Exodus 34:1-11 (Teaching)

Good evening. Good evening. I'm going to teach tonight instead of preach.! Be in the book of Exodus, chapter 34.

Out of the bondage of Egypt.

He's delivered them through the Red Sea by the hand of a man named Moses that God called to lead his people out of Egypt. He has gotten them through the Red Sea, got them over to the other side.

And they've celebrated and they danced and shook their timbrels and sang praises unto God. And it didn't take long at all for them to start murmuring after that.

Sounds like a bunch of church folk to me. But it doesn't take them long at all for that to happen. And so Moses continues doing what he's supposed to do.

God's taking them the way that he wants them to go. They end up at Mount Sinai, not by chance, but by God's providence. They wind up at Mount Sinai.

And, of course, that all begins around Exodus chapter 20. Chapter 20 is where the law was originally given. If we've been in our Bibles any at all, we should know that.

But the law was given there. Then some other statutes are given after that in Exodus 21 and 22 and 23. Then we get to Exodus 24.

We see God calling Moses and several of the elders from Israel and Aaron and his two sons to the bottom of the mountain. And telling them to come up, God wants to commune with them.

And then after all this happens, Moses goes back up into the mountain another time, receives the Ten Commandments. And God tells them, get down out of the mountain.

Those people, they've already turned against me. They're down there. They're partying. They're dancing. They're worshiping an idol. And Moses goes down and finds that everything that God said was true.

And in anger, he casts the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments on the ground. And they shatter. They break. And that's kind of where we're going to be picking up in Exodus 34.

If you go back to Exodus 32 and 33, you see God's anger against Israel. You see Moses' anger against Israel. In fact, Moses makes the claim in Exodus 32.

He says, who's on the Lord's side? And it says that all the sons of Levi gathered with Moses. And Moses sent the sons of Levi out into the congregation with swords.

And it says about 3,000 people of Israel died that day. And then it says at the very end of that chapter that God sent judgment into the camp. He sent a plague into the camp of Israel.

Then we have Exodus 33, which is Moses interceding on Israel's behalf. Because God had already said, you know, get away from them. Let me consume them. And so Moses begins intercession for the Israelites.

And he intercedes for them and tells God. I hate to use that phrase, tells God. Because, folks, we don't tell God anything. We don't tell God to do anything. We make petitions to God.

We make supplications known to God. But we don't demand things of God. We must remember just how small we are as compared to Almighty God who spoke creation into existence.

Now, that being said, some of the greatest prayers in Scripture were things that people were stating, not asking towards God. In fact, in Exodus 33, you see one of the greatest prayers in Scripture there.

Moses tells the Lord, he says, Show me thy glory. That wasn't a question. He didn't say, will you show me your glory? He says, show me thy glory.

Peter, when Peter steps out on the water, when he sees Jesus coming across the water, and he says, Lord, if it's you, bid me that I come to you.

And Jesus says, come. Peter steps out. And we all know the story. The winds became boisterous. The waves started doing their thing. Peter took his eyes off. Jesus started sinking down into the water.

What did he say? Lord, save me. He screamed, Lord, save me. He didn't ask. He screamed it. But it was heartfelt. And I believe Peter's heart was in the right place when he said that.

But those were not demands of God. Neither one of those examples that I just gave were demands of God. We don't go to God and say, you will save my loved one.

You will heal me of this sickness. You will do this and you will do that. We don't do that. That is no way to approach God. But anyway, Moses begins in Exodus 33 to intercede on Israel's behalf.

And God tells him, he says, you know, there's a spot beside me. I'll put you in the cliff to the rock. And I'll pass before you with my hand over you. And you'll see my hind parts.

He says, and I'll proclaim my name. And Exodus 34 is where we find that happening. So, all that being said, and that little bit of an introduction there.

Exodus 34 and verse 1 says, And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first. And I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou breakest.

So here God says, hew thee two tables. Now remember, he's talking to Moses. And he says, hew thee two tables like you have before. There at the very end, he says that thou breakest.

Remember, Moses, you did this. You broke the tables. But folks, this is one of the most encouraging things about Scripture. is the Israelites all deserve the judgment of God.

Because Moses had not gone into the mountain for hardly any time at all, as compared with days and months and years. He had not hardly gone up there any time at all before they cried to Aaron.

They said, make us an idol. Make us a calf. Make us something that we can worship. And of course, we know the account. Aaron told him, take your earrings out of your ears. Take them out of your children's ears.

Give them to me. And he threw them in a pot and made a golden calf. What's kind of funny about that account is when Moses is asking him about it, after that happens, Aaron's trying to hide his guilt.

He says, I threw them all in the pot and out came this calf. Like it just happened by itself. He had nothing to do with it. But anyway, that's just kind of a funny statement that Aaron makes there.

But here it says, And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone, like unto the first, and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou breakest.

Again, the Israelites deserved the judgment and the punishment of God. But here is God inviting Moses instead of condemning Israel and instead of consuming them like he said that he was going to.

Instead of instead of just killing them all off and starting afresh. Here is God in his mercy and God in his patience and God in his long suffering.

We'll get to all those things here in just a little while. But here is God showing mercy toward Israel. He didn't have to do that. And when I was preaching up here Sunday, it's like I said then, you know, if people treated us, if we were God and people treated us the way that people treat God, we would destroy them.

We would destroy them in an instant. And you will never convince me that you wouldn't. People deny God. They deny his word. Worst of all, they deny his son. They deny the only way into heaven.

And that, to you and I being humans, is bad enough. Imagine being God and imagine sending your son on behalf of rebel sinners and people, the very people that Jesus came and died for, reject him.

Imagine how you would feel. So, this, that shows the mercy of God. And this shows the mercy of God that he even invited Moses to come back. Okay, I'm going to give you these tables again.

You hew the tables this time though. First time around, God took care of everything. But this time he says, you hew the tables. You carve them out and you bring them up with you into the mount.

Verse 2 says, and be ready in the morning and come up in the morning unto Mount Sinai. And present thyself there to me in the top of the mount.

And be ready in the morning. Folks, if we are going to commune with God and we are going to have fellowship with God, it takes preparation for us to do that.

And God tells Moses here, be ready. He says, and be ready in the morning. He tells him what to be and tells him when to be that way.

Folks, if we are going to have fellowship with God, we cannot go out into this world and live however we want to. Monday through Saturday. Or Monday and Tuesday.

Then minus Wednesday. Then Thursday, Friday and Saturday. However you like to look at that. If we are going to commune with God, we must prepare ourselves to commune with God. If we are going to retain our good fellowship with God, we must prepare to do that.

And that means following the commandments of God to the best of our ability. You cannot follow them perfectly, nor can I. None of us can. That's the whole reason Jesus had to come. It's because no man could follow the law.

No man could go his entire life without sinning. No man can go a few seconds of his life without sinning. It's an impossibility. Even Paul, over in the New Testament, said, I know that in me that is in this flesh dwelleth no good thing.

Paul, a man who wrote half of the New Testament, a man who was closer to Jesus, I believe, than any of the twelve disciples were, and had never really walked with him in the physical sense, but he did in the spiritual sense, said, I know that in me that is in this flesh dwelleth no good thing.

And folks, the same applies to you, and the same applies to me. But if we want fellowship with God, we must prepare ourselves for that fellowship, and we must prepare ourselves for communion.

And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto Mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount. So prepare yourself, and when you come up to where I am at, you present yourself to me there at the top of the mount.

Verse 3, What does this speak about God?

This speaks of major, major attribute of God. This talks about the holiness of God. Let no other person come up with you.

I've called you, Moses, you and you alone, to come up at this mount. You don't let any other man come with you. You don't let no critters feed down there at the mountain.

You don't let any herds of critters feed down there at the mountain. Nothing, nor no one, is to come with you. Folks, in the Old Testament, access to God was very, very restricted.

It was very restricted. Again, only Moses was called in this particular account. Only Moses was called up into the mountain. You get on over in the book of Leviticus, and you read about the Day of Atonement.

And you go, you have the high priest that goes back into the Holy of Holies, the place where God was. And he was the only one allowed back there. And even then, it was only once per year that he was allowed back there.

Access to God, directly to God, was very restricted. But praise God, Jesus tore the veil. When Jesus died, and the veil was written twain from the top to the bottom, Jesus' death not only made the way that sinners could be saved, but made the way that those who were saved would have direct access to the throne of the Almighty.

It's no longer as restricted. Now, as far as exclusivity goes, yes, it's very exclusive. Only those who are born again, only those that have been washed in the blood, only those that are Christ's, and Christ is theirs, have access to God.

But, it is not nearly as restrictive as it once was. We don't have to go to a priest, and have him make intercession for us. We don't have to take a bullock. We don't have to take a goat.

We don't have to take turtle doves. We don't have to take any of these things to another man, to have him make atonement for our sins, to have him confess our sins before God.

We can go directly to God and do all of these things. But Moses, being called into this mount, and God telling him, no one else comes, nothing else comes, only you, that speaks to the holiness of God.

Verse 4, I read nothing in these four verses about hesitation.

I read nothing about Moses wondering if he should really do it. I read nothing about him pondering on it. Moses obeyed. What did he obey?

He obeyed the word of the Lord. God himself is the one that told Moses to do that. That is the word of God. He obeyed the word of God.

Did exactly as the word of God told him to. As God told him to. And he hewed two tables of stone, like another first, and rose and went up early in the morning.

He went where God told him to. He went when God told him to. But what do we do as Christians? When we feel a prodding or a nudging of the Holy Spirit to tell someone about the gospel, to tell someone about Christ, to tell someone how good God has been in your life, what do we do?

We hesitate. What if they don't accept it? What if they're not a Christian? Maybe they're not a Christian because they've never heard about Jesus Christ. And maybe this is your opportunity to tell them about Christ and to tell them about the gospel, to tell them that although they're a sinner, that God is an able and willing Savior.

And he can save to the uttermost. He does save to the uttermost. But so often, so often, we'll back down from that. And he hewed two tables of stone, like another first.

And Moses rose up early in the morning and went up unto Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him and took in his hand the two tables of stones. Verse 5, And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord.

Exactly what God said that he would do in the previous chapter. I know we didn't read it tonight, but I tried to include that in the little introduction coming up to this. God said that he would walk before Moses, he would come before Moses, and he would proclaim his name.

Why would he proclaim his name? Folks, there is nothing higher that he could proclaim. The name of God is the highest God. Why else would the Bible say at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus, God, Jehovah, Christ, Messiah, all these names are the highest names that you or I could ever know. But it says, And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there.

I want you to notice this. Moses went up on the mountain. went up into Sinai. He was way up higher than any of the other Israelites were.

He ascended into the mountain and God still had to descend to where he was. That's how high God is. And that's how high the name of God is.

Although Moses had climbed all those steps, we don't know how many, but all those steps into the top of the mountain. And there he was. I'm sure he felt like he could touch the sky.

But God still had to descend where he was. And the greatest picture of the condescension of God to man is found in Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ came here, left glory, left a perfect place, and condescended to where sinful man was. God came to where sinful man was in the form and in the person of Jesus Christ and walked among sinful men.

He walked among sinners. He dined with sinners. He helped those that were helpless. That's the kind of God that we're talking about here. Sinai is, so many times in our minds, Sinai brings this vision of thunderings and lightnings and earthquakes and just a hateful God almost.

But folks, these attributes of God were just as present as Sinai as they were and are in the New Testament in Jesus Christ. The Lord descended in the cloud.

The most amazing part of this whole verse is not that the Lord descended to where Moses was. The most amazing part and stood with him there. The Creator stood there with his sinful creation.

And he does the same thing with you and I in the New Testament church age that we are in right now. Except he doesn't just stand with us. He lives within us.

God's whole purpose of the tabernacle and that we find in the Old Testament was because he wanted to tabernacle. He wanted to dwell amongst his people.

And in the New Testament, through Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit, God dwells not just among his people, but within his people.

So that has not changed about God. His desire was to be with his people in the Old Testament and his desire in the New Testament is to be with his people. And God descended, came to where the sinful man Moses was.

And he was sinful. I'm not saying, you know, anything about him that the Bible doesn't back up. He was, all of sin comes short of the glory of God.

There's a lot of Jews that would argue that, but that's okay because the Bible says otherwise. God descended to his sinful servant that he had picked and chose himself, called to him from the burning bush.

He descends to him and stands with him there. That's the most amazing part of this verse. He stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. There was no higher name, no higher anything that God could proclaim besides his own name.

Verse 6, And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children unto the third and unto the fourth generation.

Back to verse 6, And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, merciful and gracious.

We were talking about that just a few minutes ago, how merciful God was to even consider calling Moses back to the mount to have those tables and to write his commandments, his law upon those tables and take the word of God back to the Israelites.

That was mercy and nothing more than mercy. That was mercy, it was grace, and both of those are attributes of God, merciful and gracious. God is merciful and gracious, or was merciful and gracious to these Israelites, and he is merciful and gracious to you and I.

None of us, none of us deserve salvation. None of us deserve to have eternal life. None of us deserve to go to a place called heaven for all of eternity.

All of us deserve nothing more than the unfiltered, unadulterated wrath of Almighty God, but because He is merciful and because He is gracious and because His Son gave His life on behalf of people like us, we have those promises that we can spend eternity forever and ever and ever, however long that is.

We can spend eternity with Almighty God because He is merciful and because He is gracious. Long-suffering. I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful for that before I was saved.

I wasn't thankful for it before I was saved. I didn't give any consideration to God. But now that I am saved, I'm thankful for His long-suffering. I'm thankful He was long-suffering and patient toward me before I was redeemed.

And I'm thankful for it now because I promise you God's got to have some patience with me now. And He's got to have some long-suffering towards me now.

He is plenteous in His long-suffering and His patience. It says, And abundant in goodness and truth. Everything that God does, whether you and I as humans see it like this or not, everything that God does is good.

You might look out and you might see disasters take place all over the world. You might see sickness come in your family. You may see death come in your family.

And if you're like me, you wonder, how is that good? I'll tell you how it's good. Because nothing, nothing can come from God that is not good.

Because He is good. It says, goodness and truth, goodness and truth, both come from God. Everything that God does is good and everything that God says is true.

Everything in this Bible, whether the world believes it or not, everything in this Bible is true. And I used to have a lot of questions about it before I was saved.

I had a lot of questions about how could the Red Sea part? How could a man be thrown into a lion's den and survive it? How could men be thrown into a fiery furnace and survive that?

How could a man be swallowed by a giant fish and be spit up three days later on land and be alive? How could any of these things happen? I'll tell you why.

Because God did those things. God ordained those things. God brought those things into action. And God knew all those things were going to happen before they ever did happen.

Book of Psalms says that the Word of God is forever settled in heaven. It wasn't settled in heaven after it was written. It's been forever settled in heaven since the beginning.

God knew everything that was going to happen. He knows everything that's going to happen in your life. Knew everything that has happened in your life. And there's so many things that you and I as Christians will happen to us and will say how can this be good?

I promise you whatever comes your way it is for your good and it is for God's glory. Your good and God's glory. Ultimately everything points toward God and glorifying Him.

He deserves all the glory. And He will have all the glory. One day one of these days every bit of glory I don't care who pats themselves on the back. I don't care who thinks they're that good or that straight or that right.

All their glory is going to go to God at some point. We as human beings tend to glorify the more affluent people.

We glorify the rich. We glorify the famous. We glorify athletes. We glorify all kinds of different people. But folks all that glory goes to God.

God give those people their ability. He give those people their endurance. He gave them their stamina. He gave them everything that they've got. Nothing that anyone has belongs solely to them because God made all.

And it all belongs to Him. He is abundant in goodness and truth. Verse 7 again. Keeping mercy for thousands. Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

And that will by no means clear the guilty. Seems like we've changed gears a little bit here. Talking about these wonderful things about God like merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth.

And then keeping mercy for thousands. Well praise God for the keeping mercy for thousands. And then we have forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. Praise God for the mercy for thousands and the forgiving of sin and iniquity and transgression against Him.

Thank God for those things. things. And it says, and that will by no means clear the guilty. Again, this speaks to the holiness of God.

While God is abundant in goodness. God is abundant in long-suffering. God is abundant in all those things that we listed previously.

Abundant in those things. He's overflowing with those things. Those are attributes of His. And if you have any of those attributes, it's only because of God that you do.

And the same goes for me. But, in His holiness and His righteousness, it says, and that will by no means clear the guilty.

By no means will that clear the guilty. Well I thought grace is what saves. It is. For by grace are you saved by faith. Is that not what Ephesians chapter 2 teaches us?

It is grace that saves. It's the blood of Jesus Christ that saves. But those who reject that, God has no choice. No other choice whatsoever but to reject them.

If Christ is rejected, if His finished atoning work is rejected, they are rejected by God. I guess you all have heard I know it's meant as a comical phrase but that God doesn't believe in atheists.

and that's true. God doesn't believe in atheists. But there are folks out there like I was once upon a time that will swear up and down that there is no God.

That's exactly the boat that I came from but thank God He showed me otherwise. Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and that will by no means clear the guilty. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children and unto the third and fourth generations.

While God is plenteous in all those other what you and I would deem as good attributes God is also plenteous in His holiness and He is plenteous in His righteousness.

But praise God for the cross of Jesus Christ where the mercy of God and the justice of God met together. Mercy was showed towards sinners justice for sin and sinful acts sinful creatures the justice and the condemnation and the judgment was taken out on Christ.

Sin was punished but the punishment was not delved out to us guilty sinners it was delved out and piled upon and heaped upon Jesus Christ.

He bore our sin. He bore our guilt. He bore our shame. The Bible says the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Him being Jesus Christ.

Praise God though that He done that for us. Praise God for the verse in the New Testament it says but God commanded His love toward us and that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

He didn't die for you because you were righteous He died for you because you were unrighteous. He died for you because you were unholy. He died for you because you were a rebel against God.

That is why He died. He even says Himself Christ does in the Scriptures I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. God didn't save us because we were good.

He didn't send His Son because we were good. It was just the opposite. His Son came and took the place of sinners because we could do nothing for ourselves. Just as Moses and just as these Israelites could do nothing for themselves we could do nothing for ourselves as far as salvation is concerned.

We cannot save ourselves. The church stands solely on the grace and the mercy of Almighty God. Period. If it weren't for those two things the church wouldn't even exist.

Right. Praise God for His mercy. Verse 8 And Moses made haste and bowed His head toward the earth and worshipped. When did He do this?

Right after God walked by and right after God proclaimed His high and holy name to Moses. What did it drive Moses to do?

It drove him to worship. What does the name of God do for you? What does the name of God do for me? And Moses made haste quickly.

He done it immediately. Look at the immediacy there. Moses made haste and bowed His head toward the earth and worshipped. Moses understood how small he was compared to God.

God had come by and proclaimed all these things about Himself. And there is a world of people out there that will say well He was awfully arrogant to say those things about Himself.

Folks, we just got through saying everything that God says is true. And if it's true, it's true. Whether the world says He's being arrogant or cocky or not, it is true about God.

And all these things caused Moses to make haste, bow his head down to the earth and worship God. And the name of God and the attributes of God and the grace and the mercy and the long-suffering of God, all of these things should drive us to worship Him.

Because He has shown all those things to you. You who don't deserve it. Me who doesn't deserve it. None of us do. It should drive us to worship.

And then He says unto God in verse 9, He said, If now I have found grace in Thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray Thee, go among us.

For it is a stiff-necked people. And pardon our iniquity and our sin. And take us for Thine inheritance. So He bows down, makes haste, bows down, His head toward earth and worships and says, If now I have found grace in Thy sight, O Lord.

Notice, Moses is not using presumption. If I have found grace. Not now that I have.

Not, me and you's good now, God. Nothing like that. Folks, I can't stand to hear someone pray to God in an irreverent manner. I've heard people praying to God call Him Daddy.

And don't get me wrong, I understand He's our Father. I understand He's our Heavenly Father. But I think that's very disrespectful. And I think that they're doing that for a show when they do it. That is irreverent toward God.

But here, Moses says, If now I have found grace in Thy sight, O Lord, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray Thee, go among us.

Again, if you flip over to the previous chapter, Moses is making intercession for Israel in chapter 33. You'll see this petition that he's making.

And God's, you know, don't know if I can do this or not. Basically. And Moses says, Lord, if you're not going to go with us, don't even take us up. Don't even take us up to the promised land.

If you're not going to go with us, don't even take us. And now he says, If now I have found grace in Thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray Thee, go among us.

He's requesting God's presence. And not just with him, not just with Moses. Let the Lord go among us. He is praying not only for himself, he is included in us, but he's praying for all of Israel.

Do you pray for your entire church family? Do you pray for people in other churches? Do you pray for fellow brothers and sisters in Christ? Do you pray for the church worldwide? Folks, the church of Jesus Christ is not segregated to northeast Tennessee.

And unfortunately, there's a lot of people that think that in this area. They think that anybody outside of northeast Tennessee, anybody that doesn't speak with a southern accent is going to hell when they die.

And that is not true. You've got brothers and sisters plumb on the other side of the world that wear sandals and turbans on their head, but they believe in Jesus Christ. They've been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

And they are one of his children and they are your brothers and your sisters. brothers, whether you believe that or not, that is the truth. We have a family that is worldwide.

Pray for that family. Pray for them. They're not as privileged as we are here in the United States. Some of them can't just show up to church and worship when they want to. They can't just sing songs when they want to.

If now I found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us, requesting the presence of God. Let him go among us for it is a stiff-necked people.

Folks, that is honesty. What is Moses doing here? He is praying. He has bowed his head. He has worshipped God and he is praying to God that is standing there next to him.

And he is being honest. Folks, when you are praying to God, you must be honest with him. He already knows why in the world we try and hold stuff back from him.

I don't know and I've been just as guilty of it as you all have. He already knows everything. But we must be honest just as Moses here was being honest. Saying, they're a stiff-necked people.

In other words, they're stubborn. They're stubborn people. He says, go among us for it is a stiff-necked people and pardon our iniquity and our sin. He has requested God's presence and he has requested God's pardon for iniquity.

But notice how that's phrased again. And pardon our. Moses doesn't leave himself out. Pardon our iniquity. Pardon our sin.

When you go to God, you confess that like Moses did here, that they were stiff-necked people. You confess your faults. You confess what's wrong with you.

What you know is wrong with you. And if you're born again, the Holy Spirit will show you and very much show you what is wrong with you and what needs improvement and what needs repentance.

And I praise God for that because when the Holy Ghost shows me what I've done and what I need to repent of, that's just affirmation to me that I belong to God. But it should drive me to repentance.

It should drive me to repentance when that happens. And pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us for thine inheritance. Three things here in this one verse that Moses requests of God.

His presence when he says go with us, go before us. His pardon when he says when he asks for forgiveness for their sins, their transgressions, their iniquities.

And here in this last line and take us for thine inheritance. He's asking God to own them. To own them. And you and I as free human beings don't like the thought of being owned.

I'm talking naturally. We don't like the thought of being owned. But I praise God that I'm owned by Him. Once upon a time, sin owned me.

Darkness owned me. Satan himself owned me. But praise God for Revelation 1.18 where Jesus Christ says, I am He that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive forevermore.

Amen. And hold the keys of hell and of death. Jesus holds the keys of hell and death. Two things that once upon a time owned me. They owned me.

But now, I belong to Christ. You are either a slave to sin and a slave to this world or you are a slave to God. There is no in between.

And if you are a slave to God, you are a servant of God. Moses is requesting God to own Israel. And take us for thine inheritance.

Three requests. Three requests. Go with us. Give us your presence. Another request. Pardon us. And another request.

Own us. What a prayer that we make for Christians today. For you personally. For your family. For your church. For everyone that you know.

What a request to make unto God. Two more verses and we'll be done. Verse 10. And he said, Behold, I make a covenant before all thy people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth nor in any nation and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the Lord for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee.

This is God speaking here. This is God answering Moses' prayer that he just made in verse 9. He says, Behold, I make a covenant. Praise God.

If God makes a covenant, he will not break that covenant. It can't be done. God is not a man that he could lie. He's not a man that he should lie according to the Scriptures.

God cannot tell a lie. That's one of the immutable things about God and he's unchangeable. Praise God for his covenant. But folks, the covenant, the Mosaic covenant, it doesn't apply to you and I.

The Mosaic covenant applied to the Jews. We've got a greater covenant. We've got a better covenant according to the writer to the Hebrews. And that covenant is in Jesus Christ.

And if we repent of our ways, we repent of our sin, we repent of our unbelief, and we trust in Christ and believe on Christ and believe on His gospel, then we can be saved.

And that brings us into a new and better covenant with God than what this Mosaic covenant was. This is better than the Mosaic covenant. Christ is better than the Mosaic covenant.

It's better than the Abrahamic covenant. It's better than the Levitical covenant. Christ is better than them all. And that's what the book of Hebrews, that's one of the main themes in that book is.

Christ is better than everything. And Christ is better than this covenant here. But God makes a covenant in verse 10. He says, Behold, I make a covenant before all thy people.

I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation. God says, I'm going to do something with you that this world has never seen.

And what did God do? Ultimately, God done a lot with Israel. God done a whole lot with Israel in the Old Testament. But ultimately, what did God do?

He brought the Savior of the world, a Jewish man, out of Israel. Did he not tell Abraham that from his seed shall all the nations of the world be blessed?

Christ came from Abraham's seed. Christ was and is Abraham's seed. So ultimately, that is the greatest marvel. Folks, the greatest marvel, the greatest show of power that God has done as far as Scripture is concerned is the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And the greatest power that God shows since then is the saving and the redemption of sinners due to the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That is the greatest marvel in all of Scripture. I've said it many times, as many miracles as we have in this book and there's a lot of them. Deaf people being able to hear, blind eyes being opened, lame being made to walk, again, the Red Sea being split.

I mean, all these things we see in Scripture. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego being thrown into the furnace, fourth man appearing with them. Those are great. But I've told dozens of people the greatest miracle is that God would send His Son in my place.

That's the greatest miracle and that is the greatest show of power and it's the greatest show of mercy and it's the greatest show of long-suffering is that God would redeem someone like me.

So, He makes a covenant. He says, He'll do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth nor in any nation and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the Lord for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee.

Now, this word terrible doesn't mean terrible like you and I think of terrible. He's saying it's a wonderful thing. It's a mighty thing when He uses this word terrible.

There's scripture right here in this book that calls God terrible and as you and I would think of it think of the word terrible that's not what it means.

It's talking about He's a wondrous God. He's a powerful God. That's what He's speaking of when He says that. Verse 11 Observe thou that which I command thee this day. Behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.

What does this speak to you? It speaks to me that I can't do it by myself. I can't conquer the world by myself.

I can't conquer sin by myself. And I sure can't conquer death by myself. God says I will go before you.

No, it says I'm making a covenant and I will go before you and I'll drive out the inhabitants of the land that I have promised because Israel couldn't do it themselves.

Not only because Israel couldn't do it by themselves but Moses also requested that God do that. Again, you'll have to read Exodus 33 you can do that maybe tonight or some other time in your own time to see that.

But Moses requests that. Now, we've read tonight where he said go with us and this is God confirming I will but he's adding to that I'm going to drive these people out because you can't do it.

Folks, we could not defeat sin by ourselves. We could not defeat death by ourselves. We could not defeat darkness by ourselves. All we would do was lead ourselves to destruction if we tried and that's all that Israel would have done.

If they tried to take on all these tribes all these outside lands and countries they would have led themselves had they been by themselves they would have led themselves to nothing but destruction but God made covenant with them and he always had a remnant.

Praise God that he always has a remnant. Even now God's got a remnant and he kept a remnant. There were times when Israel would take a licking they'd take a beating they would suffer many of them would die I mean my goodness even out in the wilderness you read it in the book of Numbers where God says you've tempted me these ten times I'm finished with you.

Your carcasses will rot in this wilderness but those of yours that are 20 years and younger they're going to go into the promised land.

Millions of Jews died millions of them died but God had a remnant and God's got a remnant now it's referred to as the church.