Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
I had never noticed what God was saying to Moses in Exodus 19:9 until this morning as I was reading that part of the Bible. In that verse, God said that He was going to speak out loud to Moses so all Israel would hear Him speaking. The point of that, God said, was to help Israel believe in Moses! He knew that if they believed Moses, they would do what they had to do to receive the great blessing he had promised them! This happened in the next chapter, when God, in thunderous tones, spoke the Ten Commandments out loud to Moses. The Israelites, gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai, heard Him speaking.
God’s voice was too much for the Israelites, though. After the tenth commandment was spoken, they backed away from the mountain and pleaded with Moses to go up the mountain and talk to God by himself, and then come back down to tell them what He had said (Ex. 20:18–22; Dt. 5:23–27). In other words, God had accomplished His purpose, for Israel now trusted Moses, as never before, to speak for God – and God was pleased with that. All along, God’s goal was for them to receive their blessing, not to show off His powerful vocal chords, and now, with their renewed confidence in Moses, they were more likely to receive it!
I enjoy finding new bits of information in the Bible after all these years of reading it. Today, my blessing was to discover that God loved Israel so much that He promised Moses that He would speak out loud to him so that Israel would believe him and follow him to the land that God had promised Abraham He would give to his descendants.