And you think, perhaps if they had waited a little longer and they heard the Ten Commandments and they reflected on themselves and they remembered, you know, the past couple of weeks, then they would have said something like, Is there maybe an alternative proposition where we could still be pretty good friends, but we don't have to be treasured possession?

And we take God, we knock off a couple of the commandments so that we can maybe make this work a little better.

No, I I think the the question is why is it that they agree to this?

Why is there an agreement made, a vow made before hearing the fullness of the conditions?

And the reason is because you don't need to know the fullness of the conditions in order to make the vow to God.

There's the all that you need to know are the parties involved.

That's all you need to know in this situation.

And the parties involved have been described.

The parties involved are the God who is God of over all things, all people, who has rescued you, and you are his people to be his treasured possession.

That's all you need to know.

It's all you need to know of God.

Here, to put it more simply, in order to see the that you morally ought to vow your life to God, all you need to know is God is God.

I am his creature.

That is it.

That information is sufficient.

It is all you need to know.

I bring that up because we have a strange, almost like uh verbal tick in our culture, which is I could not believe in a God that blank.

I could not submit myself to a God that prohibits homosexual marriage.

I could not submit myself to a God who sends people to hell for eternity.

I could not submit myself to a God who fill in the blank, whatever it happens to be.

You know, it used to be back when, like, you know, when we were all Reddit atheists, do you guys remember?

It used to be I could not submit to myself to a God who has hidden himself and has provided no evidence for himself in the world.

Whatever it may be, the trends, the particularities of it will come and go.

Do you hear the absurdity of it?

What did it, the the the shape of that way of thinking about God is thinking that this meeting at Sinai between God and his people, this covenant contractual relationship that is about to be established, is really a meeting of two equal parties.

And I have my ethical code and God has his ethical code, and then we meet together and one of ours wins.

And if my ethical code, if God doesn't measure up to my ethical code, then we don't enter the contract.

I cannot submit myself to a God who blank.

This is not a meeting of equals.

You are not, you are no longer talking about God when you speak of him in that way.

You have made a category mistake.

You are talking about something else.

You know what you're talking about?

You are talking about a very strong man.

That is not what we are talking about when we talk about God.

We are talking about the creator of all things, the one who dwells in unapproachable light, who made you and upholds your very existence by the word of his power.

He is the one who determines right from wrong.

He is the law giver.

We are the ones who find ourselves under his terrific authority.

The Lord said, so the people make this vow and they appropriately make this vow because they know all the information they need to know.

He is God.

What can he require of me?

Whatever he wants.

God, because of who he is, because of who I am, can require of me whatever he desires.

This is the holiness and the glory of the God that we are encountering.

In Exodus 19, 9, it says, And 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.

So now the people are going to meet God.

Remember how Moses met God in this very same place?

It was by fire and smoke.

Well, now the people are going to meet God in this same way.

Just as Moses has been a priest of the Lord, a prophet of the Lord, by hearing the voice of God himself.

If you're going to be a kingdom of priests, then you need to be able, then everybody needs to hear the voice of God themselves.

They need to have an immediate experience with God.

And that's what God promises to do.

Says, 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.

Now what they are required to do after making these vows is consecrate themselves.

They've made the vows, now they must consecrate themselves.

Next is 19, 10 and 12.

It says the Lord said to Moses, Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments.

And in verse 12, and you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it.

Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death.

It means that the Lord gives the people of God three days to prepare themselves, to set themselves apart before God reveals Himself to them on the mountain.

Three days.

This is a typical time period throughout the scriptures.

They're given three days to consecrate themselves.

So one of the things that they must do is they must wash their clothes.

You need to wash your garments for three days.

You need to be dressed to meet the Lord.

We are setting this day apart.

This is no ordinary day.

That's what a consecrated day is.

It's what it means to be consecrated.

It's to say, this is not ordinary.

This is not normal.

We are going to see.

Something and witness something higher than normal, extraordinary, wondrous, incredible.

And so they set themselves apart in order for their hearts to be prepared for this experience.

And they are exposed to these limits.

The Lord instructs Moses, you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it.

Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death.

It is because if they even approach the holiness of God in this way, they will die.

To come into the direct presence of the Lord means that you will die.

This is very strange.

It is the edge of a mountain, but to the people of God it is a cliff.

Because if they walk over it, they will die.

It is the same boundary or a like boundary that Moses received from the Lord.

When he is approaching the burning bush, the Lord says, stop.

Don't come any closer.

You know what it's like?

You know what our God is like.

You know something that's attractive and draws you towards it, but if you get too close to it, you will die.

It's fire.

Our God is a consuming fire.

Don't get too close.

Our God is a hot oven, and we are children.

And the Lord says, Don't reach out your hand and touch it.

Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death.

God is like a fire.

Next 19, 16 through 17.

Now we begin to see the revelation of God.

They have made a vow, their hearts have been prepared.

And now God will reveal Himself to the people on the mountain.

Verses 16 through 17.

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.

Everyone trembled.

Everyone was trembling at what they saw.

The thunder, the lightning, the thick cloud that had now covered the mountain.

If a child who was trembling looked up to their parent for comfort, what they would see is their parent is trembling.

Everyone is trembling to come and take their stand at the foot of the mountain.

They would have liked to have stayed in the camp, I imagine, but Moses came out and said, Get in, we're going to meet God.

Which is the way that I picture it.

A while ago there was this sort of publishing trend of uh heavenly tourism books.

Do you guys remember this?

Like uh Heaven is for Real, which I think also became a movie, and 90 Minutes in Heaven, and Proof of Heaven, those are three examples.

Those things trend for some reason, and they make a lot of them, like Dante's Peak and Volcano type of situation.

And I didn't read any of those books.

Um but I saw the covers of them and I saw the pictures of uh the shows and movies and things they made and what the posters were for those things, and they were uh white covers with a uh one of them has a smiling child and a script that is like beautiful cursive script.

It says like proof of heaven.

Heaven is for real.

I I notice that none of on none of the covers of those books was there a horrifying volcano.

They didn't place that on the cover of those books.

Because when we tell the stories of meeting God, the way that our culture has has the way that evangelical culture has reinterpreted what it means to meet God, we are not meeting God.

It is nothing like when people meet God in the Bible.

It's nothing like it.

When people meet God in the Bible, well, here's the the verses go on in verses 18-19.

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 a kiln.

You know the smoke of a kiln, it's shooting out.

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.

This is the God of the Bible.

That's what it's like to meet God.

This is not the setting of this is not this would not make the cut for one of those heavenly tourism books for what it was like to meet God.

This is terror, fear, trembling, humiliation, unthinkable power.

This is a world-changing, sacred event.

And do you know what world-changing, and that is to say, world-making sacred events are?

They are horrifying.

Sacred, sacramental, it's set apart, it's consecrated.

This is a sacred event.

That's what it is to meet God.

You know what a sacred event is in our culture?

One of our most recent sacred events is September eleventh.

That is a sacred event.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki.

These are sacred events.

Unthinkable human sacrifice that results in a whole new world that we learn to inhabit.

So we think I would like to have, I want, people are chasing this.

I want to have an experience of the sacred.

I want to experience God.

I want to come into his presence.

If he would reveal himself to me, then I would trust him and I would believe in him, but he has hidden himself to me.

I want to have an experience of the sacred.

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

When Abraham, when God cuts a covenant with Abraham after he comes to him in Genesis 15, and he says, uh, look at the stars of the heavens, look at the dust of the earth, that's what your offspring will be like.

Then Abraham believes him and it's counted to him as righteousness, righteousness by faith.

And then the Lord cuts a covenant with Abraham.

And you may remember he takes the animals and he cuts them in half.

Brutal.

And he lays the dead animals like an aisle that would be walked through.

And then the flaming torch, the fire, and the smoke pass between this sacrificial offering of death.

Death, flame, smoke.

This is the presence of God.

What state was Abraham in when the Lord revealed himself to him in that way for this glorious promise?

It was a deep darkness descended upon Abraham, like death.

That's what an encounter, when God reveals himself to us, that is what it is like.

When Jacob wrestles with God, at the end of the night, in the morning, when he's limping, and he reflects back on the night wrestling with God, here's what shocks him.

He says, I have seen God face to face.

Then he looks around at his hands and he feels the pain in his hip.

He says, Yet my life has been delivered.

This is the surprise of Jacob's encounter with God.

That he still had his life after encountering God.

When Isaiah is called up into a vision of the throne room of God, the prophet of God, the one who teaches us of the suffering servant, who gives us the promise of the new heavens and the new earth.

This prophet is called up into the throne room of God, and what he pronounces immediately is, Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I come from a people of unclean lips.

Woe is me.

Cursed am I.

You know, the jury's still out.

They're still deliberating.

And we're all wondering what they will come back and say.

Will they say, guilty?

Cursed is she.

Isaiah stands before God and immediately his first thought is, guilty, cursed is me.

This is what is revealed to himself in the presence of God.

That is the experience of the presence of God that is shown to us throughout the scriptures.

Who are we talking about when we are talking about our God?

Have we forgotten who we're talking about when we're talking about our God?

And what do they receive in the midst of this?

What do they receive from the fire and the smoke and the flame?

Well, what they're told is the Ten Commandments.

What do they overhear God say after this terrifying event at the foot of the mountain?

They hear the ten commandments.

You shall have no other gods before me.

They hear, don't make images of me, don't take my name in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day, honor your mother and father.

They hear the Ten Commandments.

This is the word that comes out of the terrifying experience of the presence of God.

And then right after they hear the Ten Commandments, do you know what the response of the people is to hearing the Ten Commandments here at Mount Sinai?

This is it, in Exodus 20, verses 18 through 19, it says, right after the Ten Commandments.

Exodus 20:18–19

Now, when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, Remember, they were at the foot of the mountain.

They were gathered before the foot of the mountain.

By the end of the Ten Commandments, they're like back at the camp.

You know, they they hid, they fled, they covered their children, they would cover their children's eyes.

I'm imagining this.

It's not that much of a stretch.

At the presence of the Lord.

And this is what they say.

And said to Moses, You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us lest we die.

That's what they said to Moses after hearing the Ten Commandments.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Thou shalt not cover it your neighbor's house, or his wife, or his oxen.

Don't ever let God talk to us again.

We will die.

Holy nation.

Treasured possession.

What were they rescued for?

They were rescued to be brought into the presence of God, which is being brought into the presence of incomprehensible glory.

Unthinkable holiness.

Power beyond imagination.

What is the trembling?

I think there's I think there's two aspects of it.

I think there is the glory.

They see the glory of God, and it is horrifying in its power and in his magnitude.

It is like a, it is, it when do you tremble?

There's a vulnerability.

You are exposed in how absolutely vulnerable you are.

You are a child, and there is a monster.

That is the experience of Sinai.

And the second experience of this is the recognition of their own unrighteousness.

The recognition of the death that is within them.

Because what have they heard?

They have heard the Ten Commandments.

And what they have done is exposed them.

Exposed who they are before this unthinkable, perfect holiness.

Woe is me.

Woe is me.

That's what it means to come to the mountain of God.

That's what it means to come to Sinai.

In Exodus 20, 20, Moses responds to the people who just said, don't ever do that again.

Don't we don't want to meet God again.

Moses said to the people, do not fear.

For God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.

God has come to test you, to refine you like a metal, to test you for your strength, that you may not sin again.

He's showing you himself.

He's telling you his law.

This is what sacred events do.

Sacred events are catastrophes, and then from them flow a norm.

There is a war.

And in the war, there is terrible blood spilled.

And now there's a new border.

There's a new norm for how this country operates.

And you live because of the sacred event within that new norm.

This is a sacred event, a terror of the presence of God.

The threat of spilled blood.

And a norm.

What is the norm?

The Ten Commandments.

Here is how you are to be in this world.

The Lord says, I am the border, I am the boundary, all things belong to me.

You are mine.

I am the sacred event.

You live like this.

The glory and the norm.

These are always together.

So at this sacred event, there is a testing, a testing of the people.

God testing on the mountain.

We are not that far along in the Bible.

We should remember something like this, an event that took place that was very similar to this event at Mount Sinai, where God tested his person at the mountain.

In fact, what happened was that it's it's almost precisely, just exactly like this, because the man had.

Abraham has a battle over some he's in a battle and he destroys all the uh nations of the valley.

Cities of the plains, which is also a great Cormac McCarthy book, but it's unrelated to this.

And he destroys all the cities of the plains, and when he does that, uh he is met by a priest of another nation.

And the priest of the other nation is uh Melchizedek.

And he blesses Melchizedek, who is priests of the Most High God, Prince of Peace, King of righteousness.

And then after that, the Lord enters into a covenant with him.

And the covenant is shown.

God makes his presence known by flame and fire and trembling and deep darkness.

This is precisely what has happened to Moses and the people of exile.

We are in this same moment, the same type of moment, because we are in the same covenant of grace.

That's why.

It's just growing towards the scale of a nation.

And so we can look back at this testing to understand what is happening here at this mountain, because after that, what is the test of the mountain for Abraham?

Well, it sounds like this in Genesis 22, verses 1 through 2.

Genesis 22:1–2

After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, Here I am.

He said, Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.

This is the test of the mountain.

The test of the mountain is child sacrifice.

It's a sacred event.

Bought in blood, creates a new world with new norms.

This is the same test of the mountain.

Moses, the people are brought up.

They are tested at the mountain.

The test of the mountain is shown in the obedience required in the Ten Commandments.

So Abraham goes up the mountain, and when he goes up, Isaac says, Where's the sacrifice?

I notice there's not much of a sacrifice, and where's the sacrifice?

And Abraham says, The Lord will provide the sacrifice.

The Lord will provide the sacrifice.

And Abraham walked up willing to sacrifice his son, trusting that God was even able to bring him back from the dead.

That's what Abraham was trusting.

And sure enough, when they get there, the Lord provides a sacrifice on the mountain.

And it is a ram that the Lord provides.

He says, Sacrifice that instead.

And in sacrificing this instead, I receive this as true worship of me.

And then Abraham names that mountain, and he says, On the mount of the Lord it will be provided.

What is it?

On the mount of the Lord, the sufficient sacrifice, the sufficient sacred event, which is an event bought in blood, which creates a new world.

The sufficient sacred event will be provided for us by God.

That's what will be provided on the mountain.

The mount of the Lord, it will be provided.

What do the people of God receive at Sinai?

Well, they are brought up the mountain.

It is terrifying to come into the presence of God.

They are not able to do it.

And what is the instruction that they receive?

That Moses will go up and receive, as he goes up to the mountain for forty days, he will receive the vision of the tabernacle, which will be mountain-shaped.

And the Lord will say, You can't come up this mountain.

And in fact, if you come up the mountain that I'm on, you will die.

You will become the sacrifice.

But what does the Lord do in the Mosaic covenant?

He provides for them the patterns of a true sacrifice.

That the Lord says, These will be sufficient for me.

You will sacrifice lambs and goats, and you will sacrifice birds, and you will bring grain offerings and oil offerings.

These are the things that the Lord says, I will provide these for you, and I will count these as sufficient sacrifices for me, that you might draw near to my presence.

But we understand that that is not the true sacrifice that is required.

This is obviously not the sufficient sacrifice.

And that's because these all point towards the true mountain of the Lord where it will be provided.

And this is the mountain that Jesus Christ walks up with the cross.

Because on the cross, the holiness that we can't offer is purchased for us.

The death that we are due at the presence of the Lord is removed from us.

We are remade at this glorious sacred event where God Himself takes on flesh, he takes our place, he climbs the mountain and bears the wrath of God on our behalf.

On the mountain of the Lord, it has been provided.

So here is the good news.

Here is the wonder of what this means, Christian.

Look at who God has shown himself to be.

Look at the terror of encountering God in our sinful state.

Look at the horror and the trembling of Sinai and the recognition that if our path up the mountain to God is described to us at Sinai, if it is even the Ten Commandments, we cannot walk that path.

All it will reveal is that we ought to be destroyed in the presence of the Lord.

But in Christ, don't you see it could only be in Christ.

In Christ, what is given to us, what is shown to us, is that we don't come to Mount Sinai.

That's not the mountain us Christians go to to meet God.

Mount Sinai has been overcome.

Mount Sinai is obsolete.

It has been swallowed up by a greater, more glorious mountain.

It has been swallowed up by the mountain that our Lord walked up and on which his sacrifice has been made.

It has been swallowed up by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It is not the blood of bulls and goats, which we know can only condemn us, but it is the blood of Jesus Christ, which has established a new covenant where we approach God.

For you have not come, you, Christian, you have not come to what may be touched.

A blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them.

They could not endure the order that was given.

Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear, but you have come to Mount Zion, into the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, into innumerable angels in festal gathering, into the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, into God, the judge of all, into the spirits of the righteous made perfect, into Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, into the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

See that you do not refuse him who is speaking.

For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.

At that time his voice shook the earth.

But now he has promised, yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens.

This phrase, yet once more, indicates the removal of things that are shaken, that is, things that have been made, in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.

Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

And thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

Look at the power and the might and the majesty and the wonder of God.

This is the God who has saved you by the blood of his Son Jesus Christ.

Do you not think that is sufficient for you to come into the presence of God?

We have been brought like on the wings of eagles into a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

So powerful, so terrific, so horrifying, his majesty that we see at Mount Sinai.

It is the full weight of that power and majesty that has accomplished for you your salvation and your rescue because of the depth of his love towards you.

Do you see the security of being in the hands of Jesus Christ our Lord?

Our God is mighty to save.

This is our salvation in Jesus Christ from our God who is a consuming fire.

Let us pray.

Father, we are gathered at Mount Zion right now.

As we gather on the Lord's Day with your people, we join the heavenly chorus in praise of you.

It is not a fearful thing to walk into a building like this and to sit with very friendly people like this.

It is not smoke and it is not fire, and it is more glorious than Mount Sinai, because it is a better covenant, because we come directly to you by our mediator, Jesus Christ, who intercedes for us and who is the Lord, who receives us and rescues us and washes us and renews us and restores us, consecrates us.

Lord, in him we are made a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, all because of what Christ has done.

Lord, let us worship you here in church with reverence and awe at what you have accomplished for us in Jesus Christ.

Lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.