I do want to read the whole chapter, so beginning in Exodus 34 at verse 1. So be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself to me there on the top of the mountain. And no man shall come up with you, and let no man be seen throughout all the mountain. Let neither flocks nor herds feed before that mountain. So he cut two tablets of stone like the first ones. Then Moses rose early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him. And he took in his hand the two tablets of stone. Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. Then he said, if now I have found grace in your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as your inheritance. And he said, behold, I make a covenant, before all your people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord. For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you. Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I am driving out from before you the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hivite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst. But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images. For you shall worship no other god. For the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with their gods, and make sacrifice to their gods. And one of them invites you, and you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters play the harlot with their gods, and make your sons play the harlot with their gods. You shall make no molded gods for yourselves. The feast of unleavened bread you shall keep. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you in the appointed time of the month of Abib. For in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt. All that open the womb are mine, and every male firstborn among your livestock, whether ox or sheep. But the firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, and if you will not redeem him, then you shall break his neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem, and none of you shall appear before me empty-handed. Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. And you shall observe the feast of weeks, of the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end. Three times in the year all your men shall appear before the Lord, the Lord God of Israel. For I will cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders. Neither will any man covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year. You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, nor shall the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover be left until morning. The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.' Then the Lord said to Moses, Write these words, for according to the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel. So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses' hand when he came down from the mountain, that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. Afterward, all the children of Israel came near, and he gave them as commandments all that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil off until he came out. And he would come out and speak to the children of Israel, whatever he had been commanded. And whenever the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone, then Moses would put the veil on his face again until he went in to speak with him. Amen. Well, as we have been considering, we've seen this sort of digression in terms of the narrative. So after the giving of the Decalogue in Exodus chapter 20, and then the judicial law in chapters 21 to 23, and the ratification of the covenant in chapter 24, you then have God give ceremonial law, legislation in terms of worship, how the children of Israel are supposed to meet with their God. So chapters 25 to 31 give the instructions concerning the tabernacle. Chapters 32 to 34 are a bit of a digression, and then we'll return to chapter 35 and following where they actually build the tabernacle. But what happens in chapter 32 is we remember is that the children of Israel defect from God, they break the covenant, they depart from Him by engaging in idolatry. So here in chapter 34 we have first the revelation of God's glory, second the renewal of God's covenant, and then thirdly the reflection of God's glory. But in the last time, in verses 1 to 10, remember that God called Moses up on the mount once again. So in Exodus chapter 19, Moses goes up to the mount. And then in Exodus 24 at verses 12 and following, Moses goes back up to the mount and there he is for 40 days. And it's then that he comes back down to see the children of Israel engaged in this idolatry before the golden calf, and that's when he casts down the two tablets of the covenant. So God tells him, come back up to Mount Sinai. We learn from the reading of the passage here that he's up there for 40 days and 40 nights, and he is to take these two tablets, and there is this renewal of the covenants. We're going to look at that first in terms of verses 10 to 28. So we've got this renewal of God's covenant, which is a demonstration of what God has already stated concerning His perfections. Remember that chapter 33 ends with Moses asking God to show him His glory. Notice in 33.18, Please show me your glory. And then God said, I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. So chapter 34 is when that comes to pass, when that is realized. Notice in verse 5 of chapter 34, Now the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. He doesn't just tell us these perfections, he doesn't just describe these attributes, he doesn't just say, this is what I am essentially, this is what I am by nature. But in verses 10 and following, he demonstrates that. The fact that these people who had ratified the covenant in chapter 24, and then had broken it completely in chapter 32, now have God forgiving them and cleansing them and renewing this covenant with them, demonstrates the legitimacy of all that you find there in terms of the revelation of his perfections. He is merciful, he is gracious, he is long-suffering, he does abound in goodness and truth, and he does keep mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. That is precisely what the text demonstrates in terms of the way that he deals with the children of Israel. So notice in the renewal of God's covenant. First that covenant renewed in verses 10 to 16. Verse 10, behold I make a covenant. This is the language I cut a covenant. He's not making a brand new covenant. He is renewing the covenant that was extant. The covenant that had been made and as I said ratified in chapter 24. So that broken covenant is referred to, or I'm sorry. Behold, I make a covenant before all your people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth nor in any nation and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord. So he's renewing that which he had previously purposed to carry out. Again, we have this digression or we have this interruption in terms of their defection and in terms of their sin. But the covenant is renewed by God himself. Stuart says this was not merely the sort of covenant renewal, it is a covenant renewal, but it's not similar to the ones that will come in subsequent history. He says this was not merely the sort of covenant renewal that would take place at various times in Israel's history either. This was rather a divine restoration of a broken covenant, one that had been made temporarily null and void by Israel's corporate return to idolatry as described in chapter 32. So it is a renewal, it is a restoration, it is an exhibition or demonstration of God's mercy, God's grace, God's long-suffering, and God's abounding in goodness and truth. And then in terms of the plan of God, when he says, before all your people, I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation. That's not an understatement. You've all read the Pentateuch. You've read from Exodus 34 on. You see lots of mighty exploits done by God on behalf of the children of Israel in terms of wilderness wanderings, in terms of the defeat of their enemies, in terms of God's provision for them, God's sustenance of them, God's preservation of them, and ultimately God's presence among them. So what he says here again is not an understatement. There will be marvels done such as have not been done in all the earth nor in any nation, and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord." Remember Rahab the harlot, she was not brand new to the religion of Yahweh. She knew, she understood, she had those spies in light of the fact of what she had heard about the God of Israel who delivered his people powerfully from the land of Egypt. So the nations around were getting wind of what this great God in Israel was all about. So he announces the great works of God, and then he describes those works in particular in verse 11. And this is reminiscent of chapter 23, verse 23. As you read here, or as we read here, or as we go through this material tonight, we'll see it's quite the review. And that makes perfect sense because it's a renewal of or a restoration of the covenant that they had broken. Those tablets that were destroyed that signified their defection and their apostasy. So this emphasis on law in terms of the covenant people to separate them from the nations that they were going in to dispossess, this is absolutely legitimate. So notice what he says in verse 11. Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I am driving out from before you the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Again, that's reminiscent of what's already been announced in chapter 23 at verse 23. They're going into a land that God is giving them based on his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's a free gift. It's an inheritance for them. They're to go in, they're to dispossess the land of the Canaanites, and then they're to carve up that land, divide up that land, and allot it to the various tribes in Israel. Now, when it comes to God's driving out these foreign nations, remember that it wasn't by way of invitation. It wasn't just asking. It was rather to tell the children of Israel to go in and dispossess the land of Canaan. In other words, conquer them, destroy them, and that leads us now to consider the prohibitions given by God in verses 12 to 16. They weren't going to just go into the land of Canaan and win the people over with their wonderful personality and just ask them, will you please leave now? Because our God has said that he's going to give us this land. No, they're going to have to dispossess the land. They're going to have to break things and kill people. And that is precisely what God says relative to the conquest. It is that. It's a conquest. They were to go in and they were to conquer. Notice this prohibition against covenants with the heathen. Notice in verse 12. Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst. It would obviously be a snare in their midst if they covenanted with the heathen. You covenant with the heathen, the next step is that you're going to worship with the heathen. So don't covenant with them and don't worship with them because God the Lord is your Lord and you're not supposed to defect from Him. You're not supposed to depart from Him. And then with reference to the destruction of the heathen, notice in verses 13 to 16. You shall destroy their altars. You see what he says? Not go in and ask them politely to please leave, pack up their altars and go away because our God wants you to leave now. No, you're to go in and destroy them. Now when you compare this particular section with Deuteronomy 7, Deuteronomy 7 is a bit more amplified in terms of the injunction or commandment relative to holy war. But you get the point here. Notice, you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images. Now notice parenthetically, for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. Now we see that connected to the second commandment, this idea or expression of the jealousy of God. And we can understand this prohibition against worshipping with the Canaanites, because if you allow them the presence to be in the land and to maintain their altars, it won't be long before Israelites are worshipping with them. Use the illustration last week, your neighbors are heathen, your neighbors are pagan, they pray to Baal and it happens to rain. And then you conclude, well, it's a good thing. I'll pray to Baal too, because then it might rain for me. Baal was the storm god. So if you see the pagans praying to Baal, and it just so happens to rain, there's that cause and effect, or at least it looks like to the Israelite, then he might take up praying to Baal. He's not rejecting wholesale Yahweh. Remember, we've seen that a lot of the idolatry in the Old Testament wasn't a complete eradication of Yahweh, but it was more likely and more often syncretism. It was Yahweh plus Baal, Yahweh plus Asherah, Yahweh plus Molech, Yahweh plus whatever God was able to deliver, whatever it is that the worshipper wanted at that particular time. So God's word is very clear. Go in and destroy their sacred spaces. Why? Because you shall worship no other God, for the Lord whose name is Jealous is a jealous God. Listen to John Gill. He says, His name and nature answer to one another. His name and nature answer to one another. Remember, all that is in God is God. He admits of no rival or competitor in worship. He will not give his glory to another god or one so-called, nor his praise to graven images. And in this he is distinguished from all nominal and fictitious gods, who have many joined with them and are rivals of them, which gives them no concern, because insensible. But it is otherwise with the Lord, who knows the dishonor done him, and resents it, and is as jealous of any worship being given to another, as the husband is of the honor of his marriage bed. For idolatry is spiritual adultery, as is suggested in the following verse. Notice what it says, verse 15. The scriptures, the Old Testament is filled with this particular image. It is spiritual harlotry, adultery, to engage in idolatry. The prophets speak of it as going a-whoring from God, departing from the true and living God, and seeking out that which is not God. Matthew Poole comments on verse 14, whose name is Jealous, who hath made himself known by and glories in that name, the Jealous God, who cannot endure any competitor or co-rival. whereas the false and puny gods of the heathens were contented with multitudes of partners. So this is properly said to be the name of God, whereby he is known and distinguished from all other gods." So the reason for this prohibition against religious sort of alliances is because it will lead you into idolatry. And then notice you're to avoid social alliances as well, as verse 16 makes clear. And you take of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters play the harlot with their gods, and make your sons play the harlot with their gods. So you see the problem. If you make religious alliances, you're going to be worshipping their gods. You make social alliances, you're going to be worshipping their gods. Well, Deuteronomy 7 indicates political alliances are also a prohibition by God. If you want to turn to Deuteronomy 7, as I mentioned, it's a bit of a more amplified version of the mandate for holy war. So 7-1, when the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you. Don't forget that. They are greater and mightier than you. How is it that Israel is going to combat these foes? Well, it's God who's going to go before them. It's God who's going to fight for them. It's God who is going to vanquish His enemies on behalf of His covenant people. The Lord promises to give them the land. The Lord is going to give them the grace, the ability, and the power to get that land. As I've said, you go through the book of Joshua, it's very favorable. God does fight, God does battle, God does vanquish enemies. You get to the book of Judges, it's not so wonderful anymore. You see the nation of Israel taking on the characteristics of the Canaanites. They were supposed to dispossess the land of the Canaanites, but they didn't do that fully, and now they become like the Canaanites. But back to our text here, it says, and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them. And again, notice, utterly destroyed that. The mandate wasn't to go in and leave a bunch of them. I realize that people hear this today and they say, oh, this is terrible that the God of heaven and earth has commanded genocide. you know, go exterminate those poor Canaanites, those poor innocent people that were just doing their thing. They weren't poor innocent people. The book of Leviticus highlights why God used Israel to go in and dispossess the land. They were wicked, they were vile, they were wretched, they engaged in all manner of lawlessness. And as I said, when Israel takes on the characteristic of the Canaanites, The same mandate comes. The Assyrians vanquish the northern kingdom, and then the Babylonians vanquish the southern kingdom. So God is not capricious. He's not arbitrary. You act like a Canaanite, and you're a Canaanite, you're going to get dispossessed from the land. If you're an Israelite, and you act like a Canaanite, you're going to get dispossessed from the land. That's God's rule in God's world. So when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them, nor shall you show mercy to them, nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. Why? For they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods. So the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly. But thus you shall deal with them. You shall destroy their altars and break down their sacred pillars and cut down their wooden images and burn their carved images with fire. So no religious, no social, no political covenants with them. No alliances with the people in the land, because if you do, you'll be led astray. Now obviously, as we move through the rest of the subsequent history, they don't obey this. They don't do this. They do leave Canaanites in the land, and they do worship alongside of those Canaanites, even to the point where Solomon married a thousand women, and those wives led his heart away from Yahweh. So what God says here is preventative maintenance. Preventative maintenance is only as good as the person who receives it takes it and engages in it. So God demands in terms of their entrance into the promised land that they vanquish the enemies. They were not to play the harlot with their gods. So that's the covenant renewed under the renewal of God's covenant. But notice the various laws reviewed in verses 17 to 28. We should expect review. We should expect renewal. We should expect another statement concerning their obligation to the living and true God. So Moses takes the two tablets up to the mountain, and it's God who writes the Ten Commandments on those tablets. We see that in verse 28. This other legislation, Moses keeps the Book of the Covenant. Moses keeps track of the ceremonial, the judicial law. It is the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments that are written with the finger of God. And remember that both tablets contain the entirety of the law. They were duplicate copies. One for Yahweh, one for Israel. Both were placed in the Ark of the Testimony, or in the Ark of the Covenant. This is the way that ancient Near Eastern people engaged in covenant. You had a sacred space, you had sacred documents, you put them in that space, and that is precisely what God is calling upon the nation of Israel to do here, vis-a-vis these tablets, and vis-a-vis the Book of the Covenant that Moses is recording. So when we go through this review of the laws, it's obviously the question to ask, well, why these particular ones? I don't know. I don't have the specific answer. But I do think it's calculated to promote on the part of the people this respect for the God of the Covenant. And the particular laws that are mentioned here, by way of ceremonial, they are moral to be sure, but by way of ceremonial seems to me to be connected to this reality that they are a separate people, separate from the heathen. Remember when they go into the promised land, there's ceremonial law that's not extant today. The prohibition against shellfish was for them. It's not for us anymore. There's nothing inherently wrong with eating a shrimp. There's nothing inherently wrong with eating a lobster. except the price, most of us can't afford it, but with reference to those ceremonial laws, what did it do? It separated the nation from the nations around them. That holiness code needs to be approached in that particular manner. It's not the case that there's something extra godly about not eating pork, or there's something extra holy about not doing so-and-so. There were ceremonial laws connected to the sanctification or the setting apart of the nation of Israel, so that they wouldn't be like the nations around them. In our Saturday morning studies, we're going through the covenants, the various historical covenants throughout the scripture. And with reference to the old covenant, it was a means that God used to sort of hedge the people in, to keep them under wraps, to tutor them until the time of the Messiah. And when the Messiah comes, that Old Covenant is abrogated. Not because it was bad, but because it had fulfilled its particular role. It gives way to the New Covenant, where that kind of detailed legislation over every jot and tittle of our lives is not necessary. Under the child tutor, we surmise that Israel, Old Covenant Israel, was a child. In this New Covenant Israel, which is the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, there isn't that specific legislation about everything connected to civil life. And so there is some fundamental difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. But in terms of the Old Covenant here, the particular laws are calculated to promote on the part of the people obedience to Yahweh, a rejection of the gods of the nations around them, and faithfulness in terms of their walk before God. So notice in the first place the prohibition of idolatry. Seems a good place to start in verse 17, especially in light of the calf incident in chapter 32. Notice, you shall make no molded gods for yourselves. That's the second commandment. The first commandment defines the object of worship. The second commandment defines the manner of worship. So even though in Exodus 32 they predicated of that golden calf that it was Yahweh, that is to violate the commandment. Just because you say it's the proper object of worship, but then you worship it by this golden calf, you are guilty of the sin of idolatry. You've broken the law. And so coming out of that situation in Exodus 32, a repetition of the first commandment here, or the second commandment, really ought not to surprise us. You shall have no other gods before me or besides me, the first commandment stipulates, and then the second demands how we are to worship it. We're not supposed to make images. We're not supposed to fashion calves. We're not supposed to throw gold into the forge and out comes this calf and we bow down to it and sing before it and dance in front of it and ascribe to it the power of having liberated us from the bondage in Egypt. That is strictly prohibited. Now this would be a real life temptation when they go into the land of Canaan. One commentator says, when Israel came into Canaan, the people would immediately be confronted with the whole apparatus of cult worship. The Canaanites had their places of sacrifice and sacred stones, standing stone pillars that somehow represented a deity. They also had wooden poles which symbolized the fertility goddess Asherah. Asherah was sort of one of the girlfriends to Baal. So that's why the worshippers of Baal would fornicate or copulate because that would get the pump primed and then Baal and his consort would engage in the same and then there would be this rain and this fertility produced on the land. But back to this man. Out of wood and stone they cut idols of their gods. All these were the outward expression of Canaanite religious belief. Israel had one God, one Lord, who was not to be depicted in any way by idols. In accordance with the instruction in the Book of the Covenant, these cult objects were to be broken down, smashed, cut down, and burnt, respectively. To leave them where they were would provide constant temptation to the Israelites. So God speaks preventative maintenance to the people, knowing good and well what the hardened heart of man looks like. So when they get into the land, they do exactly what He commands them not to do. Again, a favorable view during the conquest under Joshua, you get to the period of the judges, they go a whoring from God. They go play the harlot. They engage in all manner of idolatry. It's vile, it's wretched, it's reprehensible. But in the context, remember the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. As you move from this place forward to the collapse of the Southern Kingdom, Till the time when they go into the Babylonian captivity, even the post-exilic situation that Israel finds herself in, covenant renewal is frequent. It is often. It is repetitious. What does that tell you? It tells you that God is long-suffering. It tells you that God does abound in mercy. It tells you that God is gracious. That God does forgive iniquity, transgression, and sin. that he doesn't obliterate the nation, that he doesn't decimate the nation, that he doesn't send them off into hell, is proof positive of the very perfections that are revealed to us in 34, 6, and 7. Notice in the next place you've got the Feast of Unleavened Bread. There's a lot of talk in this section concerning the annual feasts and the necessity to attend those annual feasts. And again, in the context, these things would be very helpful to promote fidelity to God. Because in each of these feasts, you're remembering something. You're not remembering Moloch, you're not remembering Baal, you're not remembering the gods of Egypt, you're remembering Yahweh, you're remembering His power and His glory and His majesty. And so an emphasis on these feasts, an emphasis on these ceremonies in terms of law and obedience would hopefully promote obedience on the part of the children of Israel. So you've got the Feast of Unleavened Bread, this goes back to chapter 12 in the book of Exodus. We've been through that, we're not going to rehearse every jot and tittle tonight, but that's the Feast of Unleavened Bread, specifically in verse 18. And then notice the last portion, for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt. So I think the idea behind these feasts, the idea behind the Lord's Supper, the idea behind these sort of covenant renewal ceremonies is to cause us to reflect upon the power and the goodness and the glory of God so that we won't be as prone to wander and prone to leave the God that we love. In many respects, the Lord's Supper is similar to a covenant renewal. We come before God, we receive from His bounty in His hand, we reflect upon the great redemption that is wrought by the Lord Jesus Christ through His broken body and through His shed blood, and hopefully we all re-commit or renew that desire to serve and love and obey and adore Him. So this attendance upon the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And then notice the Law of the Firstborn in verses 19 and 20. And again, it goes back to Exodus 13, Exodus chapter 22. Now with reference to the Law of the Firstborn, it wasn't the case that you actually sacrificed your child. There was a payment made to set him apart or to actually recognize and realize that all good comes from the hand of God. So the Firstborn is consecrated unto the Lord God. Now, that reference to the donkey, the firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, and if you will not redeem him, then you shall break his neck, that seems a bit odd, so I'll just read, I'll lean on Stuart, the commentator here. Again, this goes back to chapter 13 as well. He says, since donkeys were not needed at the tabernacle or temple, but were beasts of burden, that would be much better put to use by individual families on their farms, God allowed them to be redeemed through a substituted lamb or goat kid. Female donkeys would be kept for breeding, but since only one male stud would usually be needed for a herd of donkeys, an Israelite with a large number of newborn male donkeys might choose simply to euthanize some of them quickly by breaking their necks rather than go to the expense of substituting a lamb or a goat kid for them. a utilitarian emphasis there. There was a gracious emphasis on the part of God in terms of this firstborn with reference to the donkey. And then in terms of the sons, again, Stewart says the provision, and he's commenting on chapter 13, verses 13 and 15, which are similar in terms of the firstborn, for redeeming the firstborn back into the family by means of a buyback payment. His desire was that the Israelites recognize his right to ownership of the first and best in whatever came to them in spoils of war or harvests or offspring. It is necessary and beneficial that human beings recognize that God is superior to them, and the requirement of a ritual that reminded every Israelite of this by insisting on receiving their firstborn from them helped create the spiritual attitude of submission. And I think that in this renewal ceremony you see that kind of emphasis on a reminder of who God is, who they are as the beneficiaries of His grace and mercy, and therefore hopefully this will help them in terms of their pursuit of their covenant obligations before God Almighty. And then notice, it says, the end of verse 20, and none shall appear before me empty-handed. We've seen that, the necessity of offerings. Not that God needs anything, not that God, you know, is hurting financially or needs some food or whatever. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, but it is an expression of our worship, it is an expression of our dependence, and it is an expression of our gratitude unto God. Now notice the law of the Sabbath here. And again, this isn't the first giving of the Sabbath. We see it in the Decalogue, chapter 20, verses 8 to 11. But there is this addition, or this qualification. Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest." When we get to the New Covenant and we get to what I call the Sabbath wars of Jesus and the Pharisees, Jesus underscores the legitimacy of works of necessity and works of mercy. Work of mercy, a donkey falls into the pit on the Sabbath day, You don't leave him there until Monday morning. You fetch him out. You're a merciful human that loves his donkey. Works of necessity. The priests had to work. They had to minister. They had to offer. They had to engage in those things. So, with reference to this stipulation at the end of verse 21, in plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. Your normal ordinary farming wasn't a work of necessity or mercy. You couldn't sort of get out of it by appealing to that. So you should work it in such a way that you're able to rest on that Sabbath day even during plowing time and in harvest according to 3421. And then you've got the Feast of Weeks. Again, this goes back, we see these feasts mentioned in chapter 23. It's also known as the Feast of Harvest, or the Feast of Pentecost, or the Feast of Firstfruits, about May and June on our calendar. And it was a time to remember God's blessing and provision, and it was a time to remember their bondage in Egypt and redemption by God. So a review of these particular laws seems calculated to promote on the part of the people a recognition of who God is and who they are relative to him, and the necessity for obedience and compliance with his laws. You've got the three annual feasts in verses 23 to 24. There is this command concerning attendance, and then this promise by God that there would be protection during attendance. Notice in 24, "...for I will cast out the nations before you and enlarge your borders. Neither will any man covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year." It'd be a real life concern. All the men are going to go to Jerusalem during these feast times or wherever the tabernacle happened to be at that particular time. then all the women and children would be vulnerable. But see, God even speaks to that particular situation and says that he will provide and afford protection for them at that time. And then notice the law of sacrifice in verses 25 to 26. You see a prohibition of leaven in verse 25a. And again, this isn't new legislation. it is a review of previous legislation, with reference to the Passover sacrifice, you are not supposed to leave any, it was to be consumed wholly, the presentation of first fruits according to 26a, and then this prohibition concerning the young goat in verse 26b. It's already been mentioned in chapter 23 at verse 19, and then it will be mentioned again in Deuteronomy 14.21. It is, I think, standing law in terms of Jews and not eating cheeseburgers. I think the typical sort of rabbinic tradition has taught that you don't eat cheeseburgers because you're not, I don't know if they say it quite like that, you're not supposed to mix dairy and meat. That's what, at least from the surface reading here with reference to not boiling a young goat in its mother's milk. Again, I'll lean on Stuart. I read this quote when we were in Exodus 23. He says, Canaanite fertility religion imitated the fertility practices generally found throughout the ancient world. These included marrying seeds when planting a field, on the theory that such a ritual would magically stimulate the powers of nature to procreate, producing more fertile crops. Since mother's milk, the milk of the goat, dough, was what made the goat kids grow big and strong, the folk theory developed that dough's milk, employed in the process of a sacrifice, in this case by boiling rather than by roasting on an altar, would somehow impart strength to the goat flock, making the whole flock more fertile. Such nonsense, if believed, could have led the Israelites to conclude that the power to shape their destiny and to live the abundant life was to be found in magical practices and fertility religion rather than in the only true, alive God. Even if all other people groups known to them practiced these sorts of rituals, the Israelites could not. As Yahweh's people, they were to be above such things, attributing all life to the single source thereof." So basically it was a pagan ritual, okay? It was something that they were supposed to avoid because it might cause them to think that magic worked. Now, magic is condemned in scripture, not, you know, pick a card, any card, and I'll tell you, you picked out the ace of hearts. That's not the magic that it's condemning. It is the attempt to manipulate natural or supernatural forces to try and get what we want. And so, certainly, the pagans would engage in magic in that particular way, so God does not want the children of Israel to participate in that. When you get to Deuteronomy 18, for instance, There is strict prohibition against soothsaying, witchcraft, necromancy, trying to communicate with the dead, and those sorts of things. The way that God would communicate to his people would be via prophet. According to Deuteronomy 18, there would be a succession of prophets that would culminate in that prophet from among their brethren, which would be like Moses, even our Lord Jesus Christ. So Israel was not to engage in witchcraft or in sorcery or in any of that sort of thing. They would go to Yahweh through the mediation of a priest. They would hear from Yahweh through the work of the prophet. So these things were designed to promote in them fidelity to God so that they would not go astray, so that they would not engage in spiritual harlotry. And then the summary statement in verses 27 and 28. Moses is commanded to write the book of the covenant. Then the Lord said to Moses, you can go back for just a moment to chapter 24. Chapter 24, just so we can see this, that Moses was already on track doing this. Verse 4, Moses wrote all the words of the Lord and he rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and 12 pillars according to the 12 tribes of Israel. And then verse 7, then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people and they said all that the Lord has said we will do and be obedient. So again, when we come to renewal, we come to restoration, it is in order that Moses keep notes that Moses have this so that he may communicate to the children of Israel what their covenantal obligations are. So God says, write these words for according to the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel. So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And then notice, and he, this is God, wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. There's a wonderful book on the threefold division of the law by a man named Philip Ross, and it's called From the Finger of God. And basically, the threefold division of the law, you have the moral law, which is the Ten Commandments, you've got the judicial law, which were those civil laws that govern the nation, for their tenure in the land of promise. And then the ceremonial laws, chapters, as I said, 25 to 40, and scattered throughout Leviticus and Deuteronomy as well. But one of the things that this author points out, and one of the things that is conspicuous, When it comes to the Decalogue in these two tablets, it's God. He writes these. You see that? Exodus 24, 12, Exodus 31, 18, Deuteronomy 4, 13, Deuteronomy 5, 22, Deuteronomy 9, 10, and Deuteronomy 10, 4. Now, in the Reformed tradition, we understand that to mean that while the judicial law expired with the Commonwealth of Israel, the general equity is still present. We can use it and lean and learn wisdom. Ceremonial law was fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ. The moral law is binding. The moral law is still in play. The moral law has not been vanquished. The moral law has not been abrogated. In fact, Jesus, on the Sermon on the Mount, said, Do not think that I have come to abolish the law. I have not come to abolish, but rather to confirm it, to fulfill it. Christ does not abrogate that. So in the New Covenant we have that Ten Commandments, again not as a means by which we are saved, but it is what God has given in terms of our salvation as a pattern for sanctification. So you've got a three-fold division in the law, you've got three uses of the law. The three uses of the law, the civil use, it restrains the wickedness of man, pedagogical use, it leads us to Christ for salvation, and the normative use, where it defines for us righteousness and sanctification and the things that God calls us to. Now, finally and quickly, the reflection of God's glory, verses 29 to 35. Notice that when Moses comes down from Mount Sinai, according to verse 29, he has the two tablets of the testimony in his hand when he came down from the mountain. The symbolism of this is strong. Covenants renewed, covenants restored. What was broken in chapter 32 by God's grace has been put back together. You're back on track. You go forward in the fear of the Lord with these laws in your mind and heart and do not depart from them so that you maintain tenure in the land. But notice, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with them. So when Aaron and the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. I mentioned last week that the language is horns. And some artists have pictured Moses with horns. But it's probably the radiating of the light from him kind of like horns. I don't think Moses sprouted horns when he had this time with God. But if you ever see art or you ever see a picture of Moses and he has horns, That's probably what it's owing to, is that particular interpretation of what we find here. Now that's the residual effect. That's the residual effect of having been placed in the cleft of the rock and not seeing the front of God, but rather the backside of God as he passes by. And so the glory of God is such that when Moses descends from the mount, his face shines in such a way that Aaron and the children of Israel are afraid to see him. Now when he goes to converse with God, he takes off the veil. But when he comes back to converse with the children of Israel, he puts the veil back on. Again, his face is shining, his face is bright, and the apostle appeals to this to show us or highlight for us, no pun intended there, the superiority of the new covenant. In 2 Corinthians 3, 7, But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect because of the glory that excels. For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious. Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech, unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. but their minds were blinded. For until this day, the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. So whatever Moses had in terms of this reflection of God's glory, what we have in the New Covenant in terms of our Lord Jesus Christ excels that. So never read this without reflecting upon what Paul says concerning this incident in the New Covenant. But in terms of some summary observations. Don't miss the connection between the revelation of God's perfections, or the revelation of God's attributes, who God is in terms of His essence and nature in verses 6 and 7, to the demonstration of those perfections as He deals graciously with Israel. And when we jump into the New Covenant, never forget that those attributes and perfections that we see revealed all throughout Scripture, the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through our Lord Jesus Christ. It's not just stated by John in the prologue, but it's demonstrated by John throughout his gospel in terms of the life and the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. All that God is, or all that is in God is God, And the way that God relates to His people is by demonstrating those blessed attributes. Well, let's close in prayer, and if there's any questions, we can take those. Our Father in heaven, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for what this Scripture, this passage, teaches concerning who You are. in your perfections and attributes. We thank you that we've experienced this in the gospel of our salvation. We thank you for the forgiveness of sins and iniquity and transgression. We thank you for your mercy to us and we just pray that you would help us to live in light of these truths, empowered by your Holy Spirit to walk in a manner that is consistent with our calling. And we ask