We Will, We Will, We Will, We Won't
Notes
Transcript
Advent Theme: Hope
Knowing God’s power and character, we expectantly await the fulfillment of God’s promises!
Today we will be see Israel’s failure to obey God and the consequences of their failure.
How does that lead to hope?
Let’s look at what God has revealed about ourselves, through the Israelites, about Himself, and how we find hope today based upon how this all played out then.
Background
Background
Timeframe: left Egypt on the 15th of the first month
Arrived at Sinai on the 1st of the third month
30 days per month - so 45 days after they left Egypt
Moses goes up to God,
Then Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, “This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel:
‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.
Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine,
you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”
So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the Lord had commanded him to speak.
The people all responded together, “We will do everything the Lord has said.” So Moses brought their answer back to the Lord.
Get ready for the 3rd day
do not approach the mountain
3rd day of 3rd month
God speaks 10 commandments
And God spoke all these words:
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
“You shall have no other gods before me.
“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,
but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
“You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.
For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
“You shall not murder.
“You shall not commit adultery.
“You shall not steal.
“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
People are scared
and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”
Go near and listen to all that the Lord our God says. Then tell us whatever the Lord our God tells you. We will listen and obey.”
Moses goes up on the mountain
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites this: ‘You have seen for yourselves that I have spoken to you from heaven:
Do not make any gods to be alongside me; do not make for yourselves gods of silver or gods of gold.
God gives more laws and feasts
“See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.
Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him.
If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you.
My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out.
Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces.
Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you,
and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.
“I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run.
I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way.
But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you.
Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.
“I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will give into your hands the people who live in the land, and you will drive them out before you.
Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods.
Do not let them live in your land or they will cause you to sin against me, because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you.”
Moses goes down, tells the people
When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.”
everything the LORD has said, We will do
Moses writes down the commands that night
Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said. He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel.
Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord.
Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar.
Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, “We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.”
Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
4th day of 3rd month
The next morning, sacrifices
he reads
We will do everything the Lord has said, we will obey
sprinkles the blood of the covenant
priests and elders go and commune with God
Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up
and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky.
But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.
The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.”
Then Moses set out with Joshua his aide, and Moses went up on the mountain of God.
He said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur are with you, and anyone involved in a dispute can go to them.”
When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it,
and the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud.
To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain.
Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
Moses and Joshua go back up the mountain
Moses and Joshua wait 6 days while glory of the Lord is on the mountain, cloud that looked like consuming fire burning
7th day, 10th of the 3rd month, Moses approaches the LORD and receives instructions for 40 days and 40 nights
When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”
Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.”
So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron.
He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.”
So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
What do we see about man?
What do we see about man?
++Fail to trust God
++Fail to trust God’s leader
++Impatient
++Pride - My way, I can do it
fail to trust God
Fail to trust the leader God has given us
Impatient - god promised he would lead them… but we need to find another to take us
think we can do it on our own… pride
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt.
They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’
“I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people.
Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
What do we see about God?
What do we see about God?
++He sees and knows
++He sees the heart
++He is angry over sin
++He moves the mediator
But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?
Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.
Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’ ”
Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.
What do we see about man, through Moses?
++Mediator intercedes
++Seeks the Lord’s glory
++Remembers the Lord’s mercy
++Remembers the Lord’s faithfulness
Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back.
The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war in the camp.”
Moses replied: “It is not the sound of victory, it is not the sound of defeat; it is the sound of singing that I hear.”
When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain.
And he took the calf the people had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.
There are consequences from sin
There are consequences from sin
Showed the people they had broken the covenant
Made them drink their sin
He said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?”
“Do not be angry, my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil.
They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’
So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”
Confession?
Confession?
++Don’t be angry
++These people
++I just...
++Not my fault
Compare this with:
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.
“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.
Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies.
So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him.
Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’ ”
The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died.
Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.”
The next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”
So Moses went back to the Lord and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold.
But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.”
The Lord replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book.
Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you. However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.”
And the Lord struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.
Consequences and Mediation
Consequences and Mediation
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Leave this place, you and the people you brought up out of Egypt, and go up to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’
I will send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.
Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.”
When the people heard these distressing words, they began to mourn and no one put on any ornaments.
For the Lord had said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people. If I were to go with you even for a moment, I might destroy you. Now take off your ornaments and I will decide what to do with you.’ ”
So the Israelites stripped off their ornaments at Mount Horeb.
Repentance
Repentance
Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the “tent of meeting.” Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp.
And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent.
As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses.
Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to their tent.
The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.
Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’
If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”
The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.
How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”
Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”
And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock.
When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.
Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”
So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the Lord had commanded him; and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands.
Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord.
And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,
maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
Where is hope?
Where is hope?
++God has moved his mediator
++There are consequences/punishment for sin to bring us to true repentance
++God is compassionate and merciful
++God will punish sin
