Exodus 32 and verse 15, Moses turned and went down from
the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his
hand. The tables were written on both
their sides. On the one side and on the other
were they written. The tables were the work of God,
and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables. When Joshua heard the noise of
the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, there is a noise
of war in the camp. And he said, it is not the voice
of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them
that cry for being overcome. But the noise of them that sing
do I hear. It came to pass, as soon as he
came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing
And Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his
hands and break them beneath the mount. And he took the calf
which they had made and burnt it in the fire and ground it
to powder and strawed it upon the water and made the children
of Israel drink of it. And Moses said unto Aaron, What
did this people unto thee that thou hast brought so great a
sin upon them? And Aaron said, let not the anger
of my Lord wax hot. Thou knowest the people that
they are set on mischief. For they said unto me, make us
gods, 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. And I said unto them, whosoever
hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me, and
then I cast it into the fire. that came out of this calf. What
a picture this is. Especially verse 19, Moses sees
the people down at the foot of the mountain, partying and singing
around this golden calf. These are the same people that
sang on the banks of the Red Sea. They lifted up their voice
in praise unto God and said, the Lord is my strength and song.
He has become my salvation. He is my God. And I will prepare
him in habitation, my father's God, and I will exalt him. And
now they're singing a different kind of song. And Moses takes those tables
of stone upon which the very hand of God had written his law. and cast them down and breaks
them. What a picture. While God was writing with his own finger, thou shalt
have no other gods before me, they were dancing around that
golden calf. This teaches us something. It teaches us several
things. First thing is this, the timing
of it. God didn't write his law to prevent us from sinning. He wrote it to expose our sin. God didn't write his law to prevent
men from worshiping other gods, but because that's what we do,
to expose that fact, to reveal, declare. He knew what they were
doing and that before they ever even saw this law, Before they
ever even knew what God had written or that he had written anything
on that mount, they were breaking the law that he wrote. God knew
that. He orchestrated it that way deliberately
to teach us this. Think about this. The ones that
survived this ordeal, 3,000 men plus whoever else were killed
by the sword that day. But those who survived this ordeal
eventually did get a look at what God wrote. Can you imagine?
What do you suppose they thought in their hearts about that? God
wrote something, Moses, while you were up there? What did he
write? Thou shalt have no other... Oh. Religious people look at the
Ten Commandments and say, oh good, God gave us a rule book.
No. No, He didn't. God gave you a
letter of indictment. That's what He gave you and me. The law is not the solution.
The law is the declaration of the problem. The law doesn't
clean the outside or the inside of the cup. The law shines perfect
light on the cup to show how filthy it is. Somebody said, well, why can't
it be both? Why can't the law be the revelation of our sin?
and also our rule of life. Well, it just simply isn't. It
just isn't. God's book never says anywhere
that he wrote his law so you would know how to act. What his
book does say is this, now we know that the things, what things
soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law,
that's every one of us, that every mouth may be stopped and
all the world become guilty before God. And we see that here, why He
gave His law, to expose the sin that they were already committing
when He wrote it. And when He brings His law home
to you, you'll find that He didn't do so to prevent you from sinning,
but to show you what you are. What a picture these broken tablets
of stone present. They were broken in the truest
sense This is the law in the hands
of sinners. Broken. So broken that you can't even
read it anymore. We don't even know what love
looks like. We don't even know what honoring
God looks like. You can't piece it together so
that it's even recognizable. But is God's law preserved? Oh,
yes. How will we know what was written
there? Oh, we could read the letter,
but how are you going to know what God wrote on those tables
of stone? You're going to have to look
to Christ to know. There is an unbroken copy of
God's law, just one. The one hanging on people's walls
is not it. There's one unbroken copy of
God's law. You know where it is? It's under
the mercy seat. It's preserved in Christ Jesus.
God wrote another copy of that same law on two different tables
of stone. And he said, you put it in the
ark and put the mercy seat on top of it. God's law is kept. preserved
and fulfilled and honored by man. Christ and all whom he represents
only by and in Christ is God's law honored and preserved. Do you know what God wrote on
those tables? By hearsay, maybe, perhaps, but
that's not accurate. What the so-called preachers
of our day are saying is a lie. They don't know what he wrote
on there. They're looking at a broken copy. Are you trying
to put the pieces together on your own? If you're ever going
to know, you're going to have to look to him. The honoring of God's law, the
preservation and the Fulfilling in the obedience to God's law
is a person. His law, as it is in reality,
can only be seen by looking to the one who honored it, obeyed
it, submitted to it as a man, as my representative, and fulfilled
it in every jot and tittle. And in that new covenant of grace,
that we've seen as we're looking at this old covenant, you have
to look at the new and compare them. It's just, there's no other
way. And in that new covenant of God's unconditional grace,
wherein Christ has fulfilled all the terms for you. Under
the old covenant, God wrote his law and said, this do and live.
I'll be your God and you'll be my people if you obey. If you
observe my commandments and obey them and honor me. Well, there's
a new covenant. The covenant of unconditional
grace, wherein God blesses his people without their performance,
without their obedience. The righteousness without the
law is made manifest. What is it, Paul? The righteousness
of God in Christ. The righteousness, which is by
faith in him. by the grace of God through faith
in his son. And in that new covenant, wherein
God's law is kept perfectly, his holy law is kept perfectly. And Christ not only did what
you couldn't do, but paid the price for our not keeping of
God's law. But do you know what one of the
blessings of that covenant of grace is? God said that same
law that I wrote on tables of stone, I'll write it on your
heart. That covenant is found, as we
should be familiar with by now, Hebrews 8, 10 through 12, the
quoting of it from Jeremiah and other places. But let's look
at the blessings of that covenant, all of them, briefly again. Because
when you're looking at, What we are, what we've done, the
old covenant and the result of that, we have to look at the
new. We have to look at God's blessing
upon his people in Christ. There's our comfort. God told
me to comfort you, not threaten you. Comfort you, not show you
how dismally wretched you are, although that'll be part of it.
We can't leave us there. Listen to the terms of the new
covenant from Hebrews 8, 10 through 12. You don't have to turn there,
but you certainly can. Number one, he said, this is
the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after
those days, sayeth the Lord, I will put my laws into their
mind and write them in their hearts. Now think with me for
a minute. Under the old covenant, he wrote the law on those tables
of stone, broken in the hands of sinful men, but preserved
in Christ Jesus in the ark, covered by the mercy seat. where the
blood was splashed and atonement was made for the souls of God's
people. But here he says, I'm gonna write my law in your heart.
Now think with me what Paul said in Romans chapter seven. You
know, you're familiar with that passage of scripture where he
said, I can't keep the law. The things that I would do, I
can't do them because there's another law in my members warring
against God's law. But Paul said there in that chapter,
I love God's law. How did he come to love it? It
was written on his heart. We don't love God's law by nature,
nor his grace. But when God does a work in the
heart, we love both. We love the God who commands
and the God who forgives. Same God. He said, I love the
law of God and the things that God has commanded. The things
that are right and good and holy, those are the things that I would
do. And the things that God has commanded not, the things of
the flesh, those are the things that I would
not do. I do the things I don't want to do, and I don't do the
things I do want to do. But I want to do God's law. And I don't want to do what my
flesh tells me to do. What happened, Paul? God wrote
on your heart. That's what happened. Why isn't
it the other way around? That's how it is by nature. I
don't want to do what God says. I want to do exactly what my
flesh tells me to do. It's just the opposite now. What
happened? God said, I will write my law on your heart. And that's
what he did. When you get in on that covenant,
You're going to say with Paul, I love the law of God and would
to God, I could do what he says. Number two, he said, I'll be
to them a God and they shall be to me a people. In Leviticus
26, 12, turn over there with me, Leviticus. If you're in Exodus
still just a few pages over here, Leviticus 26 and verse 12. This is the second blessing of
that covenant that we read there in Hebrews eight. That's why
we're looking at this now, because we're looking at that old covenant,
the law. So we, we got to see the new. I want to know where my hope
is. I want to know, I want some comfort,
but look at Leviticus 26 and verse 12. This is the old
covenant. And God said, I will walk among
you and will be your God. And you shall be my people. Now,
what did we just read in Hebrews eight? I will be their God, and
they shall be to me a people. But here under the old covenant,
I want you to trace the I will. So you're looking at verse 12
there, look at verse 11. I will. I will set my tabernacle
among you. Look at verse nine. I will have
respect unto you and make you fruitful. And just trace them
up. Verse six. I will give peace
in the land. I will rid evil beasts out of
the land. In verse four. I will give you rain in due season.
Oh, but look at verse three, if you trace them back to verse
three and you've got an if there, you won't find that if in Hebrews
eight, that's why he said there in Hebrews eight, this new covenant
that I'm going to make with my people, Israel, my spiritual
Israel is not like the old one. If you walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments and
do them, not talk about them, not put them on your wall, do
them. Then I will, I will, I will. But in Hebrews eight, the blessing
of this new covenant, the second one that we're looking at tonight
is this. He said, I'll be your God and
you're going to be my people. No ifs, no ifs. All right. Number three, God is going to
reveal himself to every sinner who is included in that new covenant
of grace. Every one. He said, and they
shall not teach every man his neighbor and every man his brother
saying, know the Lord for all shall know me from the least
to the greatest. Prophet said, they all shall
be taught of God. Flesh and blood won't reveal.
That's not how you're going to know him. Parents are going to
teach their children the things of God and show them the things
of God. But that's not going to be your knowledge of God.
Your knowledge is going to come from God himself. God said, I'll
reveal myself to you. That's the third blessing of
the covenant that we'll look at tonight. There are many, many. And number four, he said this,
I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities
will I remember. No more. Because Christ has fulfilled
the terms of the old covenant and established the new, and God the Father laid on His
Son the iniquity of all of His people, all those with whom He
makes this covenant of grace. Christ's blood is called the
blood of that covenant in Hebrews 13, 20. And His precious blood has redeemed
them from all sin, how can God be merciful to my unrighteousness
like he says he will be? How can God forget what I've
done and what I am? Christ crucified. Christ my righteous
representative and successful effectual sin atonement, propitiation. All right now look at verses
21 back in our text verses 21 through 24 Back in exodus 32 So we see what we are by god's
law we see what we are by nature we're idolaters And thieves and
adulterers and everything evil everything evil in verses 21
through 24 This is how we feel about it Moses said to Aaron,
what in the world did they do to you to make you do this? That's what he said. For you
to bring so great a sin, he was held responsible as the leader
there, as the authority there, and rightfully so. God said,
if you don't warn my people, I'll require their blood at your
hands to his preachers, those that he's put in authority. Moses
said, what did they do to you? And Aaron said, Don't be mad. You know how it is. You know the people. You know
how it is. I've heard that. I've said that. How many times
have I said that? Well, you know how it is. Don't be mad about
that. You know the people. You know they're bent on evil.
You knew what would happen. They said to me, make us gods.
We shall go before us. For as for this Moses, the man
that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don't know
what's become of him. And then he said, I said to them,
whoever has any gold, let them break it off. And they gave it
to me and I threw it in the fire and out came this calf. Does
that sound like an accurate account of what happened? It says in
verse four that Aaron fashioned it with a graving tool. That's
what happened. That's what really happened. Now this is why, sinners, which
we've established we are under the law. That old covenant, he
said, which covenant you broke. We're idolaters, and God reveals
that we're idolaters by his holy law. We love ourselves and choose
sides against God. And then God sent his son into
this world to seek and to save that which was lost. And Christ
went everywhere saying, come to me. Believe on me. Come to
me and I'll give you rest. Come to me and I'll give you
water if you drink it. You'll never thirst again. Don't
labor for the bread that you'll eat and will go through your
body and out, and you're still gonna die in your sins. Labor
for that bread which I can give you. You eat of it, you'll never hunger
again. Come to me, come to me, come to me. Oh, everyone that
thirsteth, come. God said before the Lord ever
came to this world. Why don't sinners come to Christ?
Why don't vile, desperate, wicked sinners come to the refuge, the
Lord Jesus Christ? He that cometh unto me, he that
believeth, he said, is not condemned. That's our one problem. The condemnation
of God is upon us. Why in the world don't they come?
The answer is very simple. They don't need him. We're just
like Aaron here. Well, don't be mad. You know
how it is. It's not that big of a deal to
them. It's just that simple. It's just
not that big of a deal. Aaron represents all of us here
by nature. You see here the one-two punch.
Not only had the people sinned greatly, Aaron didn't seem to
think it was anything to get upset over. But God said, the
right thing to happen here is for you to
stand over there, Moses, and watch me destroy them. That's
what needs to happen. And here's the second thing.
Not only was their sin great, but they didn't much care. They
didn't much care. Now Aaron wouldn't have denied
all wrongdoing if you'd pressed him about it. And people would
admit, oh, I've done some bad things. But he said, you know
how it is. Don't be mad. Here's our problem. We don't
understand the depth, the extent of the damage that sin has done.
And I don't mean to talk about sin as some kind of an outside
enemy that has damaged us. Sin is us. The damage we've done
to ourselves and to everything we touch. We don't know what
we are. Think about some of the ways
that God has described our condition in his words. Just a few came
to my mind were lepers, spiritual lepers, head to toe, covered
with running, open, vile, stinking sores, unclean and unfit, vile
and disgusting. We saw in the scripture just
the other day where it talks about what God hates and every
bit of it is what we are. And it said there in that text
that these things are an abomination to him. And we saw that that
word means disgusting. We're disgusting to God. Just
like a leper, if it walked in that door, we'd all run for the
hills. Don't want anything to do with
it. Legally, under Old Testament law, excluded from fellowship
with God's people. Lepers. And then I thought about that
woman with the issue of blood. And that pictures us. in a way that we don't think
about often. We're dying, we're bleeding out
and unable to do anything about it. And the interesting, one
of the interesting things about that is all of her efforts and all of
the spending of that which she had earned That's a clear picture,
isn't it? She had made that money, whatever
her profession was. I don't know what it was, but
she had earned that money. And what she had earned, she
spent it on doctors, but she just kept getting worse and worse
and worse and worse. That's us. We can't earn any
favor or merit before God. In fact, what we do in order
to earn it, In order to become better, it just makes us worse.
Our problem is our sin and our righteousness is our more sin.
We just add into the problem. Our religious evil is the worst
evil about us. The man with the withered hand.
All through the word of God, the hand and particularly the
right hand is a symbol of power, of ability to work and accomplish
the will. Whatever I want to do, I have
to get my hand involved and to get it to get that done. And
that's the symbol, the image in the scripture in Exodus 15,
six, it says, thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in
power. Thy right hand, O Lord, hath
dashed in pieces the enemy. The right hand. Guess which hand
it was that was withered on that man that our Lord healed. I give you three guesses. You
don't need three, do you? You don't need two. Luke is the
one that tells us. Matthew, Mark, and John all say
he just had a withered hand. Luke says his right hand was
withered. That's us by nature. Romans 5,
6, for when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ
died for the ungodly. Well, you just take the first
step. I'm without strength. Well, it doesn't take much strength.
He didn't say when you were yet without very much strength. We're
without strength. We can't do anything to recommend
ourselves to God or to move us toward God. Christ died the just
for the unjust that he might bring us to God. That's the only
way we're going to get to God. Christ is going to have to bring
us to him. dead in trespasses and sins. Dead. The only way a dead man
can become undead, alive, is by the power of Christ. He said,
I have authority from my father to give life to whomsoever I
will. And he said, Lazarus come forth.
And he came forth. I know he was pleased to give
life to Lazarus because he did it. And Paul said to the believers
at Ephesus, you have he quickened which were dead. And here's the insanity. This
is us by nature, leprous and vile and just disgusting before
God. And yet we want to, you know,
the leper, a leper comes up to you and wanting to do something
for you, wanting to kiss you, wanting to hug you. No, I don't
want that from you. bleeding out and dying and hopeless
and helpless and everything that we do, everything that we earn
makes our condition worse. Without strength, like that man
in the ditch, when the good Samaritan came by, I had to do everything
for him. And dead in trespasses and sins. And here's the insanity.
I like what Augustus' top lady said. He said this, a man's free
will cannot cure him even of a toothache. or a sore finger,
and yet he madly thinks it is in its power to cure his soul."
Well, that puts it in perspective, doesn't it? If we knew the reality
of the problem, we would abandon all vain thoughts of good outweighing
bad or deciding our way out of our condition, and we would cry
for mercy. That's what we'd do. That's what
lepers do. And do you see this in our text?
Somebody who is blaming everybody but themselves. You know how
evil the people are. They said this to me. They suggested
it to me. I just threw some gold in there.
And people saying, you know, don't be mad. You know how things
are. They might need a second chance, but they don't need mercy.
That's the problem. You don't need mercy. They don't need to be saved. Paul said, my prayer to God and
heart's desire for Israel is that God would save them. Peter didn't say, Lord, I need
a little help. He said, Lord, save me. Do we realize that what
we need is for Christ to save us? Somehow we've got to get to that
place. And God knows how to take you
there. I can't take you there. I can't get there myself without
his mercy and grace. But he knows what was it Nebuchadnezzar
said, those that are proud, he knows how to bring them down. We've got to fall at the Lord's
feet, knowing that we ought not to even be there. Lepers weren't
even supposed to They were supposed to avoid all society, but that
leper, he didn't have any choice. He was desperate. He came to
the Lord Jesus Christ and fell at his feet and said, Lord, if
you will, you can make me clean. The Lord told Jacob, let me go. And Jacob said, I will not let
thee go, except thou bless me. We've got to get there somehow.
And we ought not in this life, I don't believe, ever leave there.
You reckon? We're mercy beggars from now
on in this life. One time in the Old Testament,
the people stopped murmuring against Moses and stopped blaming
him for all of their troubles like they did in our time. They
said, this Moses, we don't know what's happened to him. So we're
just going to have to do what we have to do. And they stopped doing that one
time and just flat told the truth. They had murmured and rebelled
against God one too many times and God sent fiery serpents into
the camp. And they bit the people and much
people died. And the ones who had not died
came to Moses and said three words, we have sinned. Numbers chapter 21 And God said to Moses when the
people came and Confessed their sin Let's look at it together
numbers 21 verse 7 Therefore the people came to Moses And
said we have sinned for we have spoken against the Lord and against
thee pray unto the Lord that he take away the serpents from
us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said unto Moses,
make thee a fiery serpent and set it upon a pole and it shall
come to pass that every one that is bitten when he looketh upon
it shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass
and put it upon a pole And it came to pass that if a serpent
had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. And our Lord Jesus Christ said
to Nicodemus in John 3.14, as Moses lifted up that serpent
in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. That whosoever believeth in him,
whosoever looks to him, for salvation. Whosoever looks to Him for righteousness,
whosoever looks to Him for forgiveness of sin, for perpetuation, should not perish, but have everlasting life. God's Son was made in the likeness
of the problem. The serpents was the problem.
God said, make a serpent. For what the law could not do
and that it was weak through the flesh, God sent his own son
in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. And he condemned sin in the flesh.
Christ is lifted up. And the command is simply look
and live. Jack Shanks wrote something once
that has been a blessing to me as I've remembered it and seen
it through the years. He said this, the more we look
at Christ crucified, the more we will mourn for sin. And that's a good thing. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, blessed
are they that mourn. and they'll be comforted. Isn't that an interesting beatitude? Blessed are they that mourn. You know what the word blessed
there means? Happy. Happy are they that are deeply
sad. You understand that? But Jack
said the more we look at Christ crucified, the more we will mourn
for sin. And he wrote this, look at the
cross until all that is on the cross is in your heart. He who
was pierced is your God, your maker, your benefactor, and your
best friend. And may God bring us all to that
place where we both mourn and are blessed,
happy, When you're in that place, you're looking at Him. And He's
our hope. Let's bow in prayer.