THE INTERLUDE IN THE JOURNEY
Part 20
Exo. 32:29-35
Morning Meditation 11/21/16
Verses 29-35 say, "For Moses had said, Consecrate yourselves to day to the LORD, even every man upon his son, and upon his brother; that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day. And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the LORD; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin. And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. And the LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, mine Angel shall go before thee: nevertheless in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them. And the LORD plagued the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made."
We come to an interlude or pause in the journey of Israel from Egypt to Canaan at Mount Sinai. Here God gives them the Law and the priesthood. He also gives them the Tabernacle and its furnishings, the sacrifices, the way they are to be offered, instructions for the priests, their dress and all that He requires of them in worship and government. He instructs them in the order of the camp. God will dwell in the midst of Israel with them in orderly array around Him. God will be with Israel, He will be the center of Israel geographically and spiritually. There will be no such thing as the secular and the sacred. It is all sacred. There is no area of their lives that God will not govern.
Moses is on Mount Sinai receiving the Law written by the very finger of God. When He comes off the mount, he discovers that the people had given up on his return. He had been in the mount for forty days receiving the Law. What Israel did while he was away is recorded in Exodus 32. Israel had ask Aaron to make them a molten calf, one of the gods in Egypt, to worship. He had done it for them. It is unbelievable that Aaron would go along with this, but he did. When Moses came off the Mount with the two tables of stone, he finds them dancing around the golden calf in a drunken sexual orgy. This is the product of the worship of false gods. What does God say about this? Gen. 32:7-10 says, "And the LORD said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshiped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation."
Imagine God saying to Moses, ". . . let Me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation." God says to Moses, "I will wipe them out and start over with you." There are really two things that amaze me about this. That God would discuss the issue and allow Moses to have a say in His judgment. The next amazing thing is grace. Israel did not get what he deserved on this occasion. They escaped annihilation because Moses interceded for them.
It is appropriate to point out that God gave the Law to a people who broke it immediately upon the giving of it. The way they did it was idolatry and depraved sinful lusts. Nothing could have offended God more than the way they did it. We are sinners by birth and by practice. Man will not keep the law. He may claim to, but he will not. He may not admit it, but he is a slave to sin.
Jesus stated this in John's Gospel chapter eight: "And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." When Jesus used the word "free" their immediate response was, " . . . We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?" This response reveals their total blindness to understand what Jesus was saying. They had been in bondage (slavery) in Babylon and they were presently in bondage to Rome. " Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin" (vs. 34). The greatest slavery is the slavery to sin. One can be a slave to man on this earth and a free man at the same time. Onesimus was a slave but was set free from sin in a prison in Rome.
All one has to do to discover that he is a slave to sin is to attempt to keep God's law. He will not go far in this attempt before he realizes that he has broken the law. He can try again and again and all his attempts will end in the same way. But his failure will leave him open to the good news. A man who has tried genuinely and failed will welcome the good news of grace. And this is what grace is. It is good news for bad people.
The woman caught in the act of adultery in John chapter eight is a perfect illustration of law and grace. The scribes and Pharisees brought a woman to Him whom they had taken in the act of adultery (vs. 3). They said to Him, "Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?" Now we are told in the next verse that they did this to tempt Him. They wanted to put Him at odds with Moses. Then they could accuse Him of not believing the Bible. He didn't answer them at the first, but stooped and with His finger wrote on the temple floor. This is the finger that wrote the law that their fathers had broken before they had a chance to see a written copy!
They kept pressing the issue. Then He said to them, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." It is interesting what happened. After Jesus made this statement He stooped down and wrote on the ground again. When the words began to soak in, they began to leave, and we are told that it happened this way, "And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst." There was not one left. Even the Lord's disciples were not there. We are told that when He raised up and looked around that only He and the woman were left.
Condemned men cannot condemn those who have committed the same sins they have committed. They were convicted by their own conscience. What does this mean? Does it mean that they had committed the same sin? Possibly. It does mean they knew they had committed sins worthy of stoning. Is Jesus going to let this woman off? Is He saying that Moses was not right in every case? The representatives of the law brought the woman to Grace. They didn't bring her to Moses. They were schoolmasters bringing one who had broken the law to the brazen alter so that the Lamb could satisfy the penalty of the broken law and she could go free. This is what grace does. It sets the sinner free and goes and dies in the sinners place.
The interlude in Israels journey is not only the giving of the law by which Israel will be governed by God, but it is also the provision of grace, represented by the priesthood and the sacrificial system.
May the Lord bless these word to our hearts.
In Christ
Bro. White
