Hold your place in Psalm 25.
We'll come back there. But I want to turn to Exodus
chapter 32 with you this morning. Exodus chapter 32. There are
many places in scripture that cover this topic. In fact, I
just preached a sermon up in rescue on Saturday morning on
this topic. But I've entitled today's sermon,
Why the Lord forgives sin. Why does God forgive sin? I think
that's a very important question. There's a lot of questions that
I wanna ask today, and I hope that you'll see the answer to
them in this answer given in Exodus chapter 32, because I
want you to trust in the Lord. Why don't we trust in the Lord?
Why don't we trust him? That's a question. Why don't
we love the Lord? I mean, you could say, well,
I do trust him. I do love him. I'm confident
he's forgiven my sins. That's good. That's good. But
I often have this question that rattles around in my little brain.
Why don't I trust the Lord? And I hear people facing significant
trouble in their life, and I want for them to be able to trust
the Lord. Kevin just texted me this last
week. There was a fireworks building
that housed fireworks not too far from us, just over here in
Yolo County. It blew up. Seven people lost
their lives, all of them young people. I'm very sorry for their families,
for them too. It's a tragedy. And I'm sure
those people are wondering why. I did, when I heard that news
from Kevin, I thought, why does the Lord allow these kinds of
things to happen? And I hear about someone who hears from
the doctor, they only have a short time to live. You have a terminal
illness. I was looking in the mirror just
this last week and something just popped up on my face. I
said, look at that. This could be the end of me.
I'm kidding, but I'm not kidding. Our life is short. My kids are
young. I'm getting older. And I don't
expect that I'll be able to see their children really grow up
or when they become young adults. I don't know how long we have.
We never do. But when we're faced with those
certainties, such as the end of our life, or especially when
we look on where our loved ones, our children, our families, and
they face those difficulties in life. More than anything,
I don't want for them riches in this world. I don't necessarily
want health for them in this world, but I do want them to
trust in the Lord, and I do want them to love the Lord. So why
don't we trust Him? I think one of the reasons we
don't, when I think about this in my own self, is we don't trust
the Lord because we know we're sinners. And we know that God
can't tolerate sin. And we think that if we could
somehow sin less or even keep from sinning, then God would
have an inclination. He would be able, we would have
the barrier between us removed. that barrier of our sin would
be removed. And that would give us some confidence
and we would then be able to trust the Lord that he loves
me, that he's good to me. But because we're sinners, we
think, well, look at my sin. I have no reason to think that
I could trust the Lord because I'm a sinner. If God really had
saved me, if he was gracious to me, then why would I be such
a sinner? Don't those thoughts ever rattle around in your head?
They do mine. We think of our performance and
we think somehow our performance should, even though we may not
say this out loud, should enable God to accept us if we could
just perform better. And so we fear that our failure
limits God, don't we? We actually limit God by thinking
that. And that's what this text of
scripture is teaching. that we have a wrong view of God. We have a low view of God, and
we have a very high view of ourselves. If you look at the book of Exodus
as an overview, look back at chapter 19 in this book. This book can be difficult to
read through, especially between chapters 19 and 32. In chapter
19, it says that in the third month, in verse 1, when the children
of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same
day they came into the wilderness of Sinai, for they were departed
from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai, and had
pitched in the wilderness, and there Israel camped before the
mount. And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called unto him
out of the mountains, saying, Thou shalt thou say to the house
of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel, you have seen, notice
what God says, you have seen what I did to the Egyptians,
and how I bear you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. That's distinguishing, isn't
it? That's grace. Now, therefore, if you will obey
my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar
treasure to me above all people, for all the earth is mine. First,
God tells about how by his grace he brought them out of Egypt.
Now, if you read in the Old Testament, for example, Ezekiel chapter
20, you find that when they were in Egypt, do you know what they
were doing? I have this wrong view of Israel
in Egypt. I thought those poor people,
they were worshiping God, and yet they were slaves in Egypt
for 430 years. They were held there, and they
couldn't escape, and they wanted to serve God, but they just couldn't
get out because they were slaves to this cruel man, Pharaoh, the
king of Egypt, all those years and generations. But that's not
the way it was. While they were in Egypt, they
were worshiping the idols of Egypt. And God told them that,
no, you put away those idols. They didn't. But he brought them
out. He brought them out of Egypt,
even though they were idolaters. And that's what he's saying here.
I bore you on eagle's wings, and you saw what I did to the
Egyptians. And then he goes on, he says, if you keep my covenant
now, then you'll be a peculiar treasure to me. So what God is
doing here, by the New Testament, we wouldn't
understand it had the Lord not revealed it. But what He's doing
here is He's giving them a covenant of works at this point in order
to show them their sinfulness. That's what the law is given.
We know that what things, soever the law saith, it saith to them
who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all
the world may become guilty before God. That's why the law, that's
what the law does to us, because we're sinners. And not only that,
in Romans 5, 20, it says, where sin, that the law, where the
law entered, it made sin abound. So the law entering in because
of our sin, because of our sinful nature, it actually increased
our guilt. I didn't correctly quote Romans
5, 20, so I'm gonna go over there and read it to make sure I get
it right. It says this in Romans 5, verse
20. It says, the law entered that
the offense might abound. The rest of that verse says,
but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. And that's what we're going to
see here today. So in Exodus 19, God sets the stage. I brought
you out of Egypt. You were sinners. I destroyed
Egypt, but I saved you from Egypt when you were idolaters. Now,
if you'll keep my law and my covenant, then you'll be a peculiar
treasure to me. But weren't they already? Yes. But what he did in giving the
law is he brought them to see that their relationship to God
and His promises to them were dependent upon His goodness and
His mercy and His grace and did not depend on them. In fact, It did not only not
depend on them, but it was given to them in spite of their disobedience,
in spite of their sinfulness. So this is the context here.
And notice in chapter 19 also, He says to them these things,
now if you'll do this, in verse seven, so Moses came and called
for the elders of the people and laid before their faces all
these words which the Lord commanded him. And all the people answered
together and they said, all that the Lord has spoken we will do. That's a very proud heart, isn't
it? I want to be obedient. When the Lord Jesus said in John
14, if you love me, keep my commandments. If you love me, keep my commandments.
I want to keep his commandments. I want to love him, but I know
something also true about myself. Now these people didn't know
that yet, or they didn't realize it, or they thought somehow they
could just put all that behind them and turn over a new leaf.
But the nature of God's saving grace in our lives in this world
doesn't produce a perfect person who then goes on, because God
has changed them into a perfect person, and enables them, oh
see how God has saved me, therefore I can trust Him and now I can
love Him. That's not the way it works.
In fact, he answers this desire to keep his commandments by showing
us even more of our guilt and sinfulness. And so that's why
these people answer, everything the Lord has said we will do.
And so what happened next is in chapter 20 what God does.
He gives them his law. Notice the first commandment
in his law. He says, in verse one of chapter 20, God spake
all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have
brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
bondage. There's the context. Thou shalt
have no other gods before me. First commandment, no idols. Spiritually, an idol is adultery. There's nothing that is more
dangerous There's nothing that would produce wrath more quickly
or more fiercely in a man than that his wife would commit adultery.
A man who sees his wife committing adultery will murder that other
man. And he'll feel justified in doing
it. And I would side with him a little bit. It's not his place
to take that vengeance, but I can understand that. I mean, idolatry is adultery
in a spiritual way. And so the very first thing God
says to Israel is, do not, do not have any other gods before
me. Don't prefer other gods before
me. Don't bring them in, in the worship of God with me. No, no
other gods before me. And that's the first commandment
now. Let's look at Exodus 32. From chapter 20, Through chapters 31 of Exodus,
the Lord is speaking to Moses in the mountain and giving him
the law. And he's describing to him the
tabernacle, the furniture, all the pieces of the service of
God. All those things pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ. And it seems laborious. You go
through those chapters from chapter 20 all the way through. He expands
what the laws mean in detail, and then he gives them the what
to do for the sacrifice and the worship of God in the tabernacle.
So from chapter 20 through chapter 31 of Exodus, we have the giving
of the law, a covenant, which if it were broken, it meant that
they broke the covenant with God and therefore they were under
the sentence of God's law, justice and wrath and the curse. because they departed from their
God. And James, in James chapter two verse 10 says, to break one
commandment is to break them all. Because it's a covenant. It would be like, well, I won't
make any comparisons. But in Exodus chapter 32, let's
go here now. It says here in verse one, and
when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the
mount, he's up in the mountain, receiving the law from God. They
didn't know how long he'd be up there. Turns out he's up there
for 40 days, 40 nights. They probably thought there's
no one that can survive that mountain without food and water
40 days and 40 nights. Something happened, he's probably
dead. And here we are out in the middle of the desert. We followed him out here, we're
gonna die. That's probably what they thought. All of that, of
course, is just natural thinking. So when the people saw that Moses
delayed to come down out of the mouth, the people gathered themselves
together to Aaron, Moses' brother, their high priest, and said to
him, up, make us gods, which shall go before us. For as for
this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt,
we what not what is become of him. And Aaron said to them,
obviously, they had been harping on him to do this for a long
time. And he just said, okay, break off the golden earrings
which are in the ears of your wives and your sons and of your
daughters and bring them to me. And all the people break off
the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them
to Aaron. And he received them at their hand and fashioned it
with a graving tool after he had made it a molten calf. And
they said, these be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee
up out of the land of Egypt. You see what they did? They made
an idol. Their own hands produced a god
that they were happy with. The works of their own hands
produced something that they could worship because they approved
of it. They could put their trust in
it. They ascribed honor to it, even their deliverance from Egypt. And they called this thing their
gods. That's what they were used to
in Egypt. In their hearts, they had never
left their idolatry in Egypt. God's law was given to them.
The very first commandment was, thou shalt have no other gods
before me. And when Aaron saw it, he built
an altar. This is verse five. He built
an altar before it and Aaron made proclamation and said, tomorrow
is a feast to the Lord Jehovah. And they rose up early in the
morrow, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings.
And the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to
play." It says in another place in Scripture, 1 Corinthians chapter
10, that they committed fornication. Verse 7, and the Lord said to
Moses, now Moses is on the mountain. The Lord is speaking to Moses
and giving him the law. Notice these words very carefully. The Lord said to Moses, Go, get
thee down, for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land
of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly
out of the way which I commanded them. They have made them a molten
calf and have worshiped it. and have sacrificed thereto,
and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought
thee up out of the land of Egypt." You can see the offense. You
can make the comparison between spiritual adultery, or idolatry,
and physical adultery. You can see the wrath here, whelming
up in God. And the Lord said to Moses, notice,
I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked
people, unsubmissive people. You can't teach them, hard-headed
and rebellious and refusing to be taught, refusing to submit. Now therefore, God says, notice,
God speaking to a man, let me alone. that my wrath may wax
hot against them, and that I may consume them, and I will make
of thee a great nation." All right, you're Moses now. God
has told you. go down, your people, the ones
you brought from Egypt, have turned aside quickly. They've
corrupted themselves. They've made this calf. They've
given this calf the praise and honor due to me only. So quickly they have departed
out of the way. Only a few days since they said,
all that the Lord said, will do. After I brought them out
of Egypt from their idolatry. That's the setting. Now, notice
what happens next. in verse 11. And Moses besought
the Lord, his God. Notice how he comes to the Lord.
He pleads with him. That's besought. He pleads with
him. He appeals to him. What is his
appeal? What is his plea? He said, Lord,
why does your wrath or why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy
people? which thou hast brought forth
out of the land of Egypt, meaning the land of bondage, death, idolatry,
bondage and cruel, merciless, and he brought them out. And
you did this with great power and with a mighty hand. Why does
your wrath wax hot? That's the first appeal, you
see this? We'll expand on this in a minute. Verse 12, wherefore,
Should the Egyptians speak and say, for mischief did he bring
them out to slay them in the mountains and to consume them
from the face of the earth? This is what Moses is saying. The Egyptians, all the time,
when I was speaking to them saying, let my people go, the Lord says,
let my people go that they may serve me. And you know what they're
gonna say if you destroy them now? He had a malicious intent
in view all the time. It wasn't sincere. The God of
Moses and Israel is not a good God. He's no better than our
idols. Our idols are much more polite,
much easier to get along with than him. He's so severe that
when he's angry, he can only think of executing his wrath. He's austere. He's an angry, intemperate man
or God. So that's what Moses pleads with
him. That's the second plea here.
The Egyptians will say it was for mischief. And then in verse 13, he adds
this third plea. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and
Israel, thy servants. Notice, to whom thou swearest
by thine own self and says to them, I will multiply your seed
as the stars of heaven and all this land that I've spoken of
will I give to your seed and they shall inherit it forever.
And what happened? The Lord repented of the evil
which he thought to do to his people. Amazing. There's a lot of things that
we naturally would ask questions. How could God change his mind? That's what repent means. And
how could a man argue God out of his wrath? It seems it just
doesn't fit our view of God's sovereignty, his omniscience. That means he knows everything
and ability to do anything. I mean, God is the one who's
all wise. He's infinitely wise. How is
it that this interaction between this man Moses and the Lord even
took place in the first place? Didn't the Lord know what he
wanted to do? Why didn't he just do that? Why did this man become
part of the equation, part of the engagement? If you look a
little bit later on in this chapter, He says, this is further down
in verse 30, it came to pass on the morrow that Moses said
to the people, you have sinned a great sin and now I will go
up unto the Lord peradventure, I will make an atonement for
your sin. And Moses returned to the Lord
and said, oh, This people have sinned a great sin, and have
made them gods of gold. Yet now, verse 32, if thou wilt
forgive their sin, and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of
thy book which thou hast written. You see what Moses is saying?
He's saying, they sinned. I'll go to make an atonement,
if the Lord would accept the atonement, and he offered himself
to be blotted out of God's book. All right, what does it all mean? How can we even explain these
things? How can we untangle this apparent contradiction
that God knows all things and doesn't change, and yet here
he engages with a finite man, even a sinner like Moses, in
order to then change his mind, and how could he just not visit
these people with wrath? So all those thoughts help us
to see the answers to this question, why and how does God forgive
sin? And how can we, how can I, can
God forgive me? Can I personally trust him as
a sinner, considering that I'm such a sinner? If we look at Psalm 25, where
Brad read, I want to read this verse to you, because it's powerful. It's powerful. In Psalm 25, in
verse 6, it says, remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies and thy loving
kindnesses, for they have been ever of old. Notice verse 7,
remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions. According
to thy mercy, remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O Lord. And he goes on in verse 8 through
10 talking about how God is upright and he will teach sinners and
the meek he'll guide in judgment. And then all the paths of the
Lord, in verse 10, are mercy and truth to such as keep his
covenant and his testimonies, which puts us, again, in concern. But notice verse 11. After declaring
that the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth to such as keep
his covenant and testimonies, he says, for thy name's sake,
O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it is great. You know the
word great there means? It means abundant. It means severe. It means greatly evil and great
in number. It means that we sin and it's
a horrible thing and we do it a lot, repeatedly, again and
again. In Isaiah 43, the Lord tells
Israel, you have wearied me with your sins. You've made me to
serve with your sins and wearied me by your iniquities. It's not
just once, often and recurring. And yet in verse 10, just before
he said that, all the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth
to such as keep his covenant and his testimonies, perhaps
he was thinking back about all that God said in the law and
that experience, that history of Israel having pledged upon
hearing of God's grace to them and delivering them from Egypt
and their own idolatry, bringing them out and then giving them
sound and good laws, and yet they cast those laws off. What's
wrong with serving God? What's wrong with not worshiping
any but the one who deserves to be worshiped? Nothing. What's
wrong with not stealing, not committing adultery? Nothing,
it's good. The problem is here, you see. The problem is right
here. And so when he says this in verse 10, he's reflecting
on this truth, and yet he confesses in a subsequent verse, verse
11, for thy name's sake, O Lord, for your own sake, for Christ's
sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is numerous and it is
horrendous, it's bad, and it's a lot, and it's repeated. And
so back in Exodus 32 then, when we look at this, we begin to
see now that when God does do this, when he does forgive the
sins of the people as he did, he says, the Lord repented of
the evil which he thought to do to his people in verse 14
of Exodus 32. Then we see then that the reason
he does it is for his name's sake. He pardons in Psalm 2511. The word pardon means to forgive
on the basis of a propitiation. And propitiation means something
done for God, something done to satisfy God's justice, a sacrifice
of blood to satisfy the justice that's been offended and fulfill
the righteousness that's demanded and to magnify the glory of His
righteousness in answer to God. And God receives that then. And
then on that basis of that bloodshed, He forgives the sin, He pardons
it, and it's all for His name's sake. It's the same word that's
used in Jeremiah 31, verse 34, where it says in the covenant
that God will forgive their sins and not remember them anymore.
And in Hebrews 10, that same verse is explained that it is
through the blood of Christ that we have the remission of sins.
So that means that God only pardons through the blood of Jesus. blood
of his son. God provided a sacrifice in order
that he might receive by that sacrifice a full satisfaction
of injustice to appease his own wrath. God did something for
himself in the sacrifice of Christ that he might be gracious to
us and forgive our sins, and he did it for his name's sake. Now, let's look back at Exodus
32 and go through this in verse 7 here. And the Lord said to
Moses, go. Well, Moses is on the mountain.
Go. Notice the words. Get thee down. for thy people, which thou broughtest
out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves." This is
speaking of our mediator. God the Father is speaking here
in this, in the Old Testament as a, in a figure through this
event, through this history, to Moses, because Moses represented
the Lord Jesus Christ in everything. And in this way, God is speaking
to Moses as to Christ concerning the people that were given to
the Lord Jesus Christ. Go, get thee down. Isn't that
what the father said to his son? He sent his son into the world.
The father has sent me. I came to do his will. Oh my
God, you've prepared a body for me. Sacrifice and offering thou
wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. I come to do
thy will, O God, yea, thy law is within my heart. So the Lord
said to Moses, go get thee down. Thy people, remember John 17,
the Father has given them to me and I'm going to give eternal
life to as many as he has given me. That's what God, he said,
he lifted up his eyes to heaven and he said, Father, glorify
thy son that thy son also may glorify thee as thou has given
him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to
as many as thou has given him. All mine are thine, he prays
in John 17. And here, The Lord Jehovah says
to Moses in type as speaking to Christ, you go down, your
people that you brought out of the land of Egypt, out of the
land of sinful death and corruptions and bondage and idolatry, they've
corrupted themselves. In eternity, before we were ever
created, God made a covenant with His Son. And that covenant
was made, it says in Revelation 13, 8, that He is the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. First Peter 1, 20, it says He
was ordained, His precious blood was ordained as our redemption
before the foundation of the world. So God the Father engaged
with His Son. The Son was engaged in this,
He wasn't It didn't come to him all of a sudden when he was sent
into the world. Before time began, he was the
Lamb slain. And as the Lamb slain, he had
already loved the church and given himself for it. And so
he's engaged in this, in this counsel of God. Your people that
you brought out have corrupted themselves. What are you going
to do about it? They've turned aside quickly.
They've turned out of the way. I commanded them. They made a
calf. They worshiped it. They have committed idolatry. They've broken the law. And the
law, my law, demands justice. And that justice says that my
wrath, the judgment of my wrath upon them is a good thing. And
notice what he says here. Notice what he says here in verse
10. Now, therefore, let me alone. Why would He even say that? Why
would He even engage with His man Moses and say, let me alone?
He doesn't need man's permission, does He? No. But when you see
in Moses the Lord Jesus Christ, then it's God in all of His justice,
representing His just and holy law and His wrath that is due
to us. and he's giving to the Lord Jesus
Christ this commandment, let me alone. And yet, the mediator,
the surety, the redeemer says, notice, he says in verse 11,
he besought the Lord. He pleads, he intercedes, and
if it weren't for the intercessor, these people would have been
destroyed, and it would have been a good thing, because they
were so wicked. But the goodness of God in his
truth and in his grace is revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ through
the type here of Moses. And it says he besought the Lord,
he pleaded, he appealed to the Lord. And this is what he says,
why does your wrath wax hot against your people? thy people, which
you have brought forth out of the land of Egypt." You see,
it was God's eternal will to have a people. He chose them
in Christ and he redeemed them in Christ even before time began. As soon as God willed it, it
was done. And yet it had to be accomplished
in the actual death of his son. And so the Lord Jesus here, in
Moses now, foreshadowing him, he pleads with him, why does
your wrath wax hot against your people? If they're your people,
if they're your people, then your name is upon them. Your
reputation, your fame, your honor, your glory is at stake. You have
made them your people and you have become their God. You declared
yourself to be their savior, you redeemed them, and you exercised
your great power in Egypt to deliver them. Where's your power
now? Where is that continuation, that
unchanging, immutable, eternal God who saves a people, not just
in the beginning, but in the middle and in the end, all the
way through? Why does your wrath wax hot against
your people, which you have brought forth out of the land of Egypt
with great power and with a mighty hand? God's power is infinite. There's nothing too hard for
the Lord. Nothing shall be impossible with
God. It's impossible for man, but it is not impossible with
God. And that's why the psalmist prays
in Psalm 2511, for thy name's sake, O Lord, do the impossible. Pardon my sin by a propitiatory
sacrifice, one that satisfies and magnifies your justice and
judgments, and yet in your righteousness and in your truth, clears me
of my sin. And so he prays this way, is
God's power powerful enough to save me, a sinner? Well, clearly
these people clearly had no ability, no faithfulness, no goodness
in themselves why God would save them or something to work with
as a starting point. They didn't have any of that.
God's power had to do it all. And God's power would be exercised
in the highest possible way in saving a sinful people from his
own justice and his own wrath. In Proverbs, I think it's 16,
verse 32, he says, he that, let me just go there, because I won't
quote it right. I've quoted this before to you.
This is a powerful verse. He says, In Proverbs 16, verse
32, he that is slow to anger is better than the mighty. Well,
we know God is mighty. In fact, he's almighty. That
means that he is slow to anger. And it goes on, and he that ruleth
his spirit better than he that takes a city. His spirit is greater
and more difficult to conquer than an entire city. God has
control of his own self. God has control of his own anger. He's long-suffering and his power
is so great that he, of his own initiative, can withhold the
just consequences of our sin, and not just withhold them, but
actually reconcile us to Himself. Not separate us as our sins deserve
and demand, but reconcile us to Himself in the death of His
Son. And so Moses pleads that way.
They're your people, you have a mighty hand, you have demonstrated
your power, you brought them out of Egypt, You don't change,
you're immutable, your power is able to do whatever you want,
they're your people, all right, that's the first appeal. Verse
12, wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say, for mischief he
brought them out to slay them in the mountains. Now that's
the way the idols would do it. They couldn't talk, they couldn't
walk, they couldn't do anything with their hands, they were dumb
idols. But God knows his works before time. He doesn't start
something and go, oh, I did not think of that. He knew what these people were
like, didn't he? He knew what they were when he delivered them
from Egypt. No surprises here on God's part. None whatsoever. That's why he
appointed a mediator. That's why he engaged with their
surety, the one who advocates and makes intercession for them
in this chapter. And so the advocate, the intercessor
in verse 12 says, if you do this, your enemies will be able to
mock you. And it would be right for them
to mock you because you said you were going to do this and
yet you failed. Somehow your power, you didn't
exercise your power enough to save them after you committed
to do that. That's what people do. And then in verse 13, the
most powerful part of all. He's not talking about just Canaan. That was just a symbol, an emblem,
a foreshadow, a type of what he's really talking about in
the gospel here. He's talking about eternal glory. He's talking about eternal life
in the presence of God with all of God's glory and them being
accepted and at ease in his sight and being able to look upon his
face and have intimate, unbroken, unfettered, full disclosure of
God in all of his glory. That's what he's talking about.
And that would occur when through the Lord Jesus Christ, Abraham's
true seed, God would justify the heathen through his precious
blood. When he bore the curse of God's law and removed the
curse from them, when he would redeem them from the curse of
the law. That's what he's talking about
here. Remember that oath, because you made that oath with your
son for your people. In fact, you swore by your own
self. You see that in verse 13? You
pledged to do this and said in the pledge, in that oath, that
if you failed, then you would fail to be God. So you see the power here. This
is the intercessor. This is the wisdom of God. This
is God's own will being expressed here. Unknown to man, but his
goodness is shining forth in its brightness here, in his brightness. Look at chapter 34, Exodus 34,
when the Lord passes by and shows him all of his goodness, it says
in verse 6, the Lord passed by before Moses and proclaimed,
the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering
and abundant in goodness and in truth. keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no
means clear the guilty. Whatever God does to forgive,
it is not unrighteous. It is going to be just. He's
not going to clear the guilty. He's going to justify the ungodly. He's going to remove their sins. He's going to blot their sins
out, and he's going to give them a perfect righteousness. So back
in Exodus 32, when Moses returned to the Lord after he told the
people, I'm going to go try to make an atonement for you, for
your sin. He didn't say try. He just said,
per venture, I shall make an atonement. for your sin, and
Moses returned to the Lord and said, oh, those people have sinned
a great sin and have made them gods of gold. Verse 32 of chapter
32, yet now, if thou will forgive their sin, long pause, and if
not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book. Look at Isaiah chapter
44. Isaiah chapter 44. I want to
read this and we'll close with this. This chapter catalogues idolatry. It describes these people who
were so stupid, and we're no better than they, but I use that
word with an underscore, so spiritually stupid that they would chop a
tree down and they'd cut up some of the tree and make a fire with
it and then they'd cook their food on that fire and then they'd
sit back and they'd go, There's a little wood left here. Think
I'll make an idol. And then carve out an idol, and
then bow down and worship the stupid idol. That's who he's
talking about here in Isaiah 44. But keep in mind what Moses
said. I'm going to, peradventure, make
atonement for you. And then he prays to the Lord. Forgive them, Lord. They've committed
a great sin. And if not, then blot me out
of your book. Notice, verse... Chapter 44,
verse 21. Remember these, O Jacob and Israel,
for thou art my servant. I have formed thee. Thou art
my servant, O Israel. Thou shalt not be forgotten of
me. After he catalogs our idolatry,
thou shalt not be forgotten of me. I have blotted out as a thick
cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins, return unto
me, for I have redeemed thee. Sing, O you heavens, for the
Lord hath done it. Shout, you lower parts of the
earth. Break forth into singing, you
mountains. O forest and every tree therein,
for the Lord has redeemed Jacob and glorified himself in Israel. in blotting out their sins. The
Lord Jesus Christ stood before God. God is either going to blot
out his people or he's going to blot out their sins. And the
only way he can blot out their sins is to pour out his wrath,
to bring Christ under the curse of his law and blot him out of
life with our sins. That's the way they were blotted
out. He laid them on his son and then blotted them out in
his death. Sing, O heavens, the Lord has
glorified himself in Israel, and this is how we can trust
him, not for something found in us, because he does this out
of his goodness. He does it for himself, for his
name's sake. So can we trust the Lord? Well,
if we look to ourselves for some reason to trust the Lord, no.
But if you pray with the psalmist, Lord, for thy name's sake, pardon
mine iniquity, forgiving it for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ,
whom you made the propitiation for our sins, and hear his intercession,
his pleading as an advocate for your glory, for your covenant,
for all of your power, your redeeming blood, then you can pardon my
sins, and it'll be right. That's what he says here. What
an amazing God we have. I can trust him because when
he shines forth his goodness, he saves his people for his name's
sake. What a blessing. Let's pray.
Lord, thank you for the account you've given in your own word
of things which to us would be completely unknown because we're
so overwhelmed by our pride and foolishness and our greed and
covetousness. To gain for ourselves, to get
a name for ourselves, to present ourselves, help us to see that
in the Lord Jesus Christ, there's nothing better than to lose everything
concerning this flesh, that we might gain only Him and thus
have all things. Help us to seek nothing more,
nothing higher, and nothing else than the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ would be magnified and glorified. who has glorified
himself in our salvation. In his name we pray, amen.