Deuteronomy 5:22-33 - We need an Intercessor
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Introduction
Introduction
[Illus] Dalton and Lydia sending Madelyn to ask Mr. Carl about riding the four-wheeler
[Reading] [Prayer] [Context—Exodus 20, just after the Ten Commandments]
[CIT] Given God’s otherness, God’s people asked Moses to serve as an Intercessor between them and God.
[PROP] We too need an Intercessor or Mediator before God—the one and only man between God and man is the man Christ Jesus.
[TS] Notice two REASONS we need an Intercessor…
Major Ideas
Major Ideas
#1: We need an Intercessor because GOD IS HOLY (22-27)
#1: We need an Intercessor because GOD IS HOLY (22-27)
[Q] What does holy mean? How it that ‘otherness’ communicated in vv. 22-27?
[Exp]
Description of His holiness (i.e., otherness, vv. 22-24)
fire, cloud, thick gloom (22)
darkness (23)
His glory, His greatness (24)
This was His glory muted.
And His great voice (22)
“These words the Lord spoke… with a great voice…”
[Illus] Children’s camp, asked to read Scripture, followed by a professional reader of Scripture / “we are in the presence of a great man!” - “we are in the presence of a great God!”
What this meant for the Israelites (i.e., death, vv. 25-27)
‘why should we die?’ (25)
‘this great fire will consume us’ (25)
‘if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, then we will die’ (25)
‘For who… has heard the voice of the living God… as we have… and lived? (26)
[Illus] Getting on a skateboard later in life, “I’m about to die.” / How sad that we learn to fear silly things like skateboards but not God.
If we truly feared Him as we should, we’d know we need an Intercessor.
[App]
We need an Intercessor but Moses won’t do because Moses can’t bridge the gap—he can’t reconcile us to God.
We need an Intercessor but Moses won’t do because Moses can’t bridge the gap—he can’t reconcile us to God.
What Moses did was stand between God and His people, but He couldn’t bridge the gap between God and God’s people.
He could separate God’s people from the fire and gloom and great voice, but he couldn’t bring them close to God.
The gap was made by God’s Law and by the inability and refusal of God’s people to keep His Law.
Moses could do nothing about that gap, that separation, because he was a law-breaker too.
That’s one reason Jesus is the Intercessor we need!
Jesus not only stands between us and God, He reconciles us to God!
9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
The death we know we deserve in light of God’s holiness, Jesus died to reconcile us to God.
He took our sin and we took His holiness.
And having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
#2: We need an Intercessor because OUR HEARTS ARE BAD (28-33)
#2: We need an Intercessor because OUR HEARTS ARE BAD (28-33)
[Q] How does God respond to Israel’s desire for Moses to serve as intercessor?
[Exp]
intercessor is good, v. 28
heart still bad, v. 29
so they won’t fear Him always (29)
so they won’t keep all His commandments (29)
so it won’t be well them and with their sons forever (29); they will no prolong their days in the Promised Land (33)
they will not observe to do just as the Lord God commanded them (32)
they will turn to the right and to the left (32) rather than walk in all the way (33)
[Illus] Driving car into a ditch at 12 years old / the moment I could steer, off to the right and into a ditch; the moment our hearts begin to steer instead of God’s Law, off to the right or left but always into a ditch
9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?
[App]
We need an Intercessor because our hearts are bad but Moses won’t do because Moses can’t change the heart.
This is another reason that Jesus—and only Jesus—is the Intercessor we need!
33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
20 And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.
6 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.
10 “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel After those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their minds, And I will write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, And they shall be My people.
Only God can change the human heart, and that is what He did and still does through New Covenant in Christ’s blood.
Conclusion
Conclusion
But a temptation: Having embraced the New Covenant of God’s grace in Christ Jesus, we sometimes drift back to that Old Covenant of God’s Law through Moses.
We say like the Israelites who heard God’s Law (i.e., The Ten Commandments), ‘we will hear and do it,’ (27).
But we haven’t. And we won’t.
That’s why our primary response to God’s Law can’t be, “We will hear and do it!”
Instead our primary response must be, “Thank God for Jesus who has done it all in my place!”
He kept the Law in my place!
He died my death in my place!
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
This is why Jesus—and only Jesus—is the Intercessor we need.