Sermon Central
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Moses On The Mountain With The Lord - Part 7 Series
Contributed by Rick Crandall on Aug 23, 2011 (message contributor)
Summary: God has 3 messages from the mountain for us tonight: 1. God wants us to be generous givers (vs. 1-8). 2. God wants to stay close to His saints (vs. 8). 3. God uses earthly pictures to teach us about heavenly places (vs. 8-22).
Moses on the Mountain with the Lord - Part 7
Sermon by Rick Crandall
McClendon Baptist Church - July 21, 2010
BACKGROUND
*The LORD God of the Old Testament who appeared to men was God the Son, the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. We are studying these appearances because each of them has something to say to us today.
*Nobody in the Old Testament had more meetings with the Lord than Moses. Tonight we continue looking at Moses on Mount Sinai with the pre-incarnate Christ, continuing to study Moses’ 5th meeting with the Lord. (1)
*Exodus 24 showed us a covenant meal partway up the mountain. Moses and the elders of Israel ate with the Lord. Then in Exodus 24, Moses continued up the mountain and waited 6 days for the Lord to speak.
-Listen to Exodus 24:16-18:
16. Now the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day He called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.
17. The sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel.
18. So Moses went into the midst of the cloud and went up into the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
*Now in Exodus 25, the Lord begins to speak. Notice what He said as we read vs. 1-8:
1. Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying:
2. "Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering. From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take My offering.
3. And this is the offering which you shall take from them: gold, silver, and bronze;
4. blue, purple, and scarlet thread, fine linen, and goats' hair;
5. ram skins dyed red, badger skins, and acacia wood;
6. oil for the light, and spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense;
7. onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate.
8. And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.
INTRODUCTION:
*One of the things Mary and I saw in Houston last week was a piece of Egyptian stone artwork from about 1300 BC. That was something. They don’t sell those at Wal-Mart!
*There is no telling how much that thing cost. But we are looking at something infinitely more valuable tonight. We are looking at the actual words God spoke to Moses around 1450 BC. The Lord spoke to Moses on the mountain. And God has three messages from the mountain for us tonight.
1. First: God wants us to be generous givers.
*This is the message to us from vs. 1-8. Here the Lord began to describe all of the precious things that would be needed to make the Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant and the instruments of worship: Gold, silver, bronze, jewels and more would be needed.
*Of course the Lord could have piled up enough stuff for a billion zillion tabernacles all by Himself!
*Astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have discovered a white dwarf star in the constellation of Centaurus.
-This star has a diamond core that is 1,864 miles wide!
-It weighs 2.27 thousand trillion trillion tons.
-And it measures 10 billion trillion trillion carats. (That’s a 1 followed by 34 zeroes.) (2)
*God will never run out of diamonds or gold or anything else for that matter.
-He surely could have provided all of those things Himself. But that’s not what He did. Instead, in vs. 2 the Lord told Moses: “Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering. From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take My offering.”
*Now the Lord commands His people to tithe, but the Lord also asks for special offerings for special projects. And He doesn’t force His people to give.
-As 2 Corin 9:7 says: “God loves a cheerful giver.” And we should give cheerfully for the cause of Christ, because everything we have comes from His generous Hand.
*Where did the Children of Israel get all of their stuff? -- Well, you could say they got it from the Egyptians. But really, they got it from the Lord, just as He promised.
-In Exodus 3, when the Lord first spoke to Moses at the burning bush, God said:
21. "I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and it shall be, when you go, that you shall not go empty-handed.
22. But every woman shall ask of her neighbor, namely, of her who dwells near her house, articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing; and you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters. So you shall plunder the Egyptians.''
