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ប្រតិចារិក
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Dear congregation, welcome to Exodus chapter 32. Well, for the last number of weeks in this book, there's been many notable things that we have noticed. Particularly in the past weeks, being made for the building of the tabernacle. The arch and the lamp stand, the bronze laver, the offering and... for the instruction and ordination of... Okay, thank you. So today and the next two Lord's Days, Lord willing, we hope to focus today on the Golden Calf, the worship that we have here in chapter 32, and then in the weeks to come, the command to leave that comes to the Israelites and then Moses' intercession, and then the third week, the covenant renewal that comes after that, so chapters 32 through 34. It's important for us to remember already at the beginning of the sermon, as we consider the Israelites and that horrible worship there, that there were many things that we know that they don't know. The last things that they remember, the last things that they were involved in, we had the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. We had the explanation of the Ten Commandments in the chapters that followed that. Then we had the covenant ceremony. I believe there it was that in chapter 24. After that covenant ceremony, Moses and 70 elders, they went up the mountain. Part of the way they had that communion feast with God where they had a glimpse into heaven and saw the glory of God. And then Moses was called further. He left Aaron in charge with the 70 elders. They went back down the mountain. So the elders went down, Moses went up, and Joshua seemed to stay there. Part of the way up, and for these 40 days, he has been waiting there. And we'll come back to that in a moment. So it's important for us to remember that they're not aware of all these instructions for the tabernacle and the furniture and the priesthood. Moses knew that Moses was with God, but for this time now, the Israelites have been waiting. So let's consider now this chapter, Exodus chapter 32, under the theme, horrifying idolatry at Mount Sinai. Horrifying idolatry at Mount Sinai. And with God's help, we're going to see this in three thoughts. First of all, the actual worshiping of a golden calf. Second, the threats of God's judgment. And third, the consequences of their sins. So, horrifying worship at Mount Sinai. And we begin this afternoon by seeing the worshiping of a golden calf. Well, here are the Israelites, and they have been waiting. And for those of us who have to wait for things, you know how hard it is. Especially maybe children, if you have a birthday coming up, you know that you begin to count down the days, often weeks in advance, and it seems like it's a long time before finally your birthday gets here. And the same is true for other major events in our lives. Maybe it's a wedding, or a graduation, or a vacation. When we're waiting, things take long. But waiting is especially difficult when there is no clear end in sight. Perhaps you've had it before that you had to wait for maybe something, an important surgery, or you're on a waiting list for a medical treatment, and there's no date set, you know, at some point, at some time, I'm going to get what I need, but in the meantime, you sit and you wait. And that's even more difficult, isn't it? Well, here we have the Israelites. They'd been through many exciting things in the last weeks. It's just about two months ago that God delivered them from Egypt, and they went through the Red Sea, and God miraculously provided them with food and water. Then in the months that followed, about three months ago they left Egypt, about a month earlier, God appeared there at Mount Sinai. And they heard the blast of the trumpets, they seen the flashes of lightning, the mountain was on fire, the ground was shaking. And you see all these wonderful, exciting things that happened. Now Moses had gone up the mountain, and there they are, sitting there in the desert. And they wait. A week goes by, a second week, a third week, a fourth week, a fifth week. Where's Moses? When is he going to come back? That's what we see really at the beginning of our text. They've been waiting and they say in verse 1, now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves to Aaron. They see, they wonder what's going on. Later on in verse, again still in verse one towards the end, it says, for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. So here are the Israelites, they're tired of waiting, they have no idea what's happening with Moses, and they go to Aaron, they have a request for him. Again, going to Aaron is natural, isn't it? You see, other than Moses, Aaron, you might say, was in second-in-command. Aaron has been the spokesman of Moses. God speaks to Moses, and Moses speaks to the people through Aaron. Aaron was involved in the ten plagues and various events that have happened. Aaron played a prominent role. And when Moses left, he left Aaron in charge. So they go to Aaron and have a simple but shocking request. They say, come, make for us gods that shall go before us. Make for us gods that shall go before us. Hasn't the Lord God been going before them? Was He the one who has been speaking to them? He who had made these marvelous miracles and plagues in Egypt? Wasn't he making his presence clear to them in that pillar of cloud, in that pillar of fire? God was there among them. Even as they're sitting there at the plain waiting, the smoke still covered the mountain. It's not as though God disappeared and the smoke was gone and everything was quiet. They were still there and you might say, in the presence of God there at the mountain. And they have this request. Come, make us gods that shall go before us. Well, Aaron here is a very poor leader. He has a lack of courage, a lack of conviction. What he should have said to them is, don't you remember what God has done? Don't you remember how God is providing even this morning? You woke up, there was manna. This morning God sent you food and now you want a different God? You want to make an idol, a statute? Moses does not remind them of the second commandment and the first commandment of not worshiping other gods, not making any images, any idols to worship. Verse 4 tells us, and he received the gold from their hands and he fashioned it with an engraving tool. And the Hebrew, there's a third he there, and he made a golden calf. Well, that might not be his idea. He was personally involved in the making of this calf. Maybe he had help, but the text makes it very clear. He gave the instructions, he received the gold, he made the calf. And this calf was likely first made out of wood and overlaid with gold. Well, Aaron makes this calf. People see this calf and respond by saying, in verse 4, this is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. It's a little confusing, the text here, because in verse 1, when they go to Moses the first time, there's a plurality of gods. Now, make us gods, and it's implied that they may go before us. But now they switch here to the singular. This is your God, O Israel, that that brings you out, and again this is singular, the one that has brought you out of the land of Egypt. It's almost as though they now are saying this calf that has been made, it's representing the living God. We're not completely rejecting Him, we're just, we want a statute, an idol for us to worship. It's also reflected in Psalm 106, verses 19 and 20. We read there, they, the Israelites, made a calf in Horeb, it's another name for Mount Sinai, and worshipped the molded image. Thus, they, the Israelites, changed their glory, their glory was God, into the image of an ox that eats grass. So that's what the Israelites are doing here. They asked for this calf, or asked for a God, and then Aaron makes this calf, and now they say, okay, this calf is our God. This is representing God, Jehovah. Now, verse 5, we have Aaron's further actions. So, when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow is a feast to the Lord, to Jehovah. So, we have in this text so far this strange mixture. On one hand, we have, you know, it was a feast for Jehovah, this calf, it's representing God that delivered us. And at the same time, right, there's this mixture of idolatry and pagan worship. Well, the next day we read verse 6, and it rose up very early the next day. They offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. They offer worship to this idol. And rose up to play there most likely refers to widespread sexual immorality. And that, again, should not be surprising. When we take God and reduce Him to a golden image, a calf, we've already made that step. No, the God that is leading us, the God that we worship, it's a calf covered in gold. And it makes it that much easier for us to sin. What's this calf gonna do about it? It's a gold-covered piece of wood. So we see how the Israelites, they worship, and then they go on in perversion and sin. Well, we would never do what the Israelites did, would we? I don't think on a Sunday morning we would come together and say, I know we've been praying to God and worshiping God, but let's make, it's like a golden calf here. And when we pray, we'll pray towards this calf and when we offer our gifts, we'll offer our gifts to the calf and we'll say, you know, how absurd is that? We would never do that. And I hope and pray that we never do something so openly idolatrous. And yet, is it not true that there are many ways in which we may not openly do that, and yet, in similar ways, we are imitating the sin of the Israelites? You may have had it before. We come to church on Sunday. We hear a sermon that convicts us of certain sin. Or a sermon that really encourages us. Maybe we've been struggling with anxiety and fear and just not taking our cares and our struggles to God. And we hear this sermon and we say, okay, I need to make some changes in my life. I need to put this sin to death. I need to, as I struggle with fears, I need to bring them to God and trust that He's going to help me through it. How many days or how many hours do we last? Before we turn from our resolutions, our resolve to not give in to that sin, we're going to worship God and trust in Him. So quickly, we like the Israelites, our eyes turn away from God and begin to focus on all the idols around us, the idols in our hearts. John Calvin puts it well, he says, the human heart is an idol factory. Day after day, we, like the Israelites, need to tear them down. We need to bow before God and say, Lord, I confess that I, like the Israelites, I also have idols that I serve, idols I live for. The idol of pride, the idol of self-sufficiency, the idol of pleasure, the idol of money, The idol of being popular and looked up to by our peers. But here we have the Israelites. They've made this golden calf, and how is God going to deal with his rebellious people? Let's go on to our second thought and consider the threat of God's judgment. In verse seven and eight, we read what, we go on to read, and the Lord said to Moses, go, get down. For your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I command them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshipped it, and sacrificed to it, and said, This is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt." Well, it's very obvious, isn't it, that there is nothing hidden from God. The Israelites might think, you know, where is our God and where is Moses? And at the same time, while they're doing all these things, God knows what they're doing. God sees it. And notice what God says to Moses in verse 7, your people who you have brought out. In chapters 3 through 10, we often read how God says, and even the message to Pharaoh, let my people go that they may worship me. And you read in those opening chapters how God calls Israel His firstborn, His son, the one that belongs to Him. But now as the Israelites are openly rebelling against God, worshiping His idol, the people are in danger of being disowned by God. God doesn't say, my people who I brought out, He says to Moses, your people who you brought out. So we see that danger there, how sin is breaking this relationship. But at the same time here, You can also see how God is giving Moses a certain responsibility for the people, your people, the ones that you have been leading, the ones that you have, through my help, of course, that you've brought this far. And God is saying, your people, who you brought out, there really is an invitation here for Moses to begin to pray for these people, to represent them before God, to intercede for them. But it gets worse in verses nine and 10. God goes on speaking and says to Moses, I've seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them, and I will make of you a great nation. It's not just here that God's threatening to disown them, but we see here how God is threatening to annihilate them, to just destroy them. And it's maybe the same way that God destroyed Solomon and Gomorrah, to judge them for their wickedness, to judge them for their sin. And then God says, I'll start again with you, Moses. We'll raise up a nation through your seed. Well, what will Moses do? Hey, on one hand, it's a great honor that he'd be chosen. At the same time, we can say the Israelites certainly deserve this punishment. How can they rebel against God so quickly? We see that Moses does not jump at this opportunity to have even a more prominent place in the nation of Israel. Again, going back for a moment to Psalm 106, we read verses 19 and 20 already, but there's a striking description there of what Moses does. So we read again there, they made a calf in Horeb and worshiped the molten image. Thus they changed their glory into the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt, wondrous things in the land of Ham, awesome things by the Red Sea. Therefore He said that He would destroy them." He goes on to say there, "'Had not Moses, His Chosen One, stood before Him in the breach to turn away His anger, lest He destroy Him?' And what a contrast it is to Ezekiel 22, verse 30. And we read that before the service. And God says to the prophet, I have not found a man to stand in the gap. But here we have Moses. And it is Moses who is going to now take up these people and intercede for them, to plead for them. So how does Moses do that? How does Moses turn away the wrath of God? You see that in verse 10. He pleads with God and he focuses on three things. He first of all reminds God of the relationship that God has with Israel. Remember verses 7 and 8, God said to him, your people that you have brought out. And Moses, he takes that around and he goes to God. He says in verse 11, Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people whom you have brought out of the land of Israel? So first of all, that reminds you of the relationship. Second, he goes on to, he's concerned about God's name and honor. and not just God's name and honor among the Israelites. It's an international concern that Moses has. He says that in verse 12. Why should the Israelites speak and say, he, that's God, brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth? Moses goes on to say, turn from your fierce wrath and relent from this harm to your people. If God destroyed the Israelites, The reputation of God within the Egyptians would be, well, God brought them out, God brought them this far, but obviously God cannot bring them any further. Or God is unable to turn the hearts of His people. Moses here, again, he's concerned about God's name and honor. And the last thing Moses, in his pleading with God, he points to the promises God made in the past, in verse 13. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self and said to them, I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of, I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever. Moses here is a wonderful example to us. He's doing the work of a priest. He's thinking about God's glory, thinking about God's relationship, thinking about God's promises, and he's not saying that people aren't that bad. He's not saying they don't deserve to be punished. He's saying, Lord, show them mercy. Not because they don't deserve it, but because of who you are, your greatness, your glory, your name, your promises. As we see this pleading for Moses, we can also use it as a model. I think especially of those of us who are parents, as we pray for our children, especially the children that we have, or maybe the children in our families who have gone astray, those who were born into Christian homes, who were baptized, who have the sign and seal of God's covenant placed on them. In many ways, those children, if they are acting like the Israelites, they're covenant breakers, they're living in sin, they're dishonoring God's name. We, like Moses, can go to God and say, Lord, have mercy on them. Lord, turn their hearts so they stop sinning, so they stop living in rebellion against you. Lord, remember your promises, your covenant that you made with them, that relationship. Even though they're living in sin, even though they're covenant breakers, Lord, save them. And through that, bring glory and honor to your name. Well, verse 14, we go on to read, after Moses pleads how the Lord relents. So the Lord relented from the harm which he said he would do to his people. What does that mean? How do we understand that in connection with other Bible passages where it says very clearly, God does not change. God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. How if God says something, he will do it. We need to acknowledge, first of all, that God, His character and nature does not change. That's such a comfort for us. We live in a world that's constantly changing. Even in our own lives, we can go through times of health, times of sickness, times of prosperity, and times of struggle. It's a wonderful doctrine in the Bible that God is the same. We change, the world changes, God doesn't change. But while God doesn't change, His relationships and His dealings with people does change. And we see that often in the Bible. A prime example is the city of Nineveh. God threatened his judgment and destruction on the city. And Jonah, you heard part of that last week, I believe, how Jonah was sent there. And he goes reluctantly. And eventually, though, he goes and he has that simple message in that people repent. They turn from their sins. There's a three-day citywide fast. And God sees their repentance, and God does not judge them as they deserve because they repented. Another example is King Saul. God rejected him as king because of his disobedience. So when people turn to God in repentance and faith, their relationship with God has changed, right? Instead of being sinners, they're now his adopted children. But if people rebel against God, if they reject God, then they can expect God's judgment. So we see how Jesus is pleading with them in response to God's threat and judgment. Let's go on to our third thought and see now the consequences of their sins. At this point, Moses goes back down the mountain. He takes with him the two stone tablets with God's law. Chapter 31, verse 18 tells us that God, with his own finger, wrote his law in these stone tablets. So he starts going down the mountain, part of the way down, he meets Joshua who's waiting for him. And as they go on together, from the noise that they hear, Joshua thinks there's a war going on. And likely because of the smoke and the cloud, they're unable to see the camp. And Moses tells them in verse 18, it is not the noise of the shout of victory, nor the noise of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing I hear. As they get closer, Moses can now see what's going on. And even though God told them what they were doing, we see how Moses, he reacts to seeing the golden calf and the dancing. And Moses gets very angry. Again, it's interesting, in verse 11 he says to God, why does your anger burn hot against your people? In verse 19 we read, now Moses' anger became hot. Moses here has a holy indignation and anger when he sees how serious, how grossly perverse the actions of the Israelites are. Moses, he pleaded with God not to wipe them out. But as he sees this sin, Moses is not going to stand by and do nothing. See, first of all, how he takes those tablets of stone and he throws them on the ground. Maybe you've carried a wood tile before or a large flat stone. You know if you drop a stone, it doesn't just break in half. If you throw a stone tile down, it's going to smash into pieces. That's what Moses does there. It's not Moses here, I mean, certainly he was angry, but he was not losing his temper or losing control. By taking these tablets and smashing them on the ground, Moses is picturing for the Israelites, this is what you are doing by your sin. Their idolatry not only made them lawbreakers, but also covenant breakers. Forty days earlier, they had solemnly sworn to God that they would enter into this covenant relationship with Him, that they were going to obey His law, they were going to be His people. But now they have rebelled, they have turned to idols and they have not worshipped God as they should. The picture here of the law being broken. And these tables being shattered is a picture of what sin does. Again, that picture is helpful for us, isn't it? If God has worked in our hearts, if we love Jesus and want to follow after Him, then God's law becomes precious to us. The psalmist often speaks of how it's His delight to do the law of the Lord, which is Psalm 119. But when we sin, When we break God's laws, though we're taking God's law that we say that we love and by our sins, we are smashing it. Our sin, it damages that relationship that we have with God. Now, for believers, we can never totally sever ourselves from God, and yet that picture of sin is serious. Sin destroys. Sin is to take God's law and to smash it to the ground. That's the first thing Moses does. He breaks these two tablets of stone. Moses goes on, and we see here the foolishness of making idols. Moses takes that calf, he burns it, he grinds it into powder, and he takes that ground up gold and likely the ashes that were there, a part of the fire and maybe the inside wood of the calf, and he takes all that and he dumps that into the water that they drink. And then he goes on to say he forces them to drink it. And we see here again, they're worshiping this calf, but their so-called God has just been burned and destroyed, and they're drinking this garbage that before they were bowing down to. And this idol was completely helpless, right? This calf, it didn't say anything, it didn't do anything. The idols, and that's just a picture of what idols are, helpless, dead, unmovable objects, things that can't help us. What a disappointing this God is turning out to be for them. It's destroyed. Their water tastes horrible. It was really, it only led them into sin and misery. And then Moses confronts Aaron. Sadly, Aaron continues to be a very poor example. Verses 21-24, Moses said to Aaron, what did these people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them? So Moses was saying, did they hold a spear to your side? What possibly could they have done that would prompt you to obey them and to make this? And Aaron, he goes on to say, do not let the anger of my Lord become hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. For they said to me, make us gods that shall go before us. As for this man Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. And I said to them, whoever has any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it to me. And I cast it into the fire, and his calf came out. Have you attempted to say, really Aaron? Not only do you blame the people and say, you know what, it's their fault. I really, I was just a helpless victim in all this. Are you really trying to say that you took a bunch of gold and wood and you threw it in a fire and all of a sudden this calf just jumped out of the fire? I mean, that'd be a miracle. That'd be an act of God. You see really how Aaron, he's taking really no responsibility to himself. He's saying it's the people, they're really bad people. And well, I just threw this stuff in there and it's a miracle and this calf came out. Again, not really my fault. It's almost as though he's beginning to point the finger at God. This calf miraculously came out. Only God could do something like that. Here again, as we're quite tempted perhaps to look down at Aaron and say, really, what are you thinking? What are you doing? Don't we again see something of ourselves in Aaron? When something goes wrong, when we really mess up, even maybe just mess up a little bit, Don't we so often try to put as much blame on others as possible, to make ourselves look like, okay, maybe I went along and I did a few things not quite right, but it was really those other people or my friends around me that influenced me, or it was my circumstances. I was in a really hard circumstance and I really, I know I messed up a little bit, but I really couldn't help it. As we so often too, maybe we don't say it out loud, but especially maybe in our minds, we pass the blame, we minimize our own involvement, our own guilt. Maybe even as we blame our circumstances or as we think about this, we even blame God a little bit. Now why did God not help me to avoid this temptation? Why did God not direct things differently in my life so I wouldn't be in that situation where I was tempted to sin? Again, we look at Aaron here, we think this is ridiculous, but look at ourselves. So often we do similar things, we have similar mindsets, similar attitude. We have the destruction of the calf, we have their idol destroyed, but it gets worse in verses 25 to 26. Now when Moses saw that the people were unrestrained, for Moses had not restrained them to their shame among their enemies, then Moses stood in the entrance of the camp and said, whoever's on the Lord's side, come to me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him." But again, it's a bit of a sad picture, isn't it? Moses here has this bold cry. If you're on the Lord's side, if you want to serve him and follow him, come join me. Only one tribe out of 12 comes there and publicly identifies as being on the Lord's side. These men are sent out, take their swords, they begin to kill their brothers, neighbors, and companions. In total, 3,000 men are killed. We don't know if further instructions were given. It seems a little unlikely to go around killing completely random people. Unlikely then, they were looking for those who were actively sinning, right? Those who were unrestrained and acting shamefully. But regardless, there was this small judgment on a portion of the people because of their sins. Well, the next day, the people are called together again and Moses tells them, verse 30, you have committed a great sin. So now I will go up to the Lord, perhaps I can make atonement for your sin. Now how is Moses going to do that? To make atonement, often it's the picture of a sacrifice being offered. I'm guilty, I bring a sacrifice, an animal that's going to take my place, and because the animal dies and is burned in my place, the wrath of God is satisfied in the sacrifice, at least symbolically. Atonement requires someone to take the place of the guilty. So how is Moses gonna do that? We see that in verses 31 to 33. Goes back to the Lord and says, oh, these people have committed a great sin and have made for themselves a God of gold. Yet now, if you will forgive their sin, but if not, I pray, blot me out of the book which you have written. You see what Moses is doing there? He's asking God to forgive, but if God can't forgive them, He's asking, can I take their place? You know, God, take me out of your book. You know, He could say, remove me from your people and I'm willing to take the punishment that they deserve. It's a beautiful picture, isn't it? What love Moses had, what care and concern He's showing here. Verse 33, the Lord says to him, says to Moses, whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book. God does not accept Moses' offer to be a substitute to take the place of the people and to suffer their punishments. Now, why is that? Reformation Study Bible, Heritage Study Bible says, Only the one guilty of sin can be punished for sin. And substitution is only possible when the guilt can be transferred from the sinner and imputed or given to the substitute because of a legal union between them. So Moses here, while God called him to lead the people, he was not, you could say, their legal representative or their covenant head. You can think here, for example, of Adam. Adam in the Garden of Eden. He represented there. So it represented us there. So when Adam sinned, when he took the forbidden fruit, we fell with him. And Adam's sins also accounted to us in our original guilt. That's also why his sin directly impacts us. And Moses here, he was not in that position. He was not able to take their place. But the good news is that there's someone else who can. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21, you read, "'For he that is God made him that is Christ who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.'" Because in the covenant of redemption, Christ was the representative of his people. And Christ already in eternity says, I am going to come, I'm going to give myself as a substitute for my people. On the cross, all the sins of His people were transferred to Him. He suffered in their place. So what Moses tried to do and failed to do is what Jesus Christ did. He took the place, so if we are trusting in Christ, we believe in Him, our faith in Him, then on the cross, Jesus took our sins, He took our guilt, and He experienced really what Moses was asking for, to be blotted out of your book. Now, we know that Christ was not condemned to eternity in hell, but there on the cross, Christ endured hell in the place of His people. He took the guilt and the punishment they deserved. He took that to himself so that if we believe in him, we avoid hell and we receive his righteousness. We get to enjoy the eternities of being with Christ in heaven. Exodus 32 verse 33 is a sober reminder. If we continue in our sins, if we reject Jesus as Messiah and Lord, then no one else can take our place. There's only one substitute, only one person who can come in the place of us, who can take that punishment that we deserve. So if we reject Christ, we pay for our own sins. We're going to suffer the wrath of God for an eternity in hell. And how much worse that will be if we heard there's a substitute, but you refuse to go and to trust in Him. Now, the reason, though, why Moses could not be the substitute for them is Moses is just a man, and Moses himself was a sinner, right? The Savior that we need needs to be a true man like us and without sin, but also God, that He can endure all the sins of His people in their place. As we reach the end of the chapter, verse 34, it ties into chapter 33, so we'll leave that for today. But verse 35 ends by saying, so the Lord plagued the people because of what they did with the calf which Aaron made. Moses, he tried to be their substitute, tried to take their place, and he failed, and there was ongoing consequences to their sin. Yet for us, we have hope because Christ didn't fail. Christ was accepted. He was raised from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and he's coming back again. In conclusion, congregation, we tend in this chapter to focus on the idolatry. Even my theme, I had that, right? How this chapter is about the horrifying idolatry at Mount Sinai. As you go through this chapter, you know something else. That yes, their sin is at a prominent place in this chapter, but the real heart of this chapter is what Moses is doing here. All the actions as he goes to God and as he goes to the people. Moses here is a picture of the ultimate Savior. Reformation Study Bible again has a very helpful quote. It says here, Moses is again a type of Christ. The Lord Jesus is the prophet preaching against idols, the king bringing the sword of discipline, and the priest who offered himself as the substitute for his people and intercedes for them. But where Moses could only bring truth and an added partial discipline and temporal deliverance, Christ can save from blindness, guilt, and sin. Moses, he interceded for the people. He pled for them, and he turned away God's wrath. God did not destroy them yet. And Moses, he tried to substitute that field. But what Moses could not do, he couldn't change their hearts. We know that, so you keep reading through Exodus and you read Numbers, these people, they were hard-hearted. They didn't want to submit. They didn't want to obey God. And Moses, there's a certain sense, Moses was helpless. He could intercede, he could preach, he could correct them, he could even order execution of those who were wicked, but Moses could not change their hearts. Moses could not make them hate sin and love God and love his law. And that's again where what we have in the gospel, even what we remember today on Pentecost is so much greater. In Christ, we have a perfect Savior, one who truly does save us completely. And through the Holy Spirit, God is able to change our hearts so that we do trust, so we do love, so we do hate sin and flee from it. This is why what we have is so much greater than the Israelites. God was providing for them, and God was, even through this all, teaching them what the greater Messiah, the greater Savior. Let us be thankful for what we have in the Bible, so much more revelation, more clarity, so that we have all the more reason to trust with confidence, and so that we have even less of an excuse than the Israelites do for not believing. So may God help us all to look to the greater than Moses, the greater deliverer, the greatest, the ultimate prophet, priest, and king. Amen. Let us pray. Our gracious God and Father, we come before you again in this afternoon. Lord, we thank you for your word. As we again could consider this passage from your word, Lord, even as we can be shocked by the wickedness of the idolatry and the excuses of Aaron. Lord, help us to see how we, by nature, are no different, and how we so often show such similar attitudes and similar sins, albeit in slightly different forms and maybe more internally. Lord, we pray that you'd help us, that we too would be convicted by our sins, that we not make excuses like Aaron, that we would bow down before you and to acknowledge, Lord, I have sinned against you. I have done wickedness. I have broken your law. Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner. Lord, we pray that you'd work in all of our hearts, that from the youngest to the oldest, as soon as we can understand even just the basic parts of the gospel, you would turn our hearts unto you. Lord, we pray for the work of the Holy Spirit, that we are no less stubborn than the Israelites, no less foolish and hard-hearted. We pray that you'd come with your spirit, your spirit that was poured out so many years ago, and transform us, regenerate us, make us Christ-like. Give us hearts that love you, hearts that desire to serve you in every part of life. Lord, please be with us now in this week. We pray that you would spare us from harm and danger, or keep us from meeting our deaths before we are right with you. Lord, help us in our work, whether we go to school, or at home, or if we're retired. In all that we do, Lord, we pray for your help and grace. We pray again for Peter and Grace. Lord, help them as in the days ahead, they have surgery. Lord, give that calmness of heart and mind. They're resting in you and your promises. And again, we pray, Lord, bless the surgery. And Lord, we ask all these things for Christ's sake alone. Amen.
Horrifying Idolatry at Mt. Sinai
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