Moses' Intercession

Psalm 106, we've been in it for a few weeks.

I told y 'all we weren't going to go too fast.

We were just going to take our way through it

pretty slow because the psalm references a lot

of Old Testament stories, and it references them

real briefly, just in a few verses usually. But

they're good stories, and I think that while

they're being brought to our attention here in

Psalm 106, I feel like it's a good time to go

back and look at these stories. and just refresh

ourselves with them if it's a story we know or

maybe it's a story we're not too familiar with.

But the whole chapter, Psalm 106, is talking

about God's people being disobedient to him.

And we saw an example of that last week with

a few guys that wanted to rebel against Moses.

They weren't happy about Moses and the way Moses

was leading. And so a handful of guys got together

and got a couple hundred more, 250 more, to stand

up against Moses, and God didn't please God.

He wasn't pleased about that, and God was ready

to just annihilate the whole crew. And Moses

said, well, hold up. Why don't you just take

care of these guys who were causing the trouble?

And that's exactly what God did. It said that

the earth opened up and swallowed them up, these

guys and their families, and even still. Crazily

enough, after all that happened, the next day

the people were back complaining again, and God

sent a plague on them, and they would have all

died if it had not been for Aaron making atonement

for them. And so this Psalm 106 is just recounting

those type of stories, and we're going to look

at another one very similar to it tonight. We're

going to be in verse 19. Psalm 106, verse 19.

Psalms 106:19

We're going to start there. We're just going

to read through verse 23, and then we will flip

back to Exodus 32. And we will attempt, I know

it's a Wednesday night, but we will attempt to

get through as much of that as we can tonight.

But we may not make it, so we'll see. Psalm 106,

Psalms 106:19

verse 19, let's pray, and then we'll get started.

God, I thank you for your word. I pray that these

words would be a... reminder to us that would

help us to look at our own lives dear Lord to

see if maybe we are unfaithful to you in some

way maybe there are ways that we need to be trusting

you and we are not any better than the Israelites

dear Lord we should praise you for all the good

that you do just as they had seen you do much

good but dear Lord they got caught up in their

own ways and their own desires and began to seek

other gods and maybe we're guilty of that in

some way too so I pray that you let your word

speak to us tonight. Just help us to learn what

your word says and grow in it and tuck it away

in our heart and mind that maybe you'll recall

it to us at some point in time when we need it.

And I ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Psalm 106, 19 says, At Horeb they made a calf

and worshipped the cast metal image. They exchanged

their glory for the image of a grass -eating

ox. They forgot God their Savior, who did great

things in Egypt, wonderful works in the land

of Ham, all inspiring acts at the Red Sea. So

he said he would have destroyed them if Moses,

his chosen one, had not stood before him in the

breach to turn his wrath away from destroying

them. Now again, we have just a few short verses

here that reference a pretty major event that

occurred. in Israel's past. Now, if you turn

to Exodus chapter 32, you will see that event

Exodus 32 · chapter mention

in full detail. Now, I would encourage you this

week to read all of chapter 32. We will briefly

just touch on it instead of reading through the

whole thing tonight. We will kind of try to go

through the whole situation and what's taking

place. As we just saw from Psalm 106, it recalled

the crossing the Red Sea. That was a pretty major

event. That should have been a life -changing

event for them, that they saw such a miraculous

thing take place. But it wasn't long after they

made their way out of Egypt and crossed the Red

Sea that Moses was up on the mountain talking

to the Lord. And he was gone for... Quite some

time, 40 days, he was up there talking to the

Lord. And in that time, God's people got impatient.

Now, again, I encourage you to go back and read

all of Exodus 32. We'll try to hit the high points,

but I want you to go back and read it for yourself.

So Moses is up on the mountain talking to God,

getting the Ten Commandments, getting the stone

tablets, and the people are getting antsy. They're

getting impatient, waiting on God. There's a

good lesson in there for us in that too. Do we

ever get impatient waiting on God? Is there ever

something that God's working on in our life,

something that God's putting into place in His

time, which very seldom lines up with our time,

and we get impatient? There's something we want.

There's something we're praying about. There's

something we're really seeking. There's something

that we're seeking God with all of our heart,

and we have for days or weeks or months or years,

and we just have prayed, and nothing's happening,

and we think, well, God must not be listening,

or maybe there's something God requires of me.

And so then we decide we need to do it our way

in some way. It's not maybe necessarily that

we're saying, I'm done with you, God, but...

We still are praying to God and we still trust

God. We still believe in God. But then we just,

we kind of do things our way because our way

will get it done a little faster. Well, that's

exactly what they did. They said, what's taking

Moses so long? He brought us all this way. He's

gone. What are we going to do? We need a God.

They said, we need us a God that's going to lead

us along the way. Now, you would think that they

would have remembered the God who parted the

Red Sea. They didn't. Now Aaron should have stood

up and said to the folks here, Hey, wait a minute.

This ain't right. Y 'all just need to hold your

horses. God's been good to us. We're going to

wait on Moses. But Aaron didn't really push back

any, it doesn't appear in the text. He tells

them to take off all the gold that they have.

All the gold you got, take it off. We're going

to melt it all down. And they made a golden calf.

And after they made this golden calf, they said,

This is our God. This is our God who's led us

out of Egypt. Wait a minute. Where was this God

when they came out of Egypt? He was nowhere to

be seen, this golden calf. This was a God that

they made. Now, what kind of God do we want to

follow? Do we want to trust? A God who made us

or a God that we make? There's no power in a

God that we make, but there is great power in

a God who... And so they made this golden calf,

and the Lord knew what was going on. And he told

Moses, you better get on back down there. The

Lord says, I'm ready to go ahead and do away

with these folks. And Moses says, just hold up.

Now Moses, it's beautiful. We've seen this in

this story, and we saw it in the story last week.

We see these examples in the Old Testament of

Moses and Aaron, in this case just Moses, interceding

for the people. That God says, hey. They had

an opportunity to be obedient to me, and they

failed in their obedience, and so I'm going to

wipe them out. And God would have been right

to do so, just as he would have been in the story

last week. But Moses says, hold up. Well, Moses

goes down the mountain, and he sees what's going

on, and Moses is irate. He is not happy about

what is taking place there. And he asks Aaron

about it, and Aaron says, well, we just threw

all our gold in the fire, and out came this calf.

Well, probably didn't really happen like that,

but that's what Aaron said. And it says that

Moses crushed up all the gold and sprinkled it

on the water and made the people drink the water,

which was probably not a good situation for them.

And God was not at all happy about this situation.

And we see as we get closer to the end of the

passage. Let me scroll down here. We see as we

get down to the end of Exodus chapter 32. In

Exodus 32 · chapter mention

verse 30, the following day Moses said to the

people, you have committed a grave sin. Now I

will go up to the Lord. Perhaps I will be able

to atone for your sin. Okay, so the Lord is ready

to... Take care of these folks. And some of them

have already been punished. It says a few verses

before that 3 ,000 of them were put to death.

Now, it's not specified who the 3 ,000 were.

I would guess, this is just my opinion, that

probably those 3 ,000 that were killed by the

Levites in the verses before, maybe those were

some of the head ones that were the instigators

of the situation. Maybe that's why those 3 ,000

were put to death. We don't know how many people

there were at this time. It's estimated that

there could have been a couple of million. Now,

maybe it was more than that. Maybe it was less.

But it's not an insignificant amount of people

that we're talking about. It's a large number

of people probably. And 3 ,000 was a lot of people,

but not nearly all the people. So I suspect probably

the 3 ,000 that were killed probably... were

some of the ones who were kind of at the forefront

of starting this. Not so unlike the story we

saw last week with Dathan and Abraham and Korah.

These are the ones who started this whole thing,

and these are the ones who were destroyed. And,

of course, the 250 along with them were destroyed.

But all the people were guilty here. It's not

like there were just a handful of people that

were involved in this. It appears as though they

were all guilty. And Moses calls this a... Grave

sin. That is a sin that's deserving of death.

A sin that should put you in the grave because

you have disobeyed God in such a way. But what

does Moses say? The same thing we've seen before

of Moses. I'm going to go up here and I'm going

to talk to the Lord and I'm going to see if I

can make atonement for you. Now we saw that last

week with Aaron. That he made atonement for the

people. That God had sent a plague and people

were dying, a lot of people. I believe it was

14 ,000 had already died. And then Aaron made

atonement and then the people were spared. But

we see this kind of theme in our last two weeks

in the passages that we've looked at. Is that

God's people are disobedient and they are deserving

of death. But in both of these stories, there's

an intercessor. There's one that stands in the

gap for the people. There's one that stands before

God and pleads on their behalf and makes atonement

on their behalf so that God will not destroy

them. Let's read one more verse here in verse

31. Let's continue on. Please erase me from the

book you have written. Now that's one of my favorite

passages. I love that passage in this story.

That Moses, the leader of the people, he says,

God, would you forgive them? And if you won't

forgive them, would you erase my name from your

book? Now, we don't really have any details on

this book. We see in the New Testament, and particularly

a couple times in Revelation, we see this book

of life referenced. And I think it's probably

safe to assume that those who trust in the Lord,

whose names stay in the book of life, those are

the ones who are going to receive God's blessings.

That's what we see in the scripture. And perhaps

that's what Moses is talking about here. I think

that it's probably safe to assume that that's

what he's talking about here, that the same book,

even though we don't have details about it, where

he got details about it, I'm not sure, but we

kind of see this same idea mentioned in the Old

Testament and the New Testament. And Moses says,

look, if you won't forgive your people, then

erase my name from the book you have written.

Now that's a pretty bold statement. That's a

sign of a good leader. It says, look, these people

that I was supposed to lead have sinned, and

because of their sin, may I pay the price. May

I suffer the consequences. May I endure the punishment

for the people who have sinned. And let's see

what God said here. In verse 33, he says, The

Lord replied to Moses, I will erase whoever has

sinned against me from my book. Now go, lead

the people to the place I told you about. See,

my angel will go before you. But on the day I

settle accounts, I will hold them accountable

for their sin. And the Lord inflicted a plague

on the people for what they did with the calf

Aaron had made. Now, the Lord responds to Moses.

Moses says, look, if you won't forgive them,

then erase my name from the book. But God says,

nope. I'm going to punish those who are worthy

of punishment. Not everybody, but those who are

worthy of punishment. Now, we certainly see that

there was some punishment inflicted here. There

was a plague that was inflicted on the people.

Perhaps it was every one of them. Perhaps it

was just some of them. I don't know. But nonetheless,

it wasn't a pleasant experience. We're again

seeing a theme here. We see the same pattern.

Last week in the passage, they complained about

God. They were disobedient to Him. He killed

some of them and he brought a plague on the rest

of them and they would have died too had there

not been atonement. Here we see the same thing.

God's people are disobedient. They don't want

to wait on him. God's angry with them. He's ready

to destroy them. Moses intercedes. A few of them

are killed, but the majority of them are spared.

Not without consequence. There certainly was

consequence. But they had a man like Moses who

was willing to... Step up on their behalf and

go before the Lord on their behalf. And that's

a beautiful part of the story. I think that's

what makes this passage so beautiful and the

passage we saw last week so beautiful. Is that

these ideas and this idea that people are sinful

and deserving of death and an atonement is made

and through the atonement that's made by another,

God's able to spare those who are deserving of

death. we're already beginning to see the themes

and kind of these little nuggets of information

that's pointing us forward to Jesus Christ. We're

beginning to see God's plan in just a little

way in the Old Testament. And these old stories

that happened thousands of years before Jesus

came onto the scene, and as you read through

the Bible, you can start to see these things

and these stories and how they are woven together.

And then when you read the New Testament and

you see Jesus, and you go back and you study

these stories, you see that it's pretty clear

that God's pointing everything forward to Jesus.

Everything that we see in these stories is foreshadowing

Jesus. That our story is not so unlike the story

of the Israelites. That we too are sinful. That

we too commit grave sins. For the wages of sin

is death. Our sins deserve death. We are just

as impatient. We don't want to wait on God. We

don't want to listen to God. We don't want to

listen to people that God may want to use to

speak into our life or lead us in the way that

Moses was here. We become impatient. We make

our own gods. And you say, well, I've never made

a golden calf. Well, praise the Lord. I hope

you hadn't. But is there anything that we begin

to trust, to find security in, and to find hope

in? That in some way becomes our God. Now, maybe

it's our money or maybe it's our wealth or maybe

it's our home or maybe it's our job or maybe

it's our fame or maybe it's drugs or maybe it's

alcohol or maybe it's our pride or fill in the

blank. I mean, whatever it may be, what do we

go to for our strength and for our comfort? What

do we go to to help us get through the day? Well,

if we trust in those things of the world and

that's what we turn to in our times of trouble,

well, in a way, those things have become our

God. We said, okay, I'm not going to wait on

God. I'm not going to listen to Him. I'm not

going to trust Him. Yeah, maybe I've seen all

the ways that God has worked in my life, and

I see a Bible full of ways that God has worked,

but I don't want to wait on God because I want

it my way, and so it's easier if I just do what

I can do. And that's exactly what the Israelites

did. We'll just do it our way. We'll make our

own God, and it's right here. We can see it.

We can touch it. And that's what we're going

to worship. And maybe we're guilty of the same

thing. We certainly are guilty of plenty of sins

in our life that are grave sins. And apart from

somebody to intercede for us, God's wrath would

burn against us. Now Moses is not the intercessor

for us. We have a better intercessor. Moses was

just a glimpse of the intercessor that was going

to come in Jesus Christ. Jesus is like Moses,

but perfect in every way. Jesus is the one that

sees our sin, that goes before God, that stands

to intercede for us. Jesus is the one who was

nailed to a cross to intercede for us. Jesus

is the one who says, let me make atonement for

their sins. They have done the sinful deed, but

may I take their punishment for it. That's what

Moses did. And that's exactly what Jesus does

for us. He did it. He died on the cross. And

so when we look at these stories in the Old Testament,

they're not just old stories. They really have

a purpose. They have a point. They're pointing

us forward to Jesus Christ. And so we have to

think about our life and think, okay, we read

about these old Israelites, but if we're honest,

we're not so different than they are. And there's

sin in our lives that needs to be atoned for,

and the good news for us tonight is that Jesus

Christ, the Son of God, was crucified and resurrected,

and He's atoned for our sin tonight if we would

just trust Him, if we would just seek Him, if

we would just ask Him to forgive us. We can know

that everything that needs to be done has been

done not through us, not through our deeds. Our

actions deserve death. But through Jesus Christ's

actions, we receive life. Let's pray. God, we

come to you. We thank you for these good words.

I pray, God, that you would forgive us if we

make other things our God. Maybe we're guilty

of that in some way. Maybe somebody's struggling

with that now, or maybe they have in the past,

or they will in the future, dear Lord. I pray

that you just would help us to know that our

hope is only through Jesus Christ, dear Lord,

that our sins are... probably worse than we realize

that they are, but your grace is greater than

we could possibly imagine. So I pray that we

would trust in Jesus, that we would know that

he has made atonement, and that we would ask

for forgiveness tonight, that we would trust

him and seek him and rejoice in you. And I ask

these things in Jesus' name. Amen.