Exodus (Lesson 65)

Welcome to the Preaching the Cross Radio Podcast, featuring the radio ministry of Pastor James W.

Knox of the Bible Baptist Church of Delaney, Florida.

Our prayer is that these half-hour Bible study programs will bring the lost to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and enable the saved to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Savior.

Now here's your host, Pastor James W.

Knox.

I'm Brother James.

I greet you once again in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

This is the Preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast.

Very, very happy that you've tuned into the program today.

I hope and pray that God will enable me to be a blessing to you.

God's word is all that we have to offer.

We have no entertainment.

We have no diversion.

We have the Holy Bible, the Word of God.

I realize in the day and age in which we live, that's not a popular concept.

People want just about anything but the Bible.

And yet the chapter that we've been occupied with for several programs, the 32nd chapter of the book of Exodus, shows us the vital importance of sticking with God's word.

If you've not been with us, in Exodus 32, the redeemed children of Israel, the chosen people, descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the people ransomed from Egyptian bondage by the blood of a lamb on Passover night, have turned aside from the true and living God and have made themselves an idol.

They have worshipped that idol.

They have danced naked in front of that idol.

They have opted to die rather than repent of having made that idol.

And so we see that it is a very grave error and it carries serious consequences when one turns aside from the right ways of the true and living God.

As we come to the latter verses of this chapter, we have begun to look at the intercessory prayer offered by Moses on behalf of this erring people.

We considered just as we finished up on the last program how that God had been angry with Israel, and Moses had been angry with Israel, and God and Moses had been required by the law and by all that is righteous.

They had been required to deal severely with the sins of the Israelite nation.

And yet God loved those people, and Moses loved those people.

And it was very, very important.

It is very, very important that we understand that just because God is angry does not mean that God is not a God of love.

And just because the leaders God has put in place are angry does not mean that they are not loving.

You rebuked me for my sin, you don't love me.

You corrected me for my error, you don't love me.

Not so.

Not so.

If there were no love, God and God's leaders would just allow people to go on in their hurtful, destructive behavior.

But love demands that we step on the scene and say, no, no, no, don't do that.

That will hurt you.

All right, so now let's start at verse number 30.

We've read a couple of these verses.

Let's start at verse 30 because we want to see Moses back up on Mount Sinai, this time praying to God on behalf of a people who have sinned so greatly.

Verse 30, and it came to pass on the morrow that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin.

And now I will go up unto the Lord.

Peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.

And Moses returned unto the Lord and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.

Yet now, if thou would forgive their sin, and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.

Now I paused not for a fact, I paused because the grammatical structure required those pauses.

Oh, comma.

This people have sinned a great sin.

And made them gods of gold, period, yet now, comma.

If thou wilt forgive their sin, and a line, an empty space, then a semicolon, and if not, comma blot me, comma.

I pray thee, comma, out of thy book which thou hast written.

Did you know sometimes prayers don't flow?

Did you know sometimes prayers are not beautiful or eloquent?

Did you know that sometimes we just can't come up with the words to say?

Sometimes the depth of our emotion is so great, the burden upon our soul so overwhelming, that the words are not splendid displays of human thought and speech.

Sometimes the Bible says in Romans 8 26, the Holy Spirit helps us as we pray with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Moses is troubled.

Moses' heart is broken.

Moses is torn between his allegiance to a righteous God and the love that he has for an unrighteous people.

Moses is begging God to do something he's not entirely sure God should do.

Moses is pleading with the Lord to act in a way that he's not certain is consistent with God's character.

Moses wants God to spare these people, and yet he knows these people deserve God's wrath and judgment.

Moses is asking God to be merciful unto a people that really, really deserve wrath and judgment.

His heart is troubled, his mind is torn, as he considers the atrocious golden calf, as he considers the insult that it is to God that these people should have so quickly turned away from him, and yet he's also overseen the execution of three thousand of his beloved countrymen at the hands of his beloved countrymen.

It's been one tragic day.

It started out as one of the greatest days of Moses' life.

He has been in communion with God for 40 days.

He's coming down off a mountain with tables in his hands on which God himself has written his laws for his people.

And Moses is about to meet with those people on behalf of their God and to give them the words of God.

And he walks right into a flesh fest of idolatry, of pornographic conduct, all done in the name of worship.

And now he's back up on the mountain with his heart broken.

And he says, yet now, yet now, after all these people have done, yet now, after all the ways in which these people have insulted and offended God, if thou wilt forgive their sin.

And then the only place in all the Bible where we have a black line instead of words.

That black line it cries aloud.

It says Moses can't express what's in his heart.

It says Moses doesn't know what to say.

He wants God to forgive their sin, but it's as if it's too much to ask.

He wants God to spare them.

And yet it's as if he knows they shouldn't be spared.

What a dilemma.

And and and fascinating is this consideration.

A semicolon is a comma, which means we're continuing the thought, but a period, which means we have a complete sentence before the continuation.

Now, a colon, that's that's two complete sentences.

Everything on one side of a colon is a complete sentence, everything on the other side of a colon is a complete sentence.

Those two sentences, however, are so so closely joined that they need to be in one sentence.

So it's two sentences in one.

A semicolon.

On one side of the semicolon, you have that which makes a complete sentence, on the other side, a partial sentence.

But here it's just all discombobulated.

Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin, black line, that's not a sentence.

And if not, and if not, if you will not forgive their sin, if you cannot forgive their sin, and then watch these amazing words, and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.

Moses has not offered his life for the life of the people.

He's not offered his money to repay something that they stole.

He's not offering years of servitude and bondage for time that they were not serving God properly.

Moses here is offering his soul for their souls.

Let's back up.

Our songwriters have done us a disservice.

Our preachers, well-meaning but careless, have caused us to misunderstand.

There is the idea that when a person trusts Jesus Christ as their Savior, that God takes out a pen and writes their name down in the Lamb's Book of Life in heaven.

That is not a view supported by taught by Scripture.

On the other side, the followers of the Roman Catholic priest Jerome and another Roman Catholic priest, John Calvin, believe that before the foundation of the earth, God wrote a few select names in the Lamb's Book of Life, and that would be the Calvinist and his children and his grandchildren.

And that idea has no scriptural warrant or support.

Now, the first idea comes from a misunderstanding of Revelation 2 and 3, where the Lord gives a new name to those who receive Jesus Christ as their Savior.

The second misunderstanding comes from well nothing in the Bible.

So here's the fact of the matter.

As we consider each Bible passage which speaks of the book of life, we never find anyone's name being written in the book of life.

Everyone who has been given life from God has their name in the book of life.

When someone, when someone passes their final opportunity to be saved, their name is blotted out of the book of life.

So that when God opens the book of life at the white throne judgment, he will find in that book the names of those to whom he gave physical life, and who subsequent to that time received spiritual life by grace through faith.

And those whose names were blotted out, the God who gave them life, who gave them breath, who cared for them every hour of their earthly existence, the God who numbered the very hairs of their head will say to them, Depart from me, ye that work iniquity, I never knew you.

I have no record of your existence.

So Moses, Moses says, God, take my soul for their souls.

Take me, take me.

If you must destroy someone, destroy me.

That may be the most noble thing a man's ever done.

I wouldn't doubt it.

You have a similar thing in the New Testament.

This up the Apostle Paul writing, Romans 9, Romans 10, Romans 11, as to what becomes of God's covenant promises to the nation of Israel, now that he has established his New Testament church.

The Apostle Paul said, I am willing.

I'm willing.

Let me read you the exact words, because I don't want to I don't want to misquote it.

I started to misquote it.

Listen to what he says.

In Romans 9, verse number one, I say the truth in Christ, I lie not.

My conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart, for I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ, for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.

So the two greatest men of either testament are great men not because of their preaching ability, not because of the churches they built, not because of the works they did, but because of their heart condition toward others.

Moses in the Old Testament, Paul in the New Testament both said they would trade their own soul if God would save the souls of the people they loved.

Now what's the ultimate?

What's the ultimate exhibition of this great love?

The Lord Jesus Christ became man, that man might be saved.

He took man's sin, that man might be saved from his sin.

He took man's place in death, that man might have everlasting life.

He took man's place under the judgment and condemnation of Almighty God, that man might stand justified in the presence of Almighty God.

Glory to his name.

God's written a book.

The names of all to whom God has given physical life are in that book.

Here's what I want to know, friend.

Are you in danger of having your name blotted out of that book?

You say, preach, you believe there's some kind of a deadline we can cross?

I do.

You say, preach, you believe that a person can go too far and then they can't be saved?

I do.

You say, where is that line?

I want to know.

Why?

So you can get as close to it as possible?

You say, where is that line I want to know?

Why?

Because you you think I'm making that up?

Because you can't think of a Bible verse?

All right, I'll tell you where it is.

It's when you die, when you breathe your last breath, you've crossed that line.

You're not gonna get a second chance, you're not gonna get reincarnated, you're not gonna get in on some universal salvation where everybody ends up in heaven.

All of that's a lie.

It is appointed unto man.

Once to die and after this, the judgment.

Are you ready for that judgment?

You say, Well, I just don't believe God could send anybody that he knew and loved and cared about to hell.

He won't.

He won't.

He'll send people he never knew to hell.

I never knew you.

You're blotted out.

You're blotted out.

You're done.

You're gone.

You remember Lazarus?

Who died, carried by angels in Abraham's bosom?

You know who went to hell?

The rich man.

You say, what was his name?

Nobody knows.

Say, why didn't the Holy Spirit put in the Bible?

He doesn't know.

Who is that man down there?

God the Father says, never knew him.

God the Son says, don't know, never knew him.

God the Holy Spirit says, uh, never knew him.

And so he's just the rich man in hell.

You know, some of you listening right now, you're not, you don't want to get saved because for you to admit the gospel is true, you'd have to admit that someone you knew and loved is in hell right now.

And you just can't bear the thought of being in eternity and knowing that your loved one is in hell, uh, you won't.

You won't.

When you step into eternity, the former things will not come to mind.

You will, in that day, be possessed of the very mind of Jesus Christ.

I don't understand all the details of that, but I know this.

You're not going to be sitting in a corner of heaven on a bench with your head in your hands, crying your eyes out because somebody you cared about is in hell.

You could look right into that place.

Isaiah suggests we will.

See the tormented souls therein.

And never in never in a billion, zillion, trillion years could you look in there and say, oh no.

There he is.

Blotted out, never knew you.

Gone.

My friend, do you understand how lost lost people are?

They're so lost nobody's looking for them.

Not in hell.

Not in hell.

In this life?

Yes.

In the life to come, no.

You better get saved.

And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.

I'm not going to send you into everlasting punishment, Moses, if you've trusted me.

Those who think a golden calf is God, those who do not have any faith at all in me, I'll put them out of my book.

I'll not punish those that don't deserve it, and I'll not reward those that deserve condemnation and wrath.

Therefore, now go.

Lead the people unto the place which I have spoken unto thee.

Behold, mine angel shall go before thee.

Nevertheless, in the day when I will when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.

And the Lord plagued the people because they made the calf which Aaron made.

Now, the word when, in the day when I visit, emphasizing the fact that there is such a thing as postponed judgment.

But there is judgment.

Now listen carefully, please.

Please, listen carefully.

Because God had promised the nation he would bring them into that land, he is going to bring them into that land.

Because God promised Abraham and then Isaac and then Jacob certain blessings upon their offspring, those certain blessings will indeed fall upon their offspring.

God doesn't lie.

You're not going to make a liar out of God.

Man's sin, man's failure, is not going to make God into a liar.

Man's sin is not going to make God a sinner.

So he said, Moses, I will do what I promised I would do with regard to that nation.

However, there is going to be consequence for this action.

Now you know what God just said.

Now hear me carefully, please.

You know what he just said?

I'm not going to forgive what they did.

I have to, listen, I have to assume that you've heard the other broadcast.

I can't teach everything every day.

Justification.

That is a one-time matter where God declares a man righteous as touching his soul.

But forgiveness, forgiveness, that is God opting to withhold the consequences of a particular sin.

So what'd the Lord say?

Moses, you're asking me not to bring punishment upon the people who were dancing around a golden calf.

Moses, I gotta tell you something.

What I said I would do for that nation, I will do for that nation.

The promises that I made, I'll keep my promises, but you're asking me not to punish the people who made and worshipped a golden calf.

And Moses, I gotta say no to that one.

I am going, I am going to punish that sin.

And the Lord plagued the people because they made the calf which Aaron made.

Listen carefully, my friend, please, please, listen carefully.

If you will trust Jesus Christ as your Savior right now, right now, if you are saved by the grace of God through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, you have everlasting life in heaven because God promised.

Hallelujah.

That's justification.

Now, forgiveness.

If you got saved yesterday and you've been a drunk for 40 years, and your liver is gone, and your marriage is gone, and you're estranged from your children because of that drinking, God has justified you.

You have eternal life in heaven when you die through Jesus Christ.

He has not promised you a new liver, a restored marriage, and reconciliation with your children.

If it happens, hallelujah.

If it doesn't, keep serving God and living for God, He will justify any sinner on the basis of the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He has not promised to remove all the consequences of all our sins while we live out the duration of this life.

I listen, I if I had six hours, I could explain that to you in sufficient detail.

I don't.

I don't.

In fact, our time's just about gone.

Here's what you can do.

When you write to us and we send you a catalog, or when you visit us online and you view our catalog there, look for a book called The Law.

The Law.

And in that book, we will explain to you the difference between justification and forgiveness.

The difference between having your sins covered by the blood of Jesus Christ for eternity and the consequences of some of those sins in time.

Our mailing address, 872 Glenwood Road.

872 Glenwood Road.

That's in D-Land, D-E-L-A-N-D, D-Land, Florida.

The zip code number 32720.

That mailing address is in the United States of America.

Visit us online at Jamesnox.com.

JamesKnox.com.

All right, the announcer will be on in just a moment to let you know when we'll be heard again over this radio station.

We hope you'll join us then for the preaching of the cross radio broadcast.

I'm Brother James.

Until that time, may the Lord richly bless you.

And good day.

Thanks for tuning in today.

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Until next time and throughout eternity, may Jesus Christ be praised.