Leftovers - Exodus 32

Happy Monday. Pastor Matt is here.

Pastor Chris is back from Sunny Shores.

Sunny Shores. Yeah.

So I was in northern Florida, I guess the part they called that

the Panhandle, like Panama. City so like western Florida,

you're on the. Western coast, yeah.

The North, yeah, I guess the. In the Gulf Gulf of America,

the. Gulf of America at 44 years old,

I, I don't want to get into a debate about what it should be

called, but I mean, you grew up, it was the Gulf of Mexico.

It was the Gulf of Mexico up until like a couple months ago.

And so I just, that's hard, that's hard for me to get used

to and I don't know. But anyway, apparently I was in

the Gulf of Mexico or America, depending on how you want to

talk about that. I've.

Been to two different gulfs in your life now.

Sure, touched them both. Touched them both, that's for

sure. But it was cool.

It was cool. Like, you know, you could.

I think it's fun to go down there and not peak months

because then all the locals know exactly who the tourists are

because you're the only ones in the water.

I mean, the water's got to be like not warmer than probably 60

something. Degrees, It's not sunset to the

locals right now. They they look at you and

they're like tourist. Clearly they've already got

jackets on. Like all of them are already

wearing coats. And it's like in their low 70s.

Yikes. Yeah, They, they definitely

they're it's almost like fall around here.

They're excited to have a reason to put on their coats.

We do it out of necessity, I think, but they're just straight

up excited for it. Like, oh, you know, the the

beach, the water's so cold. And so now we get to put on

jackets and we get to feel like we have multiple seasons.

You don't have multiple seasons. I don't want to live in a place

where 70° is a reason to put on my coat.

I I don't want to do that. Yeah, so anyway there.

You go interesting. Nothing against Florida, I like

Florida, but I just, I don't know, we talked about the

climate things and that's that's not my ideal climate where it

actually feels good to put on a coat at 70°.

Not excited about that. Yeah.

We also survived a bomb threat, but that's a story for another

time. Wow.

I know I. Survived.

I survived. It was so dramatic.

It really wasn't dramatic at all.

But there was a bomb threat nearby where we were, which

wasn't a bomb at all. It was just some guy having a

really bad day. Would you say the situation was

diffused? Clearly it was.

Thanks for that. We need to have a dad joke

episode. I think we should do that next

AMA. Wow, OK.

Yeah, I think we could. I think we'd throw some good

ones. The puns are the puns could get

really awesome. They could get they could get

real in a hurry. You all don't even know.

You all don't even know. Thanks for coming out worship

yesterday on Sunday had the services were a little more

tilted this week. First week of two services, it

was a pretty even split. We had like a 7030 as far as

percentage goes split of attendance yesterday.

So it was a little, a little offside of the first service was

full, like actually bursting full, almost out of room full.

And the second service was about half full.

So still if you're, if you have margin in your life to come to

the second service, there's lots of room at the second service.

But otherwise we got to keep trying to grow that one.

We need lots of 1 mores to fill that second service space.

So keep working on that church. Thanks for coming and worshiping

with us together yesterday. Exodus 32.

I feel like I I had some harsh words at times, some of some

hard words to hear. I think it was all true and I

think it's all rooted in God's truth.

But this is the this is kind of the the work, the hard work of

christening. If I Christian discipleship,

Yeah. If you, if you'll allow me to

speak from an insider track for a moment, I think there are

definitely times where a teacher or a pastor preacher, however

you want to word that you can end up with what I think I, I'm

just labeling it this. I've never heard it this way.

So if it gets popular, you're welcome.

But it's like sermon hangover. What I mean by that is like, you

know, you felt really good going into it and you knew what you

were going to do was correct and right and good and true.

And then something happens over that, you know, 12 to 24 hour

period post sermon. And all of a sudden, like you

just, I don't know, it feels heavier, it feels worse or it

doesn't. I don't know.

I think that's like sermon hangover stuff.

Now, I would, I would tell you that there's definitely at least

one pastor in my life who he made it very clear to me.

He's like, listen, if you preach the God of word, the word of God

accurately, Satan is going to try and attack you.

He's going to try and make you feel off about what you said or

apologize for it and all these kinds of things.

And, and I think he's right in, in the sense that if we are just

really honest with the word of God, sometimes it's hard to

speak and hard to hear because it offends some of our modern

sensibilities. However, don't let Satan lie.

You know to you, you know, in, in the sense of like, no, you,

you said what the Bible said, therefore you said the right

thing, whatever that is. Thanks, man.

Yeah, I, I guess I feel confident in that.

I I feel confident in having taught what the Bible said.

I always just on the line of the true thing in love line is is

hard for me at times because I love the truth.

I love the law. I love to beat people up with

the law, but we need to recall to do that in the greatest way

that we don't send them running from their savior.

We we teach them in grace and love so that they come running

to their savior. And I just that's that's always

a fine line for me. I don't want to want to leave

people beat up in a way that they feel so unworthy to

approach Jesus and and, and maybe, and I don't know that I

even crossed that line. You could be right in this even

of of Satan being like, Oh no, you were too harsh to these

people when it maybe was exactly what they needed to hear and

he's just trying to make me feel terrible about it.

He's he's an accuser. He is.

Well, that's one of his names, his accuser and liar.

And certainly a truth that comes out of his untruth is that he'll

get you coming or going. He doesn't care which way he

gets you. So like, oh, you were too hard

on them. You were this, nobody's going to

come back anymore because, you know, or he'll get you on.

You weren't nearly hard enough on them.

You think God really forgives these people?

You think God really forgives you?

Are you crazy? Look how bad you are.

So I mean, I think he can get you coming or going.

And so it's just, it's just so important for us to be grounded

in exactly what the word of God says and, and just keep that as

our, as our North Star, right? You know, And so as long as

that's happening, people will like it.

They won't like it either way. And it's not that we don't care

about what, you know, people think, but we're not, we don't

have to defend the word of God. It defends itself.

Right. Not that we don't care about

what they think in comparison to the word of God, though.

Like that's still, that is our true north, right?

Yeah. And it's not.

Hopefully Sunday's also isn't what you or I think about the

Word of God, at least not holy. That's that's not the root of

our teaching. We can provide commentary and

and opinion and belief on it, but I mean it should be the Word

of God speaking, not what I think about the word of God.

Yeah, it's always, it's always kind of illustrative points.

And that's another peek behind the curtain, I guess, you know,

for anybody who's truly preaching the word of God is,

you know, you're, you're creating illustrations, you're

creating connection points. So that way you can bring things

forward into a modern sense of view, but you're never altering

it. You're never changing it.

And so it's whatever extent that we, you know, to every extent

that we do not alter or change the meaning of it, then Satan's

going to come attack and we just get to deal with that too.

So. Sure.

Yeah. So thanks for tuning in for some

more thoughts on Exodus 32 and God's Rage Against the

Israelites. And Moses kind of throws a a fit

as well. And we're, we're going to get

into some more thoughts on all that.

But before we do, we've got a few questions left from the Ask

Me Anything episode and one of the fun ones I I wanted to get

to that we just didn't cram into our 75 minute episode.

If you could be any person in the Bible other than Jesus, they

did put other than Jesus, because that's the obvious

answer, right? If you could be any person in

the Bible other than Jesus, who would you be?

By the way, I just as an aside, I don't even think it's obvious

to say, Oh no, I'd be Jesus because you know how his life

turns out pretty, you know, pretty painful.

So I would not quickly put myself in those shoes.

As I've thought about this question, I don't know that

there is an obvious answer of a character that didn't deal with

some semblance of Vadnais, right?

You know, just, I mean, do you, do you say like, no, I want to

be, I want to be like, I want to be like Solomon, right?

So like, dude, I want to be the Incredible Hulk.

That sounds fun. Or no not.

Solomon, Samson. Samson, sorry, OK, so we're.

We're similar track color. That was the first one.

All right. Yeah, obviously, like manliest

man you can think of Samson. But he has a real issue with

picking women. Yeah, he's really bad at it.

And I don't know if there's a I got to be careful here, but I'm

going to say it anyway. I don't know if there's a

greater like potential stress in my life than like when something

is going wrong with like, you know, my relationship with with

with a woman. And so it's just like, yeah,

there can be a lot of different stresses in life.

But if your home life is is crooked because you know, your

spouse, whatever, that feels bad all the time, everywhere, no

matter what else is happening in your life.

So being Samson then, like he's always.

Got messed. Up.

He's always got messed up stuff. Yeah, it's cool.

You're you're this hulking man who's got all this power.

But your home life is terrible. So I don't, I don't think that's

great. So, but you also, you misspoke

and said Solomon 'cause that was also, he was also near the top

of my list. He might be.

To be the wisest, you don't have to worry about like you are

discernment right at that, but like you have wisdom from God,

you have a channel to deciding. And I'm a terrible decider and I

use those words terribly 'cause that's not how I should

describe. I actually like you as a quote

UN quote decider. Well, thank you.

Well, it's I don't mind. I I guess I I like deciding

things, but it's a chore like it's a it's a wrestling match in

my mind a lot of the time. So that that would be difficult,

but I think like those, those are two very desirable

attributes. Now you have experiences as

well, right. So those are just and I guess

they both had desirable experiences.

Samson killing the killing the lion with a jawbone, right like.

Oh. Wow, that would be cool.

But then you have the grandeur of of Moses that we're talking

to like be pretty cool to split the Red Sea, right?

Just and have the power of this of this staff, the power of God

that you just as he commands you to act.

It just happens. Noah.

I don't know that I. Want to say the wires?

Building the ark but like. And you got to, you got to watch

the world flood. You got to watch that happen.

Or maybe you don't because you're locked in the heart of

the ship, but still. Yeah, I'm not.

I'm not. Don't sign me up for that.

No, thank you, Sir. OK.

I actually, I actually was kind of thinking like you, Joshua.

Joshua, it's not bad. I was, I was trying to think of

what bad things happened to Joshua.

I mean, he fought his entire life.

Yeah. You know, I he, he, he was in

battle his entire life and he he always had to fight, but he also

like he set the groundwork, you know, this is what my house is,

you know, and so like, As for you and your household, do

whatever, but this is this is who we are in my house.

And I just think like his backbone and his, his ability to

speak truth, again, wasn't perfect, but his ability to

speak truth and just really kind of live out that that godly

ethic. I think that's, you know, it's,

it's admirable and it's, it would be cool.

I think. I'm sure it was very stressful,

but it'd be kind of cool to have that level of that level of

discipline. Took down Jericho.

That's that's cool, dude. Just marching around, just being

a boss. You sound crazy, but like you

sounded crazy for a bit, but once that was just a week,

right? Once the walls crumbled, he was.

He was fine it. Was just a week.

It's no big deal, yeah. So what about like?

Or you could be like one of the one of the big prophets.

So you could be like raining fire down on the fake gods.

Like Elijah? Yeah, that'd be kind of cool.

Yeah, Yeah. Because I don't like Paul wrote

most of the New Testament. Paul did not have a Paul.

Suffered a lot. I do suffer.

He was not on vacation. No, there was no.

Vacation for him? Oh gosh.

Peter, like you were close to Jesus.

You got to hang out with Jesus all the time, but you were kind

of kind of dumb, like. Maybe maybe like one of the

maybe John. John might be the guy.

Not the Baptist. No, not the Baptist, like John

the disciple, because hey, he has he has the ability to be

like, I'm not even going to name myself.

I'm just the guy that Jesus loves.

Look at how cool I am. And if history tells us right,

he was like the only one of them who wasn't martyred.

Right who like peacefully went away.

Yeah, I maybe it's John. That's good.

I like that. Answer.

I could get down with that. OK, I still so we didn't even we

didn't even talk about we talked about Paul, prominent New

Testament figure, but. OK.

Who's who's the prominent like, we're missing David, right?

David's, like David, the prominent Old Testament figure.

Right, because it's down to David and Moses and Noah.

I guess you can, you can throw Abraham in there.

But dude, again, anything that has to do with like female

relationship issues, I don't want any part I don't want.

Any of that. No, man, my, my wife is so kind

and she's just so she, she is awesome.

I I love her to death and she does not provide any of the

drama that these people have. I just, I couldn't do it.

So that eliminates David for you too.

Yeah, any kind of female drama, like I don't want any part of

it. Sounds like you should be Paul

I. Mean, I like having a woman in

my Life OK, but I don't know was John?

Was John married? I don't know that we know that

for sure. Yeah, probably not.

Probably not. But we don't.

I mean, we don't really know if any of them were.

Peter was yeah, for sure. Because Jesus goes and heals

Peter's mother-in-law. Oh yeah, mother-in-law.

OK. So I was so Peter was for sure.

OK, OK. All right, all right, so.

You. Well, I'm going.

I'm still going John. You're going John.

I'm still going John. Because he wasn't martyred and

I'm afraid of pain. So there you go.

OK, I I think I'd go Solomon really I think if I because at

the I mean. The son of David, wisest man to

ever live. Wrapped up in his thoughts a

lot, which. I know he's super depressed,

like he wrote Ecclesiastes, like it's all in vain.

All of this is pointless and stupid.

And yeah, so he's definitely in his own head.

Yeah. But he also had, dude, you

really want to deal with like 700 wives?

I don't. Have like 700 of them.

Yeah, that's a lot of wives. That is a lot of wives.

See, again, I'm trying to avoid the woman drama.

I don't. I don't want any.

You just don't want to go home to listen and have her be like

you said you'd be. Solomon.

We're having a fight right now. Oh, you really want 700 watts,

right? Yeah, fine.

Well, now you've got 699, because I'm peace now, Yeah.

No, yeah, no, I still think just gift attribute character wise, I

don't know. I'd have to figure out the 7700

wives thing, but got a lot of wisdom to discern that, which

seems odd that he would have decided about 700 wives with all

that wisdom. That seems not wise.

But, well, he's he's still a man.

He. Is you?

You take that comment for what you want it to be, but he's

still a man. But like, definitely.

What about Jonah? Oh, actually.

Just taking a ride in a whale, he.

Was You do have to be kind of a racist to be Jonah though.

Wow. Yeah.

And he was. I forget the line that I had in

my in my sermon. I kept it was Deb Adams.

Jonah's a jerk. That's what it was.

He was kind of a jerk. I don't want to be a jerk.

So. Yeah, you kind of, you kind of

have to want genocide for an entire people group and then be

disappointed when it doesn't happen.

Yeah, I don't want that. I don't.

I don't want that. All right, So John for you

though, like disciple John. That's that's where we're going.

How about what? What about like, what about like

Jacob? Yeah.

But I mean you, you got to be kind of a scoundrel.

But. Things really work out for you

for the most part. Besides, you know, just some

family dynamics that are a little tough.

He had the he had the girl drama, though, too, right?

Like, yeah, I don't know. It's tough, Joseph.

Joseph suffered a lot, but he also had a lot of power.

Joseph, you know what? If you can get through the

suffering years with Joseph, you're like, I'm a baller and I

did all the and I did all the things, right.

Yeah, besides being a jerk in the beginning, I did all the

things right. So Joseph may not be a bad pick.

Yeah, Joseph's interesting to me.

So Jonathan, Jonathan with David might be.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm just now I'm just throwing

names out there, but I think, I think it's Solomon.

I, I think I'd like to just have all the wisdom in the world and

trust that I'm going to figure out the the rest of it with

that. So not.

Bad Solomon and John, that's that's who we'd be.

All right, Exodus 32 in your study guide, you had it broken

out nice into only like 11 verses.

Yeah. And I wound up walking us

through most of the chapter because I feel you had us

jumping in verses 7 to 14. And I feel like we needed that.

That would be at the point of the Lord warning Moses, go back

down the mountain. Your people are crazy.

So I just need to provide the context of the first few verses

of that. I don't know that there's much

extra to jump into there in the 1st 6 verses.

Well, I, I will say, you know, if nothing else, you, you, you

printed off this, this commentary for me from David

Cusick, which I appreciate, but there's a couple of things that

I did like he he said this about verse one in particular.

He said, yet because the people couldn't see the reason for the

delay, they allowed it to stumble them.

Man, isn't that the truth? Like if, if I can't think of,

and I think Tim Keller put this best, but if I can't think of

the reason for God doing something or not doing

something, then there must not be a good reason at all.

And in, in subtly or not so subtly saying, and, you know,

reacting that way. We've just done exactly what

Adam and Eve, you know, we, we get on their case about like,

I'm, I, I want to be like God. So if I can't think of a good

reason, there must not be 1. And that is such, that is such a

dangerous way to to to think. Yeah.

And at the same time with that, wouldn't it be, I'm not saying

it alleviates all suffering, but even if you put a OK wait and

endure through that, it's it's going to be next 40 days are

going to be bad, but it's going to work out at you make it

through these 40 days and it's going to turn out like you, like

you wanted it to, like you need it to.

That's a little more palatable, right?

Because you can like you can see the end you, you, you know that

the suffering is worth something, right?

I think what we're I think what they're scared of it.

They just OK, we, we so much make our current situation just

this is how it's going to be forever.

I think that's what they're caught in right here like this

dude's gone. We don't know if he's ever

coming back. If he's never coming back.

We're just wasting time waiting for him.

So we're, we're moving on, we're not going to endure this and

we're moving on with our lives and just not going to put up

with this because we don't see an answer.

So we're going to make our own answer.

And I think, I think we get wrapped up in that.

And I'm not saying, I'm not saying the suffering.

There's going to be suffering one way or another.

And God doesn't obviously ordain, OK, it's going to be

really rough for the next 40 days, but then it's going to be

OK. He promises he's going to work

it out for good, for the good, for the good of those who love

him, right? But there's not always a time

stamp on that, right? We, we, we don't have the, when

does it get good? We just get to look back on, see

that he was there and that he's faithful.

Yeah, I, I, I definitely grow concerned in situations where we

just don't, we can't see the light at the, at the end of the

tunnel, as you might say. Like I grow concerned in those

moments. But 44 years and a lot of

difficult experiences have taught me to be a lot more

patient. So, you know, I could tell a

bunch of different stories, I suppose.

But one in particular, when our water froze up, you know, in our

house and we were showering at wherever we, we could catch a

shower and we're getting buckets of water from the church to be

able to like flush a toilet because we could get some water

out, but we couldn't get any back in the house.

And, and you know, I look back on it now and it was exactly 40

days and 40 nights. And the moment that the water

kicked on was the 1st morning of spring.

And I look at that and, and I just look at that time frame.

And my wife and I have talked about this a lot, but you look

at that time frame and you look at backwards and you see how

faithful God was through his people, through his church,

through all these different things.

And had we, I don't know, I don't know what we could have

done differently, but like had we just failed to believe that

God would provide through that situation, we would look back

and we would not see all the different ways that he just

blessed our socks off. And I just, I don't know man,

those the patient endurance of suffering is it does produce a

level of gratitude and confidence in the Lord that you

cannot have, I think, unless you suffer.

Yeah, and there's this. What's, what's the idiom?

Better the devil you know than the devil you don't right now.

That's a little crash to put in this situation because these

people are choosing a devil. They're choosing sin over the

God that they're, but they, they don't know, do we?

We, they chose the known sin over the unknown plan of God,

right? So I'm, I'm messing up the, the

phrase a little bit. But we do that, right?

When we can't see how or where or when God's working, we just

find safety in that. Yeah, I know this is terrible

for me. I know this isn't it.

I know this isn't the answer, but I know what it is.

I know how it's going to make me feel that that we somehow find

twisted safety in that. And that's what the Israelites

did here too, right? Like, were they really that

crazy to be like this golden bowl, this golden calf?

This is the thing that's that we're going to follow, that's

going to lead us to. Did they really wholeheartedly

believe that? Or did they just need this

tangible? They needed to provide

understanding for themselves, and they weren't willing to wait

on the Lord. Yeah, it's, it's, it's difficult

to, to iron that out. But there is this, there is this

innate human desire, I would say, to be able to have, you

know, the God that we can touch, the God that we can grab, the

God that we can feel and maybe in a prideful way, the God that

we think we can manipulate and control.

And so some of those things that we're searching for and God are

really good and they're fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

He came down in the form of a man could be touched, had dinner

with him, all these kinds of things.

But the, the more negative aspects of that is I, I want to

be able to control you. I want to be able to tell you

what's best for me. And I think you brought that up

yesterday in your sermon, which is like, hey, God, I know you've

got a plan, but why don't you stick that plan on the shelf?

Because I don't like it and I've got a way better one.

And so you brought that up yesterday and I thought that was

that was spot on for for some of these kind of concepts that we

see here. So yeah, thank you for doing

that too. Which I.

Think is interesting because Moses kind of we, we often make

jest of that scenario and say, OK, let me take God's plan and

I'll then I'll make it better with my own stuff because that's

that's what Moses does here. God tells him his plan and Moses

comes back with like, but what if, what?

What if we changed it? God was somehow open to that

though, and I didn't I didn't draw it out as much.

This is verses 9 and 10. In chapter 32 the Lord said to

Moses, I've seen this people and indeed it is a stiff necked

people. Now therefore leave me alone

that my wrath may burn hot against them and that I may

consume them and I will make of you a great nation.

I didn't lean on as much in this.

There is a kind of subliminal option here.

Part of part of that phrase is if you leave me alone, I will do

this. God leaves margin for Moses to

protest or or even offer to to atone offer to offer to mediate

this situation right? He he leaves room like if you do

nothing, if you're on board with this, I'll make you start over

with you, make you the great nation.

He leaves room for the response that Moses actually comes to and

says, Hey, great merciful God, they haven't screwed up so much

so far that you haven't delivered them.

Can we can we deliver them again?

Right. Now there's nothing.

OK, I'm I'm going out on a limb a little bit here because

there's nothing in the Bible or in the text that would indicate

that this true. But consider this for a moment

if God is going to test Moses, because Moses is clearly fed up

with these people too. They complain all the time.

They blame him for everything. How many times up to this point

have they already been like, did you, didn't you just drag us out

here to kill us? And they're so ungrateful in it.

Like I think my blood pressure is going up just thinking about

it from his perspective. Seriously, they're so ungrateful

and they're so rude and they're so mean to him, despite the fact

that he is doing everything with God in his power and God's power

collectively to save them. And they're such jerks about it

all the time. So, like, think about it this

way maybe. And again, there's no Bible

passage to support this, but if God were to test Moses and say,

I know you, I know you're fed up with these people too.

So what do you think about this plan?

Could God not be testing Moses and saying, hey, if I'm willing

to destroy them, are you also done with them in such a way?

And Moses, I think he passes the test and he says, yeah, they're

under my skin. They're driving me crazy.

They're never going to be as grateful as they should be for

what I've done or what you've done.

But there's still something beautiful about them that is

worth redeeming. And so obviously, you talked

about it yesterday, too, as a type of Christ Jesus looks at

the people who crucified him and said, yeah, I know they're

ungrateful and they're terrible and all these things, but

there's something beautiful about them that is still worth

redeeming. And so again, it's not in the

text there. But if there was a test for

Moses, this is it. This is that moment.

And I I think you're right. Yeah, it's not immediately in

the text, but it maybe was a test for him in how well he knew

the character of God because even defending.

Hey, you, you God, you brought them out of Egypt.

Don't let the Egyptians think of you as a cruel God who just LED

your people out into the desert only to kill them.

He's one of one of the notes in the enduring word commentary

here is undoubtedly Moses was filled with compassion for the

people, but his chief concern was for the honor of the name of

God. He he was thinking, yeah, God,

you can act in this way and it is righteous.

It is it's completely justified. But how much more for the sake

of this nation, this people that is supposed to bring you to the

earth, right? Be your advocates for this, for

this God and for your ways. Let's let's not take the bad

press here. Kind of is just what he's

saying, right? No, let's, let's work with what

we've got. We don't, we don't need rumor

mill starting here because your mercy is abundant.

Your grace is great. I know it is.

I know you can act in forgiveness and redemption for

your people. Let's do that rather rather than

the rage monster sort of sort of route, right?

Moses Moses as like you know, Moses in or God as like the rage

monster. I, I heard that language coming

through yesterday and it did make me chuckle and I was like,

man, this feels like angry Elmo all over again.

Angry Elmo. I just brought with Esau like

no, but I there's something deeply appropriate about like

the anger of God in this scenario and stuff and and even

Moses. Now the cool thing about Moses

and I, I think it makes him very relatable and here's what it is.

He's literally debating and and vying for their lives in front

of the very God that can just wipe them off the face of the

earth. Now he does that in such loving

fashion. And then he comes down the hill

and he just rips them apart. Like we do that with our kids

too. Don't we?

Like, you know, we'll, we'll do everything we can protect them.

We'll, we'll, we'll cover them. We'll do all this stuff.

And then the second that they get in our presence, oh, you're

in so much trouble. Like I did all this stuff for

you in the in the background that is very loving.

But now that I'm in front of you, I'm a whoop.

You like go, go get a stick Outback because I'm going to

whoop you. Yeah, there's a part of his

argument that that maybe it's like, I know they're bad, but

were they really that bad? And then he gets down to the

bottom of the mountain and it's worse than he could even

imagine, right? Like, And so I touched on it a

little bit. I skipped over he actually

breaks and smashes the tablets the the 10 commandment tablets,

right? They're they're inscribed

written on by the power of God. These two tablets, both sides

that have the law of God on them and verse 19 as he gets down to

the bottom of the mountain, so as it was, as soon as he came to

the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing.

So Moses anger became hot and he cast the tablets out of his

hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain and he took the

calf they had made, burned it in the fire, grounded it into

powder and he scattered it on the water and made the children

of Israel drink it. I did touch on that, the powder

range. How did he make them drink it?

That's a great question. It was just him.

I mean him against this angry crowd and he's making them drink

this powder water. Like, I mean, you know, The

thing is like, OK, you have 5 kids at home.

You know, if maybe if they were, maybe I'm going to paint a weird

picture here, but it's kind of funny.

You have 5 kids at home. If they're organized, they they

might be able to overpower you, Matt.

That's what I'm saying. Yeah, but I.

Can't make the five of them together.

Drink powder water. But The thing is, though, they

respect him so much and the fact that like, basically in their

mind, this guy's coming back from the dead and yeah, they're

afraid of him, which, you know, a good father, a good, you know,

you have to be a little afraid. And that's, that's OK.

So I suspect in his great rage and his anger, they're quite.

Weren't trying to make him. Matter.

No dude, you do not want to mess with this guy.

He's just spent the last 40 days with God on the top of the

mountain and this is not a guy you mess with.

All right, all right. Drink.

It I'll receive that yeah, I guess last time he was angry he

killed an Egyptian. Really.

Right. Like that was he has that in him

so. Oh.

He certainly does. So yeah, And then he turns to

Aaron, who he left in charge, and this just.

Had such a clown. Yeah, and it's his.

Older brother, it's this guy who was advocating for Moses.

He's basically Aaron. It's, it's, it's Aaron that

Moses has built his reputation with the people on, right?

Like he needed to lean on Aaron to even get these people to

listen to him, right? Is Aaron like his PR guy?

Like his, it seemed. Because that was the original

arrangement, because Moses was like, I can't speak very well

when God's like, let Aaron do that.

Yeah. PR guy, yeah.

Sure. Yeah.

Well, and then here's the thing about PR people.

If I'm, if I can drag this out a little bit further, PR people

only want to do what you know, what is going to work and make

people. What they can spin.

Yes, what can I spin this into? How can I be liked?

How can I, you know, And I think Aaron is maybe acting in that

way, especially as it's like, well, my, my, my client Moses is

not here. Therefore I'm just going to make

the people really happy. I'm just going to give them

exactly what they want. I'm going to do the the PR spin.

And and he does a fantastic job of being an absolute scoundrel.

I just, I got, I got the idea in my head of you like going to a

communications college and having formulated a, a PR

curriculum based on Exodus 32 and and Aaron's just complete

mishandling of this. I think, I think you could write

an entire thesis about that time.

It's all the way back. You could do it.

Science of public relations goes all the way back to Exodus.

You know what? If I'm ever going to do a PhD or

doc, I'm going to do it in public relations and

communication, and I'm going to write an entire thesis about

Aaron as the worst PR guy ever. Wow.

Worst public relations guy of all time?

Nobody's ever written about it, as far as I know, and I like it.

I'm going to be the first. There you go.

That's awesome. So he so he comes to Aaron.

What did this people do to you that you brought so great a sin

upon them? He like he double blames.

There's there's concern like what happened?

Were you in danger? But then you let them into this,

you let them into this terrible situation.

So first I left you in charge and you couldn't handle whatever

threat they brought against you and then you brought them into

terribleness. Why did I leave you in charge?

In fact, who, who let who left you into Oh, it was me.

It was my, it was my problem. I, I left you in charge.

I made the bad call and Aaron, I brought it out yesterday.

But he's, he's basically just fumbling over his words.

So well, they wanted this God. So I, I gathered all the gold

and I threw it in the fire and this calf just like popped out

like that. That's what the words I cast it

in the fire and this calf came out even though, OK, ignore the,

the tools and that, that that cast over there.

That looks like a calf that like you could mold metal in and make

it look like. Ignore that.

I don't know where those tools came from either.

They those just popped out of nowhere.

You know that, and there's this, OK, I'm going to, I'm going to

bring us right to Jesus. So hold on right to Jesus.

Buckle your seatbelts because we're going to Jesus on this

one. So Exodus 32 says that, you

know, he engraved this calf. So that word engraved, if you

look throughout the Old Testament, it's not just I, you

know, I had a tool and I, I created a shape.

And no, there's like specific artistry talked about in the

engraving process. So it's, it's specific, it's

it's, it's intentional and it's meant to be beautiful.

There's. Artistry.

In this, there's real artistry in this.

So Aaron used all his artistry, all his skills to help the

people sin, to engrave something, you know, for them

that would actually draw them away from God.

Now bring this straightforward to Jesus.

What does Isaiah tell us about Jesus and the marks on his

hands? It tells us that our names are

engraved on his hands. And so therefore, or maybe it's

Hebrews, but therefore the artistry with which God allowed

our names to be engraved on himself, rather than, you know,

somebody like Aaron who's using artistry to create sin.

No, absolutely not. God has engraved our names on

his hands, on the palm of his hands.

And so I just, I hear that and I'm like, OK, we clearly have

the difference between a, a God who who loves and a people

pleaser. Yeah.

What verse? What am I?

It's Isaiah 4916 actually, foretelling of the I have

written your name on the palms of my hands, foretelling the the

Savior. Yep.

And so, I mean, I, I think those two words, but anyway, yeah,

this engraving process, it is done intentionally.

There's no, there's nothing accidental about it.

And so therefore, as we look for Jesus is pretty intentional

about the artistry engraving our names on his hands.

So that makes this whole thing even worse.

It makes the whole thing even more kind of potentially damning

for Aaron because what, what a clown.

And, and when and when Moses does come down, he's like, man,

I, I, I don't even know what happened.

I don't even know what happened. I don't know how I got here.

And so I thought and, and honestly, I thought you did a

beautiful job of bringing that out in your sermon because

that's so true. Sometimes we get wrapped up in

sin and we get wrapped up in a situation and we're so far gone

from where we started. Or maybe the the the movements

of that sin were so subtle that we just did not see them at the

time. And so you're like, I, how did I

end up here? I, I never wanted this.

I never intended this. I never thought, how did I end

up here? And that could be a

relationship, that could be some financial stuff, that could be

anything. But like, I, it's true.

That's, that's a common human experience.

How did we end up here? And I thought you brought that

out really well yesterday. And just a further analogy on

that, maybe I've brought it up on the show before too, but it's

the, it's the chain analogy. Satan.

Satan doesn't bring you a temptation.

He doesn't come to you with the, with the whole chain and the

shackles all put together, right?

It's one, it's one link at a time.

And then all of a sudden you're shackled.

Eventually you're shackled in a place that you don't want to be

in, stuck in. And it's, I don't, I don't know

how I got here. What was one?

It was one link at a time, right?

That's that's how Satan works and and twists.

And that's, that's what Aaron experienced here.

That's what so many of us do. And.

I brought it up yesterday how many, how many people I had met

with throughout the week and that wasn't to I wasn't trying

to violate confidence. I didn't really talk about

anything specifically that was. Oh, I don't even know who you

were talking about. Right.

And, and, and I wasn't trying to, it was more so for, for

those of you that, that have reached out to me or, or Pastor

Chris to, to help you through some of these life things or, or

even maybe more so to those of you that haven't either out of

AI just don't know what to do or, or, or shame or, or, or

depression or, or whatever it is.

You are not alone. There are so many of God's

people that are going through this same thing, maybe not the

same exact struggle that you are, but those same feelings of

my life is so messed up and it's wrapped up in sin.

I don't know how I got here and I don't know what to do.

And with that, what I what I said yesterday is that is it

sounds like a cop out. And we see Aaron here like just

throwing up his hands, like, I don't know, I don't know how I

got here. I don't know what to do.

But it's also very natural because we can't, we can't

mitigate our own sin, right? We can't in and of ourselves

solve that problem. We need a mediator, an

intercessor. We need a Moses as a type of

Christ. Eventually the Christ who is the

the perfect high priest who understands, who has gone

through every he's not unfamiliar with our suffering,

right? Hebrew.

Hebrew says he gets to go and advocate before God and say I

have seen, I have known, I've experienced, I've borne their

sin and I can take it all. Amen.

Wow. So just to that's that's where

Aaron's at with all this. Moses still on a little bit of a

a rager calls the calls, though I think there's a powerful

phrase, verse 25 and 26. Whoever is on the Lord's side,

come to me. Jesus uses this language too,

right? I'd, I'd, I'd rather, I'd rather

that you were either for me or against me, not lukewarm in the

middle, right, like Moses is drawing lines here.

There's those of you that are clearly against God not wanting

to follow him anymore. Those of you that are truly for

Yahweh front and center right here.

We're we're, we're drawing this up.

And he arms them with swords. They go and charges them.

Says Lord has said, let every man put his sword on his side

and go out and let every man kill his brother.

Every man is companion and every man his neighbor.

And they did it and they killed about 3000 men in the camp that

day. And Moses says consecrate nailed

it. I said the word consecrate

yourselves today to the Lord that he may bestow on you a

blessing for this day. For every man has opposed his

son and his brother. Now, what I don't think is

happening here, Moses is not condoning patricide or

fratricide, right? That's, that's not what's

happening here. I think it's closer to what I

was espousing yesterday in the message of these things that are

closest to you that are supposed to be for God, that that that

are supposed to be influencing you in a right way, fixing your

eyes on Jesus towards the father, being a some of the the

people that are closest to you, where are they?

If they're if it's actually helpful for them to be that

close to you, they should be shoulder to shoulder with you

right here on the side that is for God, right.

A a note from this enduring word commentary reflecting on this

that being on the Lord's side requires decision.

It requires action and it requires separation that that

separation being from the world right conform no longer Romans

12 to the patterns of this world would be transformed by the

renewing of your mind right. There are things that are in

that inhabit each and every one of our lives that aren't for the

Lord and that in in order to, for us to fully be for the Lord

are going to require separation from I think, I think that's

most of what this, this picture is.

Yeah, there's some, there's some sacrificial stuff in there.

God was ready to wipe everybody out.

Is this a, a consecrating offering sacrifice of, of, of

blood instead of the, the millions that it would have been

had God wiped out all of the Israelites?

Is, is, are these 3000 lives a, a bit of a sacrifice in place of

that maybe I think, I think you could draw those lines a little

bit. What spoke to me more was this

kind of this, this separate if, if you're truly leaving that

life behind, leaving that old life behind and you are for the

Lord now you made a new creation.

These things got to go. These things in your life that

aren't for the Lord, they got to go.

And it looks really extreme and and severe when it's people.

Yeah, sure. Well, a couple things here.

Thank you for saying that. I thought you explained that

well. But a couple additional things,

like we kind of talked about this at the beginning.

You know, sometimes we see God when he is angry and when he is

allowing people to die or, or he's not just even allowing that

and we can use stronger language.

He's telling them to take care of this.

We can look at that and go with our modern sensibilities.

We can look at that and go, oh, that's so cruel.

That's so I can't believe he would do that.

I can't believe, well, what we're doing in that moment is

something that I think is highly dangerous and we don't realize

what we're doing it. We are now judging God.

That's exactly what when we look at Scripture and we say, oh, I

can't believe you do that. I can't, I can't, I can't be OK

with that. OK, well you've now put yourself

in the judgment seat over God. That is incredibly dangerous

territory, not a place I want to walk.

Yeah. We're we're judging what is

good, what is righteous, what is justice by calling him out on

that. I'm, I'm not willing to walk

there. And The thing is like, I'm

willing to have conversations with people who are going

through some emotional stuff and, and maybe some of the

biblical narrative isn't fitting within their philosophy right

now. We can walk through and we can

debate some of that stuff, but man, I'm not willing to like,

appease or pull off of the fact that here's what you're doing

and I'm going to encourage you very quickly to get off that

path because I can't join you there.

I can't sympathize with you on that path.

I can't do it because I cannot sympathize with somebody who's

trying to exercise judgment over God.

That puts me in a very dangerous position, and I'm not willing to

go there for anybody. No way.

That's a really good thought, man.

Can't do it. I wish I touched on that.

Yes, that's that's phenomenal. I I don't know, you know, God is

good, but I don't know where I get certain things that you

know, you read enough and you're like, I don't even know if these

words are mine or if somebody else had that idea.

Now I've just internalized them, but that's how I was definitely

thinking through some of that stuff is like, that's so

dangerous and I don't think it's smart.

No, that's, that's I think that's a great point.

And I forget which one of your questions, it was in the study

guide, but one of the, I think, I think, I think it related to

that, like, how can we see, how can we see this God that

commanded Moses or the Levites said to kill all these people

and still see him as as good or gracious?

How do you not question his grace?

And it comes back to the he's no, he's not safe, but he's

good. And in seeing how he can act in

his power, in his righteous anger, even no, he's not safe,

but he's good. But you better be in that good,

right? Like you, you, you want to be in

that good and that's Jesus because right?

And that's I am the way, the truth and the life.

Now I'm your way to the Father. Those that know me know the

Father, and you're in good with the Father, right?

Because you know Jesus. The other maybe something else I

would say about that is just, it's the sense of besides just

like not wanting to judge God because that's dangerous

territory. Besides that, there we we need a

God of justice. Absolutely.

The thing is, I, I, I think we don't like this God of justice.

When he does things that again, offend our modern sensibilities,

then we don't like a God of justice.

But when people have hurt us or hurt our family or they

financially done something bad to us or whatever, then we want

the God of justice. We want the God of rage.

But you don't get to pick and choose when he does that.

And when he's not that he's always that he's always a God of

perfect justice. And so whether you like that

justice or not, he is going to enact it ultimately, of course,

we know that he enacted all of this justice and all of this

punishment on his own son for, for, for us.

But we also can't get squeamish when God is doing what's in His

character. It is in His character to be

perfectly just, because if He was not perfectly just, we could

not, we could not rely on Him. And I heard this too once, and I

thought this was kind of interesting that only, only

people who have never really, really suffered can get angry at

God when He creates judgment. Because here's the thing.

If let's say you are, let's say you've been in a country where

you've been ravished by a more powerful country next to you and

they've just done harmful and terrible things to you.

Well, if, if I don't have, if I don't have a God of justice who

I think will make every wrong right and will pay back what he

needs to pay back in order for there to be justice done, I'm

going to lose my mind and I'm going to go on a murdering spree

and I'm probably going to be killed.

No, if I've really suffered, if my country, if I've, if my

family has really suffered, I have to believe in a God of

justice. Otherwise, I, I won't, I won't

make next month because I'll take it into my own hands.

And so let's not get offended when this God of justice does

what's in his character. And also let's not be surprised

in some ways when this God of love and mercy does what's

within his character. It is both and we don't live

well in that tension, but it is both and both.

Those are his character traits. Right.

And that's, that's when we long for mercy, right?

When, when we see when, when it's a God of justice and we

realize he is just, but we're in the wrong, right then, then

we're looking for mercy, not justice, right when, when, when

we're in the good, then we want then we want justice like, like

Jonah did. Jonah wanted justice, right, for

the, for the people who God ultimately showed mercy to.

And and yet that is just in his mercy.

That is justice to be merciful. So.

Yeah, we get it wrong all the time.

We do. We do so Moses the the last part

of this chapter and we touched on it in the message yesterday

to Moses goes back up to God and yeah, you're right God verse

verse 31. These people have committed a

great sin and have made for themselves a God of gold.

Yet now if you will forgive their sin.

If not blot me out of your book which you have written.

So he's he comes back up and he's like OK, you were right.

They would be in knuckleheads. That's a nice way to say they're

they're. As messed up as you said, you

were right, God. But if I May 11, if I may add to

your idea, take me instead. Don't don't punish them.

Take my he. He's saying block me out of the

book of life, right? Take Take Me Out of this book in

their place. He knew their sin was so severe

that animal sacrifice would not do it.

It needed it needed to be the blood of a human, an image

bearer of God. Of course it's not Jesus, but

but we see the type of Christ in him right there for the

foreshadowing of the one who could bear it all in this

gesture and God says, no, we're not we're not going to do that.

Verse 33 whoever sin against me, I will blot him out of my book.

Now therefore, go lead the people to the place I've spoken

to you, my Angel shall go before you.

But nevertheless, in the day when I visit for punishment, I

will visit punishment upon them for their sin.

So Lord plagued the people because of what they did with

the calf that Aaron had made. So there's still fallout right

God, God, God acted in mercy. There was still punishment and

don't hear this. I I do not think that we have

these one to one instances of you.

You sin against God and this bad thing happens in your life.

That's we don't we don't see that in in the Bible.

God acts injustice to his people about these things.

I don't think our lives are that binary.

One, one to one, kind of. No.

But go ahead. Oh no, I was just going to say,

sometimes we mistake what are perfectly normal consequences

for God's judgment. And it's like, well, guess what,

give you a, give you a terrible example.

If I decide to sleep around and, you know, have a lot of

different partners, you know, and I and I can track some

terrible disease, I could look at that and say, Oh my gosh,

especially if I'm at least slightly aware of Christianity

and stuff and feeling the law. I could be like, Oh my goodness,

like God is punishing me for being a scoundrel and sleeping

around. When in reality, he doesn't even

have to punish you because the natural consequences of your

proclivity to a lot of partners is it's doing the job.

He doesn't, he doesn't have to punish you.

He's not mad at you. He's not, he's not, you know,

damning you to hell. What's happening is they're just

natural consequences to doing stupid things.

And so like, we need to recognize the difference because

again, if God is truly just, all of this, all of the sins that

you've ever committed or ever will commit have already been

paid for by Jesus. So therefore he can't take

double payment on the same sin. Therefore, logically, God cannot

be punishing you for said sin. It is just a natural consequence

of your own stupidity. Yeah, no, we, we do a really

good job of getting into a pity party of like individualizing

our own sin, which which, yes, we, we are individuals who have

sin, but there's a general sin problem, right?

We're we're in a world afflicted by sin with, with disease and

WIC with sickness, with theft and, and fraud and scams and,

and like just evil in, in our lives, right.

And, and we do such a good job of being like, Oh well, God must

hate me and me a lot. No, we when you live in a place

surrounded by it like you're, you're, you're bound to catch a

stray every once in a while, right?

Yeah. You know what's really

interesting about that, that way of thinking, and I suspect we've

all done it, is even that way of thinking.

It's really sinful to. It's really prideful because

it's so prideful. I'm so.

I'm so awesome. I'm so important.

Yeah, I'm so important that God needs to individually, you know,

get out the switch and whip me because I'm that important,

right? And it's like, oh, come on, get

over yourself. This this pity party that you're

throwing yourself, It's just another way of your sin coming

out. And it's kind of ugly.

So like, why don't you believe in Jesus?

Believe what the Bible says that he's done for you and get over

it. Yeah, and it's also, it's also

just that line of thinking. It's wrong.

It's not, it's not from God. It's not the the sin that

afflict us. God does not tempt us.

That's that's the devil's job. Temptation and lies are the

other tools that he has. That's that's it.

So, and God is God of truth and, and he doesn't act in

temptation. So Nope, that's it.

Exodus 32. We got a couple more weeks in

Moses and a couple and then it's Christmas time.

Advent. Kristen was in the she had the

the elf jumpsuit on today. Yeah, Monday, November 10th.

Yikes. We're 45 days from Christmas.

All right, so we got a lot of days of Christmas left and she's

already. She's already in the Christmas

time. Oh my God.

That's not me. When is OK?

When is appropriate for Christmas tree in your when?

When does a Christmas tree happen?

After Thanksgiving. Yes, OK.

That's the only correct. Answer Now, I don't hate on

people who like it sooner. That's fine.

But you've got to be careful. Please do not shove your

Christmas whatever. Please don't attempt to do that

In, in, in, in my in my headspace.

Don't attempt to do that in my headspace before Thanksgiving.

Please don't do. That that's that's usually when

I land on it too. So I still feel like that's

plenty early. One holiday, 11 holiday at a

time, friends. Like, let's not skip over.

Yeah, agreed. All right.

Well, you can throw your your Christmas advocacy or or tell us

about our grinchiness on it. I know our Grinchiness.

Our Grinchiness, it's been great.

Thanks for hanging with us, Church.

Have a blessed week.