Restoring the Covenant

Sin Has no Power Here

Do you feel like your sin is overpowering?

Sin is an affliction to the human spirit. It is mankind’s greatest enemy, one that we all willingly choose to follow of our own ambition. It has a hold on us from the moment we are born.

Sin tries to keep us down. Sin wants to make you feel defeated.

But with God, sin has no power. God has the ability to redeem and to restore. He did that for the Israelites, he can do that for you. He will set you free from the power of your own failures in order to live in the power of his love.

If you remember from last week’s passage, the Israelites chased head over tail after their own sin. Moses recounted how he had spent time up on the mountain with God, who wrote the ten commandments on tablets of stone and gave them to Israel as a covenant. God’s own act of love toward his chosen people, whom he had rescued from the oppression of Egypt. And just as Moses was finishing up, the Lord instructed him to go down to the camp to see what had happened. So Moses, rushing down the mountain and hearing festivities, turned the corner and beheld the golden calf. The idol which Israel had built under the leadership of Aaron and were worshiping. In rage at the idolatry and sin of “God’s chosen people”, Moses threw down the tablets, smashing them, destroying the sign of God’s covenant with his people. For Israel’s sin and for Aaron’s part in making the golden calf, the Lord was ready to destroy all of them. His covenant of promise and blessing had been broken before it had even been upheld. But Moses interceded. He lay prostrate between the wrathful face of God and the sinful Israelites for forty days and forty nights and prayed on their behalf, that they might not be destroyed because of their sin.

And that’s where our passage picks up this morning. Our passage is Deuteronomy 10:1-11. For context we will also be reading Chapter 9, verses 25 through 29. And this passage will be talking about how God chose to restore Israel and to renew the covenant with them, even though they didn’t deserve to be saved. When you think of how hotly God’s righteous wrath must have burned against the Israelites who had seen more displays of the Lord’s power than any other nation and yet still wallowed in unbelief of the heart, you would be amazed that he relented at all. But underneath our passage this morning is one key factor that helped address Israel’s sin, and that’s the role of an intercessor. Moses interceded on behalf of Israel, and God heard his prayers. So reading, beginning in Deuteronomy 9:25, all the way through Deuteronomy 10:11.

Deuteronomy 9:25–29 ESV

“So I lay prostrate before the Lord for these forty days and forty nights, because the Lord had said he would destroy you. And I prayed to the Lord, ‘O Lord God, do not destroy your people and your heritage, whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not regard the stubbornness of this people, or their wickedness or their sin, lest the land from which you brought us say, “Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.” For they are your people and your heritage, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.’

You can feel the gravitas, the weight of what’s going on here. And it’s almost like there’s a pause. And then the Lord responds.

Deuteronomy 10:1–11 ESV

“At that time the Lord said to me, ‘Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to me on the mountain and make an ark of wood. And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.’ So I made an ark of acacia wood, and cut two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. And he wrote on the tablets, in the same writing as before, the Ten Commandments that the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me. Then I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark that I had made. And there they are, as the Lord commanded me.” (The people of Israel journeyed from Beeroth Bene-jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried. And his son Eleazar ministered as priest in his place. From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land with brooks of water. At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord to stand before the Lord to minister to him and to bless in his name, to this day. Therefore Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers. The Lord is his inheritance, as the Lord your God said to him.) “I myself stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights, and the Lord listened to me that time also. The Lord was unwilling to destroy you. And the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go on your journey at the head of the people, so that they may go in and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give them.’

Let us pray.

(pray)

The Lord is faithful to restore the covenant. This whole passage is a reversal of the expected punishment for the guilt of the Israelites, the guilt of Aaron, and the broken covenant. It’s like God set Israel up with a rewind button and started again because here in our passage, we see the restoration of the words of the covenant, which led to the restoration of the people of Israel, the restoration of Aaron, the restoration of the priesthood and the worship of the Lord, and the restoration of the Lord’s blessing which includes the promise of the land. That’s why Israel is where they are today, about to enter the land, because of the Lord’s power to restore his covenant.

And that leads us to an important point: Despite the power of sin which leads to the wrath of God, which is death, The Lord remains stronger than sin. Sin is not greater than God. The Lord has the power to withhold his wrath and the death of sin in order to pave a way of forgiveness through intercession and through his covenant. He doesn’t just wipe away the guilt of what has been done, but it is overshadowed by the righteousness of another.

Sound familiar?

It’s because the Lord’s covenant with Moses and with Israel was supposed to point toward an even bigger covenant yet to come- one with an intercessor, with the forgiveness of sins, and with the covenant of God who chose to spare his people whom he has called out of the bonds of slavery. The covenant of Jesus Christ, confirmed by his death on the cross and resurrection from the grave and sealed by the Holy Spirit allows us, the sinners, to lead restored lives.

That’s the progression of this passage. What we, as believers, are to look at when we read this passage. When we see Israel chasing after sin, we should see our own tendency to do the same. When we see Aaron giving into the pressure of the Israelites and crafting a golden calf for the people to worship, we should see our own tendency to give in to the pressures of our culture and society that cause us to worship something other than the one true God. And most importantly, when we see Moses interceding for Israel, we are to see Christ interceding for the church.

Looking at this passage, I’ve categorized it into three components, each speaking to the character of God revealed in this text and also revealed in Christ.

Firstly, the Lord is

The Intercessor

Just as a defense lawyer is needed in the court of law, so is an intercessor needed in God’s divine court. We see what Moses did, looking back at the Exodus account:

Exodus 34:8–9 ESV

And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”

Moses is pleading with the Lord, standing between the gap of the Lord’s wrath and the people’s sin. He acknowledges the sin, asks for pardon and requests that the people remain the Lord’s own inheritance.

What is God’s response? Well, we see at the end of our own section in verse 10,

Deuteronomy 10:10 ESV

“I myself stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights, and the Lord listened to me that time also. The Lord was unwilling to destroy you.

The Lord was unwilling to destroy Israel. He listened to the intercessor. He listened to Moses, who stood between Israel and God.

Taking a step back and looking at the larger principle here, I think it’s safe to conclude that

We need someone to stand between us and God, to intercede on our behalf.

One of my favorite lines from Marcus’ sermon last Sunday was, “I realized that I am not Moses. I am Aaron.”

Too often we think that we are the ones who find favor in God’s eyes. No, that is not the truth. Instead we are burdened with our own sins, plagued with enough guilt to doom our very souls. Our sins are like chains that weigh us down and drown us in the waters of death and sink us to our destruction. We are not Moses, who was worthy enough to be in the presence of the glory of God. Instead, we are the people who have sinned and chased wholeheartedly after the idols and passions of our heart because we didn’t have enough faith to trust the Lord for something we could not see. We are Aaron, who gave in to the demands of unbelievers and exchanged the practice of our priesthood and worship of the Lord for the worship of an idol.

For all we like sheep have gone astray, each one to his own way.

We as humans are all too fickle. We have all sinned.

And it’s for this very reason that we need an intercessor. Someone to stand between us and the Lord who is worthy to plead on our behalf.

Israel had Moses to intercede for them this time. But who will stand for the rest of humanity? The righteousness of Moses only goes so far. Even Moses himself was limited in righteousness. He himself was not able to enter the promised land because of his own transgression. And Israel ultimately failed in upholding their covenant with the Lord. Israel had Moses for the moment, but needed something much bigger to cover all their sins.

Israel, and all of mankind, needed someone who as greater than Moses. And that person is Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is the intercessor we need.

And it’s a role he’s already taken up. God has already established this. Read Hebrews 7:25:

Hebrews 7:25 ESV

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

Christ stands between us and the Lord. Sin has no power here because God is mighty to save. Read again, Romans 8:34:

Romans 8:34 ESV

Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Christ is the intercessor you need.

Because Christ is interceding for you, there is now no condemnation for you who are in Christ.

Remember the words of the song, “No power of hell, no schemes of man, can ever pluck me from his hand.” Christ makes your position with God blameless. There is no time when Satan is able to stand in accusation of any Christian, for they are freely forgiven. There is no time when any human or even you yourself can overwrite the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, which was received through faith. God is faithful. Jesus is interceding. The system is in place and God’s power over sin to forgive it and to wipe your slate clean through the payment of Jesus Christ has been established.

The Christian life should point to Christ as the intercessor. We are not perfect after accepting Christ as our Lord and savior. No, we are led through a process called sanctification whereby God works in our hearts and minds to convict us of sin. But God works in us despite our faults and errors, why? It’s because we have an intercessor, who is Christ.

Through Christ the intercessor, sin has no power. And not only this, but through Christ we are restored.

Which leads us to our second point:

The Lord is

The Restorer

One of my favorite Christian commentaries on Revelation is a book called “All Things New” by Brian J. Tabb. In it, he proves how Revelation is the capstone of canon, the final piece to all of scripture. Just as scripture began with seven days of creation, it will also end with the undoing of that creation, displayed in powers of seven. But at the end of the world, after creation itself has been undone and the stars of the heavens have fizzled out and the sun and the moon and the heavenly host have been destroyed and the boundaries of the waters on the earth have been removed and the mountains that were raised up have been laid flat — at the end of all of this, the Lord restores. He makes a new heaven on earth.

Creation groans in anticipation of this day of renewal and restoration. Creation itself was not designed to be a part of a world of sin, and yet it was subjected to it because of the choice of one man and one woman in the garden of Eden. But God will be faithful to restore it because the Lord is the Restorer.

Israel was broken and shattered because of their idolatry. The worship of the Lord was thrown away for a lie. The priesthood that God had established through Aaron was seemingly irreconcilable. The people had personally chosen to break any tie and connection to the Lord, who had personally led them from Egypt through the display of his great power and who had made a covenant with them. And yet the Lord restored Israel, despite their faith, despite their unbelief.

Verses 1-5:

Deuteronomy 10:1–5 ESV

“At that time the Lord said to me, ‘Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to me on the mountain and make an ark of wood. And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.’ So I made an ark of acacia wood, and cut two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. And he wrote on the tablets, in the same writing as before, the Ten Commandments that the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me. Then I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark that I had made. And there they are, as the Lord commanded me.”

The Lord restored his covenant. He rebuilt his word and his covenant.

When the first tablets had been smashed to pieces, not only physically by Moses but symbolically by the people and their Idolatry, the Lord was merciful enough to relent from judgment and gracious enough to provide a new copy of the command, written by the very hand of God.

Not only did the Lord rebuild his written covenant with Israel, but he also gave instruction for Moses to build an ark to carry the covenant in.

And then we have verses 6-9, which further confirm the Lord’s restoration:

Deuteronomy 10:6 ESV

(The people of Israel journeyed from Beeroth Bene-jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried. And his son Eleazar ministered as priest in his place.

The people of Israel were not wiped out at the foot of the mountain. They continued to journey. Aaron was not put to death, but continued to live in service of the Lord as high priest, upon which he died further away after serving the Lord. Furthermore, the Lord did not cut off the line of Aaron, but established it through his son Eleazar. From what was certain doom and destruction because of the golden calf and from the intercession of Moses, the Lord restored his people and restored the high priest.

Deuteronomy 10:7 ESV

From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land with brooks of water.

The Lord restored his continued protection for the people of Israel as they journeyed.

Deuteronomy 10:8–9 ESV

At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord to stand before the Lord to minister to him and to bless in his name, to this day. Therefore Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers. The Lord is his inheritance, as the Lord your God said to him.)

The Lord restored proper and right worship of him. The Levites had three tasks: 1) They were to know and instruct God’s people in his law. 2) They were to minister to the Lord. 3) They were to be the firstfruits of the people for the Lord. Their inheritance was tied directly to the faithfulness of Israel. Because the Levites had no physical land upon which they inherited, their portion of the inheritance was dependent upon the faithfulness of the other tribes to uphold God’s law. One twelfth of all of the people of Israel were meant to be living examples of how the Lord provides for Israel through faith.

These were to be a holy people, a dedicated people toward the worship of the one true God.

But these were a people who were broken and shattered and who need to be brought back together and rebuilt before they could do anything.

The Lord restored Israel for the sake of his mission. For the sake of his name. To display his glory in the earth.

And in order for us to live as image-bearers of God, to live how we were made to live, we need a restorer.

We need someone to restore us.

For us, we may feel like Israel. We might convince ourselves that our sin is too great, that it has broken us to the point where we may not be restored that the physical ailments, that the mental difficulties we face are too hard to overcome and too challenging for us so therefore we can’t be of any use for the Lord. We say to God, “God, I am too broken. I cannot be used.”

But if we find ourselves saying this to God, we are in grave error. For God has made it clear that he does not look for us to be complete, but rather through our brokenness he is glorified.

The Lord is faithful to restore.

And he does that through the power of Christ.

Jesus Christ is the Restorer we need.

When our sin feels like it distances us from God too much, we are brought near through the forgiveness of Christ.

(pause)

The apostles, in the Garden of Gethsemane, each abandoned Christ. They fled from him in fear, in self-preservation. At the moment of Jesus’ need, no human was to be found. Peter himself cursed Christ three times before the rooster crowed. And yet, what did Christ do after his resurrection? He restored them. He brought them back together. He restored Peter, reversing the curse he had said against the Lord and turning it into a confession of love. Peter would go on to live a life worthy of the gospel and the mission of Christ, leading up to his martyrdom in Rome. He was restored.

That same restoration takes place for you and for me.

1 Peter 5:10 ESV

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

Our suffering is not meant to last forever. It may be for a time, it may be for a season, but the Lord is never fully done with you. He will strengthen and establish you so that you too can glorify the Lord. Israel was restored that they might be a light for the world in an age where idolatry pervaded the mindset of every nation. And if you are in Christ, you too have become restored, a sinner saved by grace, and have become a light in the darkness, a city set on a hill for the whole world to see. Don’t hide your flame under a basket because you think yourself too broken by sin or by the weakness that is in this world that you are beyond use.

If Christ could restore the apostles, he can restore you too. Don’t let your faith be hindered by what you think is possible. Instead, entrust yourself to the Lord and look to him for guidance. He will lead you to see your usefulness even despite your brokenness.

(pause)

So The Lord is the intercessor for his people, the Lord is the Restorer of his people. And now our last point, the Lord is the Covenant Keeper.

The Covenant Keeper

Our God is not some distant and far off God who manipulates a playing field for his own joy. No, he is a personal and near God, one who draws near to people through personal relationship and through the promise of his word.

We see the Lord uphold his covenant to Abraham, Isaac, and to Jacob. Verse 11:

Deuteronomy 10:11 ESV

And the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go on your journey at the head of the people, so that they may go in and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give them.’

The Lord is faithful to bless and to keep his covenant.

But a covenant is a relational contract between two parties. And when God made the covenant with Israel based on their obedience to the law, and Israel failed to uphold their end of the contract, what would happen?

They would be expelled from the land.

And that’s exactly what happened. Israel chased after other gods. They forgot the greatest commandment and all the others.

They needed continuity, steadfastness in order to keep the covenant. And this steadfastness was not maintained. The Israelites could not keep their end of the bargain. (pause)

Nor can we. We cannot negotiate with God over our faithfulness. There’s no fooling God into thinking that we are completely sold out on him 100% of the time. We don’t love God perfectly as we ought. And so we too become breakers of the law. We need one who can keep the covenant when we cannot.

We need a covenant keeper.

Thankfully, that’s when Jesus comes into the picture.

2 Timothy 2:13 says:

2 Timothy 2:13 ESV

if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.

The Lord is faithful. He will keep the covenant. He will keep it on his divine end. He will keep it on the human end. That’s why we needed Jesus, God made flesh, to be the covenant keeper for us.

Jesus Christ is the Covenant Keeper.

Jesus never knew the stain of sin. He never broke the law. He upheld the covenant between God and man perfectly. In the words of Hebrews 7:22-

Hebrews 7:22 ESV

This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.

Why is this covenant through Jesus Christ better?

Because it cannot be broken. It’s a covenant that one party cannot break because of sin. It is a covenant over the power of sin and death because of the perfection in the divine and because of the perfection in the human representative.

Hebrews 7:28 ESV

For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.

Jesus Christ is made perfect forever. Therefore, he keeps the covenant perfectly forever.

There are no more moments when the tablets are shattered and are broken and need to be made again. The Lord has already provided his new tablets in the form of a man, the man Jesus Christ. He is the Word of God made flesh. It is up to you whether you choose to repent from your idolatry and to follow the Word from God or whether you remain in your sin. Those who hear God’s Word and believe in him shall be saved, but those who reject God’s word and his covenant shall remain in wrath.

Let each one work out his or her salvation with fear and trembling. The offer of God is free. Will you accept it?

(pause)

Conclusion

Jesus Christ is the Intercessor we need. He is the Restorer we look forward to in hope. And he is the Covenant Keeper, the one who holds us in the blessing of God.

Because of these three things, who God is in his divine attributes, there is no power in sin and we are able to live in the righteousness of Christ.

Let us go out from here this morning rejoicing in who God is and what he has done, bearing the light of his good news to our friends, to our relatives, to our neighbors, and to the ends of the earth.

Revelation 1:7 ESV

Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

We are dismissed.