March 27, 2026 - Exodus 24 & Psalm 69

We read Exodus 24 and Psalm 69, then trace how covenant blood points to the person and work of Jesus Christ. We talk about why drawing near to God is never casual, and why the throne of grace is truly open for those who are in Christ. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPkrYPWG7mc

For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compassbiblesv.org. Keep reading. Keep growing. God’s Word is a lamp to your feet, and a light to your path. 

Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Reading

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan, where we are seeking to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength with God's word lighting the way. I'm Josiah Smith, joined by Tyler Sanborn. Today is Friday, March 27th, 2026. Listen intently to God's written word. Exodus twenty-four. Then he said to Moses, Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. Moses alone shall come near to the Lord, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him. Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the rules, and all the people answered with one voice and said, All the words that the Lord has spoken, we will do. And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, All that the Lord has spoken, we will do, and we will be obedient. And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, Behold, the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet, as it were, a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness, and he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel. They beheld God and ate and drank. The Lord said to Moses, Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction. So Moses rose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. And he said to the elders, wait here for us until we return to you, and behold, Aaron and her are with you. Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them. Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the Lord dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain, and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

Covenant Blood And Drawing Near

SPEAKER_00 2:47

I sink in the deep mire, where there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying out. My throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause. Mighty are those who would destroy me. Those who attack me with lies. What I did not steal must I now restore. O God, you know my folly. The wrongs I have done are not hidden from you. Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me. O Lord, God of hosts. Let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, O God of Israel, for it is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother's sons. For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach. When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them. I am the talk of those who sit in the gate, and the drunkards make songs about me. But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me in your saving faithfulness, deliver me from sinking in the mire. Let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters. Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me. Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good. According to your abundant mercy, turn to me. Hide not your face from your servant, for I am in distress. Make haste to answer me. Draw near to my soul, redeem me, ransom me because of my enemies. You know my reproach and my shame and my dishonor. My foes are all known to you. Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none. For the comforters, but I found none. They gave me poison for food, and my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink. Let their own table before them become a snare. And when they are at peace, let it become a trap, let their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see, and make their loins tremble continually. Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them. May their camp be in desolation, and let no one dwell in their tents, for they persecute him who you have struck down, and they recount the pain of those you have wounded. Add to them punishment upon punishment. May they have no acquittal from you. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living. Let them not be enrolled among the righteous. But I am afflicted and in pain. Let your salvation, O God, set me on high. I will praise the name of God with a song. I will magnify him with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hooves. When the humble see it, they will be glad. You who seek God, let your hearts revive, for the Lord hears the needy, and does not despise his own people who are prisoners. Let heaven and earth praise him, and the seas and everything that moves in them. For God will save Zion and build up the cities of Judah, and the people shall dwell there and possess it. The offspring of his servants shall inherit it, and those who love his name shall dwell in it.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Well, Exodus twenty-four perhaps is what most people think of when they think of the Mosaic Covenant, and rightfully so, because even in my Bible it says the covenant confirmed. Now, if you can think back to the covenant that God made with Abraham, uh, do you remember the animal that was split into it? Walking through it. Yeah. Um, here we have a another covenant being confirmed, the Mosaic covenant, and another animal has been sacrificed, more blood has been shed. Uh, really, uh, a covenant is in a sense is being cut, uh, is uh what's happening here in Exodus 24. Uh, but a couple things that stuck out to me. First, the this repeated phrase, or really sentence, all the words that the Lord has spoken, we will do. I wrote next to that in my Bible, famous last words. And that's in verse three. And again, it says the same thing in verse seven. And they said, All that the Lord has spoken, we will do, and we will be obedient.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

That brings to mind some words that I had for my parents when I was in my teen years. They would tell me the expectations, and my response at times with disrespect and with a certain tone that my parents will remember. I know, mom, I know, dad, I know, I know.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Well, just eight chapters later in Exodus 32, um, we see the golden calf. So, you know, what the very first commandment of the ten words uh violated immediately, even though they said resoundingly, all the words that the Lord has spoken, we will do, uh, certainly in in short order, uh, they do anything but that. So famous last words. But I also want to just point out here uh the sacrifice, of course, cutting the covenant, as we've talked about, that kind of being ratified. Uh, the covenant was was described earlier in Exodus, but here it's kind of being ratified and confirmed as it says again at the heading uh of my Bible. Um, but in in verse six, it says, And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Uh, then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, Again, that famous last words, all the Lord has spoken, we will do, and we will be obedient. And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, Behold, the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. So there's a couple of important things happening. Of course, the covenant is being confirmed that God made with Moses and the nation of Israel that you can read about in uh earlier in Exodus, uh, where he talks about if you keep this, if you obey, I will bless you. Uh, and here that is being confirmed with the nation of Israel. But but even the whole idea of Moses and Aaron and Nabat and Abihu and the 70 elders of Israel drawing close to the Lord, I think it's it's no accident that the blood is shed and sprinkled and or thrown against the altar and the people before Moses approaches the holy mountain. And I think that is a picture of the the necessity of a sacrifice being offered in order to draw near to God. And of course, that typifies what then will become uh even it starts in Exodus 25 that the sanctuary, the the tabernacle, the holy of holies, you know, the table uh for the bread, the golden lamp stand, all of those things and all the dimensions that come with the tabernacle, but that shows the necessity uh for the shedding of blood, the offering of sacrifice in order for sinful men to approach a holy God.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

No, Pastor Josiah, there's blood on the altar. Um, these animals are being sacrificed, but also there's there's blood on the people. What is going on here with the blood being on the people of Israel?

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Yeah, there's a sense of when you cut a covenant, both with the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic covenant, uh, you're essentially with that animal, uh, with the blood that you get uh sprinkled on you, the the idea is what happened to this animal, may it happen to us if we violate the covenant, right? So um, of course, you know, in eight chapters, they do violate the covenant. Uh, but that that's kind of what is the the imagery of all of this. So the blood represents, may my blood be shed if I disobey, if I ultimately violate the terms of this covenant, which is why it says multiple times, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do and we will be obedient. And that's why Moses says again in verse 8, he took the blood and threw it on the people and said, Behold, the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you, in accordance with all these words, uh, with all of the things that are spoken, with the commands, the ten, the ten words, as we talked about uh in Exodus 20 and and beyond. But I think the again, the the thing that uh really signifies the uh the relationship with God and and his his people at this point is that need for the shedding of blood, uh, to even draw near. And of course, Moses goes up to the mountain. This is where God uh writes on the tablets and and gives some very explicit and specific instructions on the tabernacle and the dimensions that go with it. Uh, and this all points forward uh to the reality of uh even Hebrews that we we are studying. We'll get to how the throne of grace is open, and we'll get to how even Hebrews likens the sacrifice of Christ, and it talks about how his blood was sprinkled on the altar in in heaven, and how all of that allows us now to freely approach the throne of grace because it is open uh to those who are in Christ. And we don't need the blood of bulls and goats offered repeatedly, we simply need the blood of Christ that has been offered once for all. So, all of that uh finds its rooting and footing, beginning here in Exodus 24, with this Mosaic covenant, with this covenant confirmed, and then all the sacrifices that get bound up in it as a way to kind of prefigure and foreshadow ultimately Christ, what he would do. And of course, we saw that already in uh the Exodus event with the Passover lamb. He is the Passover Lamb. Behold the Lamb of God, John says, who takes away the sin of the world. Uh, so Exodus 24, um, you know, Moses going up to the mountain, receiving the instructions, ratifying the covenant, all of those things point forward uh to the hope that we can have in Christ. And the reality now that for those who trust in Christ, the throne of grace is open, and you can go freely to him without reproach. And so that's good news. But again, that connects back here to uh Exodus 24.

Psalm 69 Lament And Zeal

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Great explanation. Thank you for clarifying that. And uh, I want to draw our attention now to the salvation that David is is calling out for. He's calling out to God, save me, oh God. That's the the heading or the title here uh in Psalm 69 and the opening verse, save me, oh God, for the waters have come up to my neck. Uh, there is this imagery and a visual of someone in water. And if you've ever had swimming lessons or you've ever had any kind of training in the water, there's a certain point when you get tired and you're looking for something to stand on. You're looking for um some concrete, maybe around the perimeter of this body of water, if it's a pool, to go and and cling to, so that way you can rest and have your head um up out of the water. Um, but here David is creating some imagery of sinking into the mire. Um, there is an opposite effect of getting out of this this treading of water, this um this effort, this striving. He's he's feeling this this pressure and this uh situation where uh drowning is very much on his mind. He the the the analogy here is I'm sinking, I need help, I need God to save me. And the enemies are around, people are speaking ill of him, he is likely being misrepresented, and he's waiting for God to answer. He's waiting for God in verse three. Um, God, when will you create certainty for me? When will you answer me? And he's waiting on the Lord. And uh, what I'm excited to even reading this psalm, I'm excited as I read um verse nine, there's a zeal for this house. And if we think about David and his desire to build God a temple, he says, No, that's going to be for your son to do. But he's his desire, even in the midst of this, this suffering, this um, this pressure and pain, he's looking to God and he's he's expressing an excitement um for him and for his uh for his house, a zeal for his house. Something that I think we can we can look forward to as we think about Easter, uh Easter Sunday and Palm Sunday and the events here. We there's an excitement in me, PJ, that I'm I'm excited to meet with God's people. I'm excited to meet in in the house of God with my with my brothers and sisters and and worship. And in the midst of this tumult, he is he is going to God and remembering, like, I'm still excited. I'm so passionate, I'm still zealous for you and for your name, even though uh as a result of being so loyal and faithful to you, though I do fall short, I do, I do sin before you, God. I I want your name to be made uh to be known and to be lifted high.

Resources For Deeper Study

Praying The Psalms In Pain

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Yeah, what's interesting about Psalm 69 is it's actually one of the most quoted Psalms in the entire New Testament, you know, especially by Jesus. Um He he quotes Psalm 69, even what you were just talking about, zeal for your house has consumed me. Jesus says that very thing uh when he is flipping over the tables in you know the money changers, and he's saying, You have turned the house of prayer into a den of robbers, the house of God you you are dishonoring, and he's saying, Zeal for my father's house consumes me. And he quotes Psalm 698. Um let me just give you guys a breakdown, uh kind of an outline of this psalm. It's um 36 verses, so maybe a lot to digest. Um, and all of these are alliterated, you know. We like alliteration around here, so uh we'll we'll we will um kind of break this down to to make it more manageable. So it starts in verses one through three by David kind of specifically identifying his pain, right? The pain. Uh I will I sink in deep mire, I have come into deep waters, the flood sweeps over me. I'm weary with my crying out, my throat is parched, my eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. So you can think about those verses kind of uh David just expressing in very vivid terms his pain that he's experiencing. Verses four through twelve then kind of move into the problem that's causing his pain. There's unjustice going on by the ungodly. Even in verse four, more in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause. Mighty are those who would destroy me, those who attack me with lies. What I did not steal must I now restore. He's being falsely accused. Oh God, you know my folly. The wrongs I have done are not hidden from you. So in verses four through twelve, he talks about the problem. There's people after him, that he's being mocked, he's become a byword. He even says there in verse 12, I am the talk of those who sit in the gate, and the drunkards make songs about me in the taverns. They're singing about old David in a very mocking, jeering kind of way. So that's that's the problem. And then in verses 13 through 28, we have uh kind of David's prayer. Uh, but as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord, at an acceptable time. O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me in your saving faithfulness, deliver me, let not the flood sweep over me. Answer me. So verses 13 through 28 are David's prayer. He's unwavering in his prayer, and he's unwilling to seek personal revenge against those who are wrong and those who are wronging him. Uh, he continues to just pray. And then finally, verses 29 through the end of the Psalm, verses 36, we have David's specific praise that he is saying he's he's seeking to offer to uh the Lord. So um, even in verse 29, I am afflicted and in pain. Let your salvation, O God, set me on high. I will praise the name of God with the song, I will magnify him with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs. So as you think about the the psalm as a whole, that's kind of the outline. The pain verses one through three, the problem, verses four through twelve, the prayer as a result of the pain and the problem, verses thirteen eight, and then the praise that David is offering in an un unhindered kind of way, uh, verses 29 through 36. Now, one thing that I did want to offer just as a resource, uh, if you wanted to study this psalm perhaps a little bit more deeply, uh, I did preach a sermon on this psalm, I think it was two summers ago now, uh, at Treasure Valley. So if you go to their YouTube channel, actually, we will we will put it in the description uh of this podcast episode. Uh so Psalm 69, it's titled Dissonant Despair, and essentially it was kind of speaking to uh being stuck between a theological truth and a difficult circumstance. And I think that's where David is, where he is uh believing the theological truth that God is good, that he is in control, but still nevertheless is stuck in a difficult circumstance and is kind of dealing with the dissonance between those two things. And so we'll put that in uh the description of this episode if you wanted to listen to that uh to get a little bit more context for Psalm 69. But in general, this psalm points to Christ, and David prefigures Christ, of course, in a lot of ways that we've even talked about in Hebrews. But in this psalm, David is falsely accused, his life is threatened, and he is being mocked. And guess what we see in the life and ministry of Jesus? Jesus was falsely accused, his life was threatened and ultimately taken, and he was mocked, he was despised and rejected by the men. And there's so many things that happen in this psalm. There's uh things that happened to David that also happened to Christ in much the same uh way. Even in verse 8, where David says, I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother's son. That makes me think of what Jesus says. Uh, I I came into my own, right? And my my own received me not. He was rejected by his own people. Uh, he was rejected uh by his brothers and his mother's sons, and uh in a very real way, the the people that he created, they rejected him and they yelled, crucify him. So that's just one example. There's lots of them here uh in Psalm 69, but just a great, great psalm. Again, we'll put that sermon, dissonant despair, in the description, and hopefully that will be an encouragement to you.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Yeah, and when I when I see passages like this, and there there are prayers going out, uh, I I'm thinking about praying the Bible, and it draws to mind a book uh that I've read called Praying the Bible by Donald Whitney, and he he models it. And kind of lays out how we can go about praying the scriptures and specifically how we go about praying the psalms. And if we're in a position where we're in a season where there's there's pain, there's struggle, there's real hurt, praying, praying this psalm would be a great uh a great benefit and a great study, as you're saying, Pastor Josiah. We can look to verses 13 and verses 33 and see uh we can pray these things. God at an acceptable time, uh in your timing, God, in your in your knowledge, and the abundance of your love, God, hear my prayer and answer me in your faithfulness and your saving faithfulness. And to 33, we can have comfort because God does hear us. Um verse 33 says, For the Lord hears the needy and does not despise his own people. This is a great comfort and encouragement to us when we're um feeling isolated, feeling lonely, feeling not understood, not heard, not seen by um by people that might be able to physically in the moment here on earth intervene and interject for our for our justice, but we can look to God who who does not blink and miss or skip a beat at all. He is fully and completely aware and he cares. Yeah.

Final Encouragement And Farewell

SPEAKER_01 23:12

So go to go to the Lord, knowing that the throne of grace is open if you are in Christ. We no longer have to have uh a barrier between us and the Lord or offer the blood of all these different animals. The throne of grace is open and you can go today. Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Podcast. For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compass bible sv dot org. Keep reading, keep growing. God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.