Gooding, David: 4 - Moses' Final Message

This evening by reading from the book of Deuteronomy and chapter six. Deuteronomy chapter six, beginning at verse one. Now this is the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that you might do them in the land whither you go over to possess it. That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou and thy son and thy son's son, all the days of thy life, and that thy days may be prolonged. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it, that it may be well with thee, and that you may increase mightily, as the Lord, the God of thy fathers, has promised unto thee, in a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be upon thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sitest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the doorposts of thy house and upon thy gates. Now, I do trust by now you have found a comfortable place on the plains of Moab to pitch your tent. For there these days we are assembled amidst the thousands of Israel to listen to Moses, the apostle and high priest of our, uh, of Israel's confession, as he addresses them for the last time before they go over the Jordan into their inheritance. And we have been thinking that as he encourages them to go across the Jordan to their inheritance, he is also preparing them for three major dangers and difficulties that they are liable to meet. The first one, of course, was that they would have to face the very thing their fathers were afraid of. They would have to face the giants, the Rephaim, the Anakim, and cities fortified up to high heaven. But the preparation that God had made for them, we were considering the other night when God took them, first of all, east of Jordan, into countries that had been infested with giants, and let Israel see how other nations, under God's merciful providence, had coped with the giants. And then he had led them till their enemies came out against them, and they had no option but to fight, and fought the king of Heshbon and his fortified cities, and found that they yielded to them, and they gained by God's gift inheritance unexpectedly on the east side of Jordan. That prepared them, of course, to cross Jordan and deal effectively with the giants that there they might find, and particularly the fortified cities. There was a bigger danger awaiting them across Jordan, and that is when they came across this advanced civilization, morally permissive, expert in technology, but with an idolatrous interpretation of the universe. These Israelites, nowhere near so sophisticated in technology, would feel inferior and be tempted to compromise their faith in the one true God with the i- ideologies of the Canaanites. And how Moses prepared them to meet that particular na- uh d- danger we meditated on last night. Now we are to observe from chapter six onward the way Moses prepared them for yet a third danger, a third temptation. And considering the length to which Moses went about this topic, for it extends through chapter six right to chapter eleven, the danger was precisely this, that the very blessings of God that they should encounter and experience when they entered their inheritance might affect their heart attitude to God adversely. The very blessings of God have the effect of lessening their gratitude to God and inducing in them not gratitude, but selfishness, pride, and arrogance. That may- might sound strange at first, the idea that the blessings of God could thus affect detrimentally their heart attitude to God. But we shall see in a moment how all too true that was. It wasn't, of course, the fault of God's blessings. It would be the fault of their misinterpreting God's blessings and failing to show to God the necessary gratitude of heart that those blessings should have evoked. It was an insidious temptation, and if I mistake not, it is a temptation with us still. So to come to the first one, we read in chapter six what lies at the heart of Israel's faith. Verse four and 5 are what is technically called the Shema. Hear, O Israel. Shema meaning hear, imperative of the verb. Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God is one Lord. Millions of times has it been repeated from the heart and mouth of millions of Israelis, all down the long centuries. The expression of their fundamental foundation of their faith, their monotheism. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. But not only does it stand for the doctrinal expression of their monotheism, it immediately carries with it a duty of response from those who profess that doctrine. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. Thus does Moses come right to the center of what he now has to say. It is going to be in these next addresses, a question of Israel's heart. Their heart attitude to God. Many times shall we find reference to what goes on in the human heart in relation to God. The doctrine that there is only one Lord means, of course, that our devotion to him must be uncompromised and total. If there were many lords, then our heart's devotion and love might be distributed equally among them. But if there is only one Lord, then the love he claims is the absolute love of the totality of our hearts. And Moses at once shows Israel that the love that God requires of their hearts and of their souls and the strength of their bodies is not mere emotion, and even less is it sentiment. Because that the love may me- be maintained, he says, verse six, and these words which I command thee this day shall be upon thine heart. You see, in this we know that we love God if we keep his commandments. Love shows itself in keeping God's commandments. He that says he loves God and doesn't love, uh, doesn't do his commandments is, of course, a liar. How do you know that you know the Lord? John the Apostle raises the question. It's common amongst us, isn't it, to say to somebody, do you know the Lord? And it's easy to answer yes. You know, you know the Lord, my sister? What, but yeah, you say, yes, of course I do. Yes, but wait a minute, how do you know that you know? That's another question, isn't it? How do you know that you know the Lord? The answer John gives is we know we know the Lord when we love God and keep his commandments. Suppose you came to me and said, uh, do you like Switzerland? Oh, I said, yes, I adore Switzerland. Uh, uh, Josie, um, do you like mountains? No, I, I abominate mountains. I wouldn't go anywhere near a mountain if I possibly could. And you love Switzerland? Well, you just don't know Switzerland. You love God, but you don't keep his commandments. But that's a contradiction in terms. For if you love God, you'll love his commandments. And that is the test of love, isn't it? To love the Lord your God with all your heart, and so that that might be true, his word shall be in your very heart, and you shall teach it to your children, and you shall put it on your wrists, and there's a mark on your forehead, and you shall hammer it on the doorposts so that you're reminded of it as you go in and as you, uh, come out. And you shall speak of it when you get up and when you lie down, when you go out and when you come in. With typical, of course, hyperbole. You can scarce, uh, uh, uh, uh, think of it when you're asleep, can you, when you lie down? But never mind. We excuse the hyperbole because it's driving home the point. The love of God must mean the word of God in our every activity and in our hearts, not just as a question of keeping rules in a book. What is the danger that this will avoid? Well, says Moses, it shall be when the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities which thou buildest not, and houses full of good things which thou fillest not, and cisterns hewn out which thou hewest not, vineyards and olive trees which thou plantest not, and thou shalt eat and be full. Then beware, lest thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. They got these marvelous things in their inheritance free and for nothing. They didn't have to work for them. Cisterns for water supply that they didn't dig. Vineyards that they didn't plant. Houses that they didn't build. They got them free, gratis, and for nothing without their works. You say, hallelujah, that's an example of our salvation too. By grace are we saved through faith, and that not as of ourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. But then... there is a danger. For sometimes, you know, in human psychology, what you get as a gift, in the end you don't value. If people work for something, they tend to value it. If they get it as a gift, they are in danger of not valuing it. And the more you give them, the less they value it. That's a perverse streak in human nature now. And the danger was that getting it for nothing and eating and being full, they should forget the cost that was paid so that they might receive these good things and the freedom that went with them. So that, uh, beware lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. In Egypt, there had been nothing better than slaves living in slaves' hovels and spending life in the drudgery of Egyptian servitude. Now they were in beautiful houses with a donkey or two each, you see. Father had a donkey, and mother had a donkey, and all the boys had donkeys and vineyards and grapes and everything else, you see. No one donkey families here. You see? And they got used to it. And the memory of the old slavery easily faded. As they took these wonderful gifts for granted. And there was a special danger with the children, because many of them had never even known a whisper of the servitude of Egypt. They were brought up to this kind of bounty and took it for granted. In fact, not only having failed to realize the cost, but now getting discontent and tempting the Lord and saying, this isn't good. The Canaanites have more, and so should we. Therefore, lest that happen, you shall remind them. Let the word of God be written in their hearts. And when your son asks you, what is the meaning of all these statutes and judgments and commandments? As young people will sometimes. What is the point of all these rules and regulations? We find them irksome and a bit of a slavery. Then you shall remind them of the history. Difficult for them because they didn't leave li- live through it. How that once the nation was in very real slavery, until by God's mercy, he redeemed them and set them free. That is true to life, my brother, my sister. Some of you older believers, before you got converted, knew the slaveries of sin. And you got converted, and then your children got converted, and they didn't know the depths you went to by your goodness and God's grace, brought up differently. And now the grandchildren have arrived, and they've known nothing but Christianity from the start. They don't know the bondage of sin like you knew it. And therefore salvation doesn't quite seem so important to them. Doesn't make the big difference in their lives. And there comes a very big danger. For the story of redemption brings freedom, but it brings an enormous responsibility, doesn't it? It says the apostle to the Corinthians, you are not your own, you are bought with a price. And writing again in his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul says that the love of Christ constrains us as we reason this way. It's not a question of emotion, it's a question of logic. If one died for all, then all died. You see, if he hadn't have died, we all should have died. If he hadn't have died for us, we wouldn't have a life to live. The fact that he died for us, then all died that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who li- died and lives for them. That's what coming out of Egypt entailed. The firstborn were particularly reminded that they were not their own any longer. They had to be given totally to the Lord and his service. Why was that? The logic simply was this, that on the night when the angel des- came through Egypt to destroy the firstborn, Israel's firstborn would have been destroyed had it not been for the blood of the Passover lamb. Without that blood, they would no longer have a life to lead. And since that life has been bought by the blood of the redeeming lamb, says God, I claim that life. And they who feel the constraining love of Christ will own the logical implication of that sacrificial love. And then they are no longer their own, and all they have is his. That is the only safe way, my brother, my sister, to stop us taking the gifts of God's grace and abusing them ungratefully for merely our own pleasure and satisfaction. Then there was another insidious danger. Says chapter seven, when the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations before you, and the nations are now listed. And when thy God shall deliver them up before thee, and thou shalt smite them, then thou shalt utterly destroy them. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy, nor make marriages, do you see? Why is that? Verse six: for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God has chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself above all the peoples that are upon the face of the earth. And with this we come to the statement of God's calling for Israel. It re-echoes the word that God himself spoke to Moses and recorded in Exodus nineteen, When God summoned Moses to the mountain and said to Moses, now I want you to go and make a proposal in my name to Israel. You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings, and I brought you to myself. I have redeemed you. Now that I have redeemed you, says he, I have a proposal to make, uh, to Israel. Please go and tell them, says God. And the proposal by this is this, that if you will keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me throughout all the earth, for all the earth is mine. But though all the earth is mine, you shall be a singular, peculiar, unique treasure to me. You shall be to me a kingdom of priests. That was God's astonishing proposal to Israel. When Jeremiah the prophet thought about it in later centuries, the Spirit of God moved him to describe God's action here as that of a lover going to court the girl he had chosen to be his bride and enticing her with his promises. Oh, what a thought. Almighty God, transcendent Lord, owner and maker of the vast universe and all that's in it, coming to court Israel, leaving his heaven and coming to Mount Sinai to meet a bedraggled lot of ex-slaves in the middle of a desert, and wooing them. With the persuasive love of his divine proposal. You ex-slaves, if you'll keep my covenant and agree to it, you shall be to me the treasure par excellence throughout the universe. And I propose to make you a kingdom. Priests for me. What a proposal. And says Moses, when you get into the land, you will find that the nations that come against you are easily destroyed, for it's God that will destroy them. Why will he destroy them in front of you? Not so that you can go off to some holiday camp for the rest of your life, but because he has chosen you for this spectacularly unique privilege to be a holy people utterly dedicated to God and rise to this holy ministry of being priests for God. Now, when that dawned upon them, their unique honor and glory as a kingdom of priests to God, a holy nation, then there would lurk a danger. And you see what it is, verse seventeen, You see, verse, verse, uh, verse seven, sorry. The Lord did not set his love upon you nor choose you because you were more in number than any people, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But because the Lord loveth you, and because he would keep the oath which he sware unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondage and from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. The danger was that they would get it into their little hearts, that it was because of their superior merit and qualities compared with these Gentile Canaanites that God had chosen them. What a folly that would be. The Lord hasn't set his love upon you because of your merit, because of your size, because you were an outstanding nation, full of advance and, uh, uh, qualifications, full of wisdom and strength, nothing of the sort. You're a bunch of slaves. You have been chosen not for good in you. I've chosen you because of the oath I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, your fathers, and faithful to that oath, I give you this unique privilege, not because of who you are. And you know what? Paul the Apostle had to remind the Christians of Corinth of that, didn't he? They were full of such gifts. They came behind in no gifts. They began to think themselves of somebody, you'll see. Paul had to remind them, you see your calling and election, brothers, that not many wise, not many strong are chosen. God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty. The danger would be that if as priests to God they thought their priesthood depended on them and their superiority over other people. It would turn them overnight into Pharisees. Arrogant men, thinking that their ministry depended on their superiority, and they would despise others. When all the time they were to be a holy priesthood to God, to advertise to the world, to borrow Peter's phrase, the virtues of him that had called them out of Egypt. That is the point, isn't it, uh, behind Peter's quotation of this calling in one Peter two. Says he, do you see, uh, some have been disobedient and they have stumbled at the rock of offense. But he adds, but you are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may show forth the excellences of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, which in time past were no people, but now are the people of God, which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. We too are called to be a royal priesthood. Ponder it, my brother, my sister, as you sit on that seat. God will not begrudge you a little self-indulgence, and ponder it. You called to be a holy priesthood to God, a royal priesthood to God? What for? How could you be any such thing? Did I hear somebody say that you have to be specially qualified for that? Two PhDs to start with, I suppose. Uh, do you see, and many other qualifications in order to be an effective, uh, royal priesthood. No, but listen what you're a priesthood for, that you might show forth the excellences of him that has called you out of darkness. How does his calling of us out of darkness show his excellence? Well, consider what you were. You were a nobody, says Peter. You were not a nation. You were just a harem scarem lot of slaves from Egypt. But just a nobody, a non-entity in this world, and God called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. You had not obtained mercy. You were on your way to perdition, and God had mercy. And as you act as a priest, and the world looks at you and sees you were a nobody, and learns that you, uh, deserve God's wrath instead of his, uh, mercy, and find that God has mercy on you. They'll say he must be some God. Fancy his saving Gooding, that non-entity. Fancy his saving Saul of Tarsus, in spite of his rebellion. And the fact he saves the likes of us makes us exhibitions of the grace of God. What a stupendous thing that is. It's not because of our superiority. Wouldn't be quite so remarkable if we were superior people and he chose us for that reason. But when he calls the principalities, powers, and dominions in heavenly places to consider you and me, my dear brethren, that God has made us priests, has mercy upon us, and constituted us his people. Then the reaction of the principalities and powers will not be to credit us with anything. The worse sinners we were, the more it will magnify the grace of God. What a thing, sir, you're called to, to be an eternal exhibition of the grace of God. Chosen not for good in me, wakened up from wrath to free, hidden in the Savior's side, by his spirit sanctified. Teach me, Lord, on earth to show, by thy grace, how much I owe. Lest my exalted spiritual gifts and blessings produce in me an inappropriate spirit of pride and arrogance and superiority, and a despising of other people. And then we come to chapter eight, And that too tells us of another danger, which is this, that if we're not careful, our very blessings could make us independent of God. At least that was the danger with Israel. And chapter eight uh, tells them about it, you see. Verse seven: for the Lord God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths, springing forth in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of oil, olives, and honey, a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it, a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass. And thou shalt eat and be full, and thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he has given thee. Beware, lest thou forget the Lord thy God. Verse seventeen. And thou shalt say in thine heart, my power and the might of my hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God, for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers as at this day. You perceive the danger? The very richness of the land that God brought them into, with its abundant supply, carried with it a danger that that when they ate and were full, they would come to feel in their hearts, they might not say it externally, come to feel in their hearts independence of God. My own hand earned this cash, and I don't have to depend upon the Lord for it. This chapter is dealing with very down to earth things, our daily bread and butter, and it was more than bread and butter for these, it was olives and goodness knows else what. Rich fare indeed. But they lurked a danger, lest the very richness and plentifulness of the food that God gave them should induce in them a sense of independence of God. That is disastrous. And so God, who foresaw the danger, started to train his people in the wilderness, says chapter eight in its early verses. Verse two: thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble thee to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. And he humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by everything that pro- everything or word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. And in the first instance, it's talking about our daily bread and butter. Knowing the riches that one day would be theirs, God trained his people in the desert. He humbled them, it says. And there were times when he allowed them to go without, and allowed them to hunger and wonder where the next meal was coming from. What did you do it for? To teach them that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. So it was with Israel in the wilderness, you see, in Egypt they had been slaves. Their daily work was slavery, and they just about got a subsistence allowance in return. Daily work is a very important thing, isn't it? So when God saved the Israelites out of Egypt and from servitude, one of the first things he began to teach them was a proper attitude to their daily work and their food, lest they should maintain the same Egyptian slavery in their daily work, and let their daily work become a slavery. So God first humbled them and let them hunger, and when they began to get uneasy, where was the food coming from, God sent them the manna coming down out of heaven, and he fed them every day of the week. And some dear modern intelligence says, you suppose we're going to believe that story? God, it'd be nice, wouldn't it, if we didn't have to go to work, and every morning we just found the heavens opened and rained the cornflakes straight down our gullets, you see? Wouldn't that be marvelous? This is going to work business can be a trouble if you've got to motor an hour and a half into New York or something, uh, uh, uh, and back again. Uh, that's a bit of a servitude, isn't it? Wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to work? But who can believe it that the manna just fell down from heaven straight into their mouths? Well, nobody said it did. And of course, the coming down of the manna didn't, uh, uh, uh, obviate the need to work. For when the manna came down from heaven, it was a very small thing, and it lay on the ground, and they had to go out. In fact, the women did most of it. The men were settling the affairs of politics, uh, do you see? Uh, uh, and the women went out and had to bend knees to nose right down to the ground, and picking up a little thing with their two fingers and a thumb, perhaps, and picking up enough of it to feed the whole fa- feed the whole family for a day, under the increasing rays of the sun. I tell you, that was hard work. What is true life? It's a lie that Satan first suggested in the Garden of Eden. That you can live without God. Pointing Eve to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He said, my dear, just look at it. Open your eyes, woman. You see that? It's good to look at, isn't it? Oh, she said, yes, you know, I, I, when I come to look at it, absolute beautiful. Oh, the aesthetics, marvelous. Yeah, says Satan, there's nothing wrong with aesthetics, my dear woman. And it was good for food. Of course, you don't know that, but I know it is, so says, uh, Satan, you see, and that will give you physical satisfaction. There's nothing wrong in enjoying things, my dear. And then take it, and it's good to make you wise, you see, and that's intellectual satisfaction. My dear girl, said he, aesthetic satisfaction and physical satisfaction and intellectual satisfaction. Eve woman, he said, that is life. Ah, she said, but God has said we shan't take, mustn't take it. Oh, woman, he said, grow up, do. Word of God, nobody believes in that round here nowadays. That's old fashioned stuff. Uh, God is only trying to keep you down. He puts all these lovely things in front of your nose and t- tempts you and tantalizes you, and then says you can't have them. That's God. He knows that in the day you take it, you'll be independent of God. You'll have all that life can offer you. That is life. Don't need to bother about the word of God. What a lie it was. Man shall not live by his aesthetics and his intellect and physical satisfaction alone, and by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. What would you say to a young lady, and she comes to work, and you find she's a little bit awkward with her left hand as she hands you the cup of coffee, you see. And then you judge there's something particular about this left hand today, and you notice there's a ring on the appropriate finger, you see. And of course you comment, you know enough to do that. You say, oh, is that a ring? Yes, she says. Oh, show me. Now, what is that? Is that gold? No, that's platinum. I see. And what is that? I- I- is that, what is that, an amethyst? No, that's a diamond. Oh, that's a beautiful work of art, that is, isn't it? And you praise it to high heaven. And when you've done that, and you say, now tell me another thing, my dear. Who is the fortunate young man? She says, what young man? Well, the young man that gave you that ring. There isn't any young man, she says. I don't believe in young men. Don't want a young man. Well, now what do you say? Well, well, it's a very nice ring. What now, would you, would you mind taking down this letter to... Engagement rings are beautiful. If there isn't a man behind them, they're meaningless. Is there a hand behind our daily bread? Oh, you haven't lived. You haven't tasted the real significance of life. If you haven't taken your daily meal from the hand of a creator, who uses these humble things to express his love, and with them draws us to himself to form an eternal friendship both here and in his heaven, when the daily bread has long since been forgotten. Forgotten. There was another danger, and chapter nine and 10 are given over to it. You'll see they were called, says chapter nine, to join with God in God's judgment on the Canaanites, for the Canaanite civilization was rotten to the core. But when they had joined God in his judgments on the Canaanites, he says, verse four: speak not thou in thine heart, after that the Lord thy God hath thrust them out from before thee, saying, for my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land, whereas it was for the wickedness of these nations the Lord doth drive them out before thee, not for thy righteousness or for the uprightness of thy heart dost thou go in to possess the land, but for the wickedness of these nations, the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may establish the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob. They were called, as I say, to join with God in his judgment on that evil society. The lurking danger was this, that when they had done so, they would come to think that they were righteous compared with those Kenyonites, and that was, uh, for their righteousness that God had driven them out. What a mistake that would have been. And I want to tell you now, says Moses, it's not for your righteousness. I want to tell you that though you have been used of God in the judgment of the Canaanites, you yourselves basically are sinners like those Canaanites. And not for your righteousness has God brought you in. Brought you in in his loyalty to his oath that he swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You are, in fact, says Moses to them, if only you care to remember history, you are a stiff-necked people. Look back on your history, you've nothing to be proud of. And he cites the rebellion at Horeb, that is Sinai. When Moses had gone up the mountain to receive directions for the tabernacle, that God might come and dwell among them. And at the bottom of the mountain, the Israelites had thrown back God's invitation in his face, and made themselves the molten calf to follow other gods and return to Egypt. You should remember it, says Moses. You are of the same stock as those people that did that. And not very long ago either. And you wouldn't be here today had it not been for my intercession, says Moses. I love to listen to Moses' intercessions of God on that occasion. I tell you why. Because they remind me of the intercessions of Christ himself. Let me briefly remind you of the steps in Moses' intercession. God called to Moses as Moses was still up the mount with the tables of stone, and says, the people have utterly corrupted themselves upon the earth. I'm going to destroy them, says God, root and branch, and I'll make of you a nation. And if God had done so, God would still have been faithful to his oath to Abraham because Moses was of the seed of Abraham. And if he destroyed all the others and started with Moses and, uh, produced another fresh nation, God would still have honored his oath to Abraham. What a temptation that was to, to, to Moses. At least that would have been to me, if I'd have been Moses. But the people were down there and they couldn't see him up the mountain, could they? And they had criticized him uphill and down dale. I think if God had made me the proposition, I should have said, well, God, it's a pity perhaps to destroy them, but really, uh, when you come to think about it, um, they are a biggely lot, and uh, uh, destroy them right now before I get down the mountain, and then they won't know what's happened to them, you see, and they won't blame me. That's what I would have said. But not Moses. No, God, says he. No, thank you. Think of him being faithful up there when Israel couldn't see them. And then I think of my blessed Lord, says the writer to the Hebrews, consider him being faithful. We can't see him, can we? When our sins arise, he our advocate, pleads our cause and remains faithful to us, though out of sight. And what is more, says Moses, you can't destroy them, God, for if you do, what will the Egyptians say? Well, I don't know, if I'd have been God, if Moses said to me, you can't destroy them all, for what will the Egyptians say? You know what I would have replied? I would have said, Moses, I don't care what Egyptians say. What do they bother about them? Oh, Pharaoh and the rest of them that have defied me so long. You tell me I had to have to be careful of what the Egyptians are going to say. Do you know that's extraordinary? God didn't rebuke Moses, for God was concerned with what the Egyptians might say. For the Egyptians would have said, that's it, he brought them out of Egypt and wasn't able to bring them in, and he's been defeated. And he made them all sorts of promises, and he couldn't keep them. And what was at stake? The character of God. God cares what we think of him, you know. He cares what Satan thinks of him. And his faithfulness to us, and the guarantee of his salvation, is because having begun to save us, his very character is at stake. Marvelous, isn't it? Of course, Moses demanded severe self-discipline of the Israelites. But having done it, he went up to God, and there he said, oh Lord, the people have sinned, a grievous sin, but now, if you can't forgive them, blot me out of my book. In other words, he wasn't going to survive if the Israelites were destroyed. He refused to stand aside. He insisted on identifying himself with the Israelites. Oh, magnificent grace that, isn't it? And I think of our blessed Savior. Oh, you're not going to be saved because of your merit. None of us. Not because of our faithfulness since we were saved. We shall be saved by him who is our advocate and intercessor, who refuses to be separate from us and has identified himself with us forever. Magnificent, isn't it? That puts our pride in its right place. We owe it all to him. Says God to Moses, Moses, all right, I promised to give them, I promised to give them the promised land, grass, and everything else. They can have it. But tell them I shan't go with them. Hm. What would you say if God came to you and said, look here, I'm, I'm upset with your, your, your, your, your behavior, but I promise to give you heaven, so I'll give you heaven, but I shan't be there when you arrive. What would you say? Oh, I'm sorry about that, Lord. Uh, but heaven is a nice place anyway, isn't it? And even if you're... even if you're not there. No, says Moses. If your spirit doesn't go with me, I don't want to go. And anyway, he says to God, you can't let us go alone and not go with us, because how will the nations know about your grace, Juicy? You say I found grace in your sight, but what kind of grace would that be to tell us to go to Canaan and not come with us? No, you'll have to show the uniqueness and the wonderful glory of your grace by not only forgiving the people, but going with us and amongst us to Canaan. Marvelous man, Moses. Not for their goodness, for they were a bad lot, but for the sworn mercy of God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and because of the intercessions of Moses. There is one more lesson, but we mustn't consider it tonight, lest the wilderness way would be so hard to bear that you would never invite me again to preach to you. But there are dangers. We're called upon, therefore, to guard our hearts, that we love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and store his word in our heart, lest not just the enticements of the world, lest our very spiritual blessings get misinterpreted and produce in us ingratitude, unholy living, pride, false superiority, and lack of sympathy with sinners. So may God bless his word to our hearts this night. Shall we pray?