Abounding Grace

Pastor Ed Taylor: Somebody comes to you and says, "I want you to help me to sin." Here's what you tell them: No. You might say, "Are you out of your mind?" But you can just say no right away. You can say it in whatever way is necessary that it will be received. It might be a soft no. It might have to be a hard no. But I'm telling you, it better be no.

If by chance it's a yes, and you bring sin upon the people because you are a people, too, then you need to take responsibility. You serve under the accountability of this church, under my leadership, under our leadership, but more importantly, you have accountability to the Lord.

Guest (Male): Last time on Abounding Grace, we learned that impatience very often leads to compromise. As we'll see today, there are also consequences of sin that can linger. It's not only true for the children of Israel, but for us as well. Find your place in Exodus chapter 32 as we turn the program over to Pastor Ed Taylor.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Take your Bibles, open them in Exodus chapter 32. Exodus chapter 32. We're going to pick up where we left off last time, and the title of our Bible study is Consequences of Sin Linger.

Sometimes God is very, very gracious, and the consequences of sin don't linger. God is just gracious, and He shows us His mercy and His grace, and He shows favor. But many times, the consequences of sin will linger. We learned last time how impatience will often lead to compromise and sin. That inability on our part to wait on the Lord, and how careful we need to be when waiting on the Lord, because difficulties in our lives often start with what we perceive as a delay from God.

Whether it is a delay from God or not, we don't know. We perceive it that way because God has His timing and we have our timing. When those don't match, we do see that as a delay. We interpret delays often from God as denials. When impatience sets in, we jump in with our own ideas, our own solutions, and our own actions, taking things into our own hands. That's what happens with the children of Israel here. It's exactly what happened.

Something good, something great, something grand has just happened. They're not too far ahead, and it hasn't been too long that they were delivered at the Red Sea, that they were taken out of Egypt, and God's just showing faithfulness after faithfulness after faithfulness. Then there was a seeming pause where Moses goes up to speak with God there for 40 days. Somewhere along the way, the people become impatient, and that impatience leads them into the greatest temptation that we face almost every day, and that's to respond in the flesh, to have a response that is based upon my wants, my desires, and not God's.

I do believe, as we learned, that they did want to obey, that they were committed people, that they had declared their loyalty. For example, in Exodus 24:7, "All that the Lord has said, we will do and be obedient," were their words. But their weaknesses were exposed. They learned their own weaknesses, their own personal need for God's strength, and their powerful enemy that they faced. They learned how important it was to trust in the Lord because they were weak, and they did need God and they had a powerful enemy.

This event, as we saw last time, this event will become an epic moment in the history of the children of Israel. It will be one, as you read through the Bible, that's repeated over and over and over and over again. It seems at times that it is repeated just as much as the Exodus event itself, this golden calf. As the Exodus is recounted time and time again, this episode becomes a blot on their record, and they'll be reminded about it over and over.

One example is Psalm 106:19. It says, "They made a calf in Horeb and worshipped the molded image. Thus they changed their glory into the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God their Savior who had done great things in Egypt." Not just impatience, but forgetfulness. Let's pick up in verse 11 of Exodus chapter 32.

Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God and said, "Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak and say, 'He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth'? Turn from your fierce wrath and relent from this harm to your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of, I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'" So the Lord relented from the harm which He had said He would do to His people.

This is Moses' response back in verse 10, where God says, "Now therefore, let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, and I will make of you a great nation." What an offer. The children of Israel turn idolatrous with his brother Aaron as a leader, and God says, "I'm done. I'm done with them. I'll wipe them out and make a brand new nation out of you, Moses." Given the right time and the right day, you might say yes to that. "Oh yeah, wipe them all out, Lord. Let's do this together." But that would be a prideful response, wouldn't it?

Because we are them. In many ways, none of us are perfect. Moses' response is no. He pleads for them. He intercedes for them. What God is doing in Moses as a leader is drawing out, through these difficulties, prayer and intercession. I love how Moses' response reveals how he's not really concerned about his own future. He's concerned about the glory and honor of God. He's not concerned about an easy life or an easier life. He's not concerned about getting out of any of the leadership responsibilities, having to go and correct and instruct and deal with people. He's not concerned with any of those things. He's concerned with the glory of God and the honor of the name of God.

He's concerned what people will say if they misinterpret this whole event as God not keeping His promises, or God not honoring, or God being vengeful and wrathful. He says, "Lord, why are you angry with your people? They're not mine, they're yours. I'm just your servant. These are your people," he says in verse 11. "Your prestige," in verse 12. "Turn from this," he asks. What a heart of a pastor, of a leader, of a shepherd, of a mom or a dad interceding for those that have failed. Moses says, "Man, if you wipe them out, what will the Egyptians think of you? They'll say you don't keep your promises. Remember the servants whom you swore to and you gave your word to."

In verse 14, it says, "So the Lord relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people." Moses' prayer is a very powerful one. It's in this verse here that many people stumble with this word 'relented.' It implies in the English language that God changed His mind. But the real question is, did God really change His mind? Because according to Numbers 23:19 and many other places, the Bible says God is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man that He should repent. Has He said, or will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make good?

That leaves us with a biblical dilemma that perhaps one of your friends has asked you or will point out. "Look at this. The Bible says that God doesn't change, but here's a contradiction because it says He did change." Let's talk about that for a moment so you can understand what's happening here. If you're taking notes, I want you to understand that this is a form of language to help describe God. It is an anthropomorphic use of language. This is God being described in human terms. Now why would we describe God in human terms? Why would we do that?

The reason we would do that is because we have no other terms by which to relate to God. We are humans, so we will see everything through our human language. We are limited by our human language, and so we use it to the best of our ability to describe the behaviors of God. This is the only way for a human to describe that which is infinite, is to use pictures and phrases that we can understand. Here, God is not changing His mind. All along He knew exactly what He was going to do. In verse 10, He makes a threat. If somebody wants to bring you to this text and try to tell you there's a contradiction, understand verse 10 is a threat, it is not a decree. It is a statement, it is not a promise.

He makes a threat, not a decree, to destroy them, and it was through this statement that perked Moses up and got him on his knees to pray for his people. Moses now revealed as an intercessor. Moses now being drawn out by God. Who puts this kind of heart in Moses to pray for his people? God does. He puts a heart in Moses as we'll see just the depth of development that God draws out. I'm encouraged by the life of Moses because one of the many things it shows us is that God can change a person.

God can change a person. You remember we were introduced to Moses. He had a big heart for God, a desire to serve Him, a desire to be a deliverer, but he took things into his own hands when he murdered that Egyptian. Then he spent 40 years on the backside of the desert, and that's one of the many ways that God will use to change you and me is to send us to the desert and have a desert experience, a real dry time, isolating us and bringing us to Himself. That time in the desert changed his heart, made him an intercessor.

The ministry of intercessing, it's kind of become a ministry or a thing in the church, but it's actually just a word. It means to pray for. That's it. It's not a ministry in itself, or it's not even a gifting from the Lord. "I've been given the gift of intercessory prayer." No, you haven't been given the gift of intercessory prayer. You've been told to pray for people, and you're obedient. It's not something that some people can do it better than others. We all are intercessors.

As you were praying, how many just by way of hands were praying for Jake our missionary right now tonight? How many? Praying for Jake. All of us were. Better if you were praying, you were praying those notes, those instructions, and one of them was for Jake. How many were praying for the worship team that were up on that list? Of course. What does that make you? Intercessors. You were interceding, standing in the gap, praying on behalf of someone else. So don't allow churches and pastors trying to make that some kind of special ministry where you've got a better prayer life than anyone else. We're all intercessors. Amen? Every single one of us are praying for someone.

I would even say that a lot of our prayer life is praying for someone else, and we actually need to expand it a little bit. There's more to prayer than just praying for someone else. But to pray for someone else is really good. You're an intercessor, and he is speaking on behalf of them. He is praying, and if you are the one being prayed for, which is wonderful, we also are the ones praying for others. So for the one being prayed for, for the disobedient, for the rebellious, for the sinner, God hears those prayers. For the one praying, God shapes your heart. We're to be praying all throughout the Bible, interceding for our country, for our leaders, for the leaders of our world, on and on the list goes. So it's not a real special ministry that's reserved for a few people. Every believer is an intercessor, and Moses has a deep heart for his people.

Verse 15 now. And Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony that were in his hand. The tablets were written on both sides, on the one side and on the other they were written. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved on tablets. And Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, and he said to Moses, "There's noise of war in the camp." But he said, "It's not the voice of those who shout in victory, nor is it the voice of those who cry out in defeat, but it's the voice of those who sing that I hear."

We learned in our previous study that they were involved in real sexual perversity around this calf. Here you can see that it's so loud, so involved that it sounds like there's a war going on. Moses is the first man as he comes to respond and to see what a difficulty it was. He says in verse 19, as soon as he had come near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing, that Moses' anger became hot, and he cast the tablets out of his hand and broke them at the foot of the mountain.

In a real way, Moses is the first guy to break all Ten Commandments at once. But he's very angry. This was the man interceding, the man standing, but he sees what's happening and he's very, very angry. You know, the Bible says that there is an anger without sin, and Moses' anger here is at the dishonoring of God. He can't believe it. And as we often say, he was up on the mountaintop. Mountaintops often refer to these beautiful, wonderful experiences that someone has with the Lord. Moses was up on the mountaintop, but he had to come down, didn't he?

What did he come down to but this false worship? They broke the covenant, and Moses in anger throws down the commandments. It is interesting that earlier Moses is pleading with God about His anger, and now he turns and becomes angry himself. He's at a boiling point of being fed up as a leader, but it also involves anguish and disappointment. Leadership involves all sorts of emotions, all sorts of issues, even in the spiritual realm let alone your flesh. He had Joshua with him, and this was a time of discipleship as Joshua is next to him.

Joshua's the one that says, "Hey, don't you hear what's happening?" And Moses says, "Oh no, that's not a war going on. That's dancing." Notice what he does in verse 20, and singing. He says, then he took the calf which they had made and he burned it in the fire and ground it into powder, and he scattered it on the water and made the children of Israel to drink it. And Moses said to Aaron, "What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?" Aaron's a leader here, and Aaron, you didn't lead. You didn't lead. So how do you answer for that, Aaron, that you allowed the people and helped the people bring a great sin upon themselves?

And Aaron said, "Hey, don't let the anger of my lord become hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil." Listen, you serve in this church, you want to serve in this church, I mean at any level, this can't be you. You must take responsibility for your own failures. I was about to say the worst thing you can do, there are actually more worse things, but this is a bad thing to do, and that is to blame the people for your sin. Because I want you to remember how they brought everything and they come to Aaron, and Aaron had his moment. "We are not doing that. Are you guys out of your minds? We are not doing that." But instead he says, "Bring it on. That sounds good to me," for whatever his motives are.

Moses, he grinds the calf into powder, makes them drink it, and then confronts Aaron the leader. If you're taking notes, remember this: with servanthood and leadership comes responsibility and accountability. The leader is living under the banner of accountability always, not episodically. We are always accountable to the Lord, but we're also accountable to our leaders as well as being accountable to the people. So here's the thing. If someone comes to you as a servant, as a leader in this church, I'll speak to this church, but of course if you're leading somewhere else it's applicable as well.

If somebody comes to you and asks you, "I want you to help me to sin," I'm going to give you the answer up ahead. You ready? I'm going to help you and train you. Everyone will know that are here now and also listening at a later time. Somebody comes to you and says, "I want you to help me to sin." Here's what you tell them: No. And you might say, "Are you out of your mind?" But you can just say no right away. And you can say it in whatever way is necessary that it will be received. It might be a soft no. It might have to be a hard no. But I'm telling you, it better be no.

And if by chance it's a yes, and you bring sin upon the people because you are a people too, then you need to take responsibility. Because you serve under the accountability of this church, under my leadership, under our leadership, but more importantly, you have accountability to the Lord. And here's what I've found to be true over the years. When you talk about accountability to the Lord, it's really not taken all that seriously because the Bible says because something's not judged right away, man is set in his heart fully to do sin. Because you think you get away with it with the Lord, because He's very gracious and very patient, you may find yourself thinking, "Well, this is the right thing to do. Nothing happened. It's fine. Let them dance. Let them go around the calf. It's fine with me. At least they're not on my back anymore."

But that attitude also spills over into the accountability towards the leaders that God has put in your life. Because a leader's patient with you, or because a leader is helping you and discipling you and helping you walk through, you also begin to think it's not that big a deal. But it's always a big deal. And don't misinterpret patience and kindness and gentleness of the Lord as approval for your sin. It's important that we take this seriously. Not only did Aaron sin greatly with the calf, but he sinned even greater by blaming the people, blaming the people. It's a horrible mistake, blaming the people for his mistake. He's the leader, and he's to take responsibility.

He comes up with this lie. It doesn't get any better. Not only does he not take responsibility, not only does he not humble himself, not only does he not seek God's best for his life and for the people, but notice what he says in verse 23. It's not only their fault, but they made him do it. You see that? "For they said to me, 'Make us gods that shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what's become of him.' And I said to them, 'Whoever has gold, let them break it off.' So they gave it to me, and I cast it into the fire, and this calf came out."

We're here to serve. We're not here to take advantage. The Lord's putting on your heart, just putting deep inside of you to serve God in the context of this little fellowship here. It's not to take advantage of people. It's not to blame them for mistakes that you made. It's not to harm them or hurt them anymore than they would hurt themselves. It's a partial lie, if you will. It's not completely untrue. They did come to him. They did want him... throwing it in the fire and a calf coming out... it's like, "Okay, Aaron. Okay."

It's partially true, which is fully a lie. When you choose to give partial truths, then you're completely lying. And understand when you and I choose to give partial truths, we've thought it through. We've determined what part to share, what part not to share. This isn't like an innocent mistake that we make when we craft the narrative and try to jump in and get somebody's ear before they... that's not acceptable before the Lord for anyone, let alone the leaders of God's church. And here he is with a lame excuse.

He says in verse 25, "Now when Moses saw the people were unrestrained, for Aaron had not restrained them, to their shame among their enemies, then Moses stood in the entrance of the camp and said, 'Whoever is on the Lord's side, let him come to me.' And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him." The people were unrestrained, and it was a shame to them. A lack of self-discipline, a carefree attitude. We're learning on our weekends, aren't we, about the grace of God and how glorious the grace is and how important it is to live under the grace of God and the freedom of God and all that He's given us in Christ. And that is often misunderstood among some believers in interpreting the grace of God and the freedom of God as license for sin.

The thought usually goes something like this. "Well, if God says I can do whatever I want, then I will do whatever I want. And if I happen to sin or anything, I can always come back and I can ask for forgiveness and God will forgive me." And He will forgive you, but you have made a great error along the way. And that is understanding the grace of God as permission for sin.