Here's the subject that I want
to deal with for a few minutes this morning. And it is taken
here from verse 14. And that is the Lord whose name
is Jealous. I've already been over the previous
verses. I do want to just kind of backtrack
and kind of bring those of you who haven't been here or who
were maybe watching and you weren't watching before, let me kind
of bring you up to date. So I'm just going to briefly
summarize some of the things that I've already said. Of course,
the Lord is answering the request of Moses. Moses said, show me
thy glory. That is, manifest to me your
glory. And so that's what he's doing
in chapter 34, especially the first half of the chapter. And I've divided this just kind
of for your interest in an outline of those verses that Ron read
to us. I've kind of outlined it for
you. First of all, the law is honored. That's verses 1-4. This is the law and justice of
God which has got to be honored. Now, I know salvation is experienced. It is experienced. that opening
scripture that I read to you from Acts chapter 16, that jailer
and people in this house, they experienced the grace of God,
and the Lord brought them to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
and therefore, they confessed their faith in believers' baptism. absolutely encourage and admonish
everyone to believe on the Son of God. To believe on Him as
He's revealed in the Scriptures. Not as modern religion portrays
Him. But as that One who is the Lord,
you'll notice that the answer of the preachers there in Acts
16 to the jailer was, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the Lord. He is the King
over all things. And He's Jesus who came into
this world to save His people from their sins. He is the Christ. He is God with us. He is the
Anointed One. He is that Messiah promised in
the Old Testament. Believe on Him. Rest in Him. Hug up to Him. Cling to Him. Look to Him for salvation. The
Lord said in the book of Isaiah, look unto Me and be ye saved. All ye ends of the earth. Well,
why should I look to you? He says, for I am God. And there is none else. Oh, my
sinner friends, none can help you but one who is God. And one
who is also our Savior, the Lord Jesus. And we admonish you to
indeed believe on the Son of God. To look to Him for all that
you need. Forgiveness, righteousness, acceptance. Everything that you need is to
be found in the Lord Jesus and in the Lord Jesus alone. Rest
in Him as your Savior. So, I say salvation is experienced,
and I wanted to stress that because there are some people who think
that we don't insist on that. You've got to believe the gospel.
There's no question about that. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. He that believeth not The Scripture
says she'll be damned. You've got to believe on the
Son of God. And the only way that you'll ever believe on Him
is through the gifting of faith to you by the Spirit of grace. Oh, come to Christ. That's what
we pray. We pray of God that He would
enable you to come, give you the desire to come, give you
the willingness to come. That's necessary. And this salvation
is indeed experience. But, make no mistake about it,
it isn't the experience of salvation that puts your sin away. All legal aspects of our salvation,
the satisfaction of God, That satisfaction of His justice,
the removal of all of our indebtedness to God because of our sins, and
the bringing in of everlasting righteousness. Now that's God's
work through Christ Jesus and His sacrifice upon the cross
of Calvary. That death satisfied God. Like the top lady said, not the
labors of my hands can fulfill thy law's demands. Could my zeal
know respite? No. That is, could my zeal for
doing good works, could it never rest? Could I just keep on being
zealous of doing good things for my neighbors? Could my zeal
know respite? No. Could my tears forever flow? all for sin, all for sin, that
could not atone. Thou must save, and thou alone. God's law and justice were shown
the utmost respect. by the substitutionary sacrifice
of our Lord Jesus. He made this statement. He said,
I came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfill. To fulfill means to fill to the
full. That is to do everything God's
holy law demanded of us. Oh, what's that? Love God with
all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Love your neighbor
as yourself. You can't do that. Listen to
me. You are, and I am, a lawbreaker. But our Lord Jesus, He came to
set things right with God. He came to live that life we
could never live. And He was born without sin. And all through His life, He
said, I delight to do Thy will, O my God. And then He died under
the wrath of God. Because our indebtedness for
sin had to be paid. So here in the first four verses,
before the Lord reveals Himself as being merciful and gracious,
He brings back to Moses' attention, and therefore to our attention,
that legal issue. God's law demands perfection. That first set of tables of law
were broken. God said, make two more tables
of stone. I'll write on it My law. But
I'm going to put them in the Ark of the Covenant for safekeeping. That Ark of the Covenant is Christ
Jesus. The Lord put God's law in His
heart. And then up on top of the Ark
of the Covenant, There was the mercy seat, and then there was
the presence of God, that glory of God, that Shekinah glory of
God that went out from the mercy seat. In essence, that was the
very throne of God. The mercy seat was. And God could
abide there. God could dwell there on the
basis of that law of God being safe in the Ark of the Covenant
as it was in Christ Jesus. And then, on top of the mercy
seat, the blood was put every year. Obedience and blood. That's what God's law demanded.
And our Lord satisfied God's law. And secondly, in verses
5-7, we find the Lord describes Himself. He doesn't leave Moses and He
doesn't leave us to wonder about what God is like and what God
does. He shows His grace to Moses. He had already mentioned it in
the 33rd chapter, I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. This
is the sovereign prerogative of God. And now God expands upon
that. And He tells Moses just exactly
how He is. And the Lord proclaimed Himself. It's one thing for me to proclaim
Him. It's another thing for another
preacher to proclaim Him. But the Lord, He preached to
Moses. He preached Himself. You see, this is what is absolutely
necessary if we're really going to learn. The Lord has to preach
to us. He has to speak to us through
the book of God. It is wonderful and necessary
to hear the voice of the preacher. The Scripture says, how shall
they hear without a preacher? But if the only voice you hear
is my voice, You're not going to come to know God. The voice
you need to hear is the voice of the shepherd. He said, My
sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. What is the voice of the Lord?
The gospel of His grace. You've got to find out how God
can be just and justify the ungodly. You've got to find out how God
satisfied His own justice through the doing and the dying of the
Lord Jesus. Why did He have to die? Susanna
sang this, if you can your own soul pardon and also justify,
why did God require that Jesus come to earth and die? If you
can do it, why did God send His Son? If you can make your peace
with God, why did He put His Son upon the cross of Calvary
and then pour out all of His wrath on Him in the fury of His
greatness and power? If you can, by your own efforts,
put away your sinfulness, that makes God a needless murderer
of His Son. Oh, how awful it is to think
that you can do something to satisfy God, because then you're
accusing God of needlessly putting His Son through all the horrors
of Calvary. Listen, there was no other way. There was no other way to honor
God's justice and save folks like you and me. Christ had to
die. And therefore, the Lord reveals
Himself to Moses. He passed by before Moses and
He preached to Moses of Himself. Oh Lord, while I'm preaching
this message, would You preach to everybody's heart? That's
what we desire. I want the Lord to speak to each
of you through His Word. I know He uses preaching. There's
no question about that. How shall they hear without a
preacher? How shall they preach except they be sent? Please God,
by the foolishness of preaching, save them to believe. But He's got to speak through
these words. And then His words will be life
to you. And salvation to you. So in verses
5-7, the Lord describes Himself. And then in verse 8, we see what
happens when a man sees the glory of God. Moses made haste, bowed
his head toward the earth, and he worshiped. A sight of God. of His grace,
of His mercy, of His justice, of the death of His Son. I tell
you what it does, it takes the starch out of us. It takes the self-righteousness
out of us, though not all of it. As long as we're in this
life, we'll have to deal with self-righteousness. Moses fell down and worshipped. I'll tell you, this position
that he took is the right position and the right attitude for a
forgiven and accepted sinner. He bowed his head toward the
earth and worshipped. You will bow your head. You'll do it sooner or later. You'll do it by the grace of
God in this life. That's salvation. Or you'll do
it at the judgment. When you stand before God. That's what happens when a man
sees the glory of God. sees the Lord Jesus as the Savior
of the soul, the remover of your guilt, the substitute who answered
every demand of God toward you, that'll take you down. And you'll fall at the feet of
the Savior. And you'll worship. Preacher,
I don't know why people don't believe this Gospel. I don't
know why people don't worship the Lord from their innermost
being. They hadn't beheld His glory.
You get a glimpse of who He is. It will change you forever. And
then notice this. Let me get to this. This is kind
of new in this series of messages. Number four, Moses intercedes
for and identifies with the guilty. Look at verse 9. Moses said,
if now I have found grace in Thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord,
I pray Thee, go among us. It's a stiff-necked people. And
pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us for Thine inheritance. Moses made intercession for the
people. And in this, he reminds me of
the Savior. Because the Savior, that's what
He did from the cross of Calvary. That's part of what He did. He
said, Father, forgive them. Forgive them. That's intercession.
Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're
doing. Read John 17. That's our Lord's great intercessory
prayer. And then notice how Moses identifies
with the people. I've been reading this, of course,
I've been reading it for the last two or three weeks. This
kind of jumped off the page for me. He says at the end of verse
9, he says, iniquity, and our sin, and take
us for thine inheritance." Let me ask you something. Was Moses
guilty of the rebellion against him in worshiping, dancing around
a golden calf? Did Moses do that? No, he didn't
do that. He wasn't guilty of that. but
he associates himself, he identifies himself with the guilty. Again,
he's a picture of our Savior. Our Lord had no sin, did no sin,
no guile, no deceit in His mouth. perfect all the days of his life.
He remained the perfect sinless sacrifice even when he was dying
upon the cross of Calvary. But he made intercession for
and associated himself with the transgressors. That's what the
Scripture says. He was numbered with the transgressors. He bared the sin of many. We
sing the song, He took my sins and sorrows. He made them His
very own. But dear Lord Jesus, You had
no guilt. You had no sin. You had no iniquities. You had no transgressions. And
he answers back, but I bore them in my own body on the tree and
paid your debt to justice because of those things. He identified
with us. In fact, one of the accusations
of the Pharisees against him was this man's a friend of publicans
and sinners. Hallelujah. That he is. And then notice this faithfully
in verse number 10, the covenant. And he said, behold, I make a
covenant. Behold. Be amazed. Be astounded. Be startled. Whenever you see the word behold,
you need to kind of take a little bit of a pause in reading Don't
read it hurriedly. Read it very slowly. Read it
with thoughtfulness. Read it with great deliberation. Admire this and wonder at this. Behold, God said, I make a covenant. I make a covenant. And he makes
a covenant with Moses on behalf of Israel. On behalf of a rebellious
people, a sinful people, God says, behold, I make a covenant. I make a legal binding contract. I give you my word what I'm going
to do, Moses. I'm going to drive out the enemies. But Lord, look what we've done. Why would You conquer the enemies
for us? We're undeserving of the least
of Your mercies. He's the gracious God. He's the
merciful God. And He says, behold, I make a
covenant. God declares exactly what He
will do And he speaks this to the representative of a sinful
people. And in the covenant of grace,
God did declare to our representative what He would do for His people.
In fact, God said, I give you for a covenant of the people. And He said, before all peoples
I will do marvels that haven't been done in all the earth nor
in any nation. And I'll tell you, there's coming
a day, that last day, the judgment day, when all stand before our
God. The sheep are separated from
the goats, sheep on the right hand and goats on the left hand.
And in that day, in that day, all the world will see what marvels
that God did for His people. That He chose us. And He redeemed
us. And He regenerated us. All the people among which thou
art shall see the work of the Lord. When God gets everybody
together, at last, they're going to see what God did for us. And
then notice this in verses 12-13. The Lord's name is Jealous, therefore
let us worship Him. You know, there are a lot of
names for God in the Bible that teaches us about Him. But rarely do you hear anybody
say, well, the Lord's name, one of His names is Jealous. But that's what the Lord said.
For thou shalt worship no other God, verse 14, for the Lord whose
name is Jealous, capital J, is a jealous God. What does jealous
mean? It means one who is hostile,
hostile toward a rival. That's a good definition for
jealous or jealousy. One who is hostile toward a rival. If you have any rival to God,
God's hostile about that. Don't you have any gods before
Me? And it goes from this verse,
from verse 12 through 17, and it speaks of His jealousy. God
is very hostile toward those who would be His rival or who
would try to take away from His glory. He said, I am the Lord. That is My name. My glory will
I not give to another, neither my praise to a graven image."
The Lord is jealous for His name. The Lord is jealous for His people. Zechariah 8, verse 2 says, Thus
saith the Lord, I was jealous over Zion with great jealousy,
and I was jealous for her with great fury. Zion is His chosen
people. Zion is the people that He redeemed
with His bloody death. Zion is the church of the living
God. Zion is the people robed in His
righteousness, clothed in the garments of salvation. Zion is
the habitation of God. Zion is the people that the Lord
has brought unto Himself and gifted them with repentance toward
God and faith in the Lord Jesus. The Lord is zealous and jealous,
which by the way, jealous and zealous are virtually identical
in the Bible. God is zealous over His people,
He's zealous over His name, and He's jealous over His people. And then the Lord is jealous
for His Son and the worship of His Son by all people. He commands
all men everywhere to repent and believe the Gospel. He says, turn away from your
idols, from all your false gods. Well, what is the motivation
to do that? The Lord's name is jealous. Now
you will turn from every other hope, from every other idea of salvation,
if you won't come to Christ, and if you cling to a salvation
by some means of something that you must do, God being jealous
of His glory and zealous of His glory, that zeal and that jealousy
burns within him. And he'll have nothing but hostility
toward you. Oh God, bring us to worship Him
through Christ our Savior. And then he tells him in verse
17, thou shalt make no molten gods, don't make any images of
me. That's what the Lord says. No
images of me, no molten gods, because you'll tend to worship
those gods. And you know, when I was thinking
about this, This idolatry. And this is what
the Lord in these 12-17 is really about. He warns them about idolatry. This is a daily thing even for
the people of God. Because we are idolaters by nature. William Cowper. who wrote, There is a Fountain
Filled with Blood. He wrote another song. I'll just
give you a few of the words to it. The dearest idol, I have
known what e'er that idol be. Oh, help me, Lord, to tear it
from my throne and worship only Thee. Lord, if I put something
above You, tear it from its throne in my heart. that I may worship
the Lord only and give Him thanks for His grace and for His love. Let's get our psalm books out
and we'll sing number two.