Exodus 23:19-33
Heavenly Father we ask that as we open up Your word today, Your Holy Spirit would open us up. As we study and examine and illuminate different parts, by this would You study and examine and illuminate us. We believe that Your word is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing and discerning the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. Enable us to receive Your word today with humility and gladness. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
v. 19
In what appears to be a completely obscure and out of place command, we are told not to boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. Throughout God’s giving of the law this prohibition is given no fewer than three times (Ex. 34:26; Deut. 14:21) which means God really thinks it is important for us to hear.
At a very basic level, this is pointing us to the reality that death and life don’t mix. And really this is the case for many of God’s commands to His people.
God over and over in the culture of His called out people wanted them to see and be reminded of this reality, life and death, holy and unholy, can not mix.
He told them things like don’t breed two kinds of cattle together, don’t plant two different kinds of seeds in one field, don’t wear clothes with two kinds of materials mixed together (Lev. 19:19), don’t plow with an ox and a donkey together (Dt. 22:10), and don’t enter into marriages with unbelieving foreigners (Ex. 34:16).
So because a mother’s milk is given for life and flourishing, to use that mother’s milk to destroy would be perverse. This principle, I believe applies to all kinds of things from disciplining and educating children to medical standards and ethics. Namely, that we should not take what is meant for life and flourishing and use it for death and destruction.
As it happens, each time this command is given it is immediately surrounded by commands regarding our giving to God. Twice (Ex. 23:19; 34:26) it is preceded by the command to bring the best of the firstfruits into the house of the Lord and the other time (Deut. 14:21) it comes immediately before God lays out commands for the tithe being brought before the Lord.
And so we can understand it, at least in part, as a prohibition that we do not take God’s firstfruits or God’s tithe and consume and devour it for ourselves, by ourselves, but rather we would present to God what belongs to Him.
Hear the words of the prophet Malachi and keep in mind the words of promise that we read from Exodus 23.
Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. (Mal. 3:8-11, emphasis added)
We are to steward well what He has given and that includes giving God what belongs to Him—the tithe and the firstfruit. And if we do not, like the kid in his mother’s milk, God’s life-giving gifts will be to us our destruction (Deut. 28).
Obviously this is related to the first part of Exodus 23 regarding how we worship God with our giving, but it is actually related to this next section as well regarding how Israel is to obey and what they are to do and not do with what God is giving into their hands, namely the land and it’s inhabitants.
So when God says by the prophet Malachi He will rebuke the devourer when the people stop robbing Him of His tithe and start believing His promise, that is an echo of what God is talking about here as He promises success and fruitfulness as they go in and take the promised land.
vv. 20-22
“Behold, I send an angel before you…” If we look back in Exodus 14:19 it says, “Then the Angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and wend behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them,” Also in Exodus, 13:21 we are told, “the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light…”
Then for the second time in chapter 23 God says to pay attention. Pay careful attention to him and obey His voice. He also warns that if they rebel against Him, He will not pardon their transgression.
This can be understood generally. That they were to obey all the laws that God had just laid out, which is of course true, but more specifically I believe this is talking about them following as the Angel of God would lead them in to conquer the promised land.
This is why He says He will be an enemy to their enemies and an adversary to their adversaries. Instead we know that the children of Israel did not obey the Angel of God. They did not believe the good report from Joshua and Caleb and instead fell in with the many and believed the ten spies who brought an evil report (Num. 13:32).
In Jude 5 Jude says, “Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.”
Jesus destroyed those who did not believe.
v. 23
Christ goes before us to conquer the world just as He promised to go before the children of Israel as they conquered the land. Just as God promised to go with Moses from the burning bush (Ex. 3:12) and promised to go with Joshua as a conquering warrior into the land (Josh. 1:5; 5:13-15).
Remember what Christ said to us in the great commission.
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:18-20)
The old covenant is a type and shadow of the new, heavenly covenant in Christ. While the promise to God’s people under the old covenant is for a particular (large) plot land, the promise to the Church in the new, is the entire world. Christianity is truly a religion of world domination.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. (Matt. 5:5)
Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. (Mk. 16:15)
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
And hear the promise given to Jesus by the Father in Psalm 2.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. (Ps. 2:8)
v. 24-28
“You shall not bow down to their gods no serve them, no do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them.” In other words, we must pay careful attention that we do no make appeals to their gods or do as the pagans do.
Our cries and prayers after tragedy strikes or justice is assaulted, do not ascend over to the little gods who have set themselves up in our statehouses. No! We trust in the name of the Lord our God (Ps. 20:7)!
When sickness and disease pummel our mortal flesh we do not fear and plead with the little gods of the health care system. We trust in the name of the Lord our God.
And when we do this, when we follow Jesus, He promises us abundant life (Jn. 10:10)! When we trust and obey Jesus—when we abide in Him—He promises us fruitfulness (Jn. 15:5).
I think it is interesting to notice that as God is promising the children of Israel the land, he promises that they will not miscarry or be barren and that He will fulfill the number of their days. Yet when the ten spies come back they strike fear in the people by bringing an evil and false report that it is a land that will devour.
God promises to drive out their enemies and give them the land and the people stubbornly refuse to believe the promise as if the signs that God had shown were not enough to demonstrate His faithfulness. There were the ten plagues and deliverance from Egypt, the pillar of Fire and Cloud, walking through the Red Sea on dry land, and yet they still do not believe. Even as God promises that He would fulfill the number of their days and give them children in the land!
Again I want to read Jude 5 to you, “Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.”
Jesus destroyed those who did not believe because they had every reason to believe—to anchor their trust in the God who delivered and redeemed them. Christ was leading them out of Egypt and they stubbornly refused to follow Him.
So how much more stubborn and rebellious and slow of heart to believe are we? We who have been delivered not just from slavery in Egypt, but from slavery to sin and death!
We have not only seen the miraculous deliverance through a sea from an enraged pharaoh, we have seen a way open up for us through the broken body of God’s incarnate Son, that we might be delivered from the just wrath, not of some pathetic, fickle pharaoh, but from the just wrath of the holy God who created us!
We read the account of the double-minded and hypocritical children of Israel and think how ungrateful and silly they are for not trusting God who is feeding them with bread from Heaven. And yet here we are, those who have been given the Bread of Life doubting God’s sweet and bitter providence in our lives. How much more absurd is our doubt and unbelief? How much more foolish is our stubborn rebellion and hypocrisy? What more could God, who gave His only begotten Son, possibly do to prove His love and care for you? And by His resurrection to new life, prove His victory over sin and death?
God loves you and He does not ever fail.
God promises to scatter our enemies not tolerate them, not negotiate with them, but to terrorize them and drive them out. Again, when Jesus gives us the great commission in Matthew 28 He tells us that all authority in Heaven and on Earth belongs to Him! There are no campaigns or elections. There are no negotiations. He sends us out to conquer—to make war against powers and principalities—against the gates of Hell. He sends us out as light in the darkness.
vv. 29-30
This isn’t going to happen overnight. This is going to be done little by little. God is saying that He will make them decrease and Israel to increase. Little by little.
This is exactly what Jesus is communicating to us when He says (Mt. 13:33), “The Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”
So first, the Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven that grows gradually not instantly. But do you know why Jesus didn’t only say the Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven? Do you know why He says it is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour?
Because Jesus is telling us He keeps His promises. He is drawing our attention back to Genesis 18:6 where the woman, Sara, takes three measures of flour to make cakes for the Lord who was visiting and who made them a promise. He is drawing our attention back to the promise God gave to Abraham and Sarah way back then, the covenant that through the promised seed of Abraham all the families of the earth will be blessed (Gen. 12:3).
Abraham’s one son had two sons who had twelve sons and so on and so forth. Then when the fullness of time had come, Christ, the ultimate Son of Promise, came and conquered and is conquering. Little by little until He has put all His enemies under His feet including the last enemy to be destroyed—death (1 Cor. 15:25-26).
v. 31
“I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand…” This is coupled with instruction to drive them out. But notice up in verse 30 God says “I will drive them out” and yet in the next breath He says, “You shall drive them out?”
Which one is it? Will God drive them out or will His people? The answer of course is “yes!”
This is exactly how God speaks to us in Paul’s letter to the Phillipians.
“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” (Phil. 2:12-13)
vv. 32-33
If you look back to Exodus 20 where God begins to lay out His covenant law to Moses and His people, you will notice that God is ending where He started, with the first two commandments.
You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Ex. 20:1-6)
You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you. (Ex. 23:32-33)
I want us to be really careful here because there is a way to read this as true and historical because it is, but then to just brush it off as some kind of archaic paganism that we don’t have to worry about anymore.
This would be a grave mistake and it is a grave mistake that far too many of us have already made. We don’t even know what idolatry looks like and therefore how to guard against it.
We are not just talking about practices you would expect to see from Mayans or Aztecs or some other ancient pagan civilization. This applies to every Christian in every time and every culture.
God’s prohibition to make no covenants with unbelievers and their gods is a prohibition that seamlessly applies now in the new covenant.
Let me end by reading to you the words of Paul to the Corinthians.
Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”
Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. (2 Cor. 6:14-7:1)
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Invitation to the Lord’s Table
As we prepare to come back again to commune at the Lord’s Table. I want to remind you of the story of Peter stepping out of the boat to walk on the water to Jesus. He was fine until he took his eyes off of his Rock. He was literally walking on water in the middle of the sea in the wind and waves, but that miraculous occurrence wasn’t enough. The fact that he was literally walking on water wasn’t enough.
Only when he was fixed on Jesus was he safe above the darkness and death that was lapping at his heels ready to swallow him.
You have been given a promise even better than what you find in Exodus 23. And when you find yourself in the darkness beginning to doubt, beginning to sink, being tempted to believe the lies, and throw in the towel, remember what God has said. Remember His promise is sure.
Look to Him even now and Come and welcome to Jesus Christ.
On the night when He was betrayed, He took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Thank you Father for giving to us so faithfully and so freely. Even Christ, the bread of life to be broken for us and offered up for our sin and the sin of the world. Take the bread.
In the same way also He took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” Father without the shedding of blood, You said there is no forgiveness of sin, so we thank You for loving us and giving Your Son, the perfect Lamb, so that Your wrath would pass over us. That by Your costly grace we who were Your enemies could be set free and rescued from darkness and death. Drink the cup.
We do this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
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