Weekly Recap #4 - Exodus 16 - 33

Actually...this should be thru Exodus 36....but....when you've got 2 little loving grandsons spending the evening with you....well....you understand....I hope!!! 
I'll start with Exodus 34 next week for our recap!!!

This is the part of scripture....that gets very detailed and sometimes looses me a little bit.  A dear friend gave me a study that she had on the building of The Ark of the Covenant and The Temple and all the contents....and I really liked one of the statements I read in it:

"Great and marvelous as is Creation with its mysteries and its wonders, yet, only one chapter of Genesis is given to explain the details of Creation, while fifteen chapters in Exodus are required to record the details of the sacred building and its solemn uses.  Greater is the story of Redemption than the the story of Creation with its sublime ideas and its far reaching results".

So...let's get started, because we have a LOT of ground to cover!!!

~~~As hard a time as the Israelites had in Egypt...they still chose to complain about Moses and Aaron and their lack of food and that they should have just stayed in Egypt!!!

You know this really bothered me to read this...but....the reason it did was probably because I could relate.  You know that old saying about the faults we see in others are usually our own?!?!?

Well...I think it definitely applies here!!

To feed the people, the Lord supplied manna and quail each day...just enough for that day...and if they got greedy and collected more than their family needed...then, it spoiled.  On the sixth day, He supplied enough for that day and for the Sabbath!!

I read in one of my commentaries that "we resist a lifestyle where we depend on God each day to supply our needs.  We want things in advance so we can feel independent"!!

~~~God supplied them with food...but then, they complained of no water. God instructed Moses to strike the rock and water would rush out.  This reminds me of Jesus being struck in the side with a sword while on the cross.

~~~The Amalekites were fighting the Israelites and Moses instructed Joshua to take men and fight them.  Moses stood at the top of a hill holding the staff of God in his hand....as long as he held it up in the air, the Israelites were winning...but when he dropped his hand, the Amalekites would win.  Moses' arms got so tired that he couldn't hold them up, so Aaron and Hur had Moses sit on a stone and they held up his hands, steady until sunset, and Joshua and his army won the battle!!

Now...this reminded me of Jesus' outstretched arms on the cross....and how He won the battle for us!!!

~~~Jethro, Moses' father-in-law,  advised Moses that he needed help because he wasn't able to handle all the concerns of the people.  He told him to appoint men as leaders over groups of people to solve minor problems, but to bring the major disputes to Moses.  This brought to mind a couple of things....how so many times we just won't ask for help, and there's not a thing wrong with it, if we're overwhelmed with too much....and also it reminds me of how our churches are today....we have deacons, or elders, who take on the minor problems that come up!!!

~~~God appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai and gave him the commandments and rules and regulations that the Israelites were to obey.  He appeared to Moses in a dark thick cloud so that the people could hear.  I loved how Exodus 23:2 reminded me of warnings that my own Mom gave me growing up:

Exodus 23:2 (NLT) - “You must not follow the crowd in doing wrong."

The children of Israel were given the promise of the Lord's protection only if they obeyed His commandments...and they made the covenant with Him by having several ceremonial activities....one of which was a covenant meal....which reminded me of The Lord's Supper....and the fact that most churches find about anything that goes on as an occasion to EAT!!!  ha! ha!

~~~God instructed Moses to have the people to bring all their sacred offerings to build the tabernacle.  He gave Moses the plans for the Ark of the Covenant to hold the stone tablets and also the plans for a cover for it, along with the plans for the tabernacle, the Table for Shew bread, the Golden Lampstand, the Altar of Burnt Offering, the priestly robes, the Incense Altar, the wash basin where the priests washed their hands and feet before they entered the tabernacle.  I won't go into detail as to how each of these were supposed to look...but it totally amazed me as to the quality of the craftsmanship that many thousands of years ago!!!  I looked up pictures of what each might have looked like...and they were beautiful!!!  Only God!!!

~~~God gave instructions to observe the Sabbath:

• it was to be a holy day dedicated to the Lord
• anyone who desecrated the day was to be put to death
• no work was to be done on the Sabbath day
• it was a day of complete rest
• God had made heaven and earth in 6 days, but rested on the 7th day

When I was a little girl....stores weren't open on Sunday's.  Even though I'm guilty of shopping on Sunday.....not actually "going shopping"...but stopping in to pick up groceries, or eating out....I love the fact that Hobby Lobby and Chic-Fil-A are closed on Sunday's.  And...they were made fun of and told they would never make it because they would loose so much business by not staying open on Sunday!!!

~~~While Moses was on Mt. Sinai (40 days and nights)...the people got restless. 

This just amazed me, too, how they could have done such a complete turn around in only 40 days!!!!  But...isn't that  the same for us today....we don't have enough patience to wait on the Lord and sometimes take matters into our own hands!!  So...the people asked Aaron to make them  gods (notice this is spelled with a small "g").  Aaron took gold from the people and made a golden calf.  They made a mockery of God by getting drunk and performing sexual sins around this golden image.  God knew what was going on (of course He did!!!)....and he was angry and threatened to destroy the people.  Moses pleaded for them and the Lord changed His mind.  Moses was so angry when he came down from the mountain that he threw the stone tablets down and broke them.  One  commentary I read said this could represent the broken covenant with God.  He burned the golden  calf and ground it into powder and made the people drink it.  Aaron denied any responsibility, claiming that the calf came up out of the fire.  Have you ever noticed....how sometimes we can convince ourselves of something that is so totally wrong....isn't that called "JUSTIFICATION"?!?!?!?  And....that can be translated into "just as if I hadn't sinned"!!!!

~~~3,000 Israelites who refused to follow the Lord were killed by their brothers, friends and neighbors who chose to follow God!!!! 

Sometimes God asks us to forsake those  close to us to serve Him!!!

Moses went back up on the mountain to obtain forgiveness of their sins...in other words....he was the go-between.  Jesus did away with any need for us to have to go to someone else....we can go DIRECTLY to JESUS!!!  The Lord sent a plague on the people for their sins.  He commanded that the people quit wearing jewelry and fine clothes because they were in mourning for their sin!!!

I know this is a lot to read....and I've truly tried to just give you some high-lights...but it's sooooo interesting!!!  I'm really loving reading the Bible each evening with Pappy and sharing our thoughts.  We're each reading from a different version of the Bible and we'll share the commentaries from our version!!!

Hope those of you who are following along are loving it, too!!!

In His Most Precious Love....and with mine!!!