In Exodus 32, the background
is that the children of Israel had been brought out of Egypt,
out of bondage. They had been enslaved by the
Egyptians and had been in bondage in slavery for over 400 years. That's a long time to be a slave.
Generations of Israelites had grown and died in bondage, in
slavery, and now God had delivered them The Egyptians were much
stronger than they were. They had no power over the Egyptians.
God came and visited the Egyptians with 10 plagues. He didn't touch
Israel. They were right next door, but
none of the plagues affected Israel. Israel was brought out
of Egypt. The last plague was the plague
of the Passover, where God destroyed. He killed the firstborn in Egypt,
all of the firstborn of men and all the firstborn of the animals,
the cattle. but he did not touch any who
were in the house where the blood of the lamb was sprinkled. Now
that's a lesson for us. God said, when I see the blood,
I will pass over you. And this is our hope of salvation,
that God looks upon the blood of his only begotten son and
passes over us and doesn't destroy us. But in any case, God delivered
them out of Egypt, out of the hand of their enemies who were
stronger than them. They didn't have any power over
them. He brought them to the edge of the Red Sea. Their enemies
were behind them. And God opened up the sea so
that the sea was like a wall on either side, and they walked
through the sea on dry ground. And then the Egyptians chased
them, and God closed in the Egyptians with that water and destroyed
them. And they saw their dead bodies. the king and all the
armies of Egypt were destroyed in the sea. Then Israel traveled
through the wilderness, and they came to Mount Sinai, and God
appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai, and Moses was on the Mount for
40 days and 40 nights. It was at the end of this period
that we read here in Exodus 32. He had been speaking to Moses
on the Mount faced face to face and now the people were down
there and they assumed that something had happened to him and this
is what they did. Remember, these people had seen God destroy Egypt
and deliver them from those Egyptians. And they had seen him open the
waters of the Red Sea and lead them through on dry land. The
same people are the ones that are going to do this, what we
see in Exodus 32. And I want to focus especially
on what God does here and what Moses does. Exodus 32, verse
1. When the people saw that Moses
delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves
together to Aaron and said to him, up, make us gods, or idols,
which shall go before us. For as for this Moses, the man
that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we want not what
has become of him. We don't know where he is. They
attributed their deliverance from Egypt to Moses rather than
God. Verse 2, And Aaron said to them,
Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your
wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them to
me. And all the people break off the golden earrings which
were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received
them at their hand, and he fashioned it with a graving tool after
he had made it a molten calf. And they said, These be thy gods,
O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
This is open idolatry. They actually served the idols
of the Egyptians while they were in Egypt, it says in another
place in scripture. And now they're returning to
that. No doubt, this was one of those forms of the idols they
had in Egypt. So in their hearts, they had
already turned back to Egypt, where God had taken them out
of. Notice in verse five, and when Aaron sought, he built an
altar before it. And Aaron made proclamation and
said, tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early
on the morning, on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings and
brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat
and to drink and rose up to play. They're going to party. They
were serving this idol now. They had switched allegiance
from God to the idol. They had credited the idol for
delivering them out of Egypt. They denied the God who delivered
them from that bondage, that 400 plus year bondage. Verse
7, And the Lord said to Moses, Go, get thee down, for thy people
which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt have corrupted
themselves, they have turned aside quickly out of the way
which I commanded them, and they have made them a molten calf,
and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said,
These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out
of the land of Egypt. And the Lord said to Moses, I
have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.
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. Now listen to these words carefully.
And Moses besought the Lord, his God, and he said, Lord, why
doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought
forth out of the land of Egypt? Notice he calls them the Lord's
people. The one who brought them out
was the Lord, not him. Thou hast brought them forth
out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty
hand. Wherefore should the Egyptians
speak and say, for mischief did he bring them out to slay them
in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth?
Turn from thy fierce wrath and repent of this evil against thy
people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to
whom thou swearest by thine own self, and saidst to them, I will
multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land
that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed. and they shall
inherit it forever. And the Lord repented of the
evil which he thought to do to his people. Today we're going
to consider this question, why does God forgive sin? And I want
to look at that with you out of this context and others in
scripture. And we're gonna look at this
prayer that Moses prayed and we're gonna see the mind of God
and we're gonna know something about the living God and how
he treats sinners. Because these people were plainly,
openly, obviously, Great sinners, weren't they? And I've entitled
this message, Why Does God Forgive Sin? Why Does God Forgive Sin? You want to turn in your Bibles
to Psalm chapter 25. I'm going to look at one verse
in Psalm chapter 25 with you. One of the things that captures
my attention is the prayers of God's people. and the fact that
the Holy Spirit of God has recorded them in scripture, and that in
their prayers they say things about God that are true, I never
would have known. I would never have been so bold
as to say these things, and even now it makes you tremble to consider
what God has said about himself, because it's not like what we
expected. In Psalm 25 in verse 11 it says this, for thy name's
sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it is great. Now when you
or I offend somebody and we want to seek reconciliation, we often
do that by minimizing what we did in various ways. So we might
claim extenuating circumstances, which means we try to mitigate,
we try to lessen the crime, the offense, by claiming something
came up, something we couldn't help. Men will claim that they acted
out of their character in order to minimize their offense. This
is a frequent one. They'll say something like, well,
if you knew my true thoughts, my true love for you, or my real
sincere intentions and motives, then you would know that this
was just not me. I didn't act according to the
way I truly am. And men will also argue that
their crime was not so severe as to deserve the punishment
that's being brought upon them. My sin was not bad enough to
deserve this punishment, for example. when the police officer
says you're going to have to pay $300 for going over the speed
limit, or whatever it is. Maybe it's a jail sentence of
time that you find to be too long, or maybe a spouse separates
because of infidelity, and you claim that punishment's too great.
And then men will also claim that their offense was not a
pattern of their behavior, but just a one-time event. And so
their offense for this one time should be excused. And then another
thing people do is they promise that they will reform. They resolve
never to do it again, or they promise they'll improve. This
is often the case. Someone stands before a judge.
They try to get them to commit to some kind of rehab or something
like that, and then they'll lessen their sentence. If they could
just improve, they'll do better next time. If they can do better,
if they promise to do better, then they hope to obtain a pardon
and to get their sentence reduced. Men also claim they could not
be held accountable for more than God enabled them. So they'll
say, I'm only human. Or they say, I remember someone
saying this when I was 12 or 13 years old, one of my cousins,
I think. God can't punish everybody. If
we're all guilty, he's not going to cast everybody into hell.
They'll say his law is too strict or that the promise of his judgment
won't really be carried out. That you won't, as the devil
told Eve, you won't surely die. And then men defend themselves
by accusing others as if their offense was excusable because
the one that's judging them is also guilty. You can't judge
me. You ever hear that? Don't judge
me. My wrong is no worse than yours. I remember someone telling
me one time, and I thought this was truth. I'm no worse than
the best of men. I'm no worse than you. Remember
when Lot was in Sodom and the men of Sodom were trying to break
down the door to get to the angels that were strangers and he had
taken them in? Remember when he came out and he told them,
he says, men, don't do so wickedly. And they said, who are you to
judge us? That was in the men of Sodom,
and you know what happened to them. And then this is often
another ploy that men use to minimize their offense when they're
seeking pardon or forgiveness or reconciliation. They shift
the blame. They don't know what else to
do, so they shift the blame to lessen their own guilt. Someone
else was at the bottom of this, really, not me. In fact, that's
exactly what Adam did. He said, the woman, he said this
to God after God brought him out from behind the trees hiding.
He said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of
the tree and I did eat. He blamed the woman, his very
own wife, and he blamed God for giving him the woman. Men claim
the requirement is too strict for them to fulfill, and that
the punishment for failure is far too severe, as if God is
unreasonable to hold them to such a strict law or to demand
so great a punishment. That's mankind before the bar
of God, isn't it? Now, notice in this psalm here.
Listen to it again. For thy namesake, O Lord, pardon
mine iniquity, for it is great. He does not plead any of these
excuses, does he? He does not plead his innocence
at all. He doesn't minimize his sin. In fact, he sees it and
he confesses it to be a great evil. He doesn't plea bargain. This is the most common thing
that's done nowadays in courts. He doesn't agree to plead to
a guilty charge to a lesser crime. He doesn't make any excuse at
all for his wrong, but he owns his guilt. He doesn't minimize
it, he calls it a great evil, and he doesn't hide. He doesn't
wallow in self-pity and guilt, standing far off in unbelief,
as if God is a God who has no forgiveness. As if God's favor
could be obtained or maintained by his uprightness. or his own
holiness. That's what we do when we stand
off. We think, well, if I could have done better, then God would
have a good reason to be good to me. But since he doesn't,
I'm such a sinner, and I'm going to stand back, and I'm going
to hold these thoughts of anger against God, because he's too
strict and too harsh. If I could only make improvements,
then God would have a basis. Or if I had some holiness of
my own, then God could have some good just cause to receive me
and bless me. As if his relationship with God
depends on qualities found in himself or things he can do or
bring to God or his thoughts or his sincerity. That's our
natural way of dealing with God. We're so prone to this that the
whole human race is guilty of this. The psalmist here does
not come to make up for his crime. He doesn't come as if he's saying,
I'll do better or I'll pay you back. He doesn't promise future
obedience. He can't remove the offense that
his sin has brought to God's justice. He's entirely in the
mercy and in the hand of God to do with him as God sees fit.
but he doesn't remain in unbelief as if God is unmerciful or that
he's unable to forgive. This is something that we can't
imagine that God could forgive our sin when we feel it. How
could God forgive me? I've done it, and I've done it
again, and I said I wouldn't do it, but I did it again. I
seem to have this bent, this proclivity toward this, and I
can't fix it. It's as if we think God would
only be able to accept us if he found something good in us
that he could start with and work with. But in Jeremiah 18,
God compared his relationship to Israel, he said, and to all
men, really. He said, he sent Jeremiah down
to the potter and he watched the potter making a pot on the
wheel. And when he was making the pot,
it was marred in the potter's hands. And so what the potter
did is he took and he remade that pot. He took that same lump
and he remade that pot. So we think we have sinned and
God can't fix it. Because we have to have something
for him to work with. There has to be some qualities
in us. But this man doesn't do that. He doesn't remain in unbelief
against what God has said in his word. as if God is unable
or unwilling to remove sin, as if God's justice, his own justice,
somehow limits his own wisdom or his own power to remove sin. God is almighty. He can do anything.
And he's all wise. There's nothing too hard for
the Lord. It's impossible for men, but it's not impossible
for God. See, that's where faith comes
in. God gives us this understanding from his word that with God there's
nothing impossible. He's good. Everything he does
is holy. Yes, he demands from us, but
surely with the Lord, he's teaching us here in this verse that there
is forgiveness. This man does not presume or make out that
his offense is small, and he doesn't presume that God is going
to be somehow less holy than he is in his true character,
that he'll somehow overlook his sin, or that he will compromise
his truth and his justice in forgiving his sin. He doesn't
make any of those assumptions about God, that he would be someone
like judges on earth who pervert judgment in order to let the
guilty go free. God himself said, he that justifieth
the wicked, and he that condemns the just, they are both an abomination
to the Lord. Don't pretend that the guilty
is not guilty, and don't claim that the just is a sinner. Call
it as it is. But this man believed somehow
God's glory was seen in how he forgives sin. Notice, he says,
for thy name's sake, O Lord, for thy namesake. Do it for reasons
that will benefit you. Do it for reasons that please
you. Do it according to your will. Do it for your honor. Do it for your glory. That's
what he's praying here. He's asking him to do for him
what he cannot do. He's a guilty sinner and his
sin is great. He can do nothing about it. So
he reaches out in prayer to God to ask him to do for himself
and in so doing to save him, to pardon his sin. He doesn't
act as if God has no right to hold him accountable, as if it
would be too strict if he left him guilty and left him under
the punishment that was due to him. This is often the case nowadays. Well, God created men, but since
he sends so many to hell, he must have just created them to
send them to hell. That's what kind of a God. So
we imagine ourselves to be better than God. He doesn't say that,
does he? He doesn't act as if God was
unable to remain just and punish him, since he also delights in
mercy and is a God of love. I've heard people say this, God
is love. He can't punish sin. Oh yes,
he can. And he doesn't do what is claimed
in Romans chapter three, that if my sin somehow makes God's
justice appear greater, And how can God hold me accountable for
this sin? My sin is actually honoring him
because his justice appears greater in executing it against me. So
he really shouldn't hold me accountable for it. And the answer of scripture
is, how then is God gonna judge the world? So they shut that
down. And this man also doesn't take
his problems to a fellow. one of his friends and pour out
his woe to another man because he cannot come to God. Because
he feels the burden of his guilt and shame in his soul and he
thinks how his misery would love the company of someone else who's
just as guilty as he is so they could sit and ruminate over the
fact that God is unfair and too strict and all the things that
would naturally occur in our conscience. That's what we do,
don't we? We love to talk to others, but what about God? He
didn't seek to have his case cast out of the court because
God didn't follow the proper procedure. This is something
else people do. Well, yes, I was guilty and they brought me to
court, but they didn't follow the procedure just right. He
didn't read me my rights. And so they seek to get their
case. It doesn't happen in heaven. God's processes are always just
right. And a sinner, a true sinner,
like this man was in Psalm 2511, he's not going to plead failure
of the process when he's guilty. He asked God to do something
for his glory. No, he does not go to any, like
his fellow creatures, He goes to God against whom he has sinned. And this is the message of the
gospel. Confess your sins to the Lord. He fully owns the exceeding
greatness of his sin. He asked for pardon because his
sin is so great. He needs a great savior. So he
goes to the Lord and he asked him to glorify himself in his
salvation. We don't know what his sin was.
But all sin is great because it's against a great God. He
says in Habakkuk 113, there are to pure eyes and to behold evil
and cannot look on iniquity. His sin was great because it
was against God's great law, because God's law is holy and
just and good. And that's why it appeared so
great, because God's law made evident what he truly was. He
understood and he came to God according to God's own revelation
of his glory, that God who pardons iniquity and transgression and
sin is the God of glory. He says this in Exodus chapter
34. And listen to these words. You
need to understand the context here. God had just forgiven Israel
at Moses' request, and Moses asked the Lord, show me your
glory. And this is what God says to
him. The Lord passed by before Moses
in Exodus 34, verse six. The Lord passed by before Moses
and he proclaimed, the Lord proclaimed this, 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 he will by no means clear the guilty. That's Exodus
34, six and seven. So the man here praying understood
that God, by his own revelation, that his glory is seen in his
forgiveness of sin. Now that's fantastic, isn't it? God's glory is seen in that he
forgives sinners. Therefore, he knew that God would
keep his word, he would act according to his character, and so he took
that grace that God had given him in faith and he brought this
prayer to the Lord, he said, He said, for thy name's sake,
O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is great. He places God's
glory first in his prayer. If you're going to pray, pray
according to God's will, because that's what's gonna be done.
If you want to have your prayer answered, then pray for God's
glory to be made known, God to glorify himself, his honor. And
so he places God's glory first in his prayer. And notice in
doing this, he teaches sinners. Who wrote the Bible? Well, men
did, but they did it under the inspiration. The Holy Spirit
of God wrote scripture through these men. Who then gives us
this word to us as sinners? The Holy Spirit of God. He teaches
sinners to come to God by his son, the one he gave to be a
propitiation for our sins. And so because his sin is great,
what does he need? He needs a great savior. Because
his sin is against God, then he comes to God because only
God can and must pardon it. And he asks God to forgive his
sin for this reason, for your glory. Now, I want to consider
these things with you as we look at this question, why does God
forgive sin? And you can answer the first
question, the first answer is this. because it is his glory
to forgive sin. He said so to Moses in Exodus
34, six and seven. His glory is seen. He made his
glory known to Moses. He's the God who is merciful,
gracious, long-suffering, and forgives iniquity, and he will
not clear the guilty. He won't clear the guilty. Does
that trouble you? It means God doesn't compromise his justice.
He forgives those he justifies. And so we're gonna look at this.
Now look at Exodus chapter 32. I wanna read back through the
prayer that Moses gave. This is actually the first part
of a two-part message. In Exodus 32, we read this earlier. I'll just pick it up in verse
nine because I wanna focus on Moses's prayer. In verse nine
it says, and the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people,
and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. That's true, isn't it?
They were stiff-necked. And now the Lord says, 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.
Often in scripture, God makes statements without giving the
full revelation. He'll give a part of it and he'll
withhold the remainder of it because it pleases him to develop
that revelation, that full revelation over a long period of time. And
the gospel is this way. It says in Ephesians chapter
3 that the gospel was, the mystery of the gospel was hidden for
ages. from the foundation of the world. And it was made known
by Jesus Christ to his apostles who then made it known to us.
That is fantastic. We live now after the revelation
has been given of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But here up
to this point in the word to Moses, God doesn't give the full
account of what he's going to do, what he's thinking. He gives
a part of it. And what he does is he sets it up so that in Moses's
prayer, he reveals the rest of it. And he is the one who gave Moses
what follows. Moses, as a man, he didn't come
up with these things on his own. But we want to consider these
things because in considering these things, we're going to
see something about why God forgives sin. And so he says, let me alone
that I may consume them. And then he says in verse 11,
and Moses besought, he begged the Lord, his God, and he said,
Lord, 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? Consider what he said here. Lord,
you already began to save your people. You already started to
save this people. Will you now abandon them to
their idolatrous ways and unbelief? Having begun a good work in them,
Will you not finish the work you started? Isn't that what
Moses is saying here? You save them out of the land
of Egypt by your great power. Will you stop? Having chosen
them and having redeemed them from Egypt, having conceived
them, as it were, as children are conceived in the womb, will
you not bring them to the birth? Now, think about this. This is
teaching us why and how God saves us. The Lord Jesus gave this word
one time. He says, and what man of you,
and he's going to build a house, doesn't sit down first and count
the cost? Lest he start building and he
run out of money, or he didn't plan ahead. Oh, man. I should
have thought I needed a foundation or I needed something under the
foundation and I forgot to put it in. Now it's a total wreck.
I guess I'm going to give up. God's not like that. He doesn't
start a work and not plan out everything it's going to take
to finish it. Look at Romans chapter 8. In Romans chapter
8, this is the culmination, the conclusion really, the glory
of God saving work for sinners. And notice how it's an unbroken
chain. God's work from the beginning
to the end cannot be broken apart. If you're in the beginning of
it, you're in the end of it. And if you show up at the end,
it's because you were in the beginning. Romans 8, verse 28. We know, let me actually read
verse 26 through 27 as well. He says, likewise, the spirit
also helpeth our infirmities, our weaknesses, for we know not
what we should pray, for as we ought, but the spirit itself
maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
How often do you feel like you don't know what to pray? all
the time. Verse 27, and he that searcheth
the hearts, that's the Lord Jesus Christ, knows what the mind of
the Spirit is, because he makes intercession for the saints according
to the will of God. The will of God. Now remember
that. Verse 28, and we know that all things work together for
good to them that love God, to them who are the called according
to his purpose. You see, our salvation is all
together and only bound up in God's purpose. So when the psalmist
prays, for thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is
great, he's referring to God's purpose to glorify himself in
forgiving his iniquity. And so he says here, we know
all things work together for good to them that love God, to
them who are the called according to His purpose. Not all, but
those who are the called. Verse 29, For whom He did foreknow
which means he loved them before, for whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son. He set
it down, he set the destination of their entire life and existence
to be conformed to the image of his Son, to the Lord Jesus
Christ. That he, Christ, might be the firstborn among many brethren. Verse 30, moreover, whom he did
predestinate all those that he predestinated, them he also called. When the gospel goes out and
a person hears it with a hearing of faith, it's because God effectually
calls them. They don't limit it, they don't
enable it, the Spirit of God gives them life and they're caused
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he says, and
whom he called, he also justified. And whom he justified, then he
also glorified. Glorified means you're with Christ
in glory. And it's spoken here in the past. All those God predestined, he
glorified. Not one failure in the whole
chain of their salvation. Verse 31, what shall we say then
to these things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? God delivered up his son, didn't
spare him, but poured out his wrath upon him for the people
he predestinated and called and justified and glorified in his
purpose. That was his purpose. Those are
the ones he works all things together for their good, because
he's going to do what? Conform them to the image of
his son. Not one will fail to be conformed
to the image of his son, because the work is God's, the purpose
is his, his glory is at stake, his promises are at stake, his
will is at stake. God is at stake. And what are
we going to say to these things? If God is for us, who's going
to be against us? If He gave His Son for you, then
He gave everything for you. And He's not going to fail if
He gave His Son. Verse 33, Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? God's elect, get it? Those God
chose to eternal life are His elect. And no one can lay anything
to their charge because he laid their charges on his son. He
says, it is God that justifieth, and who is he that condemneth?
It is Christ that died. That's the answer right there.
Yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand
of God, who also maketh intercession for us. And he goes on. We have to read this. It's powerful.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation,
or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril,
or sword? As it is written, for thy sake
we are killed all the day long. For the Lord's sake. We are counted
as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things, all
these things where we end up losing our life, we are more
than conquerors to him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,
nor things present, And don't you know that's the greatest
fear we have? Nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any
other creature shall be able to separate us from the love
of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. There you have it.
If God started it, he's going to finish it. Those he predestinated
to be conformed to the image of his son are going to be in
glory, and nothing can separate them from the love of God, which
is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And now looking back here at
Exodus 32, in verse 11, Moses besought the Lord his God, and
he said, Lord, why does your 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? Would you save them in
the beginning and not save them at the end? Would you save them
from their external enemies and not save them from their inward
enemies? Could you save them from Egypt
and not save them from their sin? You see the questions here
he's putting out? Would you begin a work and not
count the cost before the work is completed and abandon it?
Would you conceive a child and not bring it to birth, aborting
that child? Would you shed the blood of your
son and not give them eternal life through your son? God is
not going to do that. And Moses is praying so powerfully
here because this is God. He's making himself known in
his purpose and his power. His power is not limited. by
the weakness and the sinfulness and the unbelief in these people. And Moses is therefore praying
this way. In verse 12, he prays it again. He prays from another angle. He said, wherefore should the
Egyptians speak and say, for mischief he did bring them out
to slay them in the mountains and to consume them from off
the face of the earth. This is another argument. Well,
these people were so bad, and though they were outwardly God's
people, He destroyed them, therefore God was not able to save them. He must have brought them this
far only to destroy them. He had another ulterior motive
in view. He's not a God of good and grace.
He's a God of wrath, and He's going to destroy us, because
we can't make it. Our sin is too great for us,
and God is unable to save us, and so he gets tired of us after
repeated failures, after this idolatry. I mean, you cannot
blame God for destroying these people considering what they
did here, but the Lord's different than us. the enemies of the people,
the enemies of God. The Egyptians had a collection
of idols, and they would boast in their idols, look, we're stronger
than you, so our gods are stronger than your god. We're richer than
you, so our gods are greater than your god. We have a land
that you have no power over us, so our god must be greater than
your god. They were always, it's like, my dad's better, bigger,
and stronger than your dad. So the Egyptians are always referring
to their idols as being greater. And they trusted their idols.
They thought they were real gods. And God humiliated them. He brought
them out of Egypt. He destroyed the gods of Egypt
and brought them out. And now the Egyptians will be
able to say, aha. Yes, but look what happened. When they got
to the wilderness, he destroyed them because that was his intent.
So why would you trust such a God? He either failed because he lacked
the power, or he lied because he was out to kill you. You can't
trust such a God. And so Moses here prays for God's
glory. He prays that God would continue
because he knows that this is the way God is. He doesn't start
and not finish. He always brings his work to
completion and to perfection. It's holy and right. And he also
prays that he would silence the charges of the false gods and
their worshipers. And then in verse 13 he says
this, remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel, thy servants to whom
thou swearest by thine own self and says to them, I will multiply
your seed as the stars of heaven and all this land that I have
spoken of will I give to your seed and they shall inherit it
forever. So now he's going to plead another thing, you promised.
You chose these people. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 7.
You chose these people. You chose them. You made a promise
to them. You put it down in an oath. You swore by yourself. Are you
going to fail now to keep your promise? Are you a God who cannot
keep your promises, change your mind? You don't do your thoughts,
don't complete your will. Deuteronomy chapter 7 and verse
6. For thou art an holy people unto
the Lord thy God, the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a
special people to himself above all the people that are upon
the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love
upon you nor choose you because you were more in number than
any people, for you were the fewest of all people. Here's
the reason, but because the Lord loved you. And because he would
keep the oath which he has sworn to your fathers, hath the Lord
brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of
the house of bondmen from the hand of Pharaoh, the king of
Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord
thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and
mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to
a thousand generations. So here we have it. The Lord
is not going to break his word. He swore by himself. If he broke
his oath, then he had staked himself on his own character
as God. Why does God forgive sins? He
forgives them for his glory's sake. For thy name's sake, O
Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it is great. His power is not
limited by our sin. His power is not limited by our
unbelief. His will will be done. He will
finish the work. And so the prayer of Moses is
very powerful. And next week I wanna look at Numbers chapter
14 with you, and we're gonna see the same sort of setup again. We're gonna look at how God forgives
sins there and the reasons why He does. And we'll look at a
lot of other scriptures too, but I just want you to get this.
Let me actually close with one verse here from Hebrews chapter
nine. Because I've asked the question,
I need to give you a clear answer from scripture here. Look at
Hebrews chapter nine. He's comparing the work of the
Lord Jesus Christ to all the sacrifices of the Old Testament,
how they had a physical tabernacle and the tabernacle of God is
the body of the Lord Jesus Christ and heaven itself. He says in
verse 24, for Christ is not entered Hebrews 9, 24, Christ is not
entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the
figures of the true, but into heaven itself. Notice these words,
now. to appear in the presence of
God for us. Moses prayed for Israel when
they sinned, when they created this idol and worshiped it. The
Lord Jesus Christ prays for his people in heaven. He appears
in the presence of God for us. Verse 25, nor yet that he should
offer himself often as the high priest entereth into the holy
place every year with blood of others. In the Old Testament,
the high priest offered the blood of animals every year, often.
But in the New Testament, Christ offered himself once, verse 26.
If he had to offer himself often, it says, for then must he often
have suffered since the foundation of the world. But now, notice,
once. In the end of the world, hath
he appeared to do what? To put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. How does God forgive sin? Because
the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. God did that. It was God's work. He gave his son to be the propitiation
for our sins, the atoning sacrifice, the sacrifice to satisfy God's
justice for our sins. Therefore, God forgives our sins.
Let's pray. Lord, we pray that you would
give us the faith to believe as the psalmist did when he prayed,
For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it
is great. Help us to recall your promise
that if we confess our sins, you are faithful and just to
forgive us our sins. and that you gave your son to
be the propitiation for our sins. And by his blood, you have redeemed
us from our sins and from the curse that we deserve for our
sins. And Lord, help us to lay hold
on these things by faith. We know that if we are unable
to do so, then you have saved us. We pray, Lord, that you would
cause us to see your glory in the fact that you forgive sinners
like us and that you keep forgiving us. for the glory of your name,
because you set it down in your will to bring us to yourself
and to conform us to the image of your son and to not only predestinate
us, but bring us to full way by your own work. And you even
arrange every event in this world, all things for our good to bring
us and to conform us to the image of your son. And nothing, not
things past or present or future can separate us from the love
of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And we pray, Lord,
that these things would so well up in us as we would reverence
you, we would stand in awe of you, we would have such a high
regard and respect for you because of the forgiveness that you've
given to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us so to forgive
others. Help us to believe the love you
have for us and not to in our pride and arrogance, in our self-will,
have ill will towards those that we deem to be less than ourselves,
in our shame, in our self-righteousness. Lord, but forgive us that sin
too, in our unbelief, and bring us to yourself to see ourselves
as sinners, and Christ to be the only Savior of great sinners
like we are. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.