10-12-25 - They Have Quickly Turned Aside

Studying Moses' account of Israel at Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb, where they received the 10 commandments. This is also where they rebelled against the Lord and made a golden calf and worshiped it. And so that is the the substance of Moses retelling is their rebellion. Sermon is, They Have Quickly Turned Aside. That phrase comes up twice in our passage referring to the Israelites.

I want to say to you now, that's great. And that's what we're going to be studying. The It's a sort of thing. This sort of interaction. Job.

And you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord from Deuteronomy chapter eight verses or Deuteronomy chapter nine verses eight through 12. Or a Horab, you provoked the Lord to wrath. And the Lord was so angry with you that he would have destroyed you. When I went up to the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant, which the Lord had made with you. Then I remained on the mountain forty days and nights.

I neither ate bread nor drank water. The Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written by the finger of God. And on them were all of the words which the Lord had spoken with you at the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. It came about at the end of forty days and nights that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone. The tablets of the Then the Lord said to me arise.

Go down from here quickly for your people whom you brought out of Egypt to the active to the to me arise. Go down from here quickly for your people whom you brought out of Egypt to the active to the for your people whom you brought out of Egypt to the active They've They've They've made a mold and image for their Yeah. And and and and indeed it is a stubborn people. And let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under her. And I will make you a nation mightier and greater than So I turned and came down from the mountain while the mountain was burning with fire and the two tablets of the covenant were in the made for yourselves a molten calf.

You had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded. I took hold of the two tablets and I threw them from my hands and smashed them before your eyes. Lord as at the first forty days in forty days. I neither ate bread nor drank water because of all your sin which you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. Hot displeasure with which the Lord was wrathful against you in order to destroy you.

But the Lord listened to me that time. Laura was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him. So I also prayed for Aaron at the same time. Sinful -The Calf, which you had made and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it very small until it was his finest. And I threw its dust into the brook that came down from the God.

You may be seated. So as I mentioned at the beginning, they were at Moses is retelling the account of them giving the 10 command even before they had left that. Wrath is not something that it's not a word we use very often. It's not the sort of thing that we're we we kind of have some com concept of it, but it's not something we think about a lot. And so I want to start by saying past.

It says that the Lord was so angry with you that he would have destroyed -And -And -And and the Lord spoke further to me saying, I have seen this people and indeed it is a stubborn people. Let me alone that I may destroy -And bread nor drank water because of all your sin which you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. And I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the Lord was wrathful against you in order to destroy you. And so four times, just in this passage, passage, the Lord's anger is kindled, and it provokes him to destroying those who have turned away from him. Destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven, and I will make you a nation mightier and greater than they.

Now, I want to explain to you a little bit of the significance of this. Okay? What is it that the Lord is proposing this moment? He's proposing that their violation of, like, the the covenant made with Abraham and with Isaac and Jacob. You realize that I will make you a nation is exactly what he promised to Abraham's descendants who've come to this point and who have now rebelled so frequent so agree agree just that the Lord is saying, I'm gonna be done with and I'm going to blot them out and I'll start over with you, Moses.

This is the intensity of this statement is the intensity of the day. I do believe that in speaking this way, and I should also say that this section this this description in Deuteronomy leave Moses leaves out large sections of the interaction that went on. He mentions in passing that he had prayed for them. But we'll come to it later in Exodus what some of his prayers. Aiming to communicate to us both in Deuteronomy as well as in Exodus was how angry and wrathful the Lord was toward their sense.

There really is a danger in walking around thinking that God is just kind of upset or a little disappointed. When that is not at all what is going on here. This is not, he's kind of upset. They could have done a little bit better. If they could have a do over, the the the the the the the we have is that the destruction that is deserved is often very removed from the the the the the the the the the the the the the the and the danger is that because there's a delay, we come to think that the judgment isn't really deserved or isn't really does is it makes room in our hearts and in our minds, to be able to give ourselves to sin without having the connection between the actions that we're committing and the consequences they deserve.

Think we can live and act with impunity. Nothing nothing will really come of it. Meaning also that the things we're doing aren't really that bad. That's how we think, but that's not how God thinks. And That's how we think, but that's not how God thinks.

Repeatedly in this passage, he is provoked to anger and to wrath that he might destroy them. He says to Moses, let me alone that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. Take them away. And that will make you a nation mightier and greater than they. The Lord is holy.

And holiness is required for wrath. That those who give themselves to sin be destroyed. Now, this is not often what we're taught regarding God. We're taught that he's gracious, that he's merciful, that he's forgiving, that he's long suffering, that he's And I mean to tell you that the things I have just said previously about his holiness and his wrath and his righteousness are not in any way opposed to his mercy and his kindness and his what they've done was was was evil, was wicked, was rebellious, and they deserved to be destroyed. I then want to come right to you and ask, is that what the Lord did?

Yeah. And so That's grace. And so even in this passage, if you look at what is You find that God is being very gracious to these people. If you were there, on that day, do you think you would have contributed gold? It's not a I don't mean it to be a rhetorical question where it's like, well, obviously and clearly, I wouldn't have or obviously and clearly, I would have.

I mean, just for I mean, just for you to consider for a moment, if you were there among the people of God at the base of the mountain, having just covenanted with him to be his people and to obey all that he commanded. Moment or so. Would you have contributed It's interesting to note that no one here is is, acknowledged as having not contributed gold. We're also not told that every single person did. To contribute gold and to make And the and the A month or so may you know, we don't know exactly when they did it in the forty days that Moses was up on the mountain, like how long month or so of them committing themselves to serving and obeying God, being given these 10 commandments, they've just wandered away from all of it and are doing what they've seen in Egypt.

And and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and as they're wandering around, they want to go back to Egypt. They want to at least we

had meat in our pot. At least we had meat in our pot. At least we had meat in our pot. At least we had meat in our pot. At least we had meat in

our pot. At least we had meat in our pot. At least we had water to and at At

least we had meat

in our pot. Were the gods of the of of the they're doing what they've learned. This bull, in fact, if you were if you were to dig into it is is is it hearkens back to one of the Egyptian gods. How do you come up with a golden calf? Like, where does that come from?

Why not a why not a goat? Why not a sheep? Why not a horse? It's dark to

the to

these And so they're doing what was familiar to them. They're and they're and they're and they're just said the things that they had committed themselves to in the fear of God. Remember, we're you go talk to him. Tell him to go away. We can't abide his power and his They've forgotten.

And and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and little There's fire and quaking and thunder and don't touch the mountain or you're going to die. Keep the animals away. Idols. That doesn't seem to be a sufficient explanation. So what do we learn about the condition of man?

If it wasn't, didn't in the presence of God with all with his power on display. And he's so depraved. And there's the fear of God is so far removed from him that in that context, he will make an idol.

What any of us cop to doing that kind of thing. We

What any of us cop to doing that kind of I wouldn't have given gold. I would have been opposed. I wouldn't there's no way I would have. And I'm like, I would love to know what makes you so different than all of these people

of God. Yeah. Yeah. And you might want to argue and say, well, I don't think they were Yeah.

And then they were Yeah. They were Now you might want to argue and say, well, I don't think they were Christians. Then why didn't God destroy them? I'm not arguing that they were all Christians or that they were all saved, but they were at that time, the only people of God in the whole world. And so at least some of them were Christians, believers, whatever you want to call it, Old Testament believers.

Some of them believed in Jesus, and they gave gold, and they worshipped, and they did it right, right at the doorstep of God. That is a picture into the depravity of our own hearts, and incredible thing. No throwing balls, No hitting each other. No running in the house. Wash your hands.

Clean up the toys. We're gonna have dinner in five minutes. I'm gonna go take a shower. And you all know the punch line. Right?

What do the kids do as soon as you leave?

They hit each other. They hit

each other.

All of

a sudden you're like upstairs and you hear, right? You know, downstairs, mine. You know, you're like, looking at you just two minutes ago? And and what did I tell you? And they repeat back to you, this is what you told me to do.

And I'm and then you walk away. And and easy for us to put it at a distance when it's the Israelites. But that same thing is true of you and me. We're just that depraved. And condition.

Israel had swore allegiance and obedience to the Lord. In less than a month, they've abandoned him and returned to the gods of the Egyptians in his presence. The only explanation we can offer for such foolishness is the depravity of man. The Lord said in Genesis six five that the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that the intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Was that only true before the flood?

Did the flood cleanse that corruption from man's heart?

Was the fraidy somehow remedied in some way

by the flood? Remedied in some way by the flood. Is that where we've started from? Are those the the weeds that grow in our hearts still today and compete with the spirit of and compete with the spirit of and compete with the spirit of and

compete with the spirit of and compete with the spirit of and compete with the spirit of and compete with the spirit of and compete with the

spirit of and compete with the spirit of to. And Romans three and Ra Paul argues this way. This is verses five through 18. He says, if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous is he?

And the the God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous is he? And the the the God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous is he? And the the the truth of God abounded to his glory. Why am I also still being judged to and why a the delay of God's judgment and his wrath and saying, if God delays, why don't we just do what we want? So that he'll work he'll he so he has fodder to work his There's a There's a Let us do evil.

The good and then Paul cuts to the chase. He says, comparison between the Jews and the Gentiles. Are we better than they? Not at all. There's none righteous, not even one.

There's no one who understands. There is none who seeks for. All have turned to a side. Together they have become useless. There is none who does good.

There is not even one. Their throat is an open grave. With their tongues they keep deceiving. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood.

Destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. I ask you, does that describe description? Now, Timothy doesn't like when I say this. He told me last time I read Romans three.

He says, I think your You remember telling me that? You didn't like me saying that this was true. No. I that's what we said

last time.

Oh, so you agree with me this time? Yes. Okay. So I prevailed upon my brother because I haven't changed my mind. I said something different.

Maybe it was your fault. Yes. My point in bringing this up is the same point that Paul had in bringing it up, Romans, it just makes you squirm in your state. And then on you at all, landing on you and you're like, no, I don't want any of that on me. But it's all on us.

And it's not on us, it's in us. Part from and even for those of who are in this is still where we came. And you're given a new heart, and your desires are changed over time. But this is where we start. This is where we are.

This is what brings them to make a golden calf at the Yeah. The Yeah. How else, like, do you explain it? The stupidity of it. It's like, would you please just strike me dead?

Is what they're saying by their actions. Their hearts were desperately sick. And it is this fact that led them to forsake God and to make the golden calf. They did not act in ignorance. They were still in the presence of God waiting for Moses to come down.

Who made it. Aaron says in Exodus, this is chapter 32 verses twenty three and twenty four. Aaron is he is he is grabbing Israelites with both hands and trying to throw them under the law. He is pulling with all his might to be like it was there. So they said to me, a God for us who will go before us for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of the -J.

-And a is something that we need to recover and apply to our lives. Something we need to see is true about ourselves, a part from and it being the temptation that so often arises in our hearts to lead us

away from and it's hard to imagine doing what they did. And it being the temptation that so often arises in our hearts to lead us away from. And it's hard to imagine

doing what they did. Then you have caused for and you're like, now I looked in a mirror and I, and I saw something. I didn't want to see. The mirror that I was avoiding seeing, God has seen clearly from the beginning of my days. And he's And and not destroyed me.

Though I tried to destroy my and if he doesn't keep me, continue to and we'll be long until I have a golden calf. And on them were all the words which the Lord had spoken with you at the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. These tablets are also called the tablets of the covenant. They referred to it, I think, three times in this passage. The the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.

The tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. And so if we're looking for a reason as to why they didn't why God didn't destroy these people who deserved destruction, 10 We were looking at what they were to do. But God promised things to them that were not written down on those tablets, but God had obligated himself to these. If you will serve me, and if you will obey me,

and do all that I command you, what does he promise

to do? I and do all that I command you, what does he promise to them? I will be your God. And so what you see here is God being faithful to a covenant that they broke in a matter of weeks. Abraham.

And though he speaks to Moses as though he would destroy them and start over, Abraham. And so you have this stark contrast between their immediate unfaithfulness and God's enduring faithfulness to keep his word and to do what he says. And so he writes down what's required of them. He gives it to Moses. Moses comes down the mountain.

And what does Moses do with them? He smashes them. If Moses was kept out of the promised land for striking the rock with his staff in anger, you remember? Why was he not judged for smashing the tablets? The right, like, you were angry and you struck the rock for water because the people were threatening to kill you.

But here you saw that they made a golden calf and you smashed the tablets written by the hand of God himself and there's no consequence for it. It seems like a detail that ought to be addressed. It forces us to ask the question, was Moses wrong to smash the tablets? Or was it appropriate for him to smash the tablets? So what do you think?

We're all sitting here kind of going, well, I think it might have been right for him to smash the tablets. Why was it then then the question is why was it right for him to smash the tablets? And here's the answer. Because they had already smashed the tablets. Disregarded what was written on them.

They'd already forsaken God. And so when he took those tablets, and what he says is he took them in his hands, I'll find it. And I'll have that part written here. Doing was giving Explaining to them what they had already done. You have broken these, these these obligations.

First forty days in nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water because of all your sin which you had committed and doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and the hot displeasure with which the Lord was wrathful against you in order to destroy a And so he spent forty days in terms of like times and intensity, he spent forty days up on the mountain either eating or drinking with the Lord God. Calvin says that he left his mortal estate because we can't go forty days and forty nights without drinking natural. That he he assumed a different state.

There's something miraculous going on. And so then he comes and he says, when you when you when I came down and saw for with my own eyes that what the Lord told me you had done, I saw that you had actually done. I took the tablets, I smashed them, and again, as at the first forty days and forty nights of And So now eighty days, almost back to back with no food and no water. For mawr. For He took their sin seriously.

He petitioned God for them. That's the that's the final final part here is he's he says he says, I, but the Lord listened to me at that time also after he had, was afraid and after he broke the tablets and he fell down and he fasted. He said, but the Lord listened to me at this time also. And so you have this idea that, like, prayer, this interaction going on with Moses. He's interceding on behalf of the people with God.

He's petitioning God to be faithful to his to his covenant, to his promises to these people, to not destroy. 14, it says, this is one of Moses' interactions, his prayers. He says, Moses entreated the Lord as God, and he said, oh, Lord. Why does your anger burn against your people? It's Because in Exodus, Moses is like your people, your people, your people.

But did you notice in our passage what God said about the people? Who did he who did he attribute owners? He said, Moses, you led these people, your people. Just And so Moses is reminding, no, they're not my people. They're your people.

You've promised. And so And why does your anger burn against your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak? With evil intent, he, the Lord, brought them, the Israelites, out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth. Turn from your burning anger and change your mind about doing harm to your people.

Your stories, to whom you swore by yourself and said to them, I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the day. In all the sland of which I have spoken, I will give to your descendants. And they shall inherit it forever. So the Lord changed his mind about the harm which he said he would do to his people. And so Moses is interceding in great fear with long fasting that God might be faithful to his word.

Do we pray that way when there's sin? We don't pray that way when there's sin in our lives or in the lives of the people we're responsible for if we don't take sin seriously in the first place. Yeah. Would you, you know, I'm sorry, would you forgive me? And then we just carry on about our day.

But forty days, like, for a and he focuses and he laments and he

and he and he laments and he and he and he and he and he and he and he and he and he and he and he

He also prays for Aaron. Right after that he says the Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him. So I also prayed for Aaron at the same time. Moses prayed hard and he fasted hard for another forty days because he took their sins seriously. He didn't just brush it off in a moment.

If we go back to that analogy with our kids when we step away, when we step away, when you come back into the room and you say to them, what did you do? Away, when you come back into the room and you say to them, what did you do? And they say, well, you know, and you get you get this the Aron story. And have confidence that they won't be back at this in ten minutes or the next day? Oftentimes, they're right back at it.

Why? Because they didn't take none of us, none of us, including the parents, took their sin seriously enough. You may have yelled at them or manipulated them or threatened them for ten minutes, but you didn't spank them. Think if we just reprimand them and tell them how dissatisfied we are with them and threaten them they can't have this or go do that or whatever, that that'll fix the problem. But we never actually discipline them for it.

We just manipulate them for it. And then we're surprised when they do it again. Their sin is not being dealt with. Example outside of parenting that's, I think historically, it's not unique, but I think in our day and age, it's fairly unique. The elders of a church have authority over the Lord's Supper, right?

We invite people to come. We also tell people when they can't. Don't take that, that, responsibility lightly. We don't exercise that authority flippantly. But there have been times over the years where you'll have somebody come and they'll confess.

And there are But they come, not because they were caught, but because they were convicted. And they confess their sins and they say, this is what I did. I've been committing adultery. I've been stealing. I've you've thrown the What then should the elders do?

We'll, we'll talk, we'll ask questions, we'll, we'll, ask, questions, we'll, there's been occasions where we've told that person that they may not take the Lord's Supper for a period of God, they've come and confessed their sins. We say, we don't think that you ought to take a communion for a period of time. And it does it makes it seems so out of step. The way things should be. Isn't it all said and done and over now that they've confessed their sin?

No, not always. Because what we're forgetting is that there were those three years where they took communion every day. And they never something that's ever made known to the congregation. We don't stand up and tell you, and Bill can't take communion because he confessed to adultery last week. But what often will happen is that period of time

will be they'll be barred from the table, and

there will be they'll be barred from the table and there

will

be particular effort from one or more of the elders in meeting with them and talking with them. And the goal being to resensitize them and to understand more fully the sin that they committed. That it wasn't just the adultery, but it was the hiding of the adultery. It was the lying to cover it up. It was the harm that it caused to their marriage and these other things.

It wasn't just the act. It was years of of destruction that now has to we have to we can't just walk past that like none of those things are going on. You would understand that the wife wouldn't immediately trust her husband again. Right? There would be some rebuilding of trust.

And so we say because of the insensitivity toward your sin for this this period of time, we think it would be good to resensitize you to the the gravity of what's going on. Right? And that's an example of taking the sin seriously. Stripper. That is not you are not welcome.

That is we can't believe you did that. That is not we're gonna go tell everybody about it. It's none of those things. It's simply taking this in seriously and realizing that if we just cover over it quickly and act like everything's fine, it's likely to happen more likely to happen. And so we take this in seriously.

We say we want to see you resensitize to it. You've been eating unworthily for years. And we need to we need some time to process. And so, it's been a lot to be taken seriously. It ought to be dealt with.

Moses spends forty days not eating and not drinking, praying hard that God would be faithful to his word and not to And an example I gave you with regard to the Lord's Table. The thing nobody wants to say is you've done this once. The propensity of you doing it again, seriously. That's not always what we do. Sometimes we don't do that.

Sometimes we do do that. It depends on the circumstances. And the conviction of the Holy Spirit as it take this in seriously as to prevent it from happening again. Right? Compare that with the little kid who's having problems and you're like, I told you, I told you, you can't this and that.

And you walk away. To be like Moses and being sensitive to God's holiness in our sinfulness. The final thing Moses did was he took the idol, he burned it with fire. He ground it into a powder. And then in Deuteronomy, it says that he threw its dust into the brook that came down from the mountain.

But if you go read in Exodus, he made them drink the water. It was their source of water at that time. And so he's grounded all up, thrown it in into the in there, and then he's made them to drink it. Now, I can only imagine how awful that would be. How the he's pushing them to realize what they've done.

It's not just taken away. It's burnt up all of the wealth. This is largely the wealth some of the wealth they've taken out of Egypt. They've given to make an idol. It's been destroyed, and now they're being made to partake of it, to eat it, to taste its bitterness and its foulness.

So that they and the whole goal is that they might remember and not do it. Now is that gracious? Thing to do. But what's the other option? The other option is the wrath of God.

Being poured out on the people who be have given themselves to be to be reminded to be impressed upon. What it takes many times. It takes it takes real pressure for us to feel and to flee from our sins. As the need arises. Let's pray.