Journal Through the Bible: Week 14 Tuesday

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Exodus chapter 19
The people of God had been out of Egypt for a couple of months. Now it was time to complete a few personal chores in preparation to meet their God and receive the covenant He offered to them, the same one previously given to their ancestors. What a great thing!

Does God make any promises in this chapter?

• God promised to extend the covenant made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to make the Hebrew nations a peculiar treasure and a holy nation set apart for a special relationship with Him.
• God promised that the people would hear when He spoke to Moses and would believe that God had sent Him.

Are there any references to Jesus?

• In Hebrews chapter 12 the author tells his Jewish/Christian audience that Jesus endured the eternal punishment that all of us were due to receive because of our sins but that we might receive even temporary chastisement on earth for disobedience in order to set us back onto the right path. Then he warns of the consequences of ignoring God's correcting methods and uses the example of Mount Sinai to state that God is a consuming fire. The point then is that Jesus, as intercessor, was able to endure the consuming fire. This would make Moses a type of Christ in Exodus 19 because he is the intercessor for the people in that time and at that place.

Are there any references to yet-future events?

• Fire is one of the forms of purification. God sanctified and purified Mount Sinai through a fire. In the New Testament we are told that fire will test the works that Christians have done in their earthly lives, the wicked will experience eternal torment in fire, and this earth will be destroyed by fire (perhaps go through a purification) before the New Earth is given for all of the redeemed to inhabit.

Does God issue any commands?

• God told Moses to remind the people of what He had done to the Egyptians, how He had sustained them on their journey, and how He would honor the covenant made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob if they would obey Him.
• God commanded the people to be sanctified before God came down upon Mount Sinai. This sanctification included washing their clothes, fasting, and preparing themselves to see the thick cloud in which God would descend.
• God told Moses to set boundaries around the mountain so that neither man nor beast would approach it.
• God called Moses up onto the mount.
• God sent Moses back down to tell the people a second time that they were not to touch the mountain because if they did they would die. Then he and Aaron were to go back up the mount.