And the children of Eli did according
to the word of Moses, and there fell of the people that day about
three thousand men. For Moses hath said, Consecrate
yourselves today to the Lord, even every man upon his son and
upon his brother, that he may bestow upon you. blessing this
day and it came to pass on the morrow that Moses said unto the
people you have sinned a great sin and now I will go up unto
the Lord peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin
and Moses returned unto the Lord and said all this people have
sinned a great sin and have made them gods of gold yet now If
thou wilt forgive their sin, and if not, blot me, I pray thee,
out of thy book which thou hast written. And the Lord said unto
Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out
of my book. Therefore now go, lead the people
unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee. Behold, mine
angels shall go before thee. See how that word angels capitalized?
That's the Lord Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, in the day when
I visit, I will visit their sin upon them. And the Lord plagued
the people because they made the calf, which Aaron made. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Depart, and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast
brought up out of the land of Egypt. unto the land which I
swear unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto thy
seed will I give it. And I will send an angel before
thee, and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite,
the Perizzite, the Hibite, and the Jebusite, unto a land flowing
with milk and honey. For I will not go up in the midst
of thee, for thou art a stiff-necked people, lest I consume thee in
the way. Our blessed Master, our great,
glorious God and Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we come, always come
with joy, come with thanksgiving, come with anticipation of You
being with us, speaking to us, speaking to us through Your Word,
speaking to us by the Holy Spirit, taking the things of Christ and
showing them unto us. Father, we thank you for the
saints of God. Lord, your people, your people
are just, they're your people. That in and of itself makes them
peculiar and precious. They're the light of the world
and the salt of the earth. The only reason, Lord Jesus,
you haven't destroyed this world is because of your people. And
oh Lord, when you bring your last sheep in, call that last
one, Oh Lord you'll fold this old earth up like you'd fold
up an old rotten garment put it away and bless your holy name
you'll bring in a new heaven and a new earth and everybody
on that new earth and new heaven Well, oh Lord, live in righteousness,
dwell in righteousness where you are and with you. God bless
you, be your name. Meet with us tonight. Be merciful
to all the people that we have prayed for and you know their
names, you know their needs. And we pray for those who have
not yet started attending back here. We pray, Lord, that you'd
move on their hearts. Give them grace to come. lay
their fears, lay their anxieties. For Lord Jesus we know that you'll
protect your people and keep your people and we bless you
and praise you in Christ's name. Amen. You know the fact that he meets
us like he met with us this morning, that's supernatural. God taking
and speaking to you, stirring in your heart, stirring in your
soul, stirring in your mind. That's supernatural. He's going
against your flesh. He's going against your weakness.
He's going against your frailty. And He overcomes all that and
comes in your heart and in your soul and speaks to you. That's supernatural. And life,
life from Christ, life from God, the life that He sustains once
He starts, that's supernatural. I couldn't keep myself. Couldn't
do it. Can you? No, can't do it. Well, I want to talk tonight
about God's visit upon sin. God's visit upon sin. You know,
last week we talked about You know they slew 3,000 by the sword,
by the hands of the Levites. And that showed us, you know,
that these men that did this, shows how the Spirit overcomes
even the flesh. They sought to honor and glorify
God over all natural causes. I mean, he said slave brothers,
companions. and they slew people that they
knew and they had sentimental considerations and yet these
men did what they were told to do and here's the thing that
if you think that's bad You wait till God gets ready to come through
the land. When God gets ready to wrap this
thing up, you think killing 3,000 at one time because they made
a golden calf, got naked and danced around that golden calf
and sat down to eat and feast and got up and played. Now what
would God do with people that sets up idols in the place of
the Lord Jesus Christ? What should he do to people like
that? You know, Eustace said a minute ago, he said, people
say, you know how you do it? I'm doing better than I deserve. If God gave us what we deserve,
we would have nothing. But thank God He don't give us
what we deserve. That's what grace is all about.
That's what grace is all about. He gives it to us in spite of
everything there is against us, in us, that's against His grace.
And He comes and brings that grace. And I tell you what, you
imagine the scene if you can. Here's 3,000 people laying around
dead. They're dead. Blood is all around. Carnage. Some people are screaming,
some people are crying, some people are just having an awful
time lamenting greatly over someone that's died. And the day started
with that unholy, unholy laughter and merrymaking and dancing.
And the day ended with dead bodies all over the place. God visits men for sin. And don't think for a minute
he don't and he won't. That's why we fear God. I fear
God. Don't you? I don't want Him to
deal with me after my sins, after my flesh. And I'll tell you what,
that's why He said over in 1 Corinthians 10, that's why He says, don't
be like these people. Don't be like them. He said,
these were written for our examples, for our examples, for our admonition,
for our learning. God said, these people, this
is what they've done and this is the consequences of their
actions. And he said, don't you do that. And if any man thinks
he stands, I mean, you say, well, I've got it made. There's no
way in the world I can fall. No way in the world I can, listen.
He said, any man thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall. I tell
you the king of Israel fell, Simon Peter fell and all listen but I do know
this we as believers has no place or need of a literal sword we
don't need a literal sword that's not the weapons of our warfare
You know what the weapons of our fort worth are? The word
of God, the sword of the spirit. That's the only sword we need. That's the only sword we need.
And the scriptures is our sword. This is what we use to stand
against sin. It's what we use to stand against
idolatry. It's what we use to stand against
the enemies of the Lord. You know our Lord Jesus was in
a house and he was teaching and he was preaching. And while he
was doing that, a man walked in and said to the Lord, said,
Lord, your mother and your brother stand outside designed to speak
with you. He looked at that people and
said, who is my mother? Who is my brother? And he looked at them disciples
and said, this is my mother's, this is my brother's, this is
my sister's, them who do the will of my Father which is in
heaven. Now that's what he said. His mom and daddy, his daddy
and mother and brothers wanted to talk to him. He said, listen,
this is my family, right here. This is my family. The people
that do the will of my father. And I'll tell you what, in the
will of his father is to look to Christ, trust Christ, believe
Christ. This is the will of him that
sent me that everyone would see it the Son and believe it on
him. Now I, beloved, You know, how do we deal with those we
dearly love? Are we going to let any companion,
anybody in our family, a brother, a sister, a son, a daughter,
grandchild, great grandchild, are we going to let anything
hinder our relationship with Christ? Huh? No, we're not going to do that.
You know, and I'll tell you something else, every one of us in this
building tonight who are saved by the grace of God, you came
to Christ by yourself. You didn't come with your wife,
you came for yourself. You didn't come with your children,
you came for yourself. And everybody in this building
that's come to Christ, come alone. Is that not right? And so this is what I'm saying.
You know, it's either We can't let nothing come between us and
Christ. Now look what it said here now in verse 30. And it came to pass, and it always
does, it came to pass. And on the morrow, on the morrow,
the next day, it was the next morning, it was the next morning,
They'd no doubt probably buried everybody. The next morning, Moses got up. There was no evidence
of Israel's repentance. There was no fear. There was
no dread. There was no sorriness. There was no have pity on me,
have mercy on me, please forgive me. There was none of that. None
of that. You don't hear any of these children
of Israel saying anything. No, no. No evidence of it. So Moses, he came to pass on
the morrow. He got up and spoke to the people.
Talked to all the people. He said, you sinned a great sin. A great sin. And now, oh my,
listen. Moses didn't weak at sin. Moses
didn't minimize the awfulness of their sin. He never tried
to cover it up, act like they just made a mistake. They had
a few faults in their life. That God loved them anyway. That
God was going to, you know, just take them in His arms and just
hold them up close and not pay any attention to what they had
done. Not pay attention to the fact that they built a golden
calf. Not paying attention that they got dancing naked. And not
paying attention that they said, oh, these are the gods that brought
us up out of Egypt. Oh yeah, God's going to just
reach and get them and hug them. Oh, listen. He said, you sinned
the great sin. And here's the thing, Moses clearly,
clearly loved these people. He loved these people. He loved
them. Yet it didn't keep him from dealing
faithfully with them. He dealt faithfully with these
people. He didn't mince words with them. He knew what it was. He knew who God was. And oh listen,
he loved these people. And it didn't keep him from dealing
faithfully with them. And you know that's what the
scriptures tells us over and over again. That men who love
God and are called of God and we as with our children and that
we got to deal faithfully with them. Faithfully with them. Now
look what he said. Verse 30, and now I will go up
unto the Lord. Peradventure I shall make an
atonement for your sin. Now I'm going to go up to God.
I've got to go up. I'll go up on that mountain where
God's at. I'll go up where God dwells.
I'll go up where holiness is. I'll go up where justice is.
And then it says, now peradventure I'll make an atonement for your
sin. God has two ways of dealing with sin. He deals with it in
death or He deals with it in a substitute. One or the other. He deals with it in a substitute
or he deals with it in a person. And I mean deals with it personally.
And deals with it in that person. And so here he comes and he says,
Oh Lord. And then he deals with his people
as a father. As a father he chastises them.
But you know so here he goes and he comes up there and the
Lord he said Moses I'm going to destroy this whole people.
And Moses remember interceded with him. He said father you
know what they'll say Egypt will say he brought them up here just
to kill them. He said he forgot his covenant
with them. And he pleaded with God on God's own promises and
God's covenant and God's glory and God said, well, I won't do
it. I won't do it. I won't do it. And then when
he says the peradventure, it means maybe. That word peradventure
means maybe. And why he says peradventure,
maybe, is because of the hardness of their hearts. Their hearts
were so hard. Maybe because of your unrepentant
attitude. Because you have no sorrow for
sin. And this was the situation. This
is a stiff-necked people. And the people for whom Moses
was about to appear in the presence of God, they had not repented.
They were hard-hearted. They were not sorrow for the
sin. Unrepentant attitude. And he
said, I'm going to go up into the presence of God. you know
there's a couple times in the scriptures you might remember
David when he was left to run out of Jerusalem on account of
Absalom and he started around a mountainside and there was
a man named Shimei there and Shimei went to cussing David
and not only cussed him but picked rocks up at him and threw rocks
at him and everything This is the king of Israel, he's done
it. And one of his men said, listen, let me go and slay this. David says, no, no, let him alone. God's bidden him to do that. God's caused him to curse me.
So let him alone. Let him alone. And that's the
way it was, Simon the sorcerer. You know, after he saw Peter
and John and them laying hands on people and them receiving
the Holy Spirit, he watched them. Before there, he had been a sorcerer.
A sorcerer. A fortune teller. And here he
comes up and he says, listen, he got some money out and he
said, how much would it take for me to get that gift? And
Peter said to him, your money perish with you. your money perish
with you and I tell you what peradventure peradventure God
will grant repentance maybe that's He said you know you're so hard
you're so mean you're so sinful you're so wretched you're so
stiff-necked you're so hard-hearted that maybe just maybe if I go
into the presence of God and make an atonement for you He
might He might forgive you Have you ever sung that old song?
Huh? Depths of mercy, can there be? Mercy still reserved for me? Huh? Me, the generous chief of sinners,
spare? People don't talk like that anymore.
They wash into the presence of God and wash out of the presence
of God and all they do is all they hear about is how much God
loves them. But I tell you what, Moses never
said, now listen, God loves you, but listen, he got to deal with
you. No, no, that's not what he said. No. And then look what it said there
in verse 31. Look here now. And Moses returned
unto the Lord. He returned, he'd come down off
that mountain, you remember, and he broke the tables of stone. And now he went back to return
unto the Lord. Went back up on that mountain.
Moses was a man of prayer. Oh, what a man of prayer he was.
And oh, how of you. Oh, he was a man of prayer. He
returned unto the Lord. You can go through the scriptures
and find out in Exodus alone how many times he prayed. But
oh, how our Lord prayed. Our Lord prayed. Oh, how many times he prayed.
In fact, his disciples asked him, said, Lord, teach us to
pray. Teach us to pray. Not how to pray, teach us to
pray. We don't know how to pray, teach us to pray. And our Lord
Jesus Christ, how often did he go off and pray? And he went
off into the garden of Gethsemane and prayed till his sweat became,
as it were, great drops of blood. And he prayed before he had performed
a miracle so that those people would understand that God did
this. And he said, Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to sift you
as wheat, but I prayed for thee. I prayed for you. I prayed for you that your faith
fail not. How many times has he done that
for you and me to keep us from our faith completely failing? oh my so he goes up and he returns
unto the Lord now this is what he said and he's before God and
he says there in verse 31 all this people have sinned a great
sin and have made them gods of gold oh my oh this is the same man now who
says slay every man his brother And our Lord, you know, He did
the same against His enemies. You know what our Lord said about
His enemies? The Pharisees, Sadducees, and the lawyers. He said, woe
unto you Pharisees, you hypocrites. How you going to escape the damnation
of hell? How you going to do it? How you
going to do it? And I tell you what, He pronounced
woe and judgment upon them. Woe and judgment upon them. And
Moses, the first thing he says when he gets up there, he said,
Oh Lord, these people have sinned. Oh, they've sinned. It's bad
enough to sin, but oh, a great sin. And oh, the sin of making
a false god, to making a god out of skull. and then look what he says the
same spirit of Christ that caused him to earnestly plead for them
at his own expense and God be forgiving and gracious look what
he says now yet if thou wilt not if thou wilt forgive their
sin and if not if you won't O LORD, blot me, I pray thee, out of
the book which thou hast written. Take me and spare them. That's what he said. Take me
to forgive them. He was willing to die, take his
name out of God's book of life. And he said, I'm willing for
you to cut me off if you'll forgive these men, forgive these people. And Paul said the same thing.
He said, I could wish that I was a curse for my kinsmen, my brethren,
according to the flesh, the Jews. And it's what Moses is saying
here. That's exactly what our Lord Jesus Christ did. He was
made a curse. Made a curse. so that God in
His sovereign, blessed, free grace could come and put away
our sin and justify us and clear us and accept us in His holy
sight. What he was saying, Father, first
in the other way. Is there another way? No. Lord, let this cup pass from
me. Let it go on by me. But he said,
nevertheless, nevertheless, thy will be done. Then he took that
cup, cried out on that cross, my God,
my God, of all the people that's been forsaken of God through
the generations and generations and generations. You know how
many people God's forsaken since Adam? But I, Lord Jesus Christ, He
said, O God of all you've ever forsaken, why in the world would
you forsake me? Why do you forsake me? I have
to do it so I won't have to forsake all
those for whom you died for. So I can love all those that
I love that I gave to you. I can bring them to myself because
of you. And after the last thing was
said and done, He said, Oh, it is finished. And I stand there tonight not
only on the finished work of Christ, but on Christ who finished
that work. That work ain't no good except
only the one who did the work. You know what makes it so precious
and life-giving and soul-cleansing and blood-sin-cleansing? It's
because of who it was that was on that cross. And Moses said,
Father, listen, take me and blot my name out of your book, if
you'll forgive these people their sin. That's what he said. Oh
Moses, he could not be made a curse for them, but he was willing.
His affections were bound up with Israel, though a sinful
people. And he was willing to be blotted
out of God's book. Look with me in Psalm 139. This
is wonderful over here. This is just Psalm 139 and verse
14. What a blessing over here to
look at this. Let's look at this together. Psalm 139 and verse
14. Look what, here's what David
said. Oh, he was Moses intently devoted
to God's people. And I tell you, Christ intensely.
He told his disciples with desire, I desire to have this Passover
with you. But look what he says there in
verse 14. I will praise thee, for I am
fearfully and wonderfully made. marvelous are thy works and that
my soul knoweth right well he said Lord how you created me
how you made me how you made this body how you made me fearfully
and wonderfully made and this is what he says my body my substance
was not hid from thee when I was made in secret made in my mother's
womb and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth
thine eyes did see my substance and they were unperfect and in
thy book and in thy book you put all my members and you wrote
them down and you continued to fashion and make me something
when there was nothing there to start with that's what he's
saying oh my and you know he says in this I want you to see
this back over here in our text there in verse 32 he said blot
me I pray thee now listen to this out of the book which thou
hast written you wrote this book God wrote this book oh that book
that book to be in God's book I tell you what, a lot of folks
want to be in somebody's book in this world. The how-to book,
you know. What's that book that they put
famous people in and accomplish things for a year or something? What's it called? No, not that
one. Yeah, but there's another one,
you know, that they put in people that accomplish things every
year, you know, and it's not that, but I mean people that
accomplish educational things and philanthropic things. But
anyway, nevertheless, people want to get in that book. But
listen, there's only one book I'm interested in. That was my
main man, only one. You can even take my name out
of your book if you want to. You know, you got a contact,
you got a book, you know, you got all your contacts in it.
Listen, you take me out of your contacts and you won't miss a
thing. And I won't miss it either. But
I'll tell you this. God don't take me out of your
book. Oh No, don't take me out of your book and the Lord said
unto Moses verse 33 Now this is that this is one of them things
it That I don't understand. I just know what it says and
the Lord said unto Moses Whosoever hath sinned against me Will I
blot out of my book? I You know what David said in Psalm
51? He said, Against thee, thee only
have I sinned. That's what he said. But wash me, and I shall be cleansed. Cleanse me, and I shall be white
as snow. And that's what he said here. You know what God is saying,
you let a man Stand in rebellion against me. Stand in, you know,
and he says, listen, and this is a frightening thing to think
about that God said, you know, that I'll blot out any man that
sitteth against me, I'll blot his name out. I'll do that. It ain't up to you, Moses. It
ain't up to you. God is righteous. His government
is righteous. And he said God is not mocked.
Whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap. If he sows to his
flesh, he gonna reap of the flesh. If he sows to the spirit, then
he reaps of the spirit. And I tell you, Paul said this,
he says, you know, if you live after the flesh, you know what's
gonna happen to you? You're gonna die. And I tell you this, when Paul
said, You know this body of sin that
was on me, this body, he said this wretched man that was on
him. And what he was talking about, this man that was on him,
this wretched man, was his flesh that was on his back, that he
was packing on his back. And that thing was so stinking
and so corrupt. But he yet had to carry it with
him everywhere he went. Until he got to go home to be
with Christ. So that's what we do. This flesh
is like carrying an old rotten corrupt dead man on our back.
We watched the FBI, true story. The FBI the other day was trying
to get this man out of the house. He'd go kill his wife and go
kill his son. This man was crazy in the bed
bug. Just got out of prison and took them captive. And they figured
out how to get him out of the house. He said, give me a helicopter
and we'll fly away. So he brought the wife out and
he had that wife ran up against him, just like this here, and
had his son tied to his back. And there were four snipers waiting
to kill him. Not one of them got a shot. Not
a one of them. But when they got close to that
helicopter, that helicopter went straight up. That fellow fell
down. Bam! Right through the head.
Killed him. And they thought that they'd
killed that little boy and they went over there and he had him strapped
to his back. And they untied him and he crawled out from under
there. But I tell you, beloved, like
that man had that boy on his back. But he was doing it for
the wrong motive. Everything is unholy and unrighteous.
But we got this dead man on our back. This rotten, stinking,
corrupt man on our back. And sometimes he's corrupt more
than others. Sometimes he stinks more than
others. But there never is a time that he don't stink. Never is
a time that he ain't heavy to carry. Is that not right? Never
is a time you can say, well get off my back. You can't do it.
He's with you. He's going to be with you until
they lay in the ground. Oh my. Well, now look what he
says here. I've got to hurry on. I'm taking
too long. And now it says in verse 34. He says here in verse 34, now
therefore go, go, get up and go. Lead the people unto the
place of which I have spoken unto you. Listen to this, behold
my angel shall go before thee. Nevertheless in the day when
I do visit, when I come and visit their sin, I'm going to visit
them on, and the Lord plagued those people because they made
the calf which Aaron made. Now I'm going to tell you why
God sent this angel before him. And you know that's capitalized.
Because it says over here in verse 3, look in verse 3 of chapter
33. He said unto a land flowing with milk and honey. Now listen
to this. For I will not go up in the midst
of thee. I'm not going to go in the midst
of you. For thou art a stiff-necked people lest I consume thee in
the way. The only way in the world that's
going to keep me from consuming you is for my angel to be between
me and you. I said, Holy Ray, I'm not going
with you. I'm not going in the midst of you. The only reason
I'm not going in the midst of you, because if I go, I'm going
to consume you. I'm going to destroy you. So
I'm going to send my angel. And he'll be between me and you.
And I won't consume you. Huh? Oh my. Ain't you grateful
that it's like that? Oh no, Moses by his intercession
secured the safety of these people for a while. The angel to guide
them and to fight for them and he says in verse 1, 33. The Lord said unto Moses, Depart,
go up you and the people which you brought up out of the land
of Egypt, the land which I swear unto Abraham, to Isaac and Jacob.
unto thy seed will I give it and I'm going to send an angel
before you and I'm going to fight the enemies for you I'm going
to fight the enemies for you you know how many people that
was over 20 years of old when they came out of Egypt only two
people over 20 years of age went into the promised land Moses
didn't go in Jacob I mean Joshua and Caleb, Joshua and
Caleb, only two men. One was called a faithful dog
and the one took Moses place. Only two men. And no wonder,
no wonder he said, The righteous are scarcely saved. That don't
mean that they're just going to be saved by the skin of their
teeth. That means with all the world and everything that's out
there against them, and all the flesh that's in the world and
everything about it, it's a miracle that any of them are saved. A
miracle. Supernatural. Well, I pray God bless it. Our Father, oh blessed Father,
Abba Father, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Lord we
thank you for the day. Thank you for your presence.
Oh Lord, your presence. Oh, it's so blessed to have your
presence. I'm thankful that we're not,
that you're not, you don't come and consume us and you stay in
the midst of us. that you come in fellowship with
us because of your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We have fellowship
with you. Union with you. Acceptance with
you. Ability to come and speak to
you. And you speak to us through your word. God bless these dear
saints of God. Lord, strengthen them, encourage
them. Thank you for the saints that come to visit us The grandkids
and the great grand babies, Lord we're thankful that I know the
families are thankful. Thankful for these young, thank
you for the old. Thank you for those who know
Christ, love Christ. and utterly cast their souls
on Christ for a time and eternity. God, I thank you for them. Meet
all of their needs. Please be merciful and gracious
to all those we've been praying for, for Christ's sake. Amen.
Amen. upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face
and the things of earth will grow strangely dim. In the light of his glory glory
and grace. I see you