Exodus 34:10-27

Transcript

00:00:00:19 – 00:00:27:57
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Thanks for starting another week with us as we continue to make our way through the book of Exodus into Chapter 14 today. At the 10th verse, we ended last week with a real affirmation of Moses, a moment of relational connection and covenant between Moses and God, a kind of I think you use the word reset, Michael, which I think is a good way to look at this.

00:00:28:55 – 00:00:49:28
Clint Loveall
We’re not quite done with that, but it changes a little bit here as we move into to verse ten, chapter 14. He said, I hereby make a covenant before all your people I will perform marvels such as not been performed in all the Earth, in any nation, or all the people among whom you shall live and the work of the Lord.

00:00:49:28 – 00:01:20:45
Clint Loveall
For is an awesome thing that I will do with you. Observe what I command you today. See, I will drive out before you. The Emirates, Canaanites. Civil Rights Parasites, heavyweights and Jerry Sites take care not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you are going, or it will become a snare among you. You shall tear down their altars, break their pillars, cut down their sacred poles, for you shall worship no other God be because the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God.

00:01:21:21 – 00:01:44:15
Clint Loveall
You shall not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to their gods. Someone among them will invite you and you will eat out of the sacrifice. And you will take wives from among their daughters. For your sons and daughters who prostitute themselves to their gods, will make your sons also prostitute themselves to their gods.

00:01:45:09 – 00:02:19:51
Clint Loveall
At the stop there, Michael. So a moment, a covenant moment. In fact, the heading of this passage is a covenant renewed, and it’s in the verse. Here I hereby make a covenant. Covenant means promise or testament. A binding agreement. I will perform. Marvel says God, I will do more than you can imagine. I will do things that have never been heard or seen a very rich promise, especially considering the ground that we’ve just traveled with the golden calf, a wonderful restatement of a hopeful future for the people.

00:02:21:03 – 00:03:02:18
Clint Loveall
And then we move to a little bit darker territory where God issues a warning. And it’s interesting how we get there. In some sense, God warns Israel to be very cautious as they move among the people who have different gods, different sacrifices, different offerings. This must sting a little bit in the aftermath of the golden calf. But God says not only should you have nothing to do with them, tear down their stuff when you move into the land, anything you find like that, anything that is there, get rid of it.

00:03:02:33 – 00:03:38:09
Clint Loveall
Don’t do not have it among you. And then go so far as to say, Don’t intermix with the people because they will lead you a strain. And Michael, this isn’t a real comfortable part of the Old Testament, but it is a fairly strong narrative. The idea that Israel is a particular people, that they belong to God and that God does not want them to be negatively impacted by the unfaithfulness, the disobedience, the sinfulness, the the lost ness, or the idolatry of other people.

00:03:38:09 – 00:04:01:53
Clint Loveall
And, you know, having lived in the New Testament for our religious life, the idea of openness, the idea of bringing people in, the idea of welcome and inclusion has been important. And so it is kind of troubling, I think, when we bump into these themes. But this is pretty prominent in the Old Testament, and it really has to do with this idea of purity.

00:04:01:53 – 00:04:26:36
Clint Loveall
Now gone is already we’ve seen it in the earlier part of Exodus, Openness to the Alien, openness to the foreigner. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. This is really in the context of religious language. So it’s yes, it involves the people and yes, there’s discomfort in that. But this is really about Israel being religiously faithful, spiritually faithful to God.

00:04:27:12 – 00:04:58:51
Michael Gewecke
Right. And it’s about who is called by God. And I think that sometimes we don’t think of that because we think of Jesus as the one who gave himself for us, the one who in John that says all who believe and call upon the name. Right? So here we are looking at the covenant with God’s people. God, after this whole tumultuous season with the idolatry of the golden calf, it now comes to a moment of renewal, a moment of return, a moment maybe even of forging a new path.

00:04:58:53 – 00:05:24:39
Michael Gewecke
In the midst of this, the focus is now shifting ahead. It’s towards what will come. It’s looking ahead towards the land and the temptations that will be there. And I think it’s worth pausing and looking a little closer here to point out all the people among you, this is verse ten here, All of the people among you whom you live shall see the work of the Lord for this.

00:05:24:39 – 00:05:52:42
Michael Gewecke
An awesome thing that I will do with you. I want to note that there is an intention for those other people, and this is a theme that gets picked up certainly in the New Testament. It is read and talked about in some of John Calvin’s interpretation, which is, you know, we read this from the reform perspective, this idea that God has selected the people of Israel so that others might see that election, so that others might actually see the work of God happening in them.

00:05:53:02 – 00:06:24:27
Michael Gewecke
Clearly this is a troubling frame for us who like the idea of walls being torn down. But there is this Old Testament portrayal of the way that God can work is to build a divider so that both sides of that division are in some way shown God. There’s a revelation of God choosing the people of Israel. And then there’s an opportunity for those who are not Israel to see God at work in that choice.

00:06:24:27 – 00:06:48:07
Michael Gewecke
And, you know, we could spend a lot of time fleshing that out. And it’s not me trying to simplify it. It’s just to say, I think that sometime we might find it uncomfortable. But there are ways in which the Old Testament, it shows how God is going to make a covenant with these people. And then later on, as the text continues, all the way into the prophets, you even begin to see some notes of that.

00:06:48:07 – 00:06:52:30
Michael Gewecke
Maybe God is able to use that calling in surprising ways.

00:06:52:30 – 00:07:09:54
Clint Loveall
Yeah, three things. If I if I can keep them straight in my head. The first is which of which is it? If this sounds, if, if this sounds excessive, keep in mind that Israel has a very poor track record of being faithful.

00:07:09:54 – 00:07:11:02
Michael Gewecke
So put lightly.

00:07:11:02 – 00:07:42:57
Clint Loveall
When God says you will chase after them, if you let them among you, they’re going to lead you astray. That is exactly what has already happened. In fact, it’s happened without their help. It exactly. So there is a there is a history here to keep in mind that the people have not done well. Secondly, there is this idea that the people are at this point in the story, a kind of enemy.

00:07:42:57 – 00:08:13:35
Clint Loveall
They’re not an outright enemy, but they’re a danger. And they are the people that that God is replacing with the Israelites. So there is a kind of against in this in much of this text, though, as you say in other parts of the scripture, that’s that’s balanced. And then if we if we open this up less historically and more philosophically, you know, we see language like this in the New Testament.

00:08:13:35 – 00:08:39:50
Clint Loveall
Paul uses the language of of church or spirit and world. The idea that the outside forces can corrupt us and that we have to keep those forces from working their way into the lives of believers or into the community of the church, because they’re dangerous. They lead us away from God and to idols, to self, to debauchery, to sinfulness.

00:08:39:50 – 00:09:06:50
Clint Loveall
So we don’t see anything here. I think that we don’t in other ways see throughout the Scripture, even the New Testament. But any time we get in the Old Testament, we have language of God on the side of the people and against these other people. And the language of separation is difficult. It’s it’s well-established. It’s in there. But it it’s always a little bit uncomfortable.

00:09:06:50 – 00:09:30:14
Michael Gewecke
I think there is some forward pointing this in this text is an introduction, the idea of the worship of Bael. So Ashura poles are a part of bale worship and we’re not going to spend a lot of time working through that. But Bale is a very, very prominent deity, worshiped by many different people groups in this time and era.

00:09:30:39 – 00:09:55:26
Michael Gewecke
And so this idea of cutting down these sacred poles, which to us may not mean very much, would be tantamount to a repudiation of the worship of this one particular god. And I would point out it’s not accidental or claim, it’s just not accidental that the idol that came out of the fire, as Aron told the story, was a calf.

00:09:55:26 – 00:10:30:42
Michael Gewecke
It’s not accidental that that’s a symbol of an idol, of a God worshiped by many different people groups in this time and in this era. And so as we now move on and God is beginning to lay out, this is what it’s going to look like, this is how the covenant is going to be renewed. This is my expectation for you as you move forward into a new land, it’s that you’re going to uproot that you’re going to remove not just the worship of these gods, but the temptation for you to turn your eyes away from the one true God and cleanse you.

00:10:30:54 – 00:10:49:35
Michael Gewecke
We can’t move beyond the book of Exodus. We’re only studying Exodus here. But there are some very troubling sections and passages in the books to follow a book like Joshua, where the people are taking the land actively. And there’s a lot of things that happened, but they’re going to be a real struggle for people of faith. Reading that text.

00:10:49:35 – 00:11:18:34
Michael Gewecke
But part of that is rooted here at the point being the people have been unfaithful already. So the severity of them allowing the temptation to go other directions, God has no time for it. The instruction is not wishy washy. It is clear now that it’s not easy, but it’s clear. And I think that that is both intentional and in some ways prophetic as to the issues and problems that the people are going to face moving forward in that journey.

00:11:18:34 – 00:11:48:39
Clint Loveall
Yeah, we get that language here. The Lord is a jealous God. You know, jealous is not normally a term that you would want applied to yourself or that you would claim for yourself. And here in this context, what that means is that God is unwilling to share the allegiance of the people. God is unwilling to share the faithfulness of the people, and God is going to do what it takes, or at least work very hard through the people to keep that from happening.

00:11:49:21 – 00:12:20:07
Clint Loveall
As we move on. We won’t go through this word by word because we get a restatement of several of the key laws that we’ve already seen. I will point out in verse 17, we get kind of a new spin. You shall not make caste idols. And if you’ll remember, Aaron Kass, the calf, you have to wonder if everybody’s side eyed in at that moment, like, you know, the the addition of the word caste there is not accidental and it’s very heavily pointed.

00:12:20:16 – 00:12:20:40
Michael Gewecke
Being, I.

00:12:20:40 – 00:12:50:34
Clint Loveall
Think. Yeah. And then keep the festival of unleavened bread. The verse 19 the first thing that opens the womb is mine. We this is a restatement. We’ve seen this stuff. No one shall appear before me empty handed. 21 six days. You shall work a restatement of the Sabbath, the festival of weeks, the Passover. Verse 25 Do not offer the blood of sacrifices with 1126 the best of the first fruits.

00:12:52:10 – 00:13:19:31
Clint Loveall
26 at the bottom there you shall not boil kid in its mother’s milk again, that’s seems like a very weird reference to us. That’s Canaanite practice. That’s a religious practice that the people around them have done it. It refers to something very specific. It’s not a general rule. And then 27, the Lord said to Moses, Write these words in accordance with the words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.

00:13:20:16 – 00:13:43:13
Clint Loveall
He was there with the Lord 40 days and 40 nights, and neither ate bread or drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant and the Ten Commandments. So kind of a closing of a section, as Moses has again following the golden calf, spent this moment. A couple of things. Remember that 40 doesn’t always mean 40 in the Bible.

00:13:43:13 – 00:14:04:42
Clint Loveall
It does. I don’t mean it’s not literally true, but when you see the number 40 in Scripture, it always refers to an important time, often a time of testing, a time of difficulty. If you were with us in Genesis, we had that conversation in 40 days and 40 nights of a flood. 40 always tells you more than the number of days or years that it’s referencing.

00:14:04:42 – 00:14:26:42
Clint Loveall
40 says something about that time, not just how long that time was. And then finally, the other thing I would add here, Michael, he ate neither bread or drank water. This is a kind of phrase that shows up a little bit in the Old Testament. We see it. We see it also in the New Testament, in the temptation narratives of Jesus.

00:14:26:42 – 00:14:45:33
Clint Loveall
It has to do with a miraculous kind of deliverance, a full on fasting. Again, it’s telling us something about the character of that experience, not just the ingredients of it. That’s what I think I’d say there.

00:14:45:34 – 00:15:19:40
Michael Gewecke
I think I think that’s fair. And I also want to, in the same spirit of the boiling the goat reference, I think it may be easy for us to read on pass that language that we had here, calling at the beginning of the passage this language of God being a jealous God. The commentators point out that this is only used in reference to God four times in the Old Testament, the entirety of the text, and when it is used, it has a reference of the husband being jealous in the act of adultery, a husband who’s been, you know, separated from his spouse.

00:15:19:40 – 00:15:44:33
Michael Gewecke
And that is, I think, very helpful for us to understand that God does sometimes approach the people with a kind of rage that unsettles us. But that’s a rage rooted in a very deep relationship. Yep. It’s the kind of thing that arises when there’s a separation of real love and covenant and commitment, and that is the source of it.

00:15:44:33 – 00:16:24:55
Michael Gewecke
It’s not the God of wrath that you have in some of the ancient Greek allegory. It’s not it’s not lightning and it’s not violence. For the sake of violence. It’s not God’s toying with humanity. It’s a God who’s fully vested in God’s people. And that when those people do go into a new land and they do begin adopting these other religious practices and they begin bringing idols into their homes through different means, as that happens, God receives that as the text tells the story with the idea of being jealous here that God receives that as a violation of that deep relationship.

00:16:24:55 – 00:16:58:28
Michael Gewecke
And so there is a sense in which here that while we might read texts like these and find them to be rather legalistic, we might find them to be rather rule based. I think that the spirit in which the text paints this picture in a different culture and a different time is one of a loving kind of hopeful relationship, that God desires this for God’s people and that it’s it is that way not because God is out to in some way inflict pain, but because God has a real deep relationship with these folks.

00:16:58:28 – 00:17:05:13
Michael Gewecke
And I just think it’s worth remembering that as New Testament people read an Old Testament text.

00:17:05:29 – 00:17:44:05
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And I don’t want to I don’t want to minimize this. And I don’t I, I mean this seriously. I know I don’t mean it to be flippant, but there’s a sense here, Michael, in which God and Moses are kind of that father figure that the parental figure, you know, you haven’t been through this yet, but for those of us with older kids that that conversation you have with them, for instance, when they go off to college and you say, hey, make good decisions and you take the things you hope they know you’ve already said them and you kind of restate them, you kind of reincarnate him.

00:17:44:22 – 00:18:16:08
Clint Loveall
And that’s that’s I mean, it’s a hard comparison, but that’s a little bit of the sense here. The people are about to go into this new land. There’s going to be new challenges, there’s going to be new temptations, there’s going to be new ways to get it wrong. They’ve already made some poor decisions. And so God and Moses share with the people what they need to know and more importantly, what they need to do in order to be faithful, in order to be successful.

00:18:16:08 – 00:18:41:52
Clint Loveall
And it would be easy to you know, the tough thing about laws is it’s easy to read them and think that they’re heavy handed. But I, I think one way you could read this is that God is drawing a map for the people of what faithfulness looks like of of what good decision making looks like. God is saying, make sure you do this and make sure you do this and don’t do that and watch out for this.

00:18:42:19 – 00:19:09:59
Clint Loveall
And the idea here is kind of advice, loving advice. Yes. There’s always the the threat of, you know, punishment. But that’s not that’s not the main point. The main point is that God wants the people to succeed, to write God wants the people, says right here, jealous God wants the people to be his people. And this is the path that he’s helping them see that will lead them there.

00:19:09:59 – 00:19:17:15
Clint Loveall
Now, whether they take it or not is a is a different question. But I think that’s that it’s not a terrible way to look at this passage.

00:19:17:34 – 00:19:44:49
Michael Gewecke
Are then my only final word here today is there are times when people go through things in life that change them in a constitutional way. And there are some experiences that are that change a person’s countenance, that changes the way that they even sort of face the world. And I think that with all of our emphasis upon it, I hope it’s not been annoying.

00:19:44:49 – 00:20:15:54
Michael Gewecke
But we really tried to emphasize how substantial this idle passage was in the text. And I do think that this is a very sacred moment in this story because the people have been at the bottom. They have found the bottom. I mean, from worshiping this other God to behaving badly, I mean, to just rampant uncontrolled behavior such that the text went out of its way to say, you know, that other nations were laughing at them.

00:20:15:54 – 00:20:54:05
Michael Gewecke
So this moment where Moses is hearing the renewed covenant covenant excuse me, when God says I am going to be with the people, remember, this is what that means, you know, to a person listening carefully. This is this is. Yes. Instruction, but it’s also invitation. It’s invitation to let’s continue on together. And for the people who have been at the bottom, I think that this is a changed people, that this is a very, very formative conversation, which is going to send them off into the next stage.

00:20:54:19 – 00:21:20:15
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think it’s all of those things. It’s maybe also a little bit of warning and, you know, unfortunately, it’s foreshadowing. You mentioned the astral pool, Michael. I mean, if you know the rest of the story that’s coming up, one of the last straws for God in the Book of Second Kings, one of the kings Manasa puts an ash ripple in the temple.

00:21:20:16 – 00:21:44:24
Clint Loveall
He brings the soul at that point, you know, the die is kind of cast for the people and it’s really sort of the straw that breaks the camel’s back for for their. Well, with regard to the exile. But here we have the possibility of avoiding all that. We you know, if you know the rest of the story, they don’t avoid it.

00:21:44:47 – 00:21:48:07
Clint Loveall
But here is the hope that they will now.

00:21:48:25 – 00:22:05:38
Michael Gewecke
And it’s also the the parent at some level saying this is the rule and this is what’s going to happen when you break the rule. And it’s just a matter of time before the rules broken. Sure, it was said. Thanks for being with us. Friends are we’ll pause there today and certainly join us as we come to a really what I think is interesting text tomorrow.

00:22:05:38 – 00:22:08:24
Michael Gewecke
Glad to have you here. I hope there’s been something good there. We’ll see you tomorrow.

00:22:08:25 – 00:22:16:21
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.