2026_11_08_Exodus

Thank you for the way you've cared for us and for providing this time and place for us to meet and gather round your word to encourage one another.

Now, Lord, we especially remember Brenda today and ask for your mercy and grace and comfort. You are the God of all comfort, and we trust you for that.

And we look forward to that day, although it's not pleasant when we face it, we do look forward to that day when we see you face to face.

Now, bless your word, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So, God called Moses up the mountain.

He said, bring a couple of tablets with you. This time you're going to cut them out. I cut them out the last. Okay, I know it's a paraphrase. I cut them out the last time.

This time you're going to cut them out. Bring them up. I'm going to rewrite the words of the covenant, the ten words of the covenant as it's called, the ten suggestions.

The ten commandments. The ten commandments. And so, Moses goes up, and God says, I am going to declare my name before you.

And so, he declares some things about himself that he calls his name. And among those are his grace and mercy and longsuffering.

And also his justice and his retribution. And also his choice that I will be gracious on whom I will be gracious.

And then Moses asked him to see his glory. And God said, well, you can't take it.

No man can see my face and live. And so, he said, but here's what I'll do for you. I'll put you in this declivity of the rock.

I'll put my hand over you. I will make my glory pass before you. And as I'm leaving, I'll take my hand away. And you can see a portion. You can see, as it were, the backside of my glory.

Now, Moses then, is going to hand in chapter 34.

Moses brings those tablets. And he goes up the mountain.

We're at about verse 5. And the Lord descended there in a cloud. I'm sorry. And he proclaims himself.

And we're going to launch out with verse 8. So, my first question comes from that verses 8 through 16.

What's Moses' response to God's revelation of himself? When God declares his name, as it were, before him, what's Moses' response?

Yes. And quickly he did. Quickly. So, in haste he bowed down and worshipped.

And he asked God something. Yeah.

Yeah. If I have found grace in your sight, what? Go among us. Go among us.

For we are stiff-necked. We're stiff-necked. And pardon our iniquity and sin. And take us for your inheritance.

Now, who belongs to God? Everything. All.

But, to Abraham, God said, I'm going to make a special thing here. You're going to be unlike the rest of the people. Everybody belongs to him.

But you're going to be my special possession. He says to Abraham. Well, has God forgotten his promise to Abraham?

Moses has reminded him several times. Did God ever forget? No. Did he not forget? Because Moses reminded him?

No. There's one thing we do know for sure that God says he will remember no more. And it's by his grace.

What is it? Our sins. I'll cast them away. I will remember them no more. That's pretty amazing.

The God who knows where every hair is or used to be. And he has them numbered. Think about it. That's unfathomable.

He knows when the sparrow. In fact, it says in the Old Testament, he says, who do you think gives the raven their food when they're calling?

Well, the answer is rhetorical, isn't it? I do. Who is it that gives the young lion his prey? I do. It's God.

Everything. Every green upset. Every star in the sky. Now, we don't see so many anymore. Because we have all these lights. You look down and you see, you drive around, you don't see dark places very much.

I remember, this has nothing to do with it, just exemplary. Sherry and I were, were going to Chicago's airport early in the morning.

We left Dayton, flew to Chicago. It's flat dark. I'm looking out the window, as I always do. And lights everywhere. And then we flew over Lake Michigan.

And it went dark. Well, when we look up in the constellations, at the constellations now, we see a few stars.

But, if you're in a place where it's dark, you have no ambient light, and it's a clear night, it's unbelievable, nearly.

You've been up in, at the camp in Michigan. We've been sitting, we were sitting out on the point in, Blind River, Ontario. Well, not in, but near it.

No light for a half a mile. And you could see satellites crossing. And, the number of stars is unfathomable.

And he knows them all. And he has a name for every one of them. And this God, says, I'm going to make you special. And this is the God, who says, I'm a God of judgment.

And I'm going to judge myself, on the cross. That's unreal. It, it makes no human sense to me.

That he took my sin, and gave me his righteousness. That's amazing grace. That's, mercy, mercy. Well, I don't want what I deserve.

I do not desire what I deserve. I desire, God's mercy. Okay, that, I didn't mean to chase that rabbit that far.

But, all right. So, Moses said, go with us. We're stiff-necked. And, have mercy upon us.

What's God then say to him? Yeah.

He said, I'm going to make you a promise. I'm going to make a covenant with you. Now, God didn't just make one covenant, or two. This is, I'm going to make an agreement with you.

What's the agreement? I will do marvels with you, such as never been seen. Okay?

It is a terrible thing that I am going to do with you. Now, when we say terrible, we usually mean something evil or destructive.

But, it, it means awesome in the truest sense of the word. It, it, yeah, impressive. Hardly even carries it, does it?

He said, this is, this is an awesome thing I'm going to do with you. Okay? When I do what? Yes.

Now, if we got in our time machine, we find out that God gave them orders to do so, and they didn't do it. But, we're going to stay here right now.

if you do what you're supposed to do, says God to Israel at this point, I'm going to do this with you. I'm going to drive them out.

Now, see, he said, this is, this is critical. He says, observe what I'm going to tell you. Now, by the way, when was our salvation planned?

Oh, so it wasn't, God didn't think it up after the law, and after Israel rejected their Messiah.

Right? No, he says in Ephesians, look, this was in God's mind from the beginning. It's a real offer, but he already has everything planned out, because he's going to show himself gracious, and merciful, and just.

He's going to be both just, and justifier of them that believe. Yes. Is this a two-sided covenant, or a two-sided? This one is two-sided. This one is?

Yeah, he says, if you do what I command you, then I'm going to do this. Abraham, Abraham's covenant, God went through alone, it was a one-sided.

It was the promise, and in fact, the Apostle Paul uses the Abrahamic covenant to, as a picture of our salvation by faith, because he said, he said, Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, and he will use this analogy and say, the law, which came 430 years after Abraham, did not set aside God's covenant.

So, Israel's rejection of the law did not set aside the Abrahamic covenant. Yes. When we say that Abraham is the father of all of those who have the Lord and also of his nation, the law of the Lord.

Yeah, in this dispensation, that's the way Paul phrases it. He says, he becomes the father of all them that believe after this fashion.

So, yes. I say, not everybody is the physical child of Abraham.

There are some. Now, not all the physical children of Abraham are children of this promise. Because Abraham said, I know we're going backwards here a little bit, but it will do to remind me God came to Abraham again in a theophany and he said, Sarah's going to have a son next year and I'm going to come back and see him.

I know, it's a paraphrase. I'm going to come back and see your baby next year. And, you know, Sarah laughs and because I have given you this promise and it's going to be fulfilled.

and Abraham's going to say, oh, that Ishmael may live before you. Fulfill this through Ishmael, my firstborn. And what does God say?

No. No. That's what he said. He said, no, it's going to be through Isaac that I'm going to do this. God said, and that's exactly what God did.

So, yeah, we're not all children of Abraham physically. We are, if we belong to Christ, we, in this day, we are spiritually because we have trusted, we believe what God said.

incidentally, you know someone who says, well, you have to have enough faith. You have to have enough faith to move these mountains.

Or to, you know, by moving these mountains, I usually mean by getting this car or something else, you know. you have to have enough faith.

As though, if you had enough faith, you would never be sick. Right? Well, you know somebody who talks that way.

But, when the Lord speaks of faith and talks about Abraham in Romans there, he says, Abraham believed God.

Now, Abraham believed what God said. Abraham did not necessarily believe what God had not said. There's a big difference there in that there is a danger for saying, if you have enough faith, you can move God.

That makes me the controller of the almighty God.

That's dangerous ground to be walking. So, back to chapter 34. So, then God tells Moses what Israel is to do about religious tolerance.

What is Israel to do about religious tolerance when they come to the land? Make no agreement with them.

Now, wait a minute. What about live and let live? was that God's order? Okay. So, for Israel entering the promised land, there was no such thing.

In fact, they were told specifically not to do it. Indeed, he had said before that he was going to utterly destroy the Amalekites through Israel and back in your time machine, you're going to go forward to the first king of Israel.

His name was Saul. By the way, who anointed Saul? Sam?

Samuel anointed Saul. Why did Samuel anoint Saul? God told him to. Now, I need to remember that. That wasn't a mistake.

God told him to anoint Saul. So, God tells Saul, you utterly wipe out these Amalekites completely.

What did Saul do? We have to go pretty quick here. He, okay, he wiped out most of them.

Who'd he save? Agag. He saved King Agag. and he also saved what?

Some livestock. And Samuel comes and he said, have you done everything that God told you to do?

And what'd Saul say? Yes! I did exactly what God told me to do. and Samuel has a great line. What then meaneth this bleeding in my ears?

Why do I hear this livestock? and he told him then, God has torn the kingdom from your hand because you did not obey what he told you to do.

Right.

Right. Right. Right. He did. And he warned them. He said, look, he said, if you leave these inhabitants here, I know we're in the time machine again, we're going forward to when they're entering the land.

Here's what's going to happen. There are going to be thorns in your side and they are going to be like thistles or sticks in your eye. Were they?

Yeah. And we're going to see why, because he gives a warning here. So, he says, no agreement whatsoever. You utterly destroy their altars, their images, cut down their groves.

You utterly wipe out their religion. Not just them, but their religion too. Wipe it out. Now, why?

Now, we come to the reason and we already know what the results were. Why? What does that mean?

Have you ever had someone, by the way, have you ever had someone say, well, jealousy is bad and therefore God couldn't be jealous or anything like that?

I met a person who said that to me. God cannot what? Exactly.

The only response I can have is, yeah, it's wrong for me to be jealous, but it's not wrong for God. I'm not God. God cannot deny himself.

He cannot pretend he's not the only one. So, he shares his glory with no one, not an idol and not with men. So, he said, I'm a jealous God.

Now, to what will a covenant with these people lead? To what will syncretic religions lead?

He uses pretty explicit language here, and we're going to go ahead and use it because there's a gut response that God is demanding from this.

It kind of jolts you when you read it, doesn't it? Because he doesn't use very flowery language here. What does he say? He said, you're going to be a bunch of whores and you're going to chase them.

That's pretty graphic. Why? Why does God use that language? Right.

they are going to be he uses marriage as an analogy here. And he uses it several times in scripture.

We're going to look at that a little bit. But it will lead to going after other gods because now he doesn't say it here but their religious practices are going to be a little bit more fun than the ones I'm going to give you.

Right. Right.

It well and he said this is going to lead to what? This whoring after the other gods.

it's going to lead to unequal yokes.

You're going to yoke up my daughters your daughters my daughters he will say and my sons to theirs and then when they yoke up what are they going to do?

They're going to go this way. It's a whole lot easier to slide downhill than it is to slide up. So let's take a moment here and just look a little bit because this is not the only time that God uses marriage and the infidelity as an analogy and we won't look at everyone necessarily but we're going to look at a couple in Isaiah he uses it this will be when Israel is being gathered back to the land after dispersion Israel's coming back to the land and if you want to look it up it's Isaiah 62 5 for as a young man that marrieth a virgin so my sons will marry you talking about the land and as a bridegroom now he's going to switch it a little bit as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride so shall thy

God rejoice over you so this he's using marriage as an analogy in this case it's Israel being engathered in Hosea here's another great reason that that Hosea who he is calling as a prophet the word of the Lord came to Hosea son of Beri in the days of Isaiah Jotham Ahaz and

Hezekiah kings of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam the king the son of Joash king of Israel and this is what God commanded!

Hosea you're going to remember this one it's pretty rough Hosea go take a wife of Hordom and her children of Hordoms for the land hath committed great Hordom departing from the Lord he uses that graphic image again there's a guttural response if you will this isn't just a simple thing it's a jolting thing and he says I'm going to make you an example aren't you glad he doesn't call the prophets I'm glad I'm in the day of grace he God told Hosea to do that in in Matthew you know both of these this is the Lord Jesus giving the analogy of marriage he said the kingdom of heaven is going to be like a king who declared a feast for his son his son is getting married there's a wedding feast and those that were bidden to the feast didn't come in fact the messengers they grabbed they beat them up and they killed them threw them away so the king sent his army and destroyed the city wiped them out then he said go out into highways and byways and bring all these people in both good and bad so that

I can have guests at my son's wedding feast this is another analogy of marriage and then the parable goes on to say and the wedding venue was filled with people and the king came in and he saw one guy there who wasn't wearing wedding clothes and he said haul him out and throw him out where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth he said you didn't come dressed that was a kingdom offered to Israel later on he's going to use wedding or marriage as an analogy with the ten foolish virgins five of them came without extra oil five of them came with oil so there were ten virgins five foolish five wise while the foolish ones were out buying oil the wedding party came in and the doors got shut and they weren't allowed in those were images of marriage that

God used regarding telling telling about this is what the kingdom of heaven is like the apostle Paul will say in Romans chapter seven he's going to use the analogy of a marriage being married as though you were married to the law when it before grace came but when the law died your spouse died you were free to marry another and that's going to be Jesus that's in Romans chapter seven verse four especially wherefore my brethren ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ that ye should be married to another even to him who is raised from the dead that is the Lord Jesus that we should bring forth fruit under God he uses that analogy for the church in 2nd

Corinthians he's going to use that analogy because the Corinthian church was being told that Paul's not a real apostle you know he's he's not a real apostle and so the apostle Paul will write to them in 2nd Corinthians chapter 11 I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy for I have espoused you to one husband to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ!

he uses that analogy of marriage again then we'll finish it up with Ephesians chapter 5 and here he will switch the analogy if you will and he's going to put and I'm going to specifically talk to we husbands us husbands I'm sorry about that in that he's going to tell us that we are to treat our wives as Christ treats the church and he's going to say therefore love your wife and you even as Christ is head of the church you know husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word now husbands he's talking to us you sanctify your wife and you wash your wife as it were with water but by word that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word that he might present it to himself a glorious church without spot or wrinkle that's how we're to treat our wives so there again

I know every man in here is doing exactly that I know that no don't look at Sherry so those are just a few examples where God is using marriage that's not the only ones he he gets very graphic in in some other places but the idea is there's a visceral response here that comes with not only a mental acknowledgement but I understand what he's saying I feel what he's saying because imagine if your wife was acting that way or if your husband was acting that way it it's it's not a small deal not at all so just a few analogies used in the scripture back to chapter 34 verse 17 okay verses 17 through 27 those verses include a few laws now some of them he's already stated and a couple of them are new but it has to do with making idols the molten gods has to do with the feast of unleavened bread has to do with the firstborn dedicated to

God those we've seen before it has to do with the Sabbath it has to do he reiterates the Sabbath by the way a number of times through the law it has to do with some of the feasts that is there are going to be three high feasts where every male of yours is supposed to attend it's going to involve the feast of weeks the Pentecost it will involve!

the general rule of animal sacrifice that you will offer none of my sacrifice well this is also meat sacrifice you'll offer no sacrifice to me that has leaven and he'll reiterate that again but that and the first fruits of the land and an interesting one you will not cook a kid in his own mother's mill so I don't know if it's true I am told that in Israel you can't buy a cheese burger I don't know that that's true but that's what I was told and they use that verse as an argument I've never been there I've never been to a hamburger stand there so I can't answer that now let's go ahead please with verses 28 unless you want to reiterate something about those rules yes well we can say that

I don't have an answer he doesn't say that specifically he does he I will say this he did I know of no verse regarding Israel that tells Israel that they were to evangelize the world I can't bring a verse up that tells you that he does say you're supposed to be a light but it's a bit of a stretch to get from a light on the hill Jerusalem the temple to bringing all the heathen into Judaism that's a bit of a stretch for me some of them came out of Egypt with them some of them they came out as a mixed multitude there was oh yeah they never stopped the option you could be a proselyte and in the days of the apostle

Paul I don't know that he ever encountered them in the synagogue but he did encounter God fearers in fact Cornelius with Peter was a God fearing man who acknowledged he did not come under Judaism he wasn't circumcised he didn't obey the law he didn't there's nothing to say that he obeyed any of the law other than maybe some moral things but he he was a he was a he was a he was concerned so he encountered God fearing people but and they became part of the church after the revelation of the gospel of the grace of God after Paul they started to become Gentiles were coming into the church because it was the middle wall of partition had been torn down yes well he he does say and well that's one of the things that is

God called an abomination that he hated about the Moabites was the worship of Chemosh and he will later on tell them you will never send your children through the fire but they did and those of us who were just at the PRC banquet can relate to that in terms of modern the modern society oh they don't burn them but they kill them and they're largely sacrificed for convenience almost all anyway I'm sorry but back to this so that any other of the laws you wanted to go let's stop right there and if you want to attend to one of the laws we have a couple of minutes we could do so but other than that we'll pick up at verse 28 next week

God willing and it's just fine if the Lord returns before then I don't care what Sam Dahl says I don't have to wait till the 30 he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he he fathers he he he he he