God And His Sinful People

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to Hope for Today, a weekly Bible teaching program that will bring you hope for every day. Last week our lesson was from a sad time for the children of Israel. They had made a golden calf and worshiped it as a God. It was for good reason. God almost destroyed them and started over. But thanks to Moses, the Israelites were spared. Amazingly, they were more than just spared. God still called them his people. Today's lesson is God and His sinful people. And we thank you so much for joining us. As much as we don't like to think about it, there is something familiar to us in the children of Israel. We can see a bit of our own stubbornness and foolishness. Sinful though we be, God still allows us to be his people. This is incredible. Don't ever take it for granted. Romans 5:8 reminds us of this. But God demonstrates His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. This verse is amazing. Allow the first two words to hold your attention. But God, we are lost. But God. We are stuck in our sinful state. But God. God showed his love to us. He showed us his love by allowing Christ to die for us. We have lots in common with the children of Israel. And God loves us and demonstrates his love to us in spite of who we were. The next move is on us. While there is life, we have the chance to choose Him. God was ready to destroy the Israelites and start over. He didn't. And they also had more time. But remember their time and our time is not endless. That is why today is such an important day. We don't know if we have tomorrow. But we know God has done what we need. Now it's up to us to respond to his great love and receive the reconciliation offered through Jesus Christ. The Israelites and us. We are sinful people, but both of us have a God who is rich in mercy. And that is what we focus on. His greatness. Now. Let's do that together. As Bible teacher J. Mark shares with us the rest of the lesson about God and His sinful people. [00:02:40] Speaker B: As you and I take time to study the life of Israel at the time when God gave the law to Moses, we find that they departed from the will of God. They went away from him and away from the truth. And so because of this, God needed to deal with them according to their sin. God cannot overlook sin. Sin must be punished. And Moses said that the people had sinned a great sin when they created the golden calf and then worshiped it. Part of their worship of the golden calf included adultery and fornication. Remember, the prior text said that the people rose up to play and that was a reference to sexual impropriety. So as a result of their sin, God brought severe judgment on the people. The Levites were told to go through the camp and slaughter the offenders. 3,000 people died as a result of God's divine wrath and judgment. And then furthermore, God sent a plague among them. It must have been a horrible experience. It resulted from man trying to use his own methods to worship God. But God is merciful. He did not abandon his people. When Moses prayed for them, God forgave them. And after their sin, he told Moses to get ready to go on in their journey. There's a great lesson here for us because we too make foolish decisions and we make sinful choices. We can't spend all of our time looking back in regret. We must correct the past as we can and move on to greater opportunities. That is what God said to Moses. The people of Israel could do little about the past, except seek the forgiveness of God. And yet before them was the future with all of its possibilities. So God took certain actions regarding the people of Israel to equip them for the future that lay before them. And God's actions are recorded for us in Exodus chapter 33 and verses 1 to 6. Listen carefully now as I read those verses. That's Exodus 33 and verses 1 to 6. And the Lord said to Moses, depart and go up from here, you and the people that you have brought out of the land of Egypt unto the land which I swore unto Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, saying unto your seed, I will give it, and I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite unto a land flowing with milk and honey. For I will not go up in the midst of you, because you are a stiff necked people, lest I consume you along the way. And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned. And no one put on him his ornaments. For the Lord had said to Moses, say unto the children of Israel, you are a stiff necked people. I will come up into the midst of you in a moment and consume you. Now therefore, put off your ornaments from you, that I may know what to do to you. And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the Mount Horeb. In this conversation God had with Moses, he took several actions which affected Israel's relationship with him. In the first action God ratified the promise. So after the punishment for their sin, God said to Moses, depart and go from here. Moses received a directive from the Lord in ratifying the promise. The directive was, go from here. You must travel on you and the people which you have brought out of the land of Egypt. Leave behind your sin and this suffering of this experience and move on. And he gave them a definition. They had come from Egypt and they were going to that land that God had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In the life of the nation of Israel, God was constantly reminding them of what he had promised. Those reminders were to give them confidence for what lay before them. So in this particular incident, he ratified the promise, this directive to go forward. And this definition that they had come from Egypt assured them that they were on the way to this land that God had promised to them and to their forefathers. I learned some valuable lessons from this. First of all, God is merciful, even in judgment. His desire is not to destroy us. His desire is that we would seek him in repentance. And then in addition, we learn by this action that God can be trusted. I'm so grateful for that truth. We can't trust the word of man, but we can trust the word of God. By ratifying this promise to Israel, God made it clear that he can be trusted. Then the second action that God took which affected Israel's relationship with him was he specified the procedure. He said, I'm going to send an angel before you. Just follow the angel. Now there was a bit of a change here because the Lord said, I'm not going to be among you anymore. I'm not going to dwell among you anymore. Because if I were to go among you, I would consume you. Because you are a stiff necked people. Stiff necked, that means hard hearted, not willing to hear and to obey. Imagine the feeling of lostness that people must have had when God said, I'm not going with you. God will not go with us. But you can be sure God wasn't abandoning them. That's beautiful, isn't it? The Lord didn't abandon his people. He specified the procedure. He said, you are to follow the angel. And he assured them that when they arrived in the promised land and he would make it available to them by driving out the Canaanites and the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. These were all heathen peoples of the land. But God's people, Israel would need to do as he told them. They must follow the angel who was going before them and he would show them the way. God provided angelic leadership to guide them to that fertile, fruitful land. Even today, to experience God's richness, we must do what he says and we must do it just as he says. There can be no compromise on our part. Any departure from God's will must be dealt with as sin and taken care of in that way. But God took this action for his people and he specified the procedure. He said, I will send an angel before you. Praise the Lord. Then in the third action, God nullified the punishment. When the people of Israel heard what God had said about them and what he would necessarily need to do if he were among them, they were not happy. No, they were sorry. They mourned because of these evil tidings which they heard. There was no rejoicing in the consequence of their sin. And then God looked on them and he saw their sorrow and he nullified their punishment. They were still a stiff necked people. They didn't want to listen, they didn't want to obey. And God said, I need to separate from you because your sin bars my presence among you. The holy God cannot dwell in the midst of a sinful people. And yet he was willing to take them on their way to the land of promise under the leadership of the angel of the Lord. So what did the people do? They took off their symbols of joy and they walked in sorrow. God understood their hearts and he did not pass on them the severity of their judgment. He didn't consume them as he would have needed to do if he had been among them. So the people were sorry for their sin and God saw it. That's a beautiful picture of sincere, genuine repentance. To avoid the punishment of the divine God. You and I must also mourn for our sins. We can't go blindly on living the way we want to, because God has spoken with clarity, with judgment and with justice. But he's willing to take the same actions toward us that he took toward Israel. He's willing to forgive. Let me show you these actions. Once again, he ratified the promise. That is, he reassured the people of his promise on the basis of what he had said to their forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And then he specified the procedure. He showed them how they would need to go and what they would need to do in order to continue on their journey toward the land of promise. And then he nullified the punishment they surely deserved because he saw that they were sorry for their sin. And in their sorrow, God saw what he could do for them. You and I can take courage from ancient Israel because the God that dealt with them in their time is the same God that deals with you and me today in our time. Like the children of Israel, we are sinful people, but we can come to him and we can find in him forgiveness and peace. He still nullifies the punishment when he sees that we are sorrowful. I am so glad to tell you that through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary, forgiveness is possible for you and me. So I urge you to rejoice in the actions that God has taken on our behalf. Is God real to you? Have you found peace with him through His Son, Jesus Christ? [00:12:52] Speaker A: What a great promise to end today's teaching with. We can experience forgiveness for our sins through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. After our sin is dealt with, then we are reconciled to God. We are no longer guilty before Him. This is the best thing that ever happened. The whole world needs to hear about this and it's up to us to share this message and we pray that you will do that this week. Before you go, let me give you some information about how you can contact us. We would love to hear from you. The best way is via email. Our email is hopeheraldsofhope.org if you don't have email, not a problem, you could write to us. Our address is HopeFor Today, Box 3, Breezewood, PA 15533. Or you can connect with us on our website. Our website is heraldsofhope.org on our website you can listen to our other programs and find helpful resources and so please look around while you are there. Again, the website is heraldsofhope.org thank you so much for being with us. We look forward to next week and hope you will join us for more teaching from Exodus. And just because it is such a profound verse, I leave you with a verse I shared at the beginning, Romans 5:8. But God demonstrates His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Truly incredible. Live in that truth this week.