Moving Forward By Faith (Joshua 3-4)

About a month after my resignation from Immanuel Baptist Church, I was invited back to preach. So, in keeping with my usual practice, we just picked up where we left off and moved forward to the next of the Essential 100 series: Joshua 3-4. The text of the sermon is below. I'm not sure about audio. If I run across it, I will link it. 

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For better or worse, I am able to sympathize with those who have severe anxiety issues. A few times in my life, I have been stricken with overwhelming perplexing anxiety attacks. Thankfully, it has not been often, but one of them I recall vividly was on our arrival to Nepal in 2011. Nothing, and I mean nothing, about that long and arduous journey had worked out the way I had planned. Everything was more complicated and taxing than I had imagined. If I could just get to the hotel and sleep, all would be well. But arriving at the hotel, our rooms had been given away to other guests. With some negotiating, we were able to get rooms for everyone except me. I was assigned, not a room, but a bed – a bed in a room, with six other beds. Who was sleeping in these other beds? I am sure someone in the hotel knew the answer, but I could not find anyone who could understand the question. I wanted to call home, but my phone did not work. I tried to use my computer to skype, email, or something, and there was no internet. So, for the next six hours or so, I had anger, frustration, sadness, excitement, all bouncing off of each other, and all I could do was lay in the bed and cry. No one told me it was going to be like this. I was certain God was leading, and so I was convinced it should have been easier and smoother.

Maybe you have had experiences like that. Maybe you are in one right now. It may be that over the next period of weeks and months as the church moves through the transitional period, things become more difficult and stressful than you anticipated. God’s timing may not be on pace with your preferences. Some preferences and priorities which were assumed in the past may be challenged in the future. So how do you keep moving forward?

The nation of Israel had come at long last to the boundary of the land promised to them and their forefathers by God Himself. All that stood between them and possession of this divinely granted gift was a raging river in full flood stage and a seven nation army. This was not what some of them had in mind. So how could they keep moving forward? The only way for them to move forward in the face of obstacles and opposition was to move forward by faith. And that is the only way forward for us as well.

So how do we move forward by faith? To move forward by faith is to follow the leadership of the Lord with complete and total trust. It is to trust that when you cannot see what is ahead, you have full confidence in Who is ahead so that you can keep pressing on. It is to have the confidence of knowing that He is bigger and better than anything and everything you will encounter along the way. So moving forward by faith is all about walking in a trusting relationship with Jesus and taking every step of the journey with Him in front. From our text today, we get a glimpse of what that looks like.

I. Moving forward by faith means following carefully (3:1-4)

One of the most endearing metaphors Scripture uses to describe the relationship of Christ to His people is that of Shepherd and sheep. Whatever else that imagery entails and includes, we know that it means that we must keep our eyes on the Shepherd and move when He moves and move where He moves. We trust Him, and we believe that He is good. So we follow Him. The nation of Israel, in the best and brightest parts of their history, walked with that kind of faith in the Lord. We see it here in our text. As they followed Him carefully by faith, we notice that they followed obediently.

The presence of God in the midst of His people was symbolized by the Ark of the Covenant. Yes, Indiana Jones fans, it is that Ark. Only, there isn’t much about it from the movie that is accurate. The Ark was essentially an ornately decorated chest that was built according to God’s own instructions in Exodus 25:10-22. It was to be the place where blood was sprinkled for the atonement of sin. In it was kept the tablets containing the Ten Commandments, the staff of Aaron, and a jar of manna. Thus, the presence of God was symbolized by the shed blood of atoning sacrifice that united God with His people, the Word of God to His people, and His works of power and providence for His people. And when the Lord directed His people to go forward, it was the Ark that led the way. So, in verse 3, the people were told, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God with the Levitical priests carrying it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it.” They were not to move until or unless the Ark moved, and when the Ark moved, they were to obey and move immediately.

Now, today we may be tempted to say, “Oh I wish we had a golden box that represented the presence of God so we would know when and where the Lord was leading so that we could obey Him more perfectly.” Let me tell you why that is a dreadful thing to imagine. First of all, the box was a symbol, and realities are always greater than the symbols that represent them. You don’t need the symbol, because you have the reality. The presence of God with His people does not need to be symbolized because it has been incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ. He has come to dwell among His people. But, you may say, Jesus is not physically present with us today, so how is that better for us? Well, let’s suppose that Jesus was physically present with us today, where would He be? It doesn’t really matter how you answer that, because the point is that He could only be in one place at any one time, and therefore our relationship with Him and His influence in the world would be severely limited by space and time. But that is not to say that Jesus is not present with us today. He promised to always be present with us, and He is because His Holy Spirit indwells us all who trust in Him. So where is Jesus? He is wherever His people are found, “with us always, even to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20).

So, the reality is present with each and every born again follower of Jesus, so we do not need the symbol (the Ark, or something like it), but how do we follow Jesus in perfect obedience without some sort of external indicator of what it is that He wants us to do? Two things: First of all, realize that perfect obedience has already been obtained for you by Jesus in His sinless life, so you don’t have to try to earn that status before God. Christ has given you His status before God. That frees you up from the guess work of trying to figure out with specificity what, where, who, how, why to do the next thing. You are free to live in a loving relationship with Jesus that has at its foundation the perfect obedience He has already earned for you and given to you. Everybody breathe a collective sigh of relief at this point. But add to that the very real factors of His guidance that we have in both the written Word of God and the indwelling of His Spirit in His people. What would God have you to do in obedience to Him? Read the Bible and find out. Does it say to do something? Then do it. Does it say not to do something? Then don’t do it. But you say, “Sometimes the Bible is hard to understand.” That’s true. In fact, I know it’s true because the Bible says that about itself (2 Pet 3:15-16; et al.). That’s where you trust in His guidance by the Holy Spirit who lives in you, and who also lives in the Christians around you in the context of your spiritual family, the church. When we don’t understand His Word, we ask Him for wisdom, and we humbly seek the counsel of others we trust to live under the Spirit’s leading. Now, isn’t that better than a box? God has given us all we need to move forward by faith, following carefully and obediently.

Following carefully also means following observantly. In verse 4, the Lord’s instructions were the people should keep a considerable distance between themselves and the ark. The distance was to be 2,000 cubits, which amounts to just over a half a mile. Why was this distance necessary? The reason is specified in verse 4: “that you may know the way by which you shall go, for you have not passed this way before.” Simply put, this intervening distance allowed everyone to keep their eyes on the Ark as the priests lifted it up. Without this distance, only those in the front would be able to see the Ark. All everyone else could see would be the backs of each other’s heads. There is a legitimate sense in which we do follow one another, but ultimately we are to keep our eyes on the Lord and follow Him alone. That’s the point – not to follow the Lord at a distance, but to position ourselves in such a way that we are able to keep our focus on Him at all times as we follow Him.

I ran across an interesting commentary on this passage as I was reading a sermon preached to the North Carolina Baptist Convention in 1930. In it, A. W. Fleischmann made an interesting observation about what he erroneously called “the intervening mile,” saying, “Further, this great intervening space taught the people that the waters of the Jordan did not flee before Israel but before the Ark.” In other words, when they came to the river and considered how they would cross it, no one alive in that generation would ever dare suggest that it was because of their ingenuity, creativity, strength, or the resources of any or all of them. It was God and God alone who would get the glory as the waters of the Jordan stood like a wall for Israel to pass before. Following observantly at a distance with their eyes fixed on the leading of the Lord, they would behold the waters held back from a half mile away before they ever came near it. When we follow carefully and observantly we become sensitive and aware to the ways that God is at work bringing glory to Himself and doing the things that He alone can do. There will be times in your life when you wonder how in the world you are going to get by or make it. There may come times during this season of transition when you feel tempted to give up and on the future of this church. But if you just keep your focus on how the Lord is moving and know that He is moving, He will bring glory to Himself. You can watch it happen if you follow observantly.

So, keep moving forward … by faith … and that means, first of all, following carefully … and that entails following obediently and observantly. Now secondly, …

II. Moving forward by faith means following expectantly (3:5-17)

William Carey is regarded as the father of the modern missionary movement. In the late 1700s, support for missions was languishing among churches in the West. Missionaries were few and were supported by only a small number of individual churches here and there. Carey was a pastor and became inspired by Jonathan Edwards’ biography of David Brainerd, the great young missionary to the Native Americans who had recently died. Carey developed a global vision of God’s purpose for the church in the world, and he began to challenge churches to band together to support the missionary effort more effectively. Carey himself spent the remainder of his life in South Asia. It was the movement catalyzed by William Carey that eventually gave rise to the North Carolina Baptist State Convention in 1830, and the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845, and which still moves forward through our Cooperative Program by which Southern Baptists unite for the spread of the Gospel around the world. William Carey is most well-known for a simple but profound statement which became sort of a motto for him and those who were inspired by his example: Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God. The order is important. We do not attempt great things as a means of getting great things. No, we have already been promised great things from God, and He is trustworthy so we can expect them and depend on them. Thus, we are only able to attempt great things for God because we expect great things from God.

Now, to move forward by faith, we must follow the Lord expectantly, and one of the ways we do that is through our consecration. In verse 5-6, Joshua ordered the people to consecrate themselves “for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” To be consecrated is to be devoted singularly to the Lord and His purposes. It is to recognize that you are living in His presence. And because He is present, we can expect Him to do wonders in our midst. The NIV translates the word “wonders” here as “amazing things.” That’s a promise, and when the people of God believe that they are in His presence, and that His power is at work in their midst, it is not difficult to convince them to consecrate themselves to His purpose.

So let me ask you, do you believe that God will do amazing things among you? Or do you believe that He is no longer in the “Amazing Thing” business? Maybe you think that sort of thing stopped happening in the first century. Or maybe you think it stopped happening around 1957. Listen, God is still in the business of doing amazing things among His people, but I am not so sure His people are still in the business of expecting it, or living consecrated lives before Him. What kind of amazing things can we expect the Lord to do if we are consecrated to His purposes? Can we expect the kinds of miracles and wonders that occurred in periods of biblical revelation? Listen to what the Lord Jesus said. On the night before His death, He told His followers, “He who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works that these he will do; because I go to the Father” (Jn 14:12). What are those greater works? Because Jesus has gone to the Father, He has imparted His Holy Spirit to indwell us and to work through us as we carry out His mandate to make disciples of all nations and we have the privilege of seeing the spiritually dead raised to life, the spiritually blind made to see, the spiritually crippled made to run – all by faith in Christ. The transformation of lives that occurs by God’s power and grace through the sharing of the Gospel is the most amazing work that God has done in the world. He did it in us. He will do it through us in others. Are you consecrated to this purpose, set apart for God’s use in these wonderful and amazing things He is doing? You can expect Him to do it, so consecrate yourselves to that end.

Not only does following expectantly entail our consecration, but it also secures our confidence (vv8-17). There are times that the Lord’s will is directing us toward seeming impossibilities. In verse 8, we see just such an occasion. The Lord told Joshua, “command the priests who are carrying the ark of the covenant, saying, ‘When you come to the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.’” But keep in mind, according to verse 15, “the Jordan overflows its banks all the days of harvest.” This river was raging at flood stage due to the melting ice and snow atop Mount Hermon. We got to see the frightening reality of a flood stage river this past Summer at Kings Canyon National Park. During our hike there, several trails were completely flooded because of the record snowfall last winter melting and swelling the Kings River out of its banks. And that water was moving very swiftly. Warning signs had been placed all around saying essentially that if you fall into the river, you’re dead. So, I have in my mind the lingering imagery of that raging river, and I read the Lord’s instructions to the priests, “Stand still in the Jordan.” It seems to me an impossibility – except that the Lord is the One who commanded it, and He does not command impossibilities. He intervenes, making possible the otherwise impossible. And if we expect Him to do that, we can face those seeming impossibilities with complete confidence. And we shall find what the Israelites found – that God always delivers. Verses 15-17, “when those who carried the ark came into the Jordan, and the feet of the priests carrying the ark were dipped in the edge of the water … the waters which were flowing down from above stood and rose up in one heap, a great distance away … so the people crossed … on dry ground ….”

The Lord Jesus has promised to use you and me in His grand, glorious, and global purpose of transforming the world by the power of the Gospel. Does that seem impossible? It would be if it were not the Lord Himself being able to bring it about. Because He has commanded us to be His missionary agents in the world, we can go forward with confidence, following Him expectantly by faith, and we will see and experience the amazing things that He will do.

Moving forward by faith means following the Lord carefully – that is to say, obediently and observantly. It means to follow the Lord expectantly – which entails our consecration and confidence. And we come finally to the third element …

III. Moving forward by faith means following mindfully (4:1-24).  

Every generation must have its own personal encounter and experience with God. You have heard me say many times that God adopts every person who comes to faith in Jesus as His son or daughter, but God has no grandchildren. You cannot have a relationship with God on the basis of your parents’ faith, or anyone else’s faith. You must have your own encounter and experience with Him and personally come to faith in the Lord Jesus. You must personally trust Him to save you from sin. John Wesley came from England to America on what would become an unfruitful mission endeavor among the Native Americans. En route back to England, as his ship encountered a storm and he beheld the confident faith of other Christians on board, he confessed, “I went to America to convert the Indians, but O! who shall convert me?” Wesley had learned what we all must learn: There is no service for Christ apart from a relationship with Christ. But more urgently, there is no life at all apart from that relationship. John Wesley did become converted to faith in Christ soon after that, and became most effective for the Lord Jesus and has left us a tremendous legacy of faith and faithfulness.

The generation of Hebrews who had come out of Egypt through the parting of the Red Sea had all died off by the time of our text. They had spent forty years wandering around in the wilderness as God prepared them for the land and the land for them. Their children who were born out of Egypt were now adults with children of their own. Not a single one of them had a first-hand recollection of the Red Sea experience. But they were about to have their own personal experience of deliverance under God’s mighty hand. Just as their ancestors had passed through the Red Sea and told them stories about it to instill their history and heritage in their hearts, so this generation would be able to tell their children and grandchildren about the crossing of the River Jordan. They could speak first hand of how they had experienced the power of God in their own lives. Can you do that? Can you share with your children and grandchildren, or with anyone and everyone else, a testimony of how God has been with you and worked in your life through your faith in Jesus? Have you done it?

Let’s notice how the Israelites were mindful about this as they crossed the Jordan River in Chapter 4. Each tribe was to designate one man to carry up a stone out of the dry riverbed where they crossed. Now this isn’t a little rock. It’s a big stone; it had to be carried on the shoulder. Joshua took these 12 stones and set them up as a memorial. This memorial, like all memorials, had a two-fold function. First, it was a way of remembering the lessons of the past. Every time an Israelite saw those stones, it would remind him or her that the God who parted the Red Sea for their ancestors also parted the Jordan River for them. If they were ever tempted to forget that God is able to overcome any obstacle that stands in the way of the fulfillment of His purpose, these stones would remind them of what He had done for them in the past. In verse 6, Joshua says that their children will ask them, “What do these stones mean to you?” And in response, the people would point back to what God had done for them in the past.

Not only were these stones a way of remembering the lessons of the past, they also were a way of establishing a legacy for the future. Notice Joshua’s statement in verse 21. Not only will the children ask what the stones mean to each one personally (v3), but there would come a generation who knew nothing about the crossing of the Jordan. They wouldn’t know what the personal significance of the stones were, and they wouldn’t even know why these stones were there or where they came from. So Joshua says, “When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, ‘What are these stones?’, then you shall inform your children, saying, ‘Israel crossed this Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed, just as the Lord your God had done to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed; that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, so that you may fear the Lord your God forever.’” These stones become a catalyst to testify to every generation and all nations who the Lord is and what He has done, so that all the peoples of the earth would know and fear Him.

As we move forward by faith, we follow the Lord mindfully. We must never forget what He has done for us and how He has worked on behalf of His people in the past. We are reminded that we have been participants in God’s work. These memorial stones, whatever they may be for us, mean something to us personally. But we must tell the story of how God has acted for His people to others – to our children and grandchildren, and to every nation of the earth. We have to be mindful not only of how God has dealt with us, but also how He has promised to deal with all people. Our testimony of God’s goodness, grace, and glory is proclaimed to those who do not yet know Him so that they too may believe upon the Lord and be saved, that they may walk with Him by faith and serve Him in their generation! Your children and grandchildren, your neighbors and coworkers, indeed the world all around us, is watching the Church of Jesus Christ and saying, “What does all this mean to you? What is it all about? Why do you believe what you believe, say what you say, and do what you do?” And as we give an answer to those questions, we are establishing a legacy for every generation and all nations to know and fear the Lord. God has blessed us! But His purpose in blessing us was not for His blessings to terminate in us. He intends for His blessings to flow through us and impact the lives of others through our witness to them. And we must be mindful of that as we follow the Lord and move forward by faith.

So, keep moving forward. How? By faith! Follow the Lord carefully, obeying His word and observing how He is working. Follow the Lord expectantly, consecrating yourselves to His service and confident that He will accomplish His purposes. Follow the Lord mindfully, remembering the lessons of the past and establishing a legacy for the future by your testimony for Him to every generation and all nations. 

Keep Moving Forward (Joshua 1)

On August 6, 2017, I preached my final sermon at Immanuel Baptist Church as pastor. Lord willing, I hope that it is not my final sermon, or even my final sermon at Immanuel, but it is my final one as pastor.

As I considered what I should say in my final address, I concluded that the best thing I could do was "keep moving foward" in my Essential 100 series, and as God would have it in His good providence, the next passage was Joshua 1. It is a perfect text for the occasion, because it is all about the need to "keep moving forward."

At some point in the future, I will post the manuscript here for those who prefer to read it rather than listen to it, but for now, here is the audio for that message:

http://ibcgso.org/MP3s/Joshua%201.mp3

The Destructiveness of Idolatry (Exodus 32)

Audio 

Over the last thirty years or so, the world of banking has changed tremendously. I can remember when the use of ATM machines became prominent. No longer did you have to go the branch during business hours and deal with a teller to make your transaction. You could make transactions 24 hours a day, and many times somewhere other than at the bank. Then we started using debit cards instead of cash or checks, making it even more convenient, as if we were carrying the bank around with us in our wallets. Along came online banking, and now mobile pay features that we can use right from our smart phones. For most people, a visit to an actual branch of their bank is increasingly rare, because there are so many more convenient ways of taking care of their financial needs.

I spent a lot of time thinking about that a few years ago while walking the streets of Kathmandu, Nepal. That may seem like an unusual place to meditate on modern American banking practices. What set my mind off on this track was watching how the local people engaged in their religious practices. We visited a number of temples, and many of them had prominent altars and menacing statues of various deities, with priests wearing distinctive garments to identify themselves who could assist with whatever religious services needed to be performed. As we walked along the city streets, however, we also noticed that it was impossible to walk for 50 yards without passing some little shrine carved into the side of a building or set up on a post on the sidewalk. And then, in nearly every home or business, the first thing we would see when we walked in was a little altar with some tiny figures of various deities, sometimes positioned beside of photographs of deceased family members. You see, for these people, and countless others like them around the world, religion is much like banking for us. There are times when there is a major spiritual transaction that needs to take place, and for that, you have to make the journey to the temple. At other times, a need arises in the going about of one’s daily commute or routine schedule. So the little roadside shrine functions like a spiritual ATM machine where a person can drop in a few coins and withdraw some good mojo. And then there are the personal shrines. Leaving for work? Say some prayers to Ganesha and Grandma on the way out the door for a safe journey. And when you arrive at work, you can drop a coin in the pan in front of Shiva inside the office.

 For most of us, when we think of idolatry, that is the kind of thing that comes to mind. People bowing down in front of altars, statues, symbols, and images of false deities. But idolatry can take on more subtle forms as well. Sometimes an idol can be as invisible as a fleeting thought. Two things I know for sure about idol worship: (1) None of us are immune to the temptation of it; (2) It is destructive in whatever form or fashion it takes in our lives.

Now, in our text today, the idolatry on display is not subtle at all. It is everything but subtle! Everything about it slaps us as an unexpected surprise. This is not a scene of some primitive, uncivilized group of pagans who live isolated from any biblical truth about God. These are God’s own covenant people! These aren’t people who can argue that they just haven’t seen enough evidence to worship the one true God. He has just performed one miracle after another for their exclusive audience and benefit! These aren’t people who can say, “We didn’t know any better!” Last week, we examined Genesis 20, in which God set forth His law. The first three commandments all dealt with prohibition of idolatry. Don’t commit idolatry of the mind by having any other gods but the One True God. Don’t commit idolatry of the eye by making any images or objects for worship. Don’t commit idolatry of the mouth by using the Lord’s name in meaningless or dishonorable ways. You will no doubt recall that the Israelites said, before the Law was even given, that they were prepared to obey everything that the Lord commanded (19:8). And here we are, less than six weeks later in our text today, and they break out into full blown idolatry!

Friends, we must confess honestly that if the Old Testament Israelites could so easily fall into such gross demonstrations of idolatry, then the New Testament Christians are not immune to the potential. It was, after all, to Christian people that the Apostle John tenderly wrote, “Little children, guard yourselves from idols” (1 Jn 5:21). And the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:6 that the things experienced by the Exodus generation “happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved.” So, let us consider the example set forth for us in this text about the destructiveness of idolatry, so that we might heed that New Testament admonition to guard ourselves from idols in our own lives.

I. The circumstances that give rise to idolatry (vv1-6)

It is a wasted effort to try to think up what factors lead anyone and everyone into idolatry. Bernard Ramm said, “The world itself is one immense idol … more powerful to the imagination and emotions than is the eternal invisible God.” Idolatry is the default religious setting for every person in the world. John Calvin said, “Every one of us is, even from his mother’s womb, expert in inventing idols.” He said, “man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.” There is something within each of us that longs for contact with something or someone transcendent – beyond this world and this life, bigger than us, more powerful than us. That is why, no matter where you go in the world, you find idolatry on display. Paul describes it in Romans 1 when he says that every person can see enough evidence within themselves and in the world around them to know that there is an invisible, all-powerful, holy God who exists. But, he says, even though they know that such a Being exists, “they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” And so, wherever men are found, they can be found worshiping images of human-like or animal-like figures, represented in artwork or carvings from wood or stone. But our focus here is not to explain why anyone and everyone resorts to idolatry. It is to examine why, of all people, those who profess to know God can so easily slide into the destructive practice of idolatry. How is it that we ourselves, while professing to be in covenant relationship with God, cannot shut down the idol factory that is at work in our hearts and minds? And we see some of the factors that give rise to idolatry in our lives as we look at the idolatry of the Israelites in our text.

The first factor we observe is the people’s impatience to wait on the Lord. From other passages (24:18) we know that Moses was on the mountain alone with God for 40 days. Let’s call it 6 weeks, give or take. God had called Moses to go up, but did not indicate how long the sojourn would be. When Moses told the people what he was about to do, the people said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do” (24:3, 7). But, when Moses did not return soon, the people gave up waiting for the Lord’s timing. They said, “this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him” (32:1). We can see many flaws in their thinking here, not the least of which is that they attributed to Moses what, in fact, the Lord had done, bringing them up out of Egypt. They speak as though Moses is the one whose plan and power and had accomplished all of this, and now they presume that Moses has just brought them out and abandoned them. But neither Moses nor the Lord had done any such thing. In fact, far from it, God was instructing Moses for how the people were to live out their lives in the worship and fear of the Lord. But it wasn’t happening soon enough, so they pressed Aaron to make an idol for them to worship.

It will often happen in our lives that God operates on a different time table than we want Him to. And when He doesn’t meet our deadlines, we begin to look for alternatives. We give up waiting on the Lord and seek to do things our own way – ways that seem right to us at the time, but in the end lead only to destruction. So, we learn from this that we must always wait with patient faith for the Lord to work and move, lest we slide into the idolatry of gods of our own making.

The second circumstance that we see giving rise to their idolatry here is a vacuum of spiritual leadership. They had a leader – Aaron. In fact, you will recall that Aaron held the position of second-in-command because of Moses’ special pleading with the Lord when he tried to excuse himself from God’s calling initially. And when Moses went up on the mountain, the Lord had instructed for the people to bring their concerns and issues to Aaron. He held the position of authority by the providence of God. But Aaron demonstrates here that he was not fit for such a leadership role. For one thing, he lacked courage. The people said, “make us a god who will go before us” (v1), and Aaron did just that. If there was any debate or deliberation about the matter, the text does not record it for us. The original language indicates that there may have been some pressure or coercion on the part of the people, but a spiritual leader has to have the courage to stand up to those kinds of pressures and be strong in the Lord. Aaron failed to do that. Not only did he cave in to their demands, but he fashioned the idol out of the very gifts God had provided Israel for their provision.

Not only did he lack courage, he also lacked conviction. Sometimes, saying “yes” to the Lord means saying “no” to the people under your leadership, and a strong spiritual leader will do that, no matter how difficult, because he stands on the authority of God’s word. Aaron had received the word of the Lord. He knew the commandments – have no other gods, make no graven images, do not take the Lord’s name in vain. But he compromised at every point because he did not have the conviction to stand on God’s truth. In response to the people’s clamoring for a god, Aaron should have said, “You have a God, and He has spoken, and this is what He said!” But he did not do that. In fact, from all we can tell in our Bibles, these six weeks had elapsed with no exposition of God’s Word at all among the people.

There is a frequently quoted, more frequently misquoted, and almost invariably misunderstood verse in the Proverbs that illustrates what is going on here perfectly. Proverbs 29:18 says, in the familiar words of the KJV, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Christian leaders have long understood this to mean that in order to preserve the future of their church or ministry, they must have some radical and unique “vision” or plan for the future. But this has nothing to do with what the Proverb is saying, and in fact, may mean exactly opposite of the intended message. The Hebrew word translated “vision” in the KJV is handled in other English versions with “revelation,” and the word rendered “perish” is more accurately translated as “cast off restraint.” So, the idea is that where God’s revelation – that is, the truth about Himself and His will that He has declared in His word – is not being made known, people will cast off all moral and ideological restraints and destroy themselves with idolatry and immorality. And that is exactly what we see happening here in Exodus 32. With Moses on the mountain for six weeks, and the silence of biblical exposition before the people, they begin to hunger for false gods who will approve of the unrighteous desires of their sinful nature.

In verse 6, where we read, “the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play,” there is more going on than meets the eye. These are euphemistic expressions in the ancient language. It means essentially that with this new god, created by Aaron, they could become lazy and gluttonous. They engorged themselves on food and intoxicated themselves with drink, and only arose from their reclined postures to “play.” But they weren’t playing church league softball. This word “play” is used in other passages to express sexual activities. So, essentially what is going on here is that the covenant people of God have cast off all restraint and given full license to their sinful desires, with the tacit approval of a god of their own making. So it is for all of us, when temptation appeals to our own sinful desires, if we are not willing to deny ourselves and reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ, we will fashion in our imaginations a false deity who either heartily approves, or else winks as he turns a blind eye toward, our sin.

But all of this happens where there is a vacuum of spiritual leadership. Aaron didn’t have the courage or conviction to lead the people by feeding them on the Word of the Lord. And the same is true in many churches today where genuine spiritual leadership is lacking. The gifts of God begin to draw devotion away from God the giver. Keeping people happy becomes more important than keeping them holy. The word of God is drowned out by the clamor of carnal desire. More often, however, even where good leaders are present, there is the epidemic of professing believers removing themselves from the oversight of such spiritual leadership through coldness of fellowship and chronic absenteeism. This is why the writer of Hebrews admonishes us not to forsake the gathering of ourselves together (10:25). You may say, “I don’t need the church.” But you do! You may say, “That long-winded preacher just says the same thing every Sunday!” And he may, but do not discount your need to hear those same things said over and over again. By that repeated truth, God may be protecting you and steeling you against the slide into idolatry.

II. The destructiveness of idolatry (vv7-10; 15-24, 27-28)

Donia and I have some interesting conversations during our morning runs. The other day I was telling her that I think it is high time for me to pursue my PhD and write a dissertation on sarcasm in the Bible. Of course, she thought I was being sarcastic, and with me you never can tell. But the Bible is full of sarcastic humor if you know where to look for it. One of my favorite pieces of biblical sarcasm concerns idolatry and is found in Isaiah 44. There we read about a man who plants a tree, and the rain makes it grow, until the man cuts it down. He then takes half of it and builds a fire with it, and over that fire he warms himself and bakes bread and roasts meat. But the other half of it, “he makes into a god … falls down before it and worships; he also prays to it and says, ‘Deliver me, for you are my god’” (44:12-17). The Lord says that this man lacks the knowledge and understanding to say, “I have burned half of it in the fire …. Then I make the rest of it into an abomination, I fall down before a block of wood.” He does not have the sense to say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?” (44:19-20).

The Psalmist also employs sarcasm to describe the idolater. In Psalm 115, he describes idols which “have mouths, but they cannot speak; they have eyes, but they cannot see; they have ears, but they cannot hear; they have noses, but they cannot smell; they have hands but they cannot feel; they have feet, but they cannot walk.” These gods which they worship are senseless, powerless, speechless; deaf, dumb, blind, and lame. And then the Psalmist says, “Those who make them will become like them.” You can imagine the Israelites, in drunken perversion carousing before their golden bull, saying to one another, “Our god must be okay with this, because he isn’t telling us to stop it!” And even Aaron demonstrates himself to be as ignorant the rest of them. When Moses confronts him about the idolatry that is taking place under his watch, Aaron has the audacity to say that, when he threw their gold into the fire, “out came this calf” (32:24). This is one of the places where I wish we had pictures in our Bibles, because I would like to see the look on Moses’ face when Aaron tells him this. But Aaron and the rest of the people have become as blind and dumb as the god they made.

Now, when we read these sarcastic passages, and even Aaron’s bold-faced lie in this passage, we are understandably inclined to giggle a little bit. But, we need to consider this idolatry from God’s perspective. It does not escape His notice. None of our sin ever does. He does not find the humor in it. After all that He has done for His people, to watch them turn their back on Him so quickly must be particularly grievous. Add to the anguish that, whereas His commandments are meant to safeguard His people, their idolatry is leading them on a path of destruction. It is no wonder that God deals so severely with this sin. Look at what God calls this display of idolatry: they have corrupted themselves (v7); they have turned aside (v8); they are obstinate (v9). Verse 25 says they were “out of control.” In verse 30, Moses calls it a “great sin.”

So, the destructiveness of idolatry is symbolized by three significant acts that Moses carries out. First, he demonstrates that the people have destroyed their covenant with God. When Moses returned from the mountain, he carried with him tablets containing God’s law, inscribed by God’s own hand (vv15-16). Is there anything on earth that could compare to the priceless value of these tablets? Could a gold-plated bull compare to a handwritten tablet containing God’s own word in His own hand? But to demonstrate the destruction that the people had brought upon their covenant with God, Moses “threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them” (v19). Some commentators go to great lengths here to say that Moses acted impetuously and let his anger get the best of him. But the Bible does not say that. In fact, on another occasion, Moses would succumb to his anger and defy the Lord out of outrage against the people, and the Lord would deal severely with Moses for that matter. But it doesn’t happen here. Inasmuch as we can tell from our text, Moses was acting on God’s authority in the destruction of the tablets to illustrate how they had destroyed their covenant with God. Thus, by this act, Moses was demonstrating that you cannot pick and choose which points of God’s law you will obey and disobey. You cannot merely break one of God’s commandments, for if you do, you have shattered them all because they are all interdependent and interconnected.  

Then, we notice that Moses took action to destroy their idol. Imagine the folly of worshiping a God who can be destroyed! One of the guarantees of our redemption in Jesus Christ is that death itself could not destroy Him! But Moses took the golden bull that the Israelites worshiped and burned it with fire, and then ground it to powder. So God will do with all rivals for the worship He alone deserves. He will see to it that all of them come to nothing. But what Moses does next appears somewhat confusing. He took the powder of the idol’s remnants and scattered it over the water and made the sons of Israel drink it. What is the meaning of this? Remember that these are symbolic acts, dramatizing God’s message to the people. I will try to be as delicate and sensitive as I can be here, but the idea is that the people ingest the deity they have worshiped, and it enters their digestive system to become what it truly is – defiled waste. This is yet another instance of biblical sarcasm, but without any sense of humor at all. The idol becomes what it truly is – excrement. You could carry that metaphor further by recalling that the idol was in the form of a bull, but the point is already sufficiently made. God gave these people gold to provide for their needs, and they proceeded to worship the gold. In Philippians 3, when Paul is describing the things in which he boasted and gloried in before he came to know the Lord Jesus by faith, he says that he has counted them as nothing but rubbish – but rubbish is not really the Greek word he uses. The Greek word is skubalon, and it means the same thing as we are describing here. It is – for lack of a better word – excrement. If you want to see something you love come to nothing but waste, just elevate it above the Lord in your devotion and affection. He will not allow it to stand and will bring it to nothing, and less than nothing.

Then, not only does the idol become what it truly is (and we have said enough about that), but remember the Psalmist said that we become like what we worship. If we worship the Lord Jesus in Spirit and in truth, we will become more like Him. But if we worship an idol, we will become like that idol. And this idol has been destroyed and made waste. And so it will become of those who worship it. In verse 10, the Lord tells Moses, “let Me alone that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them.” And we see this carried out, at least in part, in the latter portion of the text where 3,000 men were slain by the swords of their own kinsmen. This was a severe judgment, but we must confess two things: (1) it was not as severe as it could have been; and (2) the egregiousness of idolatry deserves nothing less than severe judgment, for it ultimately is a coup against the God of heaven, who has vowed that He will not share His glory with another (Isa 42:8). The slaying of these men is a minute depiction of the horrors of judgment that all who refuse to surrender to the sovereign authority and saving grace of the One True God. Jesus Himself said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10:28).

If idolatry brings upon itself such swift and severe destruction in the deserved judgment of God, and if we are all inclined to such idolatry, we may wonder what hope we have to escape the justice of God’s wrath? And on this subject the text is not silent. So we move finally to …

III. The rescue from idolatry (vv11-14; 25-26; 30-35)

Reading any portion of God’s law has an effect on us. If the effect that it has on you is to say, like the Rich Young Ruler said to Jesus, “All these things I have kept from my youth” (Lk 18:21), then you’ve missed the point. Remember that First John tells us, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. … If we say that we have not sinned, we make [God] a liar and His word is not in us” (1:8, 10). The intended effect that the Law is supposed to have on us is threefold. First, it should humble us, because it shows us that we are not as good as we think we are. Second, it should silence us, because it shows us that we have nothing of which to boast before God. Third, it shows us that we are hopeless before God in and of ourselves, so if we would have hope before God, it must come from someone else intervening on our behalf. We need a mediator!

It should not escape our notice that in God’s private dialogue with Moses in verses 7-14, God states that He intends to destroy Israel and start all over in making a great nation from Moses, instead of from Abraham as He had promised (v10). Now, certainly because God is God, He can do whatever He wants to do without any of our permission. But, because God is God, one thing He can never do is contradict Himself by acting against His own nature or invalidating any of His promises. So, when He said this to Moses, it was something of a test of Moses’ faith and dedication to the Lord. It would be awfully tempting would it not? I think that something along these lines is what goes through the heads of many church planters. In their frustration with the churches where God has placed them, they begin to think, “You know, I wouldn’t have all these issues if I just start all over from scratch and do things the way I want them.” In their efforts to produce a perfect church, they fail because the very first member of the new church – the planter himself – is just as sinful at the core of his heart than anyone in his former church was. And it was true for Moses. If God were to start all over with Moses, the new nation would be just as flawed as this one was, because Moses was no more perfect than Abraham was.

So, Moses rises to the test and demonstrates a surprising degree of spiritual perception. This is exactly what the Lord expected from the test. Moses becomes an intercessor for his people. He prays that the Lord will not destroy Israel and start all over with him, as tempting as it may be, on three counts. In verse 11, he appeals to God on the basis of God’s purpose. He says, in essence, “You brought these people up from Egypt for a purpose that has not yet been fulfilled! Don’t go back on that now!” Second, in verse 12, he appeals to God on the basis of God’s nature. He says, essentially, “The Egyptians will think dishonorable thoughts about You, and claim that You are an evil deity if You do this thing.” Thirdly, he appeals to God in verse 13 on the basis of God’s promise, saying, “Remember the promise You swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their descendants!” And verse 14 says that the Lord “changed His mind.” Don’t get carried away by that into thinking that God is unpredictable and capricious. This is an instance of what is called anthropopathism – speaking of God as though He had human feelings. It is a way of putting God’s truth on the bottom shelf for our easy grasp. Suffice to say, God had intended this to be a test of Moses, and Moses passed the test by rising up as an intermediary for the people before God.

As the intermediary between the people and God, Moses has the responsibility to represent God to them and them to God. He represented the people, first, by interceding for them. But then in verses 25-29, He had to represent the Lord before the people. We have already noted how this included the swift and severe act of judgment by which 3,000 men were slain by the swords of their kinsmen. And we have already noted that, though swift and severe judgment was certainly appropriate, it was not as bad as it could have been. Three-thousand men is a lot of men. But, when we compare this to the total number of people in the exodus generation, we realize that it is but a small percentage. Exodus 12:37 tells us that 600,000 men were part of this entourage. So we are talking about 0.005 percent, or 5 of every thousand. The text certainly implies that far more than this were involved in the idolatry, does it not? So, why was the judgment not more far reaching? The simple answer is set forth in the text. In addition to representing God before the people in severe judgment, Moses also represented God before the people in saving mercy. In every threat of God’s judgment, there is an offer for repentance and redemption. We see it in verse 26 – before the order for the slaughter is given – Moses says, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me!” Notice, the offer is given, in spite of what you’ve done yesterday, in spite of what role you played in the ordeal – if, now, today, at this moment, you want to side with the Lord and Him alone, “come to me!” And those who did were spared.

And finally, we see Moses as the intercessor that the people needed in verses 30-35. He said to the people, “You yourselves have committed a great sin; and now I am going up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” That’s what we need: atonement. It is to make peace with God by removing the sin that separates us from Him and securing His favor in the place of the judgment that is deserved. Moses said, “Perhaps I can do that for you.” And so he went to the Lord, confessing on behalf of the people: “Alas, this people has committed a great sin, and they have made a god of gold for themselves.” He confessed it as forthrightly as he could, without minimizing or glossing over it. “But now,” he pleaded, “if You will, forgive their sin.” He is seeking this on behalf of the people, not himself. He was with the Lord on the mountain. It wasn’t his sin, it was theirs. But in the greatest act of intercession that Moses ever performed, he said to the Lord, “and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written.” That “book” is the register of God’s own people, those who have life in Him, abundant and eternal. And Moses says, “I am willing for You to treat me as though I don’t belong there, so that You may treat them as though they do.”

God’s answer to Moses is a somewhat surprising, “No.” He says, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book.” In other words, He says to Moses, I cannot blot you out in exchange for them. You have sins of your own that must be dealt with, so you cannot sacrifice yourself in their place. I must have a perfect sacrifice to be a substitute for others, and you are not it!”

Aren’t you glad your ultimate and eternal hopes don’t hang on Moses? Aren’t you glad that it’s not all hanging in the balance of a well-intentioned “perhaps”? No, instead, God has given us a greater Mediator. When we were cut off from God by our sins, standing in the line of fire of a well-deserved eternal judgment, the Lord Jesus Christ came to be for us what Moses never could. What Moses shows us here is just a foretaste of the more perfect Intercessor who would say to the Father on our behalf, “Do not destroy them, for the sake of Your name and Your glory and Your promise. No, instead, treat Me as they deserve, and treat them as I deserve.” And because the sinless Son of God offered His perfect self as our substitute, God the Father was pleased to atone for our sins in the blood of His cross, where He took the penalty of all our sin, and offers us His perfect righteousness in exchange. And so with arms outstretched on the cross, the Lord Jesus is able to say to us all, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to Me!” Doesn’t matter what you’ve done. Doesn’t matter where you’ve been. Doesn’t matter what or who you have worshiped before now. The Lord Jesus offers you atonement and redemption if you will turn from sin and come to Him by faith. What the Law could not do, and what Moses could not do, Jesus Christ has done for all who trust in Him. He can rescue you from all idolatry and immorality if you will come to Him.

Encountering the God Who Speaks (Exodus 19-20)

Audio 

Why are you here? I suppose that there are a variety of reasons that people come to church on Sunday morning, so what is your reason? Have you come out of a sense of duty or tradition? Have you come to socialize with your friends? Have you come because you had nothing better to do? Or have you come because you realize that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God? You see, when we gather for worship, we come to celebrate together the glory and power of our God, and we come to hear this God speak. Now, it would be arrogant presumption for me or anyone else to say that, when we speak, God is speaking. But as we proclaim the Word which He has inspired for us – inerrantly, infallibly, and authoritatively in the Bible – we have the confident assurance that we are hearing God speak. As I have traveled the world, I have had the opportunity to visit many temples and shrines of other belief systems. In many of them, there are gods on visible display. Some are made of gold and silver, some of wood and stone. Some are beautifully decorated with precious stones, others are nondescript and unadorned. But all of those gods have one thing in common. They are silent. They are seen but not heard. They cannot speak. The God whom we serve, however, is entirely different. He is not seen. He is not visible. His presence is not represented by any tangible object. But His voice is clearly heard as He speaks through His Word.

In our text today, the nation of Israel comes to the wilderness of Sinai, the base of a great mountain. Seven weeks have elapsed since they left Egypt. And here at this mountain, God is going to do something for them that He has done for no other people of the world to that point in history. He is going to speak to them. From atop the mountain, covered with smoke from the fire of His presence and surrounded by darkness and flashes of lightning, God revealed Himself and His will to Israel. The book of Deuteronomy records for us Moses’ farewell speech to the nation of Israel before his death. In it, we are not surprised that he takes them back in their memories to this very event. He said to them in Deuteronomy 4:33, “Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and survived?” In his commentary on that verse, Eugene Merrill points out that “there are not even any other peoples that heard the voice of the Lord speak out of the fire and didn’t live to tell about it.”[1] Carl Henry noted that in God’s merciful act of revealing Himself and His will to His people, “He forfeits His own personal privacy that His creatures might know Him.”[2]

We must never lose sight of or take for granted the unprecedented and unparalleled mercy that God has shown us in revealing Himself to us by His word. Therefore, what we are coming to do every Sunday morning as we gather with the church, and even what we do every time we open our Bibles, is not altogether different from the experience that Israel had at Sinai. So, as we look at our text today, let us observe three realities about encountering the God who speaks.

I. If we would encounter the God who speaks, there must be careful preparation (19:1-25).

Think about how you prepare for Sunday worship. Maybe it starts for you when your alarm goes off, then there is a cup of coffee, a shower, a clean shave, the selection of your clothing, and so on. Those are all good things. But preparation for the encounter with the speaking God begins long before the alarm clock rings on Sunday morning. We see how important preparation for encountering the God who speaks is here in the text, as a full chapter is devoted to the subject.

Notice that first and foremost, there must be a relationship with God. Notice in verse 3 that God’s first words to Moses, which he is to deliver to the people to prepare them for this encounter, reminds them of the relationship that they have with Him. He speaks in verse 4 of how He has brought judgment on the Egyptians and carried Israel along “on eagles’ wings” to bring them to Himself. He speaks to them in terms of a covenant relationship – He will be their God and they will be His unique people in all the earth. So, they are able to be the recipients of His Word because they have entered by faith into this personal relationship with Him. And the same is true for us. Apart from a personal relationship with God by faith in Jesus Christ, we may read the Bible, but it will strike us no differently than reading the phone book or the Declaration of Independence. But when we know this God in the context of a covenant relationship, resting on what He has done for us through the saving work of Jesus Christ, we perceive in His Word a clear voice of love and grace. The Bible comes alive in our reading of it when we have that relationship with God.

We also observe that there must be a commitment to obey what God says. Verse 8, the people said to Moses, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do!” Now, what has the Lord told them to do? At this point, He has not told them to do anything! Nonetheless, there is a commitment here to obey whatever He says to do, whenever He says to do it! That is what it means for Him to be “Lord.” It means that we do what He says in obedience to Him. So, when you open your Bibles or come to the moment of teaching and preaching, have you committed in your heart that you will obey whatever it is that God will say? When you call Him Lord, there is no room to say, “Well, tell me what it is first, and then let me think about it.” No, we say, “Speak, Lord, and whatever you say, I will do.”

A third measure of preparation is seen in the respect given to the messenger. Verse 9, the Lord says to Moses, “I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe in you forever.” In other words, God would make it evident to all the people that His word is what they were hearing when Moses delivered the message to them. He was validating the authority of His messenger. Now, I know that it seems very self-serving for me to say this, but I am glad to say that I have enjoyed a great measure of respect in this regard from you over the last 12 years. And I am emboldened to say this today because soon, you will be hearing from someone else on a regular basis. I hope that it has been evident to you in my preaching that I have carefully tried to faithfully deliver the Word of God without alteration or adulteration. And I want you to expect the same from anyone else who ever stands in this pulpit. Aside from issues of moral integrity, the number one criteria by which you must measure a pastor (and I could say the same for Sunday School teachers, or any other kinds of teachers in the church) is this: do they faithfully impart the Word of God. Expect it of them. Require it of them. Hold them accountable to it. You need to know that you can respect the one who stands to deliver the Word of God and trust them to do just that.

Another issue of preparation concerns personal spiritual preparation. In verses 10 through 15, we see God giving the people instructions to cleanse themselves in advance of the encounter with Him. These measures of purification were outward demonstrations of an inward preparation of the heart. It would do them no good to merely wash their clothes without washing their hearts. Clean clothes do not indicate a clean heart, but the Israelites were to symbolize the cleansing of their hearts by the cleansing of their clothes. For us today, we may opt for differing ways of displaying the outward signs, but the inward reality remains the same. Prior to encountering the God who speaks, we must search our hearts and lay them bare before the Lord; examine ourselves in light of His holiness and ask Him to cleanse us afresh and anew that we might be fitted by His purifying grace to become an audience for His word, whether in public or private.

In the remainder of Chapter 19, we see that preparation includes cultivating a heart of reverence for God. We must know that we are not opening our Bibles for an academic exercise. We are not listening to a philosophical lecture. We are engaging in an act of worship as we receive the Word of God and we must tune our hearts accordingly. For the Israelites, this meant acknowledging the holiness and worthiness of God by abiding by the boundary markers and consecrating even the priests, lest “the Lord break out against them” (v22). There is a healthy fear and a holy reverence for God’s glory that must not devolve in contempt by an illegitimate sense of familiarity with Him. There is a danger of cold formality in worship that makes God seem far off and indifferent to us. But today there is an increasing and equivalent danger of viewing God as our buddy, and encountering His as hanging out at a pajama party. If we do not strike a balance between these extremes, we will abandon the reverence for God that is due Him, and our efforts to worship will devolve into the self-centered adoration of a deity we have crafted into our own image and likeness. This is the holy God of the universe! When we come before Him, we are not hanging out in the living room, but we are bowing down in the throne room! The reading and hearing of His Word is an act of worship! This is why I so despise the vocabulary of “worship” referring solely to “music.” I hear people say, “At my church, we have 30 minutes of worship and 30 minutes of preaching!” God forbid! If you do not come before the Word of the Lord with reverence in an act of worship you will not encounter the God who speaks! If you aren’t worshiping Him even in this very moment, then I dare say that you probably have not been truly worshiping Him at any point in this service.

So, chapter 19 teaches us the importance of preparation when we encounter this speaking God, and shows us by Israel’s example how we should do so.

Now, we move into Chapter 20 and discover …

II. When we encounter the God who speaks, there is divine declaration (20:1-17).

I landed myself in a bit of trouble here many years ago on a Sunday morning. I was preaching from the Gospel of Mark, and the passage dealt with a sensitive subject. I tried to be balanced in my presentation, indicating the severity of the sin, but also ensuring the availability of God’s grace to forgive us if we have committed that sin. After the service, I was approached by someone who was extremely offended by the message. In fact, I don’t think they ever returned after that Sunday. But I asked them, “What did I say that has you so upset?” They told me what it was, and I said, “I did not say that.” They said, “Yes you did.” I said, “No I didn’t.” They continued to protest and said that they were mad at me for saying it. Very tenderly, pastorally, I took my Bible and opened it to the passage and put my finger on the verse, and said, “Are these the words that have upset you?” They said, “Yes!” I said, “Then you are not angry with me, because these are not my words. I didn’t say this. I merely read and repeated it. These are Jesus’ words. He said this. So are you mad at Him?” There was no answer.

Friends, when we come before God and encounter Him in His Word, we must recognize that it is Him who is speaking! We saw that in Chapter 19, when the Lord told Moses that He wanted the people to hear that it was Him doing the talking (v9). Now, as chapter 20 begins, lest there be any confusion, we are told plainly, “Then God spoke all these words.” Now, from what we come to learn in the rest of the Bible, we have the assurance that what we read on every page is the very Word of God. When we read the Bible, God is speaking. Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is inspired by God,” or as the NIV says, “is God-breathed.” The Bible does not merely contain some words of God, but it IS, as a whole, the Word of God. So, when He speaks to us from His Word, we can expect the same kind of divine declaration that the Israelites received at Sinai. And what kind of divine declaration was that?

Notice first of all that it is a revelation of Himself. One of my favorite Seinfeld episodes was the one about the celebration of the made up holiday, Festivus. As the friends gather for the meal, Mr. Constanza says, “The tradition of Festivus begins with the airing of grievances. I got a lot of problems with you people, and now you’re gonna hear about ‘em!” Now, surely, God would have every right to begin speaking to any segment of humanity in a similar way, but He does not. Almost invariably in Scripture, when God speaks, He begins by disclosing something about who He is! He does it here. He says in verse 2, “I am the Lord (or I am YHWH) your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Lest anyone question His authority to tell them how He wants them to live, He makes it plain that He has proven that authority by His nature – He is the one true God, YHWH – and by His past act of redemption on their behalf. Walt Kaiser notes, “All that Yahweh is, says, and does is embodied in this one affirmation: ‘I am Yahweh.’” The remainder of this statement, about delivering them from their bondage in Egypt, is quoted nearly verbatim 125 times in the Bible to describe His righteous and gracious nature.[3]

It is almost always the case that the imperatives of Scripture (what we must do) flow out of the indicatives in Scripture – that is, propositional truths about who God is and what He has done for us. So, having just revealed the indicative of who He is and what He done, He begins to reveal His will in a series of imperatives. This is how He wants His people to live. In short, because He is holy, He wills that His people would live holy lives before Him and the watching the world that His nature may be reflected in His people. He says repeatedly, in the Old and New Testament alike, “Be holy, for I am holy” (e.g., Lev 11:44, 19:2; 1 Pet 1:16; et al.). Therefore our lives are to be marked by the singular characteristic of obedience to His will, as expressed in His practical commands for mankind.

If we were to number all of the commands and prohibitions of the Bible, it would take a very long time. Even this would not be exhaustive, for as Jesus demonstrates in the Sermon on the Mount, there are implications to be drawn beyond what is stated in each command of the Lord. Nevertheless, by God’s matchless divine wisdom, His perfect will for humanity is concisely represented in ten rather simple statements. We call them the Ten Commandments, and they are found here in verses 3 through 17. Herein, we find perfect moral and theological guidance for how God intends our lives to be lived as we walk by faith in Him. Here we see how He deserves for us to relate to Him, and how He desires for us to relate to one another. When Jesus was asked which of the commandments was the greatest, the questioner may have had in mind for Jesus to pick one of these ten which was most important. But, Jesus did not respond by quoting any of these ten. Rather, He quoted commandments which encompass these, saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt 22:37, quoting Deut 6:5). And then He said, “This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matt 22:38-39, quoting Lev 19:18). He said, “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and Prophets” (Matt 22:40). And we see how that is so as we examine the ten commandments.

In the first four commandments, God shows us His will for how we are to love Him with the entirety of our being above all else. We must have no other gods. That means there must be no idols in our lives – no matter what they may be – which compete for our allegiance. He deserves first place in our affections and devotion! We must not fashion any visible or tangible representation of Him in order to worship that object. Some have inferred from this that we should not make symbols or artistic representations of God or of the Lord Jesus, and there is probably more merit to this suggest than we would like to acknowledge. The primary point, however, is not that you cannot have a portrait of Jesus, for example, but that you must not worship the portrait as though it were the Lord Himself! We must not mistake the symbol for the reality. He is the reality, and He is not confined within, or represented by, any creation of our flawed imaginations. He says we must have a reverence for His name, and not take it in vain. It means that we must not make reference to God in a meaningless way. Some of us do this habitually when we use God’s name as an exclamation of surprise or shock. Sometimes we are guilty of it when we speak flippantly of the Lord, put words into His mouth that He did not say, or say of Him things which are not true. And the fourth commandment indicates that we are to honor His Lordship over our lives by devoting one day out of every seven to Him. We keep the Sabbath in obedience to His command and example for us to rest our bodies and concentrate our minds on Him alone. We honor Him in our worship as we devote a day of our week to Him, and we acknowledge that our labor is ultimately for Him, therefore, we can rest knowing that it is by His working and not ours that we are made right with Him.

The remaining commandments express the love that God wills for us to show to one another. We recognize in our fellow man the image of God in which he or she was created and treat them accordingly. That means that we honor our parents, knowing that God has placed us within human families so that we can know what it means to live under His love and discipline. We must not murder, for life is not ours to take. It belongs to God and bears His image. We must not commit adultery, for the marriage vows are sacred, reflecting the intimacy of our union with God in covenant relationship. We must not steal because we believe that God provides to every man that which we need. Stealing deprives others of what has God has provided them, and betrays the provision which God has made for us. We are not to bear false witness against another, or to speak things about them which are not true. We are to speak of others in the same way we wish them to speak of us, stating only what is verifiably true, and granting them every benefit of doubt. And we are not to covet, be it our neighbor’s house or spouse, or station in life or possessions – “anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Covetousness is a theft that occurs in the heart, and it indicts God for failing to provide what is good and fitting for each person. The antidote to coveting is contentment, training our hearts to be satisfied with what He has given to us.

It is not difficult to see how, if we would live in this way, loving God wholeheartedly above all else and loving one another selflessly, the world would be a better place. God’s commands are not restrictive and punitive. They promote the common welfare of humanity and serve to secure a peaceable society. It is sometimes said that Israel’s law code, summarized in these commandments, was just a copy of other law codes that came earlier or arose in other civilizations. No, as Bernard Ramm says, “More mature analysis has shown how far superior the law of Israel was and is. There is no parallel to the Ten (Commandments) in Confucianism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Islam, or the ancient religions of Egypt.”[4] This is also why, around the world, these commandments of God have become the basis of law codes in nearly ever civilized nation. This Law is good, fair, just, and right. It says all that needs to be said, and does not include anything that needs not be said. It is God’s will for humanity, revealed by Him for our good and His glory. And the accountability that such a law requires is not found merely in a court of law, but in the High Court of God’s justice. We are not merely answerable to civil authorities, but to the ultimate authority of a holy God who is a righteous judge. And because He loves us, He has revealed to us who He is and how He wills for us to live. He wants us to live lives of love for Him and one another.

Now, it should not take long for us, upon reading this revealed will of God, to realize that we have violated God’s will and broken His law. G. Campbell Morgan says,

Men are apt to thing that if there be ten commandments, of which they obey nine, such obedience will be put to their credit, even though they break the tenth. That, however, is to misunderstand God’s purpose of perfection for man, and the consequent perfection of His law. The ten words of Sinai were not ten separate commandments, having no reference to each other. They were ten sides of the one law of God. … These commandments are so inter-related that if a man offended in one point he breaks the unity of the law.”[5]

We are therefore justly condemned as guilty before Him. We have broken the whole law. The Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23) – glory that is revealed and reflected in His perfect law. But, this very bad news prepares us for the next reality of encountering the God who speaks, and that concerns our response to Him.

III. After we encounter the God who speaks, there must be personal reaction (20:18-26).

Last December, I was driving north on I-85 when I noticed the sight of flashing blue lights in my mirror. I glanced down at my speedometer, pulled to the side of the road, rolled down my window and held my license out for the officer. I was guilty and I knew it! There was no way to argue my way out of it or excuse my violation. Less than five minutes later, I drove away slowly with my ticket and my court date.

Israel has just received the Word of God concerning how He wants them to live! And even as He speaks, they are cut to the core of their being with conviction that they are already guilty of violating His Law. Notice, in verse 18, cognizant that they are in the presence of the Lord, with the echo of His voice still reverberating in their ears, “they trembled and stood at a distance.” They said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself, and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die!” (v19). The Holy Spirit convicts us to the core of our being that we are guilty before God, and that there are dire consequences to our actions. To tremble under such conviction is a fitting response to what God has spoken.

But notice that the next reaction after conviction is consolation. Verse 20, Moses says, “Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin.” In other words, let that sense of your guilt before God drive you to Him, not away from Him. If you let it drive you away from Him, you will perish and die in your sin. Let it drive you to Him so that He might deal with your sin and deliver you from it, that you might live free of its bondage and have victory over it.

How can such consolation be experienced by guilty sinners condemned before a holy God? There is another reaction here, and it is restoration. In verses 21-25, the Lord instructs the people how they may return to Him. In the very giving of the law that condemns, there is the acknowledgment of human inability to keep that law, and the gracious provision of restoration of fellowship with God when we break it. He reminds them that He alone is God and that they must have no other, and then He tells them that He will welcome them to return to Him. But they cannot decide on their own how they will return. They must come by His prescribed way and no other. He says, “You shall make an altar.” And on this altar, they are to bring offerings to make peace with God. If they will do this, God says, “I will come to you and bless you.” But the altar is not to be the product of their own hands. He says “you will profane it” if you put your tools on it. You build the altar with what I have given you, and you return to Me by that way.

And friends, for centuries, Israel communed with her God in this way, bringing offerings and sacrifices before Him on the altar to make peace for their sin. But in the fullness of time, God would provide even more perfectly for His people. He would come to us and bless us with His presence in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus. He became for us the altar and the offering by which we are reconciled to God. On Him our sins were placed. He is the only One who ever loved both God and neighbor perfectly, and in His death, He paid the price for all of us who have broken every law God has given and violated His glorious will. He is our offering of peace, for in Him and in Him alone, our sins are forgiven, and God reckons to us the righteousness of Christ’s perfect obedience and vows to treat us as though we were as holy as His only begotten Son. He is a God who speaks, and He has spoken in many portions and in many ways through the passing of time, but in these last days, He has spoken to us in His Son (Heb 1:1-2), the Word of God incarnate, made flesh, in the person of Jesus Christ. Prepare yourself to encounter this speaking, saving God. Listen to the divine declaration of who He is and what He wills for your life, and respond to Him from the conviction of our guilt, in the consolation He offers us through the restoration that is secured through Christ’s atoning death on the cross.

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[1] R. Albert Mohler, Words From the Fire (Chicago: Moody, 2009), 15.

[2] Ibid., 18.

[3] Walter C. Kaiser Jr., “Exodus,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), 422.

[4] Bernard Ramm, His Way Out (Glendale, Cal.: Regal, 1974), 129.

[5] G. Campbell Morgan, The Ten Commandments in the Light of the Christian Dispensation (Belfast: Ambassador, 1997), 11.

See the Salvation of the Lord (Exodus 13:17-14:30)

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From the very first verse of Exodus we have been moving toward this climactic event from which the book derives its title. This is the Exodus! The word “Exodus” means literally, “the road out.” And the road out of Egypt for the Israelites leads right through the middle of the sea.

Imagine what it must have been like for the Israelites. Egypt was a place of suffering and slavery, but it was all they had ever known. All of these Israelites were born there, and they’d never been anywhere else. Their ancestors had come to Egypt some 430 years before. To put that into perspective, that’s about the same amount of time since European settlers first came to America. Now God has announced through Moses and demonstrated by His judgment of ten plagues that the time has come for them to be delivered and taken to a land about which they have heard, but to which they have never been. It belonged to them by promise from the Lord to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all their descendants. And so they set out by faith to the promised land.

The Israelites soon discovered that the way out would not be easy. It would be fraught with difficulties. They took the long way around rather than the shortcut, and found themselves hemmed in by the sea in front and the Egyptian army in back. Many began to murmur and complain, asking Moses why he didn’t just leave them to die in Egypt rather than bringing them out into the desert to perish. But Moses’ response is profound. In 14:13-14, Moses said to them: “Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent.”

Like the Israelites, we too were born in slavery, but our slavery is to the power of sin, under the tyranny of Satan. But God has come down in the person of Jesus Christ to lead us out of this bondage and into the freedom of life with Him as we make our pilgrimage to an everlasting home in heaven that has been promised to us. The journey is fraught with many hardships. As Acts 14:22 says, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” Jesus promised His followers, “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33). And so along life’s journey, we are able to sing, “Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come. ‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.” That same amazing grace that saved a wretch like me through faith in Christ leads us through our earthly pilgrimage until we reach the promised land. Where there seems to be no way, our God will make a way! If we can trust Him to break the chains of sin that bind us, then we can trust Him to complete the journey.

In the Exodus, the Israelites were to see the salvation of the Lord. And as we look at this passage, we are able to see for ourselves the salvation which the Lord has provided for us in Jesus Christ. So, how do we see this great salvation?

We see the salvation of the Lord as we …

I. Trust His saving promises

Our God is a promise maker, and because He is God, He is a promise keeper. He has never made a promise that has not kept or will not keep. God began making promises to mankind at creation. One of the first was this: In the day that you eat the fruit from the forbidden tree, you shall surely die. Eve was unwittingly deceived, and Adam willfully disobeyed, and they ate the fruit. But immediately God made a saving promise. He said that there would come a Redeemer from the seed of woman who would crush the head of the serpent by His own suffering. Generation after generation, God continued to reiterate His saving promises. He promised to give Abraham many descendants, and to those descendants a land that would be theirs forever, and through those descendants His blessing would flow to all nations. It was by faith in God’s promises that Abraham was reckoned as righteous before God. Isaac and Jacob, likewise, placed their faith in God’s saving promises. So confident was Joseph as He trusted these promises that, as he lay dying in Egypt, he made his kinsmen swear an oath that when the day came that God would lead them out of Egypt, they would take his bones with them. Joseph knew that God’s promises about the land, the nation, and the Redeemer who was to come would not fall to the ground but would come to fruition. So when Israel emerged from Egypt carrying only the bare essentials for their journey, they saw to it that Joseph’s faith in God’s promises was honored and they brought his bones out with them.

Joseph’s faith would be an example for the Israelites as they embarked on the exodus journey. They had become heirs of the same saving promises, and they had to trust them. Just as Joseph died believing that God’s promises would not fail to come to pass, they had to believe that God’s promise to deliver them would be fulfilled, no matter how things looked. God did not lead His people out of Egypt and into the promised land by the well-traveled, shorter path. He led them the long way around. And He did not take them out of harm’s way. He led them right to the very place where they would have nowhere to look but upward to Him by faith. But they didn’t. They murmured against God and against Moses, insisting that it would have been better for them to remain in slavery in Egypt. This is when Moses told them, “Do not fear!” The antidote to fear is faith. When we believe that God’s promises will always come to pass, there is no room for fear, no matter how bad things look.

Friends, as we journey through our own exodus pilgrimage, we do so trusting in God’s saving promises. He has promised us that if we are in Christ, we have life abundant and everlasting. There will be days when we feel that God must have forsaken or abandoned us. There will be moments when we question if He really knows what He is doing. There will be times when we think that if God really loved us, He would not be bringing us to the edge of disaster and destruction, and we will fear. But the Word of the Lord admonishes us to not be afraid, but rather to trust in the promises of God – His saving promises – which will always come to pass. As we trust in His saving promises, we will see the salvation of the Lord.

Secondly, we see the salvation of the Lord as we …

II. Experience His Saving Power

An ocean in the front, and an army behind – it appeared that Israel had two options: be drowned or be decimated. But Moses said to them, “Stand by!” What? Stand by! That’s the last thing we can afford to do at a time like this. The sea isn’t going anywhere and the army is fast approaching. There must be something we can DO! No, Moses says, “Stand by.” He says, “The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent.” So two pieces of advice: “Stand by” and “Shut up.” And as the Israelites did this, the Lord would save them by fighting their battle for them.

After saying this, Moses must have cried out to the Lord for help. The Bible doesn’t say that he did, but 14:15 says that the Lord told him, “Why are you crying out to Me?” Did you know that there comes a time when we need to stop praying! Sometimes we continue crying out to God about things He has already done, and things we need to just believe and trust. So God tells Moses that He has heard enough from him and the Israelites, and He says, “Tell the sons of Israel to go forward.” But “Forward” is toward the sea! That can’t be right. Even Moses does not yet know what God is about to do. Just tell them to go forward. And then the Lord said, “Lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, and the sons of Israel shall go through the midst of the sea on dry land.” And it happened just as the Lord said! The Bible says that the waters became like a wall on their right and left as they passed through on dry land. This is something only God could do!

Meanwhile God began to fight their battle with the Egyptians for them. He had been leading them by a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of cloud by day. When Moses stretched his staff over the water, the pillar of cloud circled around to the backside of the Israelites and stood between them and the Egyptians holding them back from advancing while the Israelites began to march through the path God made in the middle of the sea. And when the Israelites emerged on the far side of the sea, the Lord removed the barrier between them and the Egyptians. The Egyptians began to follow the Israelites into the sea, but God threw them into confusion. They suddenly confessed, “the Lord is fighting for them!” That is exactly what He said He would do, and He was doing it. As they tried to flee, they became mired up in the mud, and God gave the order for Moses to stretch out his hand again over the sea, so that the waters came back in and swallowed the Egyptians and destroyed them. When God fights for us, He always wins.

Now you have probably heard the various theories espoused by some critics of the Bible. They will say that there was no miracle here of the parting of the sea, but rather that the Israelites passed through a shallow swamp, maybe about six inches deep. If the power of God was seen only in the passing through of the Israelites, I suppose theories like that could cause us to stumble in our faith. But, these critics of Scripture seem to remain oblivious to the fact that the same water through which the Israelites passed also swept over the entire Egyptian army and killed them. So, while I do not believe that the Red Sea crossing was a trek through six inches of swamp water, even if it were, there is still a miracle here, for God caused the most powerful army in the world to drown in that six inch swamp. All such naturalistic attempts to explain away the miraculous in this text fall flat. No matter where we place the crossing on the map, or what the conditions of that crossing were, we are seeing here the salvation of the Lord as the Israelites experienced His saving power. This was something only God could do, and He did it by fighting for His people to save them.

Friends, you and I were at one time in an even worse predicament than that of Israel on the banks of the Red Sea. We were separated from God by an impassible gulf of sin. And the holy wrath of eternal judgment was advancing in on us quickly. But hallelujah, the Lord Jesus stepped in to fight for us and save us! He placed Himself between us and the wrath that our sins deserve and stretched out His hands over the sea of our iniquity as He was nailed to the cross. He took the penalty for us, parted the flood of judgment that we might walk through on the dry ground of His mercy to forgiveness and righteousness on the other side. And just as the very same waters both saved the Israelites and destroyed the Egyptians, so the cross of Jesus Christ accomplished deliverance for the elect of God and defeat for the enemy of God. There at the cross, the seed of woman delivered the crushing blow to the head of the serpent forever. Colossians 2:15 puts it this way: “When he had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them.” Sin is washed away, Satan is defeated, not because anything we can do or say. Our job is like that of the Israelites: Stand by and shut up! Cease striving, and cease boasting, and see the salvation of the Lord as He fights for you by His saving power in the bloody cross of Jesus Christ!

Now then finally we see the salvation of the Lord as we …

III. Celebrate His saving purpose

The Westminster Catechism, a nearly 400 year old theological document, begins with the famous question: “What is the chief end of man?” And the answer given is that the chief end of man “is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” John Piper took that question and put a different spin on it: “What is the chief end of God?” And the answer: “The chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy His glory forever.”[1] That sounds somewhat abrasive to our sensitivities. It makes God sound like some kind of megalomaniac. But, consider it from this vantage point. Our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him because to glorify or ultimately enjoy anyone or anything other than God would be idolatry. There is nothing or no one who is more worthy of such unrivaled devotion. So, if God were to exist to glorify or ultimately enjoy anything other than Himself, I think the universe would explode. God would Himself become an idolater. If we pursue our own glory it is vanity. For God to pursue His own glory is fundamental to His being, for there is no higher person or thing to glorify than Himself. Piper says that he first began to think along these lines after reading the great Jonathan Edwards. Edwards said that God is “infinitely the greatest and best of beings. All things else, with regard to worthiness, importance, and excellence, are perfectly as nothing in comparison of Him. … All that is ever spoken of in the Scripture as an ultimate end of God’s works is included in that one phrase, the glory of God.”[2]

We need look no further than this passage – though we could look to almost any and every passage – to see it demonstrated. In 14:4, God says, “I will be honored through Pharaoh and his army, and all the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” He says it again in verse 17: “I will be honored through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. Then all the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord, when I am honored through Pharaoh, through his chariots and his horsemen.” So, get this … God is working to bring honor and glory to His own name, and He is using Pharaoh and his army to do it. He is using the very ones who are determined to defy Him and oppress His people to bring glory to Himself! And the way He brings glory to Himself through them is by devastating them in judgment. The same flood that destroys the Egyptian army is the one that stepped aside at God’s command to allow His people to pass through it on dry land. And on the other side, ransomed from slavery, saved from destruction, delivered from the judgment that swallowed up the Egyptians, they gave glory to God! Verse 31 – “When Israel saw the great power which the Lord had used against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in His servant Moses.”

Friends, if you are a follower of the Lord Jesus, consider where you came from. Consider the great lengths to which the Lord Jesus went to save you, chasing your sin to Calvary and throwing Himself in front of the bullet of wrath that was intended for you. Consider what would have become of you without His divine intervention – here and now and for all eternity. Consider how intricately and meticulously He choreographed the circumstances of your life, down twisting, turning, broken roads that led you to the cross where you found grace and new life. And consider how he has laid low the enemy of your soul by the death and resurrection of Christ. There should not be a moment of our existence in which there is NOT a proclamation of praise on our lips. We have been saved by His grace, and we have been saved for His glory. 1 Peter 2:9 admonishes us to proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. He saved us that we might glorify Him. And He will bring glory to Himself even through the worst of your circumstances and the most vehement opposition so that His glory may be manifested and magnified in all the earth.

Of course, there is a word here for those who, like Pharaoh, seek to defy the Lord in hard-hearted opposition. Romans 1 says that God has made Himself known to all men sufficiently in creation and conscience to prevent anyone from having a valid excuse for not turning to Him in faith. But Paul says there that “they did not honor Him as God or give thanks.” You must consider Pharaoh here, who refused to give God the glory He is due. Nevertheless, God got glory through him anyway. He was glorified through bringing judgment upon Pharaoh. So the lesson for us all is this. God will be glorified through you. He will either get the glory from your life by redeeming, or by breaking you. But know this, He is a warrior who fights for the purpose of His own glory. And when God fights, He always wins. So, in this season of grace, while God is affording you the opportunity to turn to Him in faith and repentance, bow the knee to Him and confess Christ as Lord of your life. Let Him be glorified in your redemption rather than in your destruction. But be certain … He will be glorified.

See the salvation of the Lord! Stand by. Cease your efforts to earn His favor by your own deeds and doings. Remain silent. Be done with any and all boasting of your own goodness and your own spiritual opinions and theories. God has come into the world in Jesus Christ to fight on your behalf that you might be saved, and that He might be glorified.

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[1] John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2013), 6.

[2] Jonathan Edwards, The End for Which God Created the World, cited Ibid.