Kathy Robinson came through the
operation all right. They found a tumor on her stomach,
which may have been causing her stomach problems. And also, they
took part of her liver out, and the doctor said it went well.
It was a pretty long operation, I think. She was under about
five or six hours. They got that corrected, hopefully. She's having some difficulty
with the medication to keep her out of pain. I think it's Dilantin
or something like that. what side effects makes you difficult
breathing she's having some be able to but other than that she's
doing well Debbie's brother has developed pancreatitis bless
his heart after he had to have his pancreas taken out that can
make you really really sick so remember him in your prayers
also seek the Lord's help for him okay that's it for the announcements
let's begin our worship service scene with hymn number 17 come
thou fount of every blessing I was waiting for the piano to
start, but she's not here. Come thou fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above. Praise the mount, I'm fixed upon
it, mount of thy redeeming love. Here I raise mine Ebenezer, hither
by thy help I'm come, and I hope by thy good pleasure safely to
arrive at home. Jesus saw me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God, he to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood. Oh to grace how great a debtor,
Daily I'm constrained to be. Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee. wrong to wander, Lord, I feel
it, wrong to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, oh, take and
seal it, seal it for thy courts above. Hymn number 51, praise the Savior,
ye who know him. 51. Praise the Savior, ye who know
him, who can tell how much we owe him. Gladly let us render
to him all we are and have. Jesus is a name that charms us. He for conflict fits and arms
us. Nothing moves and nothing harms
us while we trust in Him. Trust in Him, ye Saints, forever. He is faithful, changing never. Neither force nor guile can sever
those he loves from Him. Keep us, Lord, oh, keep us cleaving
to Thyself and still believing till the hour of our receiving
promise joys with Thee. Then we shall be where we would
be. Then we shall be what we should
be. Things that are not now nor could
be soon shall be. Exodus chapter 32. We'll read
verses 15 through 29. And Moses turned and went down
from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his
hand. tables were written on both sides, on the one side and
on the other were they written. And the tables were the work
of God. The writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables. And when Joshua heard the noise
of the people as they shouted, he said to 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 the voice of them
that cry for being overcome, but the noise of them that sing
do I hear. He came to pass as soon as he
came nigh unto the camp and he saw the calf and the dancing. Moses anger waxed hot and he
cast out the tables of his hands and break them beneath the mount.
And he took the calf which they made and burn 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 to 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 thy people, that they be 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 out of Egypt, we want not what is become of
him. And I said to them, Whosoever hath any gold, let him break
it off. So they gave it me, and I cast
it into the fire, and then came forth out this calf. And when
Moses saw that the people were naked, for Aaron had made them
naked from their shame, or into their shame, among their enemies,
then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, Who is
on the Lord's side? Let him come unto me. And all
the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. And he said
unto them, Thus the Lord God of Israel put every man his sword
by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout
the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his
companion, and every man his neighbor. And the children of
Levi did according to the word of Moses. And there fell of the
people that day about three thousand men. For Moses had said, Consecrate
yourselves today to the Lord, even every man upon his son and
upon his brother. that he may bestow upon you a
blessing this day. Let us pray. Now, Father in heaven, we are thankful for your word.
It gives us a clear understanding of ourselves. It gives us an
understanding of who you are and what you've done. We thank
you, Father, that you've given us faith to believe. For oftentimes
when we read this word, we're amazed and astonished at what
goes on. We know that thou art God, that all things works according
to your will, that you do your will in the armies of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay
in your hand or say unto you, what doest thou? And you're the
God who declares the end from the beginning, brings into existence
things that are not. And we thank you, Father, that
in your kindness and in your mercy and your great grace and
purpose, you chose out of this fallen race of people to make
your own you caused them by your grace to come to Christ to fall
on him for all their hope and salvation father we pray for
those who are sick thank you father for the good report on
some of those who have been operated on we thank you for the good
report on Kathy we pray for Randy if his brother continues to have
some after effects of this operation. Thank you that rain's doing well.
We ask, Lord, your help for the others who requested prayer,
that they would seek your face in all things and trust you implicitly.
We ask for your help tonight as we look at your word. Hold
me up, Father, that I might speak right things concerning thee.
I might set forth the gospel of Jesus Christ with clarity.
We pray in Christ's name, amen. Now if you're reading along with
me, this is the account of Moses' wrath, kindled against the people
upon seeing the molten calf that they had made. Now Moses, in
our last chapter, had been made aware of the existence of this
abomination. The Lord had sent him down off
the mountain with the full knowledge of what was occurring at the
base of Sinai. The Lord had already said to Moses, they've made a
molten calf. He'd already told Moses that. Now he goes down
and he sees it for the first time. Knowing a thing anecdotally
and seeing it are two different things. I knew well that the
elk were being introduced to our area and was glad for it.
But when the first time I laid eyes on one of them creatures,
I was overwhelmed and amazed. A whole lot different from what
I knew to be true than when I saw it with my own eyes. When Moses
came down from the mount, he saw for the first time what the
people had done. He who had just stood in the
breach, as it were, and mediated for the people to assuage God's
wrath against them as we looked at last time. Now he's filled
with indignation and with wrath and his wrath will not be contained.
That says something about humanity, doesn't it? It says something
about humanity. As he descended from the heights
of the presence of God to the depths of the valley of the idols,
he was carried with him the tables of stone engraved with God's
Ten Commandments. The author of this law is clearly
revealed in verse 16. It says this, And the tables
were the work of God. They were God's work, and the
writing was the writing of God. He wrote it or engraved it with
His finger given upon the table, graven upon the tables. They
were engraved by God's hand. This was not Moses' work or the
work of any man. the supreme authority of the
universe engraved this law with his finger. And it is important
to remember that these were not written as a guide for life.
Too late for that. They are already making idols
down at the bottom of the mountain. These laws were not written as
a guide for life. According to the word of God, the law was
added because of transgression. It entered that sin might abound,
it says in Romans 5. And it is obvious that the laws
had a great deal to do with what was going on at the base of this
mountain. If you read the Ten Commandments, especially those
that deal with idolatry in the first part of the Ten Commandments,
you'll find that what our Lord said should not and by the law
could not be done was exactly what they were doing at the bottom
of the mountain. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Up,
let us make gods. I shall not bow down to them.
This is the God who delivered us out of Israel, they said as
they looked at that calf. They've broken the law. So when
the law came down, it didn't come down to saying, y'all be
better people. This will help you be a better person. The law
came down to say, this is what you have done. This is the sin
you have committed. This is the condemnation that
you've incurred upon yourself for what you've done at the bottom
of the mountain. As Moses and Joshua neared the bottom of the
mount, the noise of the religious revival that was going on there
reached their ears. Joshua thought it sounded like
a war or a riot was going on. Moses heard the sound of celebration
and singing. The people weren't striving against
anything. They weren't trying to keep themselves
from being overcome by some enemy. They were having a party. They
were having a covered dish supper. Everything was going good. They
were laughing, they were singing, and they were dancing around
this so-called God that they had made. That's what it says
in verse 17 and 18. And then when Joshua heard the
noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, there's the
noise of war in the camp. Moses said, it's not the voice
of them that shout for mastery, neither is the voice of them
that cry for being overcome. is the noise of them that sing,
that sing do I hear. Though Moses had besought God
to not exercise his wrath and vengeance against the people,
as we saw last week, he could not forestall his own anger at
the sight of this molten calf and this frivolity that was going
on around it. He angrily cast the tables of
stone down and broke them into pieces. He broke them into pieces. It's interesting to note that
no punishment for this act was ever accounted for in Scripture.
Moses was not punished for breaking these laws. In fact, the Lord made two more
tables later on in the history of Israel. But this broken law
would go into the Ark of the Covenant underneath the mercy
seat with Aaron's rod that budded and a golden pot of manna that
was all covered by the blood of Christ as it was laid on this
mercy seat on the day of atonement each year. The broken law was
covered. The manna spoke of Christ being
the bread of life and Avery's rod that budded spoke of the
resurrection. He cast down and broke what God
had written with his own hand and was not punished for it.
In fact, it was a revelation. It was a revelation to the people
that they had broken God's law. They had broken God's law, which
the people had said they would keep. You remember we read back
around 20 and 21, those chapters, when he read the law, they said,
We'll keep it. We'll do that. Yes, and we'll do that. And you
remember what he did after they said that? He slew a lamb and
sprinkled the blood on the book and the law and the people and
everybody. on everybody because they said they would keep the
law. That's the idea that man has about this law. We can keep
it and you will. But you'll not love God with
all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. You'll not cease to
worship idols. You'll not cease to covet your
neighbor's property, your neighbor's wife. All these things will go
on. All these things will go on because that's in your heart.
Your heart is dark. My heart is dark. You won't cease
to do these things, but what you will keep, you will keep
it one way. You will keep it according to the penalty that
it exacts. Here's how you and I will keep
the law. We'll die. That's how the law will come.
That's the only law we'll keep, but we'll sure keep that one.
We'll sure keep that one. After he cast down the law and
broke it, that tells us something about the law. The law cannot
be bent. You know, people would like to
bend it and let some things seep in, mitigating circumstances
and such as that might alter the extent of the law, but the
law cannot be bent. It can only be broken. That's
all the law can do. It ain't gonna be broken. And
after he had thrown down the tables of stone, he burnt the
idol and ground it to powder. I wondered how that was done.
I don't know how he did that. I know he melted the gold, guess
he let it harden again, then ground it into powder. and after
he grounded in the powder he cast it upon in a brook in a
brook that came down Sinai and caused the people to drink up
the dust of their deity over in Deuteronomy chapter 9 Deuteronomy
chapter 9 verse 21 Moses tells of this incident to the people
just before they go into the promised land verse 21 he says
and I took your sin we see what this calf really was And I took
your sin, the calf which ye have made, and burnt it with fire,
and stamped it, and grounded it into small, even until it
was small as dust. And I cast the dust there into
the brook that descended out of the mountain. And there he
caused the people to drink, to ingest their God, to ingest their
God. Soon their pulverized potentate
would be cast out the draft. and languish in the latrine along
with the dung of their works, because that's what works are
if you do them in order to impress God. This was a work of their
hands to make their God, and that's what men do today. They
say it out loud where people can actually hear it and people
believe it. Make Jesus your Lord. If you
can make Him something, He's a God you made with your hands
and with your mind. Jesus Christ is Lord. He's always
been Lord. He's the Lord in creation and
He's the Lord earned as a human being to be Lord over all humanity
because He died in the room instead of His people. He rose and revived,
it says, that He might be Lord of the living and the dead. When
Paul considered all His works in Philippians chapter 3, He
considered all his works. He said, If you have any reason
to believe that you can accomplish a merit before God by the power
of your flesh, I have more reason than you. He was a member of
the Sanhedrin. That was the ruling legal body
of the Jewish people. He was a Pharisee. the law is
a Pharisee. He said, touching the law I was
blameless. I was a Hebrew of Hebrews. Circumcised the eighth
day. I kept the law before I even
knew what the law was. And he says, all of that, all
of that I count as done that I may win the Lord Jesus Christ.
And what follows is an interesting bit of fantastic narrative if
you were following along. Moses asked Aaron what the people
did to cause him to make this despicable idol. What did you
do? causes people to make this despicable and Aaron seeks to
excuse the people by asserting that it's just the way they are.
You know these people, they're bent to mischief. That's what
they do. They're just a mischievous people. Our Lord said they're
stiff-necked people, but he tried to excuse it. It's kind of a
well kids will be kids mentality that people often say when kids
get rambunctious. Then in verse 23, as much as
blames Moses for the people's idolatry, he said, for they said
under me, make us gods which shall go before us. For as for
this Moses, the man that brought us out of the land of Egypt,
we know not what was to come of him." What is he saying? He's
saying, well, Moses, if you'd have been here, they probably
wouldn't have done that. But you's gone. You know, while the
cat's away, the mouse will play, is what they say. You wasn't
here. If you'd have been here, it'd
have been different. If you'd have been here, it's kind of
like those over in Matthew chapter 25 and the Lord separates the
elect on the right hand and the non-elect on the left hand and
tells the elect on the right hand to enter into heaven which
is prepared for you for the foundation of the world. He says those on
his left hand enter into hell where the worm dieth not and
the fire is not consumed. The reason he gives it is because
I was hungry and you fed me, he says to his people. And those
that are going to hell said, well, if we'd have known you
was hungry, we'd have fed you. If we'd have known you was naked,
we'd have clothed you. Same kind of excuse, same kind
of excuse. If you would have been here,
it would have been a different story, is what he said. Then
to top off this explanation for the presence of the abomination,
he employs the language of fantasy. This is a fantastic oratory,
fantastic narrative. It says in verse 22, And I said
to them, Whosoever hath any gold, let him break it off. So they
gave it to me, and I cast it into the fire, and there came
out this calf, Alakazam. we know that he took the gold
and he beat it and molded it into this calf but he said I
threw in the gold in this fire and out come this calf. It's
a miracle isn't it? It's a miracle. It's fantastic
language. It didn't wash. In verse 25 it
says then Moses saw the people were naked for Aaron had made
them naked from their shame. Now working naked here doesn't
mean without clothing. It has to do with the people
having stripped off their jewelry and probably abandoned any army
or whatever. They just run around in their
underclothes basically. They were naked in their hearts
and souls. They were naked before God. Their shame was that they
had stripped themselves of their wealth to make themselves a god
and to worship an idol. Think about that. Pretty much
what goes on in this world today. People will give anything. anything
except that old profession. They'll give anything to get
to heaven. They'll give whatever they got.
They'll strip just to make themselves a God that will accept them on
the basis of their own merit. Verse 26 is telling, it says,
Then Moses stood at the gate of the camp and said, Who is
on the Lord's side? Interesting phrase. There's a
song we used to sing, Who is on the Lord's side? That's Old
Testament language. search you will the language
of the new testament from the words of our lord the words of
all the apostles you'll not find that language anywhere in scripture
who is on the lord's side it's old testament language it's another
word for who's going to repent of what they did and the old
covenant repentance would bring about the assuaging of wrath
and the giving of a blessing if you repented who is on the
lord's side and note that Aaron's sons were the first to come over
to Moses. Who are Aaron's sons? The priesthood.
They are the first ones to come. However, since being the first
one to come, they were with Aaron in the making of the idol. And knowing that repentance brings
reprieve, they were quick to join sides with Moses and the
Lord. they came on the side of Moses
he drew the line in the sand as it were to have these people come over
to his side verse 27 and 28 sets forth the
reasonable punishment for the sin of idolatry remember that's
what Moses called it in Deuteronomy 9 21 this is your sin to make
this idol this is your sin There's but one punishment for sin, whether
it be the sin of making an idol, like a golden calf, or any other
sin that you might do. There is no such thing as a small
sin, because there's no small God to sin against. If you sin,
there's one thing that should do you death. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. That's the language of scripture.
God must punish sin. He's holy. He's holy. He's too good not to punish sin. The sun, moon, and stars are
not pure in His sight, much less man that's born of a woman that's
a worm of the dust, a maggot on a dunghill, ever living to
sin against God. Every sin is worthy of death.
The soul that sinneth in must die. That's what has to happen to
these people. I was thinking about it and I realized because
Moses came to the gates, he didn't go house to house. They didn't
go tent to tent, if you will, but at the gates. Where are the
gates? The gates was in the center of the 12 tribes as they'd set
up their tents and so forth and set around. It was like a center
structure. This is where all this action
happened. Probably most of the people in Israel weren't involved
in this worship in the cave. Because only 3,000 died here.
And they said it was upwards of a million people that came
out of Egypt. So this is the people that was worshiping this
cave. Aaron's sons were part of it. But they repented. They repented. This is a scenario
for those who bring the law to sinful people. You think about
it. Moses comes down with the law. How does that end up? People
dying. People dying. Having broken the
law, there awaits only the death that the law demands. In the
Old Covenant, the Old Covenant offers no hope, only death. The
Gospel declares the truth that all men are sinners. no question
about it. And a change in behavior will
not suffice. It does speak of a change in
behavior here which is biblical repentance under the Old Covenant.
In verse 29 it says, And Moses said, Consecrate yourselves,
and he's talking to the sons of Abraham, consecrate yourselves
today to the Lord, even every man upon his son and upon his
brother. And what he's talking about is consecrate, get yourself
consecrated, put on your sword and go kill these people. That's
what it means there. when they crossed that line and
came with Moses, they showed repentance, that He may bestow
a blessing upon you. He's not going to bestow a blessing
upon you unless you do what He said to do. This is the Old Covenant. Thank God for the New Covenant.
It does not require our obedience in anything that has to do with
our salvation. It requires the obedience of one, and that is
the Lord Jesus Christ. The law can do nothing but condemn
and pronounce sinners. Would the God-men learn that?
The Gospel declares that sin has to be punished. The Gospel
does not let you off the hook. The Gospel says your sin has
got to be punished. Your sin has to be punished. You do not
have to be if you are His, but your sin does. He lays stripes
on our transgressions, it says in Psalm 89. The gospel declares
that sin must be punished, and it is punished and has been punished
in the substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. And those for whom the
substitute died are free from the law. The child of God has
nothing to do with the law. It's his former husband who has
died and buried and put aside and set aside. It did its job. What was the job of the old covenant?
here God chose a nation a natural election chose a people and he
did everything for them he gave them the law he gave them the
ceremonies all these things pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ he gave
them the oracles or the teachers he gave them the prophets he
gave them the word he gave them all this stuff and they still
rebelled against him they had no interest in anything we're
studying in Jeremiah on Sunday afternoon All they're doing is
what they're doing right here. Same thing they did 47 days after
they got out of Egypt. They're still doing just before
the Lord brings the end to it in 70 A.D. A lot of years have
passed. They've not changed. All the
Lord did for them didn't do anything. Does that mean what He did for
them was of no effect? No, it was exactly the effect
it was supposed to have. The effect it was supposed to
have was simply this. It was to show that when men
are required to obey God in order to be blessed, they won't obey
God. And that's what the Old Testament
taught. Not the Old Testament, but the
Old Covenant taught. That what men were required of
God to do, they didn't do. Oh, there were repentances here
and there, but most of them were false repentances. they repented
because they got caught. And under the old covenant, you
think about this, if you were under that covenant today, and
all you had to do was undo the sin you did was to change your
behavior, then hey, you'd be changing your behavior every
30 minutes. You know you would. But that wouldn't stop you from
sinning and needing to repent again. Repentance and faith are
not required of the child of God except as God requires what
He has given He grants repentance and gives the gift of faith.
The Gospel declares that sin has been punished. My sin was
punished. My sin, your sin, was laid on
Jesus Christ on the cross. It was made to meet on Him. Our
sin, our filth, our degradation, our ruin, Our violence was made
to meet on the Savior. And our sin was condemned on
Christ. And our sin was punished on Christ. And our sin was put away by Christ
in a substitutionary sacrifice. Those for whom the substitute
died are free. They're free from sin. They're
free from the penalty of sin. They're free from the power of
sin. They're free from the sovereign rule of sin. Oh, it was our sovereign,
but a greater than him has put him down. and set us free. The law has been satisfied so
much so that God can look at me, who still am a wretch, by
nature I am still the wretch I was from the day I was born.
He can look at me and be just to say I'm justified. Why? Because
what He required for the payment of sin has been met by the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the gospel of God's grace.
What do you get from the law? Well, it'll come down from the
mountain. you in sin and be broken right before you. You've broken
the law. What will the gospel do? It'll
come down from Calvary, another mountain with grace and mercy
abounding to the chief of sinners. I don't know about you, but if
you're going to put these two covenants in front of me, I'm
going to take the new covenant. That's the one I want. Father,
bless us to understand and pray in Christ's name. Amen.