The Law

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0:00 I'm going to begin by praying the universal prayer of Pope Clement XI. This is one of my favorite prayers of all time, and so I'm going to pray it. And it's a little long, so don't fall asleep on me, but try and meditate with me and try and pray this prayer with me. Not audibly, but in your mind. If you could do it audibly, I'd be very impressed. But this is a beautiful prayer, and I like it so much I taped it in the front of my Bible. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord, I believe in you. Increase my faith.

0:55 I trust in you. Strengthen my trust. I love you. Let me love you more and more. I am sorry for my sins. Deepen my sorrow. I worship you as my first beginning. I long for you as my last end. I praise you as my constant helper and call on you as my loving protector. Guide me by your wisdom. Correct me with your justice. Comfort me with your mercy. Protect me with your power. I offer you, Lord, my thoughts to be fixed on you. My words to have you for their theme. My actions to reflect my love for you. My sufferings to be endured for your greater glory. I want to do what you ask of me in the way you ask for as long as you ask, because you ask it. Lord, enlighten my understanding, strengthen my will, purify my heart, and make me holy.

1:51 Help me to repent of my past sins and resist temptation in the future. Help me to rise above my human weaknesses and to grow stronger as a Christian. Let me love you, my Lord and my God, and see myself as I really am. A pilgrim in this world, a Christian called to respect and love all whose lives I touch. Those in authority over me or those under my authority, my friends and my enemies. Help me to conquer anger with gentleness, greed by generosity, apathy by fervor. Help me to forget myself and reach out toward others. Make me prudent in planning, courageous in taking risks. Make me patient in suffering and unassuming in prosperity. Keep me, Lord, attentive at prayer, tempered in food and drink, diligent in my work, firm in my good intentions. Let my conscience be clear, my conduct without fault, my speech blameless, my life well-ordered.

2:48 Put me on guard against my human weaknesses. Let me cherish your love for me, keep your law, and come at last to your salvation. Teach me to realize that this world is passing, that my true future is the happiness of heaven, that life on earth is short, and the life to come eternal. Help me to prepare for death with the proper fear of judgment, but a greater trust in your goodness. Lead me safely through death to the endless joy of heaven. Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Let's go ahead and pray the prayer. Lord Jesus Christ, be present now and let your Holy Spirit bow all hearts and love and truth today to hear your word and keep your way.

3:40 Give us the grace to grasp your word, that we may do what we have heard. Instruct us through the scriptures, Lord, as we draw near, O God adored. In the name of the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Let's turn to Galatians in the New Testament. You have the four Gospels, Acts, Romans, the two epistles to Corinthians, and then Galatians. And I want to turn, when you get to Galatians, turn with me to chapter 3, verse 19. Chapter 3 of Galatians, verse 19.

4:42 All right. Barbara, are you up to reading tonight? Absolutely. All right. You want to read down to verse 29? Well, we start with, and to know the love of Christ. Am I in the right spot? It's verse 19. Is this, oh, this is Ephesians. You're in Ephesians. You're in the wrong place. That's a good book. The Ephesians are not the Galatians. Okay, where is this on? Right here. Starting with 19, and just go to the end of this paragraph right here. Why then the law? It was added for transgressions until the descendant came to whom the promise had been made. It was promulgated by angels at the hand of a mediator. Now there is no mediator when only one party is involved, and God is one. Is the law then opposed to the promises of God? Of course not.

5:29 For if a law had been given that could bring life, then righteousness would in reality come from the law. But scripture confined all things under the power of sin, that through faith in Jesus Christ, the promise might be given to those who believe. Before faith came, we were held in custody under law, confined for the faith that was to be revealed. Consequently, the law was our disciplinarian for Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a disciplinarian. For through faith, you are all children of God in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek.

6:23 There is neither slave nor free person. There is not male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendant, heirs according to the promise. Wonderful. So, what we are going to be doing is, today's covering of Exodus is going to explain what Paul is talking about here. This is in verse 13, for instance. Christ ransomed us from the curse of the law, becoming a curse for us.

7:15 And then he quotes Deuteronomy. All of this, all of what Paul is talking about, if you don't know the Old Testament, if you don't know the narrative of Exodus, and of Mount Sinai, and what we are going to be covering today, this would not make much sense. Or, if it does make sense to you, you are not reading it correctly. Tonight, what we are going to do, is we are going to start with Israel's approaching Mount Sinai. And we are going to go all the way up to, when they are leaving Mount Sinai. And then, even though this chapter goes all the way through Deuteronomy, and covers Deuteronomy, there is so much here to be covered, that I am going to save Deuteronomy for next week.

8:11 And then, I am going to go all the way, because Deuteronomy recounts, kind of in prophecy form, the rest of the Old Testament. And so, because this book goes so fast, it goes chapter 8, the law, and then chapter 9, rise of the kingdom. I mean, if you guys know the Old Testament narrative, I mean, it is like, whoa, you just skipped a whole bunch of the Old Testament all at once. I mean, before the rise of the kingdom, you had the judges. And before that, you had, you know, the invasion of the land, and all the, I mean, there is a lot of history there. And Deuteronomy kind of recounts that, by kind of foretelling it. And so, we will get into that next week. So, this week is going to be all about Sinai. What happened at Sinai? And, I want to focus upon that first verse that we read, in Galatians 3.19.

9:03 Why then the law? It was added for transgressions. It was added for transgressions. Until the descendant came to whom the promise had been made. Okay? And we all know that this is Jesus. It was promulgated by angels at the hand of a mediator. Who is the mediator? Moses. Yes. So, Paul is saying that, you know, the law was given through Moses, the mediator. And that now that Christ has come, we no longer need a mediator. We no longer need Moses and the law and the Levitical priesthood and all that that involves. And, in verse 24, he says, consequently, the law was our paedagogos for Christ.

10:03 And what that word in Greek means is like a nurse that would take care of children and would kind of be their disciplinarian as they grew up, you know, in a household that had enough money for slaves. And so, Paul is saying, and this is where we get pedagogy from, you know, how to teach, or pedagogical, you know. If I want to teach, if you go to school and you want to learn how to be a teacher, you're going to learn pedagogy, how to teach. Well, this comes from this Greek word, pedagogos, which means, you know, like a teacher, an instructor, a disciplinarian, someone to kind of like keep the children, to raise them up. And this is what Paul calls the law.

10:51 And that now that Christ has come, we no longer need that law. And he says that through faith, you are all children of God in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. And he says there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you all are all one in Christ Jesus. And so, just, I'm giving this to you as kind of a prologue so that I'm going to come back to it as we're in the Sinai narrative. Because this is going to, we're going to shed some light on what Paul is talking about here. Okay. And then he also says in verse 29, which is what Barbara finished with. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendant, heirs according to the promise.

11:45 What promise? Yes, yes. Genesis 22. The promise given that through his seed, through his Zerah, not Sarah, but Zerah, which is the Hebrew word for seed. That through his seed, all the nations will be blessed. And Paul is saying that that covenant in Genesis, where? Genesis 22. Remember, there are three Abrahamic covenants. Genesis 15 is fulfilled in Moses, in the Mosaic covenant. Genesis 17 is fulfilled in David, in the Davidic covenant, which we'll get into in 2 Samuel 7. And then 22, which is fulfilled in Jesus, in the new covenant. And so he's saying that, you know, here's the fulfillment of what happened with what God said to Abraham.

12:44 But after Abraham, something happened. We have sin, and then the law, and we have this temporary time of having a disciplinarian, the Mosaic law. And Paul's not talking about just any type of law, like, you know, just, you know, the law that's just kind of written on your hearts. You know, you kind of have this law, right? The moral law. No, he's talking about specifically the Mosaic law, the Torah, the first five books. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Especially the book of the covenant, Exodus 21 through 23, Leviticus, the laws and Numbers, and all of Deuteronomy. Okay? Okay, so let's go ahead and turn to Exodus, to chapter 18. Exodus chapter 18.

13:40 Oh, by the way, I have an extra Understanding the Scriptures textbook back there, so if you guys want to get one for your spouse or for a friend, I have one back there. Okay, Exodus 18. And this is when Moses is, they're about to get to Sinai. And we see that in Exodus 18, starting in verse 13, Moses sat in judgment for the people who waited about him from morning until evening. When his father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, basically he said, what are you doing? This is taking up all your time. This is what Jethro is saying to Moses. Moses goes, yeah, I know it's kind of tiring, right? And Jethro goes, why don't you find able men and why don't you kind of share your authority with them and let them judge in these matters too? So Moses appoints the minor judges to share in his authority.

14:36 And if you look in verse 21, it says, but you should also look among all the people for able and God-fearing men, trustworthy men, who hate dishonest gain, and set them as officers over groups of hundreds, I'm sorry, of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. Let these men render decisions for the people in all ordinary cases. Okay. I want for you guys just to write this down. You don't have to turn there, but it's Mark 640. And when Jesus multiplies miraculously the bread and the fish and feeds the 5,000, and by the way, those were just 5,000 men. There were also women and children there.

15:25 This is how you would take a census back then. You would just count the men. And so, if you turn that, if you look at that passage, when they're feeding the 5,000, Jesus tells them to get into groups of hundreds and fifties. And commentators have seen an allusion back here to Exodus 18, where Jesus, remember, Jesus didn't feed the 5,000 by himself. He didn't go around and give everybody bread and fish. And he didn't have, he didn't just, you know, say, okay, who wants to pass out the bread and fish? No, he appointed specifically his apostles, who are also called elsewhere the disciples. And sometimes disciples includes the apostles and more people.

16:13 It just depends on where you're looking in the Gospels. And then those apostles basically feed them in groups of hundreds and of fifties. So, you see kind of an allusion to the authority that the apostles are given from Christ. So, we see some typology here happening. In Exodus 19, it begins with, in the third month. By the way, where does the term month come from? Do you guys know? The third month. Moon. Yeah. And actually here in the, in the original language, it says new moon. Like at the, at the third new moon. In the third month, after their departure from the land of Egypt, on its first day, the Israelites came to the desert of Sinai.

17:09 While Israel was encamped here in front of the mountain, Moses went up the mountain to God. The Lord called to him and said, thus you shall say to the house of Jacob. Okay, the house of Israel, the same, same name. Different name, same person. Tell the Israelites, you have seen for yourselves how I treated the Egyptians and how I bore you up on eagle wings and brought you here to myself. Therefore, if you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant. And the word here for keep is shamar. The same word used for Adam in the garden. To shamar the covenant.

18:01 You shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people, though all the earth is mine. You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. Okay, so we, they are to be a kingdom of priests. So, they are to rule royally through their priesthood. That is what you must tell the Israelites. So, Moses went and summoned the elders of the people. When he set before them, oh, by the way, you guys know where we get the term, when we say that we have, you know, our pastors, Father David Ivey, we call him a priest, right?

18:51 We call him a priest. Do you guys know where that word in English, priest, etymologically comes from? Why do we say priest and not something else? In Hebrew, it's iros. So, why don't we call them my, you know, higher ups? Or, you know, why don't we use that type of, why do we say priest with a P-R-I-E-C-S-T? That's because priest etymologically comes from presbyter. If you guys look this up, this is what the word priest comes from in English. It comes right from presbyter. Because, and presbyter means elder. And so, in the New Testament, when elders are ordained, they're called presbyteroi. And then over time, now that we speak English, not Greek, this has been transferred to priest.

19:45 This is kind of, this is where this comes from. And so, we see here, we see the elders who are being called. And so, as there were elders in the Old Testament, so there are elders in the New Testament. But in the New Testament, the position of being an elder is not one necessarily of age. It's one of having hands laid on you and being appointed, being ordained to the ministry. You may not be that old. Okay. Verse 8. The people all answered together, everything the Lord has said, we will do. Then Moses brought back to the Lord the response of the people. The Lord told him, I'm coming to you in a dense cloud so that when the people hear me speaking with you, they may always have faith in you also.

20:36 When Moses then had reported to the Lord the response of the people, the Lord added, go to the people and have them sanctify themselves today and tomorrow. Make them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. Remember, the third day. Three is a big number in the Old Testament. Jonah is in the whale for three days. You have, you know, be ready for the third day. We have Isaac. Basically, he's about to be sacrificed on the third day. Three is a prominent number in the Old Testament. And so Christ is going to rise on the third day, day three. Okay. So they're going to sanctify themselves, wash their garments, be ready for the third day. For on the third day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai before the eyes of all the people.

21:26 Okay. I'm going to skip down to verse 15. He warned them, be ready for the third day. Have no intercourse with any woman. So that's what the sanctify themselves part is up in verse 10. You know, have no intercourse and wash your garments. Really simple, guys. Three days of continence and, you know, shave, get clean, use some oil of Olay and, you know, actually not oil of Olay, but this would be more like Tide. Okay, so, and then between verses 15 and 16, three days pass. On verse 16, on the morning of the third day, there were peals of thunder and lightning and a heavy cloud over the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast so that all the people in the camp trembled.

22:17 But Moses let the people out of the camp to meet God and they stationed themselves at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was all wrapped in smoke for the Lord came down upon it in fire. The smoke rose from it as though from a furnace and the whole mountain trembled violently. The trumpet blast grew louder and louder while Moses was speaking and God answering him with thunder. Okay? This is what we call a theophany. We have Theo, which means God, and Phanos, which means a manifestation. So we have a manifestation of God, a theophany. Okay, verse 21, Then the Lord told Moses, Go down and warn the people not to break through toward the Lord in order to see Him.

23:09 Otherwise, many of them will be struck down. Okay, well, he just said before, he said on the third day, you know, he said, verse 11, And be ready for the third day, for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai before the eyes of all the people. Okay? Like, he's going to come down and he's going to, and they're going to see Him before, but instead of like seeing God, seeing like, you know, seeing God face to face, you know, in all of His glory, instead, there's like this frightfulness that they get. They get trembling, they get fire, they get thunder, and they're afraid. And the Lord says, Don't have them break through or else they will be struck down. And I'm going to skip over the Ten Commandments here.

23:58 I'm going to go to verse 18. When the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the trumpet blast, and the mountain smoking, they all feared and trembled. So they took up a position much farther away and said to Moses, You speak to us and we will listen, but let not God speak to us, or we shall die. Moses answered the people, Do not be afraid, for God has come to you only to test you and put His fear upon you, lest you should sin. Still the people remained at a distance while Moses approached the cloud where God was. The Lord told Moses, Thus shall you speak to the Israelites. You have seen for yourselves I have spoken to you from heaven. Do not make anything to rank with me, neither gods of silver nor gods of gold that shall you make for yourselves. Okay? And the people really fear God.

24:45 They're like, you know, you can talk to us, but let not God speak to us or else we're going to die. Why is this going to happen? Well, this is going to happen because the people haven't prepared themselves for this third day. God's saying, don't come to me, they're going to die, they're not ready. They haven't prepared themselves. And so, the people want to be at a distance and they want to have Moses speak for them. So God is going to say, okay, have it your way. You know, God punishes us, St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that God punishes us by letting us have what we want. How does He punish the person who wants alcohol all the time? He makes them an alcoholic. He doesn't make them, He allows them to become an alcoholic.

25:32 This is how He punishes them. He lets them have the goods because the goods are always going to be worse off or, you know, not as great as the, as the giver of the goods, the creator, the giver. The gifts are always not going to be as good as the giver. So, it's actually bad for us to just have the gifts and to inordinately desire the gifts and not to have the giver. And so the people are like, look, you know, we want to be at a distance from God and Moses, you speak for us so God makes that a reality. God says, okay, fine, then I'm going to, I'm going to make Moses kind of like your mediator. He's going to be, he's going to be between you and I and I'm, and you're going to be living at a distance from me. This is kind of a foreshadowing of what's about to happen. Now, starting in, in chapter 20, we have what we call the book of the covenant.

26:22 Okay, this is in Exodus 20 through 23. God gives the book of the covenant. And with, with every covenant, you have a law, the terms, how do you keep the covenant? And so in the book of the covenant, this is how Israel is going to keep covenant with God, this covenant they're about to enter into. And part of the book of the covenant is the Ten Commandments. And notice, there is no animal sacrifice in the book of the covenant. No, no animal sacrifice is, is mandated. You don't have daily sacrifice of, uh, sheep, cattle, bulls, goats.

27:09 Why? That's a very good question. We'll, we'll get to that. Very good. Okay, and notice also that the Ten Commandments are given, they're delivered in 20, verse 1. But there's no stone. They're not written on stone. They're just given by God. Okay, let's go ahead and turn to, uh, chapter 24. And also, this, this covenant, this book of the covenant, uh, the law in the book of the covenant, this covenant law is like a household code. It talks about how to resolve disputes, how to treat acts of violence, how to make restitution for theft. I mean, if Israel is going to become a nation, these 12 tribes are going to be unified as a nation in the Sinai covenant.

27:58 They need some sort of a, a, something to unify them. And so, the book of the covenant, uh, kind of unifies the household. Okay, chapter 24. Moses himself was told, come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, with Nadab, Abihu, and 70 of the elders of Israel. Jesus is going to have the three, Peter, James, and John, and he, who go up the mountain with him, who are in the garden of Gethsemane with him. Okay, Moses, Jesus is a new Moses. As you have, uh, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, so you're going to have Peter, James, and John. And as you have the 70 elders, so you're going to have the 70 disciples appointed in commission by Christ. You shall all worship at some distance.

28:48 Verse 2 of 24, of chapter 24. But Moses alone is to come close to the Lord. The others shall not come too near, and the people shall not come up at all with Moses. When Moses came to the people and related all the words and ordinances of the Lord, which is basically the book of the covenant. They all answered with one voice. We will do everything that the Lord has told us. Moses then wrote down all the words of the Lord and rising early the next day, he erected at the foot of the mountain an altar and twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. And then Jesus is going to have twelve apostles. for the twelve tribes of Israel.

29:36 So here's the altar and then you have like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve pillars. Okay, verse five. Then having sent certain young men of the Israelites to offer holocausts and sacrifice young bulls as peace offerings to the Lord. Moses took half of the blood and put it in large bowls and the other half splashed on the altar. Okay? So you have these bowls over here and you have the altar and Moses takes these peace offerings, these sacrifices and you know fills the bowls with the blood and then splashes it on the altar.

30:32 Taking the book of the covenant he read it aloud to the people. The law. Here are the terms O Israel. Do you accept these? Okay. All that the Lord has said we will heed and do. Verse eight. Then he took the blood and sprinkled it on the people saying this is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words of his. What's happening here? They just got blood splattered on them. Ew. You know? What's happening is that again you have a covenant oath being entered into and this is all symbolic. The altar symbolizes God and the people are themselves.

31:19 They're the people. And so when the blood is put on the people and on God it's like saying we share the same life. we're being brought into one in this covenant. If Dr. Rexrode and I want to become blood brothers we're just going to make a little cut right here. We'll kind of mix our blood and we become blood brothers. This is what you do as a teenager. I know this is kind of a loose analogy but this is kind of what's happening here. And should you transgress the covenant guess what? You're going to become just like those animals. You're saying let me be accursed. Let me be killed. Let me be slaughtered just as these animals were. Should I transgress this covenant? This is a very serious thing. And by the way why on earth in a Catholic churches do you bow to the altar?

32:12 Why do we do that? It's just an altar. It's not like anything special other than being a piece of stone or wood. You genuflect to the Eucharist and you bow to the altar. The reason is that in the church we're kind of doing the same thing that happened back here. The altar is a symbol of Christ. It's not Christ of course it's a symbol. And so the altar we bow towards as a symbol in the same way that the altar in the Old Testament was kind of a symbol of God. So we this is kind of where the symbolism carries on. Yes but that's like you would genuflect on one knee to the tabernacle but you would not normally bow.

33:05 Yes and so that's kind of I'm just kind of correlating this so you guys will get a bit greater idea of why you would bow. Yes weren't there some other religions that used blood for spring playing for whatever thing they were going through at the time like celebrating the spring or the fall or the right I'm not familiar with any of the pagan religions around that time other than the Egyptian religion and I know that after Christianity had already gotten started like in the second century there were some cults that did sprinkle people with the blood of a cow for instance like the Mithras cult and so I'm sorry I don't know I don't know I wouldn't be able to help you out there right when underneath the slaughtered cow yeah that comes from the second century yeah and what's really interesting is that well get in that would be a long tangent but thanks for bringing that up right okay so you have

34:19 this they enter into this covenant and verse nine Moses then went up with Aaron Nadab Abihu and seventy of the elders and they beheld the God of Israel under his feet there appeared to be sapphire tile work as clear as the sky itself yet he did not smite on God they could still eat and drink that's what my new American Bible translation says you guys would be hearing me do this the whole Bible stuff that's what my new American Bible says but that's not what it actually says they could still eat and drink they were still okay guys are still cool they can still have that taco you able to drink that Pepsi everything is cool that's not what the narrative says a better translation the revised standard version by the way you know why it's called the revised standard version it's a revision of the King James Bible the standard version of 1611 you have it's the it's a revision of that so it's the

35:23 RSV but in the RSV it says and he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel they beheld God and ate and drank what this is it's a covenant meal they're partaking of the covenant sacrifice to ratify that covenant okay so like I said in the Old Testament you not only would you have a sacrifice but you would partake of the sacrifice you would eat it like the Passover lamb you don't just kill the lamb and sprinkle the blood on the doorpost and on the lintel but you actually eat the Passover lamb let's turn to Matthew 26 28 at the end of Matthew's gospel 26 28 and try and keep a finger there in Exodus if you haven't don't worry about we'll get you'll be able to find it again everybody laughs whenever I say that because they all they all lost that place we're at the last supper which is a Passover meal well verse I'm going to start in verse 26 of chapter 26 while they were eating

36:44 Jesus took bread said the blessing broke it and giving it to his disciples said take and eat this is my body then he took a cup gave thanks and gave it to them saying drink from it all of you for this is my blood of the covenant this is my blood of the covenant this is the same words that are used in exodus the blood this is the blood of the covenant so Jesus and where else does Jesus mention covenant in the new testament no come on who knows their bible real well it's a trick question he doesn't use it anywhere else so you would think that when Jesus uses the word covenant the new covenant made in his blood it would be really important right so you have Jesus using the words of exodus I'm sorry I just had to do that sorry he says this is my blood of the covenant which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins I tell you from now on that I shall not drink

38:14 this fruit of the vine etc and we'll get into the rest of that passage right there later on in the same bible study and what Jesus meant by I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until I with you basically until I'm with you in the kingdom and then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives okay and then the Lord said to Moses in verse 12 of chapter 24 of Exodus the Lord said to Moses come up to me on the mountain okay so I mean Moses you know he was in really good shape right I mean when did he start how old was he when he started leading the Israelites out of Egypt 80 year old man and here he is climbing this mountain up and down so now the 10 commandments are going to be written on stone while he is up on the mountain and in chapters 25 oh by the way how long is he up there verse 18 40 days and 40 nights there's that 40 again we're going to constantly see 40 then in chapters

39:31 25 through 31 25 through 31 you have part of the law being given more laws 25 to 31 and these are interesting laws because they don't have anything to do really with the book of the covenant they're kind of different they're about priestly vestments and the ark and the tabernacle and the furnishings and all this stuff that hasn't had anything to do with the book of the covenant or with what has been talked about yet and while Moses is up there and God's giving him is writing the ten commandments on stone and he's giving him all these commandments in exodus 25 through 31 what's happening they're building a golden calf because they liked rodeos right and back then instead of having a mechanical bull you would just make a gold one right and they'd all shake it no no this is they returned to their Egyptian idolatry the Egyptian Apis cult A P I S okay this cult worshipped the God Apis in the form of

40:51 a bull and so in chapter 32 something huge happens I cannot emphasize how big Exodus 32 is this changes everything this is a huge turning point the the rabbis saw Exodus 32 and the golden calf and Israel committing this is just as big as Adam sinning in the garden it's huge I mean everything changes with the golden calf verse one of chapter 32 when the people became aware of Moses delay I mean 40 days guys I mean that is a long time you know when they became aware of Moses delay in coming down from the mountain they gathered around Aaron and said to him come make us a God who will be our leader so basically Aaron makes this golden calf and it says in verse six early the next day the people offered holocaust and brought peace offerings then they sat down to eat and drink and rose up to revel and this it's an idiom for they entered into a sexual orgy this Bible study is rated PG 13 okay it's

42:15 you know this is part of the Egyptian idolatry was that it had fertility aspects and we'll see in the New Testament Greeks would in some of the Roman and other Greek religions they would actually have temple prostitutes you go to the temple guys and you'd have relations with the temple prostitute and if you have daughters they'd go serve as temple prostitutes this is part of their religion this is part of ancient cults this is part of the fertility cults and so this is big this is really bad and so in verse seven with that the Lord said to Moses still up there on the mountain he's getting the Ten Commandments now putting on stone tablets with these extra laws being given and the Lord says go down at once to your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt for they have become depraved they have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them making for themselves a molten calf and

43:22 worshipping it sacrificing to it and crying out this is your God O Israel who brought you out of the land of Egypt I see how stiff neck this people is continued the Lord to Moses let me alone then Moses that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them then I will make of you a great nation but Moses implored the Lord his God saying why O Lord should your wrath blaze up against your own people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and with so strong a hand why should the Egyptians say with evil intent he brought them out that he might kill them in the mountains and exterminate them from the face of the earth let your blazing wrath die Israel and how you swore to them by your own self saying I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and all this land that I promised I will give your descendants as their perpetual heritage so the Lord repented

44:29 in the punishment he had threatened to inflict on his people oh that's right Moses I had that covenant that I entered into back with Abraham I can't just destroy these people you know well of course this is this is not God going sorry guys I was just getting really mad right there but no this is this is God it's you know that the Dr. Hahn in his books he'll say that the diplomacy is best defined as letting others have your way and this is what God does God lets Moses have God's way God's like okay Moses remember this covenant with Abraham I'm going to kill him I'm going to kill him right now and Moses goes oh no you can't very good now you got the covenant logic because I entered in the so perhaps God entered in this covenant with Abraham knowing what Israel was going to do you know God's like okay we need to get in this covenant right here with Abraham so that later on when I make this other

45:31 covenant you guys transgress it and what do you do what kind of a curse did you put yourselves under death so this would be righteous of God to do this they put themselves under this covenant God could destroy them I mean this is part of the covenant curse okay and then I love this Moses comes down what does he do with the two stone tablets verse 19 his with Moses wrath flared up and he threw the tablets down and broke them on the base of the mountain so the Ten commandments being written in stone tablets by the way how many stone tablets were there two and were they written on just one side no they were all written on both sides many times you'll see pictures of Moses coming down with the two commandments you're like one two three four five six seven eight nine ten but that's not what it was like it actually both sides were being used so that's not that's not a wholly accurate depiction

46:32 so the Ten commandments were written on stone to symbolize Israel's hardness of heart and the stone tablets were broken as a prophetic action saying you broke the covenant and we'll see this happening all throughout the Old Testament prophets will do prophetic actions they'll do things like Elijah and Elisha will do things like you know they'll break a clay pot and they'll say as this clay pot was broken so you will be broken and things like that well this is what's happening it's a prophetic action and so Moses asked Aaron verse 21 what did this people ever do to you that Aaron replied let not my lord be angry you know well enough how prone you know the people are to evil they said to me make us a god to be our leader as for the man Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt who do not know what has happened to him so I told them let anyone who has gold jewelry take it off they gave it

47:37 to me I threw it in fire and this calf came out I mean there's really some great humor in the biblical narrative I mean there's sex there's intrigue there's war there's comedy verse 25 when Moses realized that to the scornful joy of their foes Aaron had let the people run wild verse 26 he stood at the gate of the camp and cried whoever is for the Lord let him come to me all the Levites then rallied to him and he told them thus says the Lord the God of Israel put your sword on your hip every one of you now go up and down the camp from gate to gate and slay your own kinsmen your friends and your neighbors the Levites carried out the command of Moses on that day there fell about three thousand of the people well we don't I probably just men so there are probably a lot right now obviously not everybody in Israel was slain perhaps the ones that repented didn't get slain so you know we still have

48:49 people from all 12 tribes but a lot got slain how many how many people were baptized at Pentecost in Acts of the Apostles 3,000 you see maybe a parallel happening here as Israel sin and so they're going to incur the covenant curse of death what does Peter say at the Pentecostal sermon repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins and that day 3,000 of them were baptized and so and who were those people gentiles who got baptized no they were all israelites they were all israelites they were with many different languages because they were living in the dispersion in different you know some were from egypt somewhere in ethiopia somewhere they were all over the place and so we have israelites falling and dying and israelites being saved we have a corollary happening here verse 29 see here i'm going to turn to this other page so i'm using a different translation

50:01 here because it's more accurate okay today you have ordained yourselves for the service of the lord today you have ordained yourselves for the service of the lord so what happens at this point in time is that what did god say to moses back at mount sinai before he ever delivered egypt ever delivered the israelites from egypt back when moses was in midian and there was the burning bush and god revealed his plan to moses what did god call israel in exodus 4 22 exodus 4 22 yes god calls israel his firstborn sons had been priestly they had kind of like this priesthood of the firstborn sons these priestly prerogatives and god is saying you know israel is my firstborn son i want for all of israel to be priestly and then he says at the beginning of mount sinai he says if you shamar my covenant you will be to me a kingdom of priests does israel shamar the covenant no they're a new adam they commit the greatest sin of apostasy

51:35 they do not shamar just as adam did not shamar this if is a big if they didn't do it so they're not going to be a kingdom of priests yet rather the levites get the priesthood and they become the levitical priesthood now if the descendants of issachar another son of israel had risen up and had done this we'd have the issacharite priesthood or if the the descendants of dan had done it they would be the danite priesthood or if the descendants of judah did it they'd be the jewish priesthood or the judahite priesthood but no it was the levites we have the levitical priesthood let's turn to the book of numbers the book of numbers chapter 3 verse 11 at the beginning of numbers you have a census of all the people and in chapter 3 verse 11 of numbers this is what we read the lord said to moses it is i who have chosen the levites from the israelites in place of every firstborn that opens the womb among the israelites

52:56 so now not only does israel not get the priesthood but all firstborn sons no longer have the priesthood now it's the levites verse 45 take the levites in place of all the firstborn of the israelites and the levites cattle in place of their cattle i mean this is gonna be pretty you know this is gonna be everything you know take their socks in place of their socks and uh that the levites may belong to me i am the lord and so we have the levites getting the priesthood the levitical priesthood let's turn back to exodus let's turn back to exodus 33 okay so we have this huge slang a bunch of people die the covenant a bunch of the covenant curses are administered and then in chapter 33 this is this is chapter 33 is this is very important the lord told moses you and the people whom you god does this again whom you have brought up from the land of egypt are to go up from here to the land which i swore to abraham isaac and jacob

54:11 i would give to i would give to their descendants driving out the canaanites amorites hittites perizzites hivites and jebusites i will send an angel before you to the land flowing with milk and honey but i myself will not go up in your company because you are a stiff-necked people you know my angel can go with you but i'm not exactly you guys kicked me off and why he says because you are a stiff-necked people otherwise i might exterminate you on the way i'm just i'm really upset guys i mean we had this covenant thing going you guys screwed it all up okay verse four when the people heard this bad news they went into mourning and no one wore his ornaments they were christmas trees the lord said to moses tell the israelites you are a stiff-necked people were i to go up in your company even for a moment i would exterminate you take off your ornaments therefore i will then see what i am to do with you

55:14 so from mount horeb onwards the israelites laid aside their ornaments so god's like okay guys i'm going to go into my study for a moment and i'm going to decide your punishment i'm just i'm just really ticked off and so in verse seven the tent which was called the meeting tent moses used to pitch it some distance away outside the camp anyone who wished to consult the lord would go to this meeting tent outside the camp whenever moses went out to the tent the people would all rise and stand at the entrance of their own tents watching moses until he entered the tent and moses entered as moses entered the tent the column of cloud would come down and stand at its entrance while the lord spoke with moses on seeing the column of cloud stand at the entrance of the tent all the people would rise and worship at the entrance of their own tents the lord used to speak to moses face to face as one man speaks to another

56:01 moses would then return to the camp but his young assistant joshua son of nun i didn't know nuns had kids back then but they apparently did would not move out of the tent okay so moses had this relationship with the lord where you'd see him face to face and the lord is still trying to decide he's like oh man i'm just really ticked off verse 12 moses said to the lord you indeed are telling me to lead this people on but you have not let me know whom you will send with me you know are you gonna come with come with us god you know perhaps yet you have said you are my intimate friend and also you have found favor with me remember god when you said that you know we're best friends now if i have found favor with you do let me know your ways so that in knowing you i may continue to find favor with you then too this nation is after all your own people i myself the lord answered will go will go along

57:01 to give you rest it's in the singular you know you moses okay i'll go just because of you moses replied if you are not going yourself do not make us go up from here you know okay fine if you're just gonna come with me you know you can just stay here god verse 16 for how can it be known that we your people and i have found favor with you except by your going with us then we your people and i will be singled out from every other people on the earth the lord said to moses this request which you have just made i will carry out because you have found favor with me and you are my intimate friend then moses said oh do let me see your glory he answered i will make all my beauty pass before you and in your presence i will pronounce my name lord i will show favors to whom i will i who grant mercy to whom i will but my face you cannot see for no man sees me and still lives in a place near me where you shall

58:01 station yourself on the rock when my glory passes i will set you in the hollow of the rock and cover you with my hand until i have passed by then i will remove my hand so that you may see my back but my face is not to be seen moses loses his privilege of seeing god in all of his full glory for the sake of his people moses experiences a certain sort of humiliation for the sake of his people he loses something so that the lord can go with him we have a prefigurement of christ here christ you know is god he's the son of god of course he has favor with the father he and the father are one and he suffers humiliation he for a little while made himself lower than the angels so that he would you know bring us into oneness with god at one mint atonement by the way that's what atonement means it literally means at one mint that's the etymology of it okay so we have moses mediating between god and israel

59:02 god goes with the people he says okay i'm going to go with you because of you moses but only because of you and so in chapter 34 we have a renewal of the tablets a renewal of the covenant and in verse 6 the lord passed before him and cried out the lord the lord yahweh yahweh a merciful and gracious god slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity so the lord is like okay i'm going to go with you guys because i'm slow to anger and i'm rich in hesed covenant love my hesed and fidelity okay so then we have a kind of a renewal of the covenant we have uh god saying okay well when you get into this land tear down their altars smash their sacred pillars and cut down their sacred poles you shall not worship any other god as i'm a jealous god neither shall you take their daughters as wise for your sons otherwise when their daughters render their wanton worship to the gods they will make your sons

59:58 do the same that's verse 16 i just read from and so you know god's like okay well we're going to do this now and then we have between chapters 35 and basically to the end of exodus we have the implementation of what we saw in exodus 25 through 31 remember when moses went up the mountain the first time and he got all those instructions well now that's going to happen you're going to have the erection of the dwelling you're going to have the construction of the tabernacle the making of the ark and by the way what were constructed on top of the ark to go on top of the ark two graven images god commands that two graven images are to be made for the ark of the covenant i just like that i like to bring up these kind of things that seem like inherent contradictions are just kind of fun because when god gives the prohibition the ten commandments against graven images it's not just any graven image

1:01:01 back then graven images were graven because they were idols they were creating idols and they were worshipping these like if i were to worship this book this is what they did they were like hail the book you know and so god was like don't make books but make this book because you're not going to be worshipping that okay so here we go so with this what he's told in exodus what he tells moses in exodus 25 through 31 is now put in effect in the rest of exodus what's put into effect well how is god going to go with the israelites how is he going to go with them well he's going to be in a tabernacle because when the israelites depart from mount sinai okay now that this has happened how long are the israelites at mount sinai until they finally depart one year they're there for one year getting reconstituted under the levitical priesthood and when they when moses gave the law to israel how long was

1:02:05 this after the passover fifty days and so the jews would celebrate a jewish feast called pentecost this is not a at first a christian feast it's a jewish feast pentecost fifty days at fifty days they celebrate the giving of the law the law of the covenant to from moses or from god through moses to israel in the new covenant what happens at pentecost the spirit comes down the spirit the indwelling presence of the holy spirit in the hearts of the baptized of believers of the new covenant people of god is the law of the new covenant how do we live now as christians do we go back and open up our torah and go okay we need to do this guys we need to do that okay this is how we keep covenant with god no we keep covenant with god by living at the prompting of the holy spirit and his seven gifts the holy spirit gives us seven gifts by which we live according to this new law wisdom understanding knowledge

1:03:27 counsel fortitude piety fear of the lord and some translations have an eighth one long suffering okay this is the means by which the christian lives the new law the holy spirit so this is the symbolism moses goes up the mountain he he comes down with the law jesus ascends to heaven and he sends the law the holy spirit okay where were we i'm all lost here okay at the end of exodus okay so we're at the end of exodus and and let's go ahead and get into numbers and we have the they're set back up under the levitical priesthood oh by the way leviticus okay here's the book of leviticus so leviticus is like a manual for how are the levites gonna do this levitical priesthood thing now and what's their relation between them and the people and what are the people to do now now that they've lost the priesthood what are they to do well we have the holiness code for the people and we have the priestly

1:04:27 code for the priests so this is leviticus it's what they're supposed to do it's very detailed minute instructions and then we come to numbers and numbers begins with the census of the people before they leave Mount Sinai the reconstituted under the levitical priesthood we saw that the levites replaced the firstborn sons and in numbers 11 in the second numbers I'm sorry numbers 10 numbers chapter 10 verse 11 in the second year on the 20th day of the second month the cloud rose from the dwelling of the commandments the Israelites moved on from the desert of Sinai by stages until the cloud came to rest in the desert of Paran okay so they're sitting there at Sinai and the cloud rises and they're like okay follow the cloud so the cloud goes and they follow it and when the cloud stops they all stop the Levites take out the tent which is the tabernacle set it up and the cloud goes into the tent

1:05:37 and then the cloud comes out of the tent starts going so everybody packs up and this is what they do they're following the cloud and when they're set up in the desert whenever they would set up camp you'd have the tabernacle tent you'd have a laver you'd have an altar you'd have the court the outer court and then the Levites would be would split into four and they would cordon off the tabernacle kind of like mediators kind of like keeping the people from the tabernacle and then you'd have tribes over here and three tribes over here the one grouping of three tribes on each one of the four sides and this is how they would camp in the desert this is kind of they're a nomadic people they're living as nomads in the desert going towards the promised land well the promised land isn't that far it's only a couple weeks journey from Sinai and also from Egypt depending we go to where the land of Canaan

1:06:49 is and oh by the way just not this last weekend but the weekend before we had the reading in the liturgy the first reading was from Numbers 11 and the spirit being given to the 70 elders and the two in the camp who prophesied remember we heard this at mass so it's kind of cool to see what we were just reading in mass the other day is right here we have some interesting things we have the spirit on the elders the quail the jealousy of Aaron and Miriam Miriam's leprosy I like that story chapter 13 the Lord says to Moses send them in to reconnature the land of Canaan which I am giving to the Israelites you shall send one man from each ancestral tribe all of them princes so we have 12 scouts for the 12 tribes of Israel and they scout out the land of Canaan they go in there they're like oh wow this is great they come back and they bring a pole with grapes on top of it and how many of the scouts

1:07:51 say we can take the land two what are their names very good Joshua and Caleb Joshua son of Nun and Caleb and the other 10 say what yeah we can't do it guys they're too big they're gonna kill us we're gonna die and so what does Israel do they follow the two or the ten the ten by the way there's also a little bit of prefigurement happening here because later on when you have the kingdom there's going to be a split and ten tribes are going to split from the two tribes and is going to be the kingdom that follows the Davidic covenant with King David and his successors the successors of King David so they basically we have a mutiny and let's go to numbers 14 verse 1 at this the whole community broke out with loud cries and even in the night the people wailed all the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron the whole community saying to them would that we have died in the land of Egypt or that

1:09:08 here in the desert we were dead why is the Lord bringing us into this land only to have us fall by the sword so basically Israel saying listen we'd rather die in Egypt and the Lord is bringing us here just to kill us well this is blasphemy this is huge I mean this is not you just don't say this to God you know I mean you guys just had 3,000 of your kinsmen slain I mean you guys need to like you know zip it and so again we have Moses interceding for the Israelites he does the same whole thing the Lord again says I'm going to slay all the Israelites I'm going to take them and Moses I'm going to make of you a great nation Moses does the same thing again he goes Lord these are your people remember the covenant with Abraham and Lord goes oh yeah that covenant I remember so in verse 18 Moses is like the Lord is slow to anger and rich in kindness you know verse 19 pardon then the wickedness of this

1:10:03 people verse 20 the Lord answered I pardon them as you have asked I pardon them as you have asked verse 23 not one shall see the land which I promised on oath to their fathers none of these who spurn me shall see it so the Lord forgives them he doesn't wipe them out you but you guys can't see the land you guys are going to have to wander for 40 years in the desert why 40 years that's a generation that generation is going to die off and the narrative says you know it's because they spent 40 days scouting the land so there are going to be for each day you scouting the land we're going to have a year in the desert so that generation will die off and the Lord says maybe your children the second generation will be better than you guys maybe your children will be more faithful well we're going to find out next week that the children are not more faithful in fact they're like father like son it's

1:11:07 going to be just as just as bad and so what we're going to do is next week we're going to talk about the oh by the way I just want to add real quick in numbers we constantly have this reoccurring theme of the Israelites are heading through the desert and then they sin and so law is given and they head along some longer and then they sin and then law is given and they head along longer and then they sin and law is given so the book of numbers has you have a narrative of history then law history law history law sounds like a college degree okay and so we see let's turn back to Galatians again Galatians chapter 3 verse 19 why then the law it was added for transgressions okay and what does the law command daily sacrifice now wasn't in the book of the covenant but now you're going to have to sacrifice daily through the Levitical priests you're going to have to renounce your idolatry you alcoholic

1:12:27 you're going to have to take that bottle of Smirnoff vodka you're going to have to take that bottle of Jim bean you have to take Jack Daniels whiskey and you're going to have to pour it out on the ground you know and you can't have any of it every day you have to renounce your sin and it's going to remind you of your sin because every time you have to slaughter a bull well the Aaron by the way is in Leviticus is told that he's supposed to slaughter a bull on the day of atonement you have this happening and so it's going to point out their sin to them their idolatry it's also the law also doesn't just have ceremonial sacrifices but also has moral precepts Israelites can't keep the morality either they can't keep it this is your homework before next time read Romans 8 read Romans 8 Romans 8 talks about how the flesh cannot save you're confined to the flesh as a human being you cannot overcome

1:13:30 your sin but as Christians we're given the spirit and the spirit those who live by the spirit in those people the law is fulfilled the righteous decree the law is fulfilled in those who live by the spirit Paul says if you live by the flesh you if you live by the spirit you will live because Jesus Christ's redemption gives you the new law the Holy Spirit who is going to allow you to overcome your sinful tendencies and you can actually live in union with God without needing a law to show you how in and in the sermon on the mount Matthew 5 through 7 Jesus knocks the Ten Commandments out of the water he says you not just do not commit adultery but if you lust after a woman in your heart you have committed adultery if you do not murder if you're angry at your brother from your heart you have already committed murder Jesus wants for us not to be good citizens not to uphold the moral law in the

1:14:31 book of the Ten Commandments he wants us to be saints he says in Matthew 7 be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect it's this new standard of morality he says you know with God all things are possible this new radical form of morality that the Christians are given and we're not on our own we don't do this on our own it's not like we're pulling up ourselves by our moral bootstraps we're given the spirit this is a new way of living let's close in prayer in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen lord thank you so much for this study of your word thank you so much for allowing for us to go back and be able to read your word thank you for literacy thank you for those teachers who have taught us how to read thank you we know that there are many Christians who cannot read and cannot do bible study and so we thank you for that privilege that great privilege thank you

1:15:33 for allowing for us to gather this evening I ask that we would humble ourselves before your word let your word transform us and not us transform your word we ask that this process would be rightly ordered we submit ourselves to your most holy will which is love and mercy itself and we love you above all things Lord and keep our love for you pure keep us from sin because if you depart from us Lord we will sin we love you tremendously amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen to the