I serve a risen Savior, He's in the world today.
I know that He is living whatever man may say.
I see His hand of mercy, I hear His voice of cheer.
And just the time I need Him, He's always near.
He walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way
He lives he lives
So
bulletins. Welcome to Springcrest Baptist Church. Today is September 14th and right there we have
our service time Sunday morning 10 30 a.m. Sunday evening 4 30 p.m. and then Wednesday service 5 30
p.m. and then we have our soul winning time at 2 p.m. I'm glad you did it Lurie but yeah if you
guys want to we have the full kitchen and everything works something breaks down let me know but that
Just I know it can get expensive with inflation to just continue buying food every weekend
So you're more than welcome to use anything. Just let me know if you need anything
And then we have the memory chapters Philippians 1
This week's verse is Philippians 1 5. It says for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now
Of course, just a couple reminders. We are a family integrated church all children are welcome
If they need to go out because they're just a little bit too difficult. We have the mother baby room in the back
It's for mothers and babies. So I think that should be self-explanatory
We have all the birthdays that came up this month. If there's any birthdays. I'm missing. Please let me know
And then right now I know it's blank there
I'm just updating some of the things but we will have the activities, but I do want to plan something for October 31st
Friday
So probably like we did last year a little potluck where everybody just brings a little side dish in a dessert
And we can start I think last year we did about seven, right?
So we can do about seven to ten or seven to eleven. I think it's what we did. We'll play games and
hang out and do all kinds of cool stuff. The weather is nicer than last year. It was hotter last
year, so maybe we can even, maybe I can talk to Brother Heath. I have, we have more of these lights,
but we could do some fun activities outside before the sun, before it gets too, too dark. Well,
no, it'll be dark by then. The weather will have changed. So, and then I'll make sure to update
all the prayer requests. Is there any prayer requests that I need to update?
Know also, there's some soul winning. Is there any numbers that need to update? You got one
You guys got one did you guys get any back there?
Okay, so three so plus three awesome
And then the only other thing is brother Jared
Would you mind if I just call the odd and how do you read the Bible, the chapter?
Yeah, here, let me get it's going to be Exodus. Let me see. What's the hardest chapter we can
have read? I'm just kidding. You're going to read first Chronicles one, just kidding.
Exodus 32. But I have it up here, the nice Bible, just so you can look at it. It's easy.
I mean, I hope so. It's easy. I think you got it. I pick on brother Jared because you know, he's young and he's coming up
And that's the way that I was brought up. So that's a good sign. If I don't pick on you
Then that's a bad sign and then exit. I mean, sorry turn your handles over to 53 great. Is that faithfulness?
Great is that faithfulness?
I want to say thank you for kind of holding the port down with the soul winning and things like that as I've been
Getting better and I did forget to mention one more thing. We already had this trip planned regardless of the
So that's not sorry honey. I'm glad I remember
We're we have a family gathering this week, but regardless I was gonna have someone fill in probably in house
But with all the things steadfast has been really supportive and by the way, I'm really grateful to them
Grateful to Pastor Shelley and and just everybody who's been able to kind of chime in and brother Marcel had offered to come preach for us
And so he's gonna be here this next Sunday. He'll be preaching both services
So not only you know encourage them, but try to get everybody to show up. He's a really good guy
I've heard a little bit of his preaching he preaches really well you know
Pastor Shelley does a good job training those guys so you're not gonna it's not
gonna be bad preaching I think you guys will enjoy it but make him feel welcome
make him feel at home I don't know if he's coming with his whole family if he
is they'll fill up the place he's got I think he's got like six or seven kids
right something like that so that's a guy who loves his wife's kid we all love
our wives everybody has their number of kids great as I faithful number 53 great
You
we have any tides or not, I think it's the same group.
So we'll just leave it like that.
So 402, redeem how I love to proclaim it.
Exodus 32, take your brother Jared to read the chapter.
If you'll just leave us in a word of prayer afterward.
Thank you.
Exodus chapter 32, the Bible reads Exodus chapter 32.
And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together onto Aaron and set onto him up.
Make us gods which shall go before us for us for this Moses the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt
We want not what is become of him and Aaron said on to them
Break off the golden earrings which are in the heirs of your wives and of your sons and of your daughters and bring them
On to me and all the people break off the golden earrings which are in their heirs and brought them on to Aaron
And he received them at their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool after he had made it a molten calf.
And they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made proclamation and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.
And they rose up early on the morrow and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down, for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the
land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way,
which I commanded them. They have made a molten calf, and have worshiped it,
and have sacrificed their unto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up
out of the land of Egypt. And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and behold,
Now, therefore, let me alone that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume
them, and I will make of thee a great nation."
And Moses besought the Lord his God and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy
people which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with
a mighty hand?
Wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say, for mischief did he bring them out, to slay
Turn from thy fierce wrath and repent of this evil against thy people.
Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants to whom thou swarest by thine own self and set us on to them.
I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it forever."
And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
And Moses turned and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in
his hand.
The tables were written on both their sides, on the one side and on the other were they
written.
And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God graven upon
the tables.
And when Joshua heard the noise of the people, as they shouted, he said unto Moses, there
And he said, it is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome, but the noise of them that sing, do I hear.
And it came to pass as soon as he came nigh onto the camp that he saw the calf in the dancing, and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands and break them beneath the mount.
And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to
powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.
And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee that thou hast brought so great
a sin upon them?
And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my Lord wax hot, thou knowest to people that they
For they said unto me, Make us gods which shall go before us, for us for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we want not what is become of him.
And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any goal, let them break it off.
So they gave it me that I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.
And when Moses saw that the people were naked, for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies.
Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said,
Who is on the Lord's side?
Let him come unto me.
And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves
together unto him.
And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
Put every man his sword by his side,
and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp,
and slay every man his brother,
and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.
And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses,
and there fell of the people that day about 3,000 men.
For Moses had said, Consecrate yourselves today to the Lord, even every man upon his
son and upon his brother, that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day.
And it came to pass on the morrow that Moses said unto the people, ye have sinned a great
sin, and now I will go up unto the Lord, per adventure I shall make an atonement for your
sin.
Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.
Yet now, if thou will forgive their sin, and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book
which thou hast written.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of
my book."
Therefore now go, lead the people onto the place of which I have spoken unto thee.
Behold, my angel shall go before thee.
Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.
And the Lord plague the people because they made the calf which Aaron made."
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for allowing us to have this time to gather with you, Lord.
Thank you for Exodus 32, Lord, and for this chance to open your word.
I pray that you would fill past your ways with the Holy Spirit Lord and that you would
give us ears to hear and that our hearts would be open and that you would preach boldly
and we would be able to make changes applicable to our lives and do it for you.
We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
Amen to that.
Thank you brother Derek.
You're there at Exodus 32 and I normally have, well actually I have not done this in
Sunday evenings, my goal with it is to really do like an overview, not go verse by verse.
But the more I kept reading this, the more I was like, it's fine if we come back to it
later verse by verse.
This is just one of those good chapters that there's so much to unpack, like even today
I probably won't do it justice.
I wanted to just spend some time on it.
So we're going to go through every verse in this chapter today,
and we're going to unpack some of the good lessons
and the bad lessons that we can apply in our lives here today.
And the title of my sermon this evening
or this afternoon is the Golden Calf,
a warning to God's people.
And this is, you know, the Bible tells us in the New Testament
that the Old Testament really is for us, right?
The people living this didn't have the Old Testament, you know, it's not like Moses had Exodus 32 or Aaron.
They're really, they're living it out, you know, they're writing it out. Moses wrote it later after he had lived all this, you know, and all that.
But this one's really just a telling story or event, and it's really telling off the times that we're living in, right?
to not get distracted so easily because there's a couple of things that happen here.
So we're just going to go through all, I only have five points for you today,
but we're going to go through each one of these and we'll go through the supporting versus.
But the first thing we see is point number one is what's found there in Exodus 32,
one through three. And speaking of just all the events carrying a little bit over from this morning,
place that we are as a country and as a world is really because of idolatry, because people's
hearts are waxing colder and colder, number one, but number two, they're more selfish. What's really
the root of idolatry is the fact that you are now being selfish, you're being impatient, you're
Just going there in verse one, it says,
and when the people saw that Moses delayed
to come down out of the mount,
the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron
and said unto him, up, make us gods,
which shall go before us.
For as this Moses, the man that brought us up
out of the land of Egypt, we what not,
what has become of him?
And Aaron said unto them, break off the golden earrings
which are in the years of your wives,
of your sons, and your daughters,
and bring them unto me.
And all the people break off the golden earrings
in that interesting, we're just talking about this before we started.
I'm kind of, I don't know if I did it just as this morning and I might not even do it just as
afternoon, but I keep thinking about why violence has ramped up in the LGBTQ whatever
alphabet soup community. And, you know, when we were growing up and they started coming out of the
It was a cultural war, right?
It was just like, they were trying to be cool,
but I mentioned it because they're all wearing earrings.
Remember, if you wore an earring on the left side,
or was, I don't remember anymore,
but if you left this boy's right,
if you wore an earring on the left,
you weren't a queer, if you wore on the right,
you were queer, wearing earrings was cool.
I mean, people wear earrings now,
like men wear earrings normally, like that's a thing.
But that started like in the 90s for us, right?
But this is not a new thing.
But then now it's a moral thing right now they want to impose their lifestyle as
Truth on your life and what happens when you have a strong ideology you're willing to go to war for it
It's a hill you're willing to die on and that's the problem
It's because they get away from things if you look there in verse one the very first thing we see is it says
And when the people saw that Moses delayed remember this is only 40 days. We talked about that last week
It hasn't been it's only a month and a half
Which is not that long with time. I'm almost to 40 days since my injury where I've been in and out
So, you know, this is like
Of the reality of the fact that how quickly do especially as an adult who has a life
You know, you guys that have children and jobs and stuff 40 days is nothing
It's like you make a plan today 40 days is around the corner, right for you young couples
You'll figure that out real quick. You make a plan today
40 days is like in 48 hours like you just wake up when you're like what?
40 days when I mean I remember I was at this year last year where I was like I was still
waiting for January 1st it's like it just went by so quickly like oh what the heck what happened
right but here's the thing the people saw that Moses delayed to come from the mountain and
the the application here is that sometimes the leadership has to act slower and more patient
when they're dealing with an issue but the people want an answer now and I'm not just talking in
church I'm talking even just in the nation look how impatient everybody is about everything
Right if Trump doesn't forget even invited if they don't if he doesn't bark or jump the way that they want him to
Immediately then all of a sudden he's the worst person in the world
Right. It doesn't matter who's in the position of leadership when the reality is, you know
When you're in a position of leadership, you got different things that you've got to look at and view and review
Even if your homes sometimes, you know as a man
You're trying to make a decision and everybody around. He's impatient. Who's that I have three kids who all speak?
You know I and the reason I say that is I'm gonna make a point here
And then I have a wife who is very patient with me sometimes
I'm trying to make a decision based on the information. She's giving me
even a small thing like deciding where to go to dinner and
Guess who's who's chiming in?
When are we going to dinner? Where are we gonna go? What time are we leaving? Where we shut up?
Like I'm trying to make a decision here trying to figure out you know money and food and like is cuz you know as a man
I'm thinking okay. My wife likes this my daughter's not gonna eat that the other ones
They're not gonna bark at this this one doesn't do that. You know I'm saying who knows you know your kids, right?
And so you know like oh if I go to this restaurant
I'm gonna please this one. This was gonna be a pain. So now it's okay. I have to impose some discipline
Do I really want to go through that battle right now?
Right and or whatever and we can do that with anything right and sometimes in church like even myself
I'm trying to make a decision and everybody has an opinion and I'm not picking on you. I'm just saying that's the nature of
the people who are following someone is that sometimes they're a little impatient.
There's nothing wrong with being impatient. The wrong part is being impatient to the point
where you cause an action to somebody else. And this is what we see here, it says,
and when the people saw Moses delayed to come down out of the out of the mount,
the people gathered themselves together. There was a mob that gathered themselves
together unto Aaron and sent unto him up. Make us and pay attention here because this is a very
interesting way that it's worded. We're going to see this theme throughout the entire chapter says,
We should go before us.
And what really dawned on me is I was reading this last night and a few days before as I
was leading up to this, I kept reading this and reading this, I was like, am I reading
this wrong?
Everything is a counterfeit for God, right?
The word anti-Christ doesn't just mean that he's against Christ, but it's also mean in
place of Christ, right?
Everything that we see in the world today, all the false religions are what?
It's a watered-down copycat version of the real thing right notice they said gods, but what did Aaron do?
He only made what one calf
And I kept reading it because I was like maybe I'm reading it wrong because it's God's plural
calf singular
God's plural calf singular. Well, what's the one thing that Aaron knows Aaron knows that there's got the father the son and the
Holy Ghost
Right, the difference is that when you have God Almighty, it's three in one. It's not a pluralistic
Deity
But that's what the world wants you to think, so then that's what they do.
Isn't that funny that the only religion in the world, or the only faith-based religion
that believes in one God that has three persons is Baptist, or Bible-believing Christians.
Everybody else believes that there's one God, but then there's a bunch of many gods, or
many prophets, or half demigods, or whatever, and it's pluralistic in nature.
But they believe that there's one God where all these little gods emanated from or some, you know, and then if I'm getting wrong, sorry, I don't, you know, it's not like I spend every Sunday preaching that versus this, right.
But it says here, they said, get up and make us gods, which should go before us.
And why did they do this for us? This Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we want not what has become of him.
And then what happens is whenever you, the mob mentality pushes an agenda, they, what do they do? They lie.
They know where Moses is. Moses is in the mountain. They all went up with him. It was 70 people, right?
They know what's going on, but the worst part is
the leaders that follow leader sometimes also lack loyalty or break off.
Aaron is also a leader. He's a priest.
It says in Aaron said break off and I want you to pay attention. This is why I brought up the earrings
I love the way that it's where you're here. I just these things just really stood out to me in the last couple days
This is break off the golden earrings which are in the years of your wives make sense, right women wear earrings
But then it says of your sons and of your daughters and bring them up to me notice you didn't say of your husbands
So that means there's a cultural decline the people that are with him that are in his age group
They're not off the beaten path, but they've already gotten lenient on the next generation
You know, it goes back to what I brought up this morning, you know, the challenge with the generation that's going on right now is that all the parents that are my age or older were like so traumatized because they couldn't grow up about how their parents discipline them.
That they're like, why are you going to discipline Johnny the way my parents discipline me? And now we got a bunch of rebellious, selfish, you know, basically violent jerks running around causing all kinds of mayhem.
It's known as it says the wives and the sons and the daughters
Are the ones wearing the earrings and then the people broke off the golden earrings
Which were in the ears and brought them on to Aaron and if we go over go over to act seven
Go over to act seven real quick
Let's go to the book of acts
There are some direct and indirect mentions of
this event in the New Testament that gives us clarity.
But in Acts 7, right there in verse 39,
it says, well, let's read a little bit of verse 7
that says, this Moses in verse 37,
this is that Moses which said unto the children of Israel,
prophet shall the Lord your God shall raise up unto you
of your own brother and like unto me,
him shall you hear, this is he that was in the church
of the wilderness with the angel which spake to him
in the Mount Sinai.
And with our fathers who received the lively oracles to give unto us, to whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt, saying unto Aaron, make us gods to go before us, and there it is again plural.
So it's not like, you know, this is a weird thing in their mind, right?
And they made a calf in those days and offered sacrifice unto the idol and rejoiced in the
works of their own hand.
What does it basically come down to?
It's a works-based salvation.
You know, the problem with the church not staying true to its course is Moses and Levi and Aaron are saved.
But as the new generation is coming up, if he gets off the beaten path, you know what he's doing?
He's teaching a watered-down gospel message, right? He's teaching work, salvation.
He's going back and what is it? He's turning the hearts of the people back to what? Egypt.
And the Bible always represents Egypt is what? Is the world.
I have nothing against these people that are apologetics, personally, it's like I don't
know them, but the challenge with apologetic like Jordan Peterson or a bunch of these idiots,
the Kelty, I forget what his name is, you know, is that they don't, they're not preaching
the Bible, they're preaching what their works.
So they're going to give you their interpretation of the Bible based on their opinion.
not the facts of the Word of God.
You don't have to turn there for the sake of time,
but in Galatians 4-9 the Bible says,
but now, after that you have known God,
or rather are known of God,
how turn ye again to weak and beggarly elements?
Where unto ye desire again to be in bondage?
What is it when you backslide?
Really, backsliding is just going back to sin.
It's submitting yourself to the things
that were condemning you to hell anyways.
Right now we know we're sinners, but there's a difference between knowing that you're a sinner
You're committing sin versus going back to that sin and reveling in it and being
presumptuous about it and saying no, this is this is the path I'm gonna be in I'm not gonna do anything to work on it
I don't care what the consequences are
Right. I mean pastors are so afraid to preach the Word of God that they're willing to live that lifestyle
They're not willing to preach the Word of God. Holy
You know, I mean you got I mentioned it last week briefly, but and I won't mention it too much
But you got like guys that they get up there and they're basically
Subconsciously telling you what they do, you know, what was that guy's name fruit trick or whatever and he's like
Stephen fur trick, right and he's like saying that, you know, he feels like he's high on cocaine like he's a snorty cocaine
I wouldn't, you know, I don't know how to reference that because I've never thought it's okay
You know what I'm saying? Like that's just weird
But out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, right?
He's what in bondage to that sin instead of being
Freed in the word of Christ in Hebrews 3 12 the Bible says take heed brethren
Unless there be any of you of an evil heart of unbelief and departing what from the living God
Right, so the root of idolatry is what?
Departing from God, being impatient, not willing to listen, being disobedient, right?
They're impatient and they're unbelief, they're trusting in the thing.
See, the Bible says to work out our own faith, right?
In other words, it's not just the faith unto salvation that we need to work on.
That's just, that one's easy, because once we believe, we believe.
You're saved past tense like it's done. It's over with but then you got to work on your faith while you're living in this world
Right. Hey Lord
I don't know how I'm gonna pay my bills, but I have faith that you're gonna, you know
Obviously, you've got to put in the work. You've got to go out there and get a job. You got to do these things
Hey, Lord, I don't know how I'm gonna clean up this sin in my life
But I'm gonna just read my Bible and I'm gonna pray and I'm gonna get an accountability partner or whatever it is
These are the things this is the faith that we need to work on or you know for me like one of the things that I see like it to
me it's a
It's exciting, but I also want to take heed lest I fall, right? I'm excited that the church is grown
But honestly, I don't know how it grew. I mean, I did I really don't
Right. That was my walk of faith is like Lord. I'm just gonna keep showing up
And you fill up the pews you fill up the pulpits and we'll see what where it goes from here, right?
You cannot depart from the living God because here's the thing when you backslide, you know who's still around God
He's still a living God. It's not like he's dead because you decided not to think of it. We're not philosophers here
I think therefore he exists. No, he exists whether you think or not
As a matter of fact, we don't sometimes we don't think things through you ever have that conversation with your kids
You're like, what are you thinking?
Oh, you weren't thinking right? That's why you that's why you broke whatever it is that you broke
Well, I didn't know that that was gonna happen
You know or or you go run a relay race and you break your collarbone and you're like what were you thinking?
I wasn't thinking apparently it's like I just keep making fun of myself because the only thing that keeps me going
You know, so just just just make fun with me, right? But here's the thing
the world
Modern Christianity wants to just go back to Egypt
They just want to live in the old sins and the old ways, you know, they're like oh well when I grew up in church
It was too conservative. I hate legalism and I had all the rules and regulations. That's why we're so free
What except that's what that's what the Bible is
Right, I mean we lead law and order these are the same people that will vote for a Trump and Trump says hey
We need law and order. They're like, oh, yeah, we need law and order in the world, but not in church
Wait a minute shouldn't it start in the church first so that it emanates out much better, right?
Because right now what's the problem is that we have lawlessness everywhere
Even in our books it's lawlessness. I mean I don't even want to turn on anything anymore because you know you get the news everywhere now like
Facebook social media the news it's all news right and you just read some horror stories like oh
so-and-so had been abusing so-and-so for so long and
They got out on bail because the laws of that state are really lax on stuff like that
you know or
California's really lax on this type of of crime or you go to Washington and they're really lax on this type of crime
Why? Because people got away from the root of the of the matter instead they turned to the root of what idolatry?
They want to worship
It's not that they wanted other gods. They wanted to worship themselves
But in order to do that they need to project it onto something, right?
That's the that's really what a false God is is your idea of what God should look like
Instead of just accepting what God is
Think about it. Look, Catholics are some weird people, right? They've got some weird
Saints, that's just their idea what God should look like. That's odd. You know, some of these
Which I saw again this week who's seen that picture of that
Saint they're trying to make that little 15 17 year old kid that died. It's freaky. It's just freaky those Catholics
Anyways, let's not get off on a tangent, but let's go there to Exodus 32
And verse four, the second point I have for you is that the root of idolatry leads to what? The sin of idolatry.
Right, the Bible talks about temptation and talks about sin. Look, we can be tempted, but the temptation is not the negative thing.
It's acting on that temptation, right?
Temptation is the beginning, but that's where we start to make the choices, right?
If you put a piece of chocolate in front of me, now the temptation is there.
But the sin is, do I eat the chocolate or not?
And you're saying, are you saying it's a sin to eat chocolate?
Probably, right?
Because most of us, how many of you
are going to eat just one piece of chocolate, right?
You're like, ooh, that's good.
Give me a little piece.
Who's ever done that?
Give me a little piece.
And then you're like, oh, son, come here.
Give me them.
I'll take the rest of it.
You just next thing you hear, you're like, oh,
I shouldn't have eaten all that chocolate, right?
It's the same thing with sin, right?
It's just it starts out one way and ends up another way.
The calf was the idolatry, but the sin was what?
They went against God, right?
And let's go there to Exodus 32.
Israel forsakes God and they just want to rely on their works.
That's really what they're doing.
They're willing to worship anything
and put anything above God.
And what does that look like today?
Obviously the Catholic religion is an extreme example,
but for Christians, you can make anything idolatrous, right?
For other than a legitimate excuse and then you just continue to skip church and continue to skip church
You know what whatever's pulling you away from church is idolatry
The minute you don't read your Bible regularly, whatever's pulling you away from that Bible
time is idolatry.
The minute you don't pray with yourself and with your family, that's idolatry because
what it is is just you're putting something else above God, right?
God comes first and then everything else.
It's not like, you know, I learned a long time ago, people were like, oh, God, family
and business, no, God and everything.
Right if your business pulls you away from God, that's idolatry because you care more about the business than you care about God
If your family pulls you away from God
Even if it's your wife and your kids, that's idolatry as men you need to leave your family and be like no, we're going to church
You know, you think my wife and my kids want to come to church every Sunday
No, just like I don't want to come to church every Sunday
Let me just let me let's just bear it out all like let me just lay it there in front of you guys
So you guys don't think I'm trying to preach some kind of perfection. There's Sundays that I don't want to be here
I'm just gonna be honest with you
Has nothing to do with you has nothing to do with the building. There's just days where I'm just human
I'm just like I just don't want to be here
But you know what's the best part about not wanting to be here is that when you show up
You start preaching the word of God and you start getting the word of God that feeling goes right away
Who's ever like not wanted to go soul-winning just be honest with me now?
I hope that's not all the time, but you know on occasion. It's okay. You know, I mean that's life
I don't expect you guys to be human
I don't expect you guys to be nice all the time.
I don't expect you to be in a good mood.
But what I do expect you to do is do your reasonable duty,
right, so that you don't fall on a set.
That's really the thing that you need to focus on.
Next is 32 verse 4 Bible says and he received them at their hand
What is he receiving all the gold earrings and everything right and he fashioned it pay attention here because remember later on
We're gonna see the major lie right instead of owning up to your mistakes
You're gonna make up this ridiculous stupid lie, and isn't that what we're seeing right now isn't it so hard?
That's why nobody likes the media because nobody can trust the media because it's just so ridiculous some of the stuff
They say right
I mean, literally some of the stuff that comes out of these people's mouths is like,
did you even read or did anybody check what you were about to say? Because you sound like a moron
with the information that you're trying to give me and pass off as actual reality, right? The
Bible says, and he received them at their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool. So he grabbed
To make this thing he's he's working on it after he had made it a molten calf
Notice how it's singular and they said these be thy gods
Oh, Israel which brought the up out of the land of Egypt
So these are they look at one calf, but it's a pluralistic God
They want more than one God because anything that it takes the place of God will always look different than God
And when Aaron saw it he built an altar before it
And Aaron made proclamation and said tomorrow is the feast of the Lord and there's there's the copycat, right?
They're still continuing with the feast and they rose up early on the morrow and offered burnt offerings and broad peace offerings
And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play and the Lord said unto Moses and notice what what the difference is
What does the modern church look like the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play?
This is like 10 years ago, my wife and I went to Chicago to visit my cousin.
We wanted to visit Chicago, and he was living there at the time with his wife or concubine
and their daughter.
And they took us to church.
I don't remember where he got mad at me because I didn't like the church.
We went to a contemporary church.
I don't remember where we got there early, and there was this massive cafeteria.
And you had to buy the food it was like a like a food court like a mall food court
They're sitting down to eat and to drink and then we got up
I mean, that's what it makes me think of and we went into the sanctuary to play and I remember they had all the props and I
I don't remember the sermon, but there was fire and rocks and all kinds of stuff, right and the Lord said unto Moses
Go get thee down for thy people which thou brought us out of the land of Egypt have what corrupted themselves
They have turned aside quickly out of the way, which I commanded them. They have made them a molten calf
One calf there it is singular again, but they're worshiping God's right and worshiped it and sacrificed their unto and said
These be thy gods or Israel which brought thee out of the land of Egypt Aaron went so far to say hey
Remember the remember when we got delivered out of the hands of Pharaoh
This this calf is the one that did it you know why because he took that graven tool and he was proud of his work
He's like this is some good work. I did it looks good
This statue of the Virgin Mary I painted it really nice, you know Leonardo da Vinci painted the Sistine Chapel
With the finger of God touching the thing. That's a bunch of BS
Right and the Lord said unto Moses I've seen this people and behold it is stiff neck people now
Therefore, let me alone and this is the consequence though
This is why we need men of God and we need churches that will stand behind men of God because it says now
Therefore, let me alone
That my wrath may wax hot against them and that I may consume them and I will make of the a great nation
Hey Moses is being told God's so angry. He's like I'm gonna destroy all these people
You know like in today's I mean obviously that's not gonna do that
But it's like God coming down to me and saying hey, you know those guys at spring crest. I'm just gonna get rid of all
I'm not just replacing them with a whole new church
right but
What is Moses picture obviously Moses pictures Jesus interceding for us, right?
And we we see this but I mean there's just so much I wish I honestly like this is probably a several
We'll come back to this in the future for sure because there's just so much to unpack here
But they're just worshiping this calf. They're now they're full in sin
They're sitting down. They're eating and they're playing and here's another thing
We're gonna see shortly, but we might as well because we've already read it
It's not like they're doing it like you guys look everybody here if we had a fellowship
You guys all look very normal, right?
The women don't look scantily.
The men aren't dressed inappropriate.
It's not like I look at any of the women and I'm like,
oh, you know, I'm having thought in decent thoughts.
There's nothing to indicate that.
You know what they're doing?
They're doing this naked.
Right and the Bible describes nakedness to us if you go to the modern church today
Even an independent fundamental Baptist church that doesn't that's removed themselves from the King James
The women look like horse and the men are all just like ogling and trying to see where they can pick up the next
You know concubine or whatever they're trying to do, right? You don't have to turn there
Let's let's just stay there and exit is I'll just give you these verses, but in act 7 verse 41 it says and they make calf
And they made a calf in those days and offered sacrifice unto the idol and rejoiced in the words of their hands.
In Romans 1.23, technically this is this is an indirect, but it's the same thing, right?
And they changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to a corruptible man
and to birds and four-footed beasts and creepy things. Look, there's no new thing under the sun.
Now it's getting worse, but do you guys remember?
I grew up watching regular TV.
You most of the kids won't know but you actually had to just watch whatever was on TV, right?
You couldn't just like oh, I want to watch this show. Hey Siri, can you can you put on this show for me, please?
And then, can you rewind it to this part?
Like which one?
Oh, no.
Oh, yeah.
Look, there.
It actually popped up.
I was just like, oh, oops.
I guess I should turn her off.
That worked out perfect, right?
We didn't have that.
So you had programming, and you had to know
what was going to come out.
And they had Ripley's, believe it or not.
Remember that show in the late 2000s, early 2000s,
probably late 90s?
And remember, they had these weird things.
And one of them was.
Did you ever watch the episode which was really freaky even at that time of the guy that wanted to become a snake and so he tattooed himself all over his body and then he put stuff in his head and he had like horn, he split his tongue and shaved his teeth.
He changed the image.
The uncorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man. Why recently heard and you guys got to quote me on this
I don't know what but somebody was trying to like get citizenship of themselves as like an owl or some kind of bird or something
Like that. I mean the world's just gone nuts
Just wait till they can release a good version of an artificial intelligent female or male
People will marry you quote me, and I'm not being prophetic people will marry
Artificial robots in Japan. I know they're doing it like in a weird way
But I'm talking like they'll be able you'll walk down the street and they'll be holding some kind of doll and just be weird
Right, that's the world we're headed to we need to stand firm because people the world will come to accept that
Right, and that's a really bad place to be first Corinthians 10 7 says neither be idolaters of some of
Them as as where some of them as it is written the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up and play
I mean this is mentioned in the New Testament. It's not a good thing
says hey, don't be idolatrous like the people that were there. This is the warning to us,
right? And so we don't want to fall into the sin, right? It starts with idolatry,
something pulls you away, and then what happens, you're going to end up... Look,
if you're not in church, if you're not reading your Bible, if you're not spending time with God,
whether the guy behind the pulpit is good or not, it doesn't matter. You'd better show up,
because the minute you get away from that, you know what you're going to do, you're going to
The people that say they're social drinkers, you're only a social drinker for so long until you become a drunk.
The only logical conclusion that anything ends up in is the worst case scenario.
Right? Oh, you know, I'm not...
I don't believe in marriage. I just believe that, you know, I can be with this person. I'm gonna be faithful to him
No, you're not if you didn't do things right the marriage way
You're gonna end up not being that way
You're gonna end up cheating on that person or having multiple partners or whatever it is
Oh, I only do this type of drug, but I never do the other types of this
The reason they call it gateway drugs is because it's exactly that you're gonna end up doing all kinds of drugs
Oh, I only miss because whatever reason
you're going to end up missing more and more all the time
and your responsibilities.
Whatever it is that you think you're not going to do,
that's what you're going to do the most extreme up.
You need to not be pulled away.
You need to be careful about the sin.
Let's go to point number three right here.
I only have a couple of points for you this afternoon.
And in Exodus 32 verse 11.
And it's, we see that we have the intercession for the people.
We see what Moses kind of stepped in for this egregious.
By the way, Moses interceding does not mean that Moses doesn't hold people accountable.
See, there's a difference.
There's two types of leaders in the church today in the world.
There's the leaders that are just trying to please everybody.
And so they'll just turn a blind eye as long as everybody keeps bringing their tides
and everybody keeps hanging out.
That's the majority of Christianity today.
Then there's the leaders that care for the people.
They're willing to go to bat for the people,
but that doesn't mean they're not going to hold the people accountable.
Those are the people that really love you.
Look, I will defend my son and my daughters to the bitter end publicly
if it's something that's not like life or death.
But if they're wrong, you know, I might not make a big stink about something,
but behind closed doors, you better believe that they're going to get reprimanded.
I'm talking like little things like maybe let's say they got in the tiff with someone and I'm just like well, okay
I'll deal with it later, but I am gonna deal with it
Right. I'm not just going to turn a blind eye and be like, Oh, well, you know, whatever it moves on same thing with the church
We might deal with some stuff publicly. We might deal with some stuff behind closed doors
I don't it depends on the situation, but we need to deal with it, right?
That's the thing that Moses is because he he does two things. They're really interesting. He goes to the extreme
He's willing to be blotted out of the book of life. He's like Lord send me to hell
but
When he comes down, I mean, he comes down like a hammer on all these people, right?
I mean, he literally rips them on you on this and right there we see him in Exodus 32 verse 11 says in Moses
Besot the Lord is God I said Lord
Why does thy wrath wax hot against thy people which thou has brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
Wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say for mischief did he bring them out to slay them in the mountains and to consume them
From the face of the earth to turn from thy fierce wrath and repent of this evil against thy people
Remember Abraham Isaac and Israel thy servants to whom thou swearsed by thine own self and saidest unto them
I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven and all
This land that I have spoken of I will give unto your seed and they shall inherit it forever and the Lord repented
of the evil which he thought to do unto this people. And by the way, who's repenting here?
The Lord, right? So you can't repent of your sins to be saved because then it would require
the fact that God had to repent of his sins to, you know, repentance has just changed mine.
Moses did a good job pleading for the people. The Lord changed his mind.
And Moses turned and went down from the mount
and the two tables of testimony were in his hands
and the tables were written on both their sides
and on the one side and on the other where they written
and the tables were what?
The work of God.
So what do we see the contrast?
The work of God is what's given the word of God, right?
He's given it to Moses.
Moses is the man of God.
And what is the profit that gets off?
Because Aaron is not a false prophet.
Aaron ends his life as a high priest.
It's not like he gets removed from the position.
He gets reprimanded, chest dies, but he doesn't get removed.
But what does he do?
He introduces work salvation by the work of his hands.
He's like, hey, check it out.
Look how good of a preacher I am.
I'm Joel Olstein.
I'm Stephen Fertrick.
I'm Crefo Dollar or Kenneth Copeland or, I don't know,
Benny Hinn.
Maybe you guys don't know who Benny Hinn is.
That was my time.
I'm starting to date myself.
And when Joshua, and pay attention also, that the leader recognizes things that even the right hand or people that are close by don't always recognize.
Look, we need to be close to God, especially if you're in a position of leadership.
So you're able to recognize things that the others don't recognize and you're able to act appropriately without the pressures of the world.
Right, this is an important lesson. It might not be this most dynamic of sermons
This is actually a really important lesson here because it says when Joshua, we know Joshua was a great man. I
Mean, he literally conquered all the land him and Caleb are the only ones that are allowed to go into the promised land
This isn't when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted he said to Moses
There is a noise of war in the camp. So Joshua doesn't even know how to recognize the difference
The different sounds the different moods in the church
And sometimes people come to you, especially when you're in position of leadership, they're like,
hey, I've noticed this or that in the church.
But they only see one section of it, whereas hopefully the person in leadership is paying attention to the whole spectrum, right?
Because he said, and he said, it is not the voice of them that shot for mastery.
Neither is it the voice of them that cried for being overcome, but the noise of them, that sing, do I hear?
And the dancing and Moses anger waxed hot and he cast the tables out of his hand and break them and beneath them out
And he took the calf which they made no easy to ask Aaron. Is it okay if I break this cap?
He just took it upon himself and got rid of it and burnt it in the fire
And ground it into powder and straw it upon the water and made the children of Israel drink it and Moses said on Taren
What did this people?
unto thee, what did this people unto thee,
that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them?
Hey, you caused them to sin, what happened?
And Aaron said, let not thy anger of the Lord wax hot,
thou knowest the people that they are set on mischief.
And just like Adam, he's like,
hey, you gave me this woman, right?
Aaron's like, hey, you left me this church.
Sound familiar?
It's like, hey, you left me a church with church members are inconsistent, you know
I didn't mean to bring it up, but you guys are it's close to your heart, right?
You left me this church with these church members that don't show up regularly. They don't even go soul winning
It's only 30 people blah blah blah blah blah. You everybody can make excuses
The same scenario on the other side is like, man, it's great.
We have a church of 30 people with inconsistent church members.
You know what? They're human that are willing to show up and they're willing to go out soul-winning
and they're willing to just preach the Word and they're willing to stand behind God.
Forget the man of God. They're willing to stand with God.
That's what I'm excited about, right?
But he said, they're set on mischief. They're bad people.
For they said unto me, make us gods which should go on before us.
For as this Moses the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt
We what now it has become of him and I said unto them
Whosoever hath any gold let him break it off so they give it to me then I cast it in the fire and
Love this part
And there came out this calf I
Don't know what happened
And when Moses saw that the people were naked for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies
You know, why was Moses so angry when he saw them because he came down and there's a calf and they're singing and dancing in the nude
They're basically having a burning man orgy
Right, and I don't know. I'm just sometimes I talked to I'm literally like talking to you
I'm not
I'm not even gonna mention it because I'm not making a reference to anybody. I'm just saying there's a you know
They're basically having this this this
This disgusting party
And instead of Aaron owning up to it. He's like, I don't know what happened
But isn't that what happens in the world today? He would just lie
You know, I've had to turn this thing off with with the Charlie Kirk shooting because it's just so full of lies
And I know their lies because it's just like a constant. Nothing adds up, right?
The witnesses don't agree
It's this and it's that and it's everything. I mean literally didn't they fire that guy the lie was so blatant
I'm glad that at least there's still some common sense in the world immediately after Charlie Kirk Kirk was shot
Some guy I think it was MSNBC was like up there and he's like oh
Well, we don't want to assume that it was an assassination attempt
It might have been an overseller's supporter who shot his gun off in excitement and accidentally killed him
I wish I was making this stuff up
That's literally like his statement as they fired him for it, but that's the blame lie like whoops a bullet
You know he might as well just said hey, you know there was just a flying bullet
Just never landed anywhere and it just happened to hit Charlie Kirk
And what more I mean Aaron's like Aaron who had number earlier
We saw that he had the tools the engraving tools, but now he's like hey, I threw the gold in there
And this calf just kind of came out. I don't know what happened
And Moses is angry
Even though he interceded for the people, he's still holding them accountable, right?
And we see there, you don't have to go stay in Exodus, in Hebrews 7 verse 25 says,
wherefore, he is able also to save them to the uttermost that came unto God by him,
seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
Look, it's our duty to intercede for people, not as the saviors of the world,
but leading them to the Savior.
We are intercessors.
There's a thing called intercessory prayer.
Where sometimes my prayer can be more powerful than your prayer for whatever reason or vice versa
That's why we ask each other to pray for each other because there are times where your prayer
Carries more weight with God on my behalf than my prayer to God on my behalf
Actually, I come to think the fact that God wants us to be you know a steam mother's better than ourselves
That I think sometimes the prayers that we do for others carry more weight than the prayers that we ask for ourselves
I mean, really, isn't that how God is?
I mean, literally, what did Jesus say?
Hey, forgive them, for they know not what they do, right?
I've lost none of them.
Let me pray for them.
Let me intercede for them.
In Luke 23 verse 34 the Bible says then Jesus said father forgive them for they know not what they do and they departed
And they parted his raiment and cast lots and John 1 John 2 1
It says my little children these things I write unto you that ye sin not and if I may if any man sin
We have an advocate with the father
Jesus Christ the righteous
But you know sometimes you need a man of God to lead you in that direction because you're not even thinking of Jesus or vice versa
I love you know even Paul in Ephesians 6 says hey pray for me that I may boldly preach the gospel, right?
That's what he's saying. Hey, you need to pray for me and I need to pray for you
I don't know if you noticed I was sending a bunch of text some of them
We're working some of them or not
But the one that I haven't stopped sending is the prayer list and if you're not getting it
Let me know because it's important that we pray for each other
Right that we intercede for each other and it's important that we pray regularly that God lead us to the lost
Look soul winning should be an exercise that gets better as we go on
What I mean by that is you should get better at giving the gospel
You should get better at door knocking. You should also get better at preparation before you go soul winning
You know there's times where I've showed up soul winning after a bad week or just even shortly after just committing sin in my life
You're gonna be less effective than if you're like, hey, Lord, I'm gonna go so many this week
Prepare me prepare the people guide us to the right neighborhoods to the right doors
Keep us away from the ones that are gonna reject us because in that the goal don't we want to lead people to Christ?
We want to intercede we want to say hey, I'm here
To remind you that the only way to heaven is through Jesus Christ, but if it wasn't for me, you wouldn't even know about it
All the people you let to Christ today. I guarantee you
Let's not say a hundred percent, but 90% of them didn't know that Jesus was the way
And what I mean by that sometimes people have heard it and make sense and you're kind of there to just pick up the pieces
It's low hanging fruit, but the majority of the time
I mean we're getting to the point where we run into houses and we talk to people. They don't even know who Jesus is
Who's running to that?
They don't know what hell is, you know, you're trying to explain
Suicide is not the mortal sin and you're like, hey, have you heard of Samson and they're like
I mean like Samson's like one of the greatest characters in the Old Testament right like every kid in Sunday school
Do you who Samson was because they wanted to be Samson?
And then they're like, hey, do you know who King Saul is?
I mean whether you like him or not, he's the first King of Israel and they're like, we don't know who King Saul is
Who do you know nobody?
I mean
It's sad that we were there in this part of society. We are the ones called to intercede
We need to take the attitude like Moses would be like, hey, I'm willing to go above and beyond
Now we can also learn from Moses
We're not asking God to blot us out of the book of life because if he wasn't gonna blot out Moses
He's definitely not gonna blot out us. So don't be so dramatic
Because Moses was a little dramatic there and I'm gonna prove it to you in case you don't believe me, right?
Let's go there at X is 32, you know
And the next point I have for you is that here we see that there's now Moses in her seat, but then now there's a call to what?
to separation
Hey, whenever idolatry creeps in whenever seeing sin creeps in we can take the right attitude of hey
I want to advocate for the people. I want Christ to advocate for the people want to pray for the people
But you still got to deal with it
And I love Moses attitude here
He says then Moses stood in the gated camp and said who is on the Lord's side
Let him come to me and notice who came to him
It says in the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him look
Today, we have so much separation in churches by pastors because of this or because of that,
when it's the pastors who need to unite for the cause of Christ.
That's why I wear the banner proudly and I tell people, these are my friends.
The new IFB is my friends. It's not because we're, you know, I'm not sending my dues,
I don't have a membership card. It's just that I want to stand with other men of God
because we're the ones that are called to do that.
We're the ones that are called to go out there
and take up the sword of God and fight.
It says, and he said to them,
thus saith the Lord God of Israel,
put every man by his sword by his side
and go in and out from the gate through the camp
and slay every man his brother
and every man his companion and every man his neighbor.
He gave them the order to tear down,
to separate, to sanctify.
Now obviously we're not gonna do that. You know, I'm not carrying a sword. I'm not gonna, you know, chop up anybody
But I am gonna chop you up spiritually
And I don't even have to call anybody out directly just by nature of preaching any any subject in the Bible
I'm probably gonna prick the heart of somebody in the congregation even myself, right?
I mean you touch on any subject. You're all sinners. You're committing some sin that's found here in the book of God
You're like, oh, I don't like that you take it up to God. I mean, that's it's the fact of the matter, right?
The Bible says in Matthew 6 24 stay in exit is like today
We're just gonna focus on that book
But it says no man can serve two masters for either he'll hate the one and love the other
Or else he will hold to the one and despise the other you cannot serve God and mammon the second Corinthians 6 17
We saw that today, but it says wherefore come out from among them and be separate say at the Lord and touch not the unclean thing
and I will receive you. Hey, we want Christ to receive us. Now, salvation is he's already
received us, but remember, that's when we die and we will be incorruptible. But here on earth,
God will sometimes just not listen to you. The Bible says, hey, do certain things or he's not
You want to be clean or as clean as possible sanctified before the Lord Jesus Christ?
Hey, you're gonna come to church and you just got something you're dealing with pray and clear that thing up before you come to church
Hey, you're gonna do something for your family. You're gonna pray about something
You go into the closet and you clear that thing up before you deal with it with it with everybody else, right?
I mean, this is a serious thing and James 4 4 says you adulterers and adulteresses
Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is what an enemy of God?
Hey, I'm not picking on just you know all the people out there like these apologetics
But the minute that they were not willing to stand on a specific religion, you know like they're like oh
I don't you know, I don't like to pick on Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses. We love all religions. We all serve the same God
You know what you're an enmity with God. Oh
You know we love our our queer brothers and sisters your enmity with God
Oh, you know, well Matthew so-and-so was translated wrong. So, you know
Adultery can you can you can divorce because of adultery? Okay, I'm with you with God. Oh
You know the children don't really you know that you were too tough on them
So they don't really have to honor their father or mother. I'm the two with God
You know, oh church you have too many church services, which is weird, but that I've literally heard that like you go to church three times a week
That's weird. I've literally had someone tell me that in my life
I'm like, that's just like a normal thing in America. This was a Canadian by the way, but you're an enmity with God
Like we don't want to be at odds with God and here's the problem that when you sin and you don't clear that sin up immediately
You're at enmity with God that means your God's enemy. That's what that means
We don't want to do that because look everybody's already God's enemy by nature of just being sinners
Right, and then there's there's a small percentage of us that are willing to go out there and do the work of Lord
And if we're doing in the wrong context, and we're just being less effectual for the Lord
We're being less effective. Well think about it. There's only a small group of us that can be effective first of all
And then if we're already out of sync, then we're just less effective man. The world is kind of
Lost
People are going to hell. I
Mean, I will say this about Charlie Kirk because I know we brought it up and it's the news of the town right now
but at least
Jesus's name is in people's mouth people are going to church today because somebody was assassinated people are looking for God
Unfortunately because people have gone so far away from the truth
They're probably going to the wrong church and they're listening to the wrong gospel and they probably went to some church
They got up there and said hey you need to repent of your sins
and you need to clean up your life and if you've not cleaned up your life,
are you even saved at all? I guess they just skip Romans 4, right?
To him the work is not, but believe it on him to justify the end of godly,
his faith is counted for righteousness. Like that's one of my favorite verses
because I'm like, yeah, you don't have to do, now please do the work,
but if you don't do it, don't worry about it, you're saved.
What's the point of all this? What's the point of just spending all this time here?
Because there's always the right like the two sides are at war with each other
But we as God's people want to clear things up as quickly as possible and if somebody's in sin or idolatry
We want to help them get out of it as quickly as possible because there's a couple things that are gonna happen number one
We're gonna be forced to have to address the issue if we really want to obey God
We have to address the issue. We can't just back away turn a blind eye
But number two even if we don't address the issue God's gonna judge his people
There's a judgment coming to America. I know we're already in judgment. I believe that I think there's a greater judgment coming to America
Right, and it's the judgment of idolatry here for the application of this
3000 people are slain
You think that 9-11 I know because we just saw like not celebrated but come out like memorialized
Or we just what is it? We were in memory of that event a couple of days ago
That was in a coincidence inside job or not an inside job
Conspiracy theory or not. That's the judgment of God on a nation on a city
Go to Exodus 32 and verse 20 says in the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses. Now, here's the thing
Sometimes even amongst pastors you have one that may be the leader. It's good to have others to follow, right?
They did what Moses said and there fell of the people that day about 3,000 men for Moses that said consecrate yourselves today to the Lord
Even every man upon his son and upon his brother that he may bestow upon you a
Blessing this day and it came to pass on the moral that Moses said unto the people you have sinned a great sin
And now I will go up unto the Lord paired venture. I shall make an atonement for your sin and Moses return unto Lord
And said oh this people have sinned a great sin and have made them gods of gold yet now
If that will forgive their sin, and here's where he gets a little dramatic, right?
And if not, blot me, I pray thee out of the book, which thou has written.
But you know, notice how God didn't, we read as dramatic, God just kind of, I love the
way God skips over this, meaning he understood the heart of Moses.
He loved his people.
You want to be surrounded by not only a pastor who loves his people, but by church members
You know, I do pay attention, I'm not always in everybody's business, but I know that you
guys take care of each other, that you're a tight-knit community, and that so-and-so
helps so-and-so do this, or that's the love of Christ.
You need to do that.
Don't go to God and tell Him that He needs to blot you out, right?
By the way, if you do go to God and do that, here's the response.
In verse 34 says therefore now go lead the people unto the place in which I have spoken unto thee behold
Mine angels should go before thee nevertheless in the day when I visit
I will visit their sin upon them and the Lord plague the people because they made a calf which are made
I love the guy like doesn't even address
The the dramatic request. He's just like look Moses. He doesn't even say like Moses. You're being a little dramatic
He's like Moses. Here's what I need you to do. You need to go and do the work of the Lord
And whoever sins against me, that I'll deal with them.
Right? He's like, he didn't even address it.
He's like, I love that God doesn't address it here
because he's just true to the fact
that once you're saved, you're always saved.
He's not like, well, let me think about it.
Let's have a discussion.
He's just like, you know, you ever have your kid say something
you're just like, it doesn't, it's not rational.
So you just skip over it.
And they feel like you need to address it.
And you're like, I'm not gonna address
in a rational thought.
I don't care if you don't understand it one day you will but I'm not going to address it
That's not my duty. I'm an adult son daughter
I'm not gonna like sometimes my son will get frustrated with my two-year-old and I'm like don't argue with a two-year-old
Because it's a two-year-old. It has a two-year-old brain
They're not rational, you know, don't come down to, you know what God didn't do?
He didn't come down to Moses level because Moses is like a two-year-old in the eyes of God.
I'm not picking on Moses. I'm just saying God calls his little children.
His ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.
God probably looks down on us and he just sees a bunch of infants. Let's just be honest.
I mean, he's the everlasting God, no beginning, no end. All wisdom is derived from God.
How does he look at us?
When we look at a baby, do we look at an equal? No, right? You're like, this is a baby
We you know how we rationalize a baby
What do we call it cute?
Look if if Mo sorry, I didn't mean to pick on you. You're looking at me
But if Mo got up and sat down to eat with his hands and he got like all dirty nobody be like whoa, that's cute Mo
So cute right we'd be like whoa Moe either
Either got a problem. Are you okay son or or did you not get raised right?
But when a baby does it everybody's like oh, that's so cute. Oh look at little Daniela. She's got cake all over herself
Right because she's learning in that the way God got looks at us sometimes like that like oh, that's cute
But sometimes he just needs to whoop up on us
Right, but at the end of the day what we need to do for when you learn from Moses
Moses knows there's a judgment coming. That's why he's asking to be blotted out
He's like hey, can you forgive them their sin even though he knows that they sin the guys like no
I'm gonna handle my business and
Moses already got on to them
Moses converted, I mean, he, he, he, uh, he ground the calf and he made him drink their own sin, basically.
But God's like, it doesn't matter what you did, I'm still going to come in and finish the job.
And it said, the Lord plague the people because they made a calf, which Aaron made.
We don't want the plagues, you know, I don't know if anybody's seen, I didn't realize.
Our country's like the worst I didn't I didn't realize in some areas not everything but so other countries don't have
like
Pharmaceutical not all but there's a lot of countries that don't have like a pharmaceutical commercials
Right, I didn't know that I saw the other day and so when you're always watching this this little I don't know
It's like a mini documentary or
Article or whatever they're like, you know other countries don't have these forms
And so they give you examples of the pharmaceutical commercials here in the US and I mean anybody's ever watched anything knows
Those are some of the cheesiest commercials, right?
But the worst part is
What are they always addressing? What's the majority of those pharmaceutical commercials?
They're addressing sin
They're like, here's how we justify your sin. Here's this pill one of the depressions of sin
Right, but here's this pill for your queer aides
So that you don't have to worry about the judgment of God. It's a plague
Right. Those are the golden calf. Here's here's a here's a pill for your
Transmitted disease for being a fornicator isn't that what they're always promoting? Here's a pill for this
Oh, and by the way in order to justify your sin
Here's the good thing is that you're not gonna have the disease, but here's all the side effects depression suicidal thoughts
Even death. Yeah, who's ever heard that they're like they'll do real quick
They're like, oh, side effects may include diarrhea,
and nose bleeds, and brain hemorrhaging,
and I wish I was exaggerating.
Sometimes what I'm listening to is I just like cracking up.
I'm like, is this a joke?
Do people take this stuff seriously?
But what are we doing?
We're getting plague from God.
Look, most people are walking around.
It's actually kind of disgusting that most people
are walking around, and you shake their hand,
and they probably have some kind of disgusting disease
that they're taking pills for.
It's gross.
It's gross that people walking around with you know STDs
So I don't want to just gross anybody out and they're taking pills for all kinds of weird stuff
Right because they just want to keep justifying their sense
But that's the plague of God. So our duty is to just preach the word of God
Look, I don't get grossed out here because I just assume that you guys are actually
Even though you're sinners you're trying to clean up your life
So it's not like I don't think anybody here is committing fornication or committing adultery
Remember you live a great life
You should thank the Lord that he's giving you all these things to protect you. You know, I'm glad that I have one wife
I don't worry about any of that stuff. I don't worry about any weird disease or you know, if I kiss my wife
I'm gonna all of a sudden grow a bunch of
Warts and boils and it's not just herpes. There's a bunch of weird stuff out there, right? It's gross
Like people get all kinds of weird you you you know they they do all kinds of things and then it's like
Have you ever read some of the stuff like I'm not a kind of even touch on it like it's just it's disgusting
That's the plague of God. I know we're kind of laughing about it
But this is the world we live in and it's because people get off the bean path
But with the challenges it starts here at the church, but you know what?
Let's just close out with the theme for today. The theme for today is it starts here
Right the time to clean things up is here at the church. Look if you're young
And you're in church don't leave church because the danger with you being young is that what you'll think at some point
You know better and then you'll leave only to come back
beaten up and humbled and and and worse off before you get better again. Just don't do it
It is possible. You know some of the pastor friends that I have
They've been living like that all their life
Pastor cops have been preaching for 60 years
60 plus
He's never like gotten off the beaten path
Amen, right like don't don't do that because we know that these are the these are the consequences that we look at
Let me see. Oh, yeah, let's I'll close out with this one and yeah
I'm on the last point, but let's close out in 1st Corinthians 10 verse 11
It says now all these things happen unto them for in samples
and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come.
What's the purpose of Exodus 32?
Why do we go through the Bible and sometimes it's not as exciting as maybe,
you know, it's more fun. I'll be honest with you.
I like preaching the sermon, topical sermons like I preached this morning.
But I actually enjoy these sometimes better because there's so much you're unpacking
You know you read Exodus 32 10 times and then you get to the 11th time. You're like, whoa
I I totally missed all these stuff, you know, you are you preparing the sermon
You're like I didn't see this and I didn't see that and there's just so many lessons
But what is it? It's written for our admonition. What's admonition?
It's when you get on to someone lightly like with love and kindness. It's not reproving or rebuking which is much worse
See, I don't want you guys to get to the point where we have to reprove or rebuke anybody.
I'd rather just admonish you because you're going to come to church and just know my goal
is to admonish you.
Like that's just biblical.
My goal is that God would admonish me. That's why I listen to other men of God
That's why I read my Bible because I know that look we all think we know best
When we read that thing in Judges where it says everybody did right in their own eyes
You might as well just transpose it and be like you're doing right in your own eyes
Because we're all sinners. You wake up in the morning and because you're not drinking and you're not committing adultery
And you're not committing fornication
You just think you got it all figured out sometimes and God's quick to remind you you don't right?
You want to take heed but these are written for our nation upon whom the ends of the world are come
It's just to prepare us for the things that are coming
Because we don't want to get caught up in that look the life's gonna be tough. Anyways, it is that's just the fact
But when you do it in in God's plan, the toughness is only to make you better
And we have an eternal glory that's coming for us
But when you live in the world, man, think about how sucky it is that you have a tough life
And then you die only to be tortured forever like that's horrible
That's why I know that the Bible is true because you read all the stories about all these guys that have all this mental disease
You know because they're going against the nature of God and then they die and then they get tortured even worse
Right, but we need to read the Bible. We need to do an overview of the Bible
We need to continue doing this because it's for our admonition. Let's close in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father Lord
Thank you so much for Exodus 32. I normally just kind of
Go over several chapters, but this is a good one Lord not only because it's a
Interesting story. We see so much of human nature there. We see so many of the things that we commit
But we also see the actions that we are to take not only as individuals, but as a church
The Lord, my prayer is that we would continue to buckle down, that we would continue to
strengthen and reinforce and discipline the things that are important, soul winning, church
attendance, Bible reading, prayer, time with family, raising them in the fear and admonition
of the Lord.
Lord, thank you for all those that are in attendance here today.
in spite of all the challenges, in spite of all the temptations and the drawbacks and the backsliding that's available to us in this world.
The Lord is just grateful that we are here today. Thank you that you're helping me heal.
And I know that this is just a light affliction and it's a light affliction for any of the challenges that anybody is dealing with here today.
I pray, Lord, that any of the challenges they're dealing with that you would help them overcome
and that my prayer and the prayers of others here would intercede for them
and that you would help clear up any issues that they may have. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.
Let's turn our hymnals over to page 343.