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.
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,
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
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
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.