Exodus 23:20-24:18 Study Guide: God’s Promises
Community Group Study Guide — God’s Promises
Exodus 23:20-24:18
Study Information:
There’s a part of us that desires to know the future and have some certainty that things will be easy. Often in life we can coast on cruise control, but other times we have a deep sense of uncertainty about what comes next. If you could know the future, would you want to? Do you think it would help you trust God more?
The people of Israel were at the foot of Mount Sinai where God had given Moses the ethical law of how they were to live as God’s covenant people. We’ve looked at this over the last few months, specifically the Ten Commandments and the civil case laws that would distinguish them from the other nations in the Ancient Near East. God promised to make them a kingdom of priest and his people (Exodus 19:6), but what comes next? In our passage God promised to pave the way to the Promised Land for them if they’d trust and obey him and then God sealed the covenant with them and invited Moses up to the mountain into the cloud of his presence.
These two narrative stories in Exodus 23:20-24:18 teach us that God has made a way for sinners to be in his presence and he will forever keep his promises.
Into the Promised Land
Exodus 23:20-33
This is the place where we can wonder if we knew the future if we’d trust God and do what he asked. Israel got a vivid picture of how God would pave the way for them into the Promised Land to plant them there as light to the nations and we know historically that they failed to trust and obey him. God is fully trustworthy and keeps his promises, but for many of us there is a part of us that doubts and we see that on full display in books like the book of Numbers, Joshua and Judges. We think that if we had this kind of certainty that we’d do what was right, but let’s not jump to conclusions too quickly.
God finished up giving them the specifics of the Law and then shifted towards the Promised Land. God promised to guard them, guide them and be an enemy to their enemies (Exodus 23:20-22). This passage includes three sendings: the angel, terror and “hornets” (Exodus 23:20, 27, 28). God sent his angel before them to spread word of his power and might and drive out the inhabitants of the land. Remember that these nations in the land of Canaan were wicked in their religious practices like sexual immorality, child sacrifice and sorcery. The heart of God here was to prevent his people from being entangled in idolatry and wickedness so he promised to push the people there out of the land. Next, God sent a terror into the land to throw them into confusion, again to move them out of the land. Finally our passage reads that God sent hornets, which is also the Hebrew word for “despair.” This could be literal hornets or it could be like what he did with sending a terror, God sent a despair or hopelessness into the land. Exodus 23:30 tells us that God did this little by little and would ask the people to go into the land trusting God would finish the job. Finally, we read that God intended to give them the land from the Red Sea, to the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. This would have been from the sea, to modern day Syria, down to the border with Egypt all the way over to Iraq. That area of land was never occupied by Israel, but you can read this as God saying to them “I own it all, the whole world is mine, will you trust me?”
This can be a complicated text for us today because it feels a lot like genocide or ethnic displacement but notice a few key differences. First, God gave warning to the people. This is clear in places like Joshua where Rahab had heard of God’s might and she repented and trusted in God and helped the spies. God was not malicious or spiteful, he was patient and gave opportunity to repent or leave (Genesis 15:13-14). Second, these people groups were more like the Nazi’s than the Amish. They were not peaceful loving people, but were committing injustice and wickedness against the vulnerable and God was acting to judge them. Third, this was not a military super power attacking a lesser power, in fact it was the opposite. Israel was untrained and often we read that they could only win military battles where God directly intervened. Finally, this was not motivated by race or ethnicity, but rather idolatry. God wanted to plant his people in this important part of the world as a light to the nations about how one could live in trust and obedience to God and be blessed.
The Promised Land passages teach us about God’s desire to bring his people home, including us today. Many of us today feel placeless and have a strong desire to feel safe and settled. God does not give us a physical place and space in the world today like he did with Israel, but this image is used to talk about how we can be brought home to God through faith in Jesus, which continues with the next passage where they “sign” the covenant with God.
Into God’s Presence
Exodus 24:1-18
God closed out the covenant explanation with an image of bringing his people into his presence. God’s heart is to make a way to for sinners to be near him. God called Moses, the priest and the leaders of Israel to the foot of the mountain and Moses set up an altar with 12 pillars around it. The altar representing God and the 12 pillars represented the people of Israel (Exodus 24:4). There they offered two sacrifices, first a burnt offering and next a peace offering. The burnt offering was for atonement from sin, meaning it represented forgiveness. The peace offering was also called a fellowship offering, representing restored relationship. Next they took the blood from those offerings and sprinkled it on the altar and on the people as a way of showing that failure to keep the covenant meant the cost of one’s life. This is a vivid image, but it was the common way covenant ceremonies were kept in the ancient world. Notice that this covenant is also heavily weighted toward what God promised to do. God promised to guide them, bring them to the promised land, revealed his name, person, character, law; he also promised them discipline and correction when they failed to keep covenant and that he would be slow to anger and patient, but there would be a limit. The people promised to follow God, put his law into practice and reflect his glory to the nations. God would bless, keep, guide and be faithful to them so that they could be in his presence forgiven and in fellowship with him.
After the sprinkling of blood, God revealed his presence to the leaders of Israel, but notice they could only stare at his feet (Exodus 24:9-11). They had a dazzling vision of clear blue that is compared the heavens, the place of God’s dwelling. Finally they have a meal to ratify the covenant and Moses was invited up to the cloud of God’s presence.
This ceremony of God’s presence, blood and a covenant meal should remind us of something. This points us forward to the New Covenant and the meal the disciples kept with Jesus in the upper room that we call communion. Instead of inviting a single person up into a cloud, God the son came down to be present with his people and made a way for them to be forgiven and brought into permanent fellowship with him through his own blood.
How should we respond to this? The writer of Hebrews tells us that because we’ve been sprinkled clean by the blood of Jesus we ought to draw near and hold fast (Hebrews 10:22-23). God has made a way for sinners to be in his presence. He hears our prayers, receives our confession of sin, opens up his word to us and never fails to keep his promises.
At your community group:
Take 15-20 minutes to share about how God has been at work in your life, prayer concerns and pray for one another.
How did God speak to you through the scripture and the sermon this week?
Discussion Questions:
Read Exodus 23:20-24:19
What did God promise to do for his people in this passage? Why do you think he’d end this section on keeping the covenant with these promises?
What are some of the main reasons we’re given for God removing the nation from Canaan?
How does the covenant keeping ceremony in Exodus 24 illustrate the idea that God has made a way for sinners to be in his presence?
The promise of the New Covenant is that we received a new spirit and new heart as because we’re sprinkled clean by the blood of Jesus. How do Christians “draw near” to God day to day today? What steps can you take this week to draw near to God and enjoy his presence?
