Sermon Tone Analysis

Rules of Engagement

Rules of Engagement

Our story so far: God cast aside the nations and their peoples at Babel.

The lesser gods assigned to them took dominion ().

When God started over with Abraham, it was clear that he planned to one day reclaim the nations through the influence of Israel ().

But the gods of the nations would have to be forced to surrender their power and worship ().

That meant conflict—in both the seen and unseen realms.

As soon as there was an Israel, she was in the crosshairs of the gods.

Who Is Yahweh?

It doesn’t take long in the biblical story for Israel to wind up in a precarious position.

The story of Joseph () explains why Israel went to Egypt.

God’s providence turned the harm intended Joseph by his brothers to the salvation of Israel from famine (; ).

That God didn’t tell Israel to leave Egypt right away was also intentional.

God knew the pharaoh who honored Joseph would die and be replaced by an enemy ().

He had foreseen that Egypt would put the Israelites into forced labor ().

He also knew he would rescue Israel when the time was right ().

But why wait?

God always has a good reason for suffering.

We just can’t always see it.

In this case, though, Scripture makes it clear.

After Moses had fled Egypt and taken up residence in the wilderness, God called him at the burning bush () to send him back to Egypt.

His orders were simple: Tell Pharaoh “Let my people go” ().

Pharaoh had other ideas.

He was god in the flesh in Egypt, the emblem of all its glory and power.

He wasn’t going to let some invisible God of Hebrew shepherds tell him what to do.

He didn’t even know whether the God of Moses was real.

He mockingly replied, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go?” ().

He was about to get an answer—one that would hurt.

God had set him up.

God had told Moses, “I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go” ().

God had a fight to pick.

After they had oppressed the Israelites for centuries, it was time for Egypt and its gods to be punished.

Pharaoh’s hardening was part of that plot.

The Bible tells us the plagues were aimed at Egypt’s gods—especially the last one, the death of the firstborn (; ), which turned out to be a direct assault on Pharaoh’s house: “At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock” ().

Pharaoh had mocked God, and the tables had been drastically turned.

As Paul would later put it, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap” ().

The pounding Egypt took on the way to the Israelites’ release from Egypt had the desired effect.

People as far away as Canaan heard about the thrashing Israel’s God had given Egypt and its gods (; compare to ; ).

Jethro, Moses’ Midianite father-in-law, summed up the lesson when Moses finally returned: “Now I know that Yahweh is greater than all the gods” ( leb).

It’s no wonder then that Moses, on the other side of the Red Sea, asked his own rhetorical question, mocking Pharaoh and his lost army: Who is like the Lord among the gods?

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Once out of Egypt and through the Red Sea, the Israelites knew where they were headed.

They were going to meet their God at his latest earthly home and headquarters, Mount Sinai.

In truth, the Israelites didn’t know much about God.

There was no Bible at all in the days of the exodus.

The only knowledge the Israelites had about God they had gained through stories they’d heard from their parents, passed down from generation to generation.

Reading the story now in the Bible, we can clearly see what God was up to.

The Israelites had a lot to learn.

Sinai was the classroom.

Israel—God’s Family and Earthly Representatives

When Moses had stood before Pharaoh, before the exodus, he told him God had a message: “Israel is my son, my firstborn … release my son and let him serve me” ( leb).

That idea of God having a son—in this case, referring to all of Abraham’s descendants—is important.

It takes us back to God’s creation of Adam and Eve.

God wanted a human family.

He wanted to live on his creation, earth, with the people he had made.

He wanted his unseen family and his human family to live with him and serve him.

He wanted people to multiply and for all the earth to become like Eden.

But when God forsook humanity at the Tower of Babel, he had no children—until he called Abraham.

Israel was God’s new family.

It was time to get back to the original plan.

As Adam and Eve had been God’s earthly imagers, Israel would now fill that role.

Going back to Sinai was a homecoming.

Even the heavenly council was there, watching as God’s plan was put back into motion.

They were witnesses to a new covenant between God and his people—the Law.

The Law of God—Delivered by God’s Council

Did it surprise you when I said the heavenly council was present at Sinai when God delivered the Ten Commandments?

If you’ve ever seen a movie about the exodus and the trip to Sinai, you didn’t see angels.

But the Bible says they were there.

It even says they delivered God’s law (; ).

It also says the Law was written “with the finger of God” ().

That language should be familiar—God in human form.

God was on Sinai, appearing as a man, just like the stories in Genesis about the Angel of the Lord.

He and his heavenly host gave the Law to Moses and to Israel.

After the giving of the Law, Moses, Aaron, Aaron’s sons, and seventy of Israel’s elders got to see the God of Israel in human form again.

This time they met for a meal ().

Just as the Last Supper in Jesus’ time sealed the new covenant of his blood, this meal celebrated God’s new covenant with Israel on Sinai—the Law.

God gave Israel the Law so they would be holy ().

He wanted Israel to be set apart from other people, distinguishable to everyone as his own family.

As God is completely distinct from all other gods and everything earthly, so God’s people needed to be distinct from other people.

What did holiness mean?

What was the concept behind it?

Holiness did not mean being odd.

Holiness was to be identified with the Lord, to be dedicated to God and to enjoy all the good things in life that come with being right with God.

God wanted Israel to attract the other nations to come back to him (; ).

This is why the Bible calls Israel a “kingdom of priests” () and “a light for the nations” (; ; see also 51:4; 60:3).

The entire nation inherited the position of Abraham to be a blessing to all the nations ().

Believing Loyalty

Being right with God is another way of talking about salvation.

But despite what we’ve often been taught in Sunday school, salvation didn’t come to Israelites by obeying rules, by following the Law.

Whether in the Old Testament or the New, salvation is never earned, or even deserved.

It’s given by the grace of God in response to faith.

Israelites too, just like those of us born after Christ’s death and resurrection, had to have faith.

They had to believe their God was the God of all gods, trusting that he had made them his people.

They alone had access to the God of gods.

The Law was not how Israelites achieved salvation—it was how they showed loyalty to the God they believed in.

Salvation for an Israelite was about faith in the promises and character of the God of gods and about refusing to worship another god.

It was about belief and loyalty from the heart, not earning brownie points with God.

King David did awful things like commit adultery and arrange a murder ().

According to the Law, he was a lawbreaker and deserved to die for his crimes.

Even so, he never wavered in his belief in Yahweh as the Most High God.

He never switched his loyalty to another god.