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Amen. So Exodus 24 is a bit of an interlude from all of the commandments that we've been going over. You know, the last several chapters have been commandments from the Lord. If you remember, chapter 20 was where the 10 commandments were given. And then chapters 21, 22, 23 have just been all these different commandments that had to do with criminal laws, moral laws, civil laws. And it was just kind of giving an overview of basically laws governing the behavior of the people, society, things of that nature. Okay. So that's one section of the Book of Exodus. Now, there wasn't a huge amount of detail given because most of the detail on those laws is going to come in the books of Leviticus, but especially Deuteronomy is where that's all going to be revisited in much more detail and explained a lot more. But we're about to enter a new phase in the Book of Exodus where we have this interlude chapter 24, and then chapters 25 through 31 are going to be a different kind of laws because they're going to be the laws regarding things like building the tabernacle, the altars, and the clothing that the priests are going to wear, and things of that nature. So we get into more of the ceremonial stuff from chapters 25 through 31, but this is an interlude here where we get into a little more of the story. Okay. So the Book of Exodus started out as being all story up to a certain point. Then once we got to chapter 20, we started getting into the laws. And from here on out, it's mainly laws with these little interludes of story thrown in. And this is one of those interludes. So before we jump into chapter 24, though, let's go back to chapter 20 where the story left off so that we can have our bearings of what's going on in the story since we're focusing on the story today. Okay. So go back to chapter 20. Of course, the 10 Commandments were given verbally to all the people, and the people were so terrified at actually hearing the voice of the Lord that they said, look, we believe you, Moses. You speak to God and tell us what God said. We don't want the Lord to speak directly to us anymore because it was so terrifying to them. Okay. So at the end of chapter 20, we get to verse number 21. It says, And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was. And the Lord said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, You have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall you make unto you gods of gold. An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings and thy peace offerings, thy sheep and thine oxen in all places where I record my name. I will come unto thee and I will bless thee. And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone, for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. Thus shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon. And then we rolled right into just more commandments, more laws. Chapter 21, 22, 23, that's what we've gone over the last three weeks. Okay. So go to chapter 24 and we're going to see where this picks up. So it picked up with children of Israel heard the 10 commandments. They don't want God speak directly to them. Moses approaches the thick darkness where God is. The people are just staying behind. They're at the base of the mountain. They don't hear from God anymore directly. Okay. Chapter 24 verse one. And he said unto Moses, come up unto the Lord, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and 70 of the elders of Israel and worship ye afar off. And Moses alone shall come near the Lord, but they shall not come nigh, neither shall the people go up with him. So now you have this sort of intermediate group. So you have Moses, you know, he goes all the way up the Mount. He goes to the thick darkness where God is and he communes with God and speaks with God. But now you have this other group of people. They're not going to go all the way up the mountain and they're not going to speak with God on the mountain, but they're going to come closer. Okay. And they're going to approach the mountain and they're going to worship the Lord there with Moses. And who are these people? Well, we have Aaron and we have Aaron's sons because Aaron's sons are going to be the priesthood going forward all throughout the history of the Old Testament, all the way up to the time of Christ, the sons of Aaron are the priesthood. Okay. So we've got Nadab and Abihu being the sons of Aaron. Now of course we know in Leviticus chapter 10, they're going to get wiped out, but that's another story. It's a good thing. They have a couple of younger brothers, Eleazar and Ithamar that are going to be the priests, but at this time they're the intended priests. Okay. Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and then 70 of the elders of Israel. So this is representative of the nation. Basically you've got 70 people taken from the 12 tribes of Israel representing the 12 tribes of Israel. And these people are going to worship the Lord at the base of Mount Sinai with Moses. And what's going on in this chapter is the institution of the Old Covenant. Okay. Now, of course, back then it wasn't called the Old Covenant, it was just called the Covenant. Okay. Because the New Covenant is what makes it old. Okay. The New Testament makes the Old Testament old. So chapter 24 is a significant event because this is where the Old Testament starts. This is where the Old Testament is instituted. The Covenant between God and his people is actually made official. This is the ceremony. Okay. So let's keep reading. Moses alone shall come near the Lord, verse 2, but they shall not come nigh, neither shall the people go up with him. And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments. So what are all those words of the Lord and all the judgments? Chapters 21, 22, and 23, he goes down and expounds all that to them. Okay. And with one voice, it says, all the people answered with one voice at the end of verse 3 and said, all the words which the Lord had said will we do. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. So this is basically the beginnings of the book of Exodus here. This is the first portion of Exodus that's being written down is actually chapters 21, 22, and 23, and part of chapter 20. This is the first part of Exodus that gets written down here. Moses writes down all the words of the Lord, everything he's just heard, and rose up early in the morning and built an altar under the hill and 12 pillars according to the 12 tribes of Israel. So under the hill at the base, he sets up this altar under the Lord and he sets up 12 pillars representing the 12 tribes of Israel. Okay. Here's a quiz. What was the altar made out of? If we were paying attention back in chapter 20, we should know, right? Earth or whole stones. It could have been either of those two materials because he gave them two options. He said build me an altar of earth. So basically just pile up earth and form it of the earth. That's the altar. Okay. Or if you want to make me an altar of stones, make sure it's just whole stones. Don't lift a tool up to it. Don't carve it into the nice little bricks and make this little masonry. So if you're ever looking at a little Sunday school material and they have this altar out of like formed and fashioned bricks and stuff, they're being inaccurate there. Because what it should be is just a pile of rocks, basically, just a big pile of rocks. It's either made out of earth or it's just a big pile of rocks. Okay. So that's the altar that Moses makes. So he builds an altar like that out of earthy materials. And it says in verse 5, and he sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt sacrifices and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord. Now we don't know how many this is, but we can assume this is probably a tremendous amount. This is probably a huge amount of offerings. They sacrifice a whole bunch of animals, at least enough to feed these 70 some people, but presumably they made a major sacrifice unto the Lord. And they take half of the blood and put it in basins and half of the blood, it says in verse number six, he sprinkled on the altar and he took the book of the covenant and read in the audience of the people. And they said, all that the Lord had said, will we do? And Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people and said, behold, the blood of the covenant, which the Lord had made with you concerning all these words. So get the picture here. He does these sacrifices by having the young men go and, you know, kill the animals, do the sacrifices. And he takes half the blood and he puts it in basins and half the blood is going to be dumped on the altar. And then the other half of the blood is used to sprinkle the people. So you have the multitude of people and he's basically like flinging blood on the crowd is basically what he's doing, sprinkling them all with the blood of the covenant, because this is like a one-time thing of just instituting the old covenant. And then he also takes the book that he wrote, where he wrote out Exodus chapters 20, a portion thereof through 23, and he sprinkles blood on the book, okay. Now this might seem a little odd, you know, what's with all this blood? I mean, it's just a lot of blood, right? He's sprinkling the people in blood, he's sprinkling the book in blood, he's just dumping out basins of blood on this altar, so the altar is just gushing over with blood, okay. What is the significance? Well, the book of Hebrews explains this, right? So go if you would to Hebrews chapter number nine, because the book of Hebrews is going to explain to us the Old Testament. It says in verse 17 of Hebrews chapter nine, for a testament is a force after men are dead, otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. So what is this saying? A testament is a force after men are dead. So if somebody writes their last will and testament, and let's say they leave you a million dollars, you can't show up before they're dead and say, hey, give me that million dollars. It's not in force until they're dead. That's an illustration that God is using here about the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. And then he says in verse 18, whereupon neither the First Testament was dedicated without blood for when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book and all the people. So the hyssop is a plant that he could basically dip in the blood and use to fling the blood on the people and to sprinkle the blood on the book. That's the sprinkling instrument saying, this is the blood of the testament with God has enjoined unto you. Moreover, he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry and almost all things are by the law purged with blood and without shedding of blood is no remission. And then he goes on to explain that these are just patterns of heavenly things. These aren't the literal things themselves. He says in verse 23, it was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us. So what we need to understand is that everything that God is going to tell Moses to make in chapters 25 through 31 is a picture of heavenly things and these are just the pattern. These are just a picture. So basically there's a tabernacle on earth, right, but there's a tabernacle in heaven. There's an arc of the covenant on earth, there's an arc of the covenant in heaven. There's a table and an altar. All these things exist in heaven and Jesus Christ entered into the holy place in heaven and actually sprinkled his own blood on the mercy seat of the arc of the covenant in heaven to institute the new testament. So the old testament is instituted with sprinkling blood physically on this earth, but all of that is just a picture. It's not possible for the blood of bulls and of goats to take away sins. It's a picture of Jesus is going to take his blood and sprinkle the mercy seat in heaven. It's by Christ's blood that were saved. It's by Christ's blood that they were saved, okay, but this is prefiguring that or pointing them to that or illustrating that. Without shedding of blood is no remission. So if you go back to Exodus, the reason there's this tremendous amount of blood involved, the reason that almost all things are by the law sanctified by blood is because this is the only way that God can have fellowship with man. God cannot have fellowship with sinful man. He's too holy, okay? For this holy God to commune with us, it's just not happening except through the blood of Christ. So this altar is nothing. It's just a pile of dirt. It's a pile of rocks. He doesn't want them to make some ornate, cool-looking altar. It's dirt. It's a pile of rocks. It's nothing until you dump the blood on it. Then now all of a sudden, okay, this is an altar under the Lord now. Not because you dumped animal blood on it, but because it pictures the blood of Christ is the only basis for us to have fellowship with God. We can have no fellowship with God without the blood of Christ being there, okay? The people can't enter into any kind of a covenant with God unless the shedding of blood is there because Jesus Christ is the only basis of fellowship between God and man. That's what's being pictured here with all this blood being sprinkled everywhere. And we are sprinkled by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Bible tells us, in Hebrews chapter 10. So back to chapter 24 here in Exodus, it says that he sprinkled the book, he sprinkled the people, and he said, this is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you concerning all these words. Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and 70 of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel, and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness, and upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand, and they saw God and did eat and drink. Now some people would say, well, you know, they saw God, no man has seen God at any time. But God says a little bit later in the book of Exodus, he clarifies this, no man shall see my face and live. They did not see the face of God here. Okay. They saw God afar off. Remember, they're not getting close to God here like Moses where Moses actually enters into the cloud, he enters into the thick darkness, he goes right up to God on Mount Sinai, but rather they are a little ways off here and they're given a vision of God. They're not literally face to face with God here, but they're given a vision of God on his throne and they basically see under his feet. Because think about it. If you saw God and you're giving a description of that, hey, let me tell you what was under his feet. Is that what you're going to point to? Is that what's going to be emphasized if you're actually looking at the face of God? If you're actually seeing God face to face, you're going to be describing God, what God looked like, right? You're going to describe that appearance, but that's not what we see here, is it? What we see is, well, they saw God and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone and if it were the body. So there's no description given because they're not able to see God face to face. They basically see God in the sense of they see God's glory, his brightness, his shining. They see his footstool. So they're given a glimpse here, sort of like where Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 6 sees the Lord high and lifted up and his train filled the temple. But see, God is dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto. God is dwelling in the thick darkness. God is dwelling in the cloud. God is, there's all this different language, whether it's light, darkness, cloud, explaining the fact that God's actual appearance is obscured and that no one can see his face and live. The only way that anyone can actually see God physically is to see Jesus Christ. The Bible says no man has seen God at any time. The only begotten son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. So we don't want to misunderstand this passage to think that, oh, they just saw God face to face. That's not what's going on here. They saw a vision of God in his glory, but he is still obscured by the light or the cloud or whatever you will, okay, the different ways that the Bible describes the fact that there's this barrier. Now, the Bible is describing God in this way and explaining these events because it's showing us the unapproachable nature of God. This is what's being emphasized in the book of Exodus, that you don't just waltz in and talk to God. You know what I mean? There's all these protocols and, okay, set a boundary around the mountain. All right, you've got to sanctify yourselves. All right, you've got to do all these sacrifices. Build this altar. Set up these pillars. Okay, only these certain people show up. And then, okay, you know, so God is painting this picture of how unapproachable he is to man because this is where the significance of Jesus comes in, bridging that gap between God and man, to where in the New Testament, yeah, we can boldly come to the throne of grace. We can boldly approach God. We don't need a priesthood. We don't need Levites. We don't need Aaron. We don't need Moses. We can boldly approach, okay, but that's all made possible through Jesus. Well, here's the thing. We wouldn't appreciate that or understand the blessing it is or privilege it is to be able to boldly enter the throne of grace unless we first understood the fact that God would normally be unapproachable to us without Christ. If there's no law, if there's no Old Testament, if there's no book of the Bible where God's unapproachable, then we're going to take approaching God for granted. So first, God needs to make us understand, look, I'm on a totally different level than you. I am unapproachable unto you except through the blood, except through Jesus, except through eventually the new covenant that's going to succeed where the old covenant did not. The old covenant could not do what it needed to do because of the failure of man, because of man's weakness and failure. He can't live up to the old covenant. Why? Because man can't keep the commandments. And what was the covenant? God can't live up to these commandments. Man can't keep the commandments. So there's no law that could bring righteousness. Only Christ could bring righteousness, what the New Testament teaches. The Old Testament, though, is vital to show us our need for Christ. It's the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ and to point us to Christ. So that's why it portrays God as so unapproachable. Only one guy can even get close, and even he can't get all the way. He can get close. And then you have the 70 elders can get closer, but they're still, they can't even get as close as Moses can. Nobody can get all the way to just being face-to-face with God. Only Jesus Christ can bridge that gap between God and man. That's what's being taught here. Now, what we need to emphasize now, though, is the significance of the blood of Christ. And this is a doctrine that has always been under attack and is constantly under attack, the blood of Christ. It's something that cannot be overemphasized. The Bible's clear about the significance of the blood. And this is why we have a lot of songs in the hymnal about the blood. There's power in the blood. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus, right? These songs are good songs that should be sung because the blood is so crucial. Let me explain to you how there's a spiritual attack on the blood from so many different angles, so many different avenues. One of them that I was thinking about this week is on the issue of communion or the Lord's Supper. Okay. Now, when Jesus Christ is at the Last Supper, he clearly, you know, he breaks the bread, he gives it to them, take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you, this do in remembrance of me. And then he takes the fruit of the vine, the Bible says. He takes the fruit of the vine, which is obviously the vine is what grapes grow on, right? He takes of the fruit of the vine and he says, take, drink ye all of it. And he's saying, you know, all of you drink of this. This is the, he said, this cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you. This cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you. So look, what do we see in Exodus 24? The institution of the old covenant. What do we see at the Last Supper? We see the institution of the new covenant. So what do we see? We see here sitting down and eating and drinking with the Lord. So what are they doing in Exodus 24? What are the 70 elders, Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, what are they doing? They're sitting down and eating and drinking before the Lord. Do you see that in verse number 11, also they saw God and did eat and drink. So you've got the eating and drinking with the Lord. What are they going to do at the Last Supper? They're eating and drinking with the Lord. The 12 disciples are there, okay? Here we have the 70 elders, Moses and Aaron. And then of course, Jesus Christ is going to die on the cross the next day. And then that's where the blood is going to be shed. That's the death of the testator. And then boom, we're into the New Testament, starting with the death of Jesus Christ. That's where the new covenant begins, okay? The old covenant starts here in Exodus. The new covenant starts with the death of Jesus Christ. But part of the ceremony leading up to the new covenant is Jesus at the Last Supper breaking the bread. This is my body which is broken for you. This cup is the New Testament in my blood. Well, here's the thing. He said, this do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. So when we drink of that cup, what are we remembering? What are we thinking about? What is on our mind when we're supposed to be meditating on what? The blood, right? When we eat the bread, we're meditating on the broken body of Christ, the death of Jesus Christ. But when we drink of the cup, we are specifically meditating on the blood of Christ. Am I right? Yes. Amen. It's the blood of Christ. Okay. Well, think about this. Did you know that the Roman Catholic Church does what's called communion under one kind? They do communion with bread only. Stop and think about the implications of that. Now, today, in Roman Catholic churches, approximately 50% of churches will actually give the cup to the lay person to drink of the cup and meditate upon the blood of Christ. Okay. But stop and think about this, folks. Starting around the 12th, 13th century, maybe even earlier than that, the Roman Catholic Church decided, we're not going to give the fruit of the vine unto the people. They're only going to have bread. Only the priests are going to drink of the cup. And they're just going to have bread only. That's why those of you who grew up Roman Catholic, let me ask you this. Have you ever gone to a Catholic service where they put a wafer on your mouth, but no fruit of the vine was involved? Put up your hand if you've had that communion of one kind, that one kind communion. You know what that is? That's an attack on the blood of Christ right there. That's saying the blood doesn't matter. The blood isn't necessary. It's not about the blood. That's a false doctrine. That's wicked. You know, chalk that up with all the other false doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. But that alone shows how wicked this institution is, that not only that, when a guy in the year 1414 started serving the fruit of the vine unto his church members, the Roman Catholic Church had a big meeting about it and said, you know, is this allowed? This guy's actually partaking of the fruit of the vine with his church members. Is that even allowed? And they decide, no, that's not allowed. They get the bread only. Okay. And then this is the thing that kind of went back and forth. And in the Protestant reformation, this was a big thing where basically the Protestant reformers are saying it should be both kinds, not just the bread only is supposed to be both. Does it? Drink all of it. Okay. And this has gone back and forth with the Roman Catholic Church. But for hundreds of years, look, 1700s, 1800s, 1900s is one kind in most Roman Catholic churches, like almost all of them, the bread only. For you, the common man, right, Joe Blow, Joe Plummer. Okay. But in the 20th century, then the Roman Catholics were like, oh, maybe, you know, we should be doing both or whatever. And then they had their big Vatican Council too. And then they said, okay, well, in special circumstance. So my wife grew up Roman Catholic. So she was growing up in this Vatican II era where basically she was on the Vatican II protocol where, well, on a special occasion, you could get it like, like when you first become a Catholic, you get it once. Or if you grow up Catholic and you do your first communion. So I told my wife, I said, so, okay, so basically your first communion is also your last communion. Because it's basically the only time you're actually doing the bread. But of course, it's not going to do you any good if you're not saved and Roman Catholics aren't saved. So, because they are trusting in their works to save them. But that's another sermon. But the point is that is just showing you what's going on in their heart and showing you what's going on in that wicked religion that they don't want to commemorate the blood of Christ and partake of the blood of Christ. You know what they're doing is they want to stop people from being saved is what they want to do. Okay. The Roman Catholic Church is not a way of salvation. It's leading people astray by teaching a works-based salvation, a pagan religion. It's not the religion of the Bible. It's not biblical Christianity. It wants to point people away from the truth and away from it. And so, it shouldn't surprise us that they would want to de-emphasize the importance of the blood of Christ in addition to all their other heresies and false doctrines and lies by saying, oh, you know, you're not missing anything. Just eat this wafer and shut up and do it and you're not missing anything. Instead of saying, hey, you know, it's about the blood, it's not about the blood for them. It's about a funny outfit. It's about the pope. It's about chanting. It's about tradition. It's about the saints. It's about everything except the blood of Christ, folks, in the Roman Catholic Church. It's not about trusting in the finished work of Christ, his death, his burial, his resurrection to save you. It's about works. It's a works-based religion. It's a false religion. But not only do the Roman Catholics pervert this doctrine of communion by basically doing it in one kind the vast majority of the time, more than half the time, and throughout their history way, way more than half the time, it's just this one kind. When did Christ ever institute that fake communion? The one kind business. It's nonsense. But what about the Mormons? How do the Mormons do communion? The Mormons do communion with bread and water. Not the fruit of the vine, but they do it with water. And not only that, they say you could use any drink. So the cheapskates use water because they can use any drink. They go with water. Folks, what kind of watered-down garbage, what kind of a watered-down communion, what kind of a watered-down gospel, watered-down Lord's supple … Hey, when you delete the blood, what kind of a wicked, evil person says, hey, let's delete the thing from the Lord's supple that represents the blood of Christ, let's remove that? What kind of a heart does that come out of? One that's controlled by Satan. What kind of a heart, back in the 1200s AD or whatever, whose bright idea was that of, hey, let's strip communion down to just bread only? Or in the early 20th century with the Mormons, stripped it down and said, hey, let's do a glass of water instead. Folks, it's wicked. It's a wicked heart right there. But you know what? It shouldn't surprise us when we look at the modern Bible versions like the ESV and the NIV that are constantly removing the blood of Christ. You know, Colossians 1.14, in whom we have redemption, through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. Well, in the NIV, ESV, it's just in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Not only that, you're reading the ESV, New American Standard, those type of Bibles. In Revelation, when it talks about us being washed in the blood, right? Washed in the blood. It changes washed and basically what they're doing is saying that it's just we're set free by the blood or released by the blood or taking away that vivid language of being washed in the blood. Why? Because it's the blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, that cleanses us from all sin. Any time you see a pastor or a preacher or a religion de-emphasizing the blood of Christ, just run screaming in the other direction. Why would anyone do that? Who would dream up these things? Why would Pastor John MacArthur, okay, in Southern California, from the master's college, why would he write some article, his death, not his blood? It's his dying, not his bleeding. And writing a whole article about, well, it's not the blood that matters. It's just the fact that Jesus died for us that matters, but it's not the blood that matters. Who would even come up with that? What kind of a demonic heart does that even come out of? Hey, let's, you know, I feel like the blood. And he even said in that article, the reason we're so sentimental about the blood is mainly from hymns that we sing. No, actually the hymns were inspired by scripture. I wonder how MacArthur would have felt standing at the base of Mount Sinai when Moses flings a little bit of blood right in his stupid face. You know what I mean? John MacArthur's there all smug, and basically, you know, Moses just flings a little blood right in his stupid, lying face, okay? It's the blood, folks. And who would de-emphasize the blood? Oh, Mormons, Roman Catholics, John MacArthur, basically just people who are wicked, okay? It's a false teaching. It makes no sense. When you see these crazy things that don't make any sense, you have to ask yourself, why? Where's it coming from? Everything comes from somewhere. Where is this agenda coming from to remove the blood from Bible verses, to remove the blood from communion, and turn it into, you know, some kind of a watered-down thing? Folks, it's coming from the devil. Because the devil knows that there's power in the blood. And so he wants to de-emphasize that. So again, back to Exodus 24, that's one of the main takeaways from this chapter is the emphasis on the blood, and then we take that in the New Testament and get that on the blood of Christ. So it says in verse number 12, and the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount and be there, and I will give thee tables of stone and a law and commandments which I have written that thou mayest teach them. So so far up to this point, Moses heard from God and he wrote it down, right? He wrote down 20, 21, 22, 23, sprinkled it with the blood, this is the covenant, this is what you're going to do, and all the people are like, oh yeah, we're going to do that. All the words which thou has spoken to us, what we do. Now God says to him, Well, come up and I'm going to actually give you tables of stone and a law and commandments which I have written that thou mayest teach them. So he's actually going to give him the Ten Commandments on stone tablets written with the finger of God, literally written by God himself. What we can learn from that is that God wrote the Bible. Now is the part that God wrote with his finger, is that any different than when everybody heard it in chapter 20 and then Moses wrote it down? There's no difference there. So by God actually writing it with his own finger, that shows us, he's showing us, look, I'm the author here, I'm the one writing this. But wouldn't you love to see those tablets? I want to see that handwriting. It's got to be some amazing penmanship when it's written by the finger of God. What did that alphabet look like? You want to learn that alphabet. I love languages, so I'm fascinated. That's one of the first things when I get to heaven, I want to see that, the original, I know this one got smashed, but I'm sure God can show us what it looked like. Or he's got probably, he's got a copy of everything in heaven. He's got the tabernacle, he's got the holy place, the Ark of the Covenant. So we'll look at the heavenly version of those stone tablets. But he said, I will bring you up here, let me find my place. Verse 12, and I will give thee tables of stone and a law and commandments which I have written that thou mayest teach them. And Moses rose up and his minister Joshua and Moses went up into the mount of God and he said unto the elders, tarry ye here for us until we come again unto you. And behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. If any man have any matters to do, let him come unto them. And we all know how great that's going to work out, putting Aaron in charge. And Moses went up into the mount and a cloud covered the mount. And the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai and the cloud covered it six days. And the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud. So basically they have this time where they sit down, they eat and drink. This is again a foreshadowing of the Last Supper. Eating and drinking, sprinkling of the blood, pictures the blood of Christ. And then now, okay, Aaron and Hur, you guys are going to hold down the fort down here. You guys are going to run things. I'm going to go up into the mountain. Moses goes up into the mount. The cloud covers it six days. Moses just waits. He waits for six days. And then on the seventh day, he calls unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud. And the sight of the glory of the Lord. So again, when they see the Lord, they're seeing his glory, his brightness. The sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel. They're not seeing any similitude. They're not seeing the image of God, but they're just seeing like a burning fire of his glory on the mount. Verse 18, and Moses went into the midst of the cloud and got him up into the mount. And Moses was in the mount 40 days and 40 nights. And then boom, we're going to roll right into commandments now. So again, chapters 25 through 31 are all commandments. The story is not going to pick up again until chapter 32. Now let me just leave on one last point here with this. And that is that, you know, Aaron is left in charge while Moses goes up in the mountain. And we know that's going to be a disaster. That sermon's coming in about a month and a half when we're in chapter 32 and you know, all these things go wrong with the golden calf and everything like that. But, but you know, I want to just kind of touch on that right now is that I don't believe that Aaron was a bad person. I don't think he was a horrible guy. I don't think he was a wicked person. I don't think he's burning in hell, right? I believe that he's in heaven. He was a godly man, but not everyone is cut out for leadership. Not everyone's cut out for leadership. I think that Aaron's a great guy as long as he's the second in command, as long as he's ministering to Moses, as long as he's got another guy over him who can be the hard-nosed leader that's making the hard decisions and telling the people no, because the people come to Aaron and they're the ones who basically talk him into this. But he does it. He goes along with it. And you know, he's responsible for that because he should have told them no, you're wicked. I want nothing to do with this, but they pushed him around. You know, leadership involves saying no to the follower. And if you can't say no, you can't be a leader. So if you're kind of just this yes man, people pleaser, and you don't like any kind of confrontation so you can't tell anybody no, you don't want to have any fighting, you don't want to fight any battles, you can't lead. Some people are too nice to be a leader. They're too nice to pastor the church. Because sometimes when you're pastoring the church, you've got to come down on things. You've got to come down on people. You've got to draw a hard line. You've got to be able to make these cold decisions and not get emotional about it because justice is blind to just emotions and feelings. You know, you have to sometimes just, you know, execute judgment. And when the Bible talks about executing justice and judgment, it often says, then I shall not pity. You know, when you have to execute judgment, you have to execute judgment and you can't be partial in judgment, letting your emotions get, well, I really like this guy or I really like her. So, you know, the Bible says don't respect persons, don't be partial. So you have to be able to bring the hammer down even on someone that you like, if they're bringing in heresy, if they're living in fornication, if they're a drunkard. You know, you can't sit there and say, well, he's my buddy, so I'm going to look the other way. It has to be the hammer that comes down. Amen? This is leaders. This is part of being a pastor. Now look, not everyone is cut out to be a pastor. Not everyone is cut out to be a pastor. Not everybody is cut out to serve God. Everybody is cut out to go soul wedding. Everybody is cut out to do great works for God. God has a great plan for every single person's life, but God's great plan for your life may not to be a pastor. Maybe it is. I'm sure there are many men in this room that God will someday use as a pastor, and I praise the Lord for that. I hope so, because we need more pastors, but it's not for everybody. And you could have a guy who's a great guy as a church member, maybe even a great deacon, maybe even a great assistant, or a great guy as a layman, but as a pastor, he's not cut out for it. You see what I'm saying? And that's who Aaron was. And so God's showing us, look, you can have a righteous man, a godly man, a powerful man in the scripture, but he's not cut out to be the leader. He's a great helper. I mean, he was great at holding up Moses' arms. He was great whenever Moses is around, but when Moses is gone, it's a bad idea, right? So it doesn't mean that he's a horrible person. It just means he's not cut out to pastor, and everyone's not cut out to pastor. You have to be able to say no and fight battles, and Aaron wasn't able to do that. So he could still serve God. He could still be greatly used by God, but that's the wrong position for him. So if you are one who wants to pastor someday, you need to do some introspection and decide, hey, am I really cut out for this? Because you know what? You can still do great works for God as a deacon, or as a second man, or as a layman, or doing missions. There are so many great opportunities, but pastoring a church is a battle. It's a fight, and it involves you being able to say no and fight people, and it's just part of the job. Now, you know, you say, wow, that's just you. You're just this fighting fundamentalist or whatever. But no, that's not true, because there is no pastor who is doing anything big for God who's not enduring a great fight of affliction. Any time there's a great door open, there are many adversaries. This is the message of the Bible. You'd have to be completely blind to the message of the Bible to think that you can just be this pastor peacenik who basically just, you know, does great works for God, tons of souls saved, thousands of people getting saved, thousands baptized, starting churches, and the devil's just gonna sit back because you preached a little softer on the sodomites or something. You know, you're just gonna back that off a little bit, and the devil's just gonna sit back and just relax. Folks, you can't even take the stand that Chick-fil-A takes without being under fire. Do you think any Baptist preacher is immune? If a chicken restaurant can't even just serve chicken in peace, folks, if they can't even serve chicken without the sodomites freaking out and picketing them and boycotting them and shutting them down in Canada and everything, look, how do you expect to say, well, if Pastor Anderson would just soften the preaching just a little bit, he wouldn't have all the battles. Folks, I'd have other battles. Pastor Anderson will always be embroiled in battle. Even if I didn't take the stands that I took, they would fight me on something else. So we might as well just unload the whole truck. Why give one foot of ground if it's not gonna placate them? They're implacable. So why would I take one step back when it accomplishes nothing? So I might as well just stand exactly where the Bible stands, say exactly what the Bible says, preach exactly what God lays on my heart, and not even try for one second to please this world, this world will never be pleased. So why even try? It's a waste of time. It's nonsense. Well, if you just backed it off a little bit. No. In order to have peace with this world and with the devil's crowd, you must go all the way to their side. That's where Joel Osteen lives. That's where Rick Warren lives. That's where Bill Hybels lives. These guys live there. That's why they're at peace. Because they're 100% on the devil's side, they're at peace with the devil. But if you're gonna take a stand for the Lord, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. So Aaron's failure is not that he's a horrible person, it's not that he doesn't love the Lord, it's not that he's unspiritual, it's that he was a weakling in this one area. Now we all have weaknesses. I have weaknesses. You have weaknesses. But if this is your weakness, you can't be the pastor. If you have this thing of like, hey, I just want to get along with everybody. We don't need another pastor, Rodney King, who wants to get along with everybody. Can't we all just get along? No. We need pastors that are willing to take it to them. Take the fight to the enemy and say, hey, I'm not gonna get along with people that are drinking water for communion. I'm not going to get along. I'm not gonna just fellowship with that and think that's okay. I'm going to rebuke that and call it out for the satanic garbage that it is, and I don't care if this is the biggest Mormon community in the world outside of Salt Lake City, hey, I'm going to hand out those Latter-day Satan DVDs, and I'm going to preach against it because it's garbage. Not trying to have a peaceful coexistence with the devil's crowd. You know, I want to pull people out of the fire. You know what my goal is to, you know what my goal in regard to the Latter-day Saint Church would be to destroy it. I would love nothing more than to see the Latter-day Saint Church just disintegrate, just cease to exist. Wouldn't that be a blessing? If it would just get just exposed, just the cover blown on it, and everybody see the garbage that it is, and then they would just shut down and just completely cease to exist. It would be like, oh, remember that cult that used to exist back in like the 19th and 20th century, and it spilled over a little bit in the 21st century, and then it kind of died around the middle of the 21st century. Wouldn't that be a blessing? Folks, I want to get Mormons saved. I want them to stop being a Mormon, okay? We need to get some fight in us. Now, look, obviously when we go out soul winning, we're not fighting with those people. They're not the enemy. Enemy is that dirty old man in Salt Lake City that they call their prophet. May he rot in hell. That's the enemy, okay? The Mormon whose door you knock, they're not the enemy, they're the victim. You're trying to help them. You're trying to pull them out of the fire, you see what I'm saying? The Roman Catholics aren't our enemies. The Pope is our enemy. He's the vicar of hell. He's the enemy. The bishops and the archbishop, those are the enemies, okay? Joe Catholic is the guy that we love, and we're trying to pull him out of the fire. We're trying to reach him, okay? But we need pastors who understand it's spiritual warfare, not spiritual patty cake. So that's why we don't need any errands in the pulpit, unless they're an Aaron Thompson, you know, because he's not an Aaron, he's a Moses, all right? But I'm saying like we need men in the pulpit who have some fight in them. Say, oh, you fire breathing Baptist, what's that supposed to mean? Well, it's straight out of the Bible. Read it. It's Revelation chapter 11. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this great chapter, Lord, and we thank you for the book of Exodus, powerful book, and Lord, help us to really just let this sink in, Lord, the inaccessibility that you show here in Exodus where you're so inaccessible to the common man and there's this veil and this thick cloud and darkness, Lord. Help us to understand that so that we can have an appreciation for the fact that we've been brought nigh by the blood of Christ and that the new covenant gives us access and that one day we will literally be standing in heaven, beholding your presence, just like Moses and Aaron and the 70 elders. We're going to just be standing right there and we're going to see Jesus face to face and Lord, what a day that will be, Lord. What a huge blessing, especially when we understand how holy and righteous and on another level you are, Lord. Help us not to just think that Exodus is irrelevant, Lord. Help us to understand the relevance is that it shows the gap that has been bridged by the Lord Jesus Christ and it's in his name we pray, amen.