I want you to take your Bibles
and turn with me to the book of Exodus chapter 34. Exodus chapter 34. I'm going
to look at verses 5 to 7. Before I look at those verses, let's ask the Lord's blessing.
And then what I'd like to do is give you a history of coming
up to these verses right here. And then we'll look at these
verses, verses 5-7 in Exodus 34. I've entitled this message,
The Sermon of All Sermons. Let's pray together. Our Father, we ask You this evening
to help us as we try to hear, we try to worship, we try to
pray. Lord, we ask You to have mercy. Mercy on us this evening as we've
come together, and mercy we ask on these, our friends, that have
been mentioned. Lord, thank You for Your Mercy and compassion. Bless us this evening. We pray
for Christ's sake. Amen. When you get a chance, I'd like
for you to go and read Exodus 32, chapter 32, 33, and 34. Those
three chapters. Exodus 32 to 34. I'd like to, for the sake
of time, I'd like to tell you what is
found in those three chapters, and then look at these three
verses in Exodus 34. The Lord had told Moses to come
up into the mountain of God, and God was going to give Moses
the Ten Commandments. Two tablets of stone. And God
wrote on those tablets of stone with His finger and gave those
tablets to Moses. Now Moses was in the mountain
of the Lord for 40 days. And the people thought that because
Moses delayed to come back from the mountain, that surely something
had happened. And so they started talking to
Aaron. And they asked Aaron to make
them a god. A god that they could worship. And so Aaron took gold from all
the people and he took that gold and he fashioned that gold into
a golden calf. And the scripture says that God's
anger waxed hot But the Lord was pleased to use Moses as a
type of the Lord Jesus Christ, our intercessor, to mediate for
the people. And he cited in Moses' mediation,
he called to remembrance by the grace of God, God putting it
in his heart to ask. concerning the covenant that
the Lord had made to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, who was
later named Israel. Well, the Lord sent Moses down
with the tablets that God had given him, and he took those
tablets when he saw the people. He heard them singing and dancing,
and when he got down to where they were, He took those two
tablets of stone and threw those tablets, the Scripture says,
at the base of the mountain. He went in there and he took
that golden calf. The Scripture says he burned
it with fire. He ground it into powder. He
threw the powder into the water and he made the people to drink
it. Well, he started talking to Aaron.
Asking him, what happened here? What's going on here? Aaron tried
to defend himself. And Aaron said, Thou knowest
the people that they are set on mischief. And then he lied. And he told Moses that the people
gave him all this gold, and he just merely threw it into the
fire. And he said, this calf, this
golden calf, just came out. And that's how it came into being. Well, Moses, the next day, charged
the people. And he said, who's on the Lord's
side? And the Scripture says that all
the sons of Levi stood with him. And Moses told the sons of Levi,
he said, I want you to go through the camp. And he said, I want
you to kill every man his brother, his own brother. You kill your
brother, every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. And the Scripture says that 3,000
men, about 3,000 men, were killed that day. The next day, Moses
told the people that they had sinned greatly before the Lord,
and that he was going to approach the Lord on their behalf, and
perhaps the Lord would show mercy. So he did. He approached the
Lord. He confessed the guilt of the
people and he asked the Lord to forgive them. And he said,
Lord, if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou
hast written. Not that he asked to be taken
out of the book of life, the Lamb's book of life, but the
book of the living. What he said was, Lord, forgive
these Your people, and if not, then kill me. The Lord told Moses
to go back And to lead the people into the land of promise, the
Lord said, I'll send my angel to go ahead of you. But he said,
I'm not going with you. And the people mourned greatly. And Moses then was to move the
tabernacle out of the camp and put it outside the camp. In fact,
Exodus 33.3 is where this is related, and it says, "...because
God would not dwell in their midst." Well, Moses entered into
the tabernacle. The Scripture says that the cloudy
pillar descended and stood at the door, and the Lord spoke
with Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend. Moses appealed
to the Lord. And he said concerning the people,
he said, Lord, you've not told me who would go with us. But, he said, if you have looked
upon me in grace, if I found grace in your sight, in your
eyes, show me your way. And the Lord told him at that
time, he said, my presence will go with you. And I will give
you rest. And Moses then said, Lord, if
You don't go with us, Lord, don't send us. Is it not Your presence? Is that not the evidence that
we've found grace in Your sight? And then that's when Moses asked
the Lord. He said, Lord, I beseech You,
show me Your glory. And that's when the Lord told
Moses, I will make all my goodness pass before thee and I will proclaim
the name of the Lord before thee and will be gracious to whom
I'll be gracious. I will show mercy on whom I'll
show mercy. And Moses, that time, was taught
by the Lord that God's glory is His goodness. And in describing
His goodness, All we can say, when the Lord said, I will cause
all my goodness to pass before you, all that we can say about
that is that whatever God says concerning Himself, that is His
glory. Now, all of that was preceding
what happens right here in Exodus 34 verse 5. And based upon the
question that Moses asked the Lord, Lord, would you show me
your glory? Would you show me, as I've said
before, Lord, what do you think? Now you think about this. God
had brought those people out of Egypt. Caused them to cross
the Red Sea. Fed them with manna. I mean,
on and on and on and on. They rebelled against God. God
had given them the law through Moses. Here they were, led of
God, and they've got that golden calf. We want a God that we can
look at. And there they were, all naked. They were dancing and singing. Moses came down there in anger
and threw those. And now here's Moses still appealing
to God for them, asking the Lord, Lord, would You have mercy? God
have mercy on us. God have mercy. Lord, what is
Your glory? Show me Your glory. And he said,
I'm going to cause all my goodness to pass before You. And now we
find Exodus 34. Scripture sets forth. Here in
these verses, in this message, verses 5, 6, and 7, this is a
message, this is a sermon that God preached concerning Himself. That's why I named this the Sermon
of All Sermons. And from this message, from these
three verses right here, three verses, The whole of our hope,
the whole of our message, everything we preach comes from these three
verses right here. When God Almighty preached this
message, three verses, we rest our soul on what God had to say. And here was this message that
God preached. Verse 5, And the Lord descended
in the cloud, and stood with him there. and proclaimed the
name of the Lord. Now here's the Lord. And the
Lord Himself is going to proclaim, He's going to set forth, He's
going to manifest who He is. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ
says in His high priestly prayer in John 17. He said, Lord, I
have manifested Thy name unto the men that You've given Me.
And they were. You gave them to Me. I've manifested,
I've told them, they've kept it. Now here is God making Himself
known unto Moses. He said, this is all of my goodness. Can you imagine that? I'm going
to cause all my goodness, make all of my goodness, all the totality
of my goodness, I'm going to cause it to pass before your
face. Oh, what does God have to say? And the Lord, verse 6,
passed by before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful
and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and
truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's
children unto the third and to the fourth generation. Now here is the God that we worship. This is what God Almighty has
to say concerning Himself. If you want to know who is a
God like unto thee, Lord, who are you? He said, this is who
I am right here. Merciful. The Lord passed by. The Lord God, merciful, for Christ's
sake, for Christ's sake, He is compassionate. As a father that
pities his children, he pities his own, his elect. He said,
I am merciful, merciful to guilty sinners in themselves, Almighty
God is merciful. He said, I'm gracious. I am freely
kind. Not because of anything found
in His elect. He has chosen to everlastingly
love His own. He has chosen a people to Himself. A remnant. according to the election
of grace. And He has purposed to save His
people because He is gracious, willingly, freely. Why did God
Almighty choose to show mercy and be gracious unto whosoever
He did? Why? Because He chose to. That's
the only reason. According to the purpose of his
own will, he said, this is all of my goodness. I'm merciful. Merciful. I'm gracious. And he said, I'm long-suffering.
Suffers long, even toward the wicked for the sake of his elect. that none of His people, none
of His elect should perish. Why does God tolerate? Why is He longsuffering? He is
longsuffering to us where Peter says, not willing that any of
God's people should perish. Almighty God is longsuffering
allowing men to continue doing what they do in absolute rebellion
before Him, because Almighty God knows the end from the beginning. God Almighty suffers long, and
men who will surely pay for their rebellion. Why is rebellion found
in this world today? Why is God long-suffering? Because
God has a purpose. There may be some children that
are yet to be born that God Almighty has eternally purposed to show
mercy to. And God will be longsuffering
even to the wicked for the sake of His elect. Almighty God. Who is a God like unto Thee?
He said, I'm abundant in goodness and truth beyond what we deserve. In providential
goodness to all men, God causes the rain to fall on the just
and on the wicked. But in special goodness to His
elect, showing them His truth in Christ as their Savior. Can
you imagine here we are tonight? Almighty God is abundant in His
goodness in teaching us this evening. How much have we learned
concerning God Almighty through the preaching of his gospel,
what he has taught us. He said, keeping mercy for thousands,
there's a number that no man can number. Who is the elect
of God? I don't know. As I've said before,
I see the manifestation. of a believer, but I don't know
who God's people are. Not until the Lord manifests
Himself to them, then we've got some indication of who they are.
I told you that someone asked Mrs. Spurgeon, he said, if you're
saying that God's going to only save His elect, why don't you
just preach the elect? He said, if you put an E on their
forehead, he said, I'll preach to just them. I don't know who
they are. But I can tell you this, Almighty
God is abundant in goodness and truth and reveals Himself to
His people. He keeps mercy for His thousands,
those that no man knows but Himself, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin. Why? Because Christ has borne
the guilt of His people. Christ was made sin. He has taken
it away and satisfied the justice of Almighty God. And now God
freely forgives the sin of His own if the guilt of His people,
and it has been satisfied, it has been paid. If the guilt of
God's people has been paid. And the presence, the cause of
the presence of sin. We find ourselves still, even
now, committing sins of commission, things that we know, and omission,
things that we don't know. Things that I should have done
that I didn't do. Things that I did that I knew
I was doing wrong, and I still grieve. But Almighty God, for
Christ said, who is it God likened to you? He said, I'm one that
forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. But he said, I will
by no means clear the guilty. God never has. God never has
cleared the guilty. God never has just passed over
sin. Almighty God, because He's a
just God, because of who He is, I'm a just God and a Savior.
Almighty God did not just clear erase the guilt, not even of
His people, especially, you know, because the Lord Jesus Christ
was made sin. All that His people are, having
fallen in Adam, Christ was made that. And Almighty God dealt
with Him in absolute justice and wrath. took and turned his
back on his Son, forsook his Son. God did not just clear the
guilty. He didn't just say, well, I'll
just wipe it off, just forgive it. No. Almighty God absolutely
spewed out justice on the Lord Jesus Christ and put away their
guilt. He paid for their guilt. Their
debt was paid. He said, I will by no means clear
the guilty. And he said, lastly, visiting
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's
children unto the third and fourth generation. Though God Almighty truly pardons the sin of His
people, and He does for Christ's sake. He forgives them. He didn't
clear it and wipe it off for no reason. Christ paid our debt. And Almighty God, for Christ's
sake, forgives us. But you will find very often
that when we do and we do sin, there's always a remembrance
of the consequences. Psalm 99.8 says, O Lord our God,
Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance
on their invention." Almighty God mercifully, graciously reminds
us and brings back to our memory what we are. David sinned against
God. I'll give you an example here.
David sinned against God. He took Bathsheba. That was Uriah
the Hittite's wife. And David took her and he had
a relationship with her. And Almighty God, after David
had had her husband murdered, and that's what happened, God
told him, He said, you killed her husband. You put him out
there in the front, you killed him. He took this woman to wife
and had a child. Had a child. That child died.
And the sword never left the house of David. And David, you
go back and read the Psalms. Go back and read Psalm 51. This
is after the Lord sent that prophet Nathan, and he said, you tell
David, you know, the Lord's forgiven you. But I'm telling you, David
suffered the rest of his life. And he wrote that Psalm 51. That's
the psalm where he wrote, you know, my sin is ever before me. There's always a remembrance.
Almighty God, for the sake of His precious dear Son, He forgives
His people. But He will have us, very often,
to go through this world remembering what we are by nature. Oh, but
thanks be unto God that He reminds us who we are in Christ. We're struggling creatures. Who
is the Lord? I'll just read those last two
verses again and we'll close. And the Lord passed by before
him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God. Merciful and gracious,
long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy
for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and
that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children
unto the third and the fourth generation. This is who we worship. This is our God. This is God
Almighty. Sovereign. Just. Merciful. Gracious. Long-suffering. Oh Lord, teach
us who You are. Teach us of Yourself. Lord, have
mercy on us tonight for Christ's sake. Forgiving us. Lord, for
His sake. And even as we eat of the Lord's
table, May we be brought to remember afresh His goodness and graciousness
to us.