Exodus 23:20-33
God gave the people the ten commandments, and due to the way it was presented to them, they knew that these came straight from God, and were not something Moses came up with on his own. The LORD then gave further laws to Moses about the altar, slaves, violence, property, restitution, social and religious laws, justice, sabbath day and sabbatical year, and annual festivals.
Then in today’s passage, the LORD is promising the successful conquest of Canaan. God will guard Israel and bring them to the promised land and drive out its inhabitants. Not only that, God will also bless them with food, drink, healing, fertility and long life. The LORD also informs the people that He is not going to drive the people out all at once, but in an orderly fashion, as Israel is ready to take over. This way, they can avoid the land turning wild before they can settle in.
This almost sounds like how life was supposed to be in the garden of Eden – As if the curse of sin and the fall of man had been taken away.
However, this was conditional upon Israel being loyal to God and His commands, and according to v. 21, there will be no forgiveness if they sin.
The people see the great value of this covenant and agree to it, vowing to be obedient. Sadly, we know that the people will break this agreement even before they leave Mt. Sinai. When Moses is called up to the mountain for further instructions, he ends up being away for forty days. In Exodus 32, we see the people get impatient and demand that Aaron make them a golden calf, which they believe will lead them, in the absence of Moses.
The LORD is angered by this and decides to destroy the people and start over with Moses, but Moses pleads against this and goes down from the mountain to take care of this situation. Moses destroys the golden calf, grinds it up into powder, mixes it with water and makes the people drink it. He then asks who is on the LORD’s side, and all the sons of Levi gather around Moses. Moses commands each of them to take up their swords, and about three thousand people fell that day. It is ironic that the sons of Levi are ordained for the service of the LORD through this action – In a way, their priesthood starts with the cleansing of sinners.
Moses goes back to the LORD and pleads for forgiveness of the people. The LORD agrees to send an angel to still lead the people to the promised land, but for the people who sinned, he sends a plague, and they die.
Then the LORD tells Moses that His angel will now lead them to the promised land and will drive out the inhabitants, but the LORD Himself will not go with them. Moses pleads with the LORD to be with them, since it is necessary for the people that the LORD’s presence is amongst them. The LORD agrees, because Moses found favor in His eyes.
It seems rather harsh that in the original covenant, God declares that there will be no forgiveness for those who transgress. And with the golden calf incident, thousands of people die from the sword or by the plague. This shows how serious God considers the relationship with His people, and how serious it is to sin against Him.
After this, when a new covenant is made, God makes it known that forgiveness is possible – It is not automatic, but it is possible.
We see that Moses had a good relationship with God, and because of this, his intercessory prayers for the people were effective. We can take comfort in the fact that Jesus Christ is interceding for us with God – Romans 8:34 tells us that Jesus is at the right hand of God and is interceding for us.
Through accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we can have a good relationship with God the Father. As we can see the importance of Moses interceding with God for others, we too should be interceding for others through prayers. For people who we love, as well as those who we consider enemies or sinners, our intercessory prayers can make a difference.
When the people agreed to the covenant with the LORD, they were certainly aware of the benefits that the LORD was offering, but probably not all that aware of the seriousness of the consequences that would come with breaking the covenant. After the golden calf incident, they surely understood the seriousness of sinning against the LORD and grateful for the grace that was shown to them by still being alive. But we also know that this awareness will fade with time, and they will sin again.
We can also be a little jaded about God’s grace towards us. Once we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior and ask for forgiveness; our sins will be forgiven. And because Jesus took the punishment for our sins, we often miss the seriousness of our sins. We get some idea from the fact that our sins were so grave, that the Son of God had to die on the cross because of them.
It is easy to not take our sins very seriously, since we know that God will forgive us. But just because forgiveness is available to us does not mean that we can continue to live a life full of sin, just so we can experience God’s grace over and over. Paul warns us against this attitude in Romans 6.
How we should live is well summarized in 1 John 2:1-6, so we will close with this:
1My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. 3Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments. 4Whoever says, “I have come to know him,” but does not obey his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; 5but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection. By this we may be sure that we are in him: 6whoever says, “I abide in him,” ought to walk just as he walked.
(the above is a summary of the message shared by Shun Takano during our worship on September 8, 2024.)
Japanese Congregational Church 