24th September 2025

24th September 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Exodus 19:1-25 focus v9b-17)


Message (Alan Burke)


I don’t know the official statistics, they will probably disagree with me and tell me that September has been the warmest and driest for the past 20 years and we’re all doomed but in my perception it’s been wet. We’re use to a bit of rain, we have lots of names for it from ‘spitting’, ‘bucketing’, ‘lashing’, ‘hammering’, ‘bucketing’. I remember some time ago I used a term for rain in one of the devotions and there was much consternation so I’ll not use it again. Like if we were really stuck this September since it’s been at times raining like cats and dogs (like what eejit came up with that one) like if the taps didn’t work in the house we could just go stand outside and get a wash.  I doubt that is going to happen but think, the entire population of Northern Ireland at one time without water being pumped into our homes, and without the rivers, lakes, loughs, streams, burns having to wash their clothes. That is exactly what the LORD commanded Moses to tell the people, they were to consecrate themselves and wash their garments. 


To be consecrated means to be set apart for the LORD God himself, for they were a treasured possession, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. Part of this was they were to wash their clothes. This wasn’t going to be an easy task. Remember there were 2 million or so people having to wash their clothes at one time, to consecrate themselves to prepare themselves for the coming presence of the Lord God. As they consecrated themselves, set themselves apart washing their clothes in effect they were purifying themselves before the LORD, washing all the filth and stains from themselves symbolically, they were to respond to what the LORD had done by making themselves clean. 


While we are not told how Moses consecrated them one thing is clear, that people cannot come before the LORD God as they are. They are to consecrate themselves, prepare themselves for they are about to meet with the living God as no people had ever done before, they are there to listen to the voice of God. After they had pledged to follow the LORD they would need to be cleansed to serve him, pointing ultimately to the cleansing that is necessary for all of us through the Lord Jesus, Savour, for the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin (1 Jn 1:7). We are consecrated through Jesus Christ, it is through him that we have cleansing, through him we are set apart for the LORD our God. 


They were also to abstain from sexual relations. Not because these relationships within marriage are wrong but to allow a time of reflection, of preparation as they come to meet the LORD their God. Do we see the importance of preparing in every way throughout this, his people preparing to meet the LORD? Only when the people had prepared could they come, only when they had consecrated themselves to the LORD did they come before our Holy, Holy, Holy God. Do you prepared yourself to meet with the LORD God, preparing yourself for him to speak to you?


Our Larger Catechism explains what is required of all of us as we come to meet the LORD God, in Q160 it asks ‘What is required of those that hear the word preached?’


The answer is; 

It is required of those that hear the word preached, that they attend upon it with diligence, preparation, and prayer; examine what they hear by the scriptures; receive the truth with faith, love, meekness, and readiness of mind, as the word of God; meditate, and confer of it; hide it in their hearts, and bring forth the fruit of it in their lives.


When God spoke to his people at Sinai, as he speaks to us today we are to prepare and to listen, for it is the LORD God we come before, the one who is Holy, Holy, Holy. The one who has made a way that we can come into his presence through the cleansing that comes through the Lord Jesus Christ. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q82 Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God?
A. No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but doth daily break them in thought, word, and deed.
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