Sunday Summary

Yesterday's worship service was such a perfect conclusion to our lesson. If it would not have made a scene, I would have fallen to my knees. I honestly don't know how we can be expected to stand under the glory of the Lord.

So far in chapter 19 we have studied what it means to camp before the Lord, staying long enough to allow Him to speak. We discovered the beautiful word picture of a mother eagle flying under her babies as they learn to fly.

The words of God to the people in verses 4-6 included "hear my voice" which means to obey, "keep" which carries the idea of tending a garden, "covenant" which is the a contract between God and His people, and "peculiar treasure" or "own possession". The last phrase indicates that God feels about you and me the same way He would a treasured art collection. We also learned the full meaning of being a priest and how because of Jesus' death on the cross we can be priests without the need for someone else to intercede for us.

In verses 9-10 we found out that the cloud descending on the mountain is really Jesus Christ and the trumpet is His voice. "Consecrate" or "sanctify" means to make clean and we learned how the Israelites would have done their laundry. The dirt had to be beat out of the clothes. Then we applied the image to sin in our lives.

Verse 11 told us God would come on the mountain "in the sight" of the people and we learned the meaning of the phrase as "a reflection". Like a fountain in the light.

In verses 12-13 the people were instructed not to touch the mountain. This included wanting to reach out to it and indicated the state of their hearts.

In the end, we made several conclusions:

• I want to be clean and ready for the trumpet to announce the return of Christ.
• This will mean I need to be saved and then confess any sins daily.
• I need to keep myself in a state of readiness to hear God speak. Camp out before Him. Stay long enough to let Him work on me. Do my part.
• Listen to the words of the Lord. Where will I find them? In the Bible. That means I need to read it every day.
• Rest in the knowledge that God loves me and treasures me like a valuable painting--His masterpiece.