Merciful and Gracious

I am the younger brother of two siblings and, of course, as children we often fault and disagreed and, well, our parents would correct us. One of the hardest punishments to bear was the lecture that followed where Dad would pace back and forth explaining everything we did wrong and how we need to appreciate one another and love one another and be more brotherly and share. After some other discipline, the most awkward part of the correction was when they would make us hug. There's just nothing more. I'm glad they didn't video this because there's just nothing more awkward than making siblings who are still upset. You know, nothing's changed in our hearts. We've heard the lecture. We've heard the correction. Nothing's changed. I'm still upset he stole my G.I. Joes or whatever he did wrong to me, of course. There's nothing more awkward than making two children who are still upset hug one another. They still feel wrong, but this is an important part of the correction, of the discipline, because it's a symbol that reconciliation should and will take place. My parents did it because they wanted to make us experience that symbol of reconciliation, the awkward hug afterwards. They wanted to see that symbol of reconciliation. This morning, we are going to be looking at God reconciling his people to himself. As we saw last week, Moses asked for a symbol to demonstrate that this reconciliation is truly taking place. God demonstrates to us, his people, that he has indeed reconciled us to himself. We're going to continue our our last little mini series in the book of Exodus. We're looking at Exodus 32 through 34. And our message this morning is very simple and clear. God is merciful to reconcile sinners to himself. God is merciful to reconcile sinners to himself. And the important thing we have to recognize there is we're the sinners. God is merciful and he reconciles us to himself. Exodus 32-34 will be in Exodus 34. If you're using a Pew Bible, that's on page 74 of that Pew Bible. If you want to take that home with you, you are more than welcome. Exodus 32-34, it begins with a great rebellion, and then there's the mediation, and then there's the reconciliation. Those are the three main steps. Those are the three main actions that we see in this section. This morning we're focusing on that reconciliation. It's important for us to think about this because we're going to see the great God who is merciful, who is gracious. He's where our sin abounds, God's grace abounds. In order to truly appreciate this, we must first recognize we're sinners. We sin, that's what we do. We're the ones that rebel against God. We're the ones that fight against God. We're the ones that resist him. And it's only when we recognize that that we truly can sing how good it is to be loved by you because we realize we don't deserve that love. We realize we are unlovely. It's amazing as we look through Scripture and as we even look at our own lives, if we're honest with ourselves, we look back and A Christian can only confess God has been merciful. God has been slow to anger. God has been patient. God has resisted his right to pour out his wrath upon me. He's been patient with me. He continues to pursue me. He continues to love me. He continues in his coveted steadfastness to care for those whom he has called. The great message is one of our scripture where sin abounds, God's grace abounds. Now, we don't do enough intestinal reading, and so we're going to do something this morning a little different than we normally do. Stand up. This is helpful. This is us, the church, proclaiming God's truth to one another. So look at one another. If you're in the cubbyholes, you kind of lose the effect, but you can look for it. Look at one another. This side looking at this side. Let's turn this way. All right. This side, you're going to say where our sin abounds. God's grace abounds. Where our sin abounds. All right, let's try this fresh now. That was where our sin abounds. God's grace abounds. You can sit down. That is the message of the church. That is what we are here to listen to every week. That is what we need to be proclaiming to one another. Because the truth is our sin is abundant and the truth of the gospel is that God's grace is abundant. Now, if you're new to this, I'm going to do some background. We're going to go backward. We're really catching us in the middle and the height of God moving his people into the new stage of his plan. God called out a man. Abraham, he gave them children. He sent those children to Egypt to preserve them, protect them, to grow them. Then Egypt made them slaves. Then God delivered them mightily from Egypt. He stretched out his mighty right arm with a series of plagues. He demonstrated to the world that he alone is God. He demonstrated to Egypt that he was God by destroying them. He demonstrated to Israel that he is God by delivering them. He parted the Red Sea. He crushed Egypt once and for all, finally. And then Israel, they continued to grumble through the desert. God is patient with them. He's slow to anger. He's caring for them. Exodus 19 is a major change in the covenant. He brings the people up. He says, you cannot go up on the mountain. Moses will come up. I will come down in a cloud. And he declares them, you'll be a real royal priesthood, my holy nation. And then he gives them the commandments. He gives them the law that will define them, not just as his treasured people, but as his nation. And what he's doing here is he's preparing him for the stage that we're not going to follow through to, and that is to take them into the land. Because God wants his people to be his nation in their land that he's going to give to them. We're not going to see that through the end. We're moving on to the Gospel of John next week. But this is what God is doing. He's preparing his people to worship him properly in the right place, the promised land. Now, if you were here two weeks ago, 32 is just this monumental mistake. It's this great disruption in the midst of what God is doing for his people. God is talking to Moses. Moses is on top of the mountain. The people are below. And he's giving Moses instruction on how to build a tabernacle. How to build the tent of meeting where God is going to meet with Israel. In the midst of giving instructions for how to worship God, Israel gets impatient and they build a golden calf, breaking a number of commandments. God gets angry. He sends Moses down. Moses gets angry. He crushes the calf. He crushes the Ten Commandments. And then God calls Moses to be the mediator for his people. Now, there we see the rebellion. They have become idolaters. We see the mediation Moses has interceded for them. And now we're going to pick up and see God reconciling Israel to himself. Israel sinned and Moses repented on their behalf. Now, Moses was speaking to God face to face. He asked God, let me let me see your glory. And God says, you cannot see my face and live. But he says, I will let your goodness, I will let my goodness pass before you. And that's really where we pick up, because what God is going to do when he hides Moses in the cleft of the rock and then he just barely shows some of his glory to him, he's revealing to him who he truly is. He's saying, this is who I am. And really what we're seeing here is a furthering of what Exodus is all about. It's knowing the name of God, knowing who God is. It's a further revelation of who God is so that Israel and we will know how to worship him. rightly. What Moses gets is just a continuation. This is the name of the Lord. Now let's pick up and look at Exodus 34, which I believe is found on page 74 if you're using a pew Bible. I'll read verses 1 through 28 before we begin looking at the passage. The Lord said to Moses, Cut 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. No one shall come up with you, and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain. 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 and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 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, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children and the children's children to the third and the 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 the stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance." And he said, Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you. Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Take care lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. You shall tear down the altars and break the pillars and cut down the ashram. For you shall worship no other God for the Lord, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God. Lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the Lord when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited you of his sacrifice and you take of their daughters for your sons and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods. You shall not make for yourself any God's cast of metal. You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you at the time appointed in the month of Abib. In the month of Abib you came out from Egypt. All that open the womb are mine. All your male livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep, the firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or you will not redeem it, you shall break its neck." All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem, and none shall appear before me empty-handed. Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, the Feast of Engatherings at the year's end. Three times in the year shall your males appear before the Lord your God, the God of Israel. For I will cast out the nations before you, and enlarge your borders. No one shall covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year. You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover remain until the morning. The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. You should not boil a young goat in its mother's milk. And the Lord said to Moses, write these words down for in accordance with these words, I have made a covenant with you and with Israel. So he was there with the Lord 40 days and 40 nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water, and he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. The first thing we need to see here is that God In response to Moses asking for a sign of reconciliation, to call his people back to him and accept their repentance, accept his repentance as the mediator, he says, cut for yourself two tablets. You broke the first two. Now, it really sounds as if God is upset with Moses for breaking these tablets. God did not tell him to break the tablets. God had written them with his own finger. Now it's going to take 40 days for him to write out on the tablets again. But God here says, cut for yourself two tablets like the first. I will write on these tablets. Then he declares, you will come up on the mountain. The people, they will stand back. I will descend like a cloud. Now, if you're here, for instance, 19, this is very similar to the scene where God first initiates the covenant. What this is doing is saying, I'm going to renew the covenant. All of these actions are just reminding them. This is what I've already done by redoing these things, by keeping the people back, by calling Moses up, by descending, by giving the tablets. I am renewing the covenant. It's a sign. It's a symbol that reconciliation is going to take place. The real high point of this text this morning, and we're going to spend the most time here, is beginning in verse 6. The Lord passed before him as he said he would. This is a key revelation in Exodus. Again, the theme of Exodus is God has revealed his name. And this is one of the most intense precise, specific revelations of God's name. It really stands out because it's the only place in Scripture where Yahweh, the covenant name of God, is repeated twice side by side. Here he's saying, Yahweh, Yahweh, I. And he describes himself. This is a further, clearer revelation of the name of God. He's revealing his goodness. Again, this is the entire theme of Exodus. So verses six and seven, these are are worth unpacking this morning and all of their depth and beauty and truth. And there's really a clear structure. There's three parts to this revelation. First, we see God's character, who he is. Secondly, we see his action for his people, what he does for their benefit. He's he forgives them. And then thirdly, we see his action against his people, he will not let the guilty go free. Let's begin by looking at his character. God, Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Now, it's important for us to begin with a description. It's that God declares who he is. It's important for us to study scripture and know who God is because God always acts according to his character. God's never out of character. God never acts out of his own nature. Who he is determines what he does. So it's important for us when God says, this is who I am. We listen because that helps us know this is how God is going to act. Now, we typically learn who God is by his actions, but here he's saying this is who I am. I'm merciful and gracious. Now, look back at 3319. God is already revealing his name there, Yahweh. I will have mercy upon who I will have. I will show grace upon who I will show grace, and mercy upon who I will show mercy. There's a chiasm here. He's changed these two. First, he declares grace and then mercy in 3319, and now he's declaring he's merciful and gracious. The simple thing here is God gives us what we do not deserve. God gives us what we do not deserve. He keeps back that which we do deserve, and that is his judgment and his wrath. But think about if you're Israel, he's merciful and gracious. He's given them freedom from slavery. He's given them a new identity. He's given them a new land. None of this they deserve. Most of this they've actually fought against the entire time, but he has been merciful and gracious to give them what they do not deserve. This next declaration is very helpful for us as the people of God. He is slow to anger. He is patient with us in the midst of our sin. The important thing we focus here is that when we're angry, we're typically out of control. When we think of someone who's angry, we typically see someone who who cannot control their their emotions, their their sense of being wronged. God is completely and perfectly in control. We as sinners, we do not know righteous anger. Because as sinners, we do not know how to properly measure our being wronged with a response of righteousness. We overreact. I always say this, I overreact. If you want to join with me in that confession, you can join with me. But I'm pretty sure as all sinners, when we're wronged, we overreact with anger. We do not know how to give a proper measure of justice and righteous, but God, he is righteous. He is good. He is perfect. He is just. When we sin, he actually resists giving a proper measure. He holds back all the ways in which he should judge us for being wrong. He is slow to anger. Anger here is really equivalent with his wrath. God should judge us with his wrath for our sin, but he's slow to. He's patient. He preserves us. This is encouraging for us as Christians because for us with ourselves, we fail constantly. We fumble, we fail, and God is slow to anger, even though we provoke his wrath. The revelation continues, he abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness. Now, steadfast love, this is a very important declaration. It's his covenant love. This is where God says, I love you because I have chosen you. He has committed himself to us. God doesn't fall in love. He chooses to love, he chooses to place his affections on a people. He is abounding in his steadfast love and faithfulness. He has made promises and those promises he keeps because of his character, not because of us. Again, when Moses is interceding for Israel, he doesn't look down and say, oh, look how good the people are. No, he acknowledges, yes, these are a stiff necked people. They constantly refuse you and rebel against you, but you promise Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. You said these are your people, don't call them those people, call them back to be your people. He is faithful because he makes promises and he keeps the promises. Now, again, we abound in sin. That is why this description of God is so precious. Now, listen to the actions for his people. He keeps steadfast love for thousands. He forgives iniquity and transgression and sin. This is a continuation, really, of his action from his character. He has given steadfast love to his people. He then keeps it. Really, the word here is guard. He guards the steadfast love. He guards the covenant, the covenant that he began with us. He keeps it. Now, this is good news because we're covenant breakers. God called us to be his people, and we quickly forget our new identity. We quickly forget the law of Christ. We quickly forget who we're supposed to be now in Christ. But he keeps it. He initiated the covenant. He keeps the covenant. He is the protector of it. Now, he says he forgives iniquity and transgression and sin. There's a threefold forgiveness here, and I don't think these are three different categories. It's just emphasizing how rich his forgiveness is. He forgives everything we do wrong against him. Now, notice there's some elements of the second commandment here. You can go back and look at the commandments in Exodus 20, particular verses four through six. There's a reference to a thousand, and this must be generations because that's what the second commandment gives. We see here, he's rich in his mercy. And we'll get to what the generations are. But again, we see that where our sin abounds, his grace abounds. Finally, we look at his action against his people. We have to see these things to one another, who God is and how he acts. And we're going to see two different actions, not two different gods. He is the one and same true God, but he does act differently. Some he forgives. Some, he does not clear the guilty. He declares a great contrast, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. The declaration that God is merciful is only appreciated when we see that we are first guilty. We are transgressors. Now, Here's the real conundrum, I think, in the passage, this great revelation. God says he forgives the sins, the iniquities, the transgressors, but then he says he will by no means clear the guilty. Aren't they the same people? The transgressors and those who are sinners and those who commit iniquity, they're guilty. So how do we get to the point where we can understand, how does he not clear the guilty? But how does he forgive the guilty? You see that there's two actions here described by God. How do we how do we make sense of these? Well, the first thing we can see is that everyone whose sins are forgiven, they are first guilty. That is what we must see. The second thing is, I think it's in Moses response in verse nine that gives us hope. Behold, I am making a covenant before all your people. I'm sorry. 9. 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 they are a stiff-necked people. Pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us for inheritance. As the representative of Israel, he is repenting. He is asking for mercy. There are two actions of God here, and they correspond with the two different ways we live. Now, this this may be new for some, and this is this is important, there are only two ways to live. There are only two ways to live, you either live for God or you live against God. That's it, there are two ways to live, you either live for God, trusting him, obeying him, or you live against God. And you see here, there's two different actions of God. He'll by no means clear the guilty. Those are those, speaking of those who are against God, He will forgive those who are trusting God. Now, there are thousands of ways of living against God because the way of destruction is broad. There's only one way to live for God. You see, the guilt is only cleared if we trust in the God who takes away that guilt. Our guilt, and we are all guilty, is only forgiven if we look to the One whom God has sent to forgive that guilt. And that is Jesus Christ. As Brian read, as all of the New Testament makes very clear, the only way our guilt is cleared, if we look to God's promise and now we, as a new covenant people, look to his promise fulfilled in Christ, that's the only way our guilt is cleared. By trusting his work for us. So this is the gospel, friends. If you're not a Christian, this is the gospel. Right now, you are living in the world where your guilt is not clear. Your account of sin is full. It stands against you. God's wrath will be poured out against you. But the way to be forgiven is to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is God's own son, that he came down to live the life that you have failed to live in obedience to him. He died on the cross so that the wrath of God was poured out upon him. So that when you die, the wrath of God is no longer against you. He takes God's wrath for you. And then he rose again so that we have hope. He is the forgiveness and it is only found in him. Now, let's ask a difficult theological question. What does it mean to visit the father's sin on their children? I wanted to entertain this for a little while and then we'll continue with the text. What does it mean to visit the fathers and their children? A couple options. One, it's practical. It's just saying that as the children see the father go, they're going to go. It was a very social, the families all live together. And so the children's children would see how the great grandparents would live. And we could simply say it would be a social element. It would be a practical way in which, when the children see the fathers rebelling, they're going to follow suit in practice. I think it must be more than that. It could be legal, because this is a covenant. And God could say, if you rebel, I'm going to keep your children from the covenant for the third and fourth generation. It could still be just relational. This is God reconciling a people to himself, and it may be that the old covenant, which is a progeny covenant, it is a covenant of lenience because it's for a people who's a nation that if you rebel, your people will not enjoy the benefits of my covenant for the third and fourth generation. Now, I think it probably has an element of all of those, but I get to this point only to emphasize this. There's two observations I want to make. I don't know anywhere in Scripture where it actually fulfills this third and fourth generation. What happens when they get to the promise, when they're standing on the brink of the promised land? God punishes one generation. Now, he's just, in numerous times, to wipe out an entire people. He's just to keep three or four generations out of the promised land. But he only keeps one generation out of the promised land. That one generation they rebelled and that one generation is the only one that God kept out of the promised land. What we see here is a God who abounds in grace. He's slow to anger. It would be perfectly just to keep Israel the promised land for 40 and 40 and 40 more years to keep the generations out. But he abounds in grace. The second thing is that the old covenant was necessarily a progeny covenant, which means it's tied to the ages. It's tied to the generations. The New Testament is not this kind of covenant. There's only one place which speaks of a promise for a child, and it's in Acts 2. And I don't think this is actually saying the same thing as what we get in Exodus, because the key passage there, as Peter says, These promises are for you, your children, and for all who are far off, all whom God calls. That's the larger umbrella. It's all whom God calls, your children, those who are far off. It's very much like how God designed evangelism to happen in Acts. It starts in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the outer ends of the earth. We have to realize that God is calling people in our home. close to us, to the outer ends of the earth. It's showing that if we are faithful in gospel proclamation, he will call his children. Let's look at how Moses responds. We've already read it. He bows down. He pleads for grace in verse 9. In verse 10, God declares, I am making a covenant before all your people. I will do marvels. Now, this is good news. He's given all the symbols, he's given all the signs, but now God is getting it very clear. I'm going to make a new covenant for you. I'm going to start, renew, reconcile you in this covenant. He calls them to obey again. Look at verse 11. Observe what I command. When God calls his people, he calls them to live differently. When God renews his love for them and is reconciling to them, he calls them to obey. And what he calls them to obey here is, well, the first thing is quite interesting because he simply says, I'm going to drive out all the inhabitants. What you need to do is be aware of the idols, which I have already seen. You are so tempted to worship. Whenever you go in, you can't let them remain. because your heart is so bent towards these idols, because you are so inclined to idolatry, you must destroy them, as Moses destroyed the idol that you have already made. It shows our responsibility in the matter. We're to protect ourselves from those things that ensnare us. Now, verse 14, we get another revelation of God's name. We get another revelation of God's name. God is jealous. His name is jealous. His desire is for us. He has great longing and a great love for us. Now, jealousy isn't usually something we look for in another human being. No one really wants to be known as a jealous person. This isn't really a word that we use in a positive light for one another. So how is it that we see him revealing himself as jealous and this means he's praiseworthy because as God reveals himself, he is praiseworthy. Well, let's skin back our sinfulness and so that we can see what the heart of jealousy is here that makes God praiseworthy. Two observations. One, when we are jealous for someone's love or attention, It is oftentimes driven by our own insecurity. So human jealousy is oftentimes driven by the jealous ones insecurity. They are insecure about themselves, are insecure about their care for the other person. Oftentimes, the jealousy reveals an insecurity. Well, we know that this is not God's kind of jealousy because God is not insecure. God knows who he is. God knows he is the one true God. He is God alone. What's actually amazing about God being jealous is that he looks from the heavens as the one and only true God, the only one who's worthy of praise. And he sees how cheap our love is. He sees how flaky we are in going after so many other not gods. We bow down to those things that cannot satisfy. We bow down and worship the things that cannot act when we could be worshiping him. And yet he is jealous for our flaky and fickle love. This demonstrates that where our sin abounds, his grace abounds. He longs for our love, even though he sees how flaky and fickle it can be. The second thing about jealousy. When we are jealous for someone's love or attention, we sense we need them to be well. When someone's jealous over someone's love and attention, it's typically driven by the fact that we think we must have their love and attention. For me to be well, for me to be whole, I must have this person. And so we cling to them. We're jealous for their affection. Well, God knows he needs no one. God does not need our love. God is perfect and complete in his own love among the Trinitarian persons from all eternity. Again, it's amazing. He needs nothing, but yet he pours out his love upon us. He chooses to love us. Even when we are flaky with our love, we're fickle with our love, and we're just downright unlovely. He doesn't need our love. Our love doesn't perfect or complete him. He is perfect to complete, but yet he chooses to long for our response of love. It's even more amazing when we consider how we treat his love. Look at verses 15 through 16. Three times it makes the declaration, we will whore after their gods. And we've used this illustration, and it's a very biblical illustration. This is God's perspective on our idolatry. He has committed himself to love us. He has called us to love him in response. And what do we do? We're not only committing idolatry, but in God's eyes, this is adultery. We're going after other lovers. We're prostituting ourselves out to love things that aren't God, when we could truly love the one true God. From his perspective, we're playing the whore, going out and finding other lovers when he has committed himself to love us alone. God reinstates the covenant, we see this is in verses 17 and 18, he restates the commandment, they broke the second commandment, you should not have idols. He declares you will hold feasts and he's renewing all the covenants there in verses 17 through 28. The good news is that he keeps his promise. He renews them, he reconciles them. Now, I want to make a few points of application before we move on to this next section. First, God is patient with us in our sin. God is patient with us in our sin. This should really be the overwhelming truth here, that as Israel has failed and failed and failed and failed, he hasn't wiped them out. He's been slow to anger. We have to realize that He is patient with us in our sin. And we must be on guard against using this as a license to sin. We can take His patience for granted. We can take His slowness of anger for granted and say, well, I haven't felt the effects of my sin yet. God is merciful and forgiving. I'll just keep going into this sin. I'll keep seeing how far I'll go into my sin. I want to trust most people aren't thinking of that deliberately about it. But how much are we relying upon the forgiveness of God when we're not living for him? It is a call to live for the fullest, according to his will, when really this is what Paul says in Romans 6. Is God abounding in grace a license to sin? Absolutely not. God's grace gives us the ability to obey. Following that, we need to know that God disciplines those He loves. God disciplines those He loves. Our sin robs us of enjoying Him. If you're wrestling with assurance, go back and see if there's a sin in your life that has actually kept you from enjoying Him. When did you stop repenting? Is there a sin in your life that you said, I'm not going to quit? I would say that would probably where you could go back and see that's where your assurance stops. He never quits on his love. He never quits on his people. He dissembles us because he loves us. Finally, because this is a revelation of God's name, there's really a charge here, I think, to know God more. We need to go to continue in our pursuit of knowing God, and this is why we are naturally born idolaters. That's what we do. We naturally make idols of things. We need to constantly look to his word so that we are being corrected in our idolatry, and we're putting our eyes back upon the one true God. There's a philosopher of religion that I... it's kind of like a clock is... a broken clock is right twice a day. This philosopher of religion, he just made the most amazing insight into the idolatrous soul. His name is Feuerbach. You can look him up if you can spell it. He is an atheist, and he made the observation, as an atheist, that everyone who worships God, they're really just worshiping a God that they have built up in their own life. So whatever we think is our ideals, we then make the God of that, our God, that ideal. We make God in our own image, in other words. So whatever we value most, we just think, well, our God needs to value that as well. I think he's right about that. As idolaters, whatever our hearts long for, that's what we worship. We make God love, in our own mind, those things which we love. We make God after our own image. We need to look at God's Word because we don't worship a God who we have created. As the great song says, he is making us, we are not making him. The beauty of God in Christianity is that it's a God who speaks. It's a God who has revealed Himself. It's a God who has told us exactly who He is, so our thoughts that run rampant against Him, they're corrected. Now, here's a challenge. When was the last time you were corrected by reading Scripture? When was the last time you read Scripture and Something new was revealed, either something new about what you thought wrongly about or something new about who God is, because no one here knows God perfectly. No one here understands who we are and who God is perfectly. So therefore, if we are constantly looking to God's word, we should constantly be corrected. We must humble ourselves, pursue God's word, pursue a knowledge of him and know him better. This is what the Bible should be doing to us constantly correcting our wrong thoughts. Let's move on to our next section, our last section. Is it 1215? It is. Let me read this and I will be as brief as I possibly can. This is actually the way I want to end Exodus. A fantastic way of ending the Exodus because of the passage Brian just read. Let me read the Exodus 34 verses 29-35. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him. And Moses talked with them. Afterward, all the people of Israel came near, and he commanded them, all the Lord had spoken with them in Mount Sinai. Moses had finished speaking with them. He put a veil over his face. Whenever Moses went before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the people of Israel what he had commanded, the people of Israel would see the face of Moses. that the skin of Moses' face was shining, and Moses would put the veil over his face again until he went in to speak with him." Now, this is amazing. God said, Moses said, I want to see your face. God said, Moses said, I want to see your glory. God said, you can't see my face and live. I will then show you my afterglow. Moses is a reflection of the afterglow, and Israel can't even see that. They can't bear to look at the reflection of the afterglow on Moses' face, so he has to put a veil. Now, as Brian read it, it was clear, Israel, they cannot see the glory of God because of their sin. The problem of the Israelites was made clear in 2 Corinthians 3, 14. Their minds were hardened. Their sin made them so foolish and so hard against God that they could not look upon him and could not receive the word of God. Our sin is like theirs. We refuse God because he doesn't meet our standards. We think we know things better than God. We think we can determine how we're to live better than God. The consequence is that we're judged. We're not worthy of him. Paul says it's a... Paul gives us one clear solution to this. 2 Corinthians 3.14. Only through Christ is the veil taken away. Verse 16. When one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. The veil there is to protect sinners from seeing the glory of God. This is a fantastic transition to the Gospel of John because the ministry of the old covenant was one that led to death, as Paul says, because it was an external covenant. It was only if God renewed and circumcised the heart of those that read the law would they be saved. The new covenant is better. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. The new covenant, which we're going to now begin studying next week in John, is better because our mediators better. It's God's own son who has come down not to cover sin, to take it away. By his death, by his blood, he has come not to keep us on the boundary of the promised land. He came, he died, he rose and he ushers us in to God's presence. Friends, the Old Covenant. It's our covenant. The Old Testament is our testament, even more than the Israelites before Jesus came, because we and only we see what his true expectation was. Jesus Christ, he is the realization of everything that was said before us. So this is in its entirety our word. We must read it. We must trust it. We must obey it. Let's pray. Father, as as John said, there's so many things we could say about you. We thank you that your word is rich. We thank you for that. You have revealed your name. May we be a people that long to know you more, to long to know your name, to lift it up, to be encouraged by it, challenged by it, to know your love and your forgiveness. But if someone here does not know you. May they be stirred and moved this morning. May they be stirred and moved to speak to me or another elder, another member, to hear the gospel that can forgive them. Lord, if there's someone here this morning who has made a commitment to you years ago. Who you saved, but have been living in sin, rebelling against you, not trusting you. Lord, call them. Call them to reconciliation. Help them, Lord, to see how you've been slow to anger, how you've been patient. Renew them in your mercy and your grace. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.