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Articles, Bible studies, and sermons that contain Exodus 19:5:
The Sabbath Committed to the HebrewsExodus 19:1-6
Excerpted from: Jesus in the Feasts (Part Three): Divine KingNow 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.
Exodus 19:5-6
Excerpted from: The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Eight)And so this revelation of the law was necessary—in order to prepare them, and to set the rules for the relationship between them. It was to prepare them so that they would be fit to live in their inheritance. So it did not save them. God did that. But it was to prepare them. But look at this:
As we can readily see, it didn't prepare them—because they did not believe God. They were uncircumcised in heart; and, therefore, they refused to live by it.
Notice all the future tense words here. (That is, "future" from the time period of Exodus 19.) First of all, they were already holy in the sense that they had been chosen by God. They had been separated away from the Egyptians, separated away from the world. God was going to use them for something. But they never became sanctified in the second sense, because that would be accomplished only if they lived God's way. And so they never made it to be a kingdom of priests. They never made it to be a holy nation. Again, it is the same with us!
Exodus 19:5-6
Excerpted from: Glorifying GodThe children of Israel were being called by God, and they were going to be a special people He purchased for Himself. Now what were the requirements of Israel to be a special people to God? They were to obey His voice. They were to receive revelation or instruction from Him, and they were to act according to that instruction, and not according to their own reason, understanding, and desires. They were to be obedient to God. They must keep His covenant and be faithful, not just to the Ten Commandments, but to all the statutes and ordinances, as much as possible, even to the intent behind those.
They were to be a special treasure, or an inheritance, or heritage. They would be a people over whom God would have total control. We in America do not like anyone to have total control over us. He would have exclusive right to order their lives, and though all the peoples on the earth were His, it was this people that He chose to hold as special because of Him giving them His laws which they were to obey and live by.
Exodus 19:1-8
Excerpted from: The Bride of Christ (Part One)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.
Exodus 19:4-8
Excerpted from: Government (Part One)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.)
Exodus 19:3-6
Excerpted from: The Kingdom of GodWe will not go into Helel's part in all of this, but rather I want to show that physical Israel is a type of the Kingdom of God. Notice what God says in His preamble to the Ten Commandments.
He was offering them a chance to be in His Kingdom in a physical way to show us what things were like. You might want to go see later I Corinthians 10:11 where Paul tells us that all these things happened to them as examples to us for our admonition, so we could learn and understand how God works. In many cases with Israel, it was so we could learn and understand what not to do. Much of the time they were a better negative example than a positive one. But He said that they were His Kingdom.
Exodus 19:3-8
Excerpted from: The Holiness CodeVerse 5 seems to say that if you keep the law and the covenant, then you will be holy. But that is kind of backwards. It is really not what it says, because by making the covenant, God made them holy. He set them apart. And then the keeping of the law that they did was a response to being God's sanctified people, set apart. We do not want to get the cart before the horse here. God was the One that set them apart, sanctified them to be His holy people, and then the keeping of the law kept them in that position.
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