Exodus 32, verses 25-35, these are God's words. Now when Moses saw that the people were unrestrained, for Aaron had not restrained them, to their shame among their enemies, then Moses stood in the entrance of the camp and said, Whoever is on Yahweh's side, come to me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him. And he said to them, Thus says Yahweh, 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, every man his neighbor. So the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And about three thousand men of the people fell that day. Then Moses said, Consecrate yourselves today to Yahweh, that he may bestow on you a blessing this day. For every man opposed his son and his brother. Now it came to pass on the next day that Moses said to the people, You have committed a great sin, so now I will go up to Yahweh, perhaps I can make atonement for your sin. Then Moses returned to Yahweh and said, O these people have committed a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold, that yet now if you will forgive their sin, but if not, I pray blot me out of your book. which you have written. And Yahweh said to Moses, Whoever says 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 Yahweh plagued the people because of what they did with the calf. which Aaron made." So for the reading of God's inspired work, Moses now is responding not just to Aaron and the calf, which we saw to a large extent last week, when he asked Aaron, what did the people do to you that you brought so great a thing upon them? And Aaron had made the calf and that was one big part of the sin and the wickedness of the false worship. Which Moses describes to Yahweh, they have made Elohim out of gold. They had made an image of God. But the second part of the sin is that the people are unrestrained. False worship actions go hand in hand with idolatrous worship manner. One of the signal features of false worship is that it's unrestrained. It comes with an unrestrained expression of ourselves. People think that that's worshipful, to just let yourself go completely and express yourself. But that's because people don't have a living and true God who is a consuming fire. And so false worship is distinguished by its not being conducted with reverence and awe. but with intensity of self-expression. The people of Israel were supposed to be different. They knew the true and living God, the one who had redeemed them from Egypt. All of the power of Egypt with all of the panoply of the Egyptian pantheon of gods against tiny little Israel. Well, multiplying but weak Israel. And the one true and living God. That was supposed to be the great difference. that Yahweh would save this weak people out of Egypt. And his great statement about it was, then they shall know that I am Yahweh. And so Israel was supposed to be different than the people of the nations. That when they come to worship, they come with reverence and awe and self-control and the restraint of sin and self-expression because they have a God who expresses Himself And they hadn't done that. They were unrestrained. The people sat down to eat and drink and they rose up to play. And they had this completely unrestrained expression of themselves that Joshua thought was so loud that it might be a war. And Moses sees, verse 25, that the people are unrestrained. For Aaron had not restrained them to their shame among their enemies. And so the people made with Aaron's calf false worship. And that's one of the things that doesn't come out too well in the English translation in verse 35, where what they did with respect to the people is the same verb as which Aaron made. So Aaron made a calf, and the people made false worship is the idea. They were unrestrained in their expression of themselves. And of course, what do sinners express when they express themselves? Well, sinners express sin. If you want to know what's in the jelly donut, one way to do it is to squeeze on it, and when you squeeze a sin donut, out comes the sin. That's what gets expressed. from sinners when they express themselves. And sin requires death. In fact, all deserve to die, and yet the Lord has already made a display to them that there would be some atonement for some. Remember that when the firstborn of the Egyptians died, not that all the Egyptians didn't deserve it, but that when they died, And the Lord spared the firstborn of Israel in the Passover that initiated having to pay a redemption price for the firstborn. And so you have the fact that the wages of sin is death here when Moses asks who is on Yahweh's side. It's very shocking that it's just the sons of Levi or perhaps even just some of the sons of Levi who come to him in verse 26. They no longer have the excuse of, as for this Moses, we do not know what has become of him. He has come down from the mountain. He has been with Yahweh for 40 days and 40 nights. He brought the tablets that he's smashed in front of them. And still the people are so far gone by their idolatry They so much prefer their own way over against Yahweh's way that when he says, who is on Yahweh's side, come to me, he gets the tiny little minority. A little bit of idolatry goes a long way in the backsliding of the church. They're sure dead here at the base of Sinai. And so they come and he gives them instruction for being an instrument by which they kill their neighbor and their brother. Very difficult. Surely the people deserve it. They all deserve to die. And yet it is hard for us to have enough allegiance to God to recognize that we all deserve to die, including ourselves. But the Lord does give to some of these sons of Levi this ability of heart and mind to align themselves with him. And 3,000, they end up killing 3,000. as they go back and forth. The every man kill his brother, every man his companion may imply even that it was particularly among the Levites that they had done this. And the Lord and Moses goes on to say, consecrate yourselves, fill your hands today before Yahweh that he may bestow on you a blessing for every man as opposed to his son and his brother. And this language of filling the hands in verse 29, which is translated, consecrate yourselves, in our English version here, appeared also in chapter 28 and verse 41 with the consecration of Aaron and his sons for the priesthood. It reminds us that even the men whom the Lord uses to lead his people on earth, they need to be atoned for. They need to be cleansed themselves, consecrated. These sons of Levi, who were an instrument of the Lord bringing on some of them part of what those people deserved, they also deserved it too. And so the Lord has to consecrate them for their service. So sin deserves death, requires death. Sinners need cleansing. And they need not just cleansing, but intercession. We, of course, deserve death, and Christ has died for us. We need cleansing. He cleanses us by his blood. But we don't just need death and cleansing, we also need active active mediation. Through his once-for-all sacrifice, the Lord Jesus is able to save us to the uttermost because he always lives to intercede for us by the power of his indestructible life. And so Moses says, you have committed a great sin, so now I will go up to Yahweh. He realizes that the people's need for intercession is great. He's already interceded once before he came down and the Lord relented. But as you can see here, the people still deserve death. He was speaking on Yahweh's behalf when he called the sons of Levi to his side. And so he says, I will go up to Yahweh. The Lord Jesus has offered himself as our intercessor. His death, of course, is a once for all death. and it is complete. His cleansing blood is effective in a way that the blood of bulls and goats or dead Levites or dead Israelites could not be effective. And he also intercedes for us. And with this intercession, we have also the idea of the need for atonement. This particular word meaning the covering over of the sins. So not just cleansing us from the stain of the sin, the unworthiness, the uncleanness before God that the sin brings, but a covering over of the guilt of the sin, a removal of the status of guiltiness. So there's the condition of sinfulness and the status of guiltiness both have to be dealt with. So He comes to Yahweh. as he is proposed to intercede and to atone. And he confesses the great sin in verse 31, and he asks for forgiveness, verse 32, and he admits that if there is not forgiveness for sin, then it's not just the rest of the people. Moses too. You remember the Lord had proposed or told Moses, you know, get out of, get away and don't intercede for them. so that my wrath can burn hot, and I'll consume them, and I'll start over with you, I'll make a great nation of you, he had said to Moses. But Moses is a sinner. And so if forgiveness is impossible, it's not just the rest of the nation that would be blotted out of God's book, it'd be Moses who would be blotted out of God's book too. He says, yet now if you will forgive their sin, but if not, I pray blot me out of your book which you have written. He always says to Moses, whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book. It reminds us that we need full atonement. We need full righteousness. In order for us to enter glory, there cannot be any sin on our account. This is why you must have Christ and His sacrifice and His righteousness counted for you. so that on the basis of Christ's righteousness being yours, your name may be found in the book of life. In the last place, we see that there must ultimately be punishment. The Lord will visit, and the word punishment here is added in the New King James. It says, behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit upon them for their sin. There is a day of visitation. The Lord plagues the people here in verse 35, and yet the implication in verse 34 is that He's talking about a future day, and there is a future day even now, yet to come, in which finally there will be visited upon sin, what sin deserves. Because it deserves much more than that death which is the end to our life in this world. And so I wonder if if you have dealt seriously, thought seriously about, come to terms with what a dreadful thing sin is. This is why the Lord tells us to discipline. Isn't it, Sophia? So that by the discipline, by the instruction, and especially by the Spirit's blessing of it, that we would come to terms with what our sin is and what it requires. That it requires death, it needs cleansing. We need a mediator to intercede for us and pray for us. We need atonement, the covering over of the guilt of our sin, not just the cleansing of the filth of our sin. And it requires to be punished in full because the Lord doesn't set aside His wrath for no reason. His wrath must be satisfied upon the sin. When He visits, He will visit. Sin will be punished. This is why it's so glorious that there was something that the Lord Jesus said on the cross that will never be said in hell, which is, it has been finished. Most English translations say it is finished, but it's in the past perfect tense of the verb. It has been finished. And the Lord Jesus has indeed completed enduring the fullness of God's wrath. for all of the sin of everyone for whom he died. And so have you come to terms with how great your sin is, your own sin, and what it deserves? And have you laid hold of the fact that the Lord, for everyone who trusts in Christ, has fully dealt with what their sin needs and deserves? Our Father in heaven, we pray that you would help us to see our sin for what it is. We pray that you would help us to hate it. That this reminder would stir us up against all remaining sinfulness and resist committing any more sin. And when we consider our sinfulness and our sin before you, we thank you that you have provided all of these things for us in Christ. And we pray, Lord, for a lost world full of people who are in danger of perishing. that you would grant that the gospel of Christ go out, that you would bring people to faith. Lord, we see the weakness of the church and how those who are on Yahweh's side are few, and the harm that is coming to so many souls in the church as a result, who do not see what sin is and what you have done about it. And even more, the multitudes who are outside the church in an age in which the church is not evangelizing like it might. And so we pray that Christ, who has dealt with sin for sinners, would be glorified by you bringing reformation not only to each of our individual lives and to the life of this house, but to your church as a whole. And we ask it in his name. Amen.