Climbing Mountains

If you're following the Read Scripture plan, we're leaving the action of the story for a while and entering into details of the law that God was giving to the people.

But we're still reading a Psalm a day and occasionally these two readings will through up an interesting commentary on each other.

In Exodus 24 God instructs Moses to come up onto the mountain - but the people must keep their distance. Moses and the elders of Israel went onto the mountain and saw God and lived to tell the tale (24:9-11). Then Moses went further, alone, and spent 40 days within the cloud, which looked to those on the outside like a 'consuming fire'.

Moses entered into the presence of God and spoke with him. The elders saw God at a distance. The people were kept much further away.

Today's Psalm asks the question,

Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? Those who have clean hands and a pure heart, who do not put their trust in an idol or swear by what is false. (Psalm 24:3-4).

In this verse, David is referring to the temple and the Holy Place, the place where God chose to make his presence known and meet with his people. As we will discover as we continue to read through Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers there were very strict instructions on who could come into the presence of God and how they were to come - if they wanted to live to tell the tale.

Last Sunday at CBC we looked at the Beatitudes and in Matthew 5:8 we read that it is the pure in heart who will see God.

But do any of us have a pure heart and clean hands? 

The good news is that through Jesus' sacrifice God gives us a pure heart and clean hands and therefore we are able to come into God's presence. And in Hebrews 10:19-22 we are encouraged to take advantage of this incredible truth and draw near to God - not to keep at a distance at the bottom of the mountain as others go into the presence of God, but to actually meet with God ourselves.