Hello and welcome to our broadcast. We're in Exodus chapter 33. Moses is angry in this chapter. Have your Bible ready. We'll look at it in a minute. Well, our last broadcast, we found Moses up on the mountain, and he was having a communion with God on the mountain. But now he's coming down to have a confrontation with the people of God, and there he has a mess to clean up. We read that the anger of Moses waxed hot. That's an interesting verse. The word waxed there means to speak in a specific manner. The word hot here has been translated incensed twice. It means to be inflamed with a strong feeling. He was their mediator on the mountain, now He will be their judge to clean up the mess. Well, the communion with God on the mountain, that's always a pleasant thing, but a confrontation with the people of God, there's nothing pleasant about that, but it is a responsibility of leadership. Well, we read in verse number 22 in Exodus 33, and Aaron said, let not the anger of my Lord wax hot. Thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief. For they said unto me, make us gods, which shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we want not what has become of him. Now, notice this. We have no indication whatsoever that Aaron repented of anything that he did. Rather, what he did was he decided to put the blame somewhere else. That's what happened in the Garden of Eden. Adam said, oh, not my fault. It's the woman. The woman said, oh, it's not my fault. You made the servant. Everybody wants to pass the buck here. And so this is what's happening now. Aaron says, not my fault. The people, the people. Well, they are set on mischief. That word has been translated evil 442 times. And he says in verse 23, for they said unto me, make us gods. It's interesting if you go back a couple of chapters here, actually back to chapter 24 and verse seven, we read that these people, they said, all that the Lord has said, we will do and be obedient. And now here a short time later, we read, they said, make us gods, which shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we want not what is become of him, this Moses." Well, I'm thinking that there never has been a period when Moses felt so very much alone among three million people as he's feeling right now. Aaron, his own brother, is turned against him. He has her, Aaron and her, you remember, were on the mountain with him. Her, he would be there as a friend. That's about it. He has no friends whatsoever here at this point. Well, verse 24, Aaron said, I said unto them, unto them, the people, whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me, and I cast it in the fire, and there came out this calf." Now, here we have Aaron, absolute liar, lying to his brother. He's kind of saying, like, I told him to take the earrings and things off, and I threw him in the fire like he was doing a good thing, and, oh, out popped this calf. Well, he's an absolute liar. It says in Exodus chapter 32 that Aaron fashioned it, and he built an altar. So not only is he not taking his responsibility in doing what God wants him to do in this situation, but he's lying about his part in the whole thing. Well, in verse 25 we read, unto their shame among their enemies. Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, Who is on the Lord's side? Let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves unto him." Now it's time for some drastic action. As I said, great to be up on the mountain having some communion with God. Not so much greatness here. Not a good thing. Not an exciting thing. Not anything anybody would want to do. to have a confrontation like this with the people of God. So Moses stood. It says Moses stood. He is going to deal with the situation. And he said, who is on the Lord's side? We're going to make it public here. No messing around. Are you on the Lord's side or not? And it says that all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. Now, human reasoning would argue this is not very loving what you're doing here. Well, let's see what he's doing. Verse 27 said, and he said unto them, the sons of Levi, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, put every man his sword by his side and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp and slay every man his brother and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor." Now, do you think that Moses enjoyed saying that? He said, thus saith the Lord God. Now, you notice the word there, Lord God, that phrase. It's a capital L-O-R-D, all capitals, and then the word God. When you see that in the Old Testament, it's referring to Christ in His ministry in the Old Testament. He said, this is coming from the Lord, put on every man his sword, his sword, and go out, he said, now it matters not whether he's your brother, whether he's your companion, whether he's your neighbor. And the children of Eli, it says here in verse 28, did according to the word of Moses, and there fell of the people that day about 3,000 men. Well, they took the sword. Now, we're not going to go out there and take a sword today like that. What it's representing here, these things are written for our admonition, it says, and the sword represents the Word of God. Sharper than a two-edged sword. Though it matters not, he said go from gate to gate. We would say from door to door. In fact, it could have been translated that way. And whether it's your brother, whether it's a companion, whether it's your neighbor, you take the Word of God, not opinions, not the word of some other preacher, the Word of God, and you take the Word of God, and you go to your brother, you go to your companion, you go to your neighbor, and This is what Moses said. Who's on the Lord's side? Come this way. The time has come to make it very public where we are standing these days, but there's not much of that going on. Verse 29, for Moses had said, and upon his brother that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day. Now the word son has been translated children 1568 times doesn't just mean the boys and he said upon his brother that word has been translated brethren 332 times well in verse number 30 it says and it came to pass on the moral that moses said unto the people ye have sinned a great sin now i will go up unto the lord peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin. Now like it's plain and simple, no nonsense here. Moses is telling the people exactly where they are. Ye have sinned a great sin, and I'm going to go and make an atonement for your sins that peradventure, perhaps the Lord will forgive you. Well, there can be no forgiveness without repentance, and there's no indication that anybody's repenting here. And so we read in verse 31, and said all this people have sinned a great sin and have made them gods of gold yet now if thou wilt forgive their sin and if not blot me I pray thee out of thy book which thou hast written now here is You have a Christ-like love. What a tremendous example of a Christ-like love we have here in this man, Moses. It says in the Bible in Song of Solomons 8 and 7, Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. And that's the kind of man that Moses was. They had constantly, constantly, constantly murmured against him, and now he goes again to God, and he says, forgive their sin and if not blot me i pray thee out of thy book which thou has written well it's like jesus when he was on the cross and the bible says having loved his own he loved them unto the end father forgive them he said they know not what they Well, we have Moses going back. It says he returned to God. We have a lot of examples of him communicating with the Lord in the Bible. In Exodus 5 and 22, God's people were upset with Moses and we find that Moses went to the Lord. Exodus 8 and 30, following a confrontation with Pharaoh, Again, in 9 and 33, following a confrontation with Pharaoh, we see that Moses went unto the Lord. Then when they got to the Red Sea in Exodus chapter 14, he went unto the Lord. Exodus 17 and 4, on the mountain with Aaron and Hur, and then here in Exodus 32, he is pleading with the Lord for the people who had rejected Moses all the time that he was trying to help them. Well, as I said, it was like Christ on the cross saying, forgive them. They know not what they do. Now he said, I pray thee, if you're not going to forgive them, blot me out of thy book. He's not talking about the book of life here. Psalm 69, 28 says, let them be blotted out of the book of the living and not be written with the righteous. He's not talking about salvation. He's talking about, well, basically what Moses is saying here to the Lord, is, if you can't forgive them, leave me out of the story here that you're writing. We would call it the Bible. You know, history, you know what history is? It's His story. And Moses is saying, in great love for those people, he's saying, if you can't forgive them, just leave me out of the story. And the Lord said unto Moses, whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. Verse 34, he says, "...therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee." We have a job to do here now, Moses, and as we've said before, Moses had a two-fold responsibility. One was to get the people out of Israel, and now he wanted to get Israel out of the people. So he says, Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place which I have spoken unto thee. Behold, mine angels shall go before thee, nevertheless, listen to this now, chapter 32, verse 34, nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them, and the Lord plague the people because of the, they made the calf, which Aaron made, the word made, the calf here, that's been translated 49 times commit they committed to the calf which Aaron made well once again we have a story here choices and consequences they made their choices and they're going to have to reap the consequences the bible says whatsoever remains so that shall he also reap and the lord plagued the people because they made the calf which Aaron made. Now in the early church, as the church got underway, we see the same process. There's a process of sowing and reaping. In the early part of the book of Revelation, we have the account of seven pastors who pastored seven different churches. Now, the Bible says in Proverbs 16, verse number 7, when a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. Well, as the church got underway, the early church, we read in Revelation 2 and verse number 4 at Ephesus, they left their first love. And then when we get down to Smyrna by 2 and 9, we read that they had allowed the synagogue of Satan to be established within their local churches. And so what happened here was they just simply began to relax the rules. Well, the next thing we see as a result of that is there's persecution. There's going to be reaping. And we have Nero and all the problems that they faced. Then back we get through to the era which represents about 1859, when we had the great revivals, and the Bible says here that God opened the door and no man could shut it. And of course, the persecution stopped, and we had a great revival period there, because when man's ways please the Lord, he make it even his enemies to be at peace with him. But now we're living in this Laodicean age, and we better face the facts, and we better face the future. Because of our rebellion, there is persecution coming down the road, because whatsoever we sow, that is what we're going to reap. Well, in chapter 33, verse number 1, the Lord said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I swear unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it. Now this is the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and God is going to keep his covenant promise here. In verse 2, he said, I'll send an angel before thee. He said, I will drive out your enemies. But he said in verse 3, I will not go up in the midst of thee, for thou art a stiff-necked people, lest I consume thee in the way." Well, we're out of time. We're going to have a look at that in our next broadcast. It's a very interesting portion of scripture here. Be sure and tune in again tomorrow, and we'll try to make it plain, and we'll try to make it simple.