October 29, 2010

The Movement of God - 23

God promised Canaan to Israel, but claimed Mt. Sinai for himself, and that is a critical difference.  The children of Abraham were told that God would be giving them land.  It was going to be their land.  But Mount Sinai, by contrast, made it clear to Israel that God could inhabit his own piece of land, also.

And that - going back to the previous two posts in this series- may explain God's consistency in returning to Horeb/Sinai.  The repetition (for Moses, at least) could have driven the point home.  But even if Mt. Sinai wasn't precisely the same spot as Mount Horeb, the length of time Israel spent camped there made it clear that Mount Sinai absolutely was Holy Ground. Israel could not have gone without noticing that God was a God who most certainly did want a PLACE on the Earth.

That simple concept - what Sinai was - set the stage for what God did while there.  The whole time Israel camped at Mount Sinai, as God dictated the Torah to Moses, every word spoken was practically aimed at either one of two things.

 First, He was giving the Law, which was God's way to establish a practical means to help Israel grow into walking with Him. And secondly, on Sinai, God was giving Moses instructions for how to assemble a new place. As a matter of fact, a significant portion of all the words Moses heard from the LORD on Mount Sinai were God's instructions on how to build, take care of, put up and take down God's new place...

The Tabernacle.

Quite clearly, this new place was intended to replace Sinai as God's home on Earth. Just as clearly, there were many reasons why this new place, God's Tabernacle, was superior to Sinai, as a position for God's dwelling. But one key improvement over Sinai was incredibly obvious:

God's new PLACE had the constant dynamic potential for MOVEMENT...

To be continued...

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