Now notice, this is kind of, we could say, a preamble to the covenant, and He is telling them, "Okay look, you guys have seen what I did. You have seen My intentions. You know that I come to your aid and give you the things that you need. You've seen enough to know what I'm like. And so I'll make a deal with you." And here He gives an if/then type of sentence: "If you will obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you'll be to Me a special people," and He will make them into a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
So He is setting things up. Look, you have got enough evidence for making a decision here. You have seen how powerful I am and how much I am on your side. All I ask of you is to obey My voice and keep My covenant. That is our deal in broad terms. And then I will give you these blessings, making you a kingdom of priests and a holy people.
This is the grounds, you might say, the foundation for why He comes down on the mount and gives them the Ten Commandments and the ensuing covenant that is in the next few chapters. But He is laying it out in very large parameters here.
We talked about God setting up the situation and that He wanted to formalize the relationship with the children of Israel, which, you know, in terms of the covenant, required their obedience and then His reciprocal blessing of them.
But I want you to understand too that from the very get-go here, from those broad parameters that He gave about this covenant, He said, "I will make you a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." He is telling them right up front, "This is spiritual. This is a spiritual covenant, and I will make you spiritual people to do My work."
Now they were still physical people, but their work was spiritual in nature as priests and holy people. He did not say in this particular place that He was going to make them a great nation with great armies and be able to conquer everybody. He says right away, My purpose is spiritual. They were a physical people, and it went in one ear and right out the other, but they agreed to it. And so He went forward with this.
Marriage throughout the Bible is pictured as the closest of relationships, and I want to spend a few minutes at this moment focusing on the type of the bride of Christ. It appears in the Old Covenant God made with Israel.
These are fairly well known scriptures to us all, but I would like us to take a few minutes looking at this relationship that God had with a physical people, although I do not want to dwell on this other than to show that God's selection is on the part of Israel, what He is going to do with them going forward, but I just want to show what He gives us in type in Israel.
Here is the beginning of a betrothal promise between God and physical Israel. This is a type of our betrothal promise. It is a type of the eternal betrothal mutually made with Christ and spiritual Israel.
They had promised, a physical nation, a type for us, to be His holy and righteous people.
We have advanced to the place chronologically to where God formally proposes an agreement with them in which He will be their ruler (governor, king) if they will consent to be obedient. There is the "if." How many times have you heard the statement that "God will not save anybody He cannot rule"? If a person does not voluntarily consent to be ruled by God, then God will not be that person's Governor, King, Ruler, or Savior.
That appears right here in the Old Covenant, and these people gave their consent. Now notice the next thing that happened. Please, if you do not get anything else out of the sermon, please, get this! (And remember this, because it becomes very important to the Christian.)
