Transcription of the Video: The Mountain of God

The power the God of the Hebrews displayed at the Red Sea that night centuries ago was unbelievable. And the Hebrews, as they came out of the sea and saw the power of God that had divided the sea and then returned it to its place, stood and called him their King. But the God of the Hebrews wasn't finished yet with this people he had selected to be his presence in the world. He had to mold them and shape them. There was a mountain he wanted to take them to.

I wonder if they knew about the mountain before they got there. I wonder if Moses told them. Maybe their question was, "Which mountain is it? There are a lot of mountains." 

Maybe Moses said, "It's the mountain with fire on it."

Come with me. Let's follow in some ancient sandal prints to what the Bible calls the Mountain of God and see how God began to mold his people to be his witness in the world. Come.

Moses on Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments - if you think about it, there are few events in the history of the world that are referred to more often than that one. Always Moses, God, tablets, Mount Sinai. We've been hiking a bit this morning among the mountains of Sinai, near where the traditional place is, where those Ten Commandments were given. 

A little bit of background would help us, I think, at this point. First of all, as throughout this study, I'm not sure where Mount Sinai is. There are 22 serious candidates for it - 22 different mountains that one good scholar or another has thought, "That's it," and argued for it. You'll want to do the research sometime just to look at some of it. And then half a dozen more by amateurs who have ideas from the Bible text or from their own experience. So there are a lot of places where Sinai could be. 

We've come to the traditional place, not because I'm sure this is it, but because this is a great place to walk in those sandal prints and to experience some of those things that are so central to the text. We're at the foot of the traditional Mount Sinai. Nearby is the peak called Katherine (kat-u-re-nu), after Saint Catherine, a martyr from the early church, who was supposedly buried on that mountain. We're going to choose Katherine as our place of study, partly because few people go there and partly because it's the highest peak. And for God to be on a high place seems to make sense to me, so I think it will be a great place to study it. It's about 8,650 feet. Let's follow those ancient sandal prints. Come.

It was right here. Right here. "And he said, 'Take off your sandals.' And I stood in front of that bush and he literally spoke to me. He knew my name."  

"And he said he heard the cry of you folks and I thought, 'Good. It's about time.'"

"And he said, 'I'm going to do something about it.'"

"And I thought, 'Really good. I'm glad.'"

"Then he said, 'You go.'" Right from there, he said, "You go."

"I had a problem. But he said he would go with me and I would become as him to Pharaoh. That's what the voice said. And I did. It's been amazing. Now, it's your turn. You have to become like him for the whole earth. So you, too, need to hear him speak."

Imagine that morning when Moses came here the first time. He probably stopped somewhere where the burning bush was. But this time, it isn't a bush that has a fire in it. The mountain is going to be covered with fire. So think of the sights that day - a cloud hovering, the glory of God (whatever form that took), fire and thunder going on, the sound of a trumpet blasting in the background. It must have been an intense experience simply from the point of view of the sights and sounds of that moment. 

I can almost imagine Moses coming to a place like this. He brought Joshua part way up, walked by that burning bush and told Joshua the story and then turned and said, "Joshua! Joshua! Look! There! That one. That peak! That's the mountain of God. I've been here. God wants to meet with us there. You wait here. I'll be back. I'm going to go speak with him." Come.

Well, what do you think? That was an amazing, amazing climb. We're sitting here on the top of what's called Jebel Katherine (kat-u-re-nu) - the mountain of Catherine - looking down on the traditional Mount Sinai over there. And you get a feel of the stunning place God chose to come to talk to Moses, and it's really amazing. 

I'd like to have you think about something. That was quite a climb - a pretty amazing climb. We had a lot of fun doing it, but that is a serious climb. I'd like to have you note - your Bible says (Exodus 19), "And Moses went up to God." Now, think of what's in those three words. You can't even possibly get your arms around that unless you've got some idea where it was. And even though we're not saying it's on top of this exact mountain, the idea of Moses climbing that mountain is amazing. In fact, if you look at the story, he actually made that climb at least four times. 

I like the third one the best. God said, "Come up here. " So Moses did something like what we just did. It took us all morning, from early. He gets to the top and the very first words out of God's mouth are, "Go down and get Aaron." That's exactly what God says. That's the very first word he speaks. 

You can almost see Moses' mind going, "Well, call him like you just did me." 

But I'd like to show you something. I think there's a point to all of that. If we look at the four times Moses made that climb, they go like this. The first time, Israel has just arrived and set up camp, and Moses went up to God. And here's what God said to him that very first time, that very first climb. He said (Exodus 19), "This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel. You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now, if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations, you will be my treasured possession. Although, the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Go tell Israel."

In other words, he climbed all the way up here for that message - but a stunning message. I think God wanted him to see the seriousness of those two verses. He could have given him the whole Torah at one time. Instead, he gives him two or three verses and then says, "Go tell them." And so back Moses went all the way down to the bottom, assembled them, told them those words, and then, God said, "Come back up."

So Moses came back with their answer. Do you want to know what it was? "We will do everything he commands." 

And God said, in effect, "Good. Go down and get them ready. Consecrate them. Give them some instructions. Don't touch the mountain."

So Moses went back down and consecrated them. In fact, he adds to God's instructions. Check it out. I think he had an idea about those people, so he made them even stricter than God did. 

Then God said, the third time, "Come back up here." He went back up, and God said, "Go get Aaron." He went back down, brought Aaron back up apparently; although, that's not really in the text. This time, with Joshua half-way up the mountain, he stayed up here for the entire period of 40 days. 

It's during that time that the golden calf incident occurs. Now, as bazaar as that golden calf incident is, you remember right over there on that mountain you can see in the far distance - the double-humped one - there's a temple to Hathor, the cow goddess of fertility. If this is where Sinai was (and it's possible), they had just passed a temple to that goddess that they had known well in Egypt. And maybe they thought, "Well, Moses is gone. He's been showing us this God. We want another way of knowing the God who brought us up anyway." Whatever the case is, the golden calf happens during that third visit. 

Then, Moses goes back down, destroys the tablets, cleanses them from the calf, and then comes back up again - after quite a time - for a 40-day period in which he's given much of the Torah. 

So that's the sequence of Moses' climbs, and I think the next time you teach that in your Bible study or your Sunday school class, you'll look at those ups and downs a little bit differently. My point though, besides creating the setting for us, I want you to see that God asked Moses to play a part in this. 

We've been talking about God partnering with people - and God doing it all, but still wanting to use human instruments. God gave the Torah. Imagine. God gave the tablets. Imagine. And yet, he expected an 80-year-old man to make at least four climbs up a mountain like this. 

When you choose to follow the Lord, expect to give every ounce you've got in his service. Now, picture that up here. We were noticing on the way up how the mountains are blackened. Oddly, if you chip it a little bit, the black is only on the surface. It's not underneath on the rock. Again, I'm not arguing that this is the actual place, but it sure gave us a great picture of that consuming fire that came down from heaven and sat on top of this mountain for 40 days in a row. 

Picture the glory cloud. That's referred to. Exactly what that looked like and where it was, I don't know. But imagine out in this desert with this crystal-clear sky at night and this glowing cloud on top of that mountain. 

Then, the sounds. On occasion, the trumpets are mentioned, the ram's horn, and you hear that piercing sound through these mountains - and thunder. Then amidst it all, God spoke, "I am the Lord." In the quiet of this place, that must have been stunning. It's an awesome thing to sit here and to feel that power. 

So what do we make of all this - these Ten Commandments? What do we do? How do we understand them? There are lots of ways. I'd like to talk to you about that a little bit. What are these Ten Commandments? Well, it was a covenant between God and his people. He said, "I'll make it official - write it on tablets," like they did covenants in those days. Two tablets. They probably had all Ten Commandments on each tablet. God said, "Here's the permanent record of our eternal relationship."

Moses thought, "God will keep a copy for his place. We get a copy for our place."

And God said, "Guess what? Take them both. Because my sacred place and your sacred place is the same place." That's powerful stuff. 

I'm going to set that aside today as important as it is. There's another way we can look at what happened here. Some have talked about what we call story shaping story. I'd like to show you how story shapes story. Help me a moment. What day did those Israelites leave Egypt? Passover. 

And about how long did it take him to get here? Good guess. Maybe you knew that, but you'd always guess 40 days. It doesn't say that, but if you look at the months and when they left and when they arrived, it's in the vicinity of 40, which is what you expect. It was 40 days in the desert of testing, getting them ready for this awesome moment when God is going to entrust them with the Torah. 

Now, Passover is the first holiday on God's calendar. What's the next one? Pentecost (Shavuot). And there are 50 days from Passover to Pentecost. So they left Egypt on Passover, took 40 days to get here. When they got here, Moses came up a mountain like this one, met with God and God spoke his initial words. "I am the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt. You shall have no other,"... You know those words - the ten words as the Bible calls them. Then, he headed down somewhere around Pentecost. And what did he find? The golden calf. So, what did he do? He smashed it and ground it up and made them drink it in their water. 

Then, he told the Levites, take your knives, your swords, go out into the camp and anybody responsible for this abomination must be executed. How many people died? 3,000. 

Now, come with me to the life of Jesus. What day did he die? Ah, the same day they left Egypt. Coincidence, huh? Forty days later, what did he do? He climbed a mountain and ascended up to meet with God. And ten days later on Pentecost, the Spirit of God came down. And how many people believed? 3,000. You get story shaping story. The paradigm for Jesus, in some cases, is here. Obviously, there's a lot more meaning to the Ten Commandments than that, but that's a profound idea. 

There's another one. Let me share it with you. Let me tell you a story. There was a mountain covered with a cloud, a cloud of glory, for six days. On the seventh day, a man went up that mountain, and when he got up the mountain, God's glory appeared and a voice spoke. Your first thought is, "Well, that's Mount Sinai." That's what it says about Moses. For six days, and on the seventh, God spoke. And the glory cloud is in the mountain, and God spoke out of the cloud. In fact, it says, "God came down and shakan (settled) on the mountain.

But actually, I was telling you the story of Jesus' transfiguration. After six days, it says, he went up on a mountain, and a cloud covered the mountain. And a voice spoke out of the cloud (Matthew 17), and God's glory appeared in the person of Jesus. Then, Peter said, "Let's build mishkan - from shikan - (a tabernacle)." Story shapes story. I think that's profound. 

But there's another way we could take this. God brought them here to put, at least as far as the Jews understood it, the third leg under this kingdom that he's about. Do you remember the story? God made creation out of chaos, sin entered the creation and brought it back again to chaos. The chaos, first, got into individuals as it always does, and then, eventually, individuals got together and that evil became a kingdom. 

The Tower of Babel, he had to divide them up, and Israel ran into that kingdom of evil in Egypt. And God came and said, "I'm going to restore it. I'm going to build my Kingdom again. I'm going to take chaos and deal with it, and I'm going to bring order (shalom) back again.  God's Kingdom here on earth, into all eternity. 

And we noticed it stands on three legs. First, the finger of God acts. Remember? The plagues. And the magicians say, "That's the finger, the arm of God that holds that stick." 

Then, they stood at the Red Sea and saw God' great power and said, "He is reigning. He is Lord." You get the second leg. The Kingdom of God is where God acts with power and people see it and call him Lord. 

And the third leg, God says, "Okay. I've delivered you by grace. You've called me Lord. Now, I want to show you how to make me your king." So he brought them here to Sinai, not for a dead-end Torah, but to show them how do you live for God to restore shalom in God's world.

It's no wonder that the Ten Commandments became the foundation of Western culture. Because they do address chaos and bring shalom. So maybe - just maybe - that's why God had Moses climb all the way up a mountain like this one that first time for a short message. "If you obey me, you will be for me a Kingdom of priests." Priests - those who put God on display. God wanted a people, his Kingdom of people who would not only bring his message but would be his message. 

And so it is with us. Jesus created a royal priesthood of people who would be to a broken world the very presence and picture of the God who restored Shalom to his worlds. (1 Peter 2)