We come this morning to the final story in our series about the nation of Israel wandering in the wilderness. It is particularly significant because it foreshadows the event at the heart of our salvation, Jesus’s death on the cross. But it begins, as so many other events we have seen, with
REBELLION
4 They travelled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go round Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; 5 they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!’

Once again we find the Israelites grumbling and moaning about their food. They were dissatisfied with God’s provision for them. They had long forgotten about the miracles God had worked bringing them out of slavery in Egypt through the parting of the Red Sea. They were taking for granted God’s daily provision of manna, bread from heaven. They were on the point of taking possession of the Promised Land and they were conveniently forgetting that they would have been in the Promised Land almost 40 years earlier if they had trusted God then and not disobeyed him. Once again they are disobeying God, and this brings
JUDGEMENT
God withdrew his blessing and protection from the people.
6 Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died.
The desert was full of poisonous snakes and God had been keeping the Israelites safe. Now they would have to face the consequences of their disobedience. But perhaps they had been learning some lessons through the years after all. Because this time when God’s judgement falls they respond appropriately. Instead of moaning and complaining even more, this time the people come to true repentance.
REPENTANCE
They didn’t even need Moses to tell them what they were doing wrong. Instead they came to him.
7 The people came to Moses and said, ‘We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.’
At last we see some genuine repentance from the Israelites. They recognised what they were doing which was wrong – they confessed their sins. They asked for forgiveness. And they asked God for a fresh start. God in his grace granted them salvation, and this salvation came in a specific way.
So Moses prayed for the people.
8 The LORD said to Moses, ‘Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.’ 9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.

The people had asked that God would take the snakes away – but he doesn’t do that. Instead God did something even more remarkable and wonderful and exciting. In his mercy God provides a route to miraculous healing which was available to all who were bitten and dying. It was to say the least unusual, a bronze snake held up on a pole. But it was a path to healing which involved obedience and faith. The miracle did not come automatically to everybody, but only to those who obeyed God and put their trust in him.
Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.
I suspect that many of the Israelites were so set in their disobedience that they continued grumbling, and died because they did not claim the healing which God was offering. But those who did claim God’s promise by looking at the bronze snake, were all miraculously healed. God provided a way of salvation, by his grace which could not be earned or deserved, and those who put their trust in that salvation were healed.
Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.
This remarkable story foreshadows the amazing salvation which God has provided for us in our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus told Nicodemus that this event in the Old Testament is a picture of the salvation which he himself was bringing. Instead of a bronze snake on a pole, Jesus himself would be lifted up on the cross. And all who put their trust in him will be saved.
John 3 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.’
The bronze snake was a symbol of salvation. People looked at it and trusted in God and they were healed. So for us the cross of Christ is the symbol of salvation. As we look to it and put our trust in all that Jesus accomplished by dying in our place, so we are saved.
So this story of Israel in the wilderness has many parallels today.
In the world today we still see so much REBELLION against God
People grumbling and complaining – some say that is the favourite pastime of the English. People who proclaim their dissatisfaction with life, taking all the daily blessings God pours out on everybody for granted, ignoring God the Giver. Rebellion in so many acts of disobedience against God and his Laws, not just in “big sins” like breaking the 10 Commandments, murder and adultery and stealing and lying. Not even in multitudes of “little sins” of selfishness and pride and greed and lust, which are just as significant in God’s eyes. More than that, so many people refusing to give God the worship and honour and glory and thanksgiving of which he is worthy.
Just like the Israelites rebelled against God, our world is continuing to rebel against Him. In the desert the rebellious Israelites were left at the mercy of the poisonous snakes. At the appointed time, God’s JUDGMENT is going to fall on everybody. His blessing will be withdrawn and people will have to face the consequences of their sins. As Romans 6:23 tells us, For the wages of sin is death. “Work hard for sin all your life and your pension is death!” (Message)
In Romans chapter 1 the apostle Paul lists many of the ways the world continues to rebel against God.
Romans 1 28 … just as they did not think it worth while to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; (INVENTING NEW WAYS to sin)
they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practise them.
“God gave them over.” Human beings have given up on God so God gave up on them. Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God … God let them run loose. (Message)
That’s the judgment every human being will face – a life without God.
But there is hope. The Israelites REPENTED and people today can also turn back to God. For the Israelites, confession and repentance came first, before the way of salvation was provided. For us, God has already provided the way back to God in the Lord Jesus Christ. The cross of Jesus already offers us all forgiveness and eternal life. So we can receive the completely free gift of SALVATION.
And Jesus tells us that the way we can receive that salvation is in some ways similar to the way the Israelites were rescued from the poisonous snakes.
John 3 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.’
The Israelites looked up at the bronze snake as an expression of obedience and faith in God. In the same way we can look to Jesus dying on the cross in our place as an expression of our trust in him. And when we do that, we receive God’s gift of eternal life.
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
Jesus talks about being “lifted up” three times in John’s gospel.
John 8 28 So Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. 29 The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.
So the cross proves that Jesus is indeed the unique Son of God delivering God’s way of salvation. And the cross reveals Jesus’s glory.
John 12 23 Jesus replied, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. ….
27 ‘Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? “Father, save me from this hour”? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!’
Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.’

Not only does the cross reveal Jesus’s glory, but it is also the time and place when Jesus defeated the devil.

John 12 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ 33 He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

On the cross Jesus’s glory is revealed and the devil is driven out. This is why the cross of Jesus is the focus of our Christian faith.
John 3 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.’
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

This is the way God loved the world – through the Son of Man being lifted up, through the sacrificial death of his Son Jesus Christ. We don’t need to understand how the cross saves us, any more than the Israelites needed to understand how looking at the bronze snake could bring them healing. We just need to put our trust in God and receive for ourselves his promise of salvation.
People can have different attitudes to the cross of Christ, just as I suspect the Israelites had a variety of different attitudes to the bronze snake on the pole. All they needed to do was look at the bronze snake and they would be healed. All people need to do is look at the cross and they can find salvation. But too often they don’t.
Some of the Israelites probably looked at the bronze snake and just laughed. How can anybody believe that looking at a bronze snake will help them? And there are many people today who just laugh at Jesus dying on the cross. To them it seems foolish to think that Jesus’s death could bring them forgiveness and eternal life. People who laugh at the cross have no faith at all. But Paul explained to the Corinthians that this is how many people view the cross of Christ.
1 Corinthians 1 18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. … 20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Then there were probably other Israelites who knew about the snake on the pole but instead of looking at the bronze snake were looking directly at Moses expecting him to save them. Their faith was not in God but in Moses. And there are some people today whose faith is misplaced. They aren’t actually trusting in God. They are trusting in their church, or trusting in the preacher, or trusting in particular rituals or styles of worship, instead of trusting in God.
I suspect there were many Israelites busy madly trying to fight off all the snakes. They realised there was a problem but were desperately trying to find human solutions to the snake crisis instead of accepting the salvation God was offering. Just as there were probably other Israelites lying back in their tents or staring into space trying to find their own ways to be healed. Just as today there are so many people trying to find their own ways back to God but refusing to put their trust in Jesus who is the way the truth and the life and the only way to the Father.
And then there would have been the Israelites who were pretending that the whole “snake problem” didn’t really exist. Just as there are people today who think that sin is just an illusion and a misunderstanding and that everything is OK and everybody will be alright in the end.
I am sure there were some Israelites racing around trying to help those who had been bitten by the snakes, who were too busy to look at the bronze snake for themselves. Perhaps they thought that if they did enough good deeds they would be immune to snakebites. Just as today many people think that they will be saved by doing good deeds and loving their neighbours and they won’t need a Saviour. Struggling to get through by themselves without God’s help.
I hope we are not like any of those groups of Israelites. I hope we are not laughing at the cross, or putting our trust in churches or preachers instead of in Jesus. I hope we realise the seriousness of the problem of sin, and aren’t trying to find solutions for ourselves. And I do hope nobody is relying on doing good deeds to save them – because that won’t work. I hope we are all among those who have received for ourselves the salvation God promises in the way that he has appointed.
Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.
I am sure that those Israelites who had been miraculously healed from the poisonous snake bites were rushing around the camp trying to get all their family and friends to look at the bronze snake too, so that everybody would enjoy the miraculous blessings they had received from God. They would be a picture of true Christians who have found salvation by putting their trust in Jesus and his death on the cross for us. We who have received God’s gift of eternal life should be devoting our lives to pointing other people to Jesus, so that they can believe in him too.
John 3 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.’
God has provided such an amazing salvation through our wonderful Saviour. We have good news to share! We dare not keep it to ourselves!

38 years had passed. 38 years of wandering around in the wilderness. Most of the original grumbling generation of Israelites had died. They came to camp at Kadesh and there Miriam died. Miriam was Moses’s sister. She was there when Pharoah’s daughter found the baby Moses in the bullrushes and took him into Pharoah’s household. At the age of 126 years Miriam died and was buried in the desert. Miriam didn’t make it into the Promised Land. But for Moses and Aaron and the surviving Israelites, the end was in sight. Bit the people are still complaining about the food. There’s no corn, no figs, no grapes, no pomegranates. At least they had moved on from their obsession with cucumbers, but what could they expect to find in the desert. So they were complaining. But there was a more pressing and serious problem. There was no water. They were facing the possibility of dying of thirst. But, praise God, he would continue to meet all their needs. So we read here in Numbers chapter 20 of
A Great Miracle – water from the rock!
Numbers 20 6 Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the tent of meeting and
fell face down, and the glory of the LORD appeared to them. 7 The LORD said to Moses. 8 ‘Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so that they and their livestock can drink.’ …
11 Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.
God worked a miracle and the immediate need of the people was met. He provided them with more than enough cool refreshing water to drink. The miracle of abundant flowing water is interpreted time and time again in the Bible symbolically and spiritually.
Flowing waters are a sign of God’s blessing
Isaiah 41 17 ‘The poor and needy search for water, but there is none;
their tongues are parched with thirst.
But I the LORD will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.
18 I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys.
I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.

Isaiah 43 18 ‘Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
20 The wild animals honour me, the jackals and the owls,
because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland,
to give drink to my people, my chosen,
21 the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise.

The apostle Paul interprets the rock which sustained the Israelites as Christ himself.
10 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

Jesus even promised the gift of the Holy Spirit pictures as the blessings of streams of living water in the lives of believers.
John 7 37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
Rivers of living water. God wants to pour these blessings into our lives, and through us to all the people of North Springfield. We are surrounded by a spiritual desert. So many folk around us are desperately thirsty for God’s love and forgiveness, if only they recognised it. God is waiting for us to bring living water out of rocks right here. But there are important lessons to learn from this story of Moses, so that we will be ready for God to work his miracles and bring his blessing to others through us. Because this is a story not only of great miracles, but also of
A Great Tragedy – “you shall not enter the land”.
11 Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.
12 But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not trust in me enough to honour me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.’
Moses had failed God many times in many ways during his life. But here is the worst time of all, at least in terms of the consequences of his failure. “You will not bring this community into the land I give them.”
Did you spot what Moses did wrong? Did you see what Moses did which made God so angry and brought such a devastating punishment? There were three elements to Moses’s failure – one disobedient action and one rash word which revealed underneath two sinful attitudes.
One disobedient action
This is what God commanded.
8 ‘Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so that they and their livestock can drink.’
That was what God had commanded. But this is what Moses actually did.
11 Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.
At first sight you might think that Moses had just done what God had commanded, but look closely. God said, “speak to the rock.” Instead Moses “struck the rock twice with his staff.” By his grace, God still worked a wonderful miracle. But Moses had not obeyed God and he would have to face the consequences of that.
Moses fell into the trap of self-reliance. Moses was complacent. Familiarity breeds contempt. God had already brought water from a rock on a number of previous occasions. The first came just after the Israelites had escaped from Egypt through the Red Sea, even before God had given them the 10 Commandments.
Exodus 17 5 The LORD answered Moses, ‘Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.’ So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.
Because he had struck the rock with his staff on that first occasion, Moses thought he knew what he had to do to produce water from a rock. So he didn’t listen to what God actually said.
Here is a reminder for all of us as we seek to serve and honour God. We should listen to what he tells us to do, and never think we already know. Moses relied on his previous experience instead of relying on God. God may have blessed particular events or particular activities in the past. But if we depend on doing things the way we have always done them, that may not be what God wants us to do this time and if that is the case then we will be wasting our time. We need to listen to what God tells us, to make certain that we are relying on his grace and his strength.
Jesus taught his disciples,
John 15 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 ‘I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

Every time we are serving God we need to rely on his strength, not on our own experience. We can’t do anything by ourselves! We need to listen very carefully to what God says – through prayer and through Scripture and through prophecy, words of knowledge and wisdom.
And we need to obey exactly what God tells us to do. Even minor disobedience can have major consequences.
Numbers 20 24 ‘Aaron will be gathered to his people. He will not enter the land I give the Israelites, because both of you rebelled against my command at the waters of Meribah.
We must be very careful to do exactly what God tells us to do, no more and no less. That is the only way we can be sure that we are depending on God’s strength and not on our own human efforts. Striking the rock was one act of disobedience. But then we can also see just
One rash word
Did you spot what made God so angry in what Moses said to the people in verse 10?
10 He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, ‘Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?’
Must we bring you water? Must WE bring you water? Psalm 106 refers back to this story and says this.
Psalm 106 32 By the waters of Meribah they angered the LORD,
and trouble came to Moses because of them;
33 for they rebelled against the Spirit of God, and rash words came from Moses’ lips.

It was Moses’s rash, impulsive, thoughtless words which kept him out of the promised land. “Must WE bring you water?” If we” meant Moses and Aaron, that would be presumptuous – as if they were the ones working the miracle. If “we” meant Moses and God that was even worse – Moses putting himself alongside God and taking credit for the miracle. Either way, in that one word, “we”, Moses was claiming some of the glory for himself instead of giving all the glory to God. Numbers 12:3 tells us
Numbers 12 3 Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.
But perhaps there was some underlying attitude of pride here when Moses presumes to take the credit for what God was going to do. The apostle Paul told the Corinthians that these stories from the Old Testament come as warnings for us.
1 Corinthians 10 11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. 12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
We must beware of the temptation to take the credit for what God does – trying to keep some of the glory for ourselves. Perhaps even by just one word out of place. When we serve God it must be in his strength alone but also for his glory alone! We are only ever unworthy servants. Remember the parable Jesus told,
Luke 17 7 ‘Suppose one of you has a servant ploughing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, “Come along now and sit down to eat”? 8 Won’t he rather say, “Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink”? 9 Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.” ’
We are only ever unworthy servants. But it is so tempting to try and keep some of the glory for ourselves. And in this world dominated by entertainment and celebrity it is truly sad to see this happen in some churches and by some Christian leaders and speakers. For God’s glory alone.
After a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the audience kept on applauding the celebrated conductor Arturo Toscanini. Not only the audience but even the orchestra gave him a prolonged standing ovation. But Toscanini, filled with emotion, turned to his musicians and whispered, “I am nothing, you are nothing.” Then, in adoring tones, Toscanini said, “But Beethoven is everything!”
We must always give God the glory, and resist the temptation to take any credit for ourselves. He must become greater – I must become less. We must give all the glory to God. “Not I – but Jesus.” Like John the Baptist said, “He must become geater, I must become less. He must increase! I must decrease!”
One disobedient action and one rash word, and in verse 12 these revealed underneath
Two sinful attitudes
We have thought about Moses’s attitude of pride. But verse 12 reveals other problems which Moses wrestled with.
12 But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not trust in me enough to honour me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.’

“You did not trust in me enough to honour me as holy.” God explained this sin Moses later just before he died in Numbers 27.
Numbers 27 13 After you have seen it, you too will be gathered to your people, as your brother Aaron was. 14 for when the community rebelled at the waters in the Desert of Zin, both of you disobeyed my command to honour me as holy before their eyes.’ (These were the waters of Meribah Kadesh, in the Desert of Zin.)
God explained that Moses had shown a lack of faith. When Moses used that word “we” he gave the completely wrong impression that God actually needed his help to work the miracle of bringing water out of the rock. That betrayed a lack of faith. 80 years earlier, Moses had made the same mistake when God was calling him to help set his people free from the Egyptians. Moses had murdered an Egyptian who was mistreating a Hebrew – but God never needs that kind of help. Moses thought God needed him to strike the rock with his staff – but God didn’t need that kind of help either. Of course God does not need our help to accomplish anything he chooses to do. God doesn’t need our help. He chooses to work through us, but he doesn’t need us.
And then Moses had also failed to acknowledge God’s holiness.

GOOD NEWS BIBLE But the LORD reprimanded Moses and Aaron. He said, “Because you did not have enough faith to acknowledge my holy power before the people of Israel, you will not lead them into the land that I promised to give them.”

God is holy, God is Almighty, God is Sovereign. God is Lord of All. And Moses had failed to give God the glory. He had made God out to be less than He is.
Contemporary English Version “Because you refused to believe in my power, these people did not respect me. And so, you will not be the ones to lead them into the land I have promised.”
Moses failed God because of underlying attitudes of pride and disbelief and thinking that God actually needed his help. If we ever make those mistakes we get in the way of God working through us, as Moses did on that day. We will look at one more story of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness next week. But here is the sad end of the story of Moses.
Deuteronomy 32 48 On that same day the LORD told Moses, 49 ‘Go up into the Abarim Range to Mount Nebo in Moab, opposite Jericho, and view Canaan, the land I am giving the Israelites as their own possession. 50 There on the mountain that you have climbed you will die and be gathered to your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people. 51 This is because both of you broke faith with me in the presence of the Israelites at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the Desert of Zin and because you did not uphold my holiness among the Israelites. 52 Therefore, you will see the land only from a distance; you will not enter the land I am giving to the people of Israel.’
One disobedient action. One rash word. Two sinful attitudes. May we learn to avoid the tragic mistakes Moses made!

Back when I was a boy one of the earliest television science fiction series told the story of a spacecraft which crashed on a planet which was remarkably similar to earth, except that on this planet the spacecraft is only a foot long and the passengers only an inch tall. The series followed the adventures of this gallant band in what was called “The Land of the Giants”. Anybody else remember that series? It was really “Gulliver’s Travels” in space! But the plot was really borrowed not from Jonathan Swift but from the Book of Numbers, where ten out of the twelve spies found the promised land of Canaan to be “a Land full of Giants”.
The spies reported back that it was indeed a land full of blessing.
Number 13:27 “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit.
All God’s promises to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and the Israelites in Egypt were fulfilled. God keeps His promises! But it was also a land full of dangers.
28 But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. … 31 But the men who had gone up with him said, ‘We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.’ 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, ‘The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.’
The Nephalim were the great warriors, a legendary race of ancient giants. So the spies’ description of the Canaanites may have had some truth in it! Humanly speaking the Israelites did face great odds. But God is Almighty! God can do anything! Nevertheless the spies were afraid about the cost of the battles ahead and the Israelites began to grumble and complain again.
14 3 Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?’ 4 And they said to each other, ‘We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.’
Like many other stories in the Old Testament, this story of the Land of the Giants is a picture for us of our own story. God calls us to claim the victory in our own lives and enter into the promised land. In particular God calls us to proclaim Christ and share his gospel with a needy world. But too often the world around can seem like a land full of giants which are opposed to God and to the gospel. Sent out as lambs amongst wolves, we can be paralysed with fear at the task of evangelism God has entrusted to us. We can be made to feel like grasshoppers when we consider the challenge of mission! In some ways even North Springfield can seem to be a land full of giants, making us feel like tiny grasshoppers! This morning I want us to think about some of the giants we can feel we are up against, forces resisting the gospel and sometimes even opposing the church.
World-wide challenges to the gospel
Britain is no longer a Christian country! But so often churches and Christians try to live as if it was! We live in a rapidly changing world. God calls His church to be “the people of the future” but too often we live as “people of the past”. The last 30 or 40 years have seen enormous changes in the world around.
SECULARISATION – in our lifetimes we have seen a dramatic decline in the influence of Christianity and Christian values. The church has become less and less important in the lives and thinking of ordinary people. We live in a “disenchanted” world, where worship of God has been replaced by science and technology. Now if people are looking for spiritual experiences, they no longer look to the church but instead to the occult and New Age practices. The age of Christendom has gone – we live in a Post-Christian world.
PLURALISATION – Christianity is no longer the only, or even the dominant faith. It is now seen only as one option amongst many on offer in the supermarket of beliefs. Political correctness now forbids Christians from claiming that Christ is the only way to God. Some local authorities are now removing Bibles and Christian symbols like the cross from places like hospitals and schools and prisons, ostensibly for fear of upsetting the other religions.
PRIVATISATION – our lives are becoming more and more isolated. Local community life and even family life are being replaced by individualism and the anonymity of “society”. We can communicate with strangers across the globe by phone and text and email and social media, when we don’t even know the names of the people who live across the street. Faith is squeezed into our private lives – as the media portray Christianity as outdated and irrelevant.
The new false gods in this Post-Modern world are ENTERTAINMENT and CELEBRITY. And CONSUMERISM means that people demand choice and satisfaction guaranteed in every area of life, not just in shopping and entertainment, but in healthcare, and increasingly even in religion.
“Land of the Giants.” Against the international giants of Secularisation and Pluralisation and Privatisation and Consumerism, Entertainment and Celebrity, it’s very easy for Christians to be discouraged! Against such giants, God calls us to stand up for the historical truths of our faith and to give the world example of true love and community, to believe what we preach and preach what we believe! We have GOOD NEWS – how can we keep it to ourselves?
Local Challenges to the gospel – even in a town like Chelmsford
MATERIALISM – compared to billions around the world most people in Chelmsford have more than enough and plenty to spare. They don’t just have enough to survive. They have more than enough to be content. Of cash. Of possessions. Of money in the bank to guard them for a rainy day. Very many people never stop to think about whether they need treasures in heaven because they have plenty of treasures on earth. They are not necessarily trapped by greed, which is idolatry. They are simply deceived by all the earthly goods they possess into thinking that there isn’t anything more to search for. Instead of possessing their goods, their goods possess them! The God-shaped-gap in their hearts is buried under career and hobbies and holidays and “things”.
BUSYNESS – even if people in Chelmsford do start thinking about the ultimate questions of life and eternity, those questions get squeezed out of many lives by sheer busyness. Commuting. Hobbies. The demands of family life rushing to get the children to three places as once. The pace of life here means that nobody has time to reflect on spiritual things.
“What is this life, so full of care? We have no time to stop and stare!”
COMPLACENCY – most of the people around us, our neighbours and friends, are not usually people who are struggling to cope with life. They are not usually burdened with guilt looking for somebody to forgive them, because most think they haven’t ever done anything particularly bad. They are not ground down with poverty. Most aren’t trapped in alcoholism or drug abuse. Most people in North Springfield are living satisfying, contented lives. They don’t worry about what will happen when they die, because life here and now has been generally good to them. Most people are happy non-believers. They never ever ask the really important questions of life – where did I come from, why am I here, who created me, does God really exist? They never see the need to think about questions like that. They are not trapped by obvious sin, but simply by complacency.
Then there is the giant of COVID19. The Coronavirus pandemic has affected so many things in life. Very many people are living in fear of this dreadful illness and many are living with its consequences, the loss of loved ones or the struggles of Long covid. Our church life together has changed and so have the ways we reach out and share our faith.
“Land of the Giants”. Against the giants of materialism and busyness and complacency, and even COVID, Christians must be BOLD to proclaim the gospel. God is God Almighty, creator and sustainer of the universe! God deserves to be worshipped! Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and exalted at God’s right hand! The gospel is not an offer which people can choose to accept or reject. The gospel is an announcement which demands our obedience. Jesus is Lord!
Specific Challenges to Outreach WITHIN the church
North Springfield Baptist Church is a very small church. We can feel we don’t have enough people, to run all the activities we want to run. or to do the kinds of outreach we want to do. We don’t have enough money – month by month what the church spends is greater than our income.
And then many of our church members and friends are facing all kinds of giants in their own lives. Battles with illness. Challenges in the workplace, or even to find a job. Struggles to survive on fixed incomes. The limitations which the passing years bring on. Stress, anxiety, insecurity, feelings of inadequacy. And perhaps when it comes to evangelism, the great giant very many of us have to do battle with is fear. Fear that others will laugh at us or reject us. Fear that we aren’t really very good at sharing our faith and that we might make a mess of it. Fear that we will let God down.
“Land of the Giants”. God is calling us to claim the victory over all these giants we face as a church and just as much in our own personal lives! Just as the Israelites had to face their fears, so God is calling us to face our fears and go forward to possess the land!
We face some of the same discouragements as the Israelites did
We feel we aren’t strong enough!
13 31 … ‘We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.’… ‘The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. … We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.’
If we take on all the giants at once we will indeed be overwhelmed. But if we seek God’s guidance to do the work God has for us, the specific good works He has prepared beforehand for us to do, we will be victorious. If we go out in our own strength we will fail. But in Christ’s strength, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
We feel it will cost us too much.
Numbers 14 3 Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? … Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?’
Sharing the gospel does cost! Helping people in need does cost. In time as well as money. In energy and emotion too! But in God’s strength we CAN cope! God blesses us so that we can be a blessing to others in our turn. Because as well as the same discouragements as the Israelites, we also have
The same promises
Just two of the twelve spies sent into Canaan had faith. Caleb and Joshua had vision
30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, ‘We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.’
We can certainly do it! We are well able to conquer it! As Bob the Builder almost used to say, Can we do it? “Yes we can!” CAN we do it? Yes, we CAN! Can WE do it? Yes WE can! If everything I have said so far has left you discouraged and depressed like the ten spies, I have failed and the devil has won. Instead let God win! We have God’s promises. We can certainly do it!
Deuteronomy chapter 1 also recounts the events of that day and it records what Moses said to the Israelites.
Deuteronomy 1 29 Then I said to you, ‘Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. 30 The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, 31 and in the wilderness. There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.’
The Lord your God will fight for you. He will carry you! We need to learn to see our giants from God’s perspective. We seem like grasshoppers to them. But they are smaller than grasshoppers to God. Humanly speaking the giants might crush us! But in God’s strength we can trample over them.
Listen to the voices of Joshua and Caleb as they pleaded with the Israelites.
Numbers 14:7 ‘The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. 8 If the LORD is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. 9 Only do not rebel against the LORD. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their protection is gone, but the LORD is with us. Do not be afraid of them.’
God will be with us! God will lead us! God WILL give us the land. Do not be afraid. But more than that – do not rebel! For the Israelites, choosing not to go on with God was not just a missed opportunity. It was an act of rebellion against God! Choosing not to enter the land at that point was a sin which God would punish severely – with forty years of wandering in the wilderness. And apart from Joshua and Caleb, not one of that grumbling generation lived to enter the promised land! And so it can be for us today. If Christians choose not to step out in faith and claim God’s promises, they don’t just miss out on the blessings. If Christians disobey God’s commands to reach out with the gospel, they can end up in the wilderness!
God commanded the Israelites to take possession of the promised land – and they disobeyed. That wasn’t just a missed opportunity. They delayed God’s purposes for forty years until every one of that faithless generation had been punished by death. That is certainly a warning of a sin to avoid! God calls us to stand up and be counted – to be bold and be strong in living the gospel and proclaiming the gospel and so to take possession of North Springfield in Jesus’s name! It’s a land full of giants, but if we have faith and prayer and obedience, God WILL give us the victory! We are not grasshoppers! We are giants in the Lord!
Secularisation. Privatisation. Pluralisation. Consumerism, Entertainment and Celebrity. Materialism. Busyness. Complacency. Covid. The challenges of being a small church and a poor church. And also the hundred and one very personal giants we may need to confront. But our God is greater than all of these! Can we do it? Yes we can! CAN we do it? Yes, we CAN! Can WE do it? Yes WE can! May God give us the faith and obedience Caleb and Joshua showed.
“We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”

Two small silver scrolls about one inch long were found near Jerusalem. They were on amulets in a burial cave in the Valley of Hinnom and they date from the sixth or seventh century BC. Currently they are the oldest example of any text of Scripture and they contain this benediction in Hebrew.
24 ‘ “ ‘The LORD bless you and keep you;
25 the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
26 the LORD turn his face towards you and give you peace.’ ”

These were the words of the blessing God gave to Moses for Aaron and his descendants to declare in order to bless the Israelites forevermore. This is known as the Aaronic blessing or the Priestly blessing.
22 The LORD said to Moses, 23 ‘Tell Aaron and his sons, “This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:

Let’s start by thinking about
The Power of Blessings
The word BLESS / blessing is a very biblical word – more than 400 times in the Bible. A blessing is a “bestowal of some good” which can be any form of material or spiritual well-being. Most of the time it is God who gives the blessing. So just in Genesis alone we read 65 times about the LORD blessing Adam and Eve, and the whole creation, and Noah, and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and a few other people as well. Throughout Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy we read another 64 promises of God blessing His chosen people Israel. And Psalms and Proverbs especially speak another 81 times of the blessings God has for those who seek and trust and obey Him.
When God speaks words of blessing and when God makes a promise that someone will be blessed, things happen! Because God’s words are an expression, and even an extension of His personality and His authority. When God speaks, things happen. God said let there be light – and there was light. When God speaks words of blessing, the person receives that blessing every time. Here in Numbers 6 God delegated to the priests, to Aaron and to his descendants, the authority to declare his blessing on his people.
We know the power of prayer. But let’s be clear, in the Bible pronouncing a blessing on someone is distinctly different to praying for them. It is not asking that God might bless somebody – but declaring the promise that God will bless them. Remember how Jesus blessed the little children when they came to Him. Those mothers who brought their children to Jesus knew that Jesus saying a blessing on them would make a difference to their lives, And when Jesus sent out his disciples to preach the gospel and teach and hear and minister deliverance in Luke 10:5-6, 9-12 he instructed his disciples to proclaim a blessing wherever they stayed.
Luke 10:6 “When you enter a house, first say, `Peace to this house.’ If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, it will return to you. Jesus was teaching that the words His disciples spoke would convey God’s blessing and God’s peace to the people they spoke to.
The priests in Israel had God’s authority to pronounce his blessing on the people. As Christians we are all priests in God’s eyes and so we also all have the same authority to pronounce God’s blessing – to declare how God will bless. When we do this, it will not just be empty words, nor even optimistic prayers. Our words of blessing will be authoritative. Because we speak on behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ, the blessings we declare in Jesus’s name WILL come to pass. So let’s look at this Priestly Blessing in Numbers 6 and see the blessings which it brought to the Israelites and which it can bring to us as well.
We can see these phrases either as six separate blessings, or read them in pairs as three blessings where the first half speaks of what God does and the second on the effect which that divine action has in the lives of believers.
The Lord Bless You
It is the LORD, Yahweh, the God who is the great I AM, who will bless the Israelites
God had first promised his blessing to Abraham in Genesis 12
2 “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

This blessing was repeated when Isaac gave his blessing to Jacob in Genesis 28 3 May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. 4 May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien, the land God gave to Abraham.
God’s blessings promised to the Patriarchs were not just family and descendants and a land of their own but included many other material blessings.

Moses told the nation of Israel
Deuteronomy 28 3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.
4 The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
5 Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.
6 You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.
So many rich physical and material blessings! But of course the greatest blessing for the Israelites did not lie in material prosperity but in knowing God and being his chosen people!

Leviticus 26 9 “ ‘I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. 10 You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. 11 I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.

In the Priestly Blessing Aaron and his descendants will proclaim all these material and spiritual blessings to the Israelites, forever. And the result of God blessing his people follows on. The Lord bless you,
And keep you
Other translations say, “And protect you”, “watch over you,” “take care of you,” “guard you.”
In Psalms 121 in the old Authorised King James Version the Lord is referred to as ‘Israel’s keeper’
Psalm 121 3 He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The LORD watches over you— the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.
7 The LORD will keep you from all harm— he will watch over your life;
8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

God’s blessings will rest on the Israelites, and keep them safe and guard them and preserve them from harm. In the same way God’s blessings come to us as Christians. Most important of all is the blessing of a personal relationship with Almighty God – He is our Heavenly Father and we are his beloved children. And he will watch over us and protect us and keep us safe and preserve us too.
And there’s more.
The Lord make his face shine on you
God spoke into the darkness and said, “let there be light” and brought the whole of Creation into existence. Wherever the light of God’s presence shines it brings life. For this reason a number of times in the Psalms the writers pray that God’s face will shine on them.

Psalm 31 16 Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love.
Psalm 67:1 begins May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us.
Psalm 31:16 prays, Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love.
Psalm 80 echoes the same phrase no less than THREE times.
Restore us, O God Almighty; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.

The Priestly Blessing declares that God’s face will indeed shine on his people, and here will be the result. The Lord make his face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you
Other translations read, “Be merciful to you,” “surround you with loving-kindness,”
The word has many shades of meaning – showing mercy, being gracious, showing favour. As we saw last week God poured his love out to Israel not because of any merits in themselves, but because of his own divine nature of loving-kindness.
Deuteronomy 7 7 The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.
The Priestly Blessing declares that God will always show his mercy to Israel because that is an essential element in his character of unfailing love. God is love! And for us as believers, God will shine his glorious light into our lives as well. He will keep us in his steadfast love and his infinite mercy too.

And there’s more.

The Lord turn his face towards you
In the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms, when God turns his face away from somebody or hides his face from them that is an expression of anger or judgment. On the other hand when God turns his face towards somebody that is an expression of divine pleasure.
The result of God turning his face towards his people is this.
And give you peace
Leviticus 26 3 “ ‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, 4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit. 5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.
6 “ ‘I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove savage beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country.

In the Bible, peace is not just the absence of conflict. It embraces prosperity, children, security, land, happiness, health. But shalom also has a much broader sense of completeness, wholeness, well-being, tranquility. It means peace in relationships between human beings. And peace means reconciliation between people and their God. Peace was at the heart of the wonderful salvation God gave to the Israelites and peace is at the heart of the even more marvellous salvation we have received through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Psalm 29:11 The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with peace.
God promised peace to Israel. And even more God promises his peace to us as believers today. But as with all of God’s blessings we need to actively receive his peace.

Isaiah 26 3 You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.
4 Trust in the LORD for ever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal.

NLT You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is fixed on you.

God promises us his peace, but we need to receive that peace for ourselves. And we can do that by praying.

Philippians 4 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them
Through this blessing, God put his name on his chosen people. God putting his name on a person is in a sense a symbol of ownership –he is our God and we belong to God. God put his name on the Israelites – they were known to belong to Him.
Deuteronomy 27:9 The LORD will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the LORD your God and walk in his ways. 10 Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will fear you. 11 The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity
The Israelites belonged to God. Now as believers and followers of Jesus, we are God’s chosen people, his royal priesthood, his holy nation, his special possession. God has put his name on us – we are known as Christians. Here at the very beginning of the story of Israel we find an anticipation of all the blessings which are waiting for us in glory at the end of our salvation.
Revelation 22 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

God has put his name on us. But we do not need to wait for heaven. The Priestly Blessing declares God’s love and protection and light and mercy and peace on his chosen people. These blessings are available to us right here, right now. We can receive all these blessings for ourselves, when we put our own names where it reads “you”. And we can pass these blessings on to other people when we address them and use their names in place of “you”.

24 ‘ “ ‘The LORD bless you and keep you;
25 the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
26 the LORD turn his face towards you and give you peace.’ ”

Reading Numbers 11:1-9, 18-20, 31-34

My text for this morning comes from Numbers chapter 11 verse 5 in the Good News Bible.
In Egypt we used to eat all the fish we wanted, and it cost us nothing. Remember the cucumbers, the watermelons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic we had?
My text consists of just three words from that verse – REMEMBER THE CUCUMBERS!
The Message translates that phrase in its context like this.
The misfits among the people had a craving and soon they had the People of Israel whining, “Why can’t we have meat? We ate fish in Egypt—and got it free! — to say nothing of the cucumbers and melons, the leeks and onions and garlic. But nothing tastes good out here; all we get is manna, manna, manna.”
Remember the cucumbers! The Israelites were on their way to the Promised Land and the rabble started complaining about the food! You would think they would remember that in Egypt they used to be treated as slaves and forced to do hard labour. You would hope that the Israelites would remember the amazing miracles by which God had rescued them out of Egypt just months before and be suitably grateful. You would think that they would realise that cucumbers and melons and leek and onions and garlics were just tiny things they had to leave behind when they escaped from Egypt. When you are running for your life, cucumbers a little luxury you can’t afford to take with you.
You might hope that the Israelites would think about the amazing covenant God had just made with them.
Exodus 19 5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’
God had made Israelites his treasured possession, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. But all they cared about was cucumbers! They were on their way to take possession of the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and incidentally all the cucumbers and melons and leeks and onions and garlic anybody could ever want. You would think that the Israelites would be looking forward to life in the Promised Land so much that they wouldn’t care about the temporary shortage of cucumbers. But no, the Israelites forgot all about everything that God had saved them from and all about the blessings he had promised them. All they could think about was the food.
And it wasn’t as if they were going hungry. Every day God provided miraculously for their needs by sending down manna, bread from heaven which was all they needed to sustain them.
7 The manna was like coriander seed and looked like resin. 8 The people went around gathering it, and then ground it in a hand-mill or crushed it in a mortar. They cooked it in a pot or made it into loaves. And it tasted like something made with olive oil. 9 When the dew settled on the camp at night, the manna also came down.
But the Israelites weren’t satisfied with manna. They wanted cucumbers. They wanted meat. They complained to God, and it is evidence of his infinite patience and mercy that God actually did provide them with meat. But there is a valuable lesson here. “Be careful about what you wish for.” Through Moses, God warned the people very clearly that they would regret their complaining.
8 ‘Tell the people: “Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The LORD heard you when you wailed, ‘If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!’ Now the LORD will give you meat, and you will eat it. 19 You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, 20 but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it—because you have rejected the LORD, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’ ” ’
The meat the Israelites were craving would actually turn out to be a punishment rather than a blessing. When they were complaining they were actually rejecting God and his wonderful provision for them. We just read about the miraculous arrival of flocks of quail all around the camp, up to three feet deep! But the Israelites didn’t get to enjoy their feasts.
33 But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the LORD burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague. 34 Therefore the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food.
God was angry with the Israelites because they complained against him about the food. By refusing to trust him they were actually rejecting him. We will see in future weeks more incidents where the people complained and failed to trust God, so much so that he judged that whole moaning, whining generation to be unworthy of the Promised Land and kept them wandering in the wilderness for 40 years! Remember the cucumbers! Because it turned out that moaning about cucumbers was the beginning of the slippery slope which kept all those Israelites out of the Promised Land. Remember the cucumbers! Psalm 106 is a confession of the ways that the Israelites sinned in the wilderness.
Psalm 106 6 We have sinned, even as our ancestors did;
we have done wrong and acted wickedly.
7 When our ancestors were in Egypt, they gave no thought to your miracles;
they did not remember your many kindnesses, and they rebelled by the sea, the Red Sea.
8 Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, to make his mighty power known.
9 He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up;he led them through the depths as through a desert.
10 He saved them from the hand of the foe; from the hand of the enemy he redeemed them.
11 The waters covered their adversaries; not one of them survived.
12 Then they believed his promises and sang his praise.
13 But they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for his plan to unfold.
14 In the desert they gave in to their craving; in the wilderness they put God to the test.
15 So he gave them what they asked for, but sent a wasting disease among them.
They forgot what God had done, they didn’t wait for God to act, they gave in to their cravings. So God sent a wasting disease among them. A more literal translation would be, “God sent a leanness into their souls.” The message reads, “They got an empty heart!” That’s what happens when people allow other things to be more important than God to them. Lean souls. Empty hearts. Remember the cucumbers!
So what are OUR cucumbers? Please don’t understand me, the humble cucumber is probably my favourite salad vegetable. And I’ve nothing personal against melons, leeks, onions and garlic either. The Israelites had to let go of these things so that they could escape from slavery in Egypt. They were delights they would not enjoy again until the took possession of the Promised Land. So what are our cucumbers?
Let’s be clear. There’s nothing wrong with cucumbers in themselves. I’m not talking about things which are wrong in themselves. Of course we have to turn our back on sins of every kind. But that’s not what I mean by cucumbers. Are there any things in life which we would have had for sure if we were not followers of Jesus, but things which we might need to give up because we are following Jesus? Are there any things in life which we need to give up, because they will come between us and God if we cling on to them? Things which can even be bad for us if we allow them to become more important than God is to us.
In this picture, cucumbers are things which God may well give to lots of Christians to enjoy, but in his infinite wisdom God may not give those same things to some other Christians. There could even be things which God asks us to give up, because we are followers of Jesus. For a start, there are all kinds of blessings which many people in this country take for granted. These could be material things, like a nice house or a big car or fancy holidays. God may give us these things from the immeasurable riches of his grace. Or he may not. They are things which we cannot demand to have, if we are Christians. If we cling on to such things, they become cucumbers in our walk with God.
Or these things could be sports. At school and university I enjoyed playing the rather bizarre sport of lacrosse – the national sport of Canada where the only rule is that you aren’t allowed to hit your opponent if he hasn’t got the ball. But when I became a teacher I had to make a choice. If I played lacrosse on Saturday I would have to do school work on Sunday and so I wouldn’t have time or energy either to go to church or to be a leader in the youth organization then called Crusaders, now called Urban Saints. I had to choose between my Christian life with Church and Crusaders or alternatively playing my sport. I couldn’t do both.
Not just sports, but actually any hobby can become a cucumber for us is we allow it to become more important than our faith. There is nothing wrong with stamp collecting, unless a person becomes more devoted to stamps than they are to Jesus. Our choice of entertainment may be different when we are following Jesus. We may even end up doing a different job altogether because we are Christians. Almost 40 years ago I walked away from a career that was satisfying and enjoyable and rewarding, blowing things up and playing with computers, what could be better? But it isn’t only ministers and missionaries who God calls to change paths.
Then there are other more profound things we may need to give up and for some Christians this may be where, as they say, “the rubber hits the road.”
We all like to be popular. To have friends and to have people think well of us. But when we are Christians that can make us unpopular in our workplace, or with our neighbours, or even within our families. Jesus wasn’t popular. If we are following Jesus, we cannot cling on to being popular with everybody. We all like to feel safe and secure. But for some Christians, especially in other countries which are persecuting the church, safety and security are not an option if they are following Jesus and living for him.
We all like to have control over our lives. We like to be able to decide what God does in our lives, or in our church. We like to have certainty about what will happen tomorrow, or the next day. Most people would rather have an easy life and would not choose to have a hard life. But when we are following Jesus we have to be prepared to give up popularity, and security, and control. God may give us these things – or in his infinite wisdom he may take such things away from us. We have to hand all these things over to God. Or they can become for us just like the cucumbers were for the Israelites. Things which come between us and God if we cling on to them too much.
Jesus told two lovely little parables about the Kingdom of God and about what it costs to become his disciple.
Matthew 13 44 ‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
The Kingdom of God is like buried treasure – it is so precious that it costs everything that we have to possess it.
Matthew 13 45 ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
In his challenging book Disciple, the evangelist Juan Carlos Ortiz, explains the parable of the pearl of great price like this.
“The Bible says the kingdom of God is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of real worth, he sells everything he has and buys that pearl. Jesus is the pearl of great price and we are the merchant. …. Jesus has happiness, joy, peace, healing, security, eternity. …..” But when we find Jesus it costs us everything we have. God says to us, “Everything becomes mine: wife, children, house, garage, cars, money, clothing, everything. And you too. Now you can use all those things here but don’t forget they are mine, as you are. When I need any of the things you are using you must give them to me because now I am the owner. They all belong to me now!”
Jesus said in Luke 14:33 those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
If we are Christians, everything we have, everything we are, belongs to God. If we cling on to anything, if we make anything at all more important than God is to us, it becomes a cucumber getting in the way of us enjoying God’s blessings. Yearning for cucumbers gave the Israelites a leanness in their souls – empty hearts. They had escaped from slavery, but they couldn’t enter the promised land. Cucumbers trapped them in the wilderness. When we are Christians, we have to be prepared to let things go.
The missionary martyr Jim Elliott wrote, “That man is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
The apostle Paul knew what it meant to give things up in order to follow Jesus. He wrote to the Philippians,
Philippians 3 7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

Message v 10 I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself.
The Israelites had escaped from Egypt and were on their way to the Promised Land. They just had to learn to live without cucumbers. God had to teach them that there are more important things in life than melons and garlic. Are there any things in our lives we need to give up because they are getting in between us and God?
Remember the cucumbers? Forget the cucumbers!

Two weeks ago we thought about the special freewill offering God ordered for the work of building the tent of meeting. But just what was this tent of meeting? You may know it by the older name of the Tabernacle. In earlier times many Baptist Churches and Free Churches were given the name of Tabernacle. The tent of meeting, the Tabernacle, is mentioned 139 times in 129 verses of the Old Testament. Since its construction is the subject of no less than six chapters of the Book of Exodus, from chapter 35 through to chapter 40, we ought to spend a little time explaining what the tabernacle was.
The tabernacle was a large tent 45 feet long, 15 feet wide, and 15 feet high. (Pictures) It had a frame made from wood overlaid with gold. The roof and the entrance were made of cloth and animal skins. The tabernacle was surrounded by an outer courtyard which contained an altar for burned offerings and a bowl for ritual washing. (Plan 1)
First inside the tabernacle itself was a large room called the Holy Place. (Plan 2) It contained a number of religious objects: a table on which was placed the Bread of Presence, (the Shewbread), a Golden Candlestick and an altar for burning incense. Further in, separated from the Holy Place by a veil, there was the Holy of Holies. This room was a perfect cube and it contained the Ark of the Covenant.
The Tabernacle, or tent of meeting, was the physical centre of the faith and the religion of the Israelites from the time God created his holy nation at Mount Sinai until they took possession of the Promised Land. It served as a portable sanctuary and the Israelites viewed it as the place where God dwelt among wherever they camped them all through their wanderings in the wilderness. After they took possession of Canaan, the Tabernacle was moved from Shiloh, to Nob and to Gibeon, until eventually Solomon brought the Tabernacle into the Temple which he had built in Jerusalem.
The name itself means simply “dwelling”. It occurs in various other phrases such as the dwelling place of God or the dwelling place of the covenant or the dwelling of the tent of meeting or the dwelling place of God. It is also referred to as the Holy Place, or the House of the LORD, the house of Yahweh. We cannot overestimate how significant the Tabernacle was to the life and faith of the Israelites.
The Tabernacle foreshadowed Solomon’s Temple, which in turn symbolically foreshadows the church. So some preachers, especially in earlier times, go to great lengths to give profound meanings to every detail of the Tabernacle. You will probably be very relieved that I am not going to do that this morning. Basically, I don’t think that is what these chapters have to say to us today. Six chapters are given over to describing precisely how the Tabernacle and all the holy objects it contained were to be constructed. From those great details, I understand that God was indeed concerned about every aspect of the Tabernacle, but that doesn’t mean that each of those chapters deserve sermon today. I believe those details were only important and relevant for the Israelites who were actually building the Tabernacle. The underlying message is that God does care about any buildings we meet in to worship him.
We also noted two weeks ago that the Tabernacle was constructed with materials which came from a freewill offering of the Israelites. Which tells me that it is acceptable to God to take up an offering for church buildings. Although there is something else quite interesting to say very briefly about that offering from Exodus 36,
Exodus 36:3 … And the people continued to bring freewill offerings morning after morning. 4 So all the skilled workers who were doing all the work on the sanctuary left what they were doing 5 and said to Moses, ‘The people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the LORD commanded to be done.’
6 Then Moses gave an order and they sent this word throughout the camp: ‘No man or wman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.’ And so the people were restrained from bringing more, 7 because what they already had was more than enough to do all the work.
Not only did God through Moses invite the people to make a freewill offering to build the Tabernacle. He also commanded them to stop giving once they had enough! There is an important principle for churches today in there somewhere as well.
But for this morning there are three more significant things about the Tabernacle I want to pick out of the last six chapters of Exodus chapters. And the first is this.
The builders of the Tabernacle were inspired by the Holy Spirit.
As we read in our reading this morning.
30 Then Moses said to the Israelites, ‘See, the LORD has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 31 and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—32 to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, 33 to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic crafts. 34 And he has given both him and Oholiab son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of Dan, the ability to teach others.
We find the Spirit of God mentioned in the very first verse of the Bible when God spoke into the darkness, “Let there be light,” and there was light. We then read about the Spirit of God working in the life of Joseph, giving him discernment and wisdom to interpret dreams and to prevent disaster when the seven years of famine were going to strike Egypt. The next mention of the Spirit of God was here in Exodus 35 inspiring Bezalel with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills …. (and also) the ability to teach others.
The construction of the Tabernacle was very important for the faith and religion of Israel. So important that God the Holy Spirit worked through Bezalel to ensure the work was done to the highest of standards. This is significant for our Christian lives and in our service for God too. Because it reminds us that God can take all kinds of gifts and skills and use them for his glory and in his service. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are not just prophecy and teaching and speaking in tongues. They are not just administration and giving alms or even the very general category of serving in the church and in the world. The Holy Spirit inspired Bezalel with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—32 to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, 33 to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic crafts.
This shows us that whatever skills we have, whatever experience we have, whatever training we have, whatever gifts we have in whatever areas of life, we can offer those to God for his to use for his glory. God the Holy Spirit can take our gifts and use them for God’s glory. We may not feel we have anything to offer to God. But God can use any of us, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is the presence of the Holy Spirit which can accomplish great things in and through the lives of believers who give their lives to God. Day by day, we all need to offer our lives to God for him to use for his glory.
Some preachers especially in previous generations would go on to talk about all the objects in the Tabernacle. The bowl for ritual washing and the altar for burnt offerings in the outer courtyard. The Table for the Bread of the Presence, the Golden Lampstand and the altar for burning incense inside the Holy Place in the Tabernacle. All the garments for the priests, the ephod and the breastplate. And the significance of the veil which separated the larger room the Holy Place from the inner room the Most Holy Place. I won’t do that. Instead I only want to talk next about the most important object which was kept in the Most Holy Place, the Ark of the Covenant.
The Ark of the Covenant was the place where God dwelt among his people
Exodus 37:1 Bezalel made the ark of acacia wood—two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high. 2 He overlaid it with pure gold, both inside and out, and made a gold moulding around it. … 6 He made the atonement cover of pure gold—two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide. 7 Then he made two cherubim out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover. 8 He made one cherub on one end and the second cherub on the other; at the two ends he made them of one piece with the cover. 9 The cherubim had their wings spread upwards, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim faced each other, looking towards the cover.
(Picture of the Ark) Forget anything you think you may know from Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Ark of the Covenant, sometimes called the Ark of the Testimony, was an ornately decorated gold-plated wooden box containing the two stone tablets on which God had written the commandments. It also carried Aaron’s rod and a jar containing some manna. The lid was decorated with two gold cherubim and we read that God spoke to Moses from between the cherubim. The Ark was the supreme symbol of God’s presence on earth in the midst of his chosen people. It was carried by priests using two long poles because it was so holy that if anybody touched the Ark they would be struck dead. The Ark was carried in front of the Israelites through the forty years they wandered through the wilderness, and then in the following years when they were taking possession of the Promised Land. God’s presence kept his chosen people safe and gave them victory in battle.
So, for the Israelites God’s presence was located among them in the middle of their camp in the Tabernacle, and especially in the Ark of the Covenant. The Tabernacle foreshadowed Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem and once that was built the Israelites believed that God was especially present there. Of course, as Christians we don’t look at God that way.
As Christians we believe that God is equally present everywhere. We don’t think that God is any more present in our church buildings than he his anywhere else on earth. So the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant certainly do not point forward to our church buildings, to cathedrals or to local church buildings or to any other religious buildings. Instead we believe that the Tabernacle and the Ark point forward to two things.
Firstly, they look forward to Jesus himself.
John 1:14 says, The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The Greek word for “made his dwelling” could equally mean “pitched his tent among us” and the same word is the root word for the tabernacle or dwelling place in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. We could even translate, “the word became a human being and tabernacled among us.” In the same way as God was especially present to Israel in the tabernacle, even more God was present in Jesus Christ.
Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)
John 1 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in the closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
Colossians 1 describes Jesus as “the visible image of the invisible God” and Hebrews 1 says “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.”
So the tabernacle foreshadows Jesus as the presence and the supreme revelation of God in the world. But it also foreshadows the church which is described as the body of Christ and also a spiritual building which embodies the presence of God in the world.
1 Peter 2 4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 2 19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
So the tabernacle does not foreshadow church buildings in any way. Instead it points forward to the people of God who make up the church. God lives in us and among us by his Holy Spirit. Even in Moses’ day, the tent which was the tabernacle actually meant nothing in and of itself. Even the ark of the covenant as a sacred object was insignificant. Here is the third thing I want us to understand. What actually mattered both in the tabernacle and in the ark was the presence of God and the activity of the Holy Spirit.
In Exodus chapter 40 we read that Moses inspected the Tabernacle and saw that it had been constructed just as God had commanded, and he blessed it. Everything was anointed with oil and Moses presented burnt offerings and grain offerings. Incense was burned, Moses and Aaron and the priests ritually washed their hands and feet. And this is what happened next
Exodus 40 34 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. 35 Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.
The Tabernacle and all its sacred objects and even the Ark of the Covenant had no power in themselves. All that mattered was the presence and the glory of God. And so it was throughout the forty years of wandering in the wilderness and in the centuries to follow. The only important thing was the presence of God among his chosen people.
36 In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; 37 but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted. 38 So the cloud of the LORD was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels.
So the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, was the place where people went to meet with God, to hear God speak and to find forgiveness by offering sacrifices. The tabernacle pointed forward to the Temple in Jerusalem. But there is no need for a tabernacle or a temple any more. Both the Tabernacle and the Temple foreshadowed the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Word who became a human being and dwelt among us for us and for our salvation. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. As the glory of God shone around the Tabernacle, so the glory of God was supremely revealed in Jesus Christ. People met with God in Jesus and found salvation through him. And the tabernacle also pointed forward to us, to you and me. God is not especially present in our church buildings. But God IS especially present in the people of God, in the church which is the Body of Christ and the spiritual temple where God dwells today by his Holy Spirit. God is present in each of our lives separately, but God is especially present when we gather together as God’s people. Not the church building, but the believers who make up the church, are now the place where people can come to meet God. We, the church, are now the place where people can experience God’s love and find forgiveness through the Lord Jesus Christ living among us. That is our calling and our destiny. May God help us to live up to what he wants his church to be.

When I planned this series of sermons on Israel’s Wilderness Years, I did not have in mind that we would be giving thanks to God for all his goodness to us at our Harvest Services today. Nor did I know then that we would be taking time today to launch our appeal towards our building project. But here we are in Exodus chapter 35
Exodus 35 4 Moses said to the whole Israelite community, ‘This is what the LORD has commanded: 5 from what you have, take an offering for the LORD. Everyone who is willing is to bring to the LORD an offering ….
Actually, God had already given the command to bring this offering, straight after the giving of the Ten Commandments and even before the Israelites had rebelled against God by making an idol of a golden calf and worshipping it.
Exodus 25 The LORD said to Moses, 2 ‘Tell the Israelites to bring me an offering. You are to receive the offering for me from everyone whose heart prompts them to give. 3 These are the offerings you are to receive from them: gold, silver and bronze; and a whole list of other items besides.
The offering was a freewill offering – entirely from everyone whose heart prompts them to give. It was to be completely voluntary, as an expression of the Israelites’ gratitude to God for the wonderful salvation they had experienced in their escape from Egypt and crossing the Red Sea on dry land. The list of specific items invited for the offering was chosen because God had a specific purpose for that offering.
Exodus 25 8 ‘Then let them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them. 9 Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you.
So in Exodus chapter 25 we have the announcement of the very first offering for a church building project. We find other such offerings centuries later in the time of Solomon building the Temple in Jerusalem and in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah rebuilding the Temple after the return of the Exiles. Here in our reading today in Exodus chapter 35 we find the occasion when the Israelites brought their gifts to build the Tabernacle, the portable tent of meeting where the priests would offer the sacrifices God commanded as the people moved around the wilderness and then took possession of the Promised Land.
Exodus 35 20 Then the whole Israelite community withdrew from Moses’ presence, 21 and everyone who was willing and whose heart moved them came and brought an offering to the LORD for the work on the tent of meeting, for all its service, and for the sacred garments. 22 All who were willing, men and women alike, came and brought gold jewellery of all kinds: brooches, earrings, rings and ornaments. They all presented their gold as a wave offering to the LORD.
They all brought the different kinds of offerings which God had invited, to be used in building the Tabernacle.
27 The leaders brought onyx stones and other gems to be mounted on the ephod and breastpiece. 28 They also brought spices and olive oil for the light and for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense. 29 All the Israelite men and women who were willing brought to the LORD freewill offerings for all the work the LORD through Moses had commanded them to do.
The overflowing expression of gratitude in this special freewill offering was a one-off, specifically to build the Tabernacle. It expresses perfectly the principle of Christian giving which we find in 2 Corinthians 9:7 in the NET Bible (New English Translation)
Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give. You shouldn’t give if you don’t want to. You shouldn’t give because you are forced to. God loves a cheerful giver.
There at the foot of Mount Sinai the Israelites brought their freewill offering, as each was moved in their heart to give. But in the years that followed God gave them other commands about giving. I don’t believe that Christians are obliged to interpret every law in the Law of Moses literally. We are not under law but under grace. At the same time I think there are at least three general principles about giving which do apply to Christians today and the first is this.
Give your first and your best to God
Deuteronomy 14. 22 Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. 23 Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the LORD your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the LORD your God always.
The word “tithe” simply means setting aside one tenth. The Old Testament practice was very simple. One tenth of everything the Promised Land produced is to be set apart – it belongs to God. This pattern of giving was an important discipline so that you may learn to revere the LORD your God always. It reminds God’s people that everything comes from God. Deuteronomy Chapter 8 reminds us that all the blessings we enjoy come from not from our own efforts but from the hand of our generous God.
Deuteronomy 8 17 You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” 18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.
Everything we have comes from God. And the basic practice of Old Testament giving is that one tenth of everything should be given back to God. The first example we find of this came in the life of Abraham.
Gen 14:18-20 18 Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, 19 and he blessed Abram, saying, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth.20 And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.” Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
There are a few important points to make about this principle of giving one tenth. The first is that it applied equally to everybody who owned land or who had some kind of income in fruit or grain or livestock. One tenth was set apart for the Lord. In this way, giving was to be proportionate. The more God blessed you the greater the amount you would give back to God in gratitude.
Will you also notice there what the tithes were to be used for?
23 Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the LORD your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the LORD your God always.
If the place where God chose as a dwelling was too far away to carry all these gifts, the people were allowed to turn the produce into silver to travel with. Then at the other end.
26 Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice.
To put it simply, these tithes of all the good things God had given were to be used for a great big party to celebrate God’s goodness! Yes. those things were holy to the Lord. They belonged to the Lord. But this full ten per cent of all they produced was to be used, not for day to day living expenses but for wonderful extravagant celebrations to honour God. The people gave back to God. But then God gave back to his chosen people once again allowing them to enjoy that produce which was holy to Him in celebration of his name! The tithe was set aside specifically to be eaten in the presence of the Lord with rejoicing.
God called on the Israelites to give back to him one tenth of everything. One tenth gross, before taxes, before national insurance, before pension contributions. One tenth of everything. So our giving to God should come before all our other expenses. Everything we have comes from God. If God says that 10% belongs to Him, or any other proportion belongs to him, for Him to say what it should be used for, then that is fine by me. Because everything we receive comes from God, and everything belongs to him.
For us one problem we may have with giving is that our work does not produce goods, fruit or grain or oil or livestock which we can measure one tenth of. Our work produces money. And as soon as that money goes into our bank accounts we inevitably think of it all as “our” money. Not like offerings in churches I have visited in Uganda or in Zambia, where people bring up to the altars their cassava or their maize and their bananas and their live chickens!
I think the idea of giving back to God even before you realise the money is in your bank account, even before you think of that money as “yours” is a good idea. Giving directly and regularly to the church by Standing Order, with Gift Aid claimed back of course. Or giving directly and regularly to Charities Aid Foundation or Stewardship Services and deciding later which Christian work the gifts should go to, in order to remind us that everything we have comes from God.
Our first and our best for God. Giving straight away. Then the second principle we find in the Old Testament about giving is that
We give in proportion to what we have received,
I am not saying that that proportion is necessarily one tenth, or 10%. Sometimes more is appropriate, sometimes less. But our regular giving should be in some way in proportion. Somebody once put it this way. “May we all increase our offerings to be in proportion to our incomes, lest the Lord reduce our incomes to be in proportion to our offerings”!
On top of that regular giving of 10%, the Israelites were also called to bring freewill offerings, again, in proportion to how the Lord has blessed us.
Deuteronomy 16:10, 16-17 10 Then celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the LORD your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the LORD your God has given you. ….
16 Three times a year all your men must appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles. No man should appear before the LORD empty-handed: 17 Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the LORD your God has blessed you.
So as well as one tenth of all their produce to God, Israelites were supposed to bring Freewill Offerings to God three times a year, at each of the major festivals. And those offerings again were to be a gift in proportion to the way your God has blessed you. No fixed proportion this time, but still “in proportion.” They were freewill gifts – completely voluntary – but at the same time “no man should appear before the Lord empty handed!” And then there was a third principle for giving in the Old Testament.
Giving one third to the poor and needy
In the first and second year, the tithes were to be used for lavish celebrations of God’s goodness. In the third year the tithes were used for a very different purpose.
Deuteronomy 14 27 And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns, for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own. 28 At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, 29 so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
So every third year the tithe was not used for the family’s celebrations but for the needs of two specific groups of people. Firstly the levites, the tribe of Levi, the priests. They had no land of their own. The Bible specifically says “the Lord Himself is their inheritance.” They lived off the tithes of the ordinary people.
Then there were others who had no land of their own because of their circumstances, the strangers and the refugees, the fatherless and the widows. The tithes in the third year were set aside also to provide food and drink for the poor and needy.
Deut 26: 12 When you have finished setting aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied. 13 Then say to the LORD your God: “I have removed from my house the sacred portion and have given it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow, according to all you commanded.
So everybody who was blessed with land and grain and fruit and oil and livestock set aside one tenth of all they produced. And every third year that was given to take care of the poor and needy. Caring for the widows and orphans and refugees was part of the duty of the whole community. A “welfare state” was build into the system from the start.
The principle of one third. The general idea that a proportion of our giving should be directed to the Levites and the aliens and the fatherless and the widows. In other words, not necessarily exactly one third, but a substantial proportion of every Christian’s giving should be directed to the two causes of funding Christian workers (the Levites) and to caring for the poor and needy. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says, “When you give alms”. Not “If you give alms”. Caring for the poor and needy is our Christian duty, not only by practical love but also in generous giving.
This is what the Old Testament teaches us about giving. We should give our first and our best to God – our giving to God should come before everything else. We should give in proportion to all we have received. We should give to support the poor and needy. And back to where we started. The offering we read about in Exodus 35 was specifically for the Tabernacle. So it’s alright to have a special freewill offering for a church building.
Freely, freely you have received. Freely, freely give!
Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give. You shouldn’t give if you don’t want to. You shouldn’t give because you are forced to. God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:7)

What an amazing moment it must have been, when the Almighty God revealed himself in all his majesty and glory and splendour to his faithful servant Moses on Mount Sinai on the occasion we thought about last week.

Exodus 33 19 And the LORD said, ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But,’ he said, ‘you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.’
21 Then the LORD said, ‘There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.’

No human could survive seeing the face of God, but God revealed himself to Moses.

Exodus 34 5 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’

As we saw last week, God revealed his divine name to Moses, the LORD, Yahweh, I AM WHO I AM, the eternal unchanging God. God revealed his love, his patience, his mercy and his forgiveness. At the same time God also revealed his justice and his holiness, the God who cannot leave sin unpunished. Yet in his mercy God makes a way for rebellious sinners to be forgiven. Love and holiness – bow down and worship, for this is your God.

Moses only saw God’s back and still he was a changed man. As we have just read this morning.

29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD. 30 When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him.

God’s glory had shone so brightly that the face of Moses was shining with the glory even after he came down the mountain. That radiance from Moses’s face was so bright that everybody, even his brother Aaron was afraid.

Moses saw God’s back. As Christians we can boldly claim that we have seen God’s face, in the face of Jesus who said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father”. We have seen the face of God in the face of his Son Jesus Christ, who is the visible image of the invisible God.

So where is all the glory gone? Why aren’t our faces radiant and shining as the face of Moses was when he had seen God? Surely we should be glowing even more than Moses with the glory and the love and the holiness of God? At least, that’s what the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians in our second reading this morning.

2 Corinthians 3 7 Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? 9 If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! 10 For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. 11 And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!

The glory which Moses was reflected accompanied the giving of the Law, God’s covenant with his chosen people Israel. But we as Christians share in the glory of God’s grace which brings forgiveness and righteousness. And the glory we share, Paul says is surpassing, excelling, tremendously greater. The former glory is completely eclipsed by the glory we have encountered. We share in the victory of the Cross. We share in the resurrection life of Christ. We have God the Holy Spirit living inside us!

So where has all the glory gone? Why isn’t it shining on our face as we reflect God at work in our lives? We do receive the occasion glimpse of glory – but far too rarely, and not nearly as brightly as we should expect.

Of course we wouldn’t expect to see God’s glory if a person has never truly met with God, has never been born again. And we can understand why we wouldn’t see glory in the life of a person who met Jesus a long time ago but has lost touch with him. But there is another possible reason why we don’t see much glory shining on the faces of Christians in the church today. It is the same reason why the glory of God wasn’t seen among the Israelites.

Exodus 34 33 When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. 34 But whenever he entered the LORD’s presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, 35 they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the LORD.

The Israelites did not see the glory of the Lord because Moses put a veil over his face. A mask. But why did he do that? “Well that’s obvious,” you will tell me. “Moses wore a mask to stop the Israelites being scared.” It was all for their benefit.

Maybe you would be right. Maybe Moses was only thinking about the Israelites. And maybe some Christians keep their faith under wraps, and don’t let the glory of God shine through them, because they are worried they might scare other people. Maybe.

But here we can turn to the New Testament to give us insight into the Old Testament. Did you notice what Paul said to the Corinthians about the veil Moses wore?

2 Corinthians 3 13 We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away.

The Good News Translation makes it clearer. We are not like Moses, who had to put a veil over his face so that the people of Israel would not see the brightness fade and disappear.

Can you see the point yet? A translation called the International Children’s Bible puts the verse very well.

“We are not like Moses. He put a covering over his face so that the people of Israel would not see it. The glory was disappearing, and Moses did not want them to see it end.”

I think Paul is telling us that Moses was not worried about the Israelites being afraid. Moses was worried that the glory of God shining on his face was vanishing away and Moses didn’t want the people to see that it was fading. He didn’t want them to see that he wasn’t reflecting God’s glory any more and there was only little old Moses left. So Moses put on a veil. He put on a mask, so that people would think that the glory was still there. That meant that the people didn’t notice the glory of God fading away, but it also meant they couldn’t see the glory while it was shining either.

And maybe that is sometimes the reason we don’t see as much of the glory of the Lord in our lives and in our churches today. Because people wear masks. God blesses us, we are filled with love and joy and God’s glory shines through. But then we put on a mask so that people can’t see when the glory fades. The blessing fades, and we face problems and go through hard times and God seems far away. So we put on a mask of “everything’s OK, nothing’s changed” and we keep up appearances. We hide our true selves behind a mask pretending that the glory is still there as much as ever.

Perhaps we are afraid that other Christians won’t understand. We think they will look down on us and even reject us when they find out what we are really like deep inside. They will discover, as Michael Caine’s character in Educating Rita said, that “there is less to me than meets the eye.” So we put on our masks, so other people can’t see “the real me”. We don’t talk about our struggles or discouragements. When people ask how we are doing we say, “Fine, just fine.”

But the masks we wear to hide our real selves do four things.

First of all they stop us from seeing God properly. We will only meet with God when we come to him as we really are – even Moses took his veil off when he went to meet with God. It was those kinds of masks of respectability which stopped the Pharisees from recognising the glory of God in the face of Jesus.

Secondly, masks get in the way of our relationships with other people. If we want to be certain that God loves us and accepts us as we really are, we need to be real with other people – no masks. That way we can accept each other and love each other openly and honestly.

Thirdly, masks stop God from changing us to be like Jesus. God wants to give us a new life to live. He isn’t interested in cosmetic surgery but heart surgery, transforming us to be like Jesus. God can’t change us if all we really care about is keeping up appearances, keeping our mask looking good.

And finally, our masks will stop other people from seeing God in us. If we are only pretending to be like Christ when inside we aren’t, if it’s all for show, then we won’t be able to reflect God’s glory and people won’t see Jesus in us.

2 Corinthians 3 16 But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

It is only when we take our masks off that God can transform us into the image of Jesus with ever-increasing glory.

JESUS TAKE ME AS I AM,
I can come no other way.
Take me deeper into You,
Make my flesh life melt away.
Make me like a precious stone,
Crystal clear and finely honed,
Life of Jesus shining through,
Giving glory back to You.

Moses wore a veil so that the Israelites couldn’t see that the glory of God had faded away. We need to take off our masks if we want to see the glory of God in our church!

Good News Bible All of us, then, reflect the glory of the Lord with uncovered faces; and that same glory, coming from the Lord, who is the Spirit, transforms us into his likeness in an ever greater degree of glory.

When we try to describe a person sometimes we will focus on the things they do. At other times we will talk about what they look like and sound like, or on the kind of person they are. We may describe their actions, or alternatively we may focus on their attributes and their character.
Most of what we know about God has been revealed to us through his actions. We praise and thank God for all he has done for us and all he continues to do for us through his Son Jesus – for forgiveness and new life, for the happy certainty of heaven, for making us his beloved children and for filling us with the Holy Spirit. We can never praise God enough for all the blessings he has poured into our lives. But this morning we are going to look at God’s character, his person, his attributes. What is God like in himself. A beautiful person doesn’t have to do anything to be beautiful – they are just beautiful and we can appreciate that beauty just as we would in a wonderful painting or an inspiring piece of music. This morning I invite us all to appreciate God for who he is, for the beauty and the glory of his divine character. These things are revealed to us by God himself in what he says as well as through the things he does. And we can learn what God is like in himself from this unique encounter Moses experienced on Mount Sinai, when God proclaimed his name to Moses and said here I am, this is me.
4 So Moses chiselled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the LORD had commanded him; and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands. 5 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.
God proclaimed his name to Moses. In the Bible, names are much more than merely labels to distinguish one person from another. Names reveal the character of the person. So the name Jesus means God saves. David means beloved. Moses meant drawn forth, or taken out of the water. Israel means striving with God, or he rules with God, from the time Jacob wrestled with God at Peniel. The name of God is Yahweh, which in our Bibles is rendered as the LORD, capital L capital O capital R capital D, the LORD>
5 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD.
When God proclaimed his name this was not just giving Moses a label to refer to God by or to address God with. God’s name reveals his character, his attributes. And the name God revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai was of course the same name he had revealed to Moses at the Burning Bush, back in Exodus 3 when he called Moses to become the saviour of Israel. There Moses had seen a bush which was on fire but was not burning up.
Exodus 3 4 When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’
And Moses said, ‘Here I am.’
5 ‘Do not come any closer,’ God said. ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’ 6 Then he said, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
So the God who revealed himself to Moses was the same God who had made all the wonderful covenant promises to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the ancestors of all the Israelites. And then God had revealed his name to Moses there.
Exodus 3 13 Moses said to God, ‘Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you,” and they ask me, “What is his name?” Then what shall I tell them?’
14 God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I AM has sent me to you.” ’
15 God also said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites, “The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.”
‘This is my name for ever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.
The name God revealed himself by to Moses at the burning bush was I AM. In our English translations this is usually written as the LORD with L, O, R and D all in capital letters. It is most usually pronounced Yahweh and appears almost 7000 times in the Old Testament. God’s name is Yahweh, “I AM WHO I AM”. The Old Testament can be difficult to understand because we only have the consonants, YHWH, and not the vowels. And Hebrew can be confusing because they didn’t always distinguish between past, present and future tenses. So I AM WHO I AM could equally be translated I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE, or again I WILL BE WHO I WAS.
So the LORD, Yahweh, is the great I AM. God reveals through that name that in himself God is timeless and eternal and unchanging. This name is repeated to Moses on Mount Sinai.
5 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD.
And then God continues to reveal more of his character to Moses. First and foremost God is revealed as
THE GOD OF LOVE
6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.
God acts in loving ways because God is in himself love. That is at the heart of God’s divine character. We know this to be true from God’s revelation of himself in his son the Lord Jesus Christ and from the whole of the New Testament. But God had already revealed his loving kindness and his faithfulness to the Israelites throughout the Old Testament. Here we see,
God’s patience
‘The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,
We see God’s patience best in the things he does NOT do – in all the times when he could act in righteous judgment but instead shows mercy. In all the times when God is slow to anger. God’s patience comes from
God’s faithfulness
God is abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.
God is completely reliable – he would never let anyone down. God always keeps all his promises.
God’s mercy
7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.
Here is the quality of God’s character without which none of us could ever come into his presence, God’s mercy and forgiveness which is greater than all our human wickedness, rebellion and sin. God had spoken of this mercy just beforehand, as we can read in
Exodus 33 19 And the LORD said, ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
So God was showing his mercy even as he revealed his glory to Moses. This lovingkindness is declared in so many places in the Bible, but perhaps especially in a Psalm we often read at funerals.
Psalm 103 7 He made known his ways to Moses,
his deeds to the people of Israel:
8 the LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
9 He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbour his anger for ever;
10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
13 As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;

You can keep travelling east and you never reach east. Keep travelling west and you never reach west. This is how far God removes our sins from us. That is how great God’s mercy and forgiveness is.
12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

So God revealed himself to Moses as the God who is love, patience, faithfulness and mercy. God loves us with the same love as he loved the Israelites – because God is love!
But at the same time God is
THE GOD OF JUSTICE
Exodus 34 Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’

God’s love and God’s mercy are both essential elements of his divine character. They are like two sides of the same coin. God is righteous and holy. As well as showing his mercy to Moses in this encounter with God, God had also revealed his holiness.
We read just before in Exodus 33 20 But,’ he said, ‘you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.’
21 Then the LORD said, ‘There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.’

God’s character is holiness and righteousness and purity and goodness. The God of the Old Testament is the holy God, who was unapproachable. Sometimes I think some Christians in our generation have forgotten this truth. God is unapproachable. Before Moses had gone up Mount Sinai to receive the ten commandments, this is what God had said to Moses.
Exodus 19 10 And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Make them wash their clothes 11 and be ready by the third day, because on that day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. 12 Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, “Be careful that you do not approach the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain is to be put to death.
18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. 19 As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.

This is the God of the Bible – holy and unapproachable. And the New Testament has the same understanding of God
1 Timothy 6:15 … God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.
This God who is unapproachable and holiness and justice is also the God who brings judgment.
Exodus 34:7 … Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’

God is too pure and holy to allow evil to continue to exist. His standard is perfection and that demands that disobedience and rebellion must be punished. That is not vindictiveness – it is simply justice. When we see violence or crime or injustice, we cry out for justice, so that the punishment will fit the crime. How much more does the almighty righteous God look for justice and righteousness. And the holy God is also
The Jealous God
At the end of our our reading we come to this.
Exodus 34 14 Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

God only wants the best for his chosen people. He is jealous, and will tolerate no rivals. This is made very clear in the second of the ten commandments
Exodus 20 4 ‘You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
If we think God doesn’t care and will just overlook when we compromise with sin, we are greatly mistaken. We should not worship or put our trust in anything else. God is not prepared to be given second place in our lives. God is the jealous God.
No wonder Moses responded to this revelation of God’s glory by
WORSHIPPING GOD
8 Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshipped. 9 ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘if I have found favour in your eyes, then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance.’
Moses bowed down and worshipped. He was filled with the fear of the Lord – awe and respect for the God who revealed his glory in this way – the God who is both LOVE and JUSTICE. That led to confession, acknowledging the sinfulness of the Israelites – we are a stiff-necked stubborn people. And then a plea for mercy, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance.’ We should worship God just as much as Moses did. A true encounter with God will always leave us humbled and aware of our own sinfulness and inadequacy and unworthiness and bring us to confession and repentance.
Moses was rightfully afraid that God might still reject the people who had made the golden calf and worshipped and put their trust in it.

GOD RENEWS HIS PROMISES

Exodus 34 10 Then the LORD said: ‘I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you. 11 Obey what I command you today. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.
In this glorious encounter with Moses, God renewed his covenant promises to the Israelites. He guaranteed that they would be victorious as they would take possession of the Promised Land.
Just before he revealed his glory, God had also promised that his presence would remain with his chosen people.
Exodus 13 14 The LORD replied, ‘My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’
15 Then Moses said to him, ‘If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?’
17 And the LORD said to Moses, ‘I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.’

So God revealing his character to Moses on Mount Sinai was confirmation of that promise that God’s presence would go with the Israelites. God always keeps his promises. As the missionary David Livingstone said, “Here is the promise of a gentleman who would never break His word” All God’s promises would rest on his unchanging character, I AM WHO I AM. Nothing in the whole universe is more reliable and trustworthy than the character of God!
Only God within himself knows the riches and depths of his timeless glory – the mystery of the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But here God reveals his glory to Moses. The Lord, Yahweh, the eternal and unchanging I AM. The God who is Love, patience, faithfulness and mercy. The God who is in himself Justice and righteousness and holiness. The God who will always keep his promises.
Bow down and worship – for this is your God!

It was the greatest day in the history of Israel. On Mount Sinai, God Almighty was making his covenant with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, fulfilling all the promises he had made to their ancestors. God had kept them safe from the plague of the death of the firstborn through the sacrifices of the Passover Lambs. God had rescued them from the pursuing Egyptian armies and chariots and horsemen by the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea. The Israelites had crossed on dry land and then the waters had returned to overwhelm all the armies of Egypt. The Israelites were on their way to the Promised Land. God made the wonderful promises we thought about last week. God said,
Exodus 19 4 “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
God’s treasured possession – a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. If the people will obey God fully and keep the covenant.
8 The people all responded together, ‘We will do everything the LORD has said.’

It was the greatest day in their history when the nation of Israel came into existence as God’s chosen people. But very soon thousands of Israelites would be dead under God’s judgment. Even worse, the tablets of stone on which God himself had written the Law of Moses would be smashed and lost forever.
And all because of a calf made of gold.
We aren’t really aware of idols so much in this country although in the Far East and the developing world they are still very much a part of culture and everyday life for very many people. But whatever people love more than they love God becomes an idol for them and whatever people put their trust in to guide and lead and sustain them becomes a false god for them. So this story of the golden calf is a powerful warning as we look at the sins the Israelites fell into and are brought face to face with the reality of God’s judgment.
The Israelites’ Sins
First we are struck by their IMPATIENCE
Exodus 32:1 When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered round Aaron and said, ‘Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’
They had just witnessed first hand God’s amazing and miraculous acts of salvation. But the Israelites weren’t prepared to wait just a few more hours for God to act again, to speak and reveal himself.
They FAILED TO TRUST GOD FOR THE FUTURE. They demanded that Aaron make for them their own gods who would lead them and protect them and give them victory. In our world there are so many false gods competing for our allegiance. Money and possessions. Science and medicine and technology and computers. Entertainment and celebrity. Quite apart from all the deceptions of the occult and the New Age. So many false gods inviting us to rely on them and put our trust in them, offering us happiness or success or protection Promising so much which they cannot deliver, even in this life and certainly not for eternity. The people demanded, and so Aaron made them an idol.
2 Aaron answered them, ‘Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.’ 3 So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’

It is the doom of men that they forget what God has done for them and create for themselves false gods. Of course Aaron and the people were already breaking the second of the great Ten Commandments, just days after God had revealed them to Moses.

Exodus 20 4 ‘You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

The problem with idols is that people give glory to them instead of to God who is the only true Saviour, and put their trust in them instead of in God who is creator and sustainer of all things.

Then they said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’

They were DENYING GOD HIS GLORY. God is understandably angry when human beings give credit and praise to false gods. When people fail to recognize God at work, or worse try to take the credit themselves for what God has done. Perhaps the greatest false god has always actually been “me, myself and I.”

So the Israelites fell into the sin of worshipping this idol they had created.

5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, ‘Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD.’ 6 So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterwards they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.

God told Moses what was happening. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

Here the Israelites broke the First Commandment.

Exodus 20:1 …. 2 ‘I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 3 ‘You shall have no other gods before me.
Today even in this country so many people do worship at the altars of the false gods of money and science and entertainment celebrity. Certainly there is no shortage of irreverent indulgence and revelry today. In fact the Israelites were falling into all kinds of other sins as well, as we read further on

25 Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughing-stock to their enemies.

When people’s lives aren’t centred on God they can so easily go out of control. False gods always lead people into other sins. Materialism leads to greed. Science and technology leads to pride. No wonder God was on the point of destroying the nation he had only just saved and created.

9 ‘I have seen these people,’ the LORD said to Moses, ‘and they are a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.’

And God could easily have acted in judgment on Israel that day. Their greatest day could have been their last. If it had not been for Moses courageously interceding for the people. God was offering to make Moses himself into a great nation. But Moses says, “No thanks”.
As we see the tide of sin all around us threatening to sweep the world away, we can learn from the example of

MOSES’ INTERCESSIONS

Moses makes three appeals to God. The first refers to GOD’S MIGHTY ACTS OF SALVATION

11 But Moses sought the favour of the LORD his God. ‘LORD,’ he said, ‘why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?

God had demonstrated both his love and his power when he rescued the Israelites from slavery and from the Egyptian armies. Moses reminds God that Israel are now his chosen people.

Then Moses’ second appeal is on the basis of GOD’S GLORY. What will the other nations say if God destroys the Israelites?

12 Why should the Egyptians say, “It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth”? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.

God should spare Israel for the sake of his great name and his reputation across the earth. God’s character is faithfulness and loving kindness and mercy as well as righteousness and justice. And then Moses reminds God of the covenant promises he had made to the ancestors of the Israelites, the promises he had just renewed to his chosen people.

13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: “I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance for ever.” ’

So God listened to Moses’ intercessions. As we pray for our troubled world, we can remind God of his mighty acts of salvation in the death and resurrection of Jesus. We can appeal to God’s character and we can claim the wonderful promises God has made.
14 Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.

But the Israelites would still face consequences for making and worshipping the golden calf.

15 Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. 16 The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.

Moses himself saw the depths of sin the people had fallen into so quickly.

19 When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain.
The stone tablets of the covenant were smashed and lost forever! And now we need to take a moment to reflect on what this story tells us about
GOD’S JUDGMENT ON SIN
The God of the Bible is the God of righteousness and justice. We see in verses 9 and 10 how angry God became at the sins of idol worship. So angry that he was on the point of wiping out the whole of the nation even though they were his chosen people. We must make sure that we never allow false gods to tempt us away from worshipping God and trusting in God. Then there is powerful symbolism in what Moses did next.
20 And he took the calf the people had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.
The people were made to actually drink the dust from the golden calf, to remind them of their guilt.
We haven’t time to talk about the fact that it was Moses’s brother Aaron who had made the golden calf. That must have broken Moses’ heart. But we can’t overlook the other punishments which God brought on to the idolatrous Israelites.
Some faced death by the sword

25 Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughing-stock to their enemies. 26 So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, ‘Whoever is for the LORD, come to me.’ And all the Levites rallied to him.
27 Then he said to them, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: “Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbour.” ’ 28 The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died.

This may seem excessively brutal. But the story reminds us of the seriousness of sin. Moses goes back to intercede for the people again, and even offers to take their punishment on himself. But God has decided that the individuals who had committed idolatry should face a plague. More than that, their names would be removed from the Book of Life.

33 The LORD replied to Moses, ‘Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. 34 Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you. However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.’
35 And the LORD struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.

I don’t believe that there are any plagues in the world today which are acts of God’s judgment on humanity. But I do believe that when the day of God’s judgment does come, it will be more terrible for those who have rejected God than any battle or any plague could possibly be.
So this story shows us the sins of the Israelites and God’s punishments for those sins. A catalogue of bad examples to avoid. We need to put our trust in God alone. We need to stand against the temptations of today’s false gods of Money and Science and Technology and Entertainment and Celebrity. Without the intercession of Moses, the whole nation would have been obliterated just days after it had come into existence. Moses gives us a good example to follow and there was just one other good example in this chapter.
26 So (Moses) stood at the entrance to the camp and said, ‘Whoever is for the LORD, come to me.’ And all the Levites rallied to him.
The Levites showed that they were willing to stand up for God, to be set apart for God’s service even in the unpleasant task he commanded them. The Levites showed absolute obedience and commitment. ‘Whoever is for the LORD, come to me.’ Who is on the Lord’s side? Are we prepared to stand up and be counted and to serve God as Moses and the Levites did?