Category: Exodus

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

When reading these passages from Exodus, it is a good idea to read chapters 9 and 10 of Hebrews for a New Testament perspective. One instructive lesson is that if God took such excessive care for this small mobile Tabernacle, how much more care will He be taking over that more glorious Tabernacle – the body of Christ, the Church .

SJA Notes

* Dear God, this day is Yours. Thank You for Your word to us today.

“Then you shall erect the tabernacle according to the plan for it that you were shown on the mountain.”

Curtains and loops, clasps and wooden frames, bars and rings of gold. A single whole.

This was a meeting place designed to be transportable. Able to be put up and then taken down. Moved. Then put up again.

There’s an interesting symmetry here.

Israel were to worship at the portable tabernacle as they wandered through the desert, the approach to the promised land. The tabernacle, the meeting place of man with God, went with them.

Once they make it in, and David secures the kingdom, his son Solomon then builds the temple. A fixed building in a fixed location. Not portable. God’s presence fixed in His chosen land amongst His chosen people.

On this side of Messiah, of Jesus, we God’s people wander about as little tabernacles ourselves. Immanuel, God with us!

Jesus sent the Helper, God in the Person of the Spirit, to be our guide and comforter, our companion and INDWELLER.

And just like Israel travelling through the desert, we too look forward to the land God has promised to us – GLORY!

Where He will dwell with us, and we will be His people in all full truth and reality. The heavens and earth made new, no more death or decay or pain or frustration. A fixed location, God on His throne, we worshipping in His light – No more sun, no more travelling as sojourners.

HOME.

How good is our God!

* Father God,

Thank You for this great hope we have in You, in Your great promises to us for the not yet.

We believe Lord, please help our unbelief!

Amen.

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

Verse 2 gives us the Biblical principle for giving – as our hearts prompt us. A generous spirit or its lack is a good indication the condition of the hearts of the Church. Giving should never be compulsory in the support of gospel work. The Biblical principle of the tithe is still a voluntary action.

SJA Notes

* Father God, please teach us how to worship You better today.

“And see that you make them after the pattern for them, which is being shown you on the mountain.”

God gives us patterns.

He tells us how to worship Him, how to live as His people, how to please Him.

He gives us a pattern, and patterns, to follow.

Here the Lord gives Israel direction on setting up the important elements that would make up the portable tabernacle that travelled about with them.

His word gives us direction, from start to finish, on setting up our lives to glorify Him, to please Him (obedience available to us through Jesus, the Right Man).

And importantly, the pattern was shown to them on the mountain.

At Sinai the Lord revealed Himself to Moses (and even to the elders as we read yesterday).

For us, the Lord has revealed Himself in the Person of Jesus – Who for us became a curse, dying on a cross on that hill outside of Jerusalem.

It is through Jesus that we know God’s pattern, His direction for us to live our lives.

Jesus is the way! Let us look to Him today.

* Great God Above,

Please show us Jesus today. Let us know You better, little by little, and see Jesus in this passage and all of scripture.

Lord please forgive us when we sin.

Thank You that we can find forgiveness in You, through the work of Jesus.

Thank You for all You have done for us (Father, Son and Spirit).

Amen.

Reading

Audio, Visual

SAA Notes

When you read verse 15, look at one of the Gospel accounts of the Transfiguration – Moses, the cloud and the top of a mountain. Moses stayed with the Lord on the mountain for 40 days at the beginning of his ministry – even as Jesus stayed in the wilderness for 40 days at the beginning of his ministry.

SJA Notes

* Holy God, there is none like You. Creator God, please work Your will through us today.

“Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

These words are to break our hearts at the work the Father ordered and the Son obediently underwent.

We know that while in this passage Israel covenanted to obedience, they failed again and again through the ages.

And we, God’s people, plumb the depths every day of our own failure and disobedience that led Jesus to the cross.

But these words, the blood of the covenant – It was HIS blood that brought about the fulfilment and deepening and expanding of what we know was God’s covenant all along.

Jesus says in the gospel of Matthew,

“… For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for the many for the forgiveness of sins.”

This is our Saviour. Our King. The Good Shepherd, the Great Physician, the Righteous One who gave Himself for us.

His blood poured out for us.

Hallelujah what a Saviour we have – One who kept both sides of the covenant for us! Both to enact and to fulfil.

Thank You Lord, thank You!

* Heavenly Father God,

Thank You for Your mercy to us, that we see in the blood shed of the Lamb slain, You in the Person of the Son, crucified at Calvary.

Thank You for saving us from darkness into light, taking the penalty for our sin upon Yourself.

Thank You Lord.

Amen.