Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 28, 2021 | Exodus - Come On Up!

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February 28, 2021 | Exodus - Come On Up! · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
0:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Jocelyn, at least over here.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it was like at College Avenue Building, but worship over here was great with Dakota Jocelyn and family.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: Great to see you today.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: If you're uh here for the first time, we're in a series on the book of Exodus.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: And uh I would encourage you, even though we just have three weeks to go, to accept the Exodus Challenge.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: We're reading the book of Exodus four chapters a week till Palm Sunday.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: Accept that.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: It's three weeks, really, till Palm Sunday.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh four weeks, I'm sorry, yeah.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: That's the 28th.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: So, and we're only eight chapters left, if you've if you're up with me, chapter 32.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna slow down just a little bit this next week.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, uh read two chapters, or you can read as many as you want.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: But we're just gonna do two daily devotionals, chapter 33 and 34.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: Next week, see, I'm going to preach, uh, I'm gonna teach you out of Exodus 32, which that devotional just got published on the website last night.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: And the week after that will be chapter 34.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 32, the greatest act of idolatry in the Bible, chapter 34, the greatest list of God's attributes in the Bible.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: And the final week of the series on the 21st of March will be on the last chapter, chapter 40 of the book of Exodus.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: And uh we'll summarize the series.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: So that's the Exodus Challenge.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: Hope that this next week you'll join me in chapters 33 and 34.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: And feel free to read ahead if you want to.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: But uh, need to slow down so they don't get too far ahead of these Bible studies on Sunday.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, so our our uh if you're visiting Exodus, it's uh 40 chapters, and the the uh series is entitled Breaking Us Out, which is really the first half of the book, Breaking Us Out of Egypt and Inviting Us In.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: That's the half of the book that we're in now, chapters 19 through 40.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: And title of today's message is Come On Up.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: So we're in Exodus 24.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible open to that, now theologians uh Bible, if you study this in seminary, it's called The Covenant Confirmed or the Covenant Ratified.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: And uh so um some of you are a little quizzical about the going from four chapters to two chapters.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: When I figured this whole thing out as four chapters a week, I sort of got my arithmetic wrong.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: So that's why we're a little fast, but then I decided, you know what, I'll give you a little arithmetic this morning.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: This is fun for kids.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: This is uh this chapter is far more important to Jewish people and far more important in the Bible than any of us know.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Most preachers, even preaching through Exodus, skip over this chapter.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: This chapter is, you may have skipped over it sort of when you're reading it.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the great chapters of the Bible.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to prove it to you.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: And in the great chapters of the Bible, the authors oftentimes kept on, and the writers kept on tweaking it to make it easy to memorize for the Hebrews for the Israelites.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: And the one way they did this, and they did this with several chapters in the Bible, is they have exactly the same number of Hebrew letters in this chapter as the numbers that are stated in the Bible, uh, that are stated in that chapter.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: So if you uh kids, if you have a Bible and you want to look at the numbers that are listed in here, the number 70, then comes the number one, then comes the number 12 twice, and so forth.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: You add up all these numbers and come up to me afterwards and tell me how many words in the original Hebrew language are in this chapter.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: Arithmetic fun for kids.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: All right.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: Hey, you don't need junior church here.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: You don't need junior church.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: You get this on Sunday morning.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: So um back to Exodus 24.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: Let me start this way because of uh uh how I want to end and how I can show you how important this chapter is.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Three months ago, today, no, tomorrow, three months ago, tomorrow, November 29th, a man paid uh over four million dollars to eat lunch with a billionaire who is about 50 years older than he was.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: He paid over four million dollars to eat lunch with Warren Buffett up in Warren Buffett's hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Every year, uh Warren Buffett, founder of Berkshire Hathaway, auctions off a three-hour lunch to benefit his favorite charity.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: And if you win, in the last couple of years, you've had to spend about four and a half million dollars to win the that auction.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: If you win, you can bring seven of your friends.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: Hey, so it's a deal.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: This last uh November, Zach Friedman won.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: Zach Friedman is uh is a writer and a um uh speaker, keynote speaker, and he won the bid and he says it was well worth every penny.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he's already written a book about it, about lemonade or something.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: About success, actually, and the five things you learned from Warren during that meal about success.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: And this is really good.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: And so it makes me think, how much would you pay to eat lunch with not Warren Buffett, he wouldn't pay a nickel, but how much did you pay to eat lunch, unless you're a businessman, how much did you pay to eat lunch with Patrick Mahomes, or Taylor Swift, or Gary Woodland, or Carrie Underwood, or Tim Tebow, or Chris Pratt, and I'm picking all Christians here, these people who claim to be Christians, Tom Hanks or Chuck Norris, or Beth Moore, or Franklin Graham, or Johnny Erickson Todd, how much would you pay?
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Now let me ask you this: how much would you pay to eat lunch with the Lord God himself?
6:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, it isn't gonna cost you a thing because the Lord has already made the appointment to eat with you.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: And in this chapter, we have a picture or a foretaste about of that.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: And I really encourage you to look it up either in your Bible or in your cell phone or something so that you can have it in front of you so that you'll remember this morning after it happens.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: I am so in agreement with whatever that meant.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: In uh by the way, in College Avenue building, I can't describe the noise we had to you, but it probably, probably was uh part of the ceremony that we're gonna discuss today.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, um let me just say that the reason partly the reason this is important is that uh two weeks ago when I preached on Exodus 19, I closed with a story about an engagement that happened in Ireland on the top of a mountain.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Because that was a picture of what happened in Exodus chapter 19.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: Exodus 19, I said, was the turning point in Israel's history because God, in a sense, got down on his knee and offered to marry her.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: He wanted, said, I want to make a covenant with you.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: I want you to become my special people permanently.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: And the question was, what would they say?
7:29
SPEAKER_00: And they didn't say no.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: They said yes.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: They accepted the engagement to be married.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: And responding to that, yes, God then, in the last four chapters, 20, 21, 22, 23, in the last four chapters, God has been explaining to them their side of that, shall we say, marriage, their side of the covenant, what he expects of them.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 20, the famous chapter, he gave them the ten words, which we call the ten commandments, which we think of as Israel's moral law.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: The Jews have never thought about it that way.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: They think all of the law from Exodus through Deuteronomy is moral, which it is.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: And then after Exodus 20, God moved in chapters 21, 22, and 23 into what we call the civil law code, you know, of Topeka, of America, but that was their civil law code.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: They were short, pithy guidelines about how to make uh how to help judges.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: And in those days, judges were expected to just take guidelines and combine it with their common sense to apply to each unique situation.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: Today we have law codes that stretch thousands of pages because we're scared that judges can't be that smart, and so we have to define every last situation, okay?
8:49
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, that's what's happened in the last four chapters that God has laid out what theologians call the stipulations of the covenant, what we would call the requirement, Israel's side, the requirements or obligations they have.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: This is what you must do, God says.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: You must obey my law.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Now Israel's heard that, okay?
9:07
SPEAKER_00: Israel's now heard that.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: When God proposed to them, they said yes, they got engaged.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: Now that they know more about what being hooked up to God means, will they still agree to go through with this covenant or merger or wedding?
9:23
SPEAKER_00: And the answer in our chapter is, yeah.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: They're willing to walk the aisle, and that's what makes this a really momentous day in Israel's history.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: In a sense, this is Israel's wedding day, and that's why we have briefly described here a meal, a wedding feast.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: And this is an incredible ceremony I'm going to take you through in the next few minutes with all kinds of lessons about why we meet here and about our relationship with God.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: Now the chapter falls into two simple parts.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Verses 1 through 11 is Act 1, verses 12 through 18 is Act 2.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: And Act 1, God invites all of Israel's leaders, that's Moses, Aaron, and his sons, and the 70 sort of leaders that Moses appointed over Israel, 74 people total.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: He invites all of them to come up the mountain and confirm that covenant with him.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: And they do it.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: That's verses 1 through 11.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: In verses 12 through 18, God makes another invitation.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: God then invites Moses to come up alone and stay for a while, so he can give him the tablets of stone and the instructions for the tabernacle, though he doesn't say that.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: And Moses does.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: Moses doesn't know, and the people don't know, that stay for a while means 40 days.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: And in next week's Bible study on chapter 32, which is really the next step in the story, you can find out how that utterly freaks Israel out.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: That he stays overnight for 40 nights.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: So there are three scenes in Act 1.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: The first scene is God's invitation.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord said to Moses, Come up to the Lord.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: This should be Yahweh, capital L, capital O R D.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: Come up to Yahweh, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, those are Aaron's sons who in Leviticus 10 are going to be killed by God because they get really careless and sloppy and cavalier about the offerings.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: And 70 of the elders of Israel, you are to worship at a distance, but Moses alone is to approach the Lord.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: The others must not come near, and the people may not come up with them.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: That's the rule of the people of Ad.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: Remember, they have barriers at the bottom of the mountain.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: Can't pass the barrier, or else you'll be struck dead.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: So that's the first thing.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: That's the invitation.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: It's striking.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: It's the first time anyone more than like Moses has been able to go up the mountain.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: But this is the wedding ceremony.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: You have not just the bride, you have all of the attendants, so you have all of these people coming up the mountain.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: Now you have in scene two, back at the bottom of the mountain, the voice of God has come out with the invitation.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: At the bottom of the mountain, now Moses goes to the people.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: Since all of the people can't come up the mountain for the ratification ceremony, Moses first uh rereads all the uh all the things God has said in chapters.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: We review chapters 20, 21, 22, and 23, and they respond with one voice, everything the Lord has said, we will do.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they're saying, Yep, we will.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go through with this, we're willing to get married.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: This is sort of like when a bride comes forward and a groom on the stage, and you say, Will you, uh, what's your intent?
12:54
SPEAKER_00: Will you get married?
12:55
SPEAKER_00: And they say, I will.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: Moses then wrote down all ancient covenants like this had to be written down.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: So Moses writes down everything the Lord had said.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: All right, chapters 19 through 23.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: This is verses 3 and 4.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: In verse 4, then we read that next morning, Moses got up early because this is going to be a really busy day.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: This is like, you know, sort of the wedding day.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: And he got up early and he built an altar at the foot of the mountain.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: The tabernacle with the brazen altar and all that hasn't been built yet.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: So he he builds this big altar so that they can offer sacrifices.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: And he also did, he set up seven twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: So he builds this altar, and he also sets up 12 stone pillars representing the 12 tribes standing around as if they are, you know, approving of this wedding.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: There are some uh mostly fallen-down stone pillars in Sinai, probably uh not the right place.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Here's some, here's 12 stone pillars, by the way, in Western Australia.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you have these places, as you know, especially in Scotland and England around the globe, where you have these stone pillars that represent mysterious and interesting things.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: And it would be fun to see the 12 stone pillars representing each of the 12 tribes in the Sinai Desert, but we haven't that would help us find out where Mount Sinai is.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: But we don't.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, you can see what this is like.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: So Moses has gotten up early and he's built an altar because today is the day of sacrifices, and he set up these 12-stone pillars representing the 12 tribes of Israel.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: This is quite a ceremony, this is quite a scene.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have an outdoor wedding, you know, you're gonna set up the decorations, something like that.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: And then he sent young Israelite men.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: They don't have the priestly thing going yet.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna happen in a few more chapters.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: So he just gets young Israelite men and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: These are two different kinds of offerings.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: Burnt offerings are where you cut up an animal and you put the pieces, all of them, on the altar and you burned the whole thing up.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh and and you didn't eat any of it.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: Now, fellowship offerings were different.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: That's this is for sin.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: You you put your hands on the animal and you cut it up as if you are putting your sin on the animal, and and because this is an issue of sin.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: Now, fellowship offerings is what you do as believers in a sense.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: So what happens is they would kill the animal and they would burn the fat to God, but then they would have a party and they would eat uh the meat of the animal.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: Meat was special in those days.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: They didn't eat meat every day like we do, uh, but just rarely, and so that made offering a fellowship animal a really big deal to them.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: And then Moses did this an interesting thing.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: He took half of the blood and he put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: So he puts the blood in bowls, takes half of it, and he splashes it against the altar.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: And then he takes um, he's going to splash the rest of the blood on the people, and that's what's significant.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: But then he took the book of the covenant, that's Exodus 20, 21, 22, and 23, what we call the moral law and civil law, and he read it to the people.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, hold it.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: He read that before.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: And they said, We'll do everything the Lord has said, we will obey.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: And you go, well, it just did that in verse 3.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Why do we have to do that again?
16:35
SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting is I take it it's a little bit like a wedding, and in a traditional wedding, when you have the couple up, you you ask them for a declaration of intent at the beginning of the wedding.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes you say, Will you marry this blighter?
16:50
SPEAKER_00: And he's and you say to him, Will you marry this beautiful lady?
16:54
SPEAKER_00: And they both say, I will.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: So then you have your message and you tell them all of the responsibilities and you you go through all this stuff, and then you say, But do you, now this is a declaration of vows, do you take uh her to be, you know, your wife?
17:09
SPEAKER_00: Do you take this guy to be your husband?
17:12
SPEAKER_00: And so I take it that's what's happening now, that you had the declaration of intent, and now he's repeated exactly, he's repeated very clearly the stipulations and the responsibilities and the obligations uh that they have to do, and they go, we'll do it.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: And I know that down through the years we like to criticize, we say, Well, they sure didn't do a good job.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: Wow, they were so optimistic.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Oh, what are you supposed to do?
17:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, at a wedding, sometimes as a pastor, you've gotten to know the couple pretty well, and you know, you know that one of them is is gonna make their husband or wife pretty mad by nightfall.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, just their personality.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't mean they're not supposed to take the vows.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: You take the vows because that's the thing to do.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: You you respond the way you're supposed to, you respond with your desire, and you know you're gonna work on it and you're gonna become better, okay?
18:01
SPEAKER_00: So that's why they say we'll do everything the Lord has said.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: So this is this is because these people can't go up the mountain, you know, the mountain comes to them.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: Moses has this sort of a ceremony, a gratification ceremony with them at the bottom of the mountain.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that interesting?
18:23
SPEAKER_00: He walks around and he sprinkled it on them.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: And I bet they didn't wash, you know.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: I bet I bet a week later, you know, there's blood splotches on their face and in their hair, and certainly in their clothes, and said, This is the blood of the covenant the Lord has made with you.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: You go, that's kind of a messy, you know, messy uh wedding clothes.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, messing up their clothes.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: And this is so bad.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: This is reminding me of a Jerry Seinfeld thing.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: I know, and I know you've heard this.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: He he was he's making fun.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Why am I telling us?
18:59
SPEAKER_00: So he's making fun of laundry detergent advertisements, right?
19:04
SPEAKER_00: And he says, you know, and they tell you, they show you that this laundry detergent can get the blood out of your clothes.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: And he says, folks, if you're getting blood out of your clothes, you have a lot bigger problem than laundry detergent.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, that's that's what that is.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: But my point would be if you got blood on your clothes on this day, you don't have a problem, but it is a big deal.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: It's a huge deal.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: It symbolizes that you have identified with that sacrifice that's on the altar, that you are cleansed, you understand that that uh that that uh it takes blood to take away sin.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: Thank God we don't have to do it with a sheep or with a bull, right?
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Ours has happened on the cross.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: I love that, I love how the fact that twice this morning in worship, uh at least twice, and even Teresa mentioned it as well, talking about the sacrifice that Christ made for our sins.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: So he sprinkles it on the people and he says, This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all of these words.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: All right?
20:04
SPEAKER_00: And now, oh my.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Get ready for this, ladies and gentlemen.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: Verses 9, 10, and 11.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: And this is what makes me so mad at the Bible sometimes, because the best, the juiciest parts are just like, you know, it just drops them on you without any.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, aren't there a lot of places in the Bible like David killing Goliath?
20:26
SPEAKER_00: You'd like to have an extra 10 verses, or or I'm not a pervert, but I'd like to know a little more about David and Bathsheba, you know?
20:36
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and I mean this, wait till you see how fast this ratification ceremony goes.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: So I'm slowing, I'm gonna go slow like a snail now, because this is incredible stuff in verses 9, 10, and 11.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay, now we have the in the 74 people, Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and that's something God's grace, knowing that not very long from now, they're gonna be so careless about spiritual things, he's gonna have to kill them.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: And yet, oh yeah, come on up.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: Nadab and Abihu and the 70 elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Under his feet, and they hold it.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean, saw the God of Israel?
21:18
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna tell us in Exodus 33, God Himself says, you know, in just a few days, he's gonna say, no one has seen me at any time, or can.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: Half a dozen times in the Bible, no man has seen God at any time.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: If you see me, you can't live, you'll die.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean, just saw the God of Israel?
21:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, it probably means the same thing that it means in Ezekiel and Revelation.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: What you see is, well, you see where he is, but you don't actually see him.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: All that's described, notice, is well, we you know, it's like the when I think Trump flew into town and had a friend that went to see him.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: I said, Did you see him?
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, did you really see him?
21:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, I saw his I saw the motorcade, you know.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: And so that's sort of what's going on here.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, we saw his feet, kind of.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: We saw the pavement it was on.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: Under his feet was something like a pavement.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: Notice it's always something even like the pavement.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: It's so astounding that even what's around him you can't hardly describe.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: So every time you have these descriptions in the Bible, it's something like.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: So something like a pavement made of, and I know some of your Bibles say sapphire.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: I am sorry, that's not going to happen.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: If you know the sapphires make rings, but they don't.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: This is this happens to be a lapis lazuli table.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: It was very prized in the ancient Near East, these tables, floors, whatever.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: It's semi-precious stone.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: This one, you can get this online today if you want for$15,000.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: For a little lapis-lazuli table.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: It's brilliant.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: It's just a coffee table.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: Don't think that's 20 feet long, okay?
22:48
SPEAKER_00: So uh, but it's beautiful.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: Sapphire, by the way.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: They don't they don't make tables out of sapphire.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: It would be billions.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Um out of bright, bright blue is the sky.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: And I begin to wonder when I look at some of the other verses in the Bible about seeing God, if maybe they were sort of, if it was opaque and they were looking through the lapis lazuli to the blue sky.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: Because look at some of these.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: Here's Ezekiel chapter one.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel's out there and here comes God, right?
23:15
SPEAKER_00: And over the heads of the living creatures, the likeness, the likeness.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: Something like an expanse or a platform was spread out.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: It gleamed like awesome crystal.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: It's just what he sees.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: He sees two.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel doesn't see God either.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: He just sees a platform, right?
23:32
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of crystal.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation chapter 4.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: Before the throne, there was something, says John, like a sea of glass, like crystal.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: What are you gonna see when you see God the Father?
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, you're certainly not gonna see him.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna see some sort of an amazing glow and glory and kind of a form, but mainly you're gonna see a platform.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: By the way, isn't it interesting that that uh on the Ark of the Covenant, the location where God stands in the tabernacle, which they're about to build, is called the same word, it's called it's a gold pavement.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord stands there between the cherubim.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just find find it interesting that God's into pavement so much.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, um, so uh let me just let me just throw something at you that might blow your mind a little bit, okay?
24:28
SPEAKER_00: So this is a quote um from a book that's uh certainly the most interesting book I've read in a number of years, and I'm taking some groups through it right now.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: And and and if you want to read the most remarkable book that you that you've read in a long time, check out this book, The Unseen Realm, Michael Heiser.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Now I know it's a little bit thick.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: You'll learn more about the Bible in this book than you've learned maybe in any book in your life.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: So, but but it's subtitled, Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: And this is a line from his book in one of his chapters, God's throne room on earth is atop Mount Sinai, okay?
25:06
SPEAKER_00: And then he says in Genesis, Eden was Yahweh's home, but God has since changed addresses.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: Since then, Sinai had become his home on earth and his throne room.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: That's why, you know, a year or so, two, a couple years before, when Moses had taken his flock into this area, this is where God appeared to him in the burning bush.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
25:30
SPEAKER_00: And for just a moment, let me throw this at you.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: Whether God is pictured in his throne room in heaven or on earth, fire, smoke, lightning, loud noise, flashing lights always seem to surround God, according to the Bible.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: Whether he's enthroned on heaven, as in Daniel 7, or on earth, remember in Isaiah 6, and the train of his robe fills the temple, or in Ezekiel 1, or read Psalm 18 sometime.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: And God, though the this text does not tell us, we happen to be told elsewhere that God has brought angels with him, and they're on top of Mount Sinai right now.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
26:13
SPEAKER_00: Because we read in Acts 7.53, before Stephen gets killed, Stephen says, and the law was delivered, speaking of this law was delivered by angels.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: And Hebrews 2 also says the law was declared to Moses by angels.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: So God has brought his throne room from heaven to the top of Mount Sinai.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: And soon, as soon as he's giving Moses now the instructions in the next seven chapters, 25 through 31.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: He's going to give him the instructions about how to build the tabernacle on earth, and that's when he's going to move down to the Holy of Holies to another platform there between the cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: And he's going to move his throne room there, and that's where the inner inner sanctum is going to be filled with smoke and so forth.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: So, just tossing that at you, okay?
27:14
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we have in verse 11, but God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites, he didn't kill them, even though they were close to his presence.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: And you say, well, he shouldn't have killed them because they didn't really get to see his face anyway.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: We know that.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay, true.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: But graciously, God keeps people at a distance because we are sinners and we should not stand in the presence of holy God.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: But then he goes, so God didn't kill them, but then it says they saw God, and what?
27:52
SPEAKER_00: This is all we're gonna get of the wedding feast, and they ate and drank.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't tell us what they ate, it doesn't tell us how you know how they sat.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: Let me throw one let me throw one more thing at you.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: So how many of them went up?
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, Moses, Aaron, who's gonna be the high priest, his two sons, and 70 leaders, God had told Moses to appoint 70 leaders of the nation Israel.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: It's very interesting at the end of Deuteronomy.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: God is talking about what happened at the Tower of Babel, and when he spread the nations of the earth out, he says at the end of Deuteronomy that there were 70 nations, and he appointed a leading angel to be in charge of each of the nations.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: Some of those angels went bad, but seventy angels.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if the angels God brought from heaven were the 70 leading angels, like the prince of Persia we read in the book of Daniel, you know, the angel in charge of each country of the earth to watch over it so that you wouldn't have a Genesis 6 giants and daughters of men and all that crazy stuff happen.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: He appointed a leading angel, sort of an archangel for each of the nations.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if he didn't bring those 70 leading angels down and then have Moses bring the 70 leaders of Israel so that in a sense he could have them sitting across from each other.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: And so the those leaders of Israel got to sit across from seventy angels.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: So God had brought the leaders of all of the nations of which he's Lord of on earth there to that meal to meet with the 70 leaders of all of his, the people of his special nation on earth.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Don't know whether that's true, but it is interesting that the number 70 is used both times.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay, leaving that behind, told you might blow your mind a little bit.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: It's a very interesting book.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: So now the covenant is confirmed.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: We don't know what they ate, but always in the ancient days, when you confirmed a covenant, we read this in Genesis 15.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: The two parties gathered together, okay?
30:05
SPEAKER_00: They read the terms of the agreement, they both agreed to do it.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: Then they would cut an animal in half, they would walk between the pieces, they would again agree to the covenant, and then they would sit down and have a meal.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: And so we assume that that's what happened here.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: So they're sitting down, and once the meal is over, it's confirmed.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: Meals are still very important.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: Those of you who've been to Arab countries, have been to the Near East, I have a number of times.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: It is interesting, isn't it?
30:28
SPEAKER_00: When you are invited to someone's home and you go and you sit down with people who, up until that moment were strangers, when you're done with a meal, you somehow feel and know that you have created a permanent friendship, a permanent relationship.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: Those people would never do anything to hurt you.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: And you have this closeness that happens around the table.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, those tables, those meals are not like ours.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: It's not like, you know, quick little things.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: They're sort of like meals with uh a woman who's sitting in front of me here.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: You go to her house and she has a repast laid out where you have fish and you have hamburgers and you have steak and you have everything else.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: And when you go to the Near East, they just keep bringing in the food.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: And in Morocco, they yell at you, cool, cool, K-U-L, which means eat, eat.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: And you're going, I'm full already.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: And that's, you don't ever say that.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: It's not nice.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: So you just eat and they have loads of food, and that's what's happening here, and all we get is they ate and drank.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, come on, tell us what's in the buffet.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: But whatever happens, at the end, the covenant is confirmed.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, God disappears and they all go down the mountain.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: That's the first act.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: Act number two in this chapter is now we have the second invitation, chapter 124, 12 to 18.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: The Lord said to Moses, Come up to me on the mountain and you alone, and you stay here.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: That's all he said really quickly.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say, Stay here for 40 days and 40 nights.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say you're going to be without food or water for 40 days and 40 nights, which Moses tells us in Deuteronomy 9:9 that he didn't eat or drink.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: Somehow it was supernaturally furnished with food and water, you know, through IVs, I don't know, on the mountain.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Come up here and stay, and I'll give you the tablets of stone with the law and the commandments I have written for their instruction.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: That's the invitation.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: Does he do it?
32:20
SPEAKER_00: Of course he does it.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: Then he sets out.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: Notice, God clearly had implied it was okay for him to bring his sidekick, the guy who's going to succeed him as the leader in 40 years.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: Joshua, his aide.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: And Moses went up on the mountain, and he was one of the 40 leaders, by the way, 70 leaders who went up and ate and drank before Joshua was.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: So Moses set out with Joshua, and Moses went up on the mountain of God.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: And he said to the elders down there in the valley, before he left, he had said, wait here for us until we come back to you.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: Aaron and her, the ones who had held his arms up on the mountain, you know, three chapters ago when the Amalekites attacked.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: Wait here for us until we come back to you.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: Aaron and her are with you, and anyone involved in the dispute can go to them.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna be my, you know, they're gonna be in charge while I'm gone.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna find out how poorly that worked out next Sunday in chapter 32.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: So I just want you to notice that there is, it's, you know, I know we like to have everybody completely equal and on the same, you know, getting the same income and all always having the same privileges, and we're mad that some people get to go here and there and others can't.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: But God's this way, okay?
33:31
SPEAKER_00: There was a barrier at the bottom of the mountain, and the thousands upon thousands of Israel sh could not pass that barrier.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: And now we know in the previous story that Moses, Aaron, and his son, 70 elders of Israel, they could go partway up the mountain where they had their covenant ratification meal with God, okay?
33:49
SPEAKER_00: And now we find that God invites Moses, who brings Joshua, and they can go up a little bit further.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: All right?
33:56
SPEAKER_00: But there's a barrier there, and we find here that Moses leaves Joshua behind, and Moses alone gets to go up and be with God.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: And God has these barriers that we're gonna find in Scripture, and they're barriers of holiness, and he says, you know what?
34:11
SPEAKER_00: I take holiness seriously.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: If you are clean before me, if you have confessed your sins, if you're dedicated to me, I will let you come into close fellowship with me.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: But I'm not just gonna let anybody, you know, who's living their life for themselves and sinning and so forth, just flop into my presence and get as close to me as they want.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: That's the way God is.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: Now we find in verses 15 and 16, when Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: A few chapters, that exactly is going to happen down in the tabernacle.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna descend from his home on Mount Sinai, and God will fill the Holy of Holies with a cloud and with his glory.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: Now we have a very interesting statement.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: Some people say, well, it may have taken Moses six days to get up there because God didn't keep him waiting.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: Nah, I think the implication here is that he kept Moses waiting.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: Because of creation, we have a six plus one theme in Exodus and through the Pentateuch.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: Is it to remind us, you know, of that?
35:24
SPEAKER_00: Or is it just to wait?
35:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, we have a really big theme about people needing to be patient and wait and how the Israelites couldn't do it.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: Moses did it.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: He just waited and waited and waited, and down in the valley, the Israelites who have never been parted with Moses for even an overnight before, are beginning to freak out.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: And he's not even inside the cloud yet.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: So for six days the cloud covered.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: On the seventh day, the Lord called from within the cloud, and verse 17 to the Israelites down in the valley, where's Moses?
35:55
SPEAKER_00: Where's Moses?
35:56
SPEAKER_00: The glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: And uh final, final verse, I think that should be 18.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain, and he stayed on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights, ladies and gentlemen.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: And you wonder, during the days of Jesus, do you remember the story in Matthew, Mark, and Luke of the Mount of Transfiguration?
36:22
SPEAKER_00: Where Jesus takes them up to another mountain.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: He actually takes them up to Mount Hermon, which, by the way, in the Bible is the mountain of the devil.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: He goes into enemy territory at the north, at the north.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: Mount Hermon is where some awful things happen.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: And when I take you there on a tour, and we go to Caesarea Philippi, and you see all of the remains of all of the God Pan and all of those.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the three dark places in the world where I feel demonic power.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, that's so God goes, so Jesus takes them up to Mount Hermon, and then all of a sudden he's transfigured, and you have Moses and Elijah.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: And I wonder, do you think Moses, did Moses think back to another mountain and another cloud with the very same God?
37:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, I think he did.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: He says, and a cloud enveloped them.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: So I just thought I'd throw that in.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: Moses and Jesus are really, really interesting characters, okay, because when Jesus comes and makes a big, big deal about how he's the new Moses, John, especially the Gospel of John.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: No man has seen God at any time.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: It's Moses' statement, but who's who has revealed him?
37:34
SPEAKER_00: The Lord Jesus, who's been with God face to face from the very beginning.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus goes out, and for 40 days and 40 nights, he fasts, you know, in the wilderness, and he's tempted by the devil.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: And then he gives the, he says, I give you a new law, I give you new rules.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: And so his law replaces the law of Moses and so forth.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: So Moses is this incredible, incredible character, and Jesus is happy to call himself the second Moses or the new Moses.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
38:06
SPEAKER_00: So, oh good, good.
38:08
SPEAKER_00: What are the takeaways?
38:09
SPEAKER_00: I know, I know this has been pretty thick stuff.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: And I know that this is just, I'm giddy about this.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: This is this is what I love.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: But let me ask you, what's our takeaway from this chapter?
38:19
SPEAKER_00: I got two takeaways.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: One has to do with worship, one has to do with the wedding.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: Do you know why we get together to worship?
38:25
SPEAKER_00: Exodus 24 details the first worship service in the Bible.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: The first formal worship service in the Bible is here, and it has the reasons why we go to church.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: And there are three reasons.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: It's basically a covenant renewal.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: Every time we come together, we renew our covenant with God in three ways: with the book of the covenant, the blood of the covenant, and the bread of the covenant.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: First, the book of the covenant.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: In this text, as you've seen, they read the book of the covenant.
38:59
SPEAKER_00: Moses reads it not just once, but he reads it twice.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: And we have, in a sense, not just read it, but we've stayed here.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's the heart of worship?
39:08
SPEAKER_00: It's not feeling the heart of worship, it's more than that.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: It's that God has given us actual words.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: He's written them down, he wants us to study them.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: And part of worship, part of the reason why we gather together is because we are called people of the book for a good reason.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: Folks make fun of us for being too literary or being too book-oriented and so forth.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: And if that's all we did, that would be a valid complaint.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: But listen, we're called Topeka Bible Church for a reason.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: It's because we're people of the book, and that's one-third of what a formal worship service should include.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: Number two, the blood of the covenant.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: Notice they killed an animal, they sprinkled the blood.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: Blood was absolutely essential for cleansing.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: And it's absolutely part of this worship service that we mention to you that we sing songs about the blood of Jesus Christ and the fact that we are saved, not by works which we have done.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: What can wash away my sin?
40:06
SPEAKER_00: Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: What can make me whole again?
40:10
SPEAKER_00: Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.
40:16
SPEAKER_00: No other fountain I know.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: Nothing can for sin atone.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: Nothing good that I have done, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: Precious is the flow that makes me white as snow.
40:33
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're about.
40:34
SPEAKER_00: We are saved people, and we're saved not because of what we've done.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: We're saved because of the blood of the covenant.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: And third, the bread of the covenant.
40:41
SPEAKER_00: There are many people that celebrate it when we had many flocks here.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: We used to urge people many flocks to celebrate it every week when they came together during the week.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: We celebrate it officially here on a Sunday morning.
40:53
SPEAKER_00: Many churches have gone to Sunday night.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: We celebrate it, but the bread of the covenant, and that that is a reminder of the meal.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: That's a reminder of that.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: Wedding feast in Exodus chapter 24 that confirmed the covenant.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: And it points ahead to another wedding feast, doesn't it?
41:11
SPEAKER_00: And that's the second takeaway.
41:13
SPEAKER_00: That's the second takeaway.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: Wedding.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: Have you got your reservation?
41:18
SPEAKER_00: Because that meal that we're talking about, Isaiah chapter 25 says that one day all of us will be on the Mount Zion.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: And God's going to lay out this phenomenal buffet, has this beautiful description of it.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: I've preached on it before.
41:32
SPEAKER_00: And it's just going to be amazing.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to have such a party, a fellowship party.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: And it'll be, and that may be exactly the same thing that Revelation 19 speaks of when it speaks about the wedding, the marriage supper of the Lamb.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: Right?
41:47
SPEAKER_00: You're familiar with that.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: And that is that there's going to be this wedding celebration in heaven.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: That's the fulfillment of Exodus 24.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: Now it's with the entire church.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: And then there's going to be they ate and they drank.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: So let me close with an interesting wedding.
42:05
SPEAKER_00: A secular photographer wrote an article in a magazine entitled, I think the greatest wedding I've ever been to.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: Oh, uh, Isaac, Isaac entitled it, This uh What Made This the Greatest Wedding of My Life.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: He goes down to North Texas, two hours outside of Dallas.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: It's an outdoor, it's on a sprawling ranch.
42:28
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, he starts the article by saying, My friends, Marcelino and Augusta, were married last May on a ranch in North Texas.
42:40
SPEAKER_00: And he was blown away because he's in the big city and he'd fly here and fly there, and he gets in a little bit late, and uh, they have a little fun uh the night before the wedding.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, he says, to my surprise, Marcelino and his twin brother say, All right, it's time for prayer.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I'm exhausted, and so are a lot of other people.
43:02
SPEAKER_00: But he said, they pull out their guitars, and we all get together and we start singing worship song, interspersed with prayer, and we just keep going on and on.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: And he said, That's when I realized that these two people who are incredibly passionate about each other, and he said, Everybody who's there, what I really like is all of them are really sharp people, uh, they're entrepreneurs, they're artists, and so forth.
43:24
SPEAKER_00: And he says, and these two people have had this passionate love for each other for a long time, but as passionate as their love for each other, Marcelino and Augusta's passionate love starts from their love for God.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: And he says, You could tell this as they're singing worship songs and praying.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: So then he says, So we get up the next morning, and he says, They have decided to make this wedding a pointer toward the marriage supper of the Lamb in Revelation.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: So he says, to remind everybody of how that will start, with the riding in on a white horse in the sky of the Lord Jesus Christ, they ride in together as we're all waiting for them, together sitting on a white horse.
44:13
SPEAKER_00: And he says, then we go through this amazing ceremony where you know it's all out of scripture and it's all out of the Bible.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: And he says, and then we have, he says, these are the coolest people, and then we have this wonderful uh buffet, this marriage feast, and he said, the best thing about it was that it was fajitas.
44:31
SPEAKER_00: So I'm thinking, I wouldn't mind if that was the marriage supper of the Lamb.
44:36
SPEAKER_00: But he says, You're just talking about some of the most wonderful people in the world who absolutely love Jesus Christ, and they apparently love him as much or more than they love each other.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: And for a secular guy, he writes this five, six-page article about how he's he apologizes to his brothers and sisters and best friends, but this is the greatest wedding of his life.
44:56
SPEAKER_00: And the fact of the matter is that you and I have this wedding day coming up, and I hope you have the reservation on your mental calendar, and there's going to be an amazing wedding feast.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: And it all started, you might say, in Exodus chapter 24.
45:11
SPEAKER_00: So those are the two takeaways.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: Worship.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: Do you know why we're here?
45:15
SPEAKER_00: Of course we're here.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: It's because of the book, it's because of the blood, it's because of the bread.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: Wedding.
45:21
SPEAKER_00: You ready for that meal?
45:23
SPEAKER_00: Are you pointing forward to that meal?
45:24
SPEAKER_00: It's not gonna cost you four and a half million dollars like it did Zach.
45:30
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be free.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna be the greatest lunch of all time.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, thanks.
45:39
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for this picture in the Bible, just a small picture of uh what we have to look forward to.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: And we are looking forward to it.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that in the meantime we get to come together, celebrate little small meals and even the Lord's table that not only looks back to that day on the cross and to that supper when you said this is the new covenant in my blood, but to that future wedding feast when we get to sit with you there on the pavement and we get to uh share in the wedding feast in Jesus' name.
46:11
SPEAKER_00: All God's people said, Amen.
46:14
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming.