Exodus 34:6

and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Let's pray. Lord God, I pray that we'd be spiritually benefited by this evening, by looking at your word. I pray in Christ's name, amen.

So the context of Exodus 34.6 is that God made covenants with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. They had 12 sons.

They went to Egypt, and they were there for four centuries. And Moses led Israel out of Egypt with plagues, the Passover, the Red Sea parting. Moses came into the wilderness. He went to Mount Sinai, a very sacred time. He was there for 40 days. And God begins to lay out the covenant with Israel and how Israel will function and includes the Ten Commandments. And Moses took longer on the mountain than Israel expected, so they asked Aaron to make them a god.

So they made a golden calf and said, this is your god who brought you out of Egypt. Let's have a party and offer sacrifices to the golden calf. We'll feast to Yahweh. That's what he said, okay. And so Moses is still in Mount Sinai, and God tells Moses to go down the mountain because Israel's worshiping a golden calf.

And he goes down, he smashes the Ten Commandments, and I think, think about what's going through the mind of Moses One is that he'd been 40 days with God. I mean, obviously a very, very sacred, special time. Think of 40 days actually in God's presence, amazing. And then he saw the Ten Commandments being actually etched by God's finger, by God's hand. I mean, that's an amazing to see things that God actually etched out. And these are very special commands. And then he goes down and he sees what's happening.

And the first commandment is, nor the gods, and here, God had taken Israel out of Egypt, and now they're saying this metal thing is actually what did that. The second command was no graven images. You cannot see God and live. And so how can this piece of metal be God? A third one is not taking the Lord's name in vain. Don't take his name lightly. And here they're saying this metal thing is actually called Yahweh.

So I'm sure that in Moses' mind, he comes with all this background of just, being with God 40 days, and then he sees the Ten Commandments, basically, he trusts these people, and he'd give his life in delivering these people and not what's happened to him.

So he begs God to forgive Israel, and God does that, and he made two promises. One, that he would not destroy Israel, have mercy upon them, and second, that he would go with them through the wilderness, the Promised Land, that'd be his grace. Moses tasted God's glory on Mount Sinai, and Moses asked God then if he could show him his glory. And so in Exodus 33, 18, Moses said,

please show me your glory.

And he said, I'll make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord. And I'll be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But he said, you cannot see my face, for man should not see me and live. And the Lord said, behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.

The Lord said to Moses, cut yourself, for yourself, two tablets of stone, like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke. Be ready by the morning and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain."

Verse four,

so Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him and took in his hand two tablets of stone.

The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there.

Again, very awesome thing, you're up there and all of a sudden God appears in a cloud with him

and proclaimed the name of the Lord.

Verse six,

the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. 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.

So in Exodus 34, 6, you have how God describes himself. Especially if you look at the context of the golden calf, just the way this is such a horrible type of a sin, how is God gonna present himself to Moses then? So he starts off in 34.6 with the Lord the Lord, okay?

God keeps his covenant

This would be twice showing emphasis. The word Yahweh there, it harkens back to 3.14, the I am statement there. So Yahweh is God's covenant name. God identifies himself as a covenant keeping God. God has covenants with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, now in Sinai, and we know that God keeps his covenant. And what he's saying here is, I keep my covenant. He comes in saying to him, the Lord, the Lord, I keep my covenant in spite of what's happened in the past.

He says God's merciful. They deserve to be destroyed, but God forgave. He's gracious. God will lead Israel through the wilderness to the promised land. He says he's slow to anger and Unbelievable patience if you think of just what happened the word is he obviously was slow to anger Then it says the bounding and steadfast love and faithfulness steadfast would be just going on and on until he being faithful to his covenant with Israel and and he's faithful beyond what actually we can ever imagine. God is loyal to his promise. And in that last part of 34.6, steadfast love and faithfulness, you have the word said there, used 250 times in the Old Testament, and it's alluded to many times in the New Testament. And actually, I think that what's amazing here is what you see here is actually something that fills the rest of scripture. The rest of what we learn about God and a lot of things come from actually the root right here in these verses.

A large impact on Israel

So 34.6 had a large impact on Israel and all the way to us today. The words and phrases of 34 six are used and rest the Old Testament An example would be in numbers 13 you have the 12 spies they're told to go in the promised land to spy it out ten of them came back and said no he can't do it and Israel weeps and says they grumble and And then they say, let's have a leader, let's go back to Egypt. And so that's a crisis for Moses. And Moses begs God to forgive, and Moses reminds God of his declaration in Exodus 34, six.

So he says there in Numbers 14, 17,

and now please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, the Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children to the third and the fourth generation. Please pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now. The Lord said, I have pardoned according to your word.

Later on, when you have Israel established, God tells Jonah to go preach in Nineveh, and he flees, and he's swallowed up by a big fish, he's vomited, he preaches in Nineveh, they repent, and it says in chapter four,

but displeased Jonah exceedingly that they repented, and he was angry.

And he prayed the Lord and said, oh Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarsus, for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

What's interesting here is not this quote says, but actually referring to this is actually a Gentile nation. It's like, God, this is the way he is.

In the Prophet Joel, he was warning Judah just about, they need to repent if they're gonna survive. Joel 2 says

yet even now declares the Lord return to me with all your heart with fasting and with weeping and with mourning and Rend your hearts and not your garments return the Lord your God for he is gracious and merciful slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love

after Israel and Judah were very unfaithful and sinned grievously, God sent them into exile, and they were there 70 years, and God brought back a remnant to Jerusalem, and Nehemiah reminds them of their past. And you see it's Nehemiah 9, 16.

But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them. but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, this is your God who brought you up out of Egypt, and had committed great blasphemies, you and your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness.

An example from Psalm 68, 15.

But you, O Lord, God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding, steadfast love and faithfulness, turn to me and be gracious.

Many people love Psalm 103, and actually Psalm 103 is full of allusions to Exodus 34 6. It's almost like a commentary on the verse. I'm starting at Psalm 103 8.

The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding, and steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will his anger keep forever.

He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor pay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame, he remembers that we are but dust.

And then one more, Psalm 45, eight. Our whole view of God actually, it partially is rooted in this one verse, Exodus 34, six. And it's used many ways in the Old Testament, a lot of things alluded to in the New Testament, a lot of things we know about God actually comes from this one verse. And a lot of what we know springs from this. So how does it apply to us?

God has mercy on people like you

Well, if you're not a believer, you're separated from God, you're guilty before God, And the good news is that God has mercy on people like you. He forgives sins. That mercy put Christ on the cross to die on the cross in your place. He is gracious. He gives you new life.

If you're not a believer, you know next week we've got Good Friday coming up. If you're not a believer, spend your time meditating on what Good Friday is. In a week and a half, we have Resurrection Sunday. If you're not a believer, spend your time meditating on what does it mean that Christ rose from the dead and why this happened. If you're a believer, how does this verse apply to you?

Well, I'm sure in many ways, one way would be that, what is one sin that's ever before you? Is there a past sin that grieves you? Is there a sin you struggle with? Is there a sin you, just repeating? Exodus 34.6 reminds us of how God identified himself to Moses even after the golden calf. I think that's the important thing. You have the golden calf, just how atrocious that was, and how does God identify himself? Well, you think of your sin, whatever you struggle with, how does he talk to Moses? How does it apply to you? In a sense, when you have the golden calf, you have Israel's spitting in God's face. That's what they're basically saying. It's just atrocious. It says blasphemies, okay? That's horrible. And you think, what do you struggle with?

He's a covenant-keeping God

Well, you look at 34.6 and it starts with Lord, Lord. He's a covenant-keeping God. When you believed in Christ, you entered into a new covenant with God. God does not take that covenant lightly. you're in a covenant relationship with him. He's a covenant-keeping God, and God will not throw away that new covenant that he has with you. So when you think of that sin that's in front of you, God thinks first of the new covenant he has with you. Then it mentions merciful.

2 Corinthians 1.3 talks about

the father of mercies.

Ephesians 2.4 talks about God being rich in mercies. God specializes in being merciful. Thomas Goodwin, a Puritan from 350 years ago, made the statement,

God has more thoughts of mercy towards you than you have rebellious thoughts against him.

You just started rebelling since you were born. but God has had mercy towards you from everlasting to everlasting.

You look at Ephesians 1.4, it says,

God chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world.

So you've been in God's fond thoughts since before the foundation of the world. God is known about the sin that bugs you right now. God has still been overflowing with mercy towards you from eternity past. So God has had thoughts of mercy towards you since before the foundation of the world.

So we look at mercy. I think in the passage, in the context there is God had mercy towards Israel. He forgave them of the golden calf. And so he's a God that forgives and has mercy towards the biggest of sins, even whatever you may be facing right now. Then it talks about gracious.

In the context of the passage, God was gracious and he took them all the way through the promised land, to the promised land, to the wilderness. The idea would be that God takes a child and you lead them. He took Israel and led them through the wilderness. I think in terms of as we deal with sin, things that just haunts us with our conscience is that God basically takes you by the hand and leads you through all your guilt, temptation, and sin. He leads you through that.

Then it says he's slow to anger. I think of 1 Timothy 1, 12, et cetera, you see where Paul says,

I'm the worst of sinners.

And he says God's patience was perfect. God had perfect patience towards Paul. In other words, here's the guy with all his baggage, more baggage than any of us have, okay. God had perfect patience. He led him through the whole process until here he was the Apostle Paul.

So when we look at God and it says he's slow to anger, he's slow to anger in terms of what you face right now, in terms of just the things you deal with in your life, he's slow to anger. He has a perfect patience towards you. And if God began that work in you, he's gonna make it full of fruition to an end.

Then it says, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Steadfast mean going on and on. with his love and faithfulness. Steadfast would be like an ultra-marathon runner, just runs and runs and runs and runs. That's God's steadfastness with his love, his faithfulness. It keeps on going, doesn't stop. The word abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. The word abounding, I would say, sort of a crude example would be you take a dump truck, It's full of God's steadfast love and faithfulness.

You stand behind, you open the gate, and all of a sudden, it all just dumps on you. That's the idea there, is God's steadfast love and faithfulness just abounding. It's more than you can imagine. It just pours over you. And so you think in terms of the things you struggle with, this is what God has done. He has made this covenant with you. He pours that steadfast love, his faithfulness all over you. You know, God's mercy and grace are higher and richer than we can comprehend.

Fully embrace his mercy

None of us ever come to a place saying, I really have totally grasped God's mercy in my life. I've never come to a place where I really understand his grace and how it applied in my life. So we measure mercy and grace by our standard, how we view mercy and grace. We measure God's faithfulness and love by how we show love and faithfulness. It dishonors God, actually, to think of his mercy and grace and love and faithfulness by our standard. God's mercy, patience, loving-kindness, His faithfulness, they're far higher and richer than we can comprehend. So my challenge to you will be that will you take a step tonight in grasping just the immensity of God's mercy, His grace, His loving-kindness towards you, Fully embrace it. Fully embrace His mercy. Fully embrace His grace.

So I'll go over Exodus 34 again, verse 6. It says, In other words, God will not forgive His new covenant with you. He is a covenant-keeping God. That's before His mind. When you think of your sin, He first thinks of that great covenant He's made with you.

He is merciful. His mercy started from the creation of the world before time began. His mercy was towards you. It doesn't end right now. He has mercy towards you right now. He's gracious. He freely forgives. He cleanses. He gives us his life, his Holy Spirit. He adopts us to be his children. He seals us with the Holy Spirit. He's gracious to us in all kinds of ways, and that's to slow to anger. He has perfect patience with us wherever we go through. He abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness. Nothing can slow God's steadfast love and faithfulness.

He says,

keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,

but we don't play games with God. It says,

but who will by no means clear the guilty. visiting iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

So when Moses heard this, when he realized what God was saying to him, how did he respond? Verse eight says,

Moses quickly bowed his head toward earth and worshiped.

That should be our response. When we realize God's graciousness, realize his mercy, just abounding loving kindness towards us, our response should be just quickly bow and just worship God in terms of this is what you've done, this is who you are.

Let's pray. Lord God, we acknowledge that our whole image of your mercy falls far short of what your true mercy is. We acknowledge that we fall short in our understanding. Tonight, our desire is that you would be applying your mercy to us, and we comprehend that. Whatever we face tonight, I pray that you would help us to have a sense of the mercy you have toward us and what we're facing.

You're a God who is gracious. You've done all these things in Christ. Help us to grasp these things and realize these things are true. Help us to comprehend more and more. that what you did in giving us this new covenant with you supersedes whatever we're facing right now in terms of our struggle with sin and things like that. We thank you that we're in that new covenant with you. We thank you very much. Lord, I pray that you'd help us to be new people every day as we meditate on and glory in what you've done for us on the cross. and the people within you, and we give great thanks to you because of what you told Moses and how we apply that in our own lives. I pray in Christ's name, amen.