We'll have just one final lesson
in Exodus 32, look at verse 30 tonight. And look for the gospel as we
read these five verses together. That's one of the things that
I desire to learn and for you to learn when we read the scripture,
is to see the gospel everywhere. If we don't, we haven't seen
it rightly. The Scriptures to be studied
and not just read like the newspaper, you know that. We look into these
passages of Scriptures and we see things that we haven't seen
in our entire lives. We've looked at this passage
of Scripture many times, and when we come back to it, we see
things we didn't see before. So there's a lifetime of learning
in the Scriptures. It's an unfathomable mine of
riches. of the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ. But even just reading, may God
give us grace to see the gospel all through. Moses returned unto
the Lord after this confrontation with the people who who had Aaron
make that calf for them in their great sin. Moses returned to
the Lord and said, Oh, 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 while I blot out of my
book. Therefore, now go, lead the people
unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee. Behold, mine
angel shall go before thee. 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."
Now, this is our gospel. This is what we Open the Word
of God to see, expecting to see. By His grace, we don't expect
to see anything. But this Gospel, everywhere we
look, this is why we worship Him. Because He interceded for
us. He made atonement for us. He pled for us. He saved us. And in this brief passage, we
see the word sin or sinned eight times. And that doesn't include
the act of sin committed referred to a ninth time in verse 35,
where he said they made the calf. And so that is the sin that they
committed. And so really nine times their
sin is referred to in this one short passage. We learned something
here clearly about sin. Moses said in verse 31 that their
sin was great. And it was. We saw that it was. They not only rejected God Almighty,
but made absolute fools of themselves. Made themselves
vile before the Lord. Our sin really doesn't seem like
much of a big deal to us, does it? I thought about that as I
read this. It really doesn't seem like that
big of a deal. Aaron said in verse 22, don't
be so mad, Moses. You know these people. Even now,
when we know about God's grace, something about the exceeding
sinfulness of sin, we still don't really know. Here's what I do know. God sent not his son into the
world to condemn the world. We were already condemned, but
that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not
condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already. That's why he didn't come. He
didn't come down here. He didn't need to come to condemn us. We're
condemned already. Why? Because he hath not believed
in the name of the only begotten Son of God. That's their sin. Same sin. Who was that that was
talking with Moses on that Mount Sinai? The Son of God. They rejected the Son of God.
The same thing that happened that's described in verse 19
of John 3. And this is the condemnation.
That light has come into the world. That light that came into
the world is a person. And our love of darkness and
hatred for Him culminated in our nailing Him to the cross.
And this is the essence of all sin. The Lord Jesus said right
there, this is the condemnation. Our hatred of God. Our hatred
of His Son. Our hatred of His law. Our hatred
of His grace. When it goes back to, it boils
down to this, we hate him. We hate God. But what does the
crucifixion of Christ have to do with a little drunken party
around a golden calf? That business with the golden
calf was a manifestation of the same sin that murdered God's
Son. It is a choosing of self and
rejection of the Son of God. Moses had been speaking with
the Lord Jesus Christ on Mount Sinai. people showed their utter
disdain for him by what they did. And given a public opportunity
to choose Christ and deny themselves, many chose themselves and were
killed on the spot. If Christ had submitted himself
into their hands that day, like he did thousands of years later,
they would have done the same thing they did thousands of years
later. They would have murdered God's son. That's what happened
in their hearts. And ours. Which brings us to
our next point here. Moses asked, who is on the Lord's
side in the context of this? And some sided with the Lord
that day. Some said, here I come. I can't stay over here with them.
I'm going to follow the Lord. That didn't save them. That didn't
save them, did it? It might seem to have, since
they weren't killed with the sword, but that didn't save them.
Moses said, I'm going to go up and make an atonement. If not,
you're all goners. There's got to be atonement.
The only way to be saved from God's wrath is atonement. Not
by a decision, not by some kind of a profession or some kind
of pledge of allegiance to God. You will pledge allegiance to
God if he saves you. But that's not going to save
you. There's got to be atonement. And atonement is made by blood. Only by blood. Moses took a blood
sacrifice up on that mountain. That's what he did. And notice
the word peradventure. And we need to talk about that
because it doesn't look at the wording of it. Moses said in verse 30, now I will
go up unto the Lord per adventure. I shall make an atonement for
your sin. Now, Moses, when he says per adventure, I'll make
atonement. He's not saying there, I'm thinking about making an
atonement for you. I may, and I may not, I may decide not to
make an atonement for you. That's not what he's saying.
What he's saying is this. I'm going to offer an atonement. And God, peradventure, will accept
it on your behalf. Isn't that what he said? The fact that Christ died doesn't
mean everybody's going to be saved. There are some that believe
that. Universalists. They believe that
Christ died for everybody and that everybody's going to be
saved. I'll grant them this. If Christ died for everybody,
then everybody's going to be saved. I'll give them that. But
he didn't. He said, I lay down my life for
my sheep. And he said to the Pharisee,
you're not my sheep. That's why you don't believe on me. You're
not my sheep. The fact that Christ died and
the people made a decision didn't mean they were going to be saved.
Just because they said, we're on the Lord's side. Moses didn't
say, good, you're saved. He still said, peradventure.
I'm going to go offer an atonement. We're hanging on the mercy of
God. They were, we are, and every sinner is. Who's going to be
saved? Whoever God is pleased to save,
and everyone that God is pleased to save. Now understand that
the atonement here, of course, pictures the true and only atonement
for sin, the Lord Jesus Christ and his Sin atoning death for
God's elect. That's why Paul said we preach
Christ and Him crucified. The person and His work. That's
atonement. That's salvation. And everyone
that God has known from eternity, whom I did foreknow, I predestinate. Everybody that He's known, chosen,
predestinated, called, justified, and glorified were redeemed by
Christ's precious blood. They were absolutely redeemed.
There's no puradventure to that. We'll talk about the puradventure
in a second. There's no puradventure, though, if Christ died for you,
it's certain that you're saved. That's what he died there for,
to save you. If he didn't do it, he's a failure. The Christ
of this religious world is a failure. His blood makes certain, effectual,
actual atonement for the soul. Paul said, our high priest went
into the Holy of Holies, not made with hands, into the very
presence of God the Father, having obtained eternal redemption for
us. That's what he did there. He
did not shed his precious blood for people who were in hell when
he shed it. And there were a bunch of people
in hell when he shed it. His blood wasn't shed for them.
That'd be foolish. He did not shed his precious
blood for anyone who would go to hell after he shed it. The
reason he shed it was to redeem souls from hell, and that's what
he did, and said it's perfect. It's finished. I've done it.
He said to the Father, I've finished the work you gave me to do. And
that's the work he gave him to do. To redeem his people with
his precious blood. To represent them in his holy,
spotless, perfect life, doing always those things that please
the Father. And then die in their stead with their sins laid upon
him. He died because Our sins were
laid on Him and He must be punished for them. If He did not accomplish
that, He would be a failure. My Savior is not a failure. Everyone
for whom He shed His precious blood are saved and shall be
saved. That's what He did there. His
name not called Jesus because He's going to do His best to
save His people. He's called Jesus because He shall save His
people from their sins. The puradventure for Moses is
this. He didn't know who the Lord would
accept the atonement for and who he would not accept the atonement
for. And I don't either. Did Christ shed his blood for
you? I can't tell you that. I don't know. The atonement is effectual for
everybody for whom it's made. But is it made for you? I don't
know. I don't know. You know how you
can know? Believe. believe. And you can't do that unless
He gives you faith in His Son. Salvation
is of the Lord. These ones have said, I'm on
the Lord's side. But the real question is this,
is God for me? If God be for me, who can be
against me? A lot of religious people would
say, I'm on the Lord's side. Is God on your side? Is God for
you? I hear people all the time saying,
I've accepted Jesus. Question is, has he accepted
you? He's not subject to acceptance or rejection. You are. You are. And I am. You see, sin is against God.
Verse 33, God said, those who have sinned against me, that's
who won't be in my book. And so the forgiveness of sin
is at his discretion. He's able to forgive. He's ready
to pardon. He doesn't forgive my sin, though,
and not another's because mine is not as great. nor because
I do something to merit or even recommend myself for forgiveness.
The very definition of the word forgiveness precludes the idea
of any deserving of it. If Christ did atone for your
sin, it was freely, freely by his grace. But what a thing this
is. Sin is mentioned, as I said,
nine times in these five verses, but there's one word in there.
that catches the eye of every real sinner. In verse 32, forgive. God's gonna forgive somebody. If thou wilt forgive. God can forgive. Will he, if thou wilt, thou canst,
forgive their sin. David said, if thou, Lord, shouldest
mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness
with thee that thou mayest be feared. There's forgiveness with
God. And Moses said, peradventure,
he'll forgive you. That's what we're here for. If
he has forgiven you, you're here to hear about how he did it again. And if he has forgiven you and
you don't know about it, you need to hear about it. You need
to hear about it. And look what Moses said, and
what a beautiful picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. He said, Oh
Lord, if thou wilt, forgive their sin. And if not, then block me
out of that book. If that's what it takes to forgive
them, then do that. Condemn me and
save them. God had already told Moses, now
you think about this, the love that Moses had. You remember
what God told Hosea to do when he would teach him something
of his love for his people? Go down to Mary Gomer. Well,
he teaching us something about his love for his people here,
too. You think about these people were constantly rebelling against
Moses and throwing him under the bus and blaming everything
on him and trying to kill him when they when they got upset
enough about it. And God had already said to Moses
in verse 10 of this same chapter, he said, You just stand aside,
Moses, and watch me destroy these wretches. And then I'll fulfill
my covenant with you. We don't need them. The right
thing to do would be destroy them. That's the truth. But Moses couldn't do it. He
couldn't let them go. He could have just said, okay,
Lord, and gotten over behind a cleft of
the rock somewhere and just watched God do what they deserve for
him to do. But Moses loved these wretched
people. Paul was able to say something
similar to what Moses said here in Romans 9.3. He said, I could
wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren,
my kinsmen, according to the flesh. I don't even understand
that. Do you? I know this. That's a little glimpse, just
a little glimpse of the heart of our Lord Jesus
Christ for his people. Our Lord Jesus was accursed from
his father for his brethren. His kinsmen according to the
spirit. Now we were his kinsmen according
to the flesh also in that he became what we are. yet without
sin, that he might be a faithful and merciful high priest in things
pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people."
The high priest had to come from among the people, and ours did.
He became what we are. He took on him the seat of Abraham.
But we also are his spiritual brethren, adopted sons of God,
heirs of God, and joined heirs with Jesus Christ. Paul said,
if you're his children, then you're heirs. And by God's grace,
we're his children. We're Christ's brethren. He's
not ashamed to call us his brethren. And he was accursed for us from
his father. He was made a curse for us. Galatians
3.13, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law. How
did he do it? Being made a curse for us. Our Lord himself said
what Moses did in our text. We see this same picture in his
very own words in John 18, eight, when those soldiers came to arrest
him and ultimately kill him. It says, Jesus answered, I have
told you that I am. If therefore you seek me, let
these go their way. This picture is what our Lord
did on Calvary. For us, he said, as it were,
to the very justice of God, the enforcer of God's righteousness,
take me and let these go free. The righteous wrath of God cannot
have my Savior and me both. If he is taken and punished for
my sin, then I've got to go free. My Lord Jesus Christ stood in
the gap between me and the plague of God against my sin. And the
plague was stayed. So many pictures of it. He's my mediator, my intercessor.
We see that here in Moses. Moses mediated for the people
that day. He interceded for them. First
Timothy 2, 5, there's one God and one mediator between God
and me, the man Christ Jesus. As far as your salvation is concerned,
that's every character right there. There's God, there's you,
and there's your mediator. Nobody else has anything to do
with it. And this is what Job cried out for in Job 9 30. You
may remember this. He said, concerning his sin,
he said, if I wash myself with snow water, the most pure and
bright and brilliant, if that snow melts, it's so clear and
And clean if I wash myself with that and he's of course talking
figuratively If I cleanse myself we make my hands never so clean
yet shall thou plunge me in the ditch You'll show what I'm really
made of How filthy I really am Yeah, thou shalt plunge me in
the ditch and mine own clothes shall abhor me And listen to
what he said now. He is not a man as I am That
I should answer him and we should come together in judgment. I
can come together in judgment with another man and my words
as good as his until the truth is found out. Whatever I say
bears just as much weight as what the other man said. But
Job said, how are you going to argue your case before God? How
are you going to make a case before God when you know you're
guilty? And listen to what he said next. Neither is there any
days man betwixt us, that it might lay his hand upon us both. Do you understand what Job is
crying out for here? A daisman is an arbitrator. God,
he says, me and God. My sin, the fact that even though
if I wash myself to where I've never been more clean than I
am now, I'm still filthy and vile in God's sight. So how am
I going to plead before God? On what basis? I don't have a
leg to stand on and there's nobody, like if I go before the judge
and have a case against somebody else or they have a case against
me, there's a daisman sometimes that can reconcile the two. And
Job said, I don't have anybody here on earth that can do that
for me. Somebody that can lay his hand on us both, in other
words, Make sure that the offended party is satisfied and the one
who offended is also satisfied. Now God can be satisfied by putting
you in hell, but that's not going to satisfy you. That's not going
to make you happy. It's not going to be a good ending
for you that way. And you'd probably be satisfied going on shaking
your fist and spitting at God your whole life and just have
him leave you alone and let you do your own thing. But God's
justice has got to be satisfied. He got to put you in hell. Or
somehow there's got to be reconciliation. Who can lay his hand on God and
me? Only my mediator, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Job had no earthly daisman, but
we have a heavenly one. And Job did too. And he has laid
his hand upon God the Father. And he has laid his hand upon
us. God is satisfied with Christ in the matter of my sin. And
so am I. Everybody's happy. Everybody
wins. Because of our arbitrator. In
Christ our daysman, he intercedes for us. Hebrews 7 25, wherefore
he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come to
God by him. seeing he ever liveth to make
intercession for them. As our mediator and intercessor,
our Lord must have some basis upon which to plead for us. God's
not going to forgive us just because we showed up and because
our mediator showed up. He can't plead our ignorance
because we're willful sinners against God. He said, you will
not come to me that you might have life. Guilty. guilty by
nature. He can't plead ignorance in our
case. And ignorance of the law is not an excuse anyway, even
if he could. We're responsible to know. He cannot plead merit that we've
done something, some community service or, you know, we've done
enough good to outweigh our bad. That's a common plea from men
who don't have a mediator. You're in trouble on that ground.
Because you don't have any good and God cannot compromise his
justice and still be God. So there's no use pleading for
mercy unless there's some legitimate legal ground upon which to do
so. That's where this one next word
comes in. Atonement. Moses said, I'm going
to go and make an atonement. Forgiveness of sin is only to
be had from God on the basis of an atonement made. Leviticus
420, listen to this, I looked at several passages of scripture
and verses to bring this out. Forgiveness of sin is only to
be had on the basis of atonement made for sin. Listen to this
one verse, Leviticus 420, talking about the sacrifice. And he shall
do with the bullock, He did with the bullet for a sin offering.
What did he do with the bullet for a sin offering? He killed
it. He shed its blood and Offered it unto God As he did with the
bullet for a sin offering so shall he do with this and the
priest shall make an atonement for them and It shall be forgiven
them Atonement forgiveness bloodshed, atonement, and it'll be forgiven. If God accepts the atonement for that person, for those people,
they're forgiven. Leviticus 1711, the life of the
flesh is in the blood. And I have given it to you upon
the altar to make an atonement for your souls, for it is the
blood that maketh an atonement. for the soul. That's why John
said, look, there's God's lamb that takes away sin. The lamb
in the Old Testament was for sacrifice, for atonement, for
the blood shedding. And John said, there's God's
true lamb, the one pictured by all other lambs ever offered.
And this lamb takes sin away. Paul said all of the blood of
all the bulls and goats and sheep ever shed could never take away
sin. But his did. His took away every
sin he shed it for and saved and redeemed every person he
shed it for and their sin is forgiven. That's how forgiveness
from God is had in whom we have redemption through his blood. even the forgiveness of sins. It's by his precious blood. There
must be blood atonement if there is to be forgiveness. And notice again here now that
God said in our text, whosoever hath sinned against me, him will
I blot out of my book. Now Moses pictures our Lord Jesus
Christ here, but he's also just a man. And the suggestion he
made, God rebuked him a little bit here for it. Don't you think,
when he said, you don't get to decide, Moses, who gets blotted
out of my book. Is that what he's saying to him?
You don't decide that. I'll tell you who's not gonna
be in my book. Everyone that has sinned against
me. Does that teach us something? He hateth all workers of iniquity,
David said in Psalm 5. If you're going to be in God's
book, if you are in God's book, he's already written it. He already
said, which thou hast written. That's the way Moses described
that book. You've written it. It's done. It's written. Isn't
it interesting that even Moses knew about that book that we
hear about in the book of Revelation, that book written on the front
and on the back and it was sealed and nobody could open it except
the Lamb. We find out some things in the
book of Revelation about that book and our Lord says something
about that book that we'll read in a minute. But even Moses knew
that God had a book with the names of his people written in
it. Not many people today know that
or have any idea what that book is about. God said, everyone who hath sinned
is blotted out of my book. If you're in God's book, there
must be no sin. And we know how that is. We know
how that happens. All we like sheep have gone astray.
We've turned everyone to his own way. That's what these ones
did too. God left them alone for a little
while and they went their own way. They made their own God
and worshiped themselves. Had a big party and went their
own way. And that's us. But there's another
and. The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity
of us all. We went our own way, just like
they did. Ah, but the Lord Jesus made an atonement for us, like
Moses did for those people. And God forgave us. There were
earthly consequences for their sin, as we read at the very end
of that passage, and there are for ours. But our sins are forgiven,
blotted out. Instead of us being blotted out,
he said I'll blot out their iniquities. And that's what he did because
of the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ. Is your name in
God's book? In Revelation, that book is called
the Lamb's book of life. Is your name in that book? Do you remember what our Lord
said to his disciples when they came back all excited about the
devils being subject to them? He said, Rejoice not that the
devils are subject unto thee, but rejoice that thy names are
written in heaven. If your name is there, it is
because you have no sin before God. And if you have no sin before
God, it is because our Lord Jesus Christ has borne them all in
his own body on the tree and suffered and died in your stead
for those sins. And that's cause for rejoicing. Rejoice that your names are written
in the Lamb's book. God's redemptive, victorious, almighty ever reigning lamb. He has a book. Rejoice if your name's in it.
Do you believe on him? Paul said, God forbid that I
should glory in anything or anybody else. Rejoice. Let's bow together.