Before you turn to Exodus chapter
32, turn with me to Exodus chapter 21st. I wanna do a little bit
of reviewing tonight. Find Exodus 20 and just hold
your place there for a bit. When Israel first camped at Mount
Sinai, we're told in Exodus chapter 24 that the sight of the glory
of God was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain. in
the eyes of the children of Israel. Israel was terrified. They said,
Moses, you speak to us and we'll listen, but don't let God speak
to us or else we'll die. Then we're told that Moses went
into the midst of the cloud and he went up into the mountain,
up into Mount Sinai. and he was on the mountain for
40 days and 40 nights. And it was here during this time
that Moses received the law of God. He received the instructions
on building the tabernacle, instructions concerning the ceremonies and
duties of the high priest and the sacrifices that were to be
offered. And it was then that God, with
his own finger, engraved the Ten Commandments on the two tables
of stone. Forty days and forty nights was
the length of time that Moses spent there with God. And I started
looking at the significance of the number 40 in the scriptures,
and it generally symbolizes a period of testing, a period of trial,
even a period of strengthening. So during Moses' life, as you
remember, he lived 40 years in Egypt in Pharaoh's palace. He
spent another 40 years in the desert as a shepherd. And that's
where the Lord called him to lead his people out of slavery. And then we also know that he
spent the last 40 years of his 120 year old life with the people
in the wilderness. And all three 40 year periods
of Moses's life were no doubt a time of testing, trial and
strengthening for Moses and the people of God. Now Moses was
on Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights on two separate occasions. The first time when he received
the tables of stone that we're looking at in Exodus 32. And
then the second time after he destroyed them. What a time of
strengthening for Moses. And yet, as we saw last time,
a time of testing for Israel, this was. As you know, later
on, Moses also sent spies into the land of Canaan, to the land
of promise, to investigate the land that God had promised the
Israelites as an inheritance. And those 40 days and nights
gave significant time to prove that the land of promise was
as God said it was. 40 is a time of testing and proving. After leaving Egypt because of
their sin and unbelief, God swore that the generation of Israelites
over 20 years of age who left Egyptian bondage would not enter
into the inheritance in Canaan. The children of Israel were punished
by wandering in the wilderness for 40 years before a new generation
was allowed to possess the promised land. 40, a significant number
in the Bible Jonah warned Nineveh for 40 days and nights that its
destruction would come because of their many sins. If they did
not repent, this was the amount of time that God gave them to
repent. And it was a time of testing.
Our Lord Jesus was tempted, tested by the devil during the 40 days
and 40 nights that he fasted. What a time of testing that must
have been. And what a trial that was for
the Lord Jesus whose scripture says, was in all points tempted,
tested, like as we are yet without sin. So 40 is a significant number,
thought it was worth mentioning. The Lord Jesus appeared to his
disciples and others for 40 days after he resurrected. Isn't that
interesting? The length of time no doubt proved
that the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead, giving all the
sufficient time to know what he had himself foretold. Within
40 days of Israel's promise, they are found worshiping an
inanimate, lifeless calf made of gold. And to make this idol
of a golden calf even more blasphemous than it seems at face value is
the fact that the cow or a bull was worshipped in Egypt and also
in Canaan. The image of this calf symbolized
power and strength. And after fashioning this golden
calf, the people of Israel declared that it was the God. They said,
this is the God that brought us out of Egypt, delivered us
out of Egypt. And God took offense to it. God
still takes offense to such things. Anything that we make an idol,
God takes offense to. Why? Because God will not share
his glory with another. It took less than 40 days for
Israel to break the majority of the commandments that the
Lord had spoken unto them. Now here in Exodus chapter 20,
look at verse two. The Lord God said, I am the Lord
your God, which have brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage. Who brought them out? God did.
Verse three, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall
not make for yourself 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. You shall not bow down to them
nor serve them for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. And in the making and the worshiping
of this gold calf, we see here that Israel had willingly broken
all these promises that they'd made to God. When God told them
these things, they said, we'll do all that the Lord has said.
And they didn't do any of them. Within six weeks, within 40 days. Now, in Exodus chapter 32, again,
in verse seven, we read, let me give you a second to get there.
Exodus 32. Verse seven. And the Lord said
unto Moses, go, get thee down. He's still on Mount Sinai. He
said, get thee down for thy people, which thou broughtest out of
the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. Every time I read
that, I think we have no one to blame for our sin, but ourselves. We've corrupted ourselves. Verse
eight, he said, they've turned aside quickly. And quickly it
was. "'They've turned quickly out
of the way "'which I commanded them. "'They've made them a molten
calf and have worshiped it "'and have sacrificed therein too and
said, "'These be thy gods, O Israel, "'which have brought thee out
of the land of Egypt.'" Now, God told Moses all these things
before Moses ever saw it for himself. And as I mentioned last
time, God knows everything. He knows everything. We can fool
one another most of the time. We can fool ourselves sometimes,
but we can never ever fool God. He knows everything. As Moses
descended from Mount Sinai, Joshua heard the people, the noise of
the people. And he said to Moses, he said,
there's a noise of war in the camp. And Moses said, it's not
the voice of war. He said, it's not the voice of
mastery, meaning it's not the voice of strength or victory
or someone conquering. He said, it's not a cry of being
overcome. It's not a cry of defeat. He
said, it's a noise of singing. It's the sound of fleshly entertainment. It's the noise of false worship
and idolatry. And that's what it was. And Moses
got angry. And as we also saw, he threw
the tables of stone, destroying them. And it was then that Moses
made Israel to overturn the golden calf, the idol they made, made
them grind it to powder. He put it in their water and
he made them drink it. What a picture that is of man
drinking their iniquity like water. We do, don't we? And it
was then that Moses confronted Aaron, who's the one that he
left in charge. And Aaron blames the people and
he offered a horrible excuse. And I remind you that both Israel
and Aaron all picture you and I by nature. You know, we shake
our heads sometimes and I can't believe they did that. And if
not for the grace of God, we would do the very thing. Many
times we do. What a representation we have
here also of God's displeasure with those in our day who make
imaginary gods for men and women to worship. And that's what we
have in most religious circles. Nothing more than just men and
women both preaching an imaginary God, a God that they've conjured
up in their imagination. You see, any God that is derived
from our own thinking, it's an idol of our own making. It's
all that it is. And those who preach a God that's
contrary to the sovereign God of the Bible will receive the
greater condemnation. Look down at verse 26. It says,
then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, who is
on the Lord's side? Let him that's on the Lord's
side come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered
themselves together unto him." And let me say again that no
doubt this question reveals to us a true conflict. In a conflict,
there's two sides. Wouldn't be a conflict for what?
There must be, in order for there to be a conflict, must be two
sides. And here Moses reveals to us
this conflict by asking who's on the Lord's side. If you're
not on the Lord's side, you're on the other side of this conflict. Now, all week long, ever since
I brought last week's message, I just have not been able to
get Moses' question here off my mind. Every sermon outline
should contain within it this outline. I remember Brother Mahan
saying this in a message one time. Basic outline, it should
be in every gospel message we preach. God is holy. God can
by no means clear the guilty. The soul that sins, it shall
die. God is holy. And God says, be ye holy as I'm
holy. That's the first point. The second
point is men and women are unholy. We're not anything like God.
We've fallen into sin. We've fallen in Adam. And then
thirdly, how can a holy God be reconciled to unholy men and
women? Now that's the issue. That's
the issue of scripture. That outline can be seen in the
form of a question. And it's this question right
here. Who is on the Lord's side? "'There'll be some like the Levites
"'who gather themselves together unto Christ.'" Moses said, who's
on the Lord's side? And we read the Levites gathered
themselves together. They came to Moses, as he said. The Lord Jesus said, "'Come unto
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, "'and I'll give
you rest. "'Come unto me.'" But the only
ones that will come to Christ are those who are enabled to
do so by God the Father. The Lord Jesus said, and no man
cometh to the Father. You remember the rest of that?
but by me. That's the only way that we come
to God is through Christ. There'll be a remnant of children,
the scripture says, but they will be according to the election
of grace, according to God's choosing, God's calling, God's
bringing to himself. There will be some like the Levites
that will do according to the word of the Lord Jesus, but it'll
be those that God gave the power and the grace to believe. It
wasn't anything special about the Levites other than the mercy
and grace that God showed. There'll be some like the Levites
who through God's sovereign restraining grace will consecrate themselves
to Christ alone and obey his word. That's what we see here.
It'll be those who God chose before they had ever done any
good or evil. And that's so comforting to the
child of God, because we see right from the very beginning
that it's not by any works of righteousness that we do. Our
salvation is by that work of righteousness that the Lord Jesus
Christ did for us. So what is it to be on the Lord's
side? What is this conflict between
us and God that would cause Moses to ask this question? Well, the
first thing we see from these verses, what we looked at last
time and we'll yet look at tonight, is that sin and unbelief is what
separates these two sides, sin and unbelief. Israel didn't enter
into the land of promise because of what? Unbelief. Didn't believe
God. Didn't believe what God said.
Didn't believe what God promised. In a conflict, there are two
sides. And the life and death question
is, are we on the Lord's side? Are we obedient to the commands
of God? Are we determined to please ourselves
or are we seeking God's way? Or are we having our own way,
doing our own thing? It's God's way or death. Are
we by the will of our flesh allowing our lust and our passions to
influence us over what God commands us to do? Or are we bowing to
the will of God and taking His side against everything that
we are by nature? Will it be Christ and His righteousness
or will it be our self-righteousness? Will it be the cleansing blood
of Christ that saves us? Will it be the covering of His
perfect righteousness? Or will it be salvation by our
own hands? Will it be the sowing of our
own fig leaf covering? These are important questions.
The Lord's side is always Christ's side. Salvation by the works
of the law is not only a lie, friends, but it's an impossibility.
We can't do a work righteous enough to appease God. Which
side are we on? We must examine ourselves. Paul
said, whether we be in the faith, we must prove our own selves,
how the Christ is in us. And the Bible teaches that sinners
are saved by believing and by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. No human can provide what God
requires. Now our redemption can come only
by His perfect work of righteousness, that finished and accomplished
work that He did for us. So we've got to look to Him.
We have to be on His side. Are we trusting alone in Christ
as our high priest? Are we resting only in the merits
of His atoning sacrifice? Or will we worship the idols
that We conjure up with our carnal minds and make with the fashioning
tool of our own hands. Will we, like Israel, attribute
our deliverance and our bondage from sin to the doing of our
self-made idols? Not if we're on the Lord's side.
And we have a very clear picture here of what it is to do that.
Mr. Spurgeon asked this question.
He said, are we on the side of Zion or are we on the side of
Rome? Are we on the side of Christ
or are we on the side of Antichrist? It's one of the two. There's
two sides. Which side are we on? Are we
on the side of scripture? That's a good question. Do we
believe what this book says? You know, men argue all the time
and you say, well, that's not what the Bible says. And they'll
say, well, that doesn't matter what the Bible says. Oh, it does
matter what the Bible says. This is God's word. This is what
God said. We're either on the side of scripture
or we're on the side of religious traditions. You know, I lived
over 30 years of my life thinking that salvation was something
that I must do. And most of the time I stayed
discouraged and defeated because at least I was honest enough
with myself to know that there was nothing that I could do to
obtain perfect righteousness. I believe the salvation was something
that I must decide for myself. And yet I didn't have the desire. I didn't have the want to. I
believe that in order to be saved, that I must exercise my free
will to do so. But then one day, I'll never
forget it actually, I heard a true God-fearing preacher who told
me what God says in this book. He told me what the scripture
say, which is the same as saying what God says. You know, the
Bible doesn't say, thus saith the preacher, or thus saith the
Pope, or thus saith the church, or thus saith this denomination
or that denomination. The Bible says, thus saith the
Lord. Are we on the Lord's side in
this matter? Men and women trust in their morality. I've heard
it said time and time again. Well, you know, I believe that
if I do the best that I can and treat people like I should treat
them, that God will accept me. Now listen to me. Not if your
best is not perfect. Won't do it. If your best is
not perfect, then you can throw that out the window with all
your other works of righteousness. You're on the side of religious
tradition, thinking things like that, not on the side of the
Holy Scriptures. If your morality is not perfect,
your morality is defective and it's useless. Now there's nothing
wrong with morality. God's people ought to be moral
people. I know people who are much more
moral than I am to my shame. They demonstrate peace. They
demonstrate love, generosity, and even forgiveness, probably
more than I do. And because of that, they're
competent that they're on the Lord's side. But men and women
will trust in their so-called goodness and in their so-called
morality instead of trusting in Christ. I've seen it. You ask a man or a woman if they're
saved. Oh yes, well, and then you be
a little inquisitive about it and they'll tell you, well, I
was baptized. You know, I came to the front
of the church and I joined the church, you know, and are you
on the Lord's side? That's the question. What think
ye of Christ? Whose son is he? Are you trusting
in him and in him alone? And the truth is, most moral
people equally display in their life, and you know this is so,
the same as I do, they display some disorder, strife, selfishness,
and covetousness, which all prove that their morality to be imperfect. As I said, if you're gonna trust
in your morality to be saved, then your morality has to be
perfect. And all of our morality is far
from that. Everything we do must be perfect
to be accepted. That's what God says. Anything
that's not perfectly right, perfectly true, perfectly pure, perfectly
holy is not from the Lord's side. How then can any be saved? Well,
you know the answer. You know the answer. It's only
in a substitute. It's only in a perfect sacrifice. It's only in a certain surety,
and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, those who are on the
Lord's side show and prove that they are so. Perfect righteousness
cannot be truly claimed by anyone who's ashamed to own it. Suppose
when Moses had asked that all urgent question, who's on the
Lord's side, suppose that the sons of Levi had all hid away
in their tents and said, oh yes, we're on the Lord's side, but
we don't want to identify ourselves in being so, you know, after
all, what would the world think? What would our family think?
I'll tell you this, there's no room for a soldier who shies
away from his proper place on the battlefield in this conflict.
Any man or woman or sinner that will not lay down life and limb
and pride and honor and all that they have for the cause of Christ
is not worthy to be a soldier in this spiritual conflict. Moses
cried, who's on the Lord's side? And a true believer, a true child
of God unites with other believers. They do so by coming to Christ,
by worshiping Him, by trusting in Him alone. Again, Spurgeon
once said, believers are not solitary stones that lay by themselves. They're living stones brought
together by God to build a holy temple in the Lord, a habitation
of God, whose maker and builder is none other than God himself.
That's what it is to be on the Lord's side. I want to be on
the Lord's side. Thirdly, to be on the Lord's
side, we must be aggressively willing to come forth and to
smite Christ's enemies. Look at verse 27 here in Exodus
32. And he, Moses said unto them, thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
put every man his sword by his side and go in and out from 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 3000 men. Now the Levites here,
picturing true Israel, picturing spiritual Israel, picturing the
elect of God, were so jealous and zealous for the Lord of hosts
that they would not tolerate idolatry, even if it meant those
in their own family and nearest of kin. And I was thinking today,
thank God that we're not called upon to do what the Levites were
commanded to do. Can you imagine taking your sword
killing one in your own family that had sinned against God.
Oh, I'm so thankful that God didn't call upon us to do that. But we do have one weapon for
battle, and that is a two-edged sword of the Spirit, which is
the Word of God. To our own shame, we ought to
be telling the folks that we love about this gospel. We ought
to be telling them about our Lord and Savior. We ought to
take that two-edged sword and swing it with all our might.
We should. If they don't hear it from us,
who are they gonna hear it from? To be on the Lord's side is never
to choose father, mother, wife, or child over the Lord Jesus
Christ. None can do so and still be on
the Lord's side. And those on the Lord's side
will do as they're bidden, just as the Levites did. The Levites
certainly did that. We must be prepared to obey all
the commands of Christ, who is the captain of our salvation. We must do away with sin and
self. They are our greatest enemies,
sin, self, and Satan. Well, the Lord's taking care
of Satan, but we have a battle and we battle every day with
those enemies of sin and self. When the Lord Jesus was tempted
by the devil, he was being tempted in our room instead, And do you
remember what he used? He used the sword of the Spirit,
didn't he? Thus saith the Lord. Thus saith
the Lord. It is written, he said, time
and time again. It is written. That's our sword. Oh, may God enable us to use
it. Fourthly, to those who are on
the Lord's side, they're encouraged. I am encouraged. Every time I
read this book, every time I study the scriptures, every time I
hear a gospel message, I'm encouraged. And it's because it's God who
bestows the blessing. Look at verse 29. For Moses had
said, consecrate yourselves today to the Lord, even every man upon
his son and upon his brother, that he may bestow upon you a
blessing this day. Now it's God that bestows the
blessing. Do you crave the applause of
human hands or do you covet the glance of an approving eye? Or do you consecrate yourself
to the Lord because it's the right thing to do? Out of love
for Christ and what he's done for us, do we consecrate ourselves
to him? Are you willing to be right?
and yet be poor? Are you willing to be right and
abused? Are you willing to be right and
be put to death? There may very well come a time
when men and women would kill us and believe that they do God's
service. Scripture says that. Are we willing
to die for the cause of Christ? If so, then it sounds to me like
you're on the Lord's side. All who wish to be can be. Did
you know that? Do you desire to be on the Lord's
side? If you desire to be, you can be. It requires receiving
something. It requires receiving a gift,
actually. And you must receive this gift
knowing that you don't deserve it. If you work for something,
you earn it. If you deserve something or you
merit something, well, it ceases to be a gift. And this gift is
not something. This gift is someone. and you
must see your desperate need in order to receive him. You
see, those that are well have no need of a physician and those
who are righteous by works of their own doing need not a savior. That's just a fact. Those that
are sick have a need. We go to the doctor when we're
sick, not when we're well. Consecrate yourselves today to
the Lord that he may bestow a blessing on you. You cannot be on the
Lord's side without receiving, without bowing to and consecrating
yourself to the Lord Jesus. Those who do that will most definitely
receive a blessing, the blessing of wisdom, the blessing of righteousness,
the blessing of sanctification, the blessing of redemption. Look
at verse 30. And it came to pass on the morrow
that Moses said unto the people, ye have sinned a great sin. And
they had, and so have we. You see, all unbelief is a great
sin. There's an absence here of something
in these verses that should be very alarming to us. It should
be alarming to us because it concerns our fallen nature in
which Israel is a type in a picture. You know what it is? You know
what's missing here? There's no recorded words here
of Israel's repentance. Nothing is said of any sorrow
or guilt of having grievously offended the mercy and the grace
of God, none whatsoever. Because of their great sin, 3,000
men died under the holy judgment and justice of God. And even
after all those deaths, there's no mention of Israel being sorry. Repentance, that's what I'm talking
about, is a gift of God. Oh, don't ever think that it's
something you've got to work up. It's something that God gives
his elect. Repentance, sorrow over their
sins. repentance is the gift of God.
Moses, well, he didn't wink at Israel's idolatry and wickedness. He didn't attempt to minimize
the enormity of their sin. Just as when he first came down
from the mountain, he charged Aaron with having brought so
great a sin upon the people, verse 21. So now the very next
day, he says to the people themselves, you've sinned a great sin. The
fact that Moses loved these people, Oh, you can tell in reading these
verses, when he went before the Lord and pleaded their call,
he loved them with all his heart. What a picture that is of our
Lord and Savior, who loves those who are not worthy of his love.
And Moses loved these people, that's clear, but he does not
deter one iota from dealing justly and faithfully with them. It's
the same with our Lord Jesus. And this Moses is also a type
of Christ, the Holy One of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. While
he walked upon earth, he always stressed the importance of the
repentance of sin. Repent, he would say, repent. And he'd always point sinners
to the only remedy of sin. And that was the substitution
of himself. Now in the last part of verse
30 here, Moses is a picture of our Lord, Jesus says, and now
I will go up unto the Lord. Peradventure, I shall make an
atonement for your sins. That's what Christ did for us
with one exception. There's no perfect type of our
Lord and Savior who's perfect. Moses here said, peradventure,
I shall make atonement for your sin. That word peradventure means
perhaps or maybe. There's no perhaps, maybe, or
peradventure with the Lord Jesus Christ. If Christ does not make
atonement for our sin, we will forever perish. But the wonderful
news is this, the gospel is this, our Lord Jesus will accomplish
that which he sets his mind to do. He can do anything and he
can do everything. Look at verse 31, and Moses returned
unto the Lord and said, oh, this people have sinned a great sin
and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou will forgive
their sin, and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book
which thou hast written. Well, that's substitution, if
there ever was substitution. That's what Christ did for us.
He said, yet now, if thou will forgive their sin, if not, blot
me, I pray thee, out of the book which thou hast written. My,
my. I love to think about that. Well,
I'll go ahead and stop there for tonight, but next time we'll
see how the Lord in His covenant of grace with Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob honored His word to these stiff-necked people. stiff-necked. That's a pretty good description
of you and I by nature. But the Lord Jesus is faithfully
promised. That's why we can have such assurance
and such confidence that we're on the Lord's side. May God be
pleased to make it so for Christ's sake and for his own glory.