Let us turn then to God's Word,
and direct your attention this morning to words that we find
at the beginning of Exodus 34, in the 34th chapter of the book
of Exodus. And I'll read the first four
verses. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Give 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 they 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
him and he took in his hand the two tables of stone. What we see here of course is
the renewing of that covenant that God had previously made
with the children of Israel. In chapter 19 we see them coming
to Mount Sinai and then in the 20th chapter God descending upon
the mount and speaking the words, the ten words, the ten commandments
and those commandments are an expression of the covenant in
that portion that we read. We have reference to the tables
of testimony or as we have it in Deuteronomy chapter 9 the
two tables of the covenant but that covenant had been broken
by the idolatry of the children of Israel in the matter of the
golden calf and so we saw in that reading there that very
solemnly. Moses there at the foot of the
mount breaks the tables of the testimony of the Ten Commandments.
In that 19th verse of that 32nd chapter he came to pass as soon
as he came down to the camp that he saw the calf and the dancing
and Moses anger waxed hot and he cast the tables out of his
hands and break them beneath the mount. God at that time was minded to
cast off the children of Israel, to completely disinherit them
and he would take Moses and he would make the people out of
the descendants of Moses. We saw how Moses would plead
for the children of Israel. God said there at verse 10 in
our reading, Now therefore 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. And Moses besought the Lord his
God and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy
people which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt? Interestingly, when God had sent
him down from the mount, he disowned them already. In verse 7 of that
chapter, he said, Go, get thee down for thy people, which thou
broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
But Moses reminds God, he's so bold in his pleadings. They're
not Moses' people, they're God's people. Why doth thy wrath wax
hot against thy people which thou hast brought forth out of
the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? So he is so emboldened then as
he now prays to God and pleads with God, he acknowledges their
sin, remember the end of that reading? He returned unto the
Lord and said, All these people have sinned a great sin, and
have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive
their sin, and if not, lot, may I pray thee, out of thy book
which thou hast written. How this man then is a true mediator
on their behalf, how he comes to pray for them, to plead with
God on their account. He pleads, of course, in terms
of the goodness of God and the grace of God. These are the things
that he makes mention of here in chapter 33. And verse 12, Moses says to the
Lord, see they say unto me, bring up these people and thou hast
not let me know whom thou wilt send with me, yet thou hast said,
I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now therefore I pray thee, if
I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way. that I may
know thee and that I may find grace in thy sight and consider
that this people is thy nation. His prayer is pleading then,
is very much in terms of the grace of God. Again look at verse
16 in that 33rd chapter. Wherein shall it be known here
that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not
in that thou goest with us. So shall we be separated, I and
my people, from all the people that are upon the face of the
earth. They are the favorites of God.
They are those who God in his mercy has looked upon and chosen
as his own peculiar people. Moses pleads and Moses cries
constantly in terms of the grace of God. Again, there, at the end of that
33rd chapter, he speaks of the grace
of God, he speaks of God's glory, and God's goodness, and God's
grace. In verses 18 and 90, show me
thy glory, he said. He said, 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
I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. All this is God's
glory, even His goodness, His grace, His mercy, and these are
the things that we see Moses making mention of as he comes
in to stand in the breach and to pray for the people who have
sinned so solemnly against God. He pleads the grace of God. And what does God do? God, as
it were, puts him in the cleft of the rock. And in that we see
that he is really being put in the Lord Jesus Christ at the
end of the 33rd chapter. And there at verse 21, Behold,
says the Lord, 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 cliff of the rock, and will cover thee
with my hand while I pass by. Moses had asked that he might
see something of the glory of God, and this is how God answers
him. is to be put in the cliff of the rock. They are still there
at Horeb, they are still there at Mount Sinai, as we see in
verse 6 of that 33rd chapter, by the mount Horeb. What do we read concerning that
mount when we go back to earlier verses in chapter 17, verse 5 the Lord says to Moses
go on before the people and take with thee of the elders of Israel
and my rod wherewith thou smotest a ribber take in mine 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 This is the rock in Horeb then that
Moses smoked with his rod and the waters came out. And this
is the same rock that is spoken of at the end of chapter 33. There is a place by me says the
Lord and they shall stand upon a rock and he shall come to pass
while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clip of
the rock." Now we know, we know exactly the significance of that
rock. We're told quite plainly in the
New Testament, in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, and that rock was
Christ. That's what Paul says, 1 Corinthians
10 verse 4, he speaks there of the events here in Exodus in
the days of Moses and Paul tells us that rock, the rock that Moses
smote out of which the waters flowed, that rock was Christ. Behold there is a place by me,
says the Lord God, or that place by God is Christ, and I will
put thee in the cleft of the rock." And the old top lady,
of course, brings it out so wonderfully in his well-known hymn, Rock
of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in the net of water
and the blood from my ribbonside, which lo, be a sin the double
cure, cleanse me from its guilt, and power. He is the only place
of cleansing and deliverance from all sin. This is the context
in which we come to the words that I announced as our text
this morning at the beginning of chapter 34. In verse 1 the
Lord said unto Moses you the 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. And we see how Moses
is obedient in verse 4. 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
him and took in his hand the two tables of stone. The renewing of the covenants
that have been broken. What do we see with regards to
this renewal? First of all, there is to be
that work of true repentance. There must be a true repentance
of sin. Now, again, observing the context
here, the whole setting of the scene, There is the breaking
of those tables of the Lord as we saw there in verse 19 of chapter
32. It was a judicial thing really
that Moses was doing. There is great significance when
he comes down from the mountain, sees the situation and beholds
the awful idolatry, the sin of the people and his anger waxes
hot and we're told he cast the tables out of his hands and break
them beneath the mount. It's a judicial act. It's indicative
of what they've done. They've broken the covenant.
And so the tables of the covenant, the tables of the testimony are
also broken and they're broken there before the mount. Now whose law was it? Whose law
was it that was broken, it was God's law. It was the Lord God
who had spoken those 10 commandments in chapter 20. It was God who
had made those very tables that were in the hand of Moses. In our reading at verse 16, the
tables we are told were the work of God. The writing was the writing
of God, graven upon the table. It is very much a sin against
God then that the children of Israel are guilty of because
this was God's law that has been transgressed and broken. And
where was it that the tables were broken? They were broken
there beneath the mount. This is the very place where
God had brought them, where God had entered into a covenant with
them as we said. The setting of the Ten Commandments
is given in that 19th chapter as they are brought to the mountains
of Horeb in the wilderness of Sinai. In the third month we
are told when the children of Israel were gone forth out of
the land of Egypt the same day, came they into the wilderness
of Sinai, and this is where God will enter into covenant with
them, as it were, they're going to be made his own peculiar people,
he'll marry himself to them. Israel will become his wife,
as it were, there's a covenant. We're told there in verse 3 of
that 19th chapter, Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called
unto him out of the mountains, saying, Thus shall they 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 eagles' 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 priests and a
holy nation. These are the words which thou
shalt speak unto the children of Israel." This is at Mount
Sinai. And it's in this very place,
of course, that Moses having received the tables which were
the work of God and the writing which was the writing of God
he takes them to the foot of the mount and he breaks he breaks
them there at the foot of the mount he casts them out of his
hands and breaks them beneath the mount itself And how significant
are those three words at the end of that 19th verse in chapter
32, beneath the man, the very place, the very place where God
had brought them onto himself and entered into his covenant
with them. Whose law? It's God's law. Where
are the tables broken? They're broken at the very place
where God had brought them unto himself and then also we have
to observe the manner in which he spoke and we are told that
in chapter 9 of Deuteronomy Deuteronomy 9 and verse 17 some 40 years
later they are now on the borders of the promised land they are
about to go into the possession of that land that God had promised
to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob And Moses in Deuteronomy is recounting
the giving of the law and so forth. And he says there in chapter
9 and verse 17 with regards to this incident, I break them before
your eyes. I break them before your eyes.
It was in their sight. They saw what he did. It was
a very solemn thing. It was a judicial thing. It was
to remind them what had happened. The covenant was broken. God
was no more their God. Or they were guilty. And what
were they guilty of? They were guilty of the most
gross idolatry in the matter of that golden car. Remember how Aaron was there? He was, of course, so instrumental
in all of this. And the strange thing is, it's
a sort of syncretism. It's not that they they worship
the calf, but they are worshipping God via the calf. He makes the
calf, does Aaron, with the gold that they bring to him. He receives
it at their hand, passions 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.
But what does Aaron do? Our reading, chapter 32, verse
5, When Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron
made a proclamation and said, Tomorrow is the feast of the
Lord. The feast of the Lord. He seeks, as it were, to marry
these two things together, the golden calf and the worship of
Jehovah. That's syncretism. And that's
a great evil. the form of spiritual adultery.
That's what they were guilty of. Remember the covenant that
God had made with them, the commandments that God had given to them. What
were the first two commandments? God stated quite plainly that
he was the Lord, their God, and they were to have no other gods.
They shall have no other gods before the first commandment.
The second, 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, and so forth. They were transgressors then, of God's law. They broke those
commandments in the matter of the golden car. And Moses quite
deliberately now breaks those tables, the tables of the law,
breaks those tables before their eyes they witness what Moses
does at the foot of the man. Now, we might not be guilty of
the sort of idolatry that these people were guilty of with the
golden calf. But are we not, alas, so often
guilty of idolatry? Remember what the 10th commandment
says. The 10th commandment there in
verse 17 of chapter 20, Thou shalt not
covet. We have it, do we not, twice? The word covert is used twice
in that commandment. Thou shalt not covert thy neighbour's
house, thou shalt not covert thy neighbour's wife, nor his
manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his house, nor
anything that is thy neighbour's. Twice. repetition. Commitlessness is
a great sin. Paul makes that so clear in what
he says in Romans chapter 7. It was that tenth commandment,
of course, that found out the proud self-righteous Pharisees,
all of Tarsus, who imagined that he was guiltless before the Lord
of God. Or thou shalt not commit. And
does it not find us Paul speaks of that covetousness which is
idolatry. What is covetousness? It's setting
a desire upon a thing and wanting it more than anything else. And
if we do that and put anything in the place of God, we are idolatrous.
We are of some whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, whose
glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. Those who
mind earthly things. Our affection is not to be set
on things of the earth, our affection is to be set on things above
where Christ is, at God's right hand. How solemn then is this breaking
of the Lord of God. For it is by the law that there
comes that knowledge of sin, whatever things the law saith,
it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may
be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. God's law is that then that brings
the consciousness of our sins. Sin is transgression of God's
holy law. for that law that God himself
spoke, that law that God wrote with his own finger on tables
of stone. But then here, in these verses
at the beginning of chapter 34, we have the remaking of the tables
of the law. Now what do we see? We see here
then a certain retracing and a renewing the Lord says to Moses,
Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first and I will
write upon these tables the words which were in the first tables
which thou breakest there is a certain repeating
here, it's a going back and isn't this very much a part of true
repentance The Lord Jesus gives that word to the church at Ephesus
in Revelation chapter 2, repent and do the first works. And this
is what is happening here, they are having to go back and do
the first works as it were. Moses is again called into the
mount. 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. Now this is what had happened
previously before God had given those ten commandments back in
chapter 19 verse 20 in chapter 19 the Lord comes
down upon Mount Sinai on the top of the mount And we are told
the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mountain and Moses
went up. You see it is doing the first
works again. Here in chapter 34 again God calls him up to
the top of the mountain. Also here we see in verse 3 that
no man is to be with Moses neither let any man be seen throughout
all the mountains. neither let the flocks nor herds
feed before the mounts." And again, we see here that there
is a going back to the beginning. This is what had happened there
in chapter 19. What had God said, verse 12,
Thou shalt 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. There shall not a hand touch
it, but it shall surely be stoned or shot through. Whether it be
beast or man, it shall not live. Only Moses is called up to the
mount there at the beginning and so they have to go back to
that. No man shall come up with thee, it says here in verse 3,
neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount, neither let the
flocks nor herds feed before that mount. All this is what
God is calling them to, it's a true repentance, it's doing
the first works again. Now, Moses is to be 40 days and
40 nights in the mount. As we see later in the chapter,
verse 27, The Lord says to Moses, write
thou these words for after the ten of these words I have made
a covenant with thee and with Israel and he was there with
the Lord forty days and forty nights. Neither did he eat bread nor
drink water and he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant,
the Ten Commandments. and as Moses is there for that
length of time so we see in the last paragraph at the end of
this 34th chapter that the face of Moses shines as he comes down
from the mount. He is 40 days and 40 nights in
the mount with the Lord. Now that was also the case previously
going back to chapter 24 you see after God had spoken the
10 words the Ten Commandments, at the end of chapter 20 they
desire that Moses should be their mediator and Moses goes again
into the mount and we are told in chapter 24 and verse 18 that
Moses was in the mount 40 days and 40 nights and then he is sent down In chapter
32 after the first 40 days and 40 nights he comes down and he
has the tables in his hand and he breaks them at the foot of
the mountain. So again here in chapter 34 he is to be 40 days
and 40 nights in the mountains. Repent and do the first works. There is that need of going back
to the beginning as it were. all that recognition. This is
the great cost of repentance. Here are those works. Those works
lead for repentance. We can think of the ministry
of John the Baptist who comes of course as the great forerunner
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And is ministry not called to
repentance? We have its recorded for us in
the Gospel in Matthew chapter 3. Behold I will send my messenger,
he shall prepare the way before me. The Lord whom ye seek shall
suddenly come to his temple. That's Malachi. In Matthew chapter
3 in those days came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness
of Judea and saying, Repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is
at hand. And then We are told in verse
7 how the Pharisees and Sadducees came to his baptism. And he said
unto them, O generation of vipers, who hast warned you to flee from
the wrath to come, bring forth therefore fruits, meat for repentance. Fruits answerable to repentance. What are these fruits? It's during
the first months. It's what we see here in in exodus
with regards to the children of Israel and the way in which
Moses is dealing with this whole situation here is that need to
go back, that retracing and those renewings that come from the
Lord. Here then we see the covenants
being renewed in the goodness and in the mercy of God. But not only are we to observe
the covenant renewed, are we not also reminded of a better
testament? Are we not reminded of a greater
covenant? What is the first article of
that new covenant, that great covenant of grace? Here we have
God writing his law upon these tables of stone. But when we come to the New Covenant
we see that God doesn't write his law upon tables of stone. He writes upon fleshy tables
of the heart. That's the great promise that
we have in Jeremiah. In Jeremiah chapter 31 And verse 31, Behold, the day
is 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 a husband unto
them, saith the Lord. You see I broke that covenant,
and yes God did renew that covenant, But here is a greater promise,
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. Now, the language, of
course, is that that belongs to the Old Testament Scriptures. It's spoken of in terms of deliverance
out of Egypt. It's a word that's spoken in
reference to the house of Israel. But let us not forget that Israel
in the Old Testament is a typical people. Israel is a type of the
church. And the true Israel of God is
a spiritual Israel. We know, again we have the authority
of the New Testament Scriptures telling us that those words in
Jeremiah 31 have their fulfilment in Christ and that covenant that
he came to establish by the shedding of his precious blood, bringing
into force that New Testament. And we see this quite plainly. in what the Apostle says to the
Hebrews. You turn to Hebrews chapter 8
and you'll see there how that from verse 7 following the Apostle
refers to that passage that we've just read in Jeremiah 31. He quotes the words of Jeremiah
there in Hebrews 8, verse 8 following, and he makes it quite plain as
he continues the end of that 8th chapter in Hebrews, that
all is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, a new covenant.
in that he says the new covenant he has made the first old, now
that which decays and waxes old is ready to vanish away. The old covenant is gone, the
new covenant is enforced, that is that new covenant of grace
in the Lord Jesus Christ. So again in chapter 10 of Hebrews, verse 16 he says this is the
covenant that I will make with the house This is the covenant 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 iniquities will I remember no more. And he's speaking of the Lord
Jesus Christ and that great work that Christ himself has accomplished. And so Ultimately here we are
directed not to simply the renewing of the old covenant with Israel,
but the new covenant, and that covenant of grace, and that covenant
wherein God deals with his people in terms of their hearts. He
works by his Spirit in the heart. Again we see it in what Paul
writes to the Corinthians in 2nd Corinthians chapter 3. We
have the contrast between these two covenants. There at verse 3, in 2 Corinthians
3, forasmuch 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. He goes on, verse 7, to speak
of that ministration of death, written and engraven in stones,
which 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. It's done away. The new covenant
stands, that is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, that salvation
that is by the grace of God. And we're directed to that even
here from the Old Testament Scriptures. Now it's true of course that
God's law still has a ministry, as we have already said, referring
to the words of Paul in Romans 3.19. Whatever things the law
saith, it saith to them who are under the law that every match
may be stopped and all the world become guilty before God. Then there is that ministration
of the Lord to condemn the sinner, to bring conviction into the
soul of the sinner. And that conviction, what does
it lead to? Where there is that work of God
taking place, there will be a true repentance, a turning from sin. The Lord Jesus Christ, we know,
is exalted, a Prince, a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel.
and the forgiveness of sins. But we need always, of course,
to observe so carefully the order of salvation. We don't give the
priority to repentance. Yes, there is repentance here
with regards to the way in which God is dealing with the children
of Israel, if there's going to be a restoration, a renewing
of the covenant. But with regards to the order
of salvation, we see quite clearly that faith must have the priority. In fact, the order of salvation
is that first there must be that new birth, there must be that
life brought into the soul of the sinner, God working in the
heart, God as He were coming and writing with His finger upon
fleshy tables of the heart. And where there is that, there
will be that faith. And where there is faith, there
will also be that sister grace of repentance. And I say again,
faith must have the priority because whatsoever is not of
faith, says Paul, is sin. What is faith? It's that turning
to God. And as there is that turning to God, so there is that
turning away from all our sins. There is this fundamental change
that's coming into the soul of the sinner. The sinner's life
is being turned around. His life is being turned upside
down, inside out. So fundamental a change when
God comes by His gracious Spirit to work in the sinner's heart. No, of course there is always
a variety in the way in which God deals with his people. We're
not saying that all are going to have exactly that self-same
experience. It's interesting, in a sense,
it comes out in one of the hymns we sometimes sing, 747, that
speaks of faith and repentance. And there the three faiths and
repentance all must find, but yet we daily see they differ
in their time and kind duration and degree. Some long repent
and late believe, but when their sins forgiven, the clearer passport
they receive and walk with joy to heaven. In other words, some
have a longer and a deeper experience of the conviction of sin and
that repentance that goes hand in hand with it their pardon
some receive at first and then compelled to fight they feel
their latter stages worse and travel much by night there's
a variety in God's dealings some are brought to faith and then
subsequently there is that deeper work of conviction in the soul Is it not remarkable that these
hymns that we sing are profuse with doctrine? We sing our doctrine, as well
as seek to preach our doctrine. Then we need to recognise that
there is to be that work of the Spirit of God in the heart. God
coming by his Spirit and writing upon fleshy tables as we see
in the New Testament. And where there is that writing
of the Lord, there will be that conviction of sin. And where
there is a true conviction of sin, there will be a real repentance,
a sorrowing over sin, a grieving over our failings and our shortcomings,
a turning from them, a turning to God, a trusting in God. All
these, friends, is the important thing, even as we come into such
Old Testament portions as this, this morning, where we read much
of the law and the renewing of the law. Thank God we're not
under law, but we're under that grace. The law was given by Moses,
but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. All God's grant is that
we might be profited by a consideration even of a passage such as this,
that we might see something of the marks of a true repentance,
a doing the first works, a retracing of steps, and yet in that a returning
to the Lord. May the Lord be pleased to bless
His word to us.