Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 14, 2021 | Exodus - On Eagle’s Wings

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February 14, 2021 | Exodus - On Eagle’s Wings · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: It's such a great day today.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: It was so cold this morning.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: When I tried to take my garbage out, it didn't want to go.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: My car doesn't want to run, and my nose won't stop running, as you may notice this morning.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: Someone said it was so cold that when grandma woke up, her her she found that her teeth were chattering in the glass next to the bed.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Thought grandpa had grown a beard, but it turned out to be an icicle of frozen drool.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: It's so cold the Kansas are, here we go.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: So cold Kansas are staying home from church.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: Texans are ceasing to exist.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: New York landlords are finally turning on the heat.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: People in Minnesota are closing their windows and putting on long-sleeve shirts.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: And our daughter's family in Nova Scotia is having one last cookout before it gets cold.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: So if this is the first time you've watched us online, and by the way, we do have some people here this morning.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad that you came out.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: So we are in a series in the book of Exodus, running from New Year's to Palm Sunday.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: Palm Sunday is, by the way, when I'm having a friend of mine, the vice president of Jews for Jesus, Susan Perlman, will be on stage here leading in Israel, leading a Passover.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: Christ in the Passover service with all the food and so forth.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: That'll be Sunday morning Palm Sunday.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: That'll be fun.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: But between now and then, we are working our way through Exodus.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: We've gone, we've had five sermons.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: We have five more to go.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: And the theme of the book is Breaking Us Out and Inviting Us In.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: And this morning's message I've entitled On Eagle's Wings.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Leota, I added the word on to the front of it, just ASAP.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: So let's get right into it.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: And uh again, um, if if this is like your first time, uh we're uh challeng, we have an Exodus challenge.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: We read the book of Exodus, we're all doing it together, four chapters a week until Palm Sunday, 40 chapters.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: This next week will be chapters 25, 26, 27, 28.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: We've reached the back side of the desert.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: We've we've finished all of the uh Red Sea and all of the exciting plagues and so forth.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: And uh, if you want to know more about it, uh I'm uh there are four daily devotionals a week on these four chapters on discovertbc.com.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh just to review, this is a slide I showed the very first week.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: The book sort of falls into two parts, like many of the books of the Bible.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: It's a bifid book, it falls into two parts.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: In this book, Exodus 1 through 15, or some people say Exodus 1 to 18, it has uh is all about the land of bondage, it's all about being saved from the bondage, it's all about the new birth, you know, it's all about being rescued by God.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: We have just this morning entered into Exodus 16 through 40 or 19 through 40, depending on your outline.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Now we're uh no longer in a land of bondage, Egypt.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: We're in the at the mountain of God for the rest of the book, and we're dealing not with salvation but sanctification, not with new birth, but with the new way of life, not with being rescued by God, but now getting to know God because God has broken us out and now He is inviting us in.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: All right?
3:31
SPEAKER_00: So let's get started.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Exodus 19.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm so pumped about this chapter.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: I love this chapter.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: This was part of my master's thesis, and it's just a beautiful passage that people overlook.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: I was uh listening to a preacher who had preached like 60 messages from Exodus uh yesterday just to see what he said about this chapter, and he skipped over it, and I was so discouraged.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: So, verses one and two.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: In the third month, from the very day the Israelites left the land of Egypt, and this phrase really means it had been two months, and now it's the anniversary, starting the third month.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: So they left the land of Egypt, you remember, uh, in the middle of the night, put blood over the door, and then there was a scream and a yell, and so uh they went around to their friends and they'd collected a lot of loot, people voluntarily, happily.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: People were secretly like the people of Iran, secretly uh in favor of the good guys.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: So they gave them clothes, they gave them animals, they gave them money and so forth, and they left the land of Egypt.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: And they uh they hiked around, and God put them in a situation where He performed a sting on Pharaoh, and uh He had them look as though they were like uh you know a wounded rabbit.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: And and so Pharaoh came with his army, because they were pinned between the desert and the deep Red Sea and uh and attacked, and and that was the end of Pharaoh's army.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: So they came to the Sinai wilderness.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: That is, they crossed to the Red Sea, and now for two months they've taken a south turn uh along the Gulf of Suez, which is uh an arm of the Red Sea, and they're in the Sinai.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: It's called the Sinai Peninsula now, and it's uh um anyway.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Uh they traveled from Rephedim.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: That was in two chapters ago.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: They had uh Amalekites attack them there.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: You remember uh uh um Aaron's or Moses' hands had to be held up by Aaron and her, and as long as they were held up, they won this victory.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: An untrained army won the victory over the Amalekites, who were professional uh warrior bandits.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
5:34
SPEAKER_00: Miracle.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: Came to the Sinai wilderness and they camped in the wilderness.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: All right?
5:39
SPEAKER_00: And so uh really quickly, uh focus in a little bit.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Here's a map.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is uh this is Egypt.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: This is from the you know, from outer space.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: There's the Nile Delta.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Israelites were here in Goshen.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: This is the famous Nile River, as Herodotus, 5th century BC, said Egypt is the gift of the Nile.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh the whole country is sort of in a six-mile uh area, or here, right here it was, before they built the dam uh 50 years ago.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: And um, so here's Israel, and they cross at the northern edge.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: I know this is disagreed.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm just telling you what the truth is.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay, just telling you the truth.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I have studied this again, another 20 hours of study, because I'm an analytical geek.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm convinced now they they crossed at the northern edge of the goal at the Red Sea, and now they're in the Sinai wilderness.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: By the way, Midian is where Moses has just spent 40 years with his father-in-law Jethro, tending their flocks.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: And so he came back, said, Let my people go, and now he's led them into Sinai.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: By the way, this is where they're gonna head.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: It's called Canaan.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: There's the Dead Sea, it's gonna become Israel, there's the Red Sea, Gulf of Suez, and Gulf of Akaba.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
6:48
SPEAKER_00: So um, and now the next lines are very significant.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: Israel camped there in front of the mountain.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: All it says is the mountain in um in the text, right out of the blue.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, that shows you how important it is.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: They don't even have to name it.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: It is, and then the next line is Moses went up the mountain to God.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: Because this is God's mountain.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: This is Mount Sinai.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: Now the big question is another big question, all right, for geeks like me is where is Mount Sinai?
7:17
SPEAKER_00: Where is Mount Sinai?
7:18
SPEAKER_00: I told you about a month ago I didn't know yet because I was still reading hundreds of pages on this and watching the you know Discovery Channel, which of course knows everything and and has got it put in the sexiest new site, which is in Saudi Arabia.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: But um, here are the options.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Egypt, Nile, the crossover.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: This is Sinai.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh this is the traditional side of Mount Sinai in the very southern part of the Sinai Desert, all right?
7:44
SPEAKER_00: That's the traditional site.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: And and I've been there uh when I was when I was younger, I went with some guys, and we spent most of the summer hiking, camping out in Europe and in Israel.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: And we hiked down here, and and this is a very famous place.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: This is the oldest surviving active monastery in the world dating from um 600 AD, St.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: Catherine's Monastery, it's called.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: And ever since Israel took over the Sinai, again, it has swelled from uh total of the whole Sinai Peninsula from about 50,000 up to a million and a half because of this place.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: Everybody loves to visit this place.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: This is the traditional side, as you can tell, it looks like Mount Sinai.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: It looks phenomenal, okay?
8:26
SPEAKER_00: And this is traditional, it's 7,500 feet high.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: Now, immediately that gives you pause if you know if you start reading the Bible, because Moses not only they get there and he climbs the mountain, he climbs the mountain three times and comes down in this one day in Exodus 19.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: Actually, he only climbs it twice and comes down.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: That's quite a clung.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: I uh what you do today, what I did, is got up at 2 o'clock in the morning because you want to get up to the very top by sunrise, okay?
8:52
SPEAKER_00: And you hike, and it takes you four hours, okay, with flashlights.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: And you have a guide, okay?
8:58
SPEAKER_00: And so you hike because this is the site you want to see.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: You want to get up to the top, and it is absolutely magnificent.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: And you say, Great is thy faithfulness and how great thou art, and it's just it's just amazing.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: All right?
9:09
SPEAKER_00: So that's sunrise atop Mount Sinai, traditional site.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
9:15
SPEAKER_00: Now, actually 14 sites up until recently, there's 13 sites had been proposed.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: Now we have the 14th, and it's over here in Saudi Arabia.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: This is the Gulf of Aqaba.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: This group of people now that believe that when they left Egypt, they they left here and they and this is where they crossed the Red Sea.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: In the Gulf of Aqaba.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: I have some problems with that.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: The fact that it's about a thousand feet deep is one of my problems, and nine miles across.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, um, so uh, but this is this is the sexiest new site, and I'm and and that's not being profane.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: That's what archaeologists call it.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: They use the word sexy.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: That's just okay.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: And here's the traditional site.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: The site that I that I'm telling you that it was at, so just trust me, is is up here for a number of reasons.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you my arguments if you ever want them.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: But it this site is about 2,300 feet high, which which is about an hour and a half high, which makes far more sense if you're gonna hike the thing.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: If you're 80 years old, which by the way, Moses is 80, which was old back then.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: Because today's 80 was in Moses' day, 70.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: And and our 90 is their 80.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: We live about 10 years longer than they did.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: Moses himself in Psalm 90 says people live 70 years, or if they're really strong, up to 80.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: And he's 80 years old right now, and climbing a mountain.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: Don't think he climbed 7,500 feet and came down and went back up, came down.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: But but anyway, so um, just letting you know, because if because this is really popular, uh, you know, whether you got Amazon Prime or Netflix, you can watch shows on this right now.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Or you can go on YouTube.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: And you're staring at me like, why would I ever, ever want to do that?
10:57
SPEAKER_00: I don't even care.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: Would you move on?
10:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'll move on.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: So Moses went up the mountain to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, quote, this is what you must say to the house of Jacob and explain to the Israelites.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: We come to the turning point in Israel's history.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: We come to the turning point in Israel's history, right here.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Because what God is doing is he is offering to them a covenant that is a special relationship, a family relationship.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: And he is offering it to them in the same terms that frankly they're familiar with.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: When a king would either deliver a group of people, a nation, a group of people, or would conquer them.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: In the ancient times, he would offer to them a covenant.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: Now he would always start off, always in the ancient, they're called suzerain vassal treaties.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is what people write dissertations and books about, and they have seven parts to them.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: But the first part is always a formal identification of the two parties.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: King identifies himself, and he identifies the people.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what happens here.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: The Lord called him.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: This is what you must say to the house of Jacob.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: So here we have Moses went on at the mountain too, has two names for God, God, and Yahweh called him from the mountain.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: This is what you must say to the house of Jacob and explain to the Israelites.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: The two parties are clearly delineated at the beginning of this offer of covenant.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: And in these covenants, what happened is that they always followed a prescribed order in which first the king or the superior party always said first what he had already done for the party.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Now I know that would be weird if you were getting engaged to a girl and you said, I want to offer family relationship to you, and I want to just tell you how good, can I remind you of how good I've been to you in the past?
13:06
SPEAKER_00: Remember when we went to the movie and I bought you the large popcorn, you know.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: So, but anyway, in these ancient covenants, the first thing that happened is that is that the one party always told what in the past he had done, and that's how God starts.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I carried you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: That's so beautiful.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: So, what this is is he's saying, part one is what I've done for you.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: My grace to you in the past is what I did to the Egyptians, and how I carried you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
13:46
SPEAKER_00: Those are there's two parts there.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: You've seen what I did to the Egyptians, you know what he did to the Egyptians.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: He he embarrassed, he humiliated the gods of the Egyptians, including Pharaoh, one by one with those ten plagues, right?
14:02
SPEAKER_00: And then despite the fact that the Egyptians had opposed the Israelites leaving, God brought them out.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: And then when they chased Israel, trying to bring them back, you know what he did?
14:15
SPEAKER_00: He drowned them at the Red Sea.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: You've seen what I did to my enemies and to your enemies, God says.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, you've seen how I carried you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: He's referring to the past couple of months, which have been really event-filled, right?
14:40
SPEAKER_00: Where he's broken water out of a rock and sent manna from heaven and multitude of quail on the earth, and then when the when the warriors attacked, he delivered them.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: So I carried you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: The eagle we think of correctly as a fierce, fierce, wild bird of prey.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, we have these pictures on our wall of an eagle with a big fish in its mouth.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: And if you've ever been, you've probably, some of you have seen that, you know, or I've been golfing and seen an eagle, you know, with some sort of a varmint in its mouth flying overhead, or when we've gone up to Canada fishing, you know, you know, uh and and in the backwaters, you'll see an you'll see an eagle with a huge fish in his mouth that looks as big as the eagle, and and it's a fierce bird of prey, but the eagle is also, at least in literature, a bird of rescue.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: And in uh the books by my favorite author, J.R.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Tolkien, uh the eagle figures prominently in the Hobbit book or movie, right?
15:48
SPEAKER_00: Twice in The Hobbit, uh, especially close to the end, when the or when the goblins, the orcs are about to, or they surround the good guys, our people, the hobbits, about to do them in.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: That's when someone shouts, the eagles, the eagles, the eagles are coming, the eagles are coming.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: The eagles come down, these giant creatures, and they scatter the goblins, and they pick up the good guys, and they save them.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: And at the end of Lord of the Rings, you know, I know you'll come and tell me if I don't say this.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, they rescue Sam and Frodo from the mountain of doom.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: So the eagles, and when God speaks of the eagles and of eagle's wings, of course, he's speaking of his protection and of his providence and his tender care.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: In fact, at the end of his life, Moses in Deuteronomy 32 is gonna look back over his career, the previous 40 years after this covenant was made, and Moses is gonna say, the people of Israel belong to the Lord.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: Jacob is his special possession.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: He found them in a desert land, in an empty, howling wasteland.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: He surrounded them and watched over them.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: He guarded them as he would guard his own eyes.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Actually, anyway, like an eagle that rouses her chicks, like an eagle that stirs up her nest and hovers over her young, he spread his wings to take them up and carried them safely on his pinions.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: And what Moses is saying is what God is saying.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: He's just quoting God back in Exodus 19 from 40 years before.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: God says, you know, I carried you.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh, we're told at least uh one British writer who was a bird watcher, says, you know, uh, people don't realize, but the eagle keeps its young in the nest for over three months.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: They don't leave, they don't leave the nest.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: And then after about a hundred days, the eagle stirs up the nest, rouses them, makes them fly, but doesn't just abandon them.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: If one of the eaglets is having trouble flying, he wrote, the eagle gets down, soars underneath it, and and and lifts up the eaglet on his wings with tender care and takes care of him in God's point in this text.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: He's saying here that that's what I've done for you.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: And I I just can't help thinking that at least one Israelite at this point would say, Really?
18:12
SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
18:13
SPEAKER_00: Is that what you've done during the last two months?
18:16
SPEAKER_00: I remember nearly starving to death.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: I remember our animals nearly starving to death.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: Having to bug Moses, and he came to you, and then he uses his staff, and then we get water out of a rock.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: And then I remember being so, so hungry.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: And I'll admit it, I really like the manna.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: That's good stuff.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: That's that's nice, sweet stuff, and we don't have to work for it.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: It's on the ground every morning, and and that's really cool.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: And I like that quail.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: We'd like to have those more often, Laura, just once in two months.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: Again, we'd like to have meat more often.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: But then he'd say, and and and and not only that, and then it looked like we were gonna die because because you let the Amalekites come attack us.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: Really?
18:55
SPEAKER_00: You you've carried us on eagles' wings the whole time.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: And I assume I think this is such a good lesson for us because the truth is they did go through hard times.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Like, like some of you are going through hard times now.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: Like some people you know are going through hard times.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: Uh uh I think of a death of uh of a 40-something year old just this last week, and how his wife and how his children feel.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: They're just we we're going through difficult times, right?
19:25
SPEAKER_00: And yet God says, I I've carried you on eagle's wings up till this day, really.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: Now, now here's something that's very interesting, and I I'll bet you I'll bet you you've had the same experience.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: You'll talk to an old Christian who's been a Christian for many years, or or to a missionary who's had a tough time overseas.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: I think, I suspect most of you have had this experience.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: And you know that they nearly died, or you know that they had malaria and you know had to come home with, you know, there's some tragedies in their life, and yet you talk to them.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed this?
19:57
SPEAKER_00: And they're just they're just gushing about how God has been their shepherd, and how God has always taken care of them, and God has just carried them and they have had the best life that you can ever imagine.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: Am I right about that?
20:10
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever noticed that?
20:12
SPEAKER_00: How some of the people that have gone through the worst troubles, some of the Christians who've just really been in the dark valley, are so incredibly positive about it?
20:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, uh apparently they have God's perspective, and God's perspective is uh is more like the perspective of the song written by a guy whose whose best friend is who just got the news that his best friend's father had had a heart attack and died.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: And and this guy wrote, wrote, and he will raise you up on eagle's wings, bury you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of his hand.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: Isn't one of our whether it's Josh Groben's version or whatever, isn't this a great song?
20:54
SPEAKER_00: Often now done at funeral services.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: But God's perspective is you know what?
21:01
SPEAKER_00: You were going through the desert and you would have died, but I have carried you on eagle's wings.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: When you needed water, I gave you water from the rock.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: When you needed food, I brought it down from heaven, I sent quail.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: And when the enemy attacked, I did deliver you.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: I have carried you on eagle's wings, and I would challenge you to think about how you respond to trials and troubles and persecutions and difficulties.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: And as you listen to God say this morning, I've carried you on eagle's wings.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: If your tendency is to say, Oh, really?
21:33
SPEAKER_00: I feel like he could have done a better job, just remember those old saints and remember the perspective of God when God says, Now I I've taken care of you, and one day I'll show you.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: You'll see I really was your good shepherd, right?
21:49
SPEAKER_00: And then God says this.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: He says, Now, if you will carefully listen to me and keep my covenant.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: And part two of the covenant, part one was what I've done for you in the past, part two is now here are the stipulations.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Here's what you have to do.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Now, the Abrahamic covenant, of course, was different.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis 12, God came to Abraham, and what's called a unilateral covenant.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: God said, I'm choosing you, you're gonna be my people, and you're gonna bless the whole earth, and I'm gonna give you descendants, you know, far more than the sand of the sea, and they're gonna become a great nation, and I'm gonna give you a land, and I'm gonna do all this for you.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: I've chosen you.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Now we come to a little bit different covenant called the Siniatic covenant, the covenant with Moses, and this covenant definitely has a condition right at the heart of it, right at the most important point.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: God says there's an if, and that is what you must do.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: You must keep this covenant, you must obey the covenant.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: And what he means by that is what it's about to follow.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: In chapters 20 and following, part of this covenant, no other ancient covenant that the ancient that we find in the ancient Near East combines covenant and law.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: God put his law in the middle of his covenant, saying, this is what you must obey.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Ten Commandments, the civil law, ceremonial law.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: We like to divide it up.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: And that's at the center of the covenant.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: God says, you need to obey me.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: You need to keep the covenant.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: That's the condition.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: That's what you must do.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: All right.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: So uh note, I want you to notice something significant.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I want, and the significant thing is not that Phil Riken has a word in the middle of his glasses there.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: But um, I want you to notice this really significant thing: salvation first, obedience later.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed this distinction?
23:26
SPEAKER_00: Notice, realize this Phil Riken, he's the he was the pastor at one of the great Calvinist churches in America in Philadelphia, and now he's the president of Wheaton College.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: Realize that this statement was made to people who were already saved.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: He's speaking about our text.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: The order of the Exodus is important.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: First, God delivered his people from bondage, then he gave them his law.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: Imagine what would have happened if it had been the other way around.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: Suppose God had said to Moses in Egypt, tell my people, if you obey me, I will carry you away from Egypt on eagle's wings.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: In that case, there never would have been an Exodus at all.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: First, God rescues us from our sin, then he teaches us how to live for his glory.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: If personal obedience had to come first, we would never be saved.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: But as it is, God saves us in Christ before he calls us to live for Christ.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: And yet you constantly find people who get this wrong, don't you?
24:29
SPEAKER_00: Constantly find people who mix up the Abrahamic covenant with the Mosaic covenant, and they're sure that somehow you need to frontload or backload works into the salvation part of it.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: That if you if you're not if you're not if you're not promising or changing your life at the very outset, or guaranteeing you will, then you can't be saved.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's not what happens in the Exodus and the picture of salvation, because your salvation and the mind is mirrored, right?
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Is mirrored in this first picture of salvation in the Bible.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: And the rest of the Bible keeps referring back to this picture right here.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: So, salvation first, okay?
25:10
SPEAKER_00: Don't mix that up when you're sharing Christ with people, and then call them to full commitment and full obedience.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: And so God says, if you will carefully listen to me and keep my covenant, this is part two, what you must do, keep the covenant.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: He says, then you will be, and this is part three, this is God's promise.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: This is now what I'm going to do for you in the future.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: Past, present, future.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: We now come to the future.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: You'll be my own possession out of all the peoples, though the whole earth is mine, and you'll be my kingdom of priests and my holy nation.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Notice the two things here.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: Number one, you'll be my own possession.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: This word, segula, means a precious possession, possession, in case of a king, a royal possession.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: When David wanted to build the temple, even though God said you can't build it, David said, Well, I'm going to raise the money for it.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: And so he raised the money from all the people and so forth, and he made the announcement: I am giving my seula, my treasured possession, all of my personal gold and silver out of my treasury for the building of the temple.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: And what God is saying here is, listen, I want a relationship with you whereby you will be my most precious, my most prized possession in life.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: Now, you're probably like me as an adult, that if I ask you the question, what is your most prized possession?
26:32
SPEAKER_00: You would name a person.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: You'd name a child, a grandchild, or wife, husband, whatever.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: But I don't know if you remember, when you were young, at least when I was young, I've always been a collector.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: And sometime in your life you have to have been.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: First thing I remember collecting was marbles.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: And I used to trade them with guys at school, kids at school, and my brothers and so forth.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: And I had one marble.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: I still remember, I called it my butter and honey marble.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: And it was a little bit bigger than all the others, and it looked like what I used to love doing to toast on Sunday night.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: Sunday night meal was just toast.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: And we just went through a whole loaf.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: And I'd love to take the butter and melt it and the honey and mix them together like that, butter and honey.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: And this marble looked like butter and honey.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: So that was my most prized possession.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: I traded every other marble repeatedly, never would trade my butter and honey.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: I was my most prized possession.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: It has to be worth at least two cents today, but I don't have it anymore.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: So and then after that, yeah, I collected baseball cards.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: I collected, and I way back then, I and my favorite card card I would never trade was a card of a Los Angeles pitcher for a few years named Sandy Koufax.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: He was a fantastic pitcher.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: He didn't last all long, but I loved, loved that card, and I would never trade that card.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: And I remember sitting under the nut orchard back at home, the 40 trees.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: I used to sit there under those, under those things when I was supposed to pick up nuts and just stare at Sandy Koufax.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: And I do wish I had that card today.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: That'd be worth a hundred bucks.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: And then after that, uh in in elementary school, I was collecting coins, collecting Indian head pennies to be precise.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: I remember on the playground when I felt like I had just got this huge victory, is I gave a nickel and got an 1860 Indian head penny.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: And that was my favorite.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: The others were all tarnished, and this thing was really good.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: And if I had that today, that would be worth at least a buck.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: Maybe two dollars.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, I love that penny.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: And and and but you know, you get older and things become more valuable.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: But it's probably a little harder for you to figure out what your special favorite possession is, and yet this is what God is saying today.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: And he says it again in Deuteronomy.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: He says, Out of all of the nations, out of all of the peoples on earth, I've picked you.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: You are so dear to me.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: You are my favorite single possession.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
28:53
SPEAKER_00: I'll continue to call you that.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: If you'll just obey me, if you'll commit yourself to me, then you will be my own prized royal, the best thing in my royal treasury.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: That's you.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: Out of all the peoples, all of the peoples, although the whole earth is mine.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: So this little line reminds us and reminds everybody back then that monotheism is the way to go.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: There are not a lot of gods around.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: God is the God of the whole earth.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
29:17
SPEAKER_00: He is sovereign.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, and you will be my kingdom of priests and my holy nation.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: What are priests?
29:22
SPEAKER_00: A kingdom of priests?
29:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, it didn't mean that everybody there could offer the sacrifices going to the holy place.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: What that means is a priest is the one who has special access to God.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: The priest is the one who has a special relationship and a special knowledge of God, and a priest is the one who represents God to other people.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: And what God is saying is, you Israelites, you know what?
29:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give all of you access to me.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: All of you are going to get to know me if you will obey me.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: And not only that, all of you will represent me to the world.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: I really want you to be a kingdom of priests that represents me to everyone.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Be my witnesses, we're going to find in the New Testament.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: And my holy or set apart nation, special to me, but representing me to the world.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: And that's what he says, I promise.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: This is part three.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: This is what I'll do for you.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: This will be my grace to you in the future.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that great?
30:12
SPEAKER_00: So this is the covenant.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: And now the question is, will Israel accept the covenant?
30:18
SPEAKER_00: Because God's made the offer.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: God said, Will you marry me?
30:21
SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: And the question is, are they going to accept it?
30:24
SPEAKER_00: So we read in verse 7 and 8.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: After Moses came back, he summoned the elders of the people, and he said before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: And notice it's not the so you have 70 elders represent all of the nation of Israel.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: And it it wasn't their answer that mattered.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: It said, and then all the people responded.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: They scattered, they go back to all the tribes, they start talking to everybody.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: It's democratic, no, no formal vote, no election or whatever.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: But it was important because God cares what every single person thinks and every single person says.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: So all the people responded together.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a certain Schofield Bible type view that somehow this was saying too much.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: They shouldn't have said that much.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: That was legalistic.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: That was promising more than they delivered.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: That's not accurate, okay?
31:17
SPEAKER_00: They're just responding to the terms that God has given.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: God said, I want to enter into this special loving personal agreement, this family relationship with you.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: And here's what you're going to have to do.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: You're going to have to obey me and keep my covenant.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: They just say it, we will do all that the Lord has spoken.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: Now you and I know that they're not going to, they're not going to be very good at this.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're going to fall down on the job as often as they do it.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: But this is the perfect response.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: This is the right response right here.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
31:44
SPEAKER_00: Thank God.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're all holding our breath.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: Will they do this?
31:47
SPEAKER_00: If they say no to this, if they say no, thanks, then they go back to just being one of the 70 nations of the world at that time.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: But but no.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: They say yes, and that's why I'm calling it the turning point of Israel for all of time and eternity.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: They accept the covenant offer.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: And I say it again.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: Moses looks back using the same terms right here.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: At the close of his life, and he says, The people of Israel belong to the Lord.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: Jacob is a special possession.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: The same names.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: The word possession.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: He found them in a desert land, in an empty, howling wasteland.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: He surrounded them and watched over them.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: He guarded them as the apple of his eye.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: He offered them a special relationship, and they said yes.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: And Moses continues like an eagle that stirs up her nest and hovers over her young.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: So he spread his wings to take them up and carry them safely on his pinions.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: He raised you up an eagle's wings.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: You were lifted up like the breath of the dawn.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: And he holds you in the palm of his hand.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: And I say that this applies to you and to me because when Peter writes in the New Testament, he quotes all of this and he says, you know what, you Christians?
33:10
SPEAKER_00: You who followed the example of the Israelites, you are a chosen race.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: You're a royal priesthood.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: You're a holy nation.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: You're a people for God's own special possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: So let me end with a story.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: Before the Lord's table.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: Name was Lizzie, in a special way.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: By spelling out his question in giant letters across the side of a Scottish mountain.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: Caleb's a physics teacher, and uh he's an outdoor hiker, and so is his girlfriend.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: And so he started the two-month process by ordering over 1,500 feet of tent, tenting to form these letters, along with over 300 islets and uh tent pegs to hold them in place.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: And he hid all of the stuff in the back of his physics classroom at school so that Lizzie wouldn't see it.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: And then in early August, this is a year and a half ago, he uh he took it up to the Northwest Highlands of Scotland and uh got some people to help him.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: And two days before the proposal, a team of people helped Caleb lay out the giant letters on a mountaintop.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: And on the day of uh Calam and Lizzie, uh you can see them there, who's also an avid hiker, drove up to the foot of this mountain, which is absolutely unique and it's known for its distinctive shape and the way it rises almost vertically from the uh landscape.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: She had refused to, she'd gotten part way up uh a couple years before that, hadn't climbed it because it was too scary, but was determined to do it.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: And so they climbed this mountain, which by the way is exactly as tall as the Mount Sinai that I've picked out for you, 2,300 feet.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
35:33
SPEAKER_00: So they climbed 2,300 feet and put yourself in her place and imagine you're exhausted, you get to the top, and you look thousands of feet down, and you see on the other side those words, Lizzie, will you marry me?
35:46
SPEAKER_00: And she said no.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: But um, no.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: No.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: She said yes, and then he retrieved the champagne glasses and the champagne that he had hidden up there, and they drank a toast together.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: So listen, a way I see it is that today the Lord has brought us to his sacred mountain.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: And now that he has us here, he speaks to us gently, and he says this.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: He says, Will you enter into a covenant with me?
36:16
SPEAKER_00: I would like for us to be closer than we've ever been before.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: I'd like us to be closer permanently.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: And you know me.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: You know that when you were lost in sin and shame, you know, when you were caught in bondage to your old life, when you were ensnared to sin and death, I broke you out.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: I freed you from your past.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: I saved you.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: I gave you eternal life.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: I gave you forgiveness of sins.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: I gave you the Holy Spirit inside of you.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: I brought you out, brought you out of Egypt.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: So you know how I feel about you.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: You know how much I love you and what I can do for you.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: But now I gotta tell you, I want something more from you.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: I think that's what he's saying to us today.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: I want something more from you, something we've never had.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: I want us to enter into the kind of relationship that we've never had, this intimate closeness.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: I would like you to be my permanent Valentine, right?
37:06
SPEAKER_00: I would like for you, I would I just would like for you to completely commit yourself to me.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: I would like you to promise that you'll be mine and you will follow me.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: And as long as you'll do that, I'll shower you with my favor, with my blessings, with my personal presence, and we'll just we'll have this amazing life.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: But will you do that?
37:28
SPEAKER_00: Because if you'll do that, I mean, you'll be my very favorite thing on this world.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: I'll love you.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: I promise I'll take care of you.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: You sense my presence, you will walk with me, and you'll talk with me, and you'll know that I call you my own, and you can call me your own, and you'll be my treasured possession and my holy nation and and and my my priest to the world and my personal representative wherever you go on earth.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: But it it requires something, it requires that that you agree to this, that you say, Yeah, Lord, I commit myself to you.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: For now and for always I'll obey you.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Will you do that before the Lord's table?
38:08
SPEAKER_00: Would you bow with me?
38:09
SPEAKER_00: And if you want to say yes to that kind of a covenant with the Lord, say it to him right now and pray our Heavenly Father, we thank you for bringing us out for all you've done for us in the past.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, we know that you regularly present us with an opportunity to become really close to you, a dedication moment, a commitment moment.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: We see that it's happening now, and we understand that it's a turning point as it was for Israel.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: It's an hour of decision.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: And today's, Lord, some of us are saying to you, Yeah, we we want that.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: We want that.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: We we promise, despite the fact we've not been all that we would like to have been in the past, we would like to be obedient to you and completely follow you in the future.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: Amen.