Turn now to the sermon text in Exodus chapter 32. Exodus chapter 32, beginning in verse 1. Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him, come, make us gods that shall go before us. 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. And Aaron said to them, break off the golden earrings which are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool and made a molded calf. And they said, this is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. 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. And they rose early in the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. 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 quickly out of the way which I commanded 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. And the Lord said to Moses, I have 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." And Moses pleaded with the Lord, his God, and said, Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak and say he brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from your fierce wrath and relent from this harm to your people. 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've spoken of, I give to your descendants and they shall inherit it forever. So the Lord relented from the harm which he said he would do to his people. And Moses turned and went down from the mountain and the two tablets of the testimony were in his hand. The tablets were written on both sides, on the one side and on the other they were written. of the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets. And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, there is a noise of war in the camp. But he said, 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. So it was, as soon as he came near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing. So Moses's anger became hot, and he cast the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. Then he took the calf which he had made, burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder. And he scattered it on the water and made the children of Israel drink it. And Moses said to Aaron, what did this people do to you that you have brought so great a sin upon them? So Aaron said, 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 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 this calf came out. And Moses saw that the people were unrestrained, for Aaron had not restrained them to their shame among their enemies. And Moses stood in the entrance of the camp and said, whoever is on the Lord's side, come to me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him. And he said to them, thus says the Lord God of Israel, let every man put his sword on his side and go in and out from entrance to entrance throughout the camp, and let every man kill his brother, every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. So the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And about 3,000 men of the people fell that day. Then Moses said, consecrate yourselves today to the Lord, that he may bestow on you a blessing this day, for every man has opposed his son and his brother. Now it came to pass the next day that Moses said to the people, you have committed a great sin. So now I go up to the Lord. Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin. And Moses returned to the Lord and said, 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 from your book which you have written. And the Lord said to Moses, whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book. Now therefore, go, lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to you. Behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit for punishment, I will visit punishment upon them for their sin. So the Lord plagued the people because of what they did with the calf which Aaron made. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, this is not a flattering portrait of God's people. We know, Lord, this is our family history. This is our covenant people. We are the seed of Abraham. We are the descendants spiritually of these people. And Lord, it is not a nice picture. And Lord, there are many complexities in this, things that are not entirely explained in themselves and which must be known from other places in scripture. And from the true system of theology, we pray, Lord, therefore, that you would grant us much attentiveness and help, both to see these things and understand them, and, Lord, particularly that this might be the medicine that we need. It might be the food by which we might be sustained this week. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. So tonight we carry on in Exodus chapter 32, the golden calf incident and all that came from it. Last time was we were in the initial one third perhaps of it, or half of it I suppose. We focused a little bit on the statement in verse 14, so the Lord relented from the harm which he said that he would do to his people. And we have to understand that the harm which he said he was going to do was to wipe them out entirely. And Moses succeeded in his work of intercession for the people, and the Lord spared the people. That was the Lord's intention, actually. He provoked Moses. He reminded Moses of his job as intercessor as he pointed the way to Christ. This would be Christ's great work of interceding on behalf of the people. And so Moses did it, and he succeeded. But then as we read, we see many things that happen that seem an awful lot like punishment, seem an awful lot like as if the Lord did carry out his plans against the people. And we have to see that that's not really the case, right? We might focus a little bit more actually on the final verses. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit for punishment, I will visit punishment upon them for their sin. So the Lord plagued the people because of what they did with the calf which Aaron made. All right? So there's some complexity here. And we have to understand that some of it has to do with the nature and status of Old Testament Israel as a theocracy, as the covenant people of God. It's a little different. God is dealing with them both as a church, corporately, and also as a nation. And so there are both civil and religious penalties involved, as well as in what to do with them as a whole. Now let me say what they deserved was to be wiped out entirely at that moment for there to be no more people that came from such a wicked group. and also that they'd be eternally in hell. That's what their sin deserved. And we cannot possibly underestimate just how terrible and how wicked it was for people freshly redeemed by the hand of the living God displaying great signs and wonders and raining down manna from heaven to feed them, day by day his presence among them For them, the moment the back of Moses is turned, as it were, precisely to go up and receive the moral law written on tablets of stone, for them to make a golden calf and to bow down and worship it in the most gross and immoral sort of way, imitating the very Egyptians and their calf god, which they had, they had a bull god, and imitating the way that pagans worshipped their idols. They deserve to be wiped out. They weren't. So we have to be very straight about that. And we have to understand, therefore, that there is a difference between eternal judgment in hell, the wrath of God falling on someone in hell, that's categorically different than church discipline. It's categorically different than discipline that sometimes God brings into our lives to get us to repent. And those things are distinct from the civil penalties for crime committed in a theocratic nation of Israel. So may the Lord enable us to understand these things. But in the midst of all of that, what I want us to see, the word that I want us to leave with, is the mercy and grace that is to be found in the midst of such great sin. Anything but, and the Lord did to them what he did to Sodom and Gomorrah. Remember, the case of Sodom and Gomorrah is very, very bad, but those people don't have a name of being God's own people, you see. It's exacerbated, it's worse because of the public reputation that they had so soiled. Now, thankfully, that works both ways because as God's covenant people, then he has also committed himself to preserve them and to uphold them as a nation. But really, this is a terrible thing, and God could have rained down fire and brimstone from heaven and wiped them out entirely. The fact that he didn't, and that in fact so few people died, and that Aaron in particular was dealt with with such mercy, points us to the mercy and grace of God. Well, tonight's title is The Reckoning. The Reckoning. And there are four points. Idol destroyed, Aaron rebuked, ringleaders executed, people forgiven. Those things, that's the reckoning in the midst of the Golden Calf incident. Idol destroyed, Aaron rebuked, ringleaders executed, people forgiven. So straightforwardly, the first one, idol destroyed, we see in verse 17, when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, there is a noise of war in the camp. That's the only thing that Joshua could think of. But because Moses had been forewarned by the Lord himself on the mountain, Moses knew better. And he said, 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. Isn't it a funny thing how that even idolatrous people can lift their voice very loudly to sing praise sometimes, right? If you were to go on a match day to the football stadium, you would hear singing. you wouldn't struggle to have to hear whether people are singing or not. They would all be lifting their voices in the most hearty way imaginable. And so these people, which I don't think I'm straining my imagination to think that maybe they didn't always worship the Lord as wholeheartedly, yet they find a way, they find their voice, as it were, for this wretched idol, voice of singing. So it was as soon as he came near the camp that he saw the calf and the dancing. So it's singing and it's dancing. And so Moses' anger became hot. Now how do we evaluate that? We need to be careful and distinguish every little thing here because we don't want to group in one thing with another. How do we evaluate the fact that Moses was angry with this? It's a good thing. If you were to have come from the presence of the holy God, having just received the purity of the moral law, The very first one, which begins with thou shalt have no other gods before me. And the next one, thou shalt make no idol. Those are the two most important commandments. And you come down and you see your people doing those very things in the most overt sort of way imaginable. And you're not angry? There's a problem with you, okay? There is such a thing as righteous and holy anger. And that is what Moses displayed. In fact, we might wish that his brother had done that. We might wish that his brother would have been stirred up in his soul with godly jealousy and zeal when he saw the intent of the people's heart, but it was not so. So the fact he became angry in itself, that is good, but what he does next is not. And he cast the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. Friends, he definitely should break the calf. and destroy it. But the tablets of God on which the moral law, this is the handiwork of God, not the handiwork of idolatrous men. There's no connection here. And it's a sinful expression of that anger. And that is, of course, the problem, isn't it? It's so hard for us to be angry and not sin. That is the word of God for us, be angry and do not sin. There is such a thing. But it's really hard because the expression, the manifestation of it very often leads us to sinful places. And because the tablets of God happen to be in his hands, those are the things that first get broken. And that's a sin. And then he does break the thing that ought to be broken. In verse 20, then he took the calf which they had made, burned it in the fire. Of course, from the fire it came. And he's, in all the things that he does here with the calf, it demonstrates that it's not God, okay? And it's nothing like God. Because he can cast it into a fire and it'd be burned and be molten. And then he grinds it to powder. Because he's utterly destroying it and leaving no remnant lest there be any grist for the people to have idolatrous intent in the future. The last thing he'd want is for there to be some half-destroyed calf there that in later years some people would go back and find it and start worshipping it. The mere memory of this golden calf already prompts, as I mentioned this morning, the people of Samaria, the wicked king of Samaria, to actually set up two golden calves for the people to worship. So Moses wants nothing to do with that. He grinds at the powder and then He scatters it on the water and makes the children of Israel to drink it. And of course, it's a highly symbolic act of getting rid of these things. In fact, that they would ingest the remnants of their god, the god that brought them out of Egypt. We learn in Deuteronomy that he making the children of Israel to drink, it's not that he goes around with a cup and forces it down their throats, it's that he pours it into the only source of drinking water and therefore the children of Israel have no choice but to drink from that place. Now, gold is not going to do anyone any harm, okay? So there's no connection with the plague that happens. It's not poisonous, but rather it is a defiling and destruction completely and scattering in the most dramatic way of this awful calf. So the idol is destroyed, and that's a good thing. Secondly, we see that Aaron is rebuked. In verse 21, Moses said to Aaron, what did this people do to you that you brought so great a sin upon them? Right, I don't know if this is pure desperation or maybe he's giving Aaron a way, hoping beyond hope that someone, a group of men came with swords drawn to his brother's neck and forced him into this horrible thing. But Aaron said, do not let the anger of my Lord become hot. You know the people, but they are set on evil. And friends, I don't know if there's, already the excuse is very, very lame. We're gonna see that there's an element of truth. These people are evil, they are set on evil. But as for Aaron's excuse, this is lame indeed. For they said to me, make us gods that shall go before us. As for this Moses, this man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, your brother, we do not know what has become of him. And so 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 this calf came out. It's amazing. It's a miracle. How came this calf? I mean, it's unbelievable that this man, he's not 15 years old. He's not 25 years old. I forget the exact number. He's like 85 years old. He's not a young man. And here he is trying to foist something utterly incredible upon his brother. And here's the funny thing. Who wrote this whole chapter? His brother, it's Moses. He's not fooling anyone. He's the scribe of God, okay? I mean, Moses must have gotten somewhere between angry and quite a chuckle as he's writing this book down about the words of his own brother, okay? And out came this calf. Remember, of course, let me just say, of course, it wasn't that way. In the beginning of the chapter, and Aaron said to them, break off, he gives them the command, break off the golden earrings which are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron, and he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool. He's hard at work, fashioned it with an engraving tool and made a golden calf. And he says, and then they say, thankfully this is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. Now in this we can discern just a tiny, tiny bit of mitigation, okay? As Aaron is faced with a mom bent on doing evil, he should have opposed it. His righteous anger and wrath should have come, and he should have restrained them and rebuked them and disciplined them. He didn't. And weakly, he succumbs, but he's trying, just in a minute way, to sort of move things in a way. Calvin, I think, is trying to grant him a break and say, maybe, just maybe, when he says, break off the earrings, rather than gather gold that's lying around somewhere, but actually take it from your own family, as if it might have said, okay, well, we don't want to do that, because the cost is too great. And he didn't know that they were going to actually pay the cost. Maybe, I don't know, it's not clear. But one thing is clear, That he is trying to move this, to keep this from going completely into gross idolatry. And so they declare, these are the gods of Israel who brought you, Elohim is a plural in Hebrew, and so sometimes it's translated God. It's just one calf, but this is the God of Israel that brought you out of the land of Egypt. And he says, tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. All right, so he's trying to bring it back to that this is about the Lord. Now, that doesn't excuse him. They're breaking the first commandment, Aaron's breaking the second. Okay? Because God doesn't want to be worshipped through the use of any image. It doesn't really help his case that much. But he's trying. He's trying. And furthermore, there is a little element of truth, as I say, to his excuse. You know the people that they are set on evil. Friends, God himself said the same. He said, I see the people, I know the people, that they are stiff-necked people. I just wanna pause for a moment and say, this is not a surprise to God. Aaron says, tosses this out as you know these people, you've already experienced them. You've seen how ungrateful and complaining and wicked and given to sin that these people are, how slow they are to obey, how quick they are to rebel against you. You know them, you shouldn't be surprised. God himself said the same. And friends, God was not surprised by them. Yet he redeemed his people from Egypt. Yet he promised to bring them into the promised land. Yet his covenant promises rested upon such a weak and rebellious and stiff-necked people. I hope that this is encouraging to us, right? The mere fact that Aaron could say that and Moses says, well, yeah, I guess I do know the people. reminds us of the fact that God is extremely merciful. He didn't go and find the most soft-hearted people out there. You know, again, that's a problem with Arminianism. They will admit that they're no better in terms of the sins that they've committed than anyone else, yet they think that they're a little bit more given to faith than someone else. If you ask them, what's the difference between you and the person down the street who doesn't believe? The answer is, well, God foresaw that I was going to believe. That's the difference between me and them. Oh, okay. Well, I don't see a hint of that anywhere in scripture. God picks a people that are stiff-necked, And we should be thankful that this forever precedent has been set, because we're no better. Well, the fact that the rebuke, as I say, seems to be the extent to which Aaron is being dealt with is truly amazing. We will see how very next that 3,000 men, right, not men and women, not men and women and children, but 3,000 men, and it seems like those who are probably ringleaders of one kind or another, are executed. But how about Aaron? Who made this calf? Right? I mean, if you see something, it typically tells you where it's made on the bottom. And I don't know if Aaron bothered to do so, but it's made by Aaron on the bottom. And if you were just a policeman investigating this crime, you would say, well, it looks like we need to arrest this guy Aaron and do something to him. And friends, nothing else seems to happen to Aaron. What do we say about that? 3,000 executed, Aaron spared. This rebuke seems to be the worst that he gets. Why? We don't want to say it, but we know it's true. It's because he's Moses' brother, okay? It's because he's Moses' brother. And therefore, he is spared, all right? Now, as I say, These people may have sought an even grosser form of idolatry and errands and spared in his little way, but he nonetheless broke the law of God in a most dramatic sort of way. He nonetheless, even if he was under compulsion, even if they had drawn swords and said, make this an idol, he still would have been guilty of a crime that should have been executed by death, all right? People were executed in Old Testament Israel for lesser crimes than this, okay? but Moses is his brother. And friends, I want us to know that Christ is our elder brother, okay? So Aaron may have been, to some extent, a little bit anxious about this meeting, but he says, at least it's my brother, and he'll have mercy on me. Beloved, that is Christ Jesus to us. He is our elder brother. And that's the logic of scripture in Romans chapter 8. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died. Who is he who condemns? Christ who died and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution, famine, nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written, for your sake we are killed all day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter, yet in all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Who shall bring a charge? Who shall condemn? Christ is the judge. He's the one who's coming. And we think about a returning judge. Yes, it is true that between the moment that we're believers and the moment that Christ returns, we will have been guilty of sin. And in the pure exactitude of the law of God, that's perfect standard, we have not upheld it. But yet when our elder brother returns, And there will be an accounting. You understand there will be a reckoning. In fact, you understand that all those who serve the Lord, all of our works, even our idle thoughts, there will be an accounting of those things. But we won't be judged. We won't be sent to hell. There won't be a price to pay because Christ has paid it all. It only amounts to rewards and opportunities for rewards that have been lost in the end. Because Christ is our elder brother, and he's the one who laid down his life. His own blood has been shed. He carries about with him the very scars of his crucifixion so that we who are guilty might live. And so, friends, I'll return to this in the application. But if it was, The fact that Aaron was Moses' brother that spared him. And friends, we have something even more that's going to spare us, all right? As Christ, indeed, has been made eternally in an even more powerful way, our brother, and indeed, oh wait, hold on, also our bridegroom, all right? We are the bride of Christ, and his eye will spare his own beloved bride. Well, that's what happened with Aaron. He deserved worse, but all he got was a rebuke, rightly so. Thirdly, the ringleaders are executed. Verse 25, now when Moses saw the people were unrestrained, Aaron had not restrained them to their shame among their enemies. Now there's some little doubt as to what that means. It could mean that they were actually naked, which was common in idolatrous rituals. But certainly, no doubt about it, they were certainly unrestrained, not under any legitimate control, just running wild. And we said before, what a terrible curse upon a people it is not to be under the leadership, the authority structures that God has put in place. And I'll say one more time to you students, you guys live in a difficult time, all right? In God's ordinary way of dealing with things, we all grow up in houses that are under authority structures. There is a father, and there's also a mother, and there are children. That is the ordinary way that God deals with us. And then you marry, and there's a new authority structure, okay? You establish there's a new household structure. What about when you're away at university? It's hard, okay? It's not ideal. It's not ideal. And you have to be doubly on your guard then because what is ordinarily going to happen to you is what's going to happen to them. That they are unrestrained, right? Because the ordinary thing, the authority figure which God had given to Moses and Joshua to some extent, they're away. And therefore, they fall into great sin. Well, returning to this, Moses stood at the entrance of the camp and said, whoever is on the Lord's side, come to me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him. And we can praise God for that, that the tribe of Levi were obedient in this way and willing to carry out the Lord's bidding, though it was certainly going to be very uncomfortable at this point. and it is clearly at the Lord's direction. Let us not imagine that this has to do with simply that Moses had come up with an idea off his own bat to execute this, but rather it is at the Lord's direction. In verse 27, he said to them, thus says the Lord God of Israel, that every man put on his sword on his side and go in and out from entrance to entrance throughout the camp and let every man kill his brother, every man his companion, every man his neighbor. So the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses and about 3,000 men of the people fell that day. Well, it's easy again, if you didn't have other scripture and if you couldn't make a coherent picture of all this, you might think that they were indiscriminately going from one place to another. But the principle is being established in which Moses and the Lord, actually the Lord's direction is acknowledging the fact that these men would kill their brothers in the sense of their brother Israelites. These swords were intended to fight against the enemies of the Lord as they went into the Promised Land, but on this occasion, sadly, they would have to go against their own people, their own brothers. And that's what they did. Now, it was not indiscriminate. Again, there were millions of people here. It certainly was not the case that they simply went out and killed a random group of people. But almost definitely, these were those who had taken a particular part in this. As it says, the people came. It wasn't that all the people came up to Aaron. Surely, there was a group of those who were determined to do evil who came. And in all likelihood, these are the ones that are executed at the Lord's direction. And so that's the way we understand then the end of the chapter in verse 35, because verse 35 reiterates this in a summary form. It's not speaking of a future punishment or a future execution, but of a summary of what had already happened. So the Lord plagued the people because of what they did with the calf which Aaron made. It's in the past tense. It just reiterates what has happened. Now, let me ask again, why? Why were these men executed? And what you have to understand is that they were guilty of extremely serious civil crimes as well as sin before the Lord. And if anyone is guilty of any serious crime in the Old Testament Israel, they would be executed. Consider the example of Achan. And that's forward in time in Joshua, the book of Joshua chapter 7, but we preached through Joshua before, some of you remember. Joshua 7.19, Joshua said to Achan, my son, I beg you, give glory to the Lord God of Israel and make confession to him and tell me now what you have done. Do not hide it from me. And Achan answered Joshua and said, Indeed, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I have done. When I saw among the spoils a beautiful Babylonian garment, 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing 50 shekels, I coveted them and I took them. And there they are hidden in the earth in the midst of my tent with the silver under it. Now let me stop right there and say, there was gold involved, but he didn't make it into a calf. There is disobedience involved but it wasn't gross idolatrous worship as these people were involved with. He didn't lead an insurrection against Moses or Joshua. He stole these things and in secret he kept them. But what happens to him? Joshua said, why have you troubled us? The Lord will trouble you this day. So all Israel stoned him with stones and they burned him with fire after they had stoned him with stones. Then they raised over him a great heap of stone and still to this day, that's still there to this day. So the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger. Say it again. So the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger. Therefore, the name of that place has been called the Valley of Acre to this day. Do you understand? Right again, the situation of these people called by his name in the theocratic state of Old Testament Israel is that sin had to be punished. There are civil penalties to be paid. And even if the Lord had said, I relent from the wrath that I was going to levy against him, I was going to blot them out like he did to Sodom and Gomorrah, or the whole earth as he did in the great flood. I relent from doing that. Yet it was necessary that these evil doers be taken from among their midst. You see, Achan, as one man, had brought about the wrath of God upon the nation. because his sin was not punished. It was necessary for sin to be punished and for such a man to be put away from their midst. And so it was necessary that these men, these ringleaders be punished and that they be taken away from the nation lest they continually be a thorn in the side and so they are executed. And let me say again that there were The people were guilty of blasphemy, gross idolatry, and insurrection. These crimes were even more heinous, even more dangerous to the society, because the wrath of God consisted merely in their defeat in battle with Achan. What almost happened, what the Lord threatened, was the destruction of the entire nation. And so this was the very minimal solution, the very minimal extent of which needed to happen. And so I want to say what's amazing here is not that 3,000 died, but because that everyone involved deserved to die, what we see is the leniency and mercy of God, right? Almost everyone, maybe with the exception of the Levites, I don't know, but it seemed like the vast majority of the people were involved. And we know that Aaron was accessory to all of this, complicit in all of this. And yet he lived, and the vast majority, 99% of the rest of them lived, and only 3,000 died. And this is the mercy of God. Now that's what happened. So in this reckoning, the idol is destroyed. Aaron is rebuked. The ringleaders are executed. But finally, the people as a whole, they're forgiven. So in verse 30, it came to pass in the next day that Moses said to the people, you have committed a great sin. So now I will go up to the Lord, perhaps I can make atonement for your sin. So this is in the aftermath then that the Ringlers have been executed and he's going to return now because this matter hasn't been fully dealt with. The Lord relents from immediately wiping out the people. But he knows that there might still be consequences involved, and he goes, and the heart of Moses is maybe, just maybe, I can make atonement for your sin. And again, this is the heart of this man Moses. We see that in his anger, unrighteously, he breaks tablets of stone. He's weak, he's a sinner, he's merely a faint outline of Jesus Christ. But the thought on that morning as he goes up to the mountain of God is, maybe I can make atonement for this people. Maybe I can save you. Maybe I can make sure that you're spared. Friends, I hope this instructs us, because this is not the extent of Christ. And what we see in Christ is what we see in God. Let's not imagine then, right, that there's some God, the Father, who stands behind Christ, who is hard-hearted. Okay? Because Christ is the image of the invisible God and all that we see in Christ, that's God. The real God we see. And there's nothing behind him. And what do we see in Christ? Well, even his types. Even his types seek ways in which that people might be absolved and forgiven and atonement to be made for them. So he says, he returns to the Lord in verse 31, oh, these people have, he comes in confession, committed a great sin and made for themselves a god of gold. Yet now if you will forgive their sin, but if not, I pray blot me out of your book which you have written. Well, stop right there, friends. You see what's on his heart. He says, Lord, I care for these people. They're wicked, they're sinners. No one knew that more than Moses. He says, I would myself even be blotted out. And he's speaking, of course, of the Book of Life. There are two books. There are probably three, actually. One, a record of the deeds of men, and another with everyone's name written on it. That's the Book of Life. And one by one, as people die unrepentant, their names are blotted out from that Book of Life. There's another book, of course, which is the Lamb's Book of Life, and from eternity, and in ink that cannot be erased. There are the names of all of the elect, all the sheep of God which Christ came, which the Father gave into the hands of the Son, and which the Son laid down his life for. And he says, I would, even to be blotted out, I would wish that the wrath come upon me. Well, that's the inclination of one who points us to Christ. As Christ didn't just say it, it wasn't just an offer that maybe Moses knew that he wasn't gonna be taken up on, but in fact, Jesus Christ offered himself in reality, precisely, that he might die. And that for a moment, as it were, his name being blotted out from the book of life. And that he lay stone dead in the tomb so that we might live. Friends, this is the beauty of this religion, that on the darkest chapter, when the most wicked things imaginable happen, in which God must in his righteousness, simply in the very basic dealings with his people, yet must visit punishment upon them, yet there is unending mercy and grace to be found. And Moses comes offering himself even, so that his people might be saved. And the Lord said to Moses, whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book. And so we make a distinction between God's dealing with the people as a whole and his dealing with them individually, that he's not going to blot out all of the people for the sins of the few, but in his righteousness and justice, only those who in their settled condition of idolatry, they've turned away from the Lord utterly. And these men who have been put to death, truly they are blotted out. But there's an assurance of pardon in this, right? It says in verse 34, now therefore, go lead the people to the place of which I've spoken to you. Behold, my angel shall go before you. And that's it. And that's it. In this unimaginable act of wickedness and rebellion and insurrection against Moses, which one would think that the whole of the enterprise would come to a screeching halt, he says, no, my presence, my angel's gonna go with you. You know, the angel being the pre-incarnate son of God, Jesus Christ himself, he hasn't left. Right? Christ is there in the figure and the type of Moses showing the people that the inclination both to intercede on behalf of the people, to show mercy to people on behalf of their connection with him in the case of Moses, and on his inclination to offer himself that the people might be saved. Christ is there, and he says, here's the assurance of pardon. You're gonna go into that promised land, and my angel will go with you. His presence will be there. What a beautiful ending to this dark chapter. My angel will go with you. And all that happened, nevertheless in the day when I visit for punishment, I will visit punishment upon them for their sin. Not that that's in the future. You might think it in a simple reading, but we know from the next verse, so the Lord past tense plagued the people because of what they did. And so the God has fully dealt with this. And friends, I want us to know there is such a thing, for instance, as church discipline, and that sometimes we have to discipline someone and put them outside of the fellowship or to suspend them from the Lord's table. But then it's dealt with. And the beauty of dealing with something in the way that God has commanded is that then it is done. There is an assurance of pardon, forgiveness, and reconciliation. We move on. And that ties into what I said last week. As we move forward on these great things that we have in mind as a church, that we ought to seek out forgiveness. We ought to receive forgiveness and reconciliation. We reconciled one to one another. Because God himself is able, as we see, first of all to show great mercy to people who didn't deserve it, to have Then the discipline and to visit punishment upon those who most deserved it. But then in those who God and Moses had given forgiveness, had come saying, I want to make atonement for this people, having received that, then they move on together into the promised land. And that's the beauty of life as a Christian, that we can move on together in assurance of God's pardon and our forgiveness one for another. Well, some of these have already been covered, but let me give a few summary applications, is that we ought to understand that we all deserve the wrath of God. Don't ever pick up the Old Testament and see the things that have happened there, or the New Testament, for that matter, and Revelation and what the Lord will visit upon this earth when he returns. and forget that what we all deserve is the eternal, unrelenting, settled wrath of Almighty God upon our wicked souls. That's what we deserve. And unless we are continually reminded in such an awful truth, we will forget the mercy of God. We will forget what the cross means to us. We will forget what the heart of the living God towards us. Though we deserve such things, yet he sent his son to make atonement. Moses comes with a gesture. He comes up to the mountain and says, maybe I can make atonement. He doesn't come with anything in his hand. All he says is, Lord, blot me out. Well, he's a sinner, too. He deserves to be blotted out himself for what he did to the Ten Commandments, the tablets of stone. Jesus Christ actually comes with his own life's blood. And that's by which he comes to intercede before the living God. And we can never forget these things. What we deserve is the wrath of God. What we get is forgiveness. What we also need to understand and meditate upon is the personal connection that we have with Jesus Christ, okay? Because, again, if it's some other judge, then we may have something to be worried about. Even though, theoretically, it's all been paid for, right? Theoretically, the fine or the debt has been paid, but we wonder who it is we're going to meet on Judgment Day. Well, friends, it's the same one who died. The judge that is coming will be nicely dressed. You know why? He's coming for a wedding. For who? For you. He is coming to marry you and I because this is his wedding feast. He's not going to blot us out. He's not going to execute his fierce judgment upon us. He's coming. Yes, there may be a discussion about the things done in this life. It will have none of the character, probably not even the character of the way that Moses dealt with Aaron. We can be certain, rather, that there will be an embrace, an unending love and joy expressed between the bridegroom and his bride on that day. And therefore, we have nothing to fear. And friends, if we have nothing to fear from the judge of the earth, who are we fearing? Where do our anxious thoughts come from? I don't know. We should embrace the reality of this forgiveness and certainty of what lies ahead for us. Now thirdly, we ought to understand that there is such a thing as fatherly displeasure, and some people have a great difficulty with this. There's a movement in the church these days to say, well, you know what? God loves us, and we're his children, and therefore we can live however we like. And we should never ever imagine in our minds that God is just pleased with us for sinning. Now, I hope that you immediately see that the logic doesn't follow, okay? Merely because someone loves you does not mean that they cannot also be displeased with you, okay? That's the problem in today's world. The generation that now is in ascendancy in this world doesn't know how that could be. They think that any kind of disagreement or displeasure means you don't love them. That's why the younger generation, I don't want to be always down on you guys, but sometimes you kind of crumble at any critique or criticism or difficulty levied against you. Because that's the way you've been taught, that's the way you've been indoctrinated. by the society. That the idea of being held to high standards and of the possibility that someone might love you also is displeased with you is impossible. And so you can't bring those things together. But God can do that. And good fathers do that. Right? Good fathers can love their children and nothing more that could possibly be brought to bring them to, there's no more love. The love is already at the highest level. And let me say it is with God. There's nothing we can do that will ever make him love us even a little bit more. His love is perfect from all of eternity. But he can be displeased with us. And what kind of a father wouldn't be displeased with some of the things that we do? And our earthly fathers can rightly be displeased with us because they love us. The very thought of God's, consider the God's thought of his own people, of how they have so wickedly rebelled and defiled themselves and debased themselves. Of course he wasn't pleased with him. And so there is such a thing as though we are perfectly safe in the love of God and nothing can separate it from us, yet in this Christian life there is such a thing as discipline. Sometimes it's really public and sometimes the church is involved, that's church discipline. And sometimes it's God's dealing with us, whether in his word only or in some circumstances he brings about. Now that's something for you and him to be clear about in prayer. that you always seek, is there some known sin that I need to repent of? That's not something for the rest of us to be involved in, again, with the exception of unrepentant public sin which the elders have to deal with. But as for us, we never make the assumption, like Job's friends, that, oh, well, he must be under the discipline of God because he's suffering. Not at all. Our assumption is always that some poor Christian is suffering and we need to pray for them. But as for ourselves, we recognize that God could be displeased with us, and that's a good thing. Fourthly and finally, we should meditate on the reality that your sins have been forgiven. It's a settled matter with God. If you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and I don't mean to say that if you have 100% faith. I mean to say if you have 1% faith, the faith of a mustard seed, which is what Jesus himself makes a comparison. He could have used some great object this big and said he picks the smallest thing, a mustard seed. And if you have that much faith, that's what faith looks like. And if you have that, if you're resting on Christ even by this much, your sins are forgiven. Good. Don't forget it. Be thankful. Here's a weird thing that Satan does. He mixes those two things up. He wants us to doubt that our sins are forgiven and utterly done with and dealt with at the cross. And on the other hand, he wants us to dwell on the fatherly displeasure aspect of it. God really, whoa, he's not happy with you now. You're really in big trouble now. All right, it's the other, and that the idea that we can, or maybe that we can get away with these things. I don't know, he confuses the categories in our minds, and we need to remember the fact that the blood of Christ is sufficient to pay for the worse of sins. Let's not forget it in the week ahead. As we have our difficulties, we should be reminded that we have Christ, our elder brother, at the right hand of God, pleading on our behalf, and that God himself, more so than Moses, stands ready and willing and desirous that we be forgiven. Let's pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father, truly, Lord, there is so much to be found in your word. There's too much for us to take in. So many truths and so many possible applications to our lives. But we pray, Lord, that more than anything, even more than the words that I've spoken, that the Holy Spirit himself would take this, your word, and apply it to us directly to the places that need it applied. as a medicine, as a balm, as a disinfectant, as a cleansing agent, as a food, and as drink. We pray, Lord, that you'd make us to be a flock that is pleasing in your sight, a flock that boldly and confidently lives a life that you have given in the vocations that we serve to the glory of God. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.