118 - Stiff-Necked

You pick up your Bible and wonder. Is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink.

Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, when someone does something that hurts you tremendously, what's your response? Oh, first you get really hurt and then you get angry.

Yeah. And then you're like, I don't want to be with you. No, you don't want to be with me. I just can't see you today.

Well, Israel hurt God tremendously and it turns out that's his response to Israel and we'll look at it today on More Than Ink. What a wonderful welcome to you today here on More Than Ink. I'm Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And we are glad that you're joining us again. And we hope that you're following along with us in Exodus as we track the nation of Israel. They leave Egypt and they go out in the desert and we're just now coming what we're on there. We're on the backside of Mount Sinai in a way.

We're kind of getting ready to move out from Sinai pretty soon. Into the desert, God has given the Ten Commandments. Moses has thrown them. He's given them.

They've been broken and he's about to give them again. And last time we were together, we were in the depths of the golden calf, the gold calf episode. Actually, the judgment for that had already been given. The end of where we left off was God sent a plague.

God judged the people. And so now we're on the verge of coming down the next to last verse and the last chapter in 32. But now go, lead your people to the place about which I've spoken to you and behold my angels shall go before you. So now we're actually leaving Sinai in Mount Sinai and going out, but not quite, sort of. Yeah, we're actually still going to be at Sinai for a little while because that's where they were when they actually built the tabernacle and it's not built yet. It's not built yet.

Right. We've just gotten all the instructions, but the actual execution of the instructions is still to come. Yeah, that's still to come. That's still to come. But we're kind of getting geared up to leave to get up on the larger trail.

It's the goal, to leave. But the question that presents to us today is we come off of that, the gold calf experience, which is just, I mean, sort of brutal. And yeah, is how healed are things between God and Moses and the people?

And how do you go forward with such an egregious problem, such a huge sin? What's the next thing that happens? Well, today, as we come into chapter 33, this sort of is the next thing that happens after such a horrible low spot in the entire plot line of Exodus. So that's where we're at today. And what does God do? And what does Moses do?

And how do you move forward after such a low? I guess that's the question. Well, and lots of people have died, if you remember, that the Levites had gone through the camp and actually executed the idolatrous ringleaders. And so the entire population was in mourning because I dare say everybody had lost somebody. Yeah. And God was on the verge of saying, we're done here. Several times he said that in the passages we've looked at and he's again going to remind them of that today.

Yeah, serious deal. So let's see what happens in the aftermath of the golden calf and how does God move forward? How does Moses move forward?

How does Israel move forward after all of that? So we're in chapter 33. Follow with us.

If you want, we're in the ESV version. You want to read for us first one chapter 33. So the Lord said to Moses, depart, go up from here, you and the people whom you've brought up out of the land of Egypt to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying to your offspring, I will give it. I will send an angel before you and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

Okay. So just to stop, those are the same people that God had named to Abraham back in Genesis 15. So here we are 400 years later and those same peoples still inhabit the land of Canaan. So God knows about the people who live in the real estate there and God says, I know they're there.

In the meantime, he had allowed their populations to grow and their religious system to flourish and all of it's idolatry. Pretty nasty. Yeah. He says in another place, the sin of the Canaanites has not been completed yet. So, okay. So that was just a little departure. So verse three, go up to a land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go up among you lest I consume you on the way for you are a stiff-necked people. Whoa. You want to stop there?

Stop there. So it was God's intention to go out of Egypt in their midst and live in their midst, but after they're deliberate and in your face idolatry, he says, you know, you go out, go ahead and go up. I'm still going to give you the place I promised you, but I'm not going up in your midst because I would just finish you off on the way. Wow. That would be so bring to me.

You think? But you know, interestingly, we've been talking at the top of Mount Sinai largely about how to build a tabernacle, how to build a tent, a house for God to be in their midst. And yet here we have this tension.

God's saying, you know, you know, I have a problem being in your midst because of such a great sin. Now we know as we look forward in Exodus, that would get rectified. And we're actually in the beginning of a process of restoration right here.

Right. And, uh, but God is saying, I'm not going to renege on my promise. Still go into the land. I promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. However, I'll send an angel before you just in case you're wondering how are we going to overcome these people who have been entrenched here for generations in this land.

How do we push them out? How do we get on this land? So I'll send an angel. I'll send an angel, but you know, in terms of my fully, fully, how do you want to say it? Recognize presence among you. Uh, I'm going to hold off for a second here.

Cause if I, if I get that close, I'll consume you. Yeah. Cause we're entering this period of time when there has not yet been a tent constructed for God in the midst of the people. So for the next period of time, and we're not quite sure how long that is, we're going to see that Moses erected the tent of meeting outside the camp. So, so far, all we have is instruction. This constant reminder, God's not dwelling in your midst because of your sin.

Yeah. However, his intention is to that's, that's the idea of my intention is to live in your midst. And when I do, I'm going to live in a tent that looks like this that reflects who I am. So that's, that's where we're going. But as of right now, I won't go up among you. Lest I consume you on the way because you're stiff necked. Again, stiff necked is an animal. It's an animal metaphor that refuses to yield.

Yeah. So if you have an animal like an ox or a horse or something, or a donkey, and you want them to go turn left or turn right, you know, you put a bridle or something on you, you turn them basically on how you tug this and you, and you bend their neck left or you bend their neck right. And he's saying, Nope, a stubborn animal stiffens its neck and you cannot, no matter how much you tug on that rope, you can't make them go after actually, you know, there's a place in the Psalms. I didn't look it up where he says, now don't be like the mule where you have to tug on its neck to get it to go, but let me guide you with my eye. Okay. And then he goes on and says, I want you to understand what I'm doing.

I don't want you just to be a robot where you pull the string, but, but here they are. And what God's saying is that I'll consume you because look, this is, this is my, this is my event and you are not being steered by me because you're stiff necked. Right.

So that's a, that's a big problem. If we're going to do this with me in your midst, you must live according to my instructions. So now how do they respond when God calls them a stiff necked people? And that comes up in verse four.

And it's a fascinating response. Well, the question is, what is it that they're mourning? Question four, when the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned and no one put on his ornaments for the Lord had said to Moses, say to the people of Israel, you are a stiff necked people. If for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments that I may know what to do with you.

Therefore, the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments from Mount Horeb onward. Wow. So the people heard this disastrous word. Yeah.

What was, what was so disastrous about it? Was it because God had said, I'm like, I'm going to kill you? Or was it, I'm just not going to go up in your midst?

I'm not going with you. Yeah. Yeah.

And I, and I think it's the latter, to tell you the truth. I think it's the fact that suddenly they've realized that they were focused on maybe the blessings of God without focusing on the blessing of God. They want that stuff, not God. Yeah, exactly. And it kind of reminds me, you fast forward to the new Testament and you see Jesus announcing to his apostles that I'm going someplace where you can't go. Right. And they go, what, what are you talking about? And he calms them back down.

But I think it's the entire thing. When I put this in the context of looking at Jesus, who is the perfect personification of who God is, when I look at him and I think, you know, the more I would see Jesus, the more I would want to be with him and wherever he, that's, that's what the apostles, uh, amazement is when he says, I'm going someplace you can't go, at least not now. I think there's part of that here because I think, I think because we're in the beginning of what looks like a restoration process, God's saying, that's it.

I'm not going with any. And they're thinking, but wait, you're the God that that protected us from Pharaoh's army. You're the guy that part of the red sea way. What were we thinking? What were we thinking? So I think that's part of this morning right here where God's saying, you know, we're done, you know, I'm not going with you.

So that's the disaster of the word. And I think that contrasts all the time. When we look at, you know, do we look to God because of what he gives to us and that's the blessing or do we look to God because he himself is the blessing. And what God seems to be saying here is you're not going to get much of me, but I'm still going to take you to the promised land.

And that causes him to mourn. You think? I think so.

I think so. Well, no, I was just kind of thinking about, remember it was not everybody who took off their gold earrings to make the calf. It was only really a few of them and they only gave their earrings and their nose rings. It wasn't like so clearly they had a lot of other gold because that gold was never intended for them to wear.

It was intended to be saved aside and made holy for the adornment of the tabernacle. And I actually fast forwarded to look, you know, when we get a couple more chapters hence here in chapter 35, we're going to be making stuff out of this. Right.

Right. There's an inventory, which is kind of interesting. So all who were, who were of a willing heart, this is Exodus 35 22. They brought their brooches, uh, their earrings, their signet rings and their armlets. So these are all the things we're talking about here on these ornaments. And this is the stuff that they got from the Egyptians when they left, they had asked for for gold and jewelry and they had just been wearing it strutting their stuff. And so from this point on, and I think, you know, it says they stripped themselves of their ornaments. They stripped themselves basically of the booty that they took from Egypt.

And they use these things, which for the Egyptians was meant to beautify them. And they're wearing them like, Hey, we're, we're hot stuff now. And they took them off saying, I guess we're not hot stuff because God's not going with us. So this is, this is, this is the reflection of this disastrous word is we need to humble ourselves. And that's what I see right here when they take these off, they're humbling themselves going, man, what were we thinking?

What were we thinking? Well, we're going to see kind of what that looks like in the next little section. Yeah. So are you ready to read on? Yeah.

Okay. So in verse seven, now, now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp far off from the camp and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up and each would stand at his own tent door and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent and the Lord would speak with Moses. And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship each at his tent door. Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend.

When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man would not depart from the tent. So now we've been talking a lot about the tabernacle, a dwelling place figuratively for God in their midst, but this is a different thing than that. This is a tent to meet God at. So the tabernacle, like you're saying, isn't built yet, but still as we come off of Mount Sinai, God needs a place or Moses needs a place to meet with God.

And so this is it. This is a tent. What do you make of the fact that it's not in the center of the camp anymore?

It's at the outside of the camp. I think that's the consequence of God saying, I cannot be in your midst. And look how much it's emphasized outside the camp, far off from the camp, outside the camp, outside the camp. It's a place where Moses can talk with God, but the people are not. Well it reemphasizes God saying, I'm not going to be in your midst or I would consume you. So if you want to meet with me, you're going to have to come away from these wicked people and come to the outside of the camp and meet with me out there. And it emphasizes that they are in such a sinful state that they must have an intermediary. Someone between them and God, because they're not welcome, essentially. It says anyone who wants to seek the Lord would go out to the tent, but it doesn't say they went in the tent. It doesn't say they went in, I know.

And that pillar of cloud would descend and guard the door. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. This is clearly the presence of God, not in their midst, but at their periphery. So he's with them, but he's not at the core. And that actually reflects the fact that even for them in their hearts, God may be with them in their hearts, but not in the core of their hearts. He's not the center. And God is trying here to create a society with God at the center of everything. And he's saying, well, I'll still go with you, but I'm going to be in the edges because you haven't put me in the center yet.

So I'll be off in the edges, just like that's a state of your heart, basically. The tent for where I live isn't in your midst without the edges. So what do you think about when Moses goes out to the tent and they see the pillar of cloud appear and the people stand at their own door and worship? We're told that twice.

Twice here. I think what we're seeing here is there's growing a longing in the people to have the kind of relationship with this God that Moses has. And clearly he's modeling something that they would like to have. And the closest they can get to it is that when they see the cloud descend, they stand in the doorway of their tent. Whereas they'd rather be in the doorway of where God is over there. Because God's in the doorway of the tent with Moses.

So yeah, I see them sort of longing, just physically longing to do that. And it says they stand at the tent door, they watch Moses, and then they also worship. They rise up and worship each one at his own tent. So that's a fascinating thing.

Before this, we haven't really had much of a standard. I'm thinking of how the people worshiped God out in the desert at Sinai. And eventually that's going to be centered around the tabernacle, the physical presence of where God is. But here they worship in their own places and they worship in a way that Moses himself is worshiping by coming into God's presence in a tent. So I think that's just interesting. However, Moses isn't just worshiping there, he's actually speaking face-to-face.

Isn't that fascinating? We're told that the Lord speaks with Moses, the Lord speaks with Moses, the Lord speaks with Moses. Yeah, this comes up a lot. Face-to-face as a man speaks to his friend.

What do you make of that? Well, when we talk face-to-face, we're talking about being in the intimate presence. Right. Like a direct conversation.

There's no interpreter in between. Yeah. Well, it made me think when Miriam and Aaron had that dispute about Moses because he married the controller. I had that open right in front of me. Because right there, there's an interesting description of God's dialogue relationship with God. Have you got that?

I do. It's in Numbers 12 and this is after Aaron and Miriam do their little kind of insubordination thing and the Lord calls them out. So this is Numbers 12.

I'm going to start reading in six and go through eight. Here now my words, if there's a prophet among you, because they had claimed to be prophets, I the Lord will make myself known to him in a vision and I'll speak to him with a dream. Not so with my servant Moses.

He's faithful in all my household with him I speak mouth to mouth, even openly and not in dark sayings and he beholds the form of the Lord. Right. So Moses has an intimacy and an immediate presence for God that Aaron and Miriam really did not understand. Yeah. Because they thought it was all about position. Exactly. Yeah.

Some kind of authority thing. Yeah. And they didn't realize that Moses had such a clear connection with God in terms of direction. Yeah. A real conversation and that set me thinking about Jesus talking to the disciples at the end of his life the night before he died.

So now I'm calling you friends. Right. I'm not calling you servants anymore and everything the father is saying to me, I'm saying to you. Yeah. That's in John 15.

15 passing it straight. Earlier in the evening that same evening he had said, now don't you get it yet? If you've seen me, you've seen the father. Yeah. And a little while later in John 16, they say, Oh, now you're speaking clearly. Now we get it. So something about that process of this clear communication with nothing in between. Nothing lost in the process. Right.

Yeah. And Jesus says that straight up, whatever I say, I've heard from the father, whatever I do, I say, I'm doing perfect reflection, a perfect mirror of what of the unseen God, but now in the scene. So Moses is in that tent hearing the audible voice of the Lord and they're having a conversation, having a conversation. And we don't have, well, we don't have the text of it here, but we will get it a little bit coming because it's what an incredible opportunity for Moses, especially because we're in the, we're in the midst of this slow restoration from this very heinous thing that they did.

And so what, what did he talk about? Well, we'll get the actual next time we'll get there. Can we circle back to the pillar of cloud for a minute?

Oh, sure. Because I was thinking the whole event with the golden calf was we want a God we can see, right? We don't know what happened to Moses. He's up there in the cloud and the thunder and the lightning and we want a God we can see. So, you know, when the Lord says, okay, I'm not going to be in your midst, but you're going to, you're going to see the evidence of my presence because he had given them the pillar of cloud when they first left Egypt and it served as a visible point of reference. Oh, God is among us, right? We can, we can, we can't see God, but we can see the cloud.

You can see the smoke from the fire of his presence. Yeah. And, and that, that pillar itself was actually described as being the glory of God. Right. So, I mean, that's, that's a start of that entire thing. Well, the, the glory and sense of the recognition.

Right. Oh, this God is here. This God is here.

The I am is here. But it's served also back in chapter 14. If you remember it, it stood all night between them and the Egyptians. So it was also protective and stood guard. Yeah. And in that particular case, we're not talking about an angel. It was the very presence of God himself. Right.

Yeah. Now we're going to go to an angel and we'll talk more about that. But, but yeah, it's, it's, it is the presence of God. And I think that's, remember they said it was a disastrous word, what God said, I'm not going with you.

I'm not going to be in your midst or, you know, cause I'd blow you away. But, but here is the eye. You can sort of see that longing as they see this cloud come down in this distant tent. That's not in their midst. Moses is out there and they see God over there, not here, see him over there and they stand in their tents and they realize there's God's presence, but he's not in the middle of us.

And that's our fault. And when he first gave them the pillar of cloud back in Exodus 13, he said, I'm giving this to you to lead you, to lead you. Yeah. So again, I am a God you cannot see, but I will make my leading unmistakable. You'll know where I'm leading you.

That's right. You'll see, you'll see where I am, but you won't see me. And there's a lot of theology in that as well. I think, I think too, what do you make of the fact that when this, when this cloud, this pillar would come down, it didn't go inside the tent. No, it stood at the door of the tent. So Moses would go inside the tent. And you know, I was thinking like, you know, if I was in Moses' shoes, I walk into the tent and all of a sudden I turned back around and look at the engines and there's this, it's going to get spookier later on.

I know. Find out that when Moses came out, his face was glowing. I know, but it's almost as though, and I don't think this is quite true, but it's almost as though Moses goes in and God says, okay, I'm shutting the door. You're going to have to come through me to leave here. We have, we're going to need to talk and I'm blocking the door until we get done here.

Well, it's a beautiful picture actually. And you can correct me if you think I'm wrong, but of Moses being drawn into the presence of God and God kind of marking that saying you are, you're in here with me. You are in my presence, which sets in my mind all kinds of echoes of our being placed into Christ. And so we in Christ are in continually in the presence of God.

Oh boy, that's a longer conversation for another day. Well in God. But I think that the seed of that idea may be here. Yeah. Yeah. And we still have this ongoing tension, you know, God's desire is to be in our midst if we'll let him be in our midst.

Right. Here they won't let him be in their midst because they haven't been in the midst of their hearts, but he's still going to be with them peripherally. He's still going to be right there. And what do you make of the fact too, that no one can see God face to face without dying? Well, we're going to get into that a little bit more next week.

We've touched on that some before, but yeah, it's a, it's a tension that people point out all the time. Well, Moses couldn't have been talking to him face to face because he would have died. And that numbers passage I read said, and God said he sees the form of the Lord. Well, did he see, he saw a likeness, he saw a representative something. Yeah.

We don't know exactly what Moses saw, but we do know back in Exodus 24, when after the initial covenant ceremony and God invites Moses and the elders up on the mountain, it says, and they saw God. Yeah. And then there's a description of the pavement under his feet. That's right. They saw something, but they did not look in the face of God because we know that God's face is only seen to humanize in the face of Jesus.

Now we're going to talk about that more next week. And God is spirit, but there's also this whole face thing. This word face, this Panim word, it's a very common word throughout the old Testament, but it really means presence. So like, you know, some of these say like you, you get, you get arrested by a policeman for going above the speed limit and says, well, one of these days because of the citation, you're going to face the judge.

Right. So when you say face, you mean, well, I'm going to see the judge's face and I'm not, is that what it means? No, it means you're going to be eye to eye. You're going to be eye to eye in his presence. So that idea is what is profoundly in this face stuff. That's why you can't see his face and live because it means if you see his face, you're in the presence of a holy and just God.

And how can you survive? You are not. Yeah. So that's really the idea that's going here. It's not some kind of physiology problem with God's face. It's the fact that being in the presence of God is an awesome and terrifying thing. If indeed you are sinful and we all are. And yet God brings Moses in as a friend, as a friend.

I do think that prefigures what Jesus said. I'm calling you friends. Yeah. Yeah. Everything my father's made known to me, I'm making known to you because you are my friends.

Friends. So as we close out, what do you make of the fact that Joshua is still inside the tent? We've already been introduced to Joshua. He already had been served as a general. He already had been identified as with Moses on the mountain. Went partly up the mountain. He's just coming in close, I think because he, well, he's become sort of a disciple.

An apprentice. Yeah. And indeed when Moses is gone, he will be the one that takes him in the promise land. Isn't this a lovely picture that Moses goes back to his tent and Joshua just hangs around. It's like there's a tremendous longing in Joshua to grow up into the kind of relationship that Moses has with God. So his longing is for the presence of God.

And when Moses and God depart the tent, he stays. I think it's a wonderful, touching kind of thing. It's sweet. It really is something.

I think it's really something. And it actually causes me to ask, when Moses comes back and has another session with God, is Joshua still there and does he stay in the tent? I don't know. Is he in the tent or is he outside the door? Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know. But this does reflect a young man's heart to be in God's presence. And so he decides, I'm not going to leave the tent. Now he couldn't have been that young. What says he's a young man?

It identifies him as a young man, but he had already led the nation in battle. Well, yeah. Okay.

So we're going to run out of time here. So we won't linger on Joshua now. We'll get to him later. I just think it's a wonderful preview into the heart of Joshua himself.

Joshua himself, who probably in later years could say, I was there when Moses talked to God face to face. We have a God who loves us and cares about us and needs us. And has intentions for us. Well, let's go find out what he talks about with God in the tent. And we'll look at that next time. So grab your Bible. We'll finish this chapter in Exodus 33, and we'll see what they talk about. And we'll look at it together here on More Than Ink. More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City and is solely responsible for its content. To contact us with your questions or comments, just go to our website, MoreThanInk.org. Say something real quick. Say something real quick. That was good. Okay.