Let us turn again to the Word of God and turning to Exodus chapter 34 we were reading previously in the 32nd chapter turning now to chapter 34 and I'll read here verses 1 through 4 Exodus 34 verses 1 through 4 And the Lord said unto Moses, You, the two tables of stone, lie unto the first, and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou breakest. And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto Mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount. And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount, neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount. And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first. And Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded, and took in his hand the two tables of stone."

I want to address the theme really of what we have here, the renewing of the law, but to contrast that ultimately with the newness of the gospel, it is the old covenant that we see being renewed. Certainly here in verse 1, the Lord says unto Moses, You, the two tables of stone, like unto the first, that of course had been broken, as we saw back in chapter 32. And God says, I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables which thou breakest.

Now some it was that they had transgressed so quickly that covenant that God had entered into with them when he brought them out of Egypt and led them to the mountains of Horeb and appeared there upon the Mount Sinai. And as a consequence of their wickedness in the matter of the golden calf, God had spoken of disinheriting the whole nation, of casting them off and said that he would make of Moses another people. But then Moses stands in the breach and Moses He's the one who we see pleading with the Lord concerning that people who had sinned so grievously. He was so faithful was Moses in his generation as he sought to intercede on behalf of that wicked people.

and what a prayer it was he pleads of course strangely in terms of God's grace although we associate that first covenant the Lord of God and all the condemnings of that law when it comes to his pleadings how we see him praying to God pleading with regards to God's grace and God's mercy we were only recently looking at those words at the end of chapter 33 where Moses makes that great request show me thy glory verse 18 of chapter 33 Moses prays, he says, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And God says, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. And he said, Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and they shall stand upon a rock, and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover thee with my hand while I pass by, and I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts, that my face shall not be seen.

And then we come to the portion that I mentioned as a text this morning here at the beginning of chapter 34. His pleadings there is very much looking to God who is gracious. Show me thy glory was the prayer. And that glory of course is seen only in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ. 14th verse in the opening chapter of John's Gospel, how the world was made flesh and dwelt among us and John says we beheld his glory, the glories of the only begotten of the Father, the glory of the only begotten of the Father. All is to be found in Christ. All God's goodness, all God's grace is there.

And here is Moses and how the Lord puts him, as it were, in that cliff of the rock. They're still at Horeb. They're still there at Mount Horeb. And it was there that God had provided them with water out of the rock previously. back in chapter 17 when again we see them this stout-hearted people so ready to be complaining against the Lord and the ways of the Lord there in chapter 17 God says to Moses in verse 5 go on before the people take with thee of the elders of Israel and thy rod wherewith thou smotest the river the Red Sea take in thine hand and go behold I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb and thou shalt smite the rock and there shall come water out of it that the people may drink and Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel and the water came out of the rock and we're told aren't we in the New Testament what that rock was 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 4 that rock was Christ that rock was Christ

And so here, at the end of chapter 33, Behold, there is a place by men, says the Lord God, and thou shalt stand upon a rock. And then God goes on to say, I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with mine hand when I pass by. This is the rock of ages. The top lady speaks of rock of ages cleft for me, let me hide myself. in thee. This is how Moses then receives answer from the Lord as he's the mediator for these people. How are they going to be restored? Ultimately their restoration is an act of grace on the part of God. They are transgressed. The covenant that he had made with them there at Mount Sinai in the matter of the golden calf. And of course what they were doing there really was a form of syncretism. They were using the image in order to worship the Lord God. And yet God had told them they were not to make any images at all. This is their folly, this is their sin.

What are they to do then? Well, I want us to consider how there must first of all be the first works of repentance. There must be repentance. or the great need for repentance. The breaking of the tables of the law by Moses, how significant is that? And then subsequently the making of new tables of the law. What Moses did, of course, was very much a judicial act. As we read there in chapter 32 and verse 19, He came to pass that when he came down from the mount he cast the tables out of his hand and break them there beneath the mount. The very mount upon which God had proclaimed the ten words, the ten commandments, that selfsame mount, at the foot of it he breaks the tables of the law they were the transgressors it's a judicial act on his part and whose law was it? it was God's law it was God's law again in that 32nd chapter in verse 16 we read the tables were the work of God and the writing was the writing of God, inscribed in the tables. It was God's law. And they broke it, or Moses broke it, in the very place where God had first given it.

But it's all symbolic of their transgression. They were the ones who had broken it. He broke them beneath the mount. It was to this spot that God, in his goodness, had brought them to enter into covenant, to marry himself, as it were, with them. We have the setting for the proclamation of that law. The law is there in the 20th chapter, but in that previous 19th chapter We're told in the third month when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. This is where God has brought them for a purpose. In verse 3 there, Moses went up into the mountain. The Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thou shalt not say to the house of Jacob, And tell the children of Israel, Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians. now I bear you on eagle's wings and brought you unto myself now therefore if ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people for all the earth is mine and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priesthood and holy nation these are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel all the significance of what God is doing entering into a covenant with these people.

And it's interesting how in Deuteronomy 9, on three separate occasions, these tables of the law are referred to as the tables of the covenant. They're the tables of the covenant, Deuteronomy 9 and verse 9, and verse 11 and verse 15, three separate times. It's quite plainly stated.

And yet in the very place where God had brought them and joined himself, as it were, to them in a marriage bond. They had entered into covenant with him. He made them his special people. In that same spot there was the breaking of the tables of the law. The way in which they were broken when Moses is recounting the whole event In that ninth chapter of Deuteronomy, that's what Deuteronomy is in a sense, isn't it? It's a second telling of the law, the very name, Deuteronomy. Second law. God has to, as it were, renew the covenant. But there, as the events are being retold by Moses, as they're on the borders now of the Promised Land, he says in verse 17 of that chapter, I break them before your eyes. I break them before your eyes." Quite deliberately. This is a judicial act, the breaking of the tables of the Lord. They were guilty. And they were guilty of an awful idolatry, spiritual fornication. That's what they were guilty of.

As we saw in the portion that we were reading, in that 32nd chapter. What did they do? Verse 3, All the people break off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron, and he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a golden calf, or a molten calf. And they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, Tomorrow is a feast of the Lord.

What are they doing? What are they guilty of? It's idolatry, it's spiritual adultery. They're transgressing the very laws that God had given to them when he entered into the covenant. How plain were the first two commandments. There in chapter 20, I'm sure we're well familiar with what God says, the first commandment, Thou shalt have no other gods before me, before my face. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. For I, the LORD thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments."

Well, God speaks quite plainly then to these people with regards to idolatries. They're not to be guilty of any idolatry at all. They're not to worship any other god. They're not to make any graven image. They're never to take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. That's the third commandment there at verse 7.

And then when we come to the end, the last of the Ten Commandments, "...thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's." And we know from the New Testament what covetousness is. As with the first commandment, so with the last. covetousness is idolatry, says the Apostle in Colossians 3.5. And to the Philippians Paul says something very similar, whose hand is destruction, whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. If we feed our own lusts, our own desires, that's a form of idolatry.

What a sin is this that they are guilty of. How solemn is the matter then of the breaking of the tables of the law. But then the amazing thing is that we see, as it were, the law being restored here in these opening verses of chapter 34. Though they were transgressors, God will yet receive them again to himself. He hates putting away. And so we see the remaking of the tables. You did two tables of stone, says God, like unto the first. And I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first, tables, which thou breakest."

And so Moses is once again called up into the mount. In verse 2, "...be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto Mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount." This is a complete retracing as it were, a renewing of the steps that had been taken previously. because what was the commandment back in chapter 19 and verse 20 where the whole scene is being set for the giving of the law there in chapter 19 and verse 20 the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai on the top of the mount and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount and Moses went up and this is what the Lord is saying again Moses must go again to the top of the mount

Furthermore, as Moses is called to the top of the mount, so it is clear that no other person, no other living creature is to be anywhere in sight. Verse 3, no man shall come up with them, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount, neither let the flocks nor herds feed before the mount. And it's a repetition again of what was said previously in that 19th chapter. Verse 12, They shall set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it. Whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death. They shall not a hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through. Whether it be beast or man, it shall not live. When the trumpet soundeth long, They shall come up to the mount.

There's a repetition here. A retracing as it were of the first steps. This is part and parcel of the restoring. Moses on that first occasion was 40 days in the mount. Remember, after the giving of the commandments in chapter 20, when we come to the end, they don't want God to speak any more directly. The 10 words, the 10 commandments were spoken by the Lord God. But they want Moses to be their mediator. And so at the end of chapter 20 we see Moses going alone up to the top of the mount.

and we're told in chapter 24 and verse 18 Moses was in the mount 40 days and 49 it was during that or as that period was coming to an end that they'd grown so weary of waiting for him but we see now how that He must be 40 days and 40 nights once again there up in the mountains.

Verses 27 and 28 of this 34th chapter. The Lord says to Moses, write down these words, for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And he was there with the Lord 40 days and 40 nights. He did neither eat bread nor drink water, and he wrote upon the tables the words of the Covenant, the Ten Commandments, or as the Martin says, the Ten Words.

So this is retracing all the time. This repetition is going back and returning, as it were, to their first works, we might say. in a sense that's what repentance is remember what we have in the book of the Revelation in those seven letters in Revelation chapter 2 and 3 there's a message in the opening of the second chapter to the church at Ephesus it says repeat repent and do the first works repent and do the first work.

They had to be a repentant people. That is the message. There is to be real repentance, there has to be these retracings, these renewings, going back to the beginning as it were, the cost of repentance. We're reminded in some measure of it in the ministry of John the Baptist, aren't we? how as he comes to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah he's the great forerunner of Christ and how he calls the people really to his baptism it's a baptism of repentance and remember the language that we find him employing as he exercises his ministry there in the third chapter of Matthew We have some account of his preaching, particularly in this chapter.

In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, Repent! Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits, meat, to repentance.

What are the fruits of repentance? Well, there is to be this going back, this going over, this recognition of what has been done and the folly of it, the renewal, the call to repentance. And so we see, as it were, the Covenant being renewed, but it's It's the old Sinaitic covenant of course that we have here that's being renewed. It's that covenant of works that centers in the Ten Commandments when the Lord says unto Moses his servant you thee two tables of stone like unto the first and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables which thou breakest.

It's not a different covenant, it's the same covenant. But I want to contrast that, really, with what is truly the New Covenant. And we have the promise of it, don't we? In the Old Testament, in the... well, we have it in many places, but I think in particular of the words of Jeremiah, the prophet.

And there, in that 31st chapter of Jeremiah, those remarkable words in Jeremiah 31 significant portion of Holy Scripture repeated in the New Testament as we'll see presently but the language that is used there in Jeremiah 31 at verse 31 and the following verses here is God's message to his servant Jeremiah behold the days come saith the Lord that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they break, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my people and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying no the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them saith the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more

now here of course he addresses the house of Israel and the house of Judah but this is a typical people This is the new covenant. It's that covenant that's made with God's spiritual Israel. He's not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither circumcision is that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart. It's a work of the Spirit, not of the letter. And what is the promise you see? It's not writing the law anew in tables of stone, it's writing that law on fleshy tables of the heart.

Now those words that we just read are taken up by the Apostle in Hebrews chapter 8. Short chapter, and yet most of that 8th chapter of Hebrews is a quotation from Jeremiah 31, and it's one of the most significant portions in the New Testament Scriptures. And when we come to the end of Hebrews, just 13 verses in Hebrews 8, it says, In that he saith a new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. The old covenant gone, there's a new covenant.

And the apostle doesn't just speak of it there in the 8th chapter of Hebrews, he makes mention of it again in chapter 10. How significant a book is the epistle to the Hebrews, because it's dealing, isn't it, with what God had done with his ancient covenant people in the Old Testament. But there in Hebrews 10, and verse 16, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.

All the significance of what God does, the contrast between the old covenant the covenant that's here being renewed at the beginning of Exodus 34 and that new covenant that covenant of Christ and of course it's not just to the Hebrews but Paul who is the the apostle to the Gentiles and yet himself such a a zealot a zealot for the for the religion of Israel Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharison. He's the very man who is brought to spell out the difference between the old and the new and we see it so strikingly not only in what is written in Hebrews but what's also written in such a chapter of 2nd Corinthians 3.

That's the most significant chapter. If Hebrews 8 is, so too is the language that Paul is employing in chapter 3 of 2nd Corinthians. He says to these believers at Corinth, verse 3, For as much as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. And he goes on, doesn't he, to speak of the difference, the difference between the two covenants, one written in tables of stone, the other written on fleshy tables of the heart.

Verse 7 of that third chapter, if the ministration of death written and engraven in stones was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more the ministration of righteousness exceeding glory." He's contrasting the two covenants.

What is the point, the purpose of the Law? It's that ministration of condemnation. That's what he says there in that chapter of 2nd Corinthians. The Law is the ministration of condemnation. He speaks of it as the ministration of death. Whereas the Gospel is the ministration of the Spirit. It's a spiritual work. that's done in the hearts of men, it's the ministration of righteousness.

Why the work of Christ has brought the end of the law? Because righteousness is now only in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no righteousness in the law. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. to everyone that believeth, says the apostle.

Oh yes, the law has its work. It does bring conviction of sin. Whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped. And all the world becomes guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law, Paul says, shall no flesh be justified in this sight. By the law is the knowledge of sin. That's the ministry of the Law. But how much more glorious is that of the Gospel?

The Law was given by Moses. Grace, truth, came by Jesus Christ. And we talk quite plainly, whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Salvation is by grace, through faith. And that's not of yourselves, says the apostle. It's the gift of God.

Or the contrast that is to be drawn between these two. Yes, here we do have the renewing of the covenant with Israel, but it's the same covenant as God had first entered into back in chapter 20. and they'd so quickly broken the covenant but there would be that coming of a better day, a better covenant a covenant that was established upon better promises interesting isn't it when we read through that epistle to the Hebrews how often the apostle uses that word better a better testament or a better covenant and it's spiritual in its very nature.

And that's where we look. We look to what the Lord has done in and through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has come and stood for His people, stood in their very low place when the fullness of the time was come. That time being spoken of there in Jeremiah 31. When that day came that God has ordained from all eternity. He sends forth His Son. He's made of a woman. He's made under the law. And He'll redeem those who are under the law that they might receive the adoption of sons.

He'll stand in His life as their surety. He'll answer all the demands of the law. He'll fulfill all righteousness, the obedience of His life, the sinless life. honouring, magnifying the Lord in every one of its commandments and precepts, but obedient unto death, because he who stands a surety in living, he dies as a substitute, and bears in his own person that dreadful punishment that was due to those who were the transgressors.

These are familiar themes. But how important it is that we distinguish between these two law on the one hand, and gospel on the other hand and here we see really even as the Lord is dealing with his servant Moses although we associate Moses with the Lord of God yet how Moses knew so much of the grace of God Moses of course is a child of grace he found grace in the eyes of the Lord when he made that Great petition, I beseech thee, show me thy glory.

What did the Lord do? He showed him all that glory when he placed him in the cliff of the rock and there he was sheltering in the Lord Jesus Christ as God came and passed by and he saw something of that glory. May the Lord be pleased to bless these truths to our hearts and that we might be those who do indeed rejoice in the gospel of the grace of God in our Lord Jesus Christ.

I'm going to sing as our concluding praise this morning the hymn 111 to the tune French 144

Vain are the hopes the sons of men on their own works have built,
their hearts by nature all unclean,
and all their actions guilt.
In vain we ask God's righteous law to justify us now,
since to convince and to condemn
is all the law can do.

The Hymn 111, the Tune 144.