Gooding, David: 12 - The Delayed Return and the Great Apostasy

By reading in the book of Exodus and chapter thirty one. If you are disposed to do any homework for the last lecture in this period next Saturday, God willing, then it would be helpful if you were acquainted with the contents of chapters thirty three and thirty four. But this evening we begin at chapter thirty one and verse eighteen. And he that is God gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon Mount Sinai, the full tables of the testimony, tables of stone written with the finger of God. When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron and said unto him, Up, make us gods which shall go before us. For as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him. And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden rings which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. And all the people break off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received it at their hand, and fashioned it for the graving pool, and made it a molten cup. And they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made proclamation and said, tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early on the morrow and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. The people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to prayer. And the Lord spake unto Moses, Go get thee down, for thy people which thou broughtest up 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 worshipped it and have sacrificed unto it and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which 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 stiff-necked 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. Moses besought the Lord his God and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, saying, for evil did he bring them forth, to slay them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swearest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it forever. And the Lord repented of the evil which he said he would do unto his people. And Moses turned and went down from the mount with the two tables of the testimony in his hand, tables that were written on both their sides, on the one side and on the other were they written. And the tables were the works of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the table. Then Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted. He said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp. He said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome, but the noise of them that sing do I hear. And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the cast and the dancing. Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands and break them beneath the mount. He took the calf which they had made and burnt it with fire and ground it to powder and stood it upon the water and made the children of Israel drink of it. Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee that thou hast brought a great sin upon them? Aaron said, Let not the anger of my Lord wax hot. Thou knowest the people that they are set on evil. For they said unto me, Make us gods which shall go before us. For as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him. And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it to me, and I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf. And when Moses saw the people were broken loose, for Aaron had let them loose for a division among their enemies, then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, Whoso is on the Lord's side, let him come unto me. All the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. He said unto them, Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, put ye every man his sword upon his thigh, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses, and they fell at the people that day about three thousand men. And Moses said, Consecrate yourselves today to the Lord, yea, every man against his son and against his brother, that he may bestow a blessing upon you this day. And it came to pass on the morrow that Moses said unto the people, You have sinned a great sin. Now I will go up unto the Lord, peradventure I shall make atonement for your sins. 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 will forgive their sin, 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. Now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee. Behold, mine angels shall go before thee. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them. And the Lord smote the people because they made the calf which Aaron made. God dispose our hearts to learn lessons from the mistakes of these ancient people. You might have thought, I suppose, as anyone might have thought, that the matter of getting Israel out of Egypt and into Canaan was a simple and a straightforward matter. Not, of course, an easy matter. That journey in those days could not, under any circumstances, be thought easy. But though not an easy matter, a straightforward matter. After all, Egypt was down in the southwest, and Canaan was up there in the northeast, and what more simple and straightforward but to take them out of Egypt and point their nose to Canaan, and then encourage them to keep on going until they arrive. And yet, in the event, it proved to be anything but a straightforward matter to get the people from Egypt into Canaan. In fact, they were not all those many months out upon the road from Egypt to Canaan when the nation lost their way completely and came within an ace of never getting anywhere near Canaan. And they lost their way because they lost their goal, or rather mistook their goal, and for their true goal and destiny substituted a false goal, and peated a while on the very precipice of edge of utter apostasy. The true goal of Egypt, Egypt's rede- of Israel's redemption, as we have been seeing in our past studies, was not, of course, the geographical land of Canaan. That was the land, indeed, to which they were journeying, but their goal, as we have discovered now many times, was not Canaan, but God himself. You have seen, said he early on, what I did to the Egyptians, how I bear you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now, if you will indeed obey my voice, then I shall make you a treasure to myself and grant you a ministry of being a kingdom of priests whose goal in life is to minister to myself. I shall be your goal, the goal of your activity and the goal of your praise. And we have seen how God, to implement that, proposed to his people not only a covenant, that their relationship with him might be secure, but proposed that they built him a tabernacle, that he might come and dwell among them, that they might have the goal of their lives present and resident with them. That they might approach him and worship him and love him and serve him and travel with him. That even as they traveled geographically towards Canaan, they would follow the leading provided by his presence, marked in the cloud and in the pillar of fire by night. Canaan, when they arrived, would certainly be a deeper and a fuller experience that should lead them into ever deeper understanding and enjoyment of God and pay for God's always varied goodnesses. But long before they got to Canaan, their journey through the wilderness would be a journey ever deeper and deeper into the experience of God. As the goal, which was God himself, became to them ever more wonderful and ever more detailed and ever more surprising and entrancing. God their goal. And then they apostatized. Or nearly apostatized. And that glorious tabernacle that God had suggested that they build to be for him a dwelling place in their midst, that glorious tabernacle almost was never built. As the people turned and substituted for God as their goal, a wretched, miserable, and utterly inadequate, blasphemous, and idolatrous substitute. You say, however, did it happen? Well, it happened like this. Moses had gone up the mountain to get the final directions for the building of the cha- of the tabernacle and the final signing of the covenant by God himself. To bring down from the mountain tablets written with the very finger of God, as God hedged himself to that beach. So Moses, I say, was gone up into the mountain and disappeared into the cloud and was lost to view. Of course, before he went, he pointed out that he would come again. But now he had been gone some several days, and the days a- added on to weeks. When some bright spark, I don't know what his name was, suddenly fell to a little theological thinking, or philosophy, or call it what you will. Said he to his fellow, now is this not a curious thing? Have you observed that this man Moses, that we're supposed to be following here in this wilderness, you can't see him. What an extraordinary thing it is. Have you never considered what a curious thing it is in this modern world for us to be seated here in the wilderness? We're neither here nor there, so to speak. We're not in Egypt, we're not in Canaan, and the man we're supposed to be following is, he's not visible. Where is he? This fellow has gone up the mountain. Ah, but said wise man number one, so you say he's gone up the mountain, but then we've only got the word, uh, of the historians for that, haven't we? How do you know it's true? Can you see him up the mountain? Prove to me he's up the mountain. Now, now, now, now, you can't prove. However do you define your words, you can't prove he's up the mountain. And why hasn't he come back again? All but said a third, you know, he's coming back very soon before he went, he said, uh, if I go away, I will come again. Ah, yes, he said, but we heard that last Wednesday, and he's still not back. And we heard it the Wednesday before, you know. And, uh, curious how week after week people are prepared to go on believing this kind of stuff. He didn't come last week, and he didn't come this week, and still you go on hoping that he'll come again. The plain matter of fact is that this man Moses, we don't know where he is and what's become of him. And now that was a, a certainly a difficult situation to be in if it were true. Moses, whom they followed, whose word they believed, the intermediary between them and God, had disappeared. And they could no longer believe that he was coming again. It is an extraordinary thing, isn't it, when you come to think about it, that, uh, you are more or less in a similar position. Believing, as you do, as I hope you do, in Jesus Christ our Lord as a greater than Moses, the apostle and high priest of your confession, you would certainly tell me if I asked that he was risen from the dead and that human eyes saw him ascend into heaven. And you would tell me further if I inquired that you honestly believe and most surely affirm that he is coming again, and you would quote me his very words. If I go, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. The fact remains that you haven't seen him ever, have you? And that you still can't see him. And here you sit in this wilderness of a Belfast, believing in a man you still can't see and loving a man you never have seen. It is, for a moment, if you will look at it through the skeptic's eye, an extraordinary situation, that much you must admit. But your faith rides high and your anchor chain holds. In whom, believing, though you see him not yet, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your soul, setting your hope steadfastly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the manifestation of Jesus Christ. And at this moment in the wilderness, the faith of some of Israel wore thin. And finding themselves in that situation with weakened or des- destroyed faith, they did what is a very natural thing for the human heart to do. Look here, said, uh, some of them to Aaron, Aaron, you know, we must be sensible. Now we find ourselves here because of the traditions that have gone behind us, but we can't stand here like this. I mean, we must have some goal in the wilderness to aim for, mustn't we? We must have some sense of purpose. We can't just lounge around here day after day. I mean, we're getting nowhere like this, and we must make progress. Come there, and they said, make us gods to go before us. For it is the fact, isn't it, that most people feel that they must have some objective to aim at in life. I suspect you do likewise. There are maybe a few idle rich and others who sit around from Monday to Saturday, and Sundays included, doing nothing and aiming at nothing and fast getting where they intend to go, which is nowhere, and just idling through life with no plan, with no purpose, just meandering. A few of us find that agreeable or acceptable or even intelligent. Our hearts crave a goal. We want to be aiming at something, not prepared to let the hours of life tick by. We want a scheme, we want a plan, we want a purpose, we want to feel that we're making progress. And these folks were no different from when they lost their faith in Moses, their mediator between God and men. Of course they lost their faith in God's plan for them, likewise. And had to su- had to substitute another goal and another guidance. Up, they said to Aaron, make us gods that shall go before us, something we can aim at and feel that we're following, and in following it we're getting somewhere. Some worthy object to which we may devote our energies and toil and progress. And so they knocked their heads together with Aaron, and they made themselves gods to go before. And what do you suppose those gods were, those goals were that that now they proposed to follow? These are your gods, they said. What were they? Well, if you please, they were earrings. And at the first sound of it, it sounds comical. Earrings, you say. What on earth would a people be doing following earrings through the wilderness? But so it was. Take off your earrings, said Aaron, and give them to me. So they took their earrings off and they gave them to Aaron, and he fiddled around with them, and presently he came out with a god. But it was still the earrings, wasn't it, only in another form. A god whom they might follow. Earrings from now onward they follow. And you think it's stupid? Well, what do you follow? What would you have had them follow? If they weren't going to follow Moses and they weren't going to follow God, what would you follow in life? Cabbages or something? At least they, they propose earrings, which are the most valuable things they possess. Well, let me tell you about those Israelites. In those days, there were no banks, and whether that was a good thing or a bad, who knows? But there were none for all that, so that if you had spare wealth, you tended to carry it on your person. And if you have a lot of gold, uh, to carry around in life, as you may know, and you want to carry it on your person, well, it will wear holes in the pocket if you put it in the pocket. So what better than to make earrings out of it, and they will adorn your person. The old gold might as well be doing something, mightn't it? And enhancing your feeling of well-being and importance may be. Gold, I mean, is treasure after all for most people, isn't it? It's not just money, which can be a sordid thing. Gold, treasure. And what is life anyway? How Aaron could think of no better thing. If you have no living faith in a Moses and then no living faith in God and what his purpose is, well, find something, man. Find something to aim for in life. What will you aim for? Will you not make it the, the most valuable thing you can think of, the richest concept? The hat or fancy doesn't go for literal gold. It does with many people. They would almost give their lives for it. The hat or fancy goes not for material gold, but for art, maybe, or music, or, or literature, or fame, or power, or some great valuable thing. It's understandable, isn't it? Don't write them off as though they were simpletons and fools. When they made the most valuable thing that they could get their hands on, the dearest thing to them, they made that their goal, God and their goal. And those earrings again, to stay with them a moment. They weren't only ba- valuable and aesthetically delightful, judged by their tastes, I should say. But very often the ancients used to turn these earrings into a kind of an amulet or a charm. They felt if they wore these earrings around them, somehow it would ward off undesirable spirits and other such things as might be lurking in the wilderness or elsewhere, and so they wore them as amulets. I mean, you've got to have protection, haven't you? My, you need protection if you're going to walk through a wilderness, you would have needed it immediately. But if you're going to walk through a waste, howling wilderness and achieve your goal, well, you must be aware that there are all sorts of hostile powers against you, and you'll need some protection, man. How will you get it if not through your goals? Some security in life, some protection, to buy your way through. I submit to you that far from being simpletons, they were doing what wise men and women have always done when they have lost faith in God. And longing for some adequate goal in life they have set up before them as the goal that shall lead all their endeavors and their affections and eventually their work. It's the most valuable thing they could get hold of. They took their golden earrings and they put them together, and collectively they made the gra- the national product, or whatever you call it, and sitting up on its pillar, these be thy gods, they said. And they proposed that the gods should go before them and that they should Apollo. follow. But you might see it is a very parlous and perilous and difficult and unsatisfactory thing if you are going through a wilderness to make gold your object and guidance. As indeed it is dangerous to make any, uh, anything short of God your goal. Shall we not pause a moment to listen to the words of the Savior? Lay not up for yourselves, he said, treasure on earth. You will not return. He didn't say don't lay up money upon earth with him. He said lay not up treasure upon earth. And there's a difference, isn't there, between treasure and money. Some folks that I've met, but very few, I confess, have so much money that to them it's like dirt, at least that's how they think of things, and it isn't treasure to them at all. One day it's in their pocket, and another day down the drain. Treasure is, uh, not necessarily money. It can be anything, can't it? And something that we really value. Here's a little tot of 4 years old, and he's been playing delightfully in the garden, and he's found wonders galore, and one chief wonder now he's got it penced in his little fist. He's not going to let it go. For the moment, it's, it's the most valuable thing to him. And when mother unlocks his hands just before just having him to bed, lo and behold, it's a worm. Ha. But he thought it was lovely. He wouldn't have thanked you for that old old pound note. He doesn't know what it is, and five-pound pound notes to him are not very interesting. But worms? Why, worms that wriggle, you know, and you can lick them now and again and bite them or do things with them. Worms to him, they're his treasure. Yeah, just fighting what people sleep with under their pillows. They're treasures. And you know, treasures are powerful things, aren't they? For treasures, because they are the things that are valuable, kind of, uh, get hold of our hearts, don't they? And put my treasure in a place my heart will go there. Put my treasure in heaven, and my heart will go after it, and my heart going after it, it will take my feet there too. Put my treasure on earth, and my heart will go after it, and it will take my seat and my life there too. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be. It is not wrong that we should have treasure, but it is exceedingly important it should be the right treasure, and it should be put in the right place. Whether be we be young and have just begun the desert journey or near its end. Oh, let us hear the word of Christ. Lay out for yourself treasures in heaven. You see, you aim at. Saying that will guide your journey to its goal. And they made themselves. Ah, when they could have made themselves the living God their fellow. And got to know him so that at length he captivated their hearts and captivated their na- their imaginations. Till as they went step by step along that journey, God became ever more wonderful to them, and drew them at length to that delightful paradise he had designed for them. Instead of the living God, they lost their faith in him, made their treasure and their gold earrings. Earrings. Oh, how can you begin to describe the difference in value? Let's not try, but ask ourselves the rather. Soul, soul of mine, what gods are you following? What are those things that go before you, that provoke your striving? Oh God, grant that we can honestly answer in the presence of God. Ultimately, Lord, you yourself. Thank you for all those lovely and valuable things and people you've given us. With our final goal, nothing but you yourself. And we're waiting, waiting on tiptoe, waiting as for that supreme golden moment when he who ascended into the clouds and through them and men's eyes saw him go, shall come again even as he promised. Wait for the faith. It may be dull work and business, but we must spend some few more moments with these people and their earrings. We should not at least imagine that we are so superior that we should never make their mistakes. Think again with me what the significance of them was. And ask first, well, where did they get hold of these earrings anyway? Did you not tell us earlier that they were slaves in Egypt? Where did they get a hold of these golden earrings? Well, truth to tell, they got hold of these golden earrings when they came out of Egypt. You may remember they had been slaves for years and never got any proper wages, and so when they came out of Egypt, God directed them that they were to ask of their Egyptians, and the Egyptians will give them all sorts of things. They had a right to it too, didn't they? Here are some of their back pay being, uh, restored to them. And they got these earrings, valuable and lovely things. God saw to it that they got them. They deserved them, they'd earned them. God saw to it that they got paid, and as one of the results of redemption, these folks were rewarded with some hard cash, some gold. Oh, there was nothing wrong in earrings as such, not then nor now, as far as I'm aware. In fact, it was God who, by his mercy, had, uh, saw- seen to it that they got them. Ah, but now do you see the difference that has come? When they first came out of Egypt, this gold and these earrings were the incidental blessings that came to them on the side, so to speak. As a result of that greater thing, they're being redeemed from the wrath of God and being set free from the tyranny of Pharaoh. They were the incidental blessings of redemption, and as such, they were lovely things and to be enjoyed. Look at that woman going down the desert sand with those old floppy earrings. Well, they're not to my taste, to be honest, but they are to hers, and I, well, I mustn't say they improve her, but they're lovely anyway, aren't they? And, uh, why shouldn't they be lovely? God loves to give us all things richly to enjoy. Ah, but what were but the incidental benefits of redemption, they have now turned them round and made them the whole goal in life. God to go before them. And sometimes it may have happened even with Christian folks, may it not? Here's Mr. X, and before Mr. X got converted, uh, he spent I don't know how many pounds a week on cigarettes, on getting drunk regularly, on the dogs, on the horses, and on goodness knows what else. And as a result, when he paid his wife, if he ever paid her, what he was due, he had very little over. But he lived merely to enjoy himself. He said to himself, what about bank balances? Here today, gone tomorrow. Why not enjoy yourself while you've got a chance and, uh, not waste it or risk it by putting it in the bank and letting inflation eating it away? He got converted. And he didn't get drunk, and he didn't, uh, smoke, and he didn't go to the dogs, and he didn't go to the rookies, uh. And he found himself with a lot of money, so he bought a better house. Well, God bless the man. Then he bought a better car. I hope it took him to the meetings as elsewhere, but why not have a decent car, better than an old gelato? And then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then presently. We didn't see him quite so often for the meetings. And his Bible wasn't read quite so often as it used to be. And his evangelical zeal waned a little bit. But his heart was so full of the incidental material blessings that had come to him as the result of his being redeemed. That alas, the incidental blessings seem to have become the major goal in his living and activity. Could happen to any one of us, couldn't it? I tell you something even worse than that. They not only took those incidental blessings and made them the goal of their activities. But then, by some curious logic, by some quaint forgetfulness and distortion of the clear facts, they turned these incidental blessings into the very source of their redemption. Did you hear what they said as they went dancing hand in hand around that old image? Looking at the golden casts that had been their earrings, they said, these are thy gods that brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. Well, now that's a curious turn of events. I didn't know it was so, did you? Was it thus that by their work in Egypt they got a lot of earrings and gold and paid their way out or something? No, surely. The secret of their coming out was that the living God had intervened, and by his redeeming power and the blood of that Passover lamb, and by his hesed spirit, he had brought them out of Egypt. He it is that had done it, with that glorious gospel message that he had commissioned Moses to take to them. This message, when they believed, they were saved. And now somehow, and by some curious, uh, device, their memories have gone distorted, and they're now beginning to think that it wasn't that that brought them out of Egypt, the living God and his gospel and the blood of the lamb and the power of God's spirit. It was the earrings that did it. And do you know we have left excuse for them, haven't we? Have we not seen as something happen from time to time in Christendom of that sort? Men have preached the gospel, praise God, and through its redeeming power they have seen thousands of folks converted. And praise be God, when those folks have got converted, that has led to an improvement of their social circumstances, clothes on their back and shoes on their children's feet, an education such as they never had before. Lovely things, the incidentals of redemption, but have I never heard folks talking peasantly like this? Look here, we don't want so much of that gospel preaching, that ranting stuff, that gospel of the shambles. You know, it's social improvement we need. What's the good of talking to man the gospel? It's clothes on his back he wants. This is the thing that will improve men. Go on education, get going with the infant day schools, with the adult schools, with new education, with better facilities, a newer health service, and this will redeem humankind. Have you never heard it? A sad and distorted perversion of the text. But as has been advocated many a time, as men mistake the incidental blessings of redemption and imagine it is those blessings that are the cause and the means of man's improvement and of man's salvation. Surely in this country, at this time, we have a generation, if any, that has the evidence before its eyes, that is not health services, however good, nor educational services, however advanced, nor material blessings that will redeem a soul. Did we ever get it into our heads that this is our redemption, these material and educational and aesthetic and, uh, physical benefits, that these somehow are the redeeming power within society. Instead of leading us to the utopia, to the glorious inheritance we seek, it will lead us into a waste howling wilderness. Mere materialism without God. And then there was something profoundly disconcerting. For you will observe that when they took their earrings and they made a golden cast thereof, they didn't change their religious vocabulary. They didn't say, now tomorrow we will cease to worship the Lord, cease to talk about Jehovah. That was old fashioned stuff. We will now talk about deified earrings. Not they. Substituted their idols, but they went on using the same terms, and they called their idol Jehovah. And Aaron the last led them. He was a bit more theological and used to the terminology than some of them. The priest himself it was that led them. They still talked about Jehovah, but they no longer meant the same as once they had meant by it. Tomorrow, said Aaron, shall be a feast of Jehovah. And had you been around at that time, you'd have said, marvelous man, Aaron, you know he does confess to belief in Jehovah. Ah, but Aaron wasn't talking about what you would have understood by Jehovah. He was using the same word, of course. But now he was talking about an idol. It is the plain fact. We have lived to see theologians in Christendom do precisely that. So nowadays you cannot necessarily be content and rest assured if a man used the name Jesus and say he believed in the resurrection. But you will have to inquire what he means by Jesus. And what he means by the resurrection. I remember being on my travels at one stage and entering, for the sheer joy of the architecture, that vast and glorious cathedral that stands in the city of Ulm in Germany. I found upon the pews, scattered hither and thither and all over that church, some leaflets, and I took them up, and as best my German would allow, which wasn't very much, uh, I tried to read them. From those leaflets I gathered there was a battle stirring in that part of the world in Christendom. A battle that we have known in many other parts of Christendom too. Men and women in that country concerned with what was happening to formal theology. And in this pamphlet they had listed various things, the deity of Christ, the resurrection, the word of God. And under those headings, they had listed what the Holy Scripture has to say about those particular things. And alongside each one, they had then listed the comments on those things of some of the leading theologians of that country. I cannot forget one of them. It was on the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, the Bible says that our Lord, and herein is all the gospel, our Lord died for our sins according to the scriptures and was buried, and he rose again the third day according to the scripture. But this particular theologian claiming still to be a Christian said, why, of course I believe in the resurrection. But not, no, please. I don't believe that the body actually came out of the tomb. I don't believe there was a point in history when a body that was dead and laid in the grave actually came to life and came out of that tomb. Of course I can't believe anything so crude. I believe in the resurrection. I mean to say, when I say I believe in the resurrection, I mean that Jesus Christ was a brave young man who, though he was many times defeated, never gave up and always got up and went again and had another go and persevered in his path and has left us an example how we could do the same. You will not need me to point out what is happening here, people using the same term and not meaning the same. Oh, alas, whither is Christendom going? Instead of believing the great apostle of our high priest, gone now up to heaven and coming yet again, literally. Hear what some of them say. I can't believe what, what he's coming again. Oh, well, yes, we believe he's coming again, you know. Ah, but what do you mean he's coming again? Oh, but they say, oh, you don't really think, do you? You don't really want us to believe that he literally went to Mount Olives, that he literally went up, and he's coming again literally as he went. You don't believe that at all? No, it's a myth. It's merely saying that, uh, somehow or other, God is always breaking through in history if he straight ties in. So we're not talking about the same thing then. You say, well, if that's what they believe, why don't they, why don't they give up the old terms and the biblical terms, and why don't they come clear and say they don't believe that, and tell us what new thing it is they have manufactured and do now believe? Well, I ask the same question. And it is not mine to answer. Now, we have lived to see a day when men using the same biblical terms... no longer believe or admit or confess what originally those terms meant. They talk about Jesus, but they do not mean your sinless Lord. They talk about Jesus, but they don't mean the man who literally came out of heaven into this world, so they don't believe there's a heaven to come from. They talk of the resurrection, they do not mean that Jesus of Nazareth the carpenter literally came out of the tomb. When they talk of his coming again, they do not mean that one day heaven shall part and we shall see him descending the sky. No. For the living God and his word, though they keep the same terms, they have substituted an idle concocted of modern intellectualism. Let me therefore just probe it a centimeter or two deeper. It will not send you home rejoicing, of course it won't. But in imagination, we are with Israel in the desert, and the desert is a difficult place. Who will have observed that when Moses came down from the mountain, says the Holy Scripture that we have read, he came down that mountain with the tablet written with the finger of God. Can you tell me what you think that phrase means? You say, but, uh, Mr. Preacher, you're not going to demand that we take it literally, are you? You don't suppose that God has got four fingers and a thumb like we have? No, I wasn't supposing that. Any more than I suppose when the Bible says that he brought out Israel out of Egypt by a strong arm and an uplifted hand, that God has got an arm formed of bones like I have and a hand such as I possess. And what does it mean? Well, now you must make up your mind. I tell you what I think it means from Holy Scripture. When Moses went up that mountain, God was there. And God, by his divine power, inscribed those tablets. To maintain the metaphor, God, so to speak, put his finger into our world. God used his voice and spoke into our world. God spoke all these words. People at the bottom of the mount heard the voice come out of heaven. A voice objectively real and that could be heard. Ah, no, says your modernist. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We, no. No, that isn't what it means at all. There was no literal voice. God didn't literally come down and stand on Mount Olivet. It's all a myth. It's a picture. It is symbolic language. You see, they explain, God has given us all moral judgment. Why, even the feeblest of us can tell the difference between right and wrong in some things. God gave us that. Now, you know, God gave it to Moses in an extraordinary degree. He was a genius, was old Moses, at moral judgments. And therefore, when this people, this newly delivered nation, needed a moral code, Moses sat himself down and thought, maybe he climbed a mountain to get out of the hubbub of daily life, and sat there and scratched his head and thought and prayed, of course. And as he thought, he came to the conclusion, shrewd moral judgment that he had, that murder perhaps would be wrong, and adultery would be wrong, and uh, thieving would be wrong. And Moses wrote it down, of course. There was no voice from outer space. And that, uh, well, we have to believe, we have to make up our mind to believe that when a genius like Moses gives us the benefit of his moral judgment, well, that in a sense is God. The difference is a difference between truth and apostasy. Of course, God has given us all moral judgments. And when you deliberate now, oh, how should I treat my neighbor? Should I do this to him? He has offended me. He's done something wrong. Now, how shall I respond? Yes, I don't suppose that you are getting a direct revelation out of heaven with the voice of God coming down, down upon your back garden and speaking to you through the window. Look here, this is God here, and I'm telling you this is how you should behave. Such marvelous theophanies don't happen every five minutes. I don't know that ever anyone has happened in Belfast. No, God has given you a moral judgment, and you pray, and you use your moral judgment, and you trust that God leads you. While that is perfectly true, what happened on Sinai wasn't just that Moses used his moral judgment and we have to believe it was God. What happened on Sinai was that the living God came into time and put his finger in our universe and caused his voice to be heard. This day, when Moses stood upon that mountain, his knees all atemble, he heard a voice come out, for there was an objective reality standing there. For there is a heaven, and there is a God. The God who from time to time has been pleased to speak into our world, and indeed to come into our world. Oh, tell me what you think about Jesus Christ of Nazareth. As you love your soul, make up your mind on this. He taught us the Sermon on the Mount, didn't he? He taught us those lovely things about his father's house. Now tell me, what was happening when Jesus Christ spoke? Why, I have had elders in my church and in the many churches that I have been privileged to be a member of, and good and godly men they have been. And when on times they have stood publicly to minister the word, and when they have comforted me around their firesides with their conversations. Yes, they have helped me to perceive something of the meaning of God's holy word and strengthened my soul. I do believe God has used them for it. But you wouldn't put them on a level with Jesus Christ, would you? What have we here when Jesus of Nazareth speaks? Somebody who had a finely developed religious sense, a wonderfully maintained moral conscience, who had a perception second to none, not even to Isaiah, and when he spoke, we have to kind of do a leap of faith and believe that, uh, well, we believe that this perhaps might correspond to something, it might be in some sense God. Or do we believe when he stood upon our world, this was God incarnate breaking through our time and space and coming into our universe. The difference, I say, is between the gospel and its truth and apostasy. Oh, let us look to our terms. We can no longer be content that this man all that shall say he believes in Jesus and believes the resurrection, that he believes the inspiration of Holy Scripture. We must courteously ask what he means by those terms, and make sure he means what the Bible means by them, and is not using them to cover up or describe some modern concoction of demythologization. Well, then should be done. God himself informed Moses of what was happening. And you must understand how serious this thing is, and that I have not been exaggerating the implications. From the very fact that when they did it, God's anger waxed hot, and he threatened forthwith to destroy them. For here was a personal affront on the very person of God, on his reality. Here, however aesthetic and refined, their cast was an idol, taking the very place of God in their people's hearts and minds. Then it had gone ill with them. Had it not been that that Moses, that very same Moses, whom some of them had given abandoned faith in, stood in the breach? Look, says God to Moses, I tell you what, Moses, I finished with these people. I've labored long enough, Moses. I started with Abraham. I called him out, I blessed him, I taught him justification by faith. I taught Isaac and Jacob, I have taught your fathers, and now see what I have done to, uh, redeem you. I had a glorious purpose for this nation, the Jews. But Moses, if they don't want me. Moses, I'll finish with you. No, Moses, I won't give up the idea of saving mankind, but I will just write off the Jew as one colossal failure, and I will start again with you, Moses, and I'll make a nation of you. Now, if I had been in Moses' place, I think, but then I never would have been in Moses' place. How could I be? But with my small little mind, I- I- I would have been thinking this. I seem to remember now what they said to me at Mephar. Now they nearly stoned me. I remember what they did at Mara, always blaming me, always trying to talk with me, always grumbling. I never seem to remember that I left the palace, the old ivory palace down in Egypt, to come and share their lot. I needn't have been here on this wilderness at all. I could have been in the palace still. And if all they can do is to murmur and grumble and growl, all right, God, well, that's right, God, I mean, I agree with you. Get rid of them, draw them out. And I never survived to reproach them. Ah, but Moses was made of different stuff, wasn't he? Though they couldn't see him, those Jews down here upon the desert sand, and he was gone beyond the clouds and up upon that mountain. Moses was given that offer by God. Moses remained faithful, didn't he? Said, oh no, God, sorry, not that. No, God, if you brought them out, you brought me out. I won't be separate from them. I fancy the Almighty in spite of his wrath, smiled in his heart, didn't he? Ah, what a man was Moses, who knew the divine heart, that heart that should cry later, oh Ephraim, Ephraim, how shall I give you up? You can't do it, said Moses. Anyway, God, I know there are a miserable crowd, but you can't do it, God, for your own reputation's sake. What will the Egyptians say? They'll say, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. All this talk of the Jews and the living God, Jehovah. Well, we always said that was a bit fishy, you know. There's nothing in it, is there? If you wipe out Israel. God, you can't do it. You gave your oath to Abraham. You made a covenant with the man you found and sealed it with a covenant sacrifice. How can you give up Abraham and his seed? Thus did Moses, apostle and high priest of their confession, plead with Almighty God on behalf of that people below and gain his point, and God did not cast away his people whom he foreknew. He didn't then, and he hasn't since. And in spite of their glaring provocation and the murder of his own dear son, God has not cast away his people whom he foreknew, and yet he has purposes for them. Yes, all Israel to be saved. But for our own sake. For our own sake, we let our own minds go wandering. Pay God we never slip as far as those people slipped as they worshiped that golden calf. We say, is there any danger, my men? Well, don't you remember what one Corinthians 10 says. As Paul, the inspired apostle, writes to the church at Corinth, he says, now let, uh, none of you do like Israel did. For all our fathers were under the cloud and in the sea. They were baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Some of them, God was not well pleased. And they fell in the wilderness. Neither be you idolaters like they were. As it is written, the people rose up, the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play, fooling about in the wilderness with little games. When the great issues between faith and unbelief were being fought out on that plane. Fooling their time away. The little nursery rhymes of Danes. The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to prayer. Are we better than they? How so? And as I feel the propensity of my own heart to go dribbling off into idolatry. Then I think with relief of him. Consider him, brethren. Consider him holy brethren. Partakers of a divine calling. Consider him our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, apostle and high priest of our confession. You say, I can't see him. No, you can't indeed. All but consider him. Consider him, as the Greek text says, consider him being faithful. This very moment being faithful, though I can't see him and though I have often failed him and grumbled, consider him being faithful to me. Remaining faithful, so that I shall never perish. Because he ever liveth, made intercession, is able to save to the uttermost men that come unto God by him. Oh, praise God for him. Bow your heart again this night. That you haven't lost your way. That the goal shines in front of you still brighter. Ah, raise your heart this night before you sleep in praise to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, the great high priest, who by his priestly energy has maintained you in the past. Or have you wandered? You got lost in the maze of materialism, and you got lost in the maze of modern theology, so you don't know what you really believe at all. Well, remember his reason. Come to the throne of grace, where he ministers. Consider him apostle and high priest of your confession, being faithful to you. And if you are a child of God at all, know it, that by his intercession he will bring you through and lead you on until at length he comes again, really, down the mountainside and fulfills his promise with us, takes you to be forever with himself, but where he is, there you might be also. That was time. Oh God, these are stirring and stern lessons. They bid us for a moment put off our sense of ease, gird ourselves like soldiers under watch. We thank thee for thy Holy Spirit who stands sentinel in our minds and hearts. Sometimes, O Lord, we confess we have nodded and gone off to sleep. Like the children of the night around us, the children of the darkness, we slumber and sleep. But tonight we hear thy call, it is high time we awake out of sleep, for we are not of the night, we are children of the day. Help us, Lord, that we not slumber then. Be vigilant and awake, awake to the situation, awake to the tendencies of our age, awake to the issues of the battle that surrounds us. By thy grace, keep us faithful and keep us alert. Strengthen our minds and our thinking, that we might discern where thy truth is. And O God, revive our hearts, we beseech you. Make them ever more alive and warm with love and devotion to thy Son, in whom we see thyself told us. O God, who knows the weakness of our hearts and their frailty, make thyself so real to us, we beseech you, in spite of our many stumbles, we may never lose sight of thee. We may be drawn whether our treasure is, until at last we reach thy home above. Hear us, we beseech, through that same Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.