When Moses went up to God the first time on Mount Sinai, God said, "Go down, warn the people, don't touch the mountain." You wonder how that's possible. How do you not touch the foot of the mountain? Well, here in the Sinai, it's amazing how these mountains just rise right out of the plain. One can understand how you could set such a border, such a barrier. Clearly, God wanted them to understand that he is a holy, righteous God and that people who are impure are not permitted to approach him apart from his mercy. 

For a while, they seemed to obey. They didn't touch the mountain. There's no record anywhere that they ever touched the base of the mountain. But then, Moses was gone for a few days and then it was a week and then it was weeks. And their minds and their hearts began to wonder, "Where is he? When is he coming back? That consuming fire up there, maybe it is consumed him." And they began to look for alternatives. Meanwhile, that holy, powerful God met with Moses to demonstrate his intense love and compassion for his beloved people. Come. Let's go see.

We could sit here a while and talk about many more amazing things you can see in the story of the Ten Commandments. But I've got one that's my favorite. And that's where I'd like to bring you today. In the Jewish mind, what God did on Mount Sinai was a wedding. "Was it a wedding?"

Well, there's an interesting promise in Exodus (6). There were four promises if you remember. "I will take you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will set you free from being slaves to them. I will redeem you." And then, he says, "I will take you to be my people." Take you - that's the phrase that's used for marriage. He took Rebecca as wife. Same word. It sounds a little bit like God said, "I love you. This just isn't about law and obedience. It's my way of showing I love you." 

If we go to the prophets, it becomes even clearer. Listen to the prophet, Jeremiah (Jeremiah 2). "Remember the devotion of your youth, how you loved me like a bride and followed me through the desert through a land not sown." 

Hosea clearly calls the Sinai event a wedding. Isaiah (54) says to Israel, "Your maker is your husband. The Lord Almighty is his name." Now, what if this awesome day with fire and thunder and voices and Moses and Israel, what if it was a wedding, a Jewish wedding? What would you expect to find? Well, we would definitely need a chuppah. What's a chuppah. It's a canopy representing the covering protection of God. If you ever go to a Jewish wedding, the bride and groom will stand under a chuppah to illustrate God's protecting care. They stood down there. Moses came up here. And God covered the mountain with a cloud. I wonder if he wanted them to think, "That's the chuppah." I think that's possible. And there's an interesting Hebrew phrase. It literally says, "Israel stood beneath the mountain." Now, you'll see your English translates that, "at the foot of the mountain". But in Hebrew, it literally says, "They stood underneath the mountain," as if the mountain itself was God's chuppah. 

"What else do we need?" Well, it's a Jewish wedding, the bride has to go to a mikveh to be pure before the ceremony. 

"Consecrate yourselves," he said down there. Maybe they were supposed to think of that as a mikveh.

Well, if it's a wedding, you've got to have a ketubah. A ketubah is a marriage contract. They don't say vows at a Jewish wedding like we're used to. You write them down on a fancy-looking piece of paper and you sign them in a significant ceremony and you make the... Was there a ketubah here that day? There was! Two copies in fact. 

What else would we need? Well, we would need a sign. Today, they use rings like we do. It's interesting. In 31 Exodus, the Sabbath shall be the sign of our relationship. Maybe the Sabbath was their ring. What if that day here at Sinai wasn't just about a legal code? It was that. It wasn't only a covenant. It was that. It wasn't only the beginning of the kingdom that God will someday extend across the whole universe. It was that, too. What if this was God's way of saying, "I love you."

Think about that for a moment. Think about the courtship that had just happened. A forty-day courtship. Maybe you make it longer because of the plagues. Think of that groom. They must have been in love with the groom at that point. That had been quite a groom - dividing the sea, sweetening the water, bringing them manna. I think they must have been deeply in love with that groom. And what a tough outfit to love. What a difficult group to love. At every turn, obstinate, unwilling. And he loved them anyway.

But do you know what that means? If that's right, and I think it is. The Bible views the Sinai event, from one perspective, as a wedding. The Ten Commandments are our wedding vows. They're dancing music. They're not simply a list of dos and don'ts. They're that. The Ten Commandments are God's way of saying, "I love you." Do you understand why religious Jewish people dance when the Ten Commandments are read? You dance, because God again, is saying, "I love you." 

One Jewish person said to me, "A relationship without the Ten Commandments is like a marriage without vows." How do you know what you're committed to? 

Do you want to hear them? Listen to God say, "I love you." (Exodus 20)

"I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of Egypt. You shall have no other gods. Make no images. Don't take my name in vain. Keep the Sabbath holy. Honor your father and mother. Don't murder. Don't commit adultery. Don't steal. Don't bear false witness. Don't envy."

Let's put that in marriage language. God came here and said, "I love you over all the nations of the world. I love you. You are my segula - my treasured possession. But no other lovers. None. Not even statues and pictures of them. And you're going to take my name. I give it to you. Use it well, bride. Find time for me to love me and to know me. We'll call it Sabbath. And bride get along, be united, don't kill each other. Don't take each other's husbands or wives. Don't steal. Don't bear false witness. Honor your parents." That's the Ten Commandments. 

They serve a function. Our culture drifts as we lose that connection, but it's even more tragic that among God's people, we've turned the Commandments into legalism. What we say is legalism, God calls love. It's his love language. Do you want to show him you love him? Tell him. But he wants to see it just like you do from your wife and you do from your husband. Love him. How? Obey him. 

And you say, "Oh. That's that Hebrew Bible, that Old Testament." Let's listen to some New Testament (John 14). "If you love me, you will obey my commands." Say it after me. "If you love me, you will obey my commands." That's Jesus.

"If anybody loves me, he will keep my teachings." This is love for God - that you obey his commands (1 John 5). Brothers and sisters, God saved Israel by grace. They came through the Red Sea. They did nothing to get here. This isn't where they came to be saved. They already had that. This where they came to learn how to love God. And the language God looks for to see the love of his bride is obedience. This isn't a burden. We don't obey to be saved. We're already married. And we have the privilege of becoming part of the bride of Almighty God, because in Jesus, we're grafted in to God's olive tree. 

Now, notice God says, "Bride, I love you." Bob, do you remember when Pat came down the aisle what you thought as you saw her coming? Do you remember, married gentlemen? Think how God felt as Israel approached. A bride! A bride. Michelle, do you remember when you started down the aisle and Tim was standing there in front? Do you remember that moment? That's how Israel looked at God. "Look! A bridegroom." And when they got here, and they heard God's vows, "No other lovers, not even pictures of them. Make time for me." Do you know what they said? "We do!" Three times. "We do!" I only said it once at my wedding. "We do."

We need to reclaim what happened here at Sinai at God's command. We're saved by grace, of course. So were they. We need to reclaim the love affair of a bride with her husband. You know how your husband feels when you please him. You enjoy that moment. You all, married folks, know this. How do we give God that unbelievable thrill? By the grace of God and the Spirit's work in our hearts, we obey him. But while God was here with Moses, writing the ketubah, they had an affair at the wedding. 

We see the anger in God in the text, feel the hurt in his heart that a husband would feel if his bride had an affair at the wedding. God was ready to destroy his bride, but praise God there was a mediator named Moses who pleaded (Exodus 32 and 33), "No. Me instead, me instead, me instead." 

For some reason, God listened and said, "Okay. But go down there. There must be discipline." So Moses went down. You know the story and when he saw how bad it was, he threw those tablets down and then, they took that calf and ground it up and poured the dust in the water that ran probably out of the stream where Moses had hit the rock on the side of the mountain (Exodus 32). And those who drank it and were guilty died. 

I find it intriguing that in the book of Numbers (5), there's a bazaar - for us at least - ceremony in which a woman who's suspected of being unfaithful is asked to drink living water mixed with dust off the floor of the Tabernacle. If she's guilty, that potion makes her very sick. I don't know how to explain that. I honestly don't. But it's interesting to me that what God does here sounds exactly like that, as if the wedding vows are applied. But do you know what? He forgave his bride. There's an amazing story-- and I want to say this respectfully-- there's an amazing story. Moses came up here, and one of the first things God did was say, "If I'm going to be your husband,"-- this is how I think of it. That's not what he said. "If I'm going to be your husband, we need a place to be together. So here's what I want it to be like. It's a tent. Make it such and so and this and that."

Read it sometime. You'll wonder if God isn't trying to make sure you have to be really tough to read the Bible because it goes on and on and on. But picture a bride and groom sitting together, planning their house, every little detail together and then the affair of the golden calf. And if you look, after that's all finished and there's been discipline and God comes back and says, "Okay. I'll take you back," the first thing they do is sit down and go through all those instructions again - almost word for word as if God said, "Do you want to know how much I care about you? Let's sit down and plan our house again." 

I love it, and I think it's unbelievably compelling. So we've come here today to see the awesome power of Almighty God, who brought those people out of Egypt and then, came here to meet with them because he loved them like a bride. If we could reclaim that, if we could hear those Ten Commandments as God's dancing music of I love you - read them often with that in mind - I think we would be closer to what God desires his bride to be. So how do we say, "We do." 

I find myself wanting to go to the edge of this stone over here and just to stand and say what they said, "Na'aseh v'nishmah. Everything you've said, we do. We want to be your bride." I think that's a good thing to do. 

But do you know how a Jew says it? Let's try a different way. Do you want to know how I think Jesus taught it? When a religious Jew stands to pray and thinks about his relationship with this unbelievable God, the God of Sinai, the husband of Israel, he always recites Hosea. 

It goes like this (Hosea 2), "I betroth you to me forever. I betroth you to me in righteousness and justice. I betroth you in love and compassion. I betroth you in faithfulness and you will know the Lord with an intimate know." And then, that Jewish person turns and says, "Shema." And shema - Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might is how you say, "We do."

Listen to me. Jesus said the shema - Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And he added love your neighbor as yourself is the greatest of all God's commands.

And if the love language God looks for is obedience, shouldn’t we keep the greatest of his commands? What if every one of us with our families and our faith community, every single day stood before our bridegroom pleading for him to clean us up as his bride again from whatever the golden calf was today?

I think you'd hear him say, "I love you. I love you enough to bring you here and to say, 'We do.'" 

"Hear, oh Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might, and love your neighbor as yourself. Amen. We do!" (Deuteronomy 6)


Last modified: Thursday, August 27, 2020, 12:19 PM