The title of this message solicits images in our minds of Jesus on the Cross on a mountain called Calvary and rightfully so because it was there that the fullness of God’s grace and mercy was poured out on mankind through the accomplishment of salvation. This morning, however, I would like to take us back to another mountain. A mountain called Mt. Sinai. A mountain where Moses had an experience with God. A mountain where grace flowed. EXODUS 32:7-14
ISRAEL’S IDOLATRY, GOD’S JUDGMENT and a SWEET DEAL
1. Israel turns to idolatry after Moses’ lengthy stay on Mt. Sinai. They revel and worship this idol as their god, ironically enough, at the same time Moses is receiving the command found in EXODUS 20:4-6. The people are doing exactly what the Lord is forbidding.
2. God is OMNISCIENT so He sees their sin and threatens judgment. God is OMNISCIENT so He sees and knows His people’s wickedness. We are clearly reminded of the fact that GOD DOES NOT TOLERATE, EXCUSE OR “LOOK THE OTHER WAY” WHEN IT COMES TO SIN. He is perfectly holy and just and because He is so sin demands this type of response.
3. God offers to start “fresh” with Moses. Should Moses have taken God up on this offer we would reference the Jewish people as the children of Moses rather than the children of Abraham. They would be known as the Mosesites rather than the Israelites.
MOSES PRAYS
While a great deal was offered, Moses refuses the deal to be the one that the Lord “starts new” with. Rather than becoming “the man” he begins to pray. In prayer, Moses appeals to…
• GOD’S FATHERLY AFFECTION. Moses prayed, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people...”? When God informed Moses of the people’s sin He referred to them as Moses’ people. God was reminding Moses that these people, these people who are prone to sin and sinfulness, are his people insofar as that Moses is of them and the same sin that is going on in the camp is possible for even him. Yet in prayer, Moses confesses that these people, these broken and prone to sinfulness people, are His people. He is their Father and it is only by Him and for Him that they even exist. Moses knows that God is a loving, merciful and compassionate Father and he appeals to God’s Fatherly affection for His own in prayer.
• GOD’S GOOD NAME. Secondly, Moses has high regard for the good name of the Lord. As Moses sees it, should the Lord destroy His people now the Egyptians as well as the other nations that knew of God’s great deliverance of His people from Egypt would begin to think that He was unable to finish what He started or that He only had plans of evil for them. They would begin to mock His great name. Moses understood that the name of the Lord is great and should be held in high regard and he makes his case before the Lord on the basis of His good name. Moses had a zeal for God’s glory among the nations!
• GOD’S MERCIFUL COMPASSION. This was how his prayer began, with seeking God’s favor (Exod. 32:11), asking God to show unmerited grace to sinners. The appeal for mercy became even more explicit at the end of verse 12, where Moses asked God to turn away from his wrath. There was nothing wrong with God’s wrath. It was holy, just, and pure, as it always is. And it was an appropriate response to this situation. The Israelites deserved to be punished for their sins, and there was nothing Moses could say to the contrary. There was one thing Moses could do, however, and that was to ask God to turn aside his wrath—in a word, to show mercy.
• GOD’S EVERLASTING COVENANT. Moses saved his best argument for last. His final appeal was based on God’s everlasting covenant: “Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever’ ” (Exod. 32:13). This time Moses actually quoted God, appealing to him on the basis of his own unbreakable promise. Now that’s a good argument!He recalls God’s great promises that He has made to the patriarchs. Promises of good and not harm. Promises of greatness in number and promises of blessing in the land of promise. Moses understands that God is a promise keeper and he makes his case before the Lord on the basis of Him not being like man that He should lie but the everlasting and unchanging promise keeper.
GRACE FLOWS FROM THE MOUNTAIN.
DID GOD CHANGE? In response to Moses’ prayer we find that God did not destroy the whole lot of Israel, as He was provoked to do by their sin but showed mercy and grace towards them. On the surface, it can appear that here that God suddenly changed because of Moses’ prayer. While there is a connection between Moses’ prayer and God’s relenting let us be reminded that THE LORD DOES NOT CHANGE—MALACHI 3:6; NUMBERS 23:19. I spoke earlier of God’s OMNISCIENCE in reference to His all-knowingness. Another word that summarizes the nature of God is His IMMUTABILITY, meaning that He does not change in being, purposes and/or plans. I believe that God’s plan was to show His people mercy and grace all along! If God wanted to truly destroy Israel then why even converse with Moses about it? Why would He even allow Moses to hang around after He had told him to go away? Was Moses suddenly now greater than God? Surely not!
OR WAS THIS A TEST FOR MOSES? I believe that this whole encounter is a time of testing for Moses. Moses was “the man” in Egypt but is he fit to be the LOVING SHEPHERD OUTSIDE OF EGYPT? Does Moses have the character and heart to lead God’s people? In this encounter we learn a lot about God in that His wrath burns against sin and at the same time He is merciful towards sinners. At the same time, Moses is learning a lot about himself in this encounter. When Moses prays for his people MOSES IS NOT TELLING GOD WHO HE IS BUT GOD IS SHOWING MOSES WHO HE IS… Moses’ appeal was based upon God’s nature, plans, purposes, and covenant and therefore God was pleased to answer his prayer. God is refining Moses in preparation of the task of now serving as shepherd of His people. This test, much like the test that Abraham experienced when he was tested by God when he was told to sacrifice his son, is designed to promote, refine and mature Moses in the faith because the task ahead of him is going to call more from him than before.
Therefore, this passage is not intended to solicit a debate over whether God changes or not. It is clear from the biblical testimony that GOD DOES NOT CHANGE. It was God’s plan all along to let His grace and mercy flow from the mountain down to His sinful and rebellious people. This was a test for Moses where God would refine and draw out of him what was needed for the task of shepherding a stiff-necked, grumbling, complaining, prone to disobedience people.
APPLICATION
1. SIN IS SERIOUS REGARDLESS OF WHAT WE SAY/THINK ABOUT IT. 1 CORINTHIANS 10:6-11. says that encounters such as this, specifically referenced by Paul, was recorded for our instruction so that we would not do as the people of old did. God’s people were quick to take the sin of idolatry and sexual immorality lightly. This was their error and their error is to serve as a warning and lesson for us. To take personal sin lightly is to pervert the grace that God has been shown to us in Christ. Furthermore, when we lighten the severity of sin before our holy God we minimize the beauty and majesty of grace. We will never fully understand or be thankful for the amazing grace of which we sing unless we understand the severity of our sin before God.
2. PRAYER IS POWERFUL WHEN WE PRAY IN ACCORDANCE TO GOD’S WILL. Moses’ prayer was powerful in this instance because he prayed in accordance to God’s nature and will. God delights to move in response to the prayers of His people when they are prayed in accordance to His nature and will. Jesus says in JOHN 14:12-14 that those who believe in Him will be about what He is about therefore, because the will of His people will line up with His will they are able to ask for anything IN HIS NAME and He will do it. If we are going to have an effective and powerful prayer life we must know the One in whose name we are praying so we can pray in accordance to His nature as well as know what He is about so that we can be about and pray for what He is about.
3. THE LORD TESTS US TO DRAW OUT OF US THAT WHICH HE HAS PUT INTO US. There are times in our walk with the Lord when He will test us so that we may progress in the faith. When we are tested it is always for our good because in our testing Jesus will bring out of us that which He has put into us—more love, more generosity, more compassion, more mercy, more faith, etc… Moses had been a shepherd of sheep for 40 years prior to coming back to Egypt. Now, God was going to use Him to shepherd His people and all the traits that He had built into Moses in the field are being drawn out and refined to prepare him to shepherd that which is more valuable to Him than sheep.
4. GOD IS MERCIFUL TOWARDS MESSED UP and BROKEN PEOPLE. Jesus says in JOHN 5:39-40 all of the Scriptures, referring to the Old Testament collection of the day, witnesses/testifies about Him and as we deal with our text today we know this to be true. In our passage, Moses serves as a type, or picture of/foreshadowing, of Jesus who was to come when he INTERCEDES before God on behalf of messed up and broken people. PSALM 106:23 draws this out for us even more. Just as Moses “stood in the breach” or bridged the gap between God who is holy and people who are sinful, so has Jesus stood in the gap between us who are sinners and the Father who is holy. It was on a mountain where Jesus “stood in the breach” for us. His standing, however, was not upright and on His two feet. His standing was actually Him hanging on a cross. Jesus did not just pray on our behalf; however, He actually took upon Himself the full measure of the Father’s wrath over our sin on that cross so that we may receive grace and mercy through salvation. This was all in accordance to the Father’s perfect purpose and plans because He desired to be merciful towards people who are messed up and broken by sin. Jesus is our great intercessor! For those of us who are followers of Christ, Jesus continues to intercede for us as ROMANS 8:31-35 points out. We get this picture from the New Testament of Satan accusing the believer before God every time we revert to our old sinful ways. The Good News is that we have a GREAT INTECESSOR who stands before the Father and the Christian and intercedes on our behalf when accused by the enemy reminding him (the enemy) that He has paid the price for the totality of our sin.
