Now last time we saw them dancing
around a golden calf and Moses was in the mount, he made intercession
for them. Now Moses, we read in verse 15,
he turns and he goes down from the mount and he has the two
tables of testimony, the two tables of covenant, the law in
his hand, written on both sides, one side and on the other. And
this was the work of God, this was the writing of God graven
upon tables. Now we know when our Lord Jesus
Christ came into this earth, he said, the law is written on
my heart. He didn't have the law on the table, he had the
law on his heart. He came to represent his people and he did.
And he totally, thoroughly, completely fulfilled the law on behalf of
his people. And when he comes to us in grace, He writes His
law on our hearts. The law of everlasting grace,
covenant grace. The law of faith, and the law
of love, and the law of liberty, the law of righteousness. So
we hear the law condemn us, and we begin to follow Him. That's
what we saw Thursday night. You're manifestly declared to
be the epistle of Christ. He wrote this epistle, not with
ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of
stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart. This is only what
Christ can do. And we see a type here in Moses
of how Christ works this in the hearts of His people, bringing
us to be consecrated to Christ our righteousness. This is how
Christ works this. I've titled this, Christ Consecrating
Us to God. And that's the picture here.
It says there in verse 17, when Joshua heard the noise of the
people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, there's a noise of
war in the camp. Joshua was a man of war. He understood
war. And that's us by nature. That's
us by nature. We're men of war by nature. We're
eager to fight by nature. And Joshua went in the mount
with God. He was near, went up with Moses
near, but he wasn't in the mount with God. And he didn't have
the discernment to know what Moses knew. Moses had been with
God, and God had told him what was going on down there. Now
brethren, you and I don't always know what's going on in the heart. We judge after the seeing eye
and the hearing ear, and that's unrighteous judgment. Christ
knows what's going on in the heart. He knows what's going
on in the heart. And Moses corrects him here and
he tells him, nope, that's not what it is, it's the voice of
singing. The voice of singing. And so they came down and as
soon as Moses saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger waxed
hot and he cast the tables out of his hands and break them beneath
the mount. You think there's any religious
person in our day who would have done that? They put them up in
the museum. That was the finger God wrote
those tables. Moses threw them down and broke them, and God
never once condemns him for doing it. He never once condemns him
for doing it, because it was a lesson. It was important for
God's people and every generation to see. And here's the first
thing. Christ is gonna make you behold
first off. I'm saying in the first hour,
and let me say this and get it out of the way. He does this
consecrating work and the first time he reveals himself to you,
but he continues to do this every time he turns us from our sin
or grows us in him or turns us to him more. This is an ongoing
thing, it never stops. But here's the first thing he's
gonna do. He's gonna make us say we're guilty before the law.
We're guilty before the law. We gotta be silenced. We gotta
be shut up. That's the first thing. So he
waxed hot in anger. He cast the tables out of his
hand. He'd break them in the mouth. Now you imagine this vain
show. They're down there dancing, hooping and hollering and going
around this idol and going through a big vain show. And all of a
sudden, and I'm sure Moses shouted to the top of his lungs and they
all looked up and Moses took the tables that he brought down
out of that mound and threw them down and broke them. And I bet
you there was a hush over the whole crowd. Everything shut
up. We didn't know what would become
of Him. Now here He is. Can you imagine how it's going
to be when Christ returns from the mountain? That's how it's
going to be. Everybody's going to shut up.
For once in their life, everybody's going to shut up. That's what
He's got to do in our heart. He's got to shut us up. Now, it's obvious that natural
man, religious man, can see that it's breaking the law and it's
pouring contempt on the law whenever somebody commits some immoral
act of sin. And that is, that's breaking
the law. That's pouring contempt on God and his law, on Christ
and his law. It surely is. But what men don't
see and what you and I lose sight of and are blinded to is is when
we try to take the law in our hands, and we start trying to
affect obedience with it, either in us or in others, we're just
as big an odologist dancing around our goal in an ox as they were. And the ox is us, and we're just
as stubborn as an ox. It takes God to come and break
the stony heart. Only Christ can do this and make
you see you're guilty. We know what things soever the
law says. It says to them who are under
the law that every mouth may be stopped. And all the world
become guilty before God. And therefore by the deeds of
the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight for
by the law is the knowledge of sin. And when you think of the
law and you hear that word, Don't only think of the Ten Commandments.
This right here is the law of God. If we take this book in
our hands right here, and we're going to wilt, and we're going
to shame, and we're going to affect obedience with it, we're
dancing around a golden ox. Then Christ is going to have
to show us that idol, and show us it's unprofitable. It says
here in verse 20, So the first thing he's going to do is shut
our mouths in guilt. He's going to make you say, I'm guilty.
I'm guilty. And then he's going to show you
the idols worthless. He said in verse 20, he took
the calf which they had made, he burned it in the fire, he
ground it to powder, and he strawed it on the water, and he made
the children of Israel drink of it. Moses showed them that
this thing that they said, this is our gods that brought us out
of Egypt. Moses came down and showed them
that thing they called a god didn't have power to save itself,
much less them. He destroyed it right in front
of their face and showed them this thing don't have any power.
It's not God. And that's what Christ is going
to show you and me. The idol called self doesn't
have any power. He's unprofitable. He can't save
himself from a sore finger, much less from his sin. And it says there, he ground
it to powder. He's going to make you see. When
he got finished with that idol, they couldn't use that gold for
nothing. He ground it up with powder and threw it in the river. And they couldn't do nothing
with it. It was unprofitable. He could make us see our idol
is totally unprofitable. And then he made them drink it.
He took some of it and made them drink it. Christ, what do you
reckon that tasted like? This water out of this creek
coming down out of the mount and a bunch of ground up gold
in it. I don't know, but I can tell
you this, when Christ does this to us, he's going to make our
sin extremely bitter to us. It's going to be bitter to us.
And I'll tell you something else, when they drank it, nothing happened.
Christ is going to make you see it's not what goes into the mouth
that's defiling you, it's the heart that's in you that's defiling
you. And another thing He's going
to do is He's going to make your sin to be one with you. He made them drink that idol
so that it was one with Him. He's going to make us on our
sin as being our sin. And then He's going to make sin
personal to us. He's going to make it real personal
to us. He rebukes personally in the
heart. God does, Christ does. He rebukes
you in the heart and he's gonna make his child take sides with
God against ourselves. Now watch what happened here.
This is very instructive. Verse 21, Moses said to Aaron,
what did this people unto thee that thou hast brought so great
a sin upon them? That was a tremendous rebuke.
That was a tremendous rebuke. What did they do to you to make
you bring so great a sin on them? God's going to have to convict
us in our heart and make us see that what we've done hasn't helped
God's people. He's hurt them. He's hurt them. And Aaron did. what Adam did. He's a good picture of Adam here,
because if you notice the last words of it, it says, God said,
I'm going to plague the people because they made the calf, which
Aaron made. They didn't touch it. Aaron made
it. But they made it. And we weren't in the garden,
but we did what Adam did. We did it. Just as real. And they made that calf just
as real as Aaron did, because he was leading them. He was the
head. And they did what he did. But Aaron did what Adam did. He led the people into sin. He brought a great sin upon the
people. And Christ is going to come to
us in power. And He's going to come personally.
And He's going to say, You're the man. You're the man. And what? What was Aaron doing
whenever Moses revealed to him, you're the one? That's what he
revealed to him. You brought this great sin upon
them. And what was Aaron doing? What
was he saying in his heart when Moses said this? It came out. He said, they're to blame. That one's to blame. I didn't,
I'm not to blame, they're to blame. Look at, he did just what
Adam did in the garden. Aaron said, let not the anger
of my Lord wax hot. Thou knowest the people, they're
set on mischief. For they said unto me, 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 don't know
what came of him. And I said unto them, whosoever hath any
gold, let him break it off. And they gave it to me, and I
put it in a fire. This calf just popped out. When we're pointing the finger
and saying they're to blame, who does that? Which of us here
does that? Every one of us. When you're driving down the
road and you're thinking over what has happened in the store
and you're saying, well, they shouldn't have done that. The
only reason I said what I said is because of what they did.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're
saying it's their fault. And this is a knee-jerk reaction
of our flesh is to defend ourselves at the expense of others. And
we don't care who the others are. We don't care. If it comes down to justifying
me, we will condemn God's own people. But I want you to notice something
here. Notice Moses doesn't press him. Moses didn't rebuke him. He didn't
come back with something when he sat there. He did something
better. This is what Christ does. When
we're in our state of pointing the finger and blaming the other,
this is what Christ does. This is how he converts you in
the first hour. This is how he converts us in
every hour from our sin. He makes us take sides with God
against ourselves. Look at what Moses did, verse
25. When Moses saw that the people were naked, for Aaron had made
them naked unto their shame among their enemies, then Moses stood in the gate
of the camp and he said, who is on the Lord's side? This was Moses' answer to what
Aaron just said. He went to the gate and he stood
up in the gate. It's a picture of proclamation
of the gospel. It's a picture of what Christ
does through the gospel. And he stood up and he said, who
is on the Lord's side? There ain't but one side. It's
the Lord's side. Let Him come to me, Moses said.
That's a picture of Christ. Who's on the Lord's side? Let
Him come to me. You want to be saved? You want
to be saved from idolatry and from self-justification and from
the sin that we're so wickedly committing constantly? Go to
Christ! Be on His side. And all the sons of Levi gathered
themselves together unto Him. Now here's the great question.
Who's on the Lord's side? Instead of making Aaron confess
one particular sin, yes, I made the idol. Instead of making him
confess that sin, instead of making him say, Moses, you're
lying right now. These people didn't make you
do this. Instead of making him confess that sin, he made him
confess all his sin. He made him confess he's nothing
but sin. How so? When Christ brings you to publicly
confess you're on the Lord's side, when He turns you from
you and makes you to go to be on the Lord's side, we're confessing,
I am sin. Aaron could have confessed that
one sin and he really hadn't confessed much. But by going
with the sons of Levi, to Moses and siding with Moses and being
on the Lord's side, they were saying, all we are is sin. When a believer confesses Christ
in baptism, they're saying, all I am is sin. All my righteousness,
my best religious worship is nothing but sin. All I've ever
done is sin. All I am is sin. That's what
we say when we side with the Lord. We're siding with the Lord
against ourselves. We're saying I acknowledge my
transgression, my sin as ever before me against thee and thee
only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight that thou mightest
be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest. This was the man pointing the
finger. This was the man who's saying there's the guilty ones
right there. Now he's on the Lord's side, saying, I'm the
guilty one. Are we on the Lord's side? This
is where we gotta be brought, to the Lord's side. And then
Christ affectionately makes his child consecrate ourselves to
him, denying ourselves and all others. Now watch this, verse 27. And
he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every
man his sword by his side, and go in and out from the gate to
gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. And
the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And there
fell of the people that day about 3,000 men. For Moses had said, consecrate
yourselves today to the Lord, even every man, upon his son
and upon his brother, that God may bestow upon you a blessing
this day. Moses commanded them to use their
sword and slay their nearest and dearest loved one. You see,
when they went over to Moses and they went on the Lord's side,
there was some there that heard the same word. And they stiffened
up their neck and they said, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing
it. And Moses said, you strap on
your sword and you kill everyone of them. You kill them. Consecration to Christ is more
than publicly saying we're on the Lord's side. There's a lot
of people who say they're on the Lord's side publicly in the
waters of baptism because they love somebody and they're trying
to please them. There's a lot of people, I've
seen spouses leave the gospel as soon as something happened
to their husband. There's a lot of people that are in the gospel
for vain reasons. It's more than that. It's more
than that. It's more than just publicly
confessing you're on His side. He calls us to deny our own sinful
selves. That's what's pictured here with
them killing their nearest loved one. When He brings you to see
your sin and your guilt and He makes you, converts you to the
Lord's side, first one you're going to take vengeance on is
yourself. And He calls us to deny our dearest
loved ones. and he calls us to deny our former
religious companions. Why? Why does he do all this?
Christ must have the preeminence. There must be no competition
in my heart or yours with Christ. There can be no compromise with
anybody. We have to go to Christ. We have to be on his side. Go
to Matthew 10 and let's read this. Matthew 10, verse 32. Our Lord
Jesus said, whosoever therefore shall confess me before men,
him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.
But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before
my Father which is in heaven. Now he's gonna tell us what it
is to do that. Think not that I come to send
peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but
a sword. He's not telling you and me to
strap on a sword and go into this world and kill our nearest
loved ones and our companions and family members in our own
self. But He's saying that's what He's going to do. He's going
to do that. He's the sword. What think you
of Christ? That's the great divider. Now
watch. For I am come to set a man, and
see there, he's the sword. I am come to set a man at variance
against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes shall be they of
his own household. But he that loveth father or
mother more than me, he not worthy of me. He that loveth son or
daughter more than me, he's not worthy of me. That's gonna cause
a lot of pain, brethren. A lot of pain. But now listen. He that taketh not his cross
and followeth after me is not worthy of me. And he that findeth
his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake
shall find it. In Luke he said this, if any
man come to me and hate not his father and mother and wife and
children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he
can't be my disciple. What he's saying there is, We
can't have any competition with Christ. You love your loved ones
and you do what you can for them and you want them to hear the
gospel. He's not saying hate them. But nothing can come between
us and Christ. When it does, He's gonna bring
us out from that. He's gonna separate us from that.
Whether it's a loved one, if it's your dearest loved one,
then that shows you nothing can come between you and Him. Nothing.
Absolutely nothing. Men are fond of saying, well,
I saved in freewill works religion, but later I came to the doctrines
of grace. Let me tell you what that is. Christ makes us mortify that
sinful rebel. He gonna make you mortify that
sinful rebel if he's done a work in you so that he's preeminent. But folks that do that haven't
been consecrated by his effectual power. They are protecting mom and daddy's
golden ox. That is what they are doing.
They would rather offend God than it get out to mom and dad
that they think they are lost. That is what it is. It is loving
father and mother more than Christ. Christ is going to make you take
sides with him against your own self. It is loving self more
than Christ. He is going to make us take sides
and stop protecting the companions we love. He's going to make us
stop protecting our own vain refuge. He's going to make us say, let
God be true in every man of our. He's going to do this with our
religion. He's going to do this with our sins. He's going to
do this with whatever it is that we're hanging on to that's separating
us from Him. Listen, thankfully, thankfully,
this is a great blessing. We're not going to get away with
anything before God. Aren't you glad? He's not going
to let his child get away with anything. He's going to break
you. And that's a wonderful breaking. Because you find him altogether
lovely. You find true freedom. You find
true liberty following him. He's going to do this. And He
won't let anything vie for His attention. The sword of the Spirit,
they're strapping on their sword. The sword of the Spirit is the
Word of God. And the Word of God is sharper
than any two-edged sword because Christ is riding on His horse
with that double-edged sword going out of His mouth and He's
going to cut to the thoughts and intents of a man's heart.
What makes a man sit and hear the Gospel for years and years
and years and years and years and then one day find fault with
what he's hearing? He finally heard it. And that gospel went through
the chink in his armor and got in there to where his refuge
was and started putting salt in that wound and he said, I'm
not going to have that. And that's what we'll do until
Christ blesses that word and makes us bow and say, I got to
be done with that. I got to be done with that. Whatever
it is. He makes you honest. Brethren, true repentance, true
consecration is a sinner taking sides with God against himself,
against his nearest, dearest idols, against his dearest companions,
against his dearest loved ones, even against his own self. And
when he does that, he justifies God as true. Now listen. All the people that heard John
and the publicans justified God. How? Being baptized with the
baptism of John. You know what they did by that
public baptism? They said, we're justifying God. He's right. We're sinners. We're
wrong. He's right. We're on the Lord's side. But
the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the counsel of God against
themselves, being not baptized of Him. That's what you have
here. You have some that went on the Lord's side and they said,
God's right, we're wrong, we're sinners, God's just, we need
Him. And the others that didn't said,
we reject what God says about us, we're not that, we're not
that big a sinner. There wasn't anything wrong with
this idol. And they died. They died. Now notice, there's
12 tribes and only one of them sided with the Lord. This is
not going to be popular. You're going to be a remnant
amongst a multitude. God's people always are. But
when he consecrates you to him, he will make you delighted to
be a remnant amongst a multitude. He makes this word effectual.
2 Corinthians 6, 14 says, be not unequally yoked together
with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness
with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with
darkness? What concord hath Christ with
Belial? What part hath he that believeth
with an infidel? What agreement has the temple
of God with idols? You're the temple of the living
God. God's in you. God said, I will
dwell in them, I'll walk in them, I'll be their God, they'll be
my people. Paul said, wherefore come out from among them and
be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean. This is totally different than
the folks who say, now, you can't touch that substance, and you
can't touch that wine, or that alcohol, or that tobacco, or
that, or that, or that. Well, don't touch it to the point
of drunkenness, because that's the sin. But he's talking about
people right here. He's talking about unbelievers.
He's talking about vain, will-worshipping workers who thumb their nose
at God and say, we don't care what God said. We reject the
counsel of God against ourselves. God gives you a heart to come
out from among them. He don't say debate with them.
He don't say try to explain the gospel to them. He don't say
try to put it in such a way that they can kind of understand and
they'll kind of agree with you. He says, Come out from among
them. That's what he said. And that's
what he makes his people do. We have this promise. And then
when you have the promise of God in your heart, he makes you
cleanse yourself from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit.
He makes you want to be clean on the outside and the inside.
And when you're out, you're not in. and that's holiness. When he's brought you out and
he separates you, that's holiness. Folks who separate themselves
and point the finger and say, well, they're guilty and they
did this and that and the other, and I'm not coming around them
because they might taint me. Well, thank you. You stay away
because you might taint them. That's a bunch of vanity. That's
a bunch of idolatry. That's a God-hating, judging
beast is what that is. God's going to separate his people
from that. Thank God he does. Because in
the process of doing this, here's what he's going to do to you.
He's going to make you see what Christ did for you. And that's
where humility comes from. That's what makes us throw away
that pharisaical whip and throw away and have a right understanding
of the scriptures. When he does that, he makes you
see what Christ did for you. First you've got to see what
a sinner you are. Then you've got to be made to see that your
idols are nothing. Then you've got to be brought
to the Lord's side and you've got to be made to forsake with
everything else for Christ and be consecrated to Him, devoted
to Him. And then He's going to show you
this. He's going to show you what Christ did. And this is
what's going to bring you down and make you rejoice. He says
there in verse 30, Came to pass in the morrow, Moses said to
the people, He ain't talking to all the people. He's talking
to the ones on the Lord's side. You have sinned a great sin.
Yes, they all sinned a great sin, but he's talking to the
ones on the Lord's side. You've sinned a great sin. And
now I'll go up unto the Lord, per venture, I shall make an
atonement for your sin. Moses ain't worried about them
on the other side. He's talking about these right here, those
that the Lord separated out. Moses returned unto the Lord
and he said, all these people have sinned a great sin. and
have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt, if you're
willing, Father, forgive their sin. Now watch it, and if not,
blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.
Blot me out. You've sinned a great sin. Moses
is talking to the sons of Levi who have been separated to Christ.
Christ makes his people, his elect remnant, see that we deserve
the sword of justice just like the rest. We've sinned a great
sin. The others, in fact, didn't even
see that they had sinned a great sin. They didn't think they had.
He only makes his people see you're the great sinner. You
deserve to be slain just like they were. Senator, do you realize there's
not a difference between you and the vilest idolater in this
world right now, right there, where you sit? You think of whatever it is that
you think is so bad in this world and that you hate so bad and
it turns your stomach and you don't have anything to do with
that person, that's you. That's me. It's a lot worse than we think
it is. And there's no difference between
the most wicked God-hating rebel on this earth except for this.
Christ stood in our room and place and took our place. That's the only difference. See, that sword had to fall on
them because they were guilty, but that sword had to fall on
you and me too. because God's holy and He's not going to clear
anybody. You're going to die in Christ or you're going to
meet God and die yourself. But you're going to die. It's
coming. When you least expect it, you're
going to look up and Christ is going to be standing there with
a shout and He's going to be throwing the tables down at you
and saying, you've broken the whole law of God if you don't
have Him. If you don't have Him. But for His people, We had to
have forgiveness with God before God could have anything to do
with us. We had to be forgiven by God before God could receive
us and have communion with us. And so atonement had to be made
for our sin. A price had to be paid to satisfy
God's justice and God be honored in his holiness before God could
have mercy on us. Moses wasn't interceding for
those that were slain. He was interceding for the ones
God separated out. God separated His people in eternity
in election, Christ separated them on the cross, and the Spirit
separates them. Christ died for those that are
sanctified, those that were separated and set apart because He succeeded. He's gonna bring them all to
be on His side, because He satisfied justice for them. Christ's work
was not for everybody, it was for His people. Now, go with
me over to Psalm 22. Whenever our Lord Jesus took
our place, He went to the Father and said, Father, put their sin
on me, so you'll be just to pour out wrath on me. Now listen,
put their sin on me, so you'll be just to pour out wrath on
me. And blot me out, so you can spare them. That's
what Christ did for His people. And God awoke the sword. He said,
awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against him that is my fellow.
And he awoke that sword, and he plunged that sword in his
own son. You imagine the sorrow that day
when 3,000 people were slain in that camp. That's more people
than died in the World Trade Center. Isn't it? Imagine the sorrow that day. That's nothing compared to the
sorrow that we behold on the cross. When our Lord Jesus Christ
was forsaken of God the Father for three and a half hours and
bore the darkness of His separation, we don't know what was taking
place there, but we don't want to know. Here it is. Verse 1, Psalm 22,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so
far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? Oh my
God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not. Look at verse 7, all they that
see me laugh me to scorn. They shoot out the lip, they
shake the head, they say, trusted on the Lord that he'd deliver
him, let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. Meaning
verse 12, many bulls have come past me, strong bulls of Bashan
have set me abound about. They gaped upon me with their
mouths like a ravening and roaring lion. I'm poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint.
My heart's like wax. It's melted in the midst of my
bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue
cleaves to my jaws. And thou, my God, my Father,
the one I love perfectly, this is what hurts so badly. You brought
me here into the dust of death for dogs. That's you and me,
sinner. worthless, God-hating, repulsive
dogs. We come past him. We come past
him, who's the holy, spotless, righteous one. We're the assembly
of the wicked. And we enclosed him. They pierced
my hands and my feet, and I may tell all my bones, they look
and stare upon me. Ah-ha, ah-ha! We knew he was
an imposter. Ah, the other shoe fell. That's what we've been waiting
on. That's what we've been anticipating. We knew it all along. I said
it. Did y'all hear me? I said it. I said that's what
was gonna happen. Ah-ha, ah-ha. That's about the worthless, awfulest
thing a man can say. They part my garments, they cast
lots for my blessure. Be not thou far from me, O Lord,
my strength. You're my strength, haste thee
to help me. And then God said, that's enough.
God said, justice is satisfied. God said, my law's been honored. And with his stripes, we're healed. Everybody he represented is healed
perfectly. So now, when you sin, when you
fall into the same vile, wicked, idolatrous sins, well, does a
believer really do that? They'd been brought out of Egypt.
So have we. They'd seen all those miracles
at the Red Sea. So have we. They'd been fed in
the wilderness. So have we. And they still committed
idolatry, and so do we. And our Lord Jesus goes to the
Father. And he says, oh, these people have sinned a great sin.
They've made them gods of gold. And he says, yet now if you'll
forgive me their sin, if thou wilt forgive their sin. And he says, if not, now listen,
if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast
written. And the Lord says to Christ, whosoever hath sinned
against me, Him will I blot out of my book. Sure will. But this
is what he said, concerning those for whom you died, my son, for
whom you were forsaken, they've not sinned against me. I have
no record of their sin. There's no record of their sin.
I don't remember them ever sinning. And he says, and they'll never
be blotted out of the Lamb's book of life ever. Not ever. And I'll tell you what that does
for you when God brought you that place to see that. For one,
Aaron's not standing up now saying it's their fault. He grinds that
idol to powder. And for anybody else that is,
he'll make you say, I tell you what, you want to charge my brother? Block me out instead. Just block
me out, let him go free. That's where he brings you. That's
where he brings you. It's called loving kindness.
mercy, forgiveness. I reckon there's anything we've
ever done as bad as what they did that day. I mean, they were worshipping
another god or worshipping an idol. Everything we've ever done is
that bad. They betrayed God. Aaron betrayed
God. He betrayed his brother. He betrayed
the people. And Moses said, spare him and
blot me out instead. I think Moses has seen Christ,
don't you? You reckon he had? I believe
he's seen the Lord today. I believe he understood something
about substitution. And the Lord says then, He says,
verse 34, Now go, lead the people to the place I've spoken unto
thee. I'm never going to blot them out. They're forgiven. Now
lead them to the place I promised. And it goes on to show there,
He'll correct us for our sin. And He'll protect us from all
who sin against us with plagues. That's what He did to them. But
He does that because He's a loving Father and a faithful Shepherd.
and all our righteousness. And I pray He'll bless that word
now and slay our flesh and make us consecrate ourselves to the
Lord and take sides with Him. Amen.