Exodus 23 –24
Tonight we continue our study starting in Exodus 23. In this
chapter God continues to give more instructions that the children of
Exodus 23:1 "You
shall not circulate a false report.
This verse would cover two sins. First one would be lying.
Lying has never been tolerated by God no
matter which covenant your under. The second sin would be that of gossiping. It
bad enough to lie but to gossip about a lie is getter pretty low. God did not
want such thing happening to the children of
Exodus 23:2 "You shall not follow a crowd to do
evil;
This all has to do with
peer pressure. This is usually associated with teenagers but it can happen with
adults as well. All it takes is a few strong willed people to start a group
that can eventually turn into out of control mob that will do evil things that they normal
would not do. I cant help but think of the crowd that got stirred up by
Pharisees as Jesus stood before Pilate and how they joined together in thought
to have Jesus crucified. So the command here is great advice don’t follow a
crowd to do evil.
Exodus 23:8 "And you shall take no bribe, for a
bribe blinds the discerning and perverts the words of the righteous.
This was great advice for
them back then and it certainly is good advice for our politicians today. To
many people especial politicians comprise their own beliefs for bribes that are
giving to them.
Exodus 23:10 "
Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, 11 "but the seventh year you
shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and
what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do
with your vineyard and your olive grove.
This is similar to the
weekly Sabbath as to where they were to work 6 days and rest on the seventh but
this is a yearly event. 6 years they sow the ground and gather the produce and
then they leave it alone for a year. Whatever comes up on its own that year
will go to the poor or to the animals of the field. This command would have to
be obeyed with their faith and trust in God knowing the he would provide for
them during this year they took off.
Leviticus 25: 20
'And if you say, "What shall we eat in the seventh year, since we shall
not sow nor gather in our produce?"
21 'Then I will command My blessing on you in the sixth year,
and it will bring forth produce enough for three years.
If they would obey
God commands he would take care of them by giving them enough harvest to
last for 3 years on that 6th
year of their crops. The great lesson we can learn from this is that even
though we may not understand why God wants us do certain things a certain way
we just need to trust in him and know that he will provide for us just as he did for the
children of
In Exodus 23:14-19 we find out the children of
The first feast was feast of unleavened bread or the
Passover. As we all know this feast was a yearly remembrance of how God
delivered the children of
Romans 12:1 I
beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your
reasonable service. 2
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and
perfect will of God.
There are many sacrifices
Christians must make in order not be conformed to this world.
The second feast is know
as the feast of Harvest, the feast of weeks or as we commonly call it
Pentecost. This feast was used to celebrate the completion of the barley
harvest. On this day they did not work treating it as a Sabbath day. According
to Lev. 23:15-22 they would offer up leaven bread and animal sacrifices and
they also made free will offerings during this time according to Deut. 16:10.
This feast took place during the month of Sivan which corresponds to part of
our May and June. It also said that this feast was remembrance of the law given
on
The third feast was
called the feast of the Ingathering also know as the feast of the Tabernacles.
This feast took place during the Jewish month of Tishri which covers part of
our September and October. This feast would become a time of remembrance
of the children of
All of these feast we put
into place so that children of
Exodus
The first fruits of any
crop is always the best. I know that when I grow cantaloupe in my garden I
can’t hardly wait for the very first cantaloupes to come ready because they are
the best. God is in essence telling the children I want you to give me your
best. The same thing is true for us today in a spiritual sense. God wants us to
give him our best. That is why we are told love god with all your heart with
all your soul and with all your mind.
The book of Malachi
provides a excellent a example of what not to give to God.
Malachi 1:6 "
A son honors his father, And a servant his master. If then I am
the Father, Where is My honor? And if I am a Master, Where is My
reverence? Says the LORD of hosts To you priests who despise My name. Yet you
say, 'In what way have we despised Your name?'
7 "You offer defiled food on My altar. But say,
'In what way have we defiled You?' By saying, 'The table of the LORD is
contemptible.' 8 And when you
offer the blind as a sacrifice, Is it not evil? And when you offer the
lame and sick, Is it not evil? Offer it then to your governor! Would he
be pleased with you? Would he accept you favorably?" Says the LORD of
hosts.
When they offered a animal sacrifice it was suppose be your
best animal yet they were trying to get away with offering up lame, blind and
sick animals that would have most likely died on their own very shortly. We
must be careful that we don’t give God our leftovers because it will not be
pleasing to him.
Exodus 23: 20
" Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring
you into the place which I have prepared.
21 "Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke
Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in
Him. 22 "But if you
indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your
enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.
23 "For My Angel will go before you and bring you in to
the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the
Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will cut them off.
The word angel simply
messenger and can refer to a earthy
messenger or a heavenly messenger. Some would say that messenger being
spoken of here was Moses. Other say that is referring to pre-incarnate Jesus
Christ. Personally I think it’s the latter because God says this messengers has his name in him
which to me indicates that he is deity. Also you will notice that he has the
ability forgive sins which again is an attribute of deity. The message is clear if they will obey his voice then God
will take care of their enemies. Over and over again you see the God demands
obedience to his word.
24
"You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to
their works; but you shall utterly overthrow them and completely break down
their sacred pillars. 25
"So you shall serve the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and
your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you. 26 "No one shall suffer
miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your
days. 27 " I will send
My fear before you, I will cause confusion among all the people to whom you
come, and will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. 28 "And I will send hornets
before you, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite
from before you.
God has already called
himself a Jealous God back in Exodus 20.
We see from this text that he doesn’t want the children of
29
"I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land
become desolate and the beast of the field become too numerous for you. 30 "Little by little I will
drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and you inherit the
land. 31 "And I will set
your bounds from the
Here we see Gods
wonderful wisdom. God had the power to destroy all of these nation at once but
he did not. He did it slowly as they came to each enemy so they could reap the
most befit from each location. Again God warns them about serving their enemies
false Gods.
Exodus 24: 3
So Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD and all the judgments.
And all the people answered with one voice and said, "All the words which
the LORD has said we will do." 4
And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD. And he rose early in the morning,
and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars according to
the twelve tribes of
Once again we find the
children of
Exodus 24:9 9 Then Moses went up, also Aaron,
Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, 10 and they saw the God of
Now this interesting
section of scripture indeed. First of all it says that these men saw God.
Obviously what they saw had to be a representation him and not God himself in
full glory because Exodus 19:21-24 stated that they would die if the saw the
Lord.
Exodus 33:20 But He
said, "You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and
live." 21 And the LORD
said, "Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. 22 "So it shall be, while My
glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover
you with My hand while I pass by. 23
"Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face
shall not be seen."
Man could not behold God
face or they would die. Based on the scripture they could part of Gods glory
but they could not see him full glory. These men also had the privilege to see
this beautiful paved work which they said was like the heavens. What a
wonderful blessing these men received not only did they get to see God they ate
and drank in his presence. Now you would think that this would have caused
these men to be very faithful to God having the experience but we all know that Nadab and Abihu would
later on defile commandments and pay with their lives. Some people say that if
they could see God then they would believe and do what God says. While that
might be true is some cases it is not true in all cases because even if saw him
today and had no doubt that he existed and that the Bible truly was his word there would still plenty that will still
not follow after God. Thomas the apostles was a man thought he had to see Jesus
with his eyes in order to believe.
John 20:25-
"Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into
the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not
believe." 26 And after
eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came,
the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, "Peace to
you!" 27 Then He said to
Thomas, "Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand
here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but
believing." 28 And
Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" 29 Jesus said to him,
"Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those
who have not seen and yet have believed."
None of here will ever
experience the miracles or the privilege of seeing Jesus or audibly hearing
Gods voice. While it would fascinating and privilege to behold such things it
is necessary for us to believe because we have our faith that all the things
the Bible has said is true. It not a blind faith because both internal and
external evidence shows the Bible to be
true. Just a Jesus said blessed are those who have not seen yet have believed.
12
Then the LORD said to Moses, "Come up to Me on the mountain and be there;
and I will give you tablets of stone, and the law and commandments which I have
written, that you may teach them." 13
So Moses arose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up to the
Moses goes up to receive
the law and commandments and God himself with his finger will write the10
commandments of tablets of stone. Moses
is upon the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights and during this time according to Deut 9:4 he did not eat or drink. We all know that the human body
cannot survive that long without water so I can assume that while he was in
presence of God that God miraculously sustained his body at this time.