Yeah, thank you. Thank you, appreciate
that. Remember the others who requested
prayer. Many of you know Larry Brown. He's a dear friend, a
brother in Christ. He's the one that actually edits
and publishes my commentaries. He's the one that spends all
the time doing that. It's quite a job and he seems to enjoy it.
But Larry was going to have some little thing done on his upper
lung. Supposed to be just a little
operation, but it ended up being seven hours long. And unfortunately, during the
time, he had two heart attacks, had to restart his heart twice.
And he also, they think he might have had a stroke. He was on
a ventilator yesterday. And I haven't heard anything
today, one way or the other, which I take as good news. There's
never been drastic. Remember Larry Brown and his
wife in your prayer, if you will. He's a tremendous fellow. That's
right, his twin daughters who came to church many times here
during the conferences. So remember them. In your prayers,
the others who requested for all, so the Terrell and Morell
family. Seek the Lord's help for them. Randy Pearman's still
not doing great. He's still having some difficulty
with his stomach condition. Yes, Larry. Not to my knowledge. Juanita. What's what's her situation? So that's Veronica. It's Veronica Tornita, right? Veronica, that's what it said.
So you can't hear either. I talk plain, you can't hear.
All this is going out over the air, you realize that now. Thank you. Well, enough of that. Let's begin our worship service
tonight with hymn number 255, Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory
divine, air of salvation, purchase of God, born of His Spirit, washed
in His blood. This is my story. This is my song. Praising my
Savior all the day long. This is my story, this is my
song. Praising my Savior all the day
long. Perfect submission, perfect delight. Captured, now burst on my sight
Angels descending, bring from above Echoes of mercy, whispers
of love This is my story, this is my song Praising my Savior
all the day long This is my story, this is my song. Praising my
Savior all the day long. Perfect submission, all is at
rest. I in my Savior am happy and blessed. Watching and waiting, looking
above. filled with His goodness, lost
in His love. This is my story, this is my
song, praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story,
this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long. Hymn number 17, Come Thou Fount
of Every Blessing. Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. Call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet
sung by flaming tongues above. Raise the mount I'm fixed upon
it, mount of thy glory. Here I raise mine Ebenezer Hither
by thy help I've come And I hope by thy good pleasure Safely to
arrive at home Jesus sought me when astray He to rescue me from danger interposed
his precious blood. Oh, to grace how great a debtor
daily Like a feather, bind my wandering
heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel
it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart. Oh, take and
seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. If you have your Bibles turn with
me please to the 33rd chapter of Exodus. We'll read verses 1 through 11.
Exodus 33, And the Lord said unto Moses, Depart, and go up
hence, thou and the people which thou brought out of the land
of Egypt. unto the land that I swear unto Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it. And I will send
an angel before thee, and I will drive out the Canaanite and the
Amorite, the Hittite, the Pezzorite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite,
unto a land flowing with milk and honey, where I will not go
up in the midst of thee, for thou art a stiff-necked people,
lest I consume thee in the way. And when the people heard these
evil tidings, they mourned. No man did put on his ornaments.
For the Lord had said to Moses, Say unto the children of Israel,
Ye are stiff-necked people. I will come up in the midst of
thee in a moment and consume thee. Therefore now put off thy
ornaments from off thee, that I may know what to do unto thee.
The children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments
by the Mount Horeb. Moses took the tabernacle and
pitched it without the tent afar from the camp and called it the
tabernacle of the congregation. It came to pass that everyone
which sought the Lord went out into the tabernacle of the congregation
which was without the camp. It came to pass when Moses went
out to the tabernacle that all the people rose up and stood
every man at his tent door and looked after Moses until he was
gone into the tabernacle. came to pass as Moses entered
into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended and stood at
the door of the tabernacle. And the Lord talked with Moses.
And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle
door. And all the people rose up and worshipped every man in
his tent door. The Lord spake unto Moses face
to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned him
again to the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young
man, departed not out of the tabernacle. Let us pray. Our
Father in heaven, most merciful and gracious God, you who rule
and reign in this universe with absolute sway, you who have loved
your people from all eternity, because you have loved them,
you've grown them to you through the preaching of the gospel,
we thank you, Father, that you have revealed yourself to your
children. You've given them faith to believe your word. We know
what we are by nature. We know that as we came forth
from the womb, speaking lies as soon as we were born, that
you were not in all our thoughts, cared not for the things of the
spirit, pursued those things of the flesh. But you in your
grace did apprehend us and stop us in our career, bring us to
the feet of the Savior, reveal to us what we are by nature,
and made us what we are by grace. We thank you, most merciful God. We pray for those who are sick,
those who've lost loved ones, those who are going through trials
we can't even imagine. Larry Brown, especially as he's
been through this operation, we pray you bring him back to
a good measure of health. Veronica Tornita, we pray for her, Lord,
that you would be with her and minister to hers, only you can.
We pray for ourselves tonight as we gather here to look at
your word. I pray you'd open our hearts and minds to understand,
receive, and believe what is set forth in this passage. We
thank you for your word. It's a lamp unto our feet and
a light unto our path, the entrance of which gives understanding
to the simple. Help us now to worship you, for
you are worthy of all worship and praise. It is in the name
of Jesus Christ, our Lord, we pray. Amen. Now this is the account of the
continuance of the journey to the land of Canaan. They've been
camped out. for forty days and forty nights
waiting for moses to come down from the mount the journey has
been paused for that period of time while moses received the
law this journey that they're about to set out upon because
they've only been about six to seven weeks out of egypt will
take forty years they will wander in the wilderness for forty years
forty years or a distance that could be covered in an 11 days
walk. That's all it would have took
if they had walked straight. But there's a reason why it will
take 40 years, and it's been stated several times already.
In fact, it's stated throughout the Old Testament concerning
this nation. Stated twice in the passage that
we just read. This is a stiff-necked people. That means they're obstinate,
especially in their rebellion of idolatry. And their obstinate
rebellion will be proven again and again throughout these four
decades that they were in the wilderness and will continue
even as the land of promise is in their view. Everyone who begins this journey
this day who was 20 years old or older when he left Egypt will
be turned back into the wilderness and perish because of unbelief.
You know the story. it's been spies, sent spies into
the land of Canaan. Spies came back, two of them
told the truth, ten told a lie, and they believe the ones that
told the lie. They were afraid of the giants
there. They were afraid they'd be consumed. Caleb told them,
we'll have them guys for breakfast. They had no problem for us, but
they didn't believe him. And so they refused to enter
into the promised land. So God says, okay, if you refuse,
then you can't enter the promised land. I'm turning you back into
the desert, where you'll die and when he said he'd turn back
into the desert then they said well we'll go in we'll go in
unbelief and always unbelief and always react against what
God says he said go in they said we won't go in he said you can't
go in they said we'll go in because that's how unbelief operates
so God did turn them back only two only two of the age that
age will enter into the promised land. Joshua and Caleb. Moses will not enter into the
promised land. God will give him a view of it. He'll see it. Moses represents the law and
the law can't take you into the promised land. So God kills Moses
and buries him in a secret place that nobody knows. God did it. He did it because
the law must die. in order for people to live free.
Moses is now about 80 years old. He spent 40 years in Egypt, 40
years in Meridia, is that what it was?
And Joshua, though he's called a young man in this passage,
is in his mid-fifties at this time. And this stiff-necked people
will remain so in the promised land until the Lord goes silent
for four hundred years after the prophet malachi we're studying
the prophet jeremiah of the destruction of jerusalem destruction by the
by the babylonians captives by the babylonians and chaldeans centuries have passed from this
time until we took the study of jeremiah and more time will
pass until the prophet malachi reach Malachi we find that the
worship of this people is absolutely carnal in all its activities. They deny God. They call God
a liar. They rob God face-to-face. They
don't steal from Him because to steal from Him you're doing
clandestine when nobody's looking. They rob Him. You have to do
that face-to-face. They stand up against God. And
God says, I'm done with you. But He promises the coming of
the Messiah in Malachi and the promise of the coming of Elijah
returning again who we know according to the words of Jesus Christ
was John the Baptist when he came before the Lord Jesus Christ. Four hundred years they'll be
in silence after Malachi. No word from God. No prophet. No leader. No leader among the
people. The Maccabean wards, what would
later be the Pharisees, they did guard the word of God and
kept it going, but they had it for so long they felt like it
was their word and not God's word. But this passage began
with God's promise to go before the people and by His angel to
clear a path through the enemies of those nations that they will
encounter. In the study of Deuteronomy we found that the Lord did the
fighting for them. The land that is their destination
is called Canaan, or the promised land, and it's called that because
God had promised it to Abraham and to Isaac and Jacob, as he
says in verses 1 through 3. He promised it to their seed.
There's a disturbing caveat here that the Lord introduces in these
words that causes the people to mourn. the Lord tells Moses
that he will not go up in the midst of this people for they
are stiff-necked people and if he did when he was in the midst
of them he'd have to kill them. He'd have to kill them. He'll
not go up in the midst of this people because they were stiff-necked
people. And this is merciful language because the people without
a doubt would continue endlessly to rebel against the Lord. And
the Lord is asserting that he will approach the people in a
different manner. He never left his people. We'll
see in the latter part of this passage that he dealt with his
people through Moses out of that tent called the Tabernacle of
the Congregation. However, the people only knew
that they would be on the precipice of destruction every moment that
they lived. He said, Lest I consume thee.
Lest I consume thee. See that in verses four through
six. in the light of God's ominous words in verse five when he says
this, and the Lord said to Moses, say unto the children of Israel,
ye are a stiff necked people, I will come upon, up into the
midst of thee in a moment, consume thee, therefore now put off the
ornaments from off thee. Now he said he wouldn't go with
them, he wouldn't be in their midst, but he says, I'm coming
in your midst. He's not contradicting himself,
he's talking about two different things. But he tells the people
to put off their ornaments, And they did. They put off their
ornaments and donned the garments of mourning. Why did they wear
ornaments? What was the function of these
ornaments? It was not just for decoration. It had something
to do with political, social, and familial status. For example,
a prince among the people would wear more ornate and better ornaments
than a man of less stature. And the stripping of the ornaments
among all the people, all the people, was the response of the
people in light of the fact that the Lord would not be in the
midst of them, but rather that His wrath loomed precariously
over them. From the prince to the pauper, all status was removed
when they stood before God. And so it is, always, when men
stand before God. And God shows up over and over
again in Scripture and says, Who shall stand? David said,
If thou shalt mark iniquities, who shall stand? Only those who are saved by God's
grace stand, for it says in Revelation 9 that there were those robed
in white robes, washed in the blood of the Lamb, that stood
before God. But none shall stand before Him
in His holiness. What this talks about is the
stripping grace of God, the stripping mercy. From the prince to the
pauper, they all took off their ornaments. What they are and
what they have means nothing. And every child of God comes
to that point in their life. They are all included under sin,
both Jew and Gentile alike, it says in Romans chapter 3. And
they found it to be a fearful thing to be in the hands of a
God who do with them exactly as He pleases. You see, He does
His will. He does according to his will
in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth,
and none can stay his hand or say unto him, What doest thou?
He's God. He does as he pleases. When the men approached David
with the God that they had made with their hands, who was a shiny
and a pretty God, they said, David, here's our God. Where's
your God? He said, Our God is in the heavens.
and he had done whatsoever he hath pleased in heaven and earth
and all the deep places. And he told them, you're kind
of like your gods. Your god has hands but he can't
feel, his eyes but he can't see, a nose but he can't smell, a
mouth but he can't taste, a tongue but he can't speak, and feet
but he can't walk. He said, and you're just like your god, dead
in trespasses and sin. They realized as god speaks of
what he will do there is nothing that can recommend them to god
and there is nothing in any of us that can recommend us to god
true repentance new testament repentance old testament repentance
is to change your behavior stop doing this modern church today
talks a lot about that kind of repentance that's why they have
all these ex-people they have ex-drug addicts and ex-whores
and ex-prostitutes ex-junkies and things like that. Ex-people. That's the Old Testament repentance
that changes your behavior. The New Testament repentance
is the change of your mind and the natural mind believes because
it's religious by nature. It believes that it can do something
to recommend himself to God. The word for repentance in the
New Testament is metanoia. which means to change your mind
radically. And what do you change your mind
about? What recommends you to God? You find out by God's grace
and through the preaching of the gospel, the only thing that
recommends you to God is Jesus Christ the Lord, and that's it.
Nothing else, nothing more, and nothing less. Here they put on
sackcloth and ashes, and that will suit their estate. This
posture alone might possibly forestall the wrath of God as
indicative of Old Testament and Old Covenant repentance. In verse
7, Moses took the tabernacle outside the camp. First time
the word tabernacle has been used as he talked about the building
of the tabernacle. But this is not the tabernacle proper. This
is not the tabernacle that the instructions were given in such
detail from Sinai. That's referred to as the great
tabernacle in Jewish writings. Moses called this tent the Tabernacle
of the Congregation. It was a place where Moses would
hear the needs or conflicts of the people and judge accordingly.
He would ask God what to do, and God would tell him. Then
he would go out and tell the people what God had said. And
it was a place where God met with Moses and nobody else. But
we find that God no longer is in the midst of His people, and
this is what He meant when He said, I'll not be in your midst.
He's no longer in the midst of his people. He now operates through
the Mediator, through Moses. Moses would go into the tent
of the congregation, the flouted pillar would drop down. Moses
and the Lord would speak. Moses would bring to the Lord
what the people had asked, the questions they had asked, the
problems they had, the things that were going on, disputes
that might be taking place, and the Lord would tell him what
to tell them. Then he would come out of the tent of the congregation
and talk to the people concerning what the Lord had said. Moses
will speak to God, and he will advocate for the people. This
is this new way God is talking about when he said, I'll not
be in their midst. We know that's a picture of the
Lord Jesus Christ, who is our advocate with the Father. In
1 John chapter 2, it says, My little children, these things
I write to you that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he
is the propitiation for our sins, satisfaction for our sins, and
not ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. John
wrote mostly the Jews, the world spoke of the Gentiles. So this is called the tabernacle
of the congregation. And this, in the minds of the
people, garnered great respect from Moses when he went into
that place and that cloudy pillar that will guide them all these
40 years. During the day, this cloud will
cover this nation. They will be in the shade, in
that hot desert air. This will keep them from burning
up. At night they will have a fiery pillar that will guide them,
that will be the light of the night time for them. But they
didn't move until this cloud moved, but at this time Moses
would go into that tent. It was outside the camp. And
that cloud would drop down and the people would begin to have
great respect for Moses, as he alone was the one that spoke
with God, as he was alone the one who had the answer. The old
English word, parson. we don't use that word much anymore,
but it meant the preacher in town, the parson. That comes
from the English word person. It was a transliteration of that.
And it meant that if you had a question, you needed to know
something about science or about anything, you went to the person. Moses was the parson. He was
the person. This respect is seen for him
in verse eight of this chapter. when it says, and it came to
pass when Moses went into the tabernacle that all the people
rose up and they stood outside, stood every man at the tent door
and looked after Moses until he was gone in the tabernacle.
When Moses started heading for that tent, everybody came out
of that tent and watched him go. Watched him go and disappear
in that tent and then that cloud came down. Had great respect
for him. It's an honor and an even greater
tribute that is paid to the one mediator between man and God,
our advocate, the man Jesus Christ. He's worthy of all honor and
praise, all of it. Our Lord said that over in John
chapter five when he talked about his son. In John chapter five, in verse 23, he says that all
men should honor their son. even as they honor the Father.
He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father which
is sent man." If you do not honor Jesus Christ, you cannot honor
God. It is that simple. The Lord requires that you honor
Him. Our Lord said in the Psalms,
Let every man, let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Let everything that has breath
praise the Lord. The people were made aware that
God was with Moses when he went into the tabernacle, because
this cloudy pillar came upon the door of the tent. This proved
that God was with Moses. Now, he said, I'm not going to
be in your midst, because if I do, I'll have to kill you for the
way you act. You're a stiff-necked people.
This proved the presence of God was with Moses. Knowing the presence
of God was there, they worshipped the Lord. They worshipped the
Lord. That's what it says in verse
9 and 10. It came to pass as Moses entered
into the tabernacle and the clouded pillar descended and stood at
the door of the tabernacle and the Lord talked with Moses. And all the people saw the clouded
pillar stand at the tabernacle and all the people rose up and
worshipped every man at his tent door. When they saw this, they
said, God's in this place. God's in this place. God's presence. Knowing that he was not in the
midst of them but operating through a mediator. gave them some sense
of hope for themselves that they wouldn't be killed because God
is dealing with this man and this man is dealing with them.
We thank God for the mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
the one mediator between men and God and the man Christ Jesus.
In verse 11 we have a wonderful declaration. In fact, we'll find
in this chapter 33 that it's some of the most profound doctrinal
truths you'll find anywhere else in scripture. We'll see it as
we progress through this chapter. said the Lord spoke to Moses
face to face as a man speaketh unto his friend. He spoke to
Moses. He never spoke to another prophet
like this. He didn't speak to Isaiah like this or Jeremiah,
Malachi, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, none of those. He never spoke
to them like this. This man Moses He spoke with him as face-to-face,
as a man speaking to his friend. He did not speak in some inner
voice or a dream or a vision, but in private counsel as with
a companion. This was Christ in the pre-incarnate
manifestation talking to his friend, just as Christ in a pre-incarnate
manifestation talked to Abraham about lots. and if there be 50
men in Sodom, He won't destroy it, you know, and the argument
that went back and forth. Many times the Lord appeared
in the Old Testament, the theological word for that is a Christophany,
but it means a pre-incarnate manifestation of Jesus Christ.
You see, Jesus Christ is the Creator. God is Spirit. He doesn't have hands. He doesn't
have eyes. he just knows. He knows all things. He has never learned anything. Nothing has ever occurred to
him. But it says in Genesis that the Lord took his hands into
the dirt. and formed adam out of the dirt
and blew the breath of life into his nostrils. It takes a person
with hands to do that. And so we look over at John chapter
one and we find that it speaks of Jesus Christ as the word of
God who was God and was with God and nothing was made that
he did not make. He is the creator of all things.
And here Jesus Christ before he came, left glory and took
upon himself the form of a servant being found in the fashion of
a man. Before he did that, he spoke to Moses face to face as
he would with a friend. Our Lord should later say of
Moses, Moses saw my day and was glad, and was glad. When Moses came back into the
camp, Joshua stayed in the tabernacle. There is no explanation for that
anywhere in scripture. We're not told why. Joshua, though
called a young man, was, according to Jewish historians, about 56
years old at the time. The word young man is probably
a comparative phrase as to the age of Moses, who was in his
80s. Perhaps it was the station as
Moses' servant, because he was Moses' servant. And as a servant,
they were referred to as young men. Whatever the reason, when
Moses returned to the tent from giving the people the words of
God, his servant was there. That's always the case. Where
God is, his servants is. Bless this story. I understand
it. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. All right. God bless you.