Reluctant Believers

God's people continue to have problems being loyal to him.

Numbers 25:1-5 While the Israelites were camped at Acacia Grove, some of the men defiled themselves by having sexual relations with local Moabite women. 2 These women invited them to attend sacrifices to their gods, so the Israelites feasted with them and worshiped the gods of Moab. 3 In this way, Israel joined in the worship of Baal of Peor, causing the LORD's anger to blaze against his people.

4 The LORD issued the following command to Moses: "Seize all the ringleaders and execute them before the LORD in broad daylight, so his fierce anger will turn away from the people of Israel." 5 So Moses ordered Israel's judges, "Each of you must put to death the men under your authority who have joined in worshiping Baal of Peor."

In my recent post we saw that God was in control of situations and protecting his people at times that they didn't even know about. Israel wasn't aware at all that King Balak was trying desperately to have God's chosen people get "unchosen" with a curse from Balaam. The king was desperate to keep his job because he saw the success of the Israelites in recent battles but God never changed his mind about Israel despite the fact that they changed their mind about him.

• God was not reluctant to bless Israel, he went to great lengths in dealing with Balaam to bless Israel and to announce one of the first prophecies about Jesus.      
• Balaam was reluctant to bless Israel, he didn't care about the people he was asked to curse and he was careless about his own life because of the greed in his evil heart.       
• Israel was not reluctant to give in to their neighbors when they received an invitation to join them in worship, despite God's loyalty to them.

In Balaam's last prophecy he told about Israel's amazing future and the coming Messiah but right after he tells about it they are sinning against God the same way their ancestors did at Mt Sinai. I started to compare the two eventsfound in Exodus 32 and Numbers 25.

Comparison of the Rebellions at Sinai and Moab

1. Both of these rebellions took place immediately following a great display of God’s care for His people. 

• At Sinai, He performed miracles to deliver them from Egypt and brought them through the Red Sea. 
• At Moab, He reaffirmed their blessed future by turning Balaam’s intended curse into an amazing blessing.

2. Both of these instances reveal the wickedness of our hearts, our desire to worship but our lack of wisdom about worship, that's why the first of the Ten Commandments told us to worship the one and only real God. 

3. In both instances worshiping false gods led to immorality, the Bible shows us a very strong link between satisfying our desire to worship the wrong way and satisfying our desire for physical pleasures the wrong way.

4. Moses ordered the death penalty in both situations. The reaction of certain people to this command proved their loyalty to God and earned them a special place of service in the temple.

• At Mount Sinai, the Levites' killed the people involved and they were designated as the tribe that the priest would come from. It is important to know that all priests were Levites, but not all Levites were priests, just the Levites that were sons of Aaron.
• At Moab, Phinehas was the zealous priest, a grandson of Aaron, that executed judgment. Moses had just told the judges to judge but before they could start judging somebody comes along and jumps to the front of the line to be executed.

5. What a contrast between Phinehas and his grandfather. Aaron was responsible for bringing judgment on God's people due to his role in the creation of the gold calf but Phinehas quickly reacted to the man's sin and killed the Israelite man and the woman both at the same time. 

As you can see, it only took them one generation to forget about the rebellion at Sinai and do it all over again at Moab, this pattern continued throughout the Old Testament as God's people were reluctant to trust and obey. Breaking the first commandment caused so many deaths in the wilderness and it was the reason that God's people were in exile before Jesus' arrival.

God's People Continue To Be Reluctant

Matthew 11:2-3 John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, "Are you the Messiah we've been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?"

Even a man as great as John the Baptist (Matthew 11:11) was not immune to wavering in his faith when Jesus actions were so confusing. Early in his ministry John stated that his reason for coming was to reveal the Messiah to Israel (John 1:29-31) but he was still overcome with doubt as he sat in prison without any assistance from his cousin. I'm sure that John had no idea how true his words were when he said "He must increase, but I must decrease." (John 3:30)

Even the twelve men that gave it all up to follow were not sure about Jesus and struggled with faith even as they were experiencing him in supernatural ways. Jesus did miraculous things that prove his identity but nobody was as sure as the evil spirit that Jesus cast out. The evil spirit knew but a few chapters later the disciples are asking "Who is this man?" (Mark 1:23-28, 4:35-41)

We Are Reluctant Disciples

Even today with all of the evidence we have in God's word:

• We are reluctant to worship properly. It is easy to look back at the people that God chose back in the Old Testament and be amazed that they worshiped wrong after all of their supernatural experiences with God but we are the same.
• We are reluctant to trust and obey. Doing things our way will never measure up to God's ways and his plans, it is so hard to let go of absolutely everything and acknowledge that God is in control, instead we want our way just as much as Balaam and Jonah did. 
• We are reluctant to get rid of our pride. As we look at our evil hearts and see the darkness within, it should help us defeat our pride but instead we embrace it and it is a strong proof that Jesus was right when he told Nicodemus that we love the dark. (John 3:19)

Our own lives prove to us what the Bible shows: the ongoing struggle to trust and obey God. We are just like the people in Scripture, but the good news is that God is just as faithful as He was back then. Their imperfect faith and God's perfect, gracious response to it should be a great source of encouragement for us today when we struggle to fully believe.

The wilderness is still God's classroom where he leads us into situations that give us opportunities to exercise our faith, helping us become less reluctant to believe and trust Him. We will always have room to grow in this area, it's a slow, lifelong process that we can't simply check off of our to-do list and move on.

Mark 9:23-24 "What do you mean, 'If I can'?" Jesus asked. "Anything is possible if a person believes." The father instantly cried out, "I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!"

Just like the believing father that desperately wanted his son to be healed, our belief will always be tested with some degree of unbelief that we should pray to overcome. Despite our imperfections and inconsistant faith, we can expect the same grace and faithfulness that God offered His people long ago as he takes us to the Promised Land.

Do Not Do As Egypt Or Canaan

It is easy to imitate the ways of this world but God wants his people to be like him.

Leviticus 18:1-5  Then the LORD said to Moses,  2  “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. I am the LORD your God.  3  So do not act like the people in Egypt, where you used to live, or like the people of Canaan, where I am taking you. You must not imitate their way of life.

4  You must obey all my regulations and be careful to obey my decrees, for I am the LORD your God.  5  If you obey my decrees and my regulations, you will find life through them. I am the LORD.

Leviticus 18:30 So obey my instructions, and do not defile yourselves by committing any of these detestable practices that were committed by the people who lived in the land before you. I am the LORD your God.

Leviticus 19:1-2 The LORD also said to Moses, 2 "Give the following instructions to the entire community of Israel. You must be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.

Leviticus 20:7-8 So set yourselves apart to be holy, for I am the LORD your God. 8 Keep all my decrees by putting them into practice, for I am the LORD who makes you holy.

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The good news is our holy God loves us so much that he wants to have a close intimate relationship with us. But the bad news is because he is holy we cannot have an intimate relationship with him. But we don't have to live in the reality of the bad news!

Holiness is the most important truth that you must comprehend about God, it is a huge kindness on God's part to give us his instructions on how to safely draw near to him. The book of Leviticus is the first record that we have on how to live to please God. 

I have to wonder how God's people knew what God's standards are before the exodus from Egypt when he began teaching them at Mount Sinai. It seems that somehow people knew about God and what he expects from mankind before the law was revealed. 

How did:

• Abel please God and how did Cain know what was right and yet he chose the wrong way?
• Enoch have close fellowship with God so that he would be taken directly to Heaven? 
• Noah know how to have God's favor when everyone around him missed the boat?

God's people today have the luxury of looking back at thousands of years of history that God has preserved for us in the Bible to give us a clear picture of how to have his favor. 

The Old Testament shows us a very clear picture of the difficulty mankind has in living up to God's standards. By the end of the book of Genesis (Genesis 46:1-34, 47:1-12) we see that God's people wound up in Egypt for their own good so they would escape the famine in Canaan, but later on we see that while they were in Egypt they started to live like Egyptians.

God's people are conformed to the world when they leave Egypt, their character was proven very quickly and with great repetition. After 400 years of Egyptian influence, God's people didn't look much like God's people, Israel needed to get out of Egypt but God knew that he needed to get Egypt out of Israel.

Deuteronomy 18:9  “When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, be very careful not to imitate the detestable customs of the nations living there.

Perhaps that is the reason God did not take them directly to the Promised Land. (Psalm 106:35, Ezekiel 20:7-8, 23:8) God used the wilderness to get his people away from everyone else so that they could be taught how to live by his rules so that they could live long, prosper and be a blessing to the other nations. 

God's people need to be transformed, this goes way beyond nonconformity to the world, this is way more than withdrawing from the world or living by a list, this is a rebirth that comes from a new nature.

Romans 12:2 Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

A change of character is exactly what God requires for his people but don't be confused, the change is not a requirement to have a relationship with him but rather it is proof that you do have a relationship. Your obedience will be a natural outcome of the transformation of your character.

God is perfect in holiness to the point that all of his divine attributes are holy attributes, because he loves us and wants the best for us, God wants us to also be holy. This is a condition that mankind doesn't long to achieve, our carnal minds are more concerned about happiness and pleasure, we want ease and comfort.

Everybody has a choice to make, we can behave like Egypt or Canaan or we can be renewed with a new nature by the power of the Holy Spirit so that we will be a reflection of God for the world to see. We struggle with this decision because we want God to solve our problems and carry our burdens, we want our best life now and that doesn't include a God that demands control our lives and a huge change in our character.

Ephesians 4:17, 23-24  With the Lord’s authority I say this: Live no longer as the Gentiles do, for they are hopelessly confused. 23 Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. 24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God-truly righteous and holy.

Paul repeats the warning from Leviticus in his letter to the Ephesian church, it was still an issue hundreds of years later, as long as we are in this world we will struggle with this decision. God's people still need the encouragement to make the right choice:

• Will we allow the Holy Spirit to renew our thoughts and attitudes? (Ephesians 4:23)
• Will we desire to put on our new nature which was given to us to make us like God? (Ephesians 4:23)

Instead of saying "don't do as the..." it's still a good idea to ask yourself, WWJD? Jesus is the only man that God fully approved so that makes him the perfect example for us to follow. (Matthew 3:17)

We will mess up as we continue to grow, the Bible makes it clear that God's people will not automatically or perfectly implement the practice of being like God, it takes time to change our minds about the ways of Egypt and Canaan. We must remember that God is just as patient with us as we wonder around in our wilderness on the way to our Promised Land.

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The Priest Govern God's People

God's people need leaders to show them how to be clean and acceptable to God.

Leviticus 10:10-11 You must distinguish between what is sacred and what is common, between what is ceremonially unclean and what is clean. 11 And you must teach the Israelites all the decrees that the LORD has given them through Moses."

Leviticus 18:3-4 So do not act like the people in Egypt, where you used to live, or like the people of Canaan, where I am taking you. You must not imitate their way of life. 4 You must obey all my regulations and be careful to obey my decrees, for I am the LORD your God.

Leviticus 19:1-2, 37 The LORD also said to Moses, 2 "Give the following instructions to the entire community of Israel. You must be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy. "You must be careful to keep all of my decrees and regulations by putting them into practice. I am the LORD."

Also see: Leviticus 20:23-24, 26 and Leviticus 22:31-33

Malachi 2:5-7  “The purpose of my covenant with the Levites was to bring life and peace, and that is what I gave them. This required reverence from them, and they greatly revered me and stood in awe of my name. 

6  They passed on to the people the truth of the instructions they received from me. They did not lie or cheat; they walked with me, living good and righteous lives, and they turned many from lives of sin.  7  “The words of a priest’s lips should preserve knowledge of God, and people should go to him for instruction, for the priest is the messenger of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies."

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From the very beginning God's people have wanted to do things their own way, man chose to eat what he wanted (Genesis 3:1-19), which led to choosing how he wanted to worship (Genesis 4:1-16), which eventually led to total wickedness and evil until God destroyed the planet. (Genesis 6:5)

But wait, there's more, we are so bad that even after the flood the world rebelled again very quickly. The grand children of Noah are probably around to tell their children and grandchildren about God's judgment yet they still refused to do what God told them to do. (Genesis 11:1-9) 

So God chose one man from out of the millions of people on earth to begin a new people that would be called out of slavery to live by a different set of rules that govern how they worship, how they treated each other and even what they were allowed to eat.

The book of Leviticus tells us about the priest and the rules that they would use to govern God's people. God would be their king and the priest would govern under his authority. The nation of Israel would have a far better king that any other nation but later on they would demand to be like the other nations with their imperfect kings. (1 Samuel 8:19-20)

Deuteronomy 28:9-10 “If you obey the commands of the LORD your God and walk in his ways, the LORD will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do. 10 Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the LORD, and they will stand in awe of you.

It may be difficult to read every rule of the book of Leviticus in your quiet time, but don't worry, you don't need to know all of the rules but you do need to be aware of the rules and understand the purpose of them. (The Threefold Use of the Law ligonier.org)

God wanted a distinct people that were set apart, eager to love what he loves, a people that would show their loyalty to him and showed his goodness to the rest of the world. (Psalm 1:2, 40:8, 119:162, Hebrews 8:9-10)

The priest are supposed to use the rules that God gave even though some of them don't make any sense from our point of view. We might wonder:

• Why would it make you unclean to kill an animal to make dinner but killing an animal at the altar in the temple made you clean?
• Why would God say that you cannot eat a pig or a horse but you can eat a cow? 
• Why would God say that normal physical relations between a husband and his wife make them unclean? 
• Why would a skin disease that you did nothing to cause be treated like you were being punished?

God wants us to do what he tells us to do just because he said to do it! The best reason for some of these rules is just so that you can prove your allegiance to the God that saved you from slavery and gave you your freedom. The best way to prove your belief in God and your loyalty to him is to conform your thinking to God's standards even when the rules don't make sense. (John 14:21-24)

God never tells Israel why something is clean or unclean. Think about God’s choice of Israel as a nation. Is there some reason why God chose Israel as opposed to the Canaanites? Did he choose the Israelites because they were so spiritually pure? It was just God’s choice. -The Clean and Unclean on Bible.org

The book of Leviticus helps us know that God's people were supposed to be a peculiar kingdom, their government organization and the ruling hierarchy would be very different, their laws would be peculiar, their worship and even what they would not eat would be peculiar.

God's people would be led by ordinary men that God set apart as holy despite their shortcomings, once again it is a matter of God said so and that should settle it. They had a sacred responsibility that required more of them, they couldn't perform their duties and live to tell about it if they were ceremonially unclean, higher privilege required higher standards. (Luke 12:48)

Jesus came to be our High Priest so that we can all be priest that do God's work, we are to go to the Holy of Holies to ask for forgiveness, we are to carry out the task of revealing God to the rest of the world as a royal ambassador and we are supposed to take a stand for holiness in this unclean world. (2 Corinthians 5:20 / 1 Peter 1:15, 2:5, 2:9-10)

If we live up to the task we have been given then the world around us will take notice and check us out to see why we are not conformed to this world. (Romans 12:2)

If God's people would cooperate with him and live by his rules, then his glory and honor would be seen and praised around the world, just as it will be at the end of time. 

God's people in the church era are all priest that have the awesome privilege to work under the great High Priest, the heart and purpose of the Old Testament priestly ministry should be adopted by each of us. 

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The Priest Begin Their Work

God draws near when his people worship him correctly.

Leviticus 8:34 Everything we have done today was commanded by the LORD in order to purify you, making you right with him.

Leviticus 9:5-7 So the people presented all these things at the entrance of the Tabernacle, just as Moses had commanded. Then the whole community came forward and stood before the LORD.

6 And Moses said, "This is what the LORD has commanded you to do so that the glory of the LORD may appear to you." 7 Then Moses said to Aaron, "Come to the altar and sacrifice your sin offering and your burnt offering to purify yourself and the people. Then present the offerings of the people to purify them, making them right with the LORD, just as he has commanded."

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We saw in the previous post that the Priest are supposed to be radically different people, holy, cleansed and anointed for service. We learned that God's people today are supposed to be just as radically different so that they can also serve God and the people around them. We should be like priest working under the leadership of our Great High Priest.

A seven day ordination ceremony was completed in that post and now in our scripture today it is time to begin on the eighth day. The eighth day is used in the Bible to suggest the beginning of something new, a day of completion of a process having to do with dedication, purification or cleansing.

It is a long process to become ceremonially clean, imagine going through the same routine for seven days without anything miraculous happening, hopefully the priest realized through this long process how incredibly far away we are from God's standards and how serious he is about our holiness.

There must have been great anticipation as the priest finally begin their work. The reason they told Pharaoh that they needed to leave Egypt was so that they could worship God but they had no idea that it would be delayed for so long and what would be involved. 

They are probably thinking about the last time the glory of the Lord was seen. God took the first step towards his people when the Tabernacle was completed and now it is time for his people to draw near to him.

But they must have been a little nervous about this worship service, this seems to be the first worship service since the golden calf worship experience, when three thousand people died. God's people were quick to go back to the way of worship they learned from the Egyptians despite the miracles that God performed that proved that the Egyptian gods were no God at all.

God's Awesome Glory Revealed

Leviticus 9:22-24 After that, Aaron raised his hands toward the people and blessed them. Then, after presenting the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offering, he stepped down from the altar. 23 Then Moses and Aaron went into the Tabernacle, and when they came back out, they blessed the people again, and the glory of the LORD appeared to the whole community. 24 Fire blazed forth from the LORD's presence and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. When the people saw this, they shouted with joy and fell face down on the ground.

God's people listened to God when he told them how to worship and because they did they saw God's approval manifest among them. Back in the day, it was much easier to know when God accepts your offering, his pleasure was displayed in powerful ways that cannot be mistaken. 

The people that God chose to be his own people have connected with him in a real and personal way. It is interesting that the awesome display of God's power somehow did not cause fear, this must be a sign that the people were forgiven of their sins and they knew they were in right standing with God.

The pagan nations around them had priests and sacrifices, but they didn’t have the glory of God.

-Warren Wiersbe Old Testament Commentary

If God's people performed these rituals with the proper attitude then they would see the glory of God and be assured that their God is real, he is loving and he is powerful to protect them. This should have given them great courage when it comes time to enter the Promised Land.

God's word has made it clear that we need an intercessor to allow us to have an intimate relationship with our holy God. The picture of the High Priest in the Old Testament points to the ultimate fulfillment of the High Priest.

God's Perfect High Priest Revealed

Matthew 24:30-31 And then at last, the sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens, and there will be deep mourning among all the peoples of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send out his angels with the mighty blast of a trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from all over the world-from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven.

The ultimate revelation of God's glory is on the way! Do you have a great High Priest that will allow you to experience this magnificent occasion with great joy or will you meet him in anguish? Are you set apart as one of his children so that you can be with him forever in the Promised Land? 

My High Priest is also the holy sacrifice for my sins, he allowed himself to be brutally murdered to satisfy the holy justice of God so that I can have peace with God. Although I have not attained it yet, my position in Jesus is holy because the most holy sacrifice was made for me. (Deuteronomy 33:3, Revelation 1:6, 5:10)

Because of this, I am commanded to live a holy life, I am a priest serving under the Great High Priest to point others to God. I must be free from sin, holy and set apart so that I won't be disqualified to serve. (1 Peter 1:15-16, John 17:19, Titus 2:14)

My position as a royal priest was given to me so that I can be the connection between Heaven and Earth that points others to God's glory so that he will also be revealed to them. (1 Peter 2:5, 9-10)

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The Priest

My relationship with God requires a great High Priest.

Leviticus 8:1-5 Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 "Bring Aaron and his sons, along with their sacred garments, the anointing oil, the bull for the sin offering, the two rams, and the basket of bread made without yeast, 3 and call the entire community of Israel together at the entrance of the Tabernacle." 

4 So Moses followed the LORD's instructions, and the whole community assembled at the Tabernacle entrance. 5 Moses announced to them, "This is what the LORD has commanded us to do!"

Exodus 28:1-3 "Call for your brother, Aaron, and his sons, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. Set them apart from the rest of the people of Israel so they may minister to me and be my priests. 

2 Make sacred garments for Aaron that are glorious and beautiful. 3 Instruct all the skilled craftsmen whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom. Have them make garments for Aaron that will distinguish him as a priest set apart for my service.

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When we think of the word priest we think of a messy occupation that would gross us out if we had to do it today, we think that priest are no longer needed and we are so thankful that we don't need to provide an animal sacrifice anymore. But the work of the priest is much more than that, we need to expand our thinking of who a priest is and what they do so that we can see why we still need priest today.

The history of God's priest in the Bible shows us that the qualifications for the job has changed many times. The first time that the function of a priest is mentioned is way back in the garden when God shed the blood of animals to extend forgiveness and to make clothing for Adm and Eve. 

Outside of the garden a little later Cain and Abel would be acting as their own priest and then Noah, Abram, Isaac, Jacob and also Job were all making sacrifices to God. First the Bible shows us individuals functioning as their own priest and then later it shows us the head of the family doing this work. (Genesis 8:20, 12:7, 13:4 26:25, 31:54, Job 1:5).

After God chose a people for himself he gave them rules about how to live a new way to please him that would make them different from the rest of the world. They would have a new worldview, a new civilized way of loving God and their neighbor, new food rules and also new rules about how to worship.

God's rules for worship began with the worship leaders back in the book of Exodus, next he gave them his rules about how to worship, including the sacrifices in Leviticus 1-7, and now they are ready to ordain the first High Priest and the first priests that will serve under him.

The preparations for the ordination:

• Washed (Leviticus 8:6)
• High Priest Garments (Leviticus 8:7-9)
• Anointing (Leviticus 8:10-12)
• Priest Garments (Leviticus 8:13)

The offerings for ordination:

• Sin offering (Leviticus 8:14),
• Burnt offering (Leviticus 8:18)
• Ordination offering (Leviticus 8:22)
• Wave offering (Leviticus 8:25-29)

God's priest are ordinary men that need to be forgiven and cleansed before they can put on their priestly garments. The priest must be sanctified by the Sin Offering and the Burnt Offering before their special Ordination Offering and Wave Offering. These rituals would last for seven days and Aaron and his sons would have to stay at the Tabernacle the whole time.

The fact that Aaron was chosen as the first High Priest is an amazing symbol of God's mercy and grace, as the leader of God's people while Moses was away, Aaron led the people to idol worship. But instead of being disqualified, by God's grace he was elevated to a position of honor that he didn't deserve.

Malachi 2:5-7  “The purpose of my covenant with the Levites was to bring life and peace, and that is what I gave them. This required reverence from them, and they greatly revered me and stood in awe of my name. 

6  They passed on to the people the truth of the instructions they received from me. They did not lie or cheat; they walked with me, living good and righteous lives, and they turned many from lives of sin.  7  “The words of a priest’s lips should preserve knowledge of God, and people should go to him for instruction, for the priest is the messenger of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies."

God's chosen people (the nation) would have a chosen people (the priest) to be the ambassador between God and his people. They will lead them in worship, teach them truth and govern their everyday life. The priest would focus on helping the people maintain a clean and holy life that would please God and bring him glory that would be seen among the nations.

There Is A New High Priest

Hebrews 9:11-12 So Christ has now become the High Priest over all the good things that have come. He has entered that greater, more perfect Tabernacle in heaven, which was not made by human hands and is not part of this created world. 12 With his own blood-not the blood of goats and calves-he entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever.

As I said earlier in this post, the priesthood has changed, it was originally the work of the individual or the head of the family, later it became an official occupation of a few men but now it has changed again. Because of Jesus the priesthood that God initiated in Exodus and Leviticus is now obsolete.

Jesus would die as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, but he wasn't just the perfect lamb that covered our sins, because of his sacrifice and resurrection from the dead he is now our ultimate High Priest that was chosen by God and because of his perfect obedience he is now interceding for us at God's throne in Heaven.

If you know your Bible a little bit you may wonder "how can Jesus become the High Priest if he is from the tribe of Judah? Didn't the priest come from the tribe of Levi?"

Melchizedek and the Priesthood of Christ is a great essay that explains how and why Jesus replaced Aaron's lineage. Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the High Priest, he met all of the credentials, but he came from the tribe of Judah through the lineage of the kings. (Psalm 110:1-7, Hebrews 7:11-28)

God's People Serve As Priest

1 Peter 2:9 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God's very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

All of God's children are a chosen people that live as members of a holy nation that serve as royal priest so that the people that are not a part of this holy nation can see the goodness of God.

I think that it is a shame that most of us think about ourselves when we hear that we are priest or we hear about the priesthood of the believers. We think about the fact that we don't need to go through another human in order to talk to God or to receive forgiveness. But if we are true to the original priest in the Old Testament and apply their job description to ourselves then we will see things differently.

Direct access to God is just one of the benefits that we have as priest that are working under the great High Priest.

We are supposed to be:

• A set apart people that live to serve God and others.
• A light to the dark world around us so that they can God's goodness.
• A blessing to our neighbors and family, helping them to know how to please God.
• A multiplying people, making more and more priest to serve God and others.
• An encouraging people, nudging others to good works and holiness.

Salvation is a free gift but, as you can see from this list, it is so much more than a fire insurance policy. Obedience to God's commands should be a natural reaction when you understand how tremendously ugly your sin is next to God's holy standard. If you don't feel an urgency to live God's way then you may not be his child.

Titus 2:14 He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds. 

1 Peter 1:15-16 But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. 16 For the Scriptures say, "You must be holy because I am holy."

The proper Old Testament priest were radically different people, holy, cleansed and anointed for service. Shouldn't we be just as committed to the same high standards? 

The Old Testament commands to be holy are repeated in the New Testament so why don't we consider holiness as a requirement in our own lives?

RELATED ARTICLES

In the Beginning God Created a Priest (crossway.org)

Were Adam and Eve Priests in Eden? (bibleproject.com)

10 Things You Should Know about the Priesthood of Believers (crossway.org)

The Purification Offering

The King offers cleansing when we become stained with sin.

Leviticus 4:1-2 Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 "Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. This is how you are to deal with those who sin unintentionally by doing anything that violates one of the LORD's commands.

Leviticus 5:13 Through this process, the priest will purify those who are guilty of any of these sins, making them right with the LORD, and they will be forgiven. The rest of the flour will belong to the priest, just as with the grain offering."

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The most important thing we need to know about God is that he is holy. His holiness is at the core of who he is and it is the driving force behind his righteousness, justice, mercy, wrath, compassion and all the other attributes of God.

Because of God's holiness we cannot approach him in an impure state or we will be consumed similar to the way that the sun would destroy us. We know that the sun is powerful and good but you would need something to cover you to allow you to have access without burning up.  

So far in this series from the Book of Leviticus we have seen the rules for worshipping God:

• The Burnt Offering shows us that God is merciful in providing a way for us to approach him through the blood sacrifice.
• The Grain Offering shows us that we need to be grateful for his mercy in providing us everything that we have.
• The Peace Offering was a celebration of our renewed fellowship that we have because of God's mercy.

Our next lesson in how to worship God tells us how to continue to receive God's mercy when we fail him. 

The sin offering was actually a purification of God's people and God's places that he has designated as holy. The purification rituals were done so that God could inhabit those holy spaces and come close to his people without jeopardizing their safety.

The purification offering had different sacrifices required for different people and the amount of purification that would be needed:

• the high priest (vv. 3–12)
• the congregation (vv. 13–21)
• a tribal leader (vv. 22–26)
• an individual member (vv. 27–35)

The application of blood to the holy areas of the tabernacle restores the sacred space that was defiled by the sins of the priest. The blood was applied to the veil, the incense altar, and the altar of burnt offering so that the sacred space would be cleansed.

As you move on from the priest to the congregation, to the tribal leaders and then to an individual's sin you see a decreasing level of threat to holiness. The lack of holiness in Israel's leaders required more blood to be applied to more places, including the holiest places, whereas the sins of one ordinary person required less.

The popular notion theses days is that sin is sin, no matter which one you commit, is terrible theology. God's law shows us that sin has various levels of consequences, in this chapter we can see that unintentional sin and defiant sins are not treated the same. There are premeditated sins that the Bible says puts us in great harm and there are smaller sins that you are not even aware of such as accidently taking a pen home from work.

Another popular idea is that my sin is my sin and you should stay out of my business. We think it doesn't concern anybody else but God's word shows us that the individual sinner has a negative affect on the whole community. When God sent the Jews into exile, many good people suffered and died as a result of national sins. It's not just a personal thing, individual sins affect the tribes and the entire nation, that's why we have the responsibility to look out for each other. (2 Samuel 12:1-10, Galatians 6:1-3)

This offering shows us our sin nature, our natural ability to do wrong by God's standards, we don't need to learn how to sin, we can do it without any effort. The old definition of sin that I learned in Sunday school is not good theology. I was taught that sin is when you know what is right and you don't do it. This definition is completely discredited by the demand for a sacrifice that covers unintentional sins. (Also in Psalm 19:12-14)

The Old Testament shows us that the purity of God's places and his people could only be restored through the blood sacrifice. In Leviticus four we see that the result of these sacrifices was forgiveness of the sins of God's people. (Leviticus 4:20, 26, 31, 35; Leviticus 5:10,13; 6:7)

Pardon for sin was accomplished to some degree through the animal sacrifices, otherwise the High Priest wouldn't be able to come into the most holy places in the Tabernacle and the Temple, but the New Testament tells us that these sacrifices didn't forgive our sins. (Romans 3:20, Hebrews 10:1-23)

It seems to be a contradiction but maybe what looks like a contradiction is actually a difference in perspective. The Matthew Henry Commentary shows us the difference in the types of forgiveness that we are talking about.

Under the old, sacrifices must be often repeated, and after all, only pardon as to this world was to be obtained by them. Under the new, one Sacrifice is enough to procure for all nations and ages, spiritual pardon, or being freed from punishment in the world to come.

-Matthew Henry Commentary

The sacrifices of the Old Testament when done with the right motivation clearly brought them forgiveness from punishment in this world (1 John 1:9) but the sacrifice wasn't enough to obtain pardon that would free them from punishment in the after life (John 3:16).

Offering the Old Testament sacrifices flowed from the life of one rightly related to God by faith, but was not the means of the right relationship, just as Abraham was counted as righteous by his faith. Doing good, even following the rituals of the law, didn't get anybody into Heaven.

1 Timothy 2:5  For, There is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus.

The perfect sacrifice is the only one that will get you to a forever home with God, it had to be the sacrifice of the perfect God/Man that could forgive us and give us the right to be God's children living with him for eternity. 

Have you found the perfect lamb for sacrifice? 

RELATED ARTICLES

The Purification Offering (meetinggodinthemargin.com)

The Provision of Sacrifice in the Old Testament (crossway.org)

Was There Forgiveness Under the Law of Moses? (christiancourier.com)

The Burnt Offering

You can't approach the King without a sacrificial gift.

Leviticus 1:1-4 The LORD called to Moses from the Tabernacle and said to him, 2 "Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. When you present an animal as an offering to the LORD, you may take it from your herd of cattle or your flock of sheep and goats. 

3 "If the animal you present as a burnt offering is from the herd, it must be a male with no defects. Bring it to the entrance of the Tabernacle so you may be accepted by the LORD. 4 Lay your hand on the animal's head, and the LORD will accept its death in your place to purify you, making you right with him.

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In the previous post we saw that nothing else could be more important than knowing God and knowing his demands. Something in mankind has always made him aware that there is a higher power and they knew that they should be concerned about making sure that higher power is pleased.

Our God is the only higher power that we need to know, he is the real God and he wants to have a relationship with us. The fact that we are unclean makes it dangerous to come close to our holy God if we ignore his rules. Thankfully God has given his people the information that we need so that we can safely approach him. 

Just as you wouldn't come into the presence of an earthly king without a gift, you certainly shouldn't approach the ruler of the universe without a gift. The believers in the Old Testament would not ever consider going to the tabernacle or the temple without a sacrifice.

If they wanted to come into God's presence a costly gift from their herd or flock was required. It had to be a real sacrifice that cost them something, it wasn't a sacrifice just because it was burned on the altar, it was a sacrifice because it was expensive. They had either purchased the animal or they had the expense of raising it from birth.

Going to worship was a mentally, physically, and emotionally draining event. Thousands of years later we have lost the worship experience that God's people had back in the Old Testament. We come to worship so casually without much forethought or preparation.

Imagine the impact of bringing your own animal, laying your hands on the innocent and personally taking it's life while the priest caught the blood in a basin. After you caused it to bleed out and die you still had to cut your animal into pieces and wash them while the priest burned them, piece by piece, on the altar.

The burnt offering has so many symbols that point to Jesus:

• The bull speaks of our Lord as the patient, unwearied laborer, always doing the Father’s will. 
• The sheep represents the Lord as the meek and lowly one. 
• The goat speaks of Christ as our substitute. 
• The turtledove points to Him as the man of sorrows (mourning dove)
• To cleanse and restore the sinner to fellowship with God

The way to atone for our sins and restore our fellowship with God was through the blood of a perfect sacrifice. This truth was fulfilled perfectly and was replaced by a better sacrifice when Jesus came.

For 33 years the lamb of God was inspected and found to be without fault, he lived the perfect life to be the only sacrifice that actually pays the penalty for my sin. The symbolic sacrifices in the Old Testament only covered their sin for a season until the lamb of God offered himself as the only sacrifice that could bring salvation and make us holy. (John 1:29, Romans 3:25, 8:3, Hebrews 10:1-18)

It is much more difficult to have genuine, deep sorrow for our sin and truly appreciate the costly sacrifice made for us. We come so casually to worship, we seem to think that there isn't much required of us, we have forgotten the fact that holiness is still required in order to have a relationship with God.

God has only one intended destiny for mankind—holiness. His only goal is to produce saints. God is not some eternal blessing-machine for people to use, and he did not come to save us out of pity—he came to save us because he created us to be holy.

-Oswald Chambers

Holiness is the reason for salvation, it is the ultimate reason that Jesus came to be sacrificed, becoming holy is the only way that I can spend eternity with God. Pleasing God is the most important thing in the world and the only way to please him is to become like him and that means being holy. (Hebrews 10:10)

We love to think that God wants us to be happy, healthy and wealthy but none of those things are going to get you into God's presence for eternity. The most important thing in life is your holiness achieved by accepting Jesus as the perfect sacrifice and then committing yourself to work to become more like Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit living in you.

Burnt Offering- Genesis 8:20-22, Exodus 29:42-46, Numbers 28-29 / 1 Samuel 7:9-10 / 1 Chronicles 21:18-22:1, Ezra 3:1-6, Job 1:5, Isaiah 1:11-20, Mark 12:33, Romans 3:25, 8:3, Hebrews 10:1-18

The Law of Burnt Offering- Leviticus 6:8-13

RELATED ARTICLES

How To Become Holy (thegospelcoalition.org)

What is a burnt offering? (gotquestions.org)

The Most Important Thing

God is holy and he requires that his people be holy.

Leviticus 11:44-45 For I am the LORD your God. You must consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. So do not defile yourselves with any of these small animals that scurry along the ground. 45 For I, the LORD, am the one who brought you up from the land of Egypt, that I might be your God. Therefore, you must be holy because I am holy.

Leviticus 19:1-2 The LORD also said to Moses, 2 “Give the following instructions to the entire community of Israel. You must be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.

Psalms 33:8  Let the whole world fear the LORD, and let everyone stand in awe of him.

Psalm 96:8-9 Give to the LORD the glory he deserves! Bring your offering and come into his courts. 9 Worship the LORD in all his holy splendor. Let all the earth tremble before him.

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Something in mankind has always made him aware that there is a higher power and they knew that they should be concerned about making sure that higher power is pleased. The most ancient cultures all over the world have sought to appease the gods so that they could live and be prosperous. 

But we aren't worried about their "gods." We know there is only one higher power to be concerned with. Our fear about how God will treat us became obvious as soon as we sinned, Adam and Eve didn't have any way of knowing how God would react, we read in Genesis that they were afraid but I think that is an understatement.  

The first worshippers that the Bible tells us about are Cain and Abel, after that is was Noah and then all of the forefathers of Israel. They all used a sacrifice as a gift to God even before the laws about sacrifices was given. 

The book of Leviticus is God's gift to his people to let us know what he expects from them when they have made him unhappy with them. None of the "gods" ever went out of their way to help their believers know what is expected.

Nothing else could be more important than knowing God and his demands but most of us like to stay out of the Old Testament so we don't get the full story. We don't realize that our view of God is inaccurate because we are only reading half of God's book.

The fact that God devoted an entire book of the Bible to the subject of holiness would indicate that it’s an important subject, one that we dare not ignore. Whenever we minimize the holiness of God, we’re in danger of minimizing human sinfulness, and the combination of these two errors results in the minimizing of the cross of Jesus Christ.

-Warren Wiersbe Commentary

The most popular way of referring to God in scripture is simply "the holy one," it is so important that it is the one characteristic that is most celebrated before his throne in Heaven. "Holy, holy, holy" is the song of the saints before God's throne. (Isaiah 6:3, Revelation 4:8-9, 15:2–4)

God wants a relationship with us but his holiness is dangerous to unclean people if we do not adhere to his rules about approaching's him. By ignoring the Old Testament we find it easier to avoid the fact that God is holy, Moses described him as being "glorious in holiness" (Exodus 15:11) and we have been commanded in both the Old and the New Testament to be holy just as he is.

God’s holiness can be understood as the momentum behind all the other attributes of God.  Holiness is the essence of God.  It is the driving force behind the righteousness, justice, mercy, wrath, compassion, will, truth, and all other attributes of God.

A Brief Analysis Of The Holiness Of God by John Wilsey

We don't like to think about God's holiness or his demand that his people be holy. The most popular way of referring to God today is to say that God is love, everybody likes that God, we want a God that helps us get along with each other, solves our problems and carries our burdens. We want a God that affirms us and tells us to follow our heart or trust our feelings.

We are too much like the crowds that followed Jesus around looking for a cure, looking for a meal or looking for a leader to save them from the Roman oppression. But as soon as Jesus fails to make our life better we turn on him.

We want a Jesus that makes us happy, so don't even mention a Jesus that wants to control our lives and change our character. The idea of God or Jesus wanting us to be happy is a concept that isn't found in the Bible.

1 Peter 1:15 But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy.

1 Peter 2:5 And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God.

1 Peter 2:9 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

We have been commanded to be holy, that is our greatest goal, we must be unique and separate from the world. We belong to a holy God who has given us a job to do. As his nation of priest we have work to do that requires us to be holy. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20, and 2 Corinthians 7:1)

10 Things You Should Know about the Priesthood of Believers

Jesus came to be our High Priest so that we can be priest that do God's work, interceding for others and representing God to them. How can we draw near to God as a priest if we are unholy? How can we accurately show God to others if we are a terrible example?

God's attributes must be seen as equal, we shouldn't stress his love and neglect wrath and justice, too much emphasis on any of them is a distortion of who God is. Without a proper view of God's holiness there is a lack of fear or reverence for him and we won't see a need to change.

Pleasing God is the most important thing in the world and the only way to please him is to become like him and that means being holy. Instead of pursuing our happiness in this world we should seek to prepare ourselves for the next world where we will experience joy eternally.

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God With Us: Holiness Is Required

How to be acceptable when you come before God.

Video:  The Book of Leviticus by The Bible Project

Leviticus 19:1-2  The LORD also said to Moses,  2  “Give the following instructions to the entire community of Israel. You must be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.

Leviticus 26:11-13  I will live among you, and I will not despise you.  12  I will walk among you; I will be your God, and you will be my people.  

13  I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so you would no longer be their slaves. I broke the yoke of slavery from your neck so you can walk with your heads held high.

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The story line that began in Genesis continued through the book of Exodus and now we will see that it keeps on going through the next book. We saw in Exodus that the people of God were redeemed from the kingdom of darkness, they were taught how to live to please God and they have just built a place to meet their God.

Now that they have a place to meet with God they need to learn how to do it, our God is not like all of the false gods that were mean and their rules about how to relate to them were not clear. Our God gave his people the book of Leviticus as a loving revelation of the essential requirements for his people, as bad as they are, so they will know how to come into his presence.

God with us has requirements, it's easy to see that in the Old Testament, but it is still equally true today! God’s expectations for his people have not become less strict just because we don't have to go to the temple and slit the throat of a perfect sacrifice from our flock and watch it bleed out. In the church age few of us consider the cost of going to worship, it is too easy to just show up without a sacrifice and expect God to be pleased.

The Holy One commands his chosen ones to be holy.

1 Peter 1:15-17  But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy.  16  For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.”  17  And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time here as “temporary residents.”

The pursuit of holiness is still required as we reside in this temporary home, progressively becoming more like our holy God, even though we will not fully obtain holiness until Jesus takes us to our permanent home. We need to realize that God isn't expecting less of us than he did of the believers of the Old Testament.

As believers, we need to be "set apart" (sanctified) from the world, we need to be living by God’s standards, not the world’s. God knows we won't be perfect, but there should still be a distinct difference seen in us. As a holy nation of priest we need to live set apart, in the world but not of it, if we are the same as the world then the world won't see anything that needs to change in their lives.

Children inherit the nature of their parents. God is holy; therefore, as His children, we should live holy lives. We are “partakers of the divine nature” and ought to reveal that nature in godly living.

-Wiersbe Bible Commentary

The culture has turned up the anti-God indoctrination in the past few years in an attempt to silence people that refuse to call evil as good. We will all be forced to decide which side we will be on, we will be tempted to lower God's holy standards, just like Israel did in the Old Testament.

The New Testament requires our holiness just as much as the Old Testament. If we truly love a holy God then we will want to please him and seek to be just like him. 

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Redeemed And Learning About Holiness

God's children fail to live up to a higher standard than the rest of the world.

Exodus 19:10-11,14 the LORD told Moses, “Go down and prepare the people for my arrival. Consecrate them today and tomorrow, and have them wash their clothing. 11 Be sure they are ready on the third day, for on that day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai as all the people watch. 14 So Moses went down to the people. He consecrated them for worship, and they washed their clothes.

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When God reveals himself to humanity it becomes very clear that we are not the same, we like to act like we are God but when you look at the examples in the Bible when God came close to man, the holiness of God is undeniable.

Moses already encountered God in a similarly spectacular event at the burning bush. That's where Moses got his first lesson about sacred things, God told him that even the dirt he was standing on was holy ground because of it's proximity to God. (Exodus 3:1-12)

God told Moses at the burning bush that he would return to this mountain with all of God's people some day. We can only imagine what Moses was thinking as they began traveling in this direction and how overwhelmed he was as they arrived in the same place.

Mount Sinai will be their home for a long time because God has some things to accomplish before he takes them to their promised land. They have just made a covenant to be God's chosen people and now they will learn about the holiness of God and how he must be respected as they approach him.

God needs his children to know that he is different from them, he is near them and wants to relate to them but he is also above them. He is a personal God that loves relationships but it cannot be the same as the way that we relate to each other. We are terrible at relating to each other so it will certainly be a challenge to relate to God.

Too often we show up at church to meet with God without any preparations. We don't expect the unsaved to come prepared for worship but too often God's people are just as unprepared, we show up looking to get something just the same way we show up at the grocery store.

God told his people to purify themselves and prepare their heart and mind. Being in his presence is a truly awesome experience, unlike the hundreds of times we use the word awesome everyday, this really is.

Psalm 24:3-4 Who may climb the mountain of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? 4 Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who do not worship idols and never tell lies.

Access to God isn't given out to just anybody. There were thousands of God's people that were saved from Egypt, but there was only one man that had an incredible amount of access to God, through the ages there have been few people that have ever had such a personal relationship. 

It started with the burning bush but it didn't end there, Moses was a regular mountain climber as he interceded for his people for the rest of his life. Even Pharaoh knew that Moses was close to God and made prayer request to Moses four times to get relief from some of the plagues. (Exodus 33:11, 17; Deuteronomy 34:10-12)

The Bible makes it clear that God is holy and he wants us to be holy as well. The popular notion that you can believe the facts about the gospel without a change in your character is a wide road that leads to destruction. 

Why would your heavenly father want to allow you to stay in your sin? Is it even possible to agree with God that your sin was so ugly that his son had to pay a huge price to clear you of the charges and then you continue living that way?

2 Corinthians 7:1  Because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit. And let us work toward complete holiness because we fear God.

1 Peter 2:9  But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

1 Thessalonians 4:7  God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives.

Revelation 1:6  He has made us a Kingdom of priests for God his Father. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.

Secularized religion wants you to believe that God loves you and he is okay with your lifestyle but a quick study of God's word will show you differently. "You be you" sounds nice but God's word tells us that you without his help is completely wicked. 

If God approves of your sinful lifestyle so much then Jesus was wasting his time when he left the glory of Heaven. If God is okay with the sins of his people then why did his son confront the religious leaders so harshly and so frequently?

Believers are enabled to grow in holiness on account of the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, foreshadowed by the OT sacrificial system, and through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.

-Dictionary of Bible Themes

God is holy and he tells us to strive to live up to a higher standard, the "you be you" generation sounds kind and loving but you don't get the final say, we have been told to imitate God in our attitudes and our lifestyle. (Ephesians 5:1-33)

Thank you Lord for my rescue from the kingdom of darkness! Thank you for my gradual transformation to holiness which will be perfected on the day you take me home! Help me understand how easy it is to live for the unholy attitudes and desires of this world.

RELATED ARTICLES

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Redeemed To Be God's People

God's people are at God's mountain to begin a new relationship with him.

Exodus 19:3-5,8 Then Moses climbed the mountain to appear before God. The LORD called to him from the mountain and said, “Give these instructions to the family of Jacob; announce it to the descendants of Israel: 

4 ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians. You know how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to me. 6 And you will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation.’ This is the message you must give to the people of Israel.”

8 And all the people responded together, “We will do everything the LORD has commanded.” So Moses brought the people’s answer back to the LORD.

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So far the theme of Exodus has been the salvation of God's people, the first eighteen chapters shows us how God redeemed his people from the kingdom of darkness, and now it is time for his redeemed people to learn how to live for him.

God wants to transform his people from a bunch of beaten down former slaves into a Godly nation that will appreciate his blessings enough to worship him and show his goodness to the rest of the world.

Instead of the forced obedience at the hands of their harsh taskmasters in Egypt they needed to learn how to please their redeemer voluntarily. At Mount Sinai, God will make a new covenant that will replace the covenant made to Abraham.

You have seen and you know (Exodus 19:4)

God has done some amazing things to fulfill the promises that he made and to show his people that he loves them. 

They know that the promises made hundreds of years ago to Abraham came true. They know that he just released them from bondage and wiped out their enemy when they crossed the sea on dry ground and they know that God has provided for their physical needs out in the wilderness when there wasn't any natural resources.

God brought them to the place where he predicted, before they left Egypt, that they would come to worship him. (Exodus 3:12) God was true to his word every step of the way despite the attitude of his people.

If you will obey me (Exodus 19:5)

They have an amazing future ahead of them if they get it right, God's people will be here at the mountain for the next eleven months learning about him and how to please him, but with all of this close contact with God they will still struggle to trust and obey.

God's people will act like they are not, they will rebel against all that they have learned about him and behave just like the rest of the world, even with the huge miracles that God performed on their behalf.

You will be my special treasure (Exodus 19:5)

God reminds his people of how special they are, the whole earth belongs to him and he could have chosen anything, any place or anybody to be his most prized treasure. But you don't get to be God's people without having a relationship with him and you can't have a relationship with him if you are not pleasing to him.

As God promised Abraham, they have been blessed to be a blessing, their experience with God will be the main revelation of God to the world at that time. If they live by God's rules they will be a holy nation of priest that will be a testimony to the nations of God's goodness and his desire to redeem the entire world just as he redeemed Israel.

We will do everything the LORD has commanded

God's people agree to his covenant, they are officially God's children, as a nation anyway but individually they would each have to put it into practice daily, this is a personal decision they all had to decide for themselves.

We usually look at God's law as a burden but it is celebrated in the Bible, obeying God's law was seen as a source of delight and a blessing, (Psalm 19 and 119) the people enthusiastically committed to obey without complaining. But Moses knew that as good as it seemed at the moment they would fail to keep the the law just like all of us. (Deuteronomy 28:47-48, 31:29)

Moses was the mediator between God and his people, a mediator with many flaws, but thankfully Moses was a type for the perfect mediator that will came. 

1 Peter 2:5 And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God. 

1 Peter 2:9 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

The ultimate redeemer and mediator has brought us into a place of great privilege, we are called to be holy priest that display God's goodness, but too many of us are living as disobedient children. 

We can be so far short of God's standards that the world has a warped view of God and how to spend eternity with him. If God is truly good then it should be easy to show it so that others will agree upon his goodness and want to get in on what you have. We must remember that we have not been blessed so that we can hide the blessings. 

God's blessings to me are to be used to glorify him and to bless the world around me. I need to live to please him so that the world can see how satisfying life is when it is lived according to God's rules. My life should be as a priest that shows God to the world and lets them know how to live with him for eternity.