Meeting with the Divine: The Holiness of God at Mount Sinai

The Life of Moses- ep. # 22 🌋Mt. Sinai Part 2– Experience the awe of standing at the foot of Mount Sinai, where the earth shakes under the presence of the Divine. Join me, Julie Colbeth, on a journey through Whispers of Grace that promises to deepen your understanding of God's majestic holiness, paralleling the transformative encounters of Job and Isaiah with that of the Israelites. We embark on a spiritual expedition, unpacking the covenant at Exodus 19 that designates Israel as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Witness the Israelites' preparation to meet with God, and feel the weight of His sanctity in your own life as we share insights into the gravity of their divine encounter.

Discover how challenges and setbacks become the very soil for growth in faith, mirroring the Israelites' experiences as they learned to trust in God's perfect timing. As we reflect on the stories of Moses, Job, and Isaiah, you’ll find encouragement to embrace the transformative power of God’s holiness. We'll explore what it means to have an intimate relationship with God, drawing from the rich tapestry of covenant and revealing the comfort and confidence found in Jesus Christ. This episode will leave you with a renewed sense of peace, freedom, and joy in entrusting your future to the Almighty.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

Kia ora, and welcome to Whispers of Grace, a place for women to be encouraged by God's Holy Word. I'm your host, julie Colbeth, and I am overjoyed to dig into the Bible with you today. Kia ora, friends, and welcome back to Whispers of Grace. I'm so excited to be back here with you today. I have had so much fun sitting in the topic of the holiness of God the past couple of weeks. I have listened to so many different sermons, read excerpts of books and just been immersed in this topic, so I am so excited to talk about it today with you, and we are so blessed to be looking at God appearing to his people at Mount Sinai. We are going to parallel this with Job's experience of seeing God and also with Isaiah's experience of seeing God. So, honestly, so much to be excited for, because this is God revealing bits of his holiness and who he is to us, the viewers, which is just incredible. So I am so excited to get started with this today. All right, to recap last time, on Mount Sinai, part one, we looked at the path that Israel has traveled up to this point. We noticed that when Israel arrived at Mount Sinai, they were actually farther away from the promised land than when they were slaves in Egypt. They were actually farther away from the promises that God had made to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and this really shows that God's heart was not rushing. God is not in a rush, he is not in a hurry for a destination for Israel and he is not in a hurry in your life. But God was all about teaching Israel all the important things that they needed to know to learn to walk by faith in the wilderness. So God was using that time, and what God really impressed upon my heart was how reflective this is of the Christian walk of faith. We so often don't understand why God allows so much pain and suffering and setbacks and disappointments in our lives. It's one of the main things that drives people away from the faith. But much of our surprise and disappointment at this process can be due to our misaligned perceptions or our expectations of what we feel like God should be doing in our lives. So if any of that is pricking you and you missed the last episode, you can turn back to that. The episode's called Expectations. I would encourage you to go back and listen to it.

Speaker 1: 3:02

But for today we're going to be diving into Exodus, chapter 19. We're going to do the whole chapter. And at this point it has been two months since Israel has left Egypt. They saw the plagues. They crossed the Red Sea. They have daily manna from heaven that is feeding them. God has fed them with quail. When they cried out for meat, they defeated the Amalekites with Joshua Remember. He was leading the attack while Moses and Aaron and Hur upheld them in prayer. They've witnessed God leading them in this pillar of fire and pillar of cloud, and now they have come to the base of Mount Sinai, the mountain of God. So Israel is going to camp here for an entire year. They're going to stay put.

Speaker 1: 3:47

That's a long time to be in one place, especially when they thought that they were just going to be hopping over to the promised land. But this is such an important time in the history of Israel because God is going to be renewing his covenant and he's going to be enumerating it. So there's 57 chapters of scripture that are devoted to this time at mount sinai. 57, that's so many chapters because god is explaining how these people are to walk in righteousness and what being people of god looks like. And if you remember back, god promised moses in his encounter at the burning bush that he would bring the Israelites to this very place to worship God. So this has got to be a surreal experience for Moses, because here he is coming back to where it all started, where God met him in the burning bush. Everything was leading to this moment when God would renew and confirm his covenant with Israel. Such a beautiful thing, all right. So I'm going to read to you the entirety of Exodus, chapter 19. This is in the New Living Translation, just because it reads a little bit easier.

Speaker 1: 4:58

On the third new moon, after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt on that day, when they came to the wilderness of Sinai, 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 mountains, 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 eagles' wings and brought you here 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. So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. 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. 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.

Speaker 1: 6:17

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. Said to Moses Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow and 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 and you shall set limits for the people all around, saying Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch even the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. No hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot. Whether beast or man, he shall not live.

Speaker 1: 6:51

When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain. So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated the people and they washed their garments and he said to the people Be ready for the third day, do not go near your women. 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 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 a kiln and the whole mountain greatly trembled. 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 Moses to the top of the mountain and Moses went up. And 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. Also, let the priests who come near to the Lord consecrate themselves lest the Lord break out against them. And Moses said to the Lord the people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for you yourself warned us, 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.

Speaker 1: 8:28

So this account in Exodus 19,. It shows us a powerful manifestation of the presence and the power of God and Moses, this humble man of God. He climbs this mountain that's on fire and billowing with smoke and shaking and thundering, to meet with God, with smoke and shaking and thundering to meet with God. And the first thing that God reminds Moses of is his own past faithfulness. In verse four, god says you yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. This just shows that God is a jealous God. He is passionate for his people, for their attention and for their love.

Speaker 1: 9:15

God emphasizes that he did these things to bring the people of Israel to himself. He desired them to be near to him, set apart, just for him, in fellowship with him. Set apart, just for him, in fellowship with him. God didn't want to live apart from Israel, and God desires the same thing for us. He desires intimacy and fellowship and closeness. God wants you the one that is sitting there listening to this podcast God so desires your fellowship. He bore them on eagle's wings to bring them to himself because they were so precious to him. And then, in verse five and six, god begins to lay down the terms of the covenant with Israel, since he redeemed them from Egypt and protected them and brought them to himself. God says Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. So here God is beginning to lay the terms of his covenant with Israel. They obey God and he makes them a holy nation that will be protected by God.

Speaker 1: 10:40

As I was reading through my Bible in a year this year, when I went through Deuteronomy, I saw this little verse that just was such a good little encapsulation. And in Deuteronomy 13, four, it says serve only the Lord, your God, and fear him alone. Obey his commands, listen to his voice and cling to him. And this was Moses encouraging the people what to do. But this little verse is so powerful Serve only God, don't serve anything else. Fear him alone. Don't fear man or the future. Obey his commands, obey what he says, listen to his voice and cling to him. I love when it says cling. It reminds me of a little child just holding onto your clothes when they're afraid at night, when they've had a nightmare or something, just clinging. That's how we're supposed to be with God and that is what God is training the Israelites to do here. So we're going to talk a little bit more about this covenant in the next episode, when we finally get to the Ten Commandments. But for now I want us to just see here God's heart, that it is and always has been for communion, for intimacy, for fellowship and closeness. He calls Israel his treasured possession.

Speaker 1: 11:57

Sometimes this Old Testament and this New Testament God can seem different, but they are the same God. It's just different dispensations or stages of revealing his greatness. He's such a big God we can't understand or fathom all of who he is. So there were certain things that he revealed in the Old Testament and then, when Jesus came in the new dispensation of grace, there was all sorts of new things that we understood about him. So same God, same heart, just different stages of revealing.

Speaker 1: 12:28

So in order to approach this covenant, god Moses tells the Israelites that they have to prepare themselves. They wash their clothes, they prepare their bodies. He tells them not to touch the mountain at all, or even approach it, or they would be killed because those boundaries are set. So no one accidentally dies because they came too close to God. God wanted Israel to experience his greatness so they could walk in confidence in this new covenant. It was also so the people would trust Moses as their leader, as the one who could approach this incredible God and walk up to this smoking mountain and live and come back down again.

Speaker 1: 13:06

So then we read of God approaching. It says on the morning of the third day, thunder roared and lightning flashed and a dense cloud came down on the mountain. There was a long, loud blast from a ram's horn and all the people trembled. Moses led them out of the camp to meet with God and they stood at the foot of the mountain. All of Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord had descended in the form of fire. The smoke billowed into the sky like smoke from a kiln and the whole mountain shook violently as the blast of the ram's horn grew louder and louder. Moses spoke and God thundered his reply. The Lord came down on the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain.

Speaker 1: 13:54

We need this vivid imagery. As I'm reading this, I can just see it, see this mountain that is shaking and on fire and billowing with smoke. We need this vivid imagery of the glory of God, of his holiness, to wake us up and remember who our God is. Our God is to be revered. He is holy. I think sometimes, as New Testament believers, we remember Jesus and we look to Jesus, and Jesus is our Messiah and he was so tangible and human. He was acquainted with our sufferings and grief and he went through all of these things and sometimes I think we can lose sight of the holiness of God.

Speaker 1: 14:40

So I want to just take a minute and look at this word holy, so we can understand the depths of what it means, can understand the depths of what it means. Holy in Hebrew means to cut or to separate, to be held apart from something else. So this is what causes us to define holy as sacred or pure, clean or free from defilement. So the term holy can apply to anything a person or a spirit, a place, an object, a concept or a thought. Any object that was placed in the tabernacle would be called holy because it was dwelling in the presence of God, it was set apart and separated for his use and it was forever treated as other, with respect and honor.

Speaker 1: 15:27

Think of it like this God is a lot like the sun. He is essential for life, it gives us warmth and light and it makes things grow. But if you get too close to the sun you can be destroyed, because we just can't withstand the heat or the brilliance. And God is so good and so perfect and so holy and we are tainted from sin from birth and unable to look upon him or stand in his presence because of our inherited corruption. So this is why God wanted the Israelites in Exodus 19 to see his holiness and his majesty, to see the lightning and the thick smoke billowing from this massive fire of God, to feel the tremendous quaking of the ground, to hear the thunder and the loud trumpet sound emanating from his presence. No one was blowing that trumpet. The sound was just emanating from the presence of God. All of the senses were being engaged with this overwhelming intensity. God was showing just a small piece of his all-consuming nature, the fire and the passion of his perfect holiness. It undid the Hebrews. They were terrified in that moment because they understood their place in their relationship with God. He demands perfection and obedience, because anything less it can't withstand his pure, son-like nature.

Speaker 1: 17:01

And this is not the only biblical account of God, the Father. This caused me to think about the other times when you see God reveal himself, and how precious that is. So we're going to talk about Job. When Job suffered his many, many losses, he lost all of his cattle and his servants and his children, and then eventually he lost his health. He was filled with boils and miserable. His friends came and tried to console him. Well, more like they tried to convince him to confess his sin. Job was sitting on an ash heap, scraping his boils with broken pottery, just sitting on the broken fragments of his life, miserable. And we know that Job had done nothing wrong. God had even said it in the beginning of the book that Job was a righteous man. And so we go through this book seeing the suffering and Job and his friends going back and forth talking about what righteousness breeds essentially what you can expect when you're righteous and Job is just so miserable.

Speaker 1: 18:02

And then, in Job 38, god finally shows up and speaks, after everyone else has had their say 37 chapters of talking. Then God shows up and this is what he says. This is Job 38, verses 1 to 13. Then the Lord answered Job from the whirlwind. Can you imagine that A whirlwind touching down in the middle of your misery, misery. And now out of the whirlwind is this voice? Imagine that as we're reading through this, who is this that questions my wisdom and such ignorant words? Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you and you must answer them. So Job has been questioning God why did you do this and why did you do that all these chapters long? And now God is saying it's my turn to question you.

Speaker 1: 18:54

God says when were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much, who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line, what supports its foundations and who laid its cornerstone. As the morning star sang together and all the angels shouted for joy, who kept the sea inside its boundaries as it burst from the womb? And as I clothed it with clouds and wrapped it in thick nardness For I locked it behind barred gates limiting its shores I said this far and no farther will you come here. Your proud waves must stop. This far and no farther will you come here. Your proud waves must stop. Have you ever commanded the morning to appear and caused the dawn to rise in the east? Have you made daylight spread to the ends of the earth to bring an end to night's wickedness? And God goes on and on and on and talks about nature and his creation and asks Job where were you when all of these things happen? You know where does the deer go when it has babies. And he talks about the deep things in the ocean and who feeds them and how they swim and how things were made. And he asks all these questions that obviously Job has no idea about.

Speaker 1: 20:08

And after Job is questioned by God, he realizes his own folly thinking. If God is able to do all of these things that he has stated, and he does it without breaking a sweat. Who am I to question? Job, says in chapter 40,. Then the Lord said to Job do you still want to argue with the Almighty? Are you still God's critic? Do you have the answers? And then Job replied to the Lord I am nothing. How could I ever find the answers? I will cover my mouth with my hand. I have said too much already. I have nothing more to say. And then down in Job 42, it says and I will speak. I have some questions for you and you must answer them. I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.

Speaker 1: 21:25

Job thought that he knew God and he was utterly humbled when he realized that he actually knew nothing. He encountered God and he realized how silly it was to question such a tremendous God. There is so much that we can glean from this, because I've never seen God appear to me and speak in a whirlwind. But this man did, moses did. They actually stood and saw God appear. And the response is always the same Utter repentance in dust and ashes. This is what Israel did. They were terrified when they saw the presence of God. This is what Job did.

Speaker 1: 22:05

We're going to read in a little bit. It's also what Isaiah did. When you come face to face with the holiness of God, it puts you in your place. So another man who had this very real encounter with God was Isaiah. Isaiah is an Old Testament prophet and he was undone when he saw God's throne room. This is from Isaiah, chapter 6. This is a vision that Isaiah saw of God's throne room. So again, try and picture this as I'm reading it to you.

Speaker 1: 22:34

It was in the year King Uzziah died when I saw the Lord. He was seated on a lofty throne and the train of his robe filled the temple. Attending him were mighty seraphim angels, and each having six wings. With two wings they covered their face, with two they covered their feet and with two they flew, and they were calling out to each other holy, holy, holy is the Lord of heaven's armies. The whole earth is filled with his glory. Their voices shook the temple to its foundations and the entire building was filled with smoke. And then I said this is Isaiah responding. It's all over. I am doomed, for I am a sinful man, I have filthy lips and I live among a people with filthy lips, yet I have seen the King, the Lord of heaven's armies. The Lord of heaven's armies, this man having come face to face with God, with the reality, with the truest reality that there is, which is God holding all things together by his power, and he is undone. We need more of this in our life, in our hearts, in a reality, in our lives, in our day to day-day.

Speaker 1: 23:53

Later, in his book, isaiah wrote this as God gave it to him. It said Isaiah 55, verse 6 to 9. It says seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. We need these reminders that we are so small in comparison. Our God is holy, which means that he is sovereign. He is in control of everything.

Speaker 1: 24:49

The only response to these encounters with God is total surrender, for every knee to bow and every tongue to confess, because he is utterly authoritative. He's the one that is sitting on the throne, his authority is absolute. He is superior in power and rule and control. And if he really is, this huge, holy good God, if he's really as magnificent as all these accounts tell us, that the Bible says that he is, if you really believe that, then it changes every part of our life, because if you've repented of your sins and believed on the Lord Jesus for your salvation, then this huge, quaking God is on your side, he is for you, he is not against you. This holiness of God which terrified Israel, it sets us free and it gives us confidence and rest. And can I just point out something that really blessed me while I was thinking about all of this?

Speaker 1: 26:01

When we forget that he's infinitely above our knowledge, we strive and we worry. When we compare this massive God with ourselves by using our own life experiences to judge him and to try to sort out our future, then we fear immeasurably. When we forget what these people witnessed with their eyes and felt with their senses, we begin to doubt and scheme and stress and strain. We try to take on a load that was never meant for us to carry. We just can't do it. We just can't do it. We will only know terror when we lose sight of who God is.

Speaker 1: 26:42

We must remember these scenes that he's painted for us in the word. We need to cling to these visions, like that child clinging to its mother in the night. We need to cling to them, these manifestations that God has allowed his people to interact with, and, if we can, it will bring peace and bring calm and rest, if we allow it to. It will enable us, day after day, to hand him our heart and our plans and to give him our uncertain futures and our worries, our plans, and to give him our uncertain futures and our worries. A proper perspective of God allows us to be totally free, because the blood of Jesus allows us to draw near to fellowship with the creator, who holds the dawn in the palm of his hands and writes his name in the stars.

Speaker 1: 27:30

Jesus has broken down the wall of separation. His sacrifice demolished that boundary line that was set around Mount Sinai. We are free to approach, we are eternally protected and loved. What amazing freedom and joy we have been given in Christ. But we must remember, we must obey. We must steadfastly look at him and know that, whatever our circumstance, he is holy. Whatever our loss, he is holy. Whatever our doubts, he is holy. And whatever you are facing today, he is holy. It was enough for Moses. It silenced Job and it motivated Isaiah. It's surely enough for us, thank you.