Introduction: The Miracle Behind the Miracle

Last week we looked at Moses' surprising command for Israel to remember its rebellion. Before that we saw that Israel must never enter the Promised Land thinking, “Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land.” Their history would not permit that kind of boasting. At the very moment God was giving them His covenant law, they were breaking that covenant by worshiping a golden calf. Moses came down from the mountain and shattered the tablets before their eyes because they had already shattered the covenant by their sin. When we sin, we are like Israel, shattering the commandments of God and deserving to be destroyed.

But I ended last week by telling you that the broken tablets did not have the last word. Mercy through mediation had the last word. And that is the astonishing theme of today’s passage.

Verse 18 says,

“And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger.”

Think about what Moses is saying. He had already spent forty days and forty nights on the mountain without bread or water while receiving the covenant tablets. Then, after coming down and confronting Israel’s idolatry, he returned to the LORD and spent another forty days and forty nights without bread or water, lying prostrate before God and interceding for the lives of the very people who had rebelled.

The physical fast itself was obviously miraculous. A man does not ordinarily survive that long without water. But I want to suggest that the physical miracle was not the greatest miracle. The greater miracle was that Moses wanted to intercede for these people at all — and that he continued to do so for forty days and forty nights.

Remember what God had offered Moses in verse 14. God had said, “Let Me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.” Moses could have accepted a future in which rebellious Israel was removed and Moses became the founder of a new and greater nation. But he would not build his legacy upon the destruction of God’s people. He stood in the breach. He pleaded for those who had sinned. He placed God’s glory above his own advancement.

Where did that kind of sacrificial love come from? Where did that kind of perseverance come from? Where did Moses find the strength to spend forty days and forty nights pleading for people who had caused him so much personal grief?

It came from God.

Moses was not more merciful than Yehowah. Moses did not manufacture compassion and then talk an unwilling God into becoming gracious. The God who listened to the mediator was the God who had *raised up * the mediator, sustained the mediator, placed this concern within the mediator, and had already given him the covenant promises that he would plead. Moses’ heart was itself a product and reflection of God’s merciful heart. That's the part of this passage that blows me away.

And that means that the mercy in this passage is much deeper than we may initially realize. We see mercy when God spares Israel. But before that, we see mercy when God gives Israel an intercessor. The God who heard the mediator first gave the mediator.

And of course, Moses points beyond himself to Jesus. The Father was not blindsided by human sin and reluctantly talked into the plan of redemption. Long before we existed — indeed, before the foundation of the world — God determined to magnify the glory of His grace through His Son. The Father gave the Son. The Son willingly gave Himself. And the Holy Spirit applies the redemption that Christ purchased.

So the theme of the pericope is this: God’s astonishing mercy is revealed not only in hearing the mediator, but in providing the mediator and bearing the cost to preserve His guilty people.

Or to put it more simply: The God who heard the mediator first gave the mediator.

See How Far Mercy Stooped — verses 18–24

But we will not appreciate the depth of mercy unless we first see how far mercy had to stoop. Verses 18–24 give us four measures of the incredible depth of God's mercy.

Mercy stooped beneath deserved wrath — verses 18–19

First, verses 18-19 show that mercy stooped beneath deserved wrath. Moses says,

“because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the LORD was angry with you, to destroy you.”

This was not a misunderstanding between God and Israel. Israel had not made an innocent mistake. They had done wickedly in the sight of the LORD. They had heard God say, “You shall have no other gods before Me,” and “You shall not make for yourself a carved image.” Yet almost immediately they made a golden calf, worshiped it, and credited it with the redemption that Yehowah had accomplished. That was slander; gross slander against God.

God’s wrath was not an unfortunate lapse in His mercy. His wrath was His holy and just response to evil. Moses says that he was afraid. He was not afraid because he had a deficient view of God’s goodness. He was afraid because he had an accurate view of God’s holiness and an accurate view of Israel’s guilt. Destruction was genuinely deserved.

If we soften the wrath, we cheapen the mercy. Mercy is not God discovering that sin was less serious than He originally thought. Mercy is not God pretending that idolatry does not matter. Mercy is God preserving people whose sin really does deserve His wrath. And until we understand that, we have not really understood how miraculous the Gospel really is.

This is why the closing words of verse 19 are so sweet:

“But the LORD listened to me at that time also.”

That little word “but” contains the survival of a nation. Israel sinned. God was angry. Destruction was deserved. But the LORD listened.

Why was Israel still alive? Not because the charges were overstated. Not because Israel offered a convincing defense. Not because there was hidden goodness in their hearts. Israel survived because God listened to the mediator.

And the same is true of us. We cannot understand the cross until we admit that we deserved wrath. We deserved it. I don't think most Christians understand heinousness of their sins and their rebellion. They have a low view of sin because they have a low view of the law. Last week I quoted J. Gresham Machen to the effect that when we have a low view of the law, we have a low view of sin; and when we have a low view of sin, we have a low view of God's wrath; and when we have a low view of God's wrath, we cheapen the amazing depth of God's mercy and grace in the Gospel. Christ did not die to rescue basically innocent people from an overreaction. He died for the ungodly. He bore the curse that God’s justice rightly pronounced upon sin. Grace does not deny justice. Through the Mediator, grace satisfies both justice and rescues the guilty. Like Israel, we deserved God's wrath; we deserved hell. Our sins are treason against a holy God. So the first measure of the depth of God's mercy is the backdrop of Israel's deserved wrath.

Mercy stooped to the chief offender — verse 20

Verse 20 says that mercy stooped to rescue even the chief offender - Aaron. He had greater knowledge and light, and thus his sin made his offense against God greater. Verse 20 says,

“And the LORD was very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him; so I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.”

Aaron was not merely an unfortunate bystander. Exodus 32 makes clear that he received the gold, fashioned the calf with an engraving tool, built an altar before it, and announced the idolatrous feast. When Moses confronted him, Aaron shifted the blame and made the ridiculous claim that he threw the gold into the fire and “this calf came out.”

The man who would become Israel’s high priest was himself under sentence of destruction. Before Aaron could stand before God on behalf of Israel, Moses had to stand before God on behalf of Aaron. Even the high priest needed a mediator.

This exposes the inadequacy of every merely human priesthood. Aaron could later offer sacrifices for others, but he first needed mercy for his own sin. Every pastor needs the same grace that everyone else needs. Religious office does not remove guilt. Nearness to holy things is not the same as holiness.

But this verse is also a beautiful testimony to the incredible reach of mercy. God spared even Aaron. The future priesthood began, not with Aaron’s merit, but with mercy shown to a guilty man. In much the same way, the apostle Paul was stunned that God received him - a man who blasphemed Christ and persecuted Christ, and he saw himself thus as the chief of sinners. He sinned against great light.

Anyway, the point is that this passage points us to our need for a better Priest. Aaron was a priest who needed intercession. Jesus is the sinless Priest whose intercession saves others. Aaron was spared from the wrath he deserved. Jesus willingly placed Himself beneath the wrath His people deserved. Aaron could not save himself. Jesus is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

Mercy stooped without making peace with the idol — verse 21

Verse 21 gives the third measure of the depth of God's mercy. It says,

“Then I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it and ground it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I threw its dust into the brook that descended from the mountain.”

Notice what Moses calls the calf: “your sin.” He does not treat it as a harmless cultural artifact. That's why I did not put a picture of the calf in your outlines. And he does not merely move the calf out of sight. He burns it, crushes it, grinds it into dust, and throws the gold-dust into the brook.

Moses pleads for the sinners, but he pulverizes their idol. That is genuine mercy.

There is a counterfeit mercy that wants God to spare both us and the sins that are destroying us - to spare those sins - right? But mercy toward the patient requires hostility toward the cancer. A surgeon does not hate the patient when he cuts out a deadly tumor. He cuts because he wants the patient to live.

God’s grace does not reconcile us to God while leaving us peacefully enslaved to our idols. Those of you who want to remain attached to your idols do not understand the Gospel. Christ does not negotiate a truce between Yehowah and our golden calves. He saves us from both sin’s guilt and sin’s dominion. The same grace that justifies us teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts.

So this verse calls us to ask: What idol do I want forgiven but not crushed? Is it your desire for control of your husband? You have got to crush that idol. Is it your desire for the approval of man? Is it sexual sin? Is your golden calf some bitterness that you are unwilling to give up? Is it money? Comfort? Ministry success? A political savior? Family reputation? Mercy does not say that these things are harmless. Mercy saves us by putting our idols to death. And it is a blasphemy against the enormous cost of God's mercy and grace to refuse to repent of our sins and to refuse the process of doing the homework needed to grind our idols to dust and get rid of them. The church of Jesus Christ desperately needs to regain a consciousness of the exceeding sinfulness of sin - the hatefulness of sin - not just the sins of others; our sin.

God’s mercy is tender toward sinners precisely because it is ruthless towards anything that destroys sinners. Do not preserve the golden idols that God wants destroyed in your home, in your heart, or anywhere else. If you are grateful to God for His redemption, it should produce in you a hatred for your golden calves. Has it done so?

Mercy stooped beneath a lifetime of rebellion — verses 22–24

The fourth measure of the depth of God's mercy can be seen in God's recounting of a lifetime of rebellion. And I am so grateful that the passage includes this reminder. In verses 22–24 Moses continues:

“Also at Taberah and Massah and Kibroth Hattaavah you provoked the LORD to wrath. Likewise, when the LORD sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, ‘Go up and possess the land which I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God, and you did not believe Him nor obey His voice. You have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you.”

The golden calf was not one isolated lapse in an otherwise admirable history. Moses names place after place where Israel had rebelled.

At Taberah they complained, and the fire of the LORD burned among them. What was that fire? It was God's holy displeasure and discipline for their sins. It resulted in sickness, loss, death, and plagues. Those disciplines were acts of love designed to get Israel to begin to hate their sins and to treat them more seriously than they had been treating them. Hebrews 12:8 says, "But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are bastards and not sons." At Massah they tested God by asking, “Is the LORD among us or not?” At Kibroth Hattaavah their cravings became rebellion. At Kadesh Barnea they refused to believe God’s promise and enter the land. And praise God! He disciplined at each of those places.

Each name added another entry to Israel’s record of debt. The problem was not episodic. It was repeated. Moses says, “You have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you.”

And verse 23 exposes the root: “You did not believe Him nor obey His voice.” You might think that not believing God's Word applies to you is a big deal. But it is. It is horrible sin. It is calling God a liar. Unbelief and disobedience are sinful twins. They would not obey because they would not trust God’s goodness, wisdom, power, promises, and timing. And this unbelief kept resurrecting its head. They were so slow to learn. And they suffered as a result. It is my prayer that each person in this congregation would be much more quick to respond to God's loving disciplines.

But notice that Israel’s repeated rebellion did not exhaust God’s mercy. That's the amazing thing. Mercy did not cover merely a minor imperfection. Mercy covered a mountain of guilt. Just studying this passage has moved me to tears as I have realized the mountain of sins that mercy has had to cover over my lifetime. It has intensified my love and gratitude to God.

Now, don't get me wrong - this does not give us permission to continue in sin. Verse 21 has already shown us that the idol must be destroyed. But it does show us that the depth of our sin is not greater than the depth of God’s mercy and grace in Christ. You may look back at years of stubbornness and see failure after failure. Do not minimize any of it. Confess it honestly. But do not conclude that Christ’s mercy is too shallow to reach you.

The list of rebellions is long. But the Mediator remains. Those are four dark backgrounds against which the mercy of God shines brightly. And it is my prayer that we would come away from this service glorying in God's mercy.

See What Mediatorial Mercy Was Willing to Bear — verses 18 and 25

Moving on. If verses 18–24 gives us the dark backdrop that shows us the depth of mercy, verses 18 and 25 show us to what lengths mediatorial mercy was willing to go. I won't read verse 18 again, but verse 25 returns to the forty-day intercession:

“Thus I prostrated myself before the LORD; forty days and forty nights I kept prostrating myself, because the LORD had said He would destroy you.”

This is the dominant image of the passage. Moses is stretched out before the LORD, without bread or water, pleading for Israel’s life.

Consider the contrast. Below the mountain, Israel had eaten and drunk and risen up to play before an idol. Moses spent forty days eating nothing and drinking nothing while pleading for the lives of those gluttonous idolaters. Israel devoted its strength to rebellion. Moses was willing to be brought to the end of his natural strength in intercession.

And this was not a brief emotional reaction. Moses did not offer a quick prayer and then move on. For forty days and forty nights he persevered before God. Day after day he kept praying. Night after night he remained in the breach. Israel’s life hung upon an intercession that Israel could neither provide nor sustain.

The fast itself was physically supernatural. But as I said in the introduction, Moses’ loving persistence was also supernatural. By nature, Moses was not endlessly patient. Earlier in his life he had killed an Egyptian. Later, his anger with Israel would contribute to his own exclusion from the land. Moses was a sinner who needed grace just as surely as Aaron did.

So where in the world did this intercessory heart come from? Well, I think the text is clear- God produced it in him. God raised him up. God sustained him. God enabled him to reject the prospect of personal advancement at Israel’s expense. God gave him a supernatural love for a stiff-necked people. God supplied the covenant promises that shaped his prayer and gave him faith to pray.

This means that God was not standing at a distance, waiting to see whether Moses could generate enough compassion in Him to change His mind. God had ordained both the end and the means. He ordained Israel’s preservation, and He ordained Moses’ intercession as the means of that preservation. The warning was sincere. The danger was real. The prayer was necessary. And the mercy that moved the prayer was God’s mercy from beginning to end.

The God who heard the mediator first gave the mediator.

There is deep Trinitarian comfort in this truth when we come to the New Testament. Some Christians unconsciously imagine the Father as reluctant to save and Jesus as trying to persuade Him to be kind. Nothing could be further from the truth. Scripture says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” The Father’s love sent the Son. And the Son was not an unwilling victim. He said, “I lay down My life for the sheep,” and “No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.” The Father and Son were united in the eternal purpose of redemption, and the Spirit applies that redemption to us.

God was not blindsided by Adam’s fall. Jesus was not an emergency plan developed after every other option had failed. Scripture calls Him “the Lamb’ slain from the foundation of the world.” Before we had sinned in history, God had already purposed to magnify His grace in Christ. This is what makes it so amazing.

So Moses gives us a beautiful but incomplete picture of that mercy. • Moses went without bread. Jesus is the Bread who gave Himself for the life of the world • Moses fell before God. Jesus fell upon His face in Gethsemane and said, “Not My will, but Yours, be done. • Moses refused to seek his own glory through Israel’s destruction. Jesus made Himself of no reputation, took the form of a servant, and humbled Himself to the point of death—even the death of the cross. • Moses pleaded that judgment not fall upon the people. Jesus placed Himself beneath our deserved judgment. • Moses bore the agony of intercession. Jesus bore the curse itself. • Moses could ask God to spare. Jesus provided the righteous basis upon which God could be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. • Moses’ forty days show that mercy is costly to the mediator. But Calvary shows a cost that cannot be measured. The eternal Son assumed our nature, entered our misery, endured rejection, bore our sins in His own body on the tree, and experienced the judicial abandonment expressed in the cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

So even though grace is free to us, but it was not cheap to God. The pardon that costs us nothing cost the Son of God everything in His state of humiliation. Can you see why that ought to make our hearts well up in praise and admiration for God's great grace? Can you see why this ought to make us not trivialize the cost of redemption by treating our own sins lightly? We are going to be singing "Wonderful Grace Of Jesus" later, and I hope you can sing it with passion and love and a new sense of amazement. This passage ought to make us stand in amazement at God's mercy.

The enormous cost was not extracted from an unwilling God. God deliberately gave. The Son deliberately came. Our salvation displays not a mercy improvised under pressure, but a mercy planned before the ages and accomplished at infinite cost.

See the God-Given Grounds on Which Mercy Pleads — verses 26–29

Let's move on to the substance of Moses’ intercession in verses 26-29. I think we can improve our own prayer life if we implement these ideas. Moses gives the grounds for why God should answer his prayer in the affirmative. And notice what Moses does not say. He does not say, “Lord, they are better than they look.” He does not say, “They meant well.” He does not point to their potential, their good intentions, or their previous service. Moses can't find any merit whatsoever in Israel that he can plead. From beginning to end it is a God-centered prayer. It pleads what God alone can provide.

Notice that every argument begins and ends with God. Moses pleads God’s ownership, God’s redemption, God’s promises, and God’s glory. And these God-centered pleas further demonstrate that mercy was already in the heart and plan of God.

Mercy pleads God’s ownership — verse 26

Moses begins in verse 26,

“O Lord GOD, do not destroy Your people and Your inheritance.”

He acknowledges that they were rebellious, but he also points out that they were “Your people.” They were stiff-necked, but they were “Your inheritance.” Moses does not say, “They are worthy.” He says, “They are Yours.” In effect He was not wanting God to be robbed of His inheritance. That’s a great basis for intercessory prayer.

God had freely chosen to place His name upon this people. He had claimed them as His covenant possession. That relationship did not make their sin less serious. In fact, it made their idolatry more heinous. But it also supplied Moses with a God-given ground of intercession: “Lord, protect what You have claimed for Yourself.” That's a God-centered reason for prayer.

This anticipates something even more glorious in the New Covenant. The Father gave a people to the Son. Jesus repeatedly speaks in John’s Gospel of those whom the Father has given Him. And He says that He will lose none of them but will raise them up at the last day.

Our security does not rest upon our ability to make ourselves worthy of belonging to God. It rests upon God’s gracious decision to claim us in Christ. We are His workmanship, His sheep, His bride, His body, His inheritance. When we intercede on behalf of wayward sheep, we are pleading for God to not allow Satan to snatch from His hand what Jesus purchased for God the Father at great cost.

Mercy pleads God’s costly redemption — verse 26

Moses continues,

“whom You have redeemed through Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.”

God had already invested so much in Israel’s deliverance. He had poured out plagues upon Egypt, distinguished Israel from the Egyptians, brought judgment upon Egypt’s gods, and displayed His mighty power before the nations. Most importantly, the Passover lamb had died and its blood had marked the homes of God’s people.

Moses is saying, “Lord, You redeemed them. You brought them out. Your greatness, Your mighty hand, and Your saving purpose are already displayed in them. Complete the good work that You have began.”

Mercy was not beginning at Sinai. Mercy had already brought Israel out of Egypt. Indeed, mercy had promised deliverance centuries before, when God entered into covenant with Abraham. The golden calf did not force God's hand to invent a gracious purpose that had not previously existed. Israel’s rebellion was terrible, but it did not blindside Him.

And our confidence rests upon an infinitely greater redemption already accomplished. We do not pray, “Father, save me because I have made so much progress.” We pray, “Father, Your Son purchased me with His blood. Complete the good work Your grace began.”

Paul reasons this way in Romans 8: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” The greatest cost has already been paid. God did not give His Son only to abandon His purchased inheritance halfway home.

The cross is not merely the possibility of mercy. It is the accomplished ground of mercy - and it was so costly, that it is a 100% sufficient ground for mercy. Christ did not merely make sinners savable. He purchased His people. And His blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. That is a great ground for prayer.

Mercy pleads God’s ancient promises — verse 27

Verse 27 says,

“Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not look on the stubbornness of this people, or on their wickedness or their sin.”

When Moses asks God to remember, he is not suggesting that God has become forgetful. He is asking God to act in accordance with the covenant promises He made to the patriarchs.

Notice the contrast. “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not look on the stubbornness of this people, or on their wickedness or their sin.” God's promises are claimed despite the people's sinfulness. If Israel’s record is the ground of God’s action, they are finished and their cause would be hopeless. In the same way, if your record of sacrifices and activities is the ground of God's continued mercies to you, then you are finished; your cause is hopeless. So Moses does not direct God to Israel’s performance. He directs God to God’s own promise.

And that promise preceded the rebellion. Before these Israelites had been born, before there was a golden calf, and before Israel had accumulated this long history of unbelief, God had sovereignly bound Himself by covenant promise.

This does not mean that God made the covenant without knowing what Israel would do. It means the exact opposite. God made His promise with full knowledge of their future sins. Grace was not His emergency response to unforeseen failure. His promise already anticipated that everything would have to rest upon His faithfulness rather than theirs. Can you see why this mercy is so amazing?

Ultimately, all of those promises rested upon Christ. Jesus is the Seed of Abraham through whom all nations will be blessed. All the promises of God are Yes and Amen in Him. God does not preserve His people by ignoring His covenant. He preserves them by fulfilling His covenant in the Mediator - Jesus.

This also teaches us how to pray. Faith does not say, “Lord, look at my impressive record.” Faith says, “Lord, remember Your promise. You have promised that whoever comes to Christ You will not cast out. I am coming to You. You have promised that nothing can separate us from Your love in Christ. You have promised that He who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. Deal with me according to Your promised faithfulness.”

Mercy pleads God’s glory among the nations — verses 28–29

The last thing that Moses pleads is that God would not allow Himself to be robbed of His glory. He pleads God's glory. Moses says,

“lest the land from which You brought us should say, ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring them to the land which He promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’ Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your mighty power and by Your outstretched arm.”

Moses is concerned about how Egypt and the other nations will interpret Israel’s destruction. They will say either that Yehowah lacked the power to fulfill His promise or that He hated the people He claimed to love. They will slander either His ability or His character or both.

So Moses ties the preservation of Israel to the glory of God’s name. “Lord, show the nations that You are mighty enough to save and faithful enough to finish what You promised.”

This is not manipulation. God Himself had taught Moses to prize God's glory. Moses is asking for the very thing God intends to display. Israel’s salvation must magnify God rather than Israel because every ground of that salvation is found in Him. This is what makes Calvinism God-centered and Arminianism man-centered.

And this reaches its highest fulfillment at the cross. Romans 3 says that God set forth Christ as a propitiation “to demonstrate His righteousness.” Did you get that? The cross and the whole plan of salvation was done in order to demonstrate God's righteousness. At Calvary, God did not magnify His grace by hiding His holy hatred of sin or His justice. No, He magnified both grace and justice. Sin was judged fully, and sinners were saved freely. As Paul worded it, God showed Himself to be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

The cross therefore gives the decisive answer to Egypt’s imagined slander. Does God lack the power to save? No. Look at the resurrection. Does God hate His people? No. Look at the Son whom He gave. Does God abandon His promises? No. Look at the risen Christ, in whom every promise is secured.

And the nations will not forever say that Yehowah was unable to save. Revelation pictures a multitude that no one can number, from every nation, tribe, people, and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, crying out, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

Moses prayed that God’s name would not be blasphemed among the nations. Christ guarantees that God’s mercy will be praised among the nations. And eventually, all nations will be saved, and will revel in God's mercy and justice. They will be moved to tears by God's beautiful plan of salvation.

Conclusion: Mercy Was Not an Afterthought

In conclusion, let me try to pull all of this together.

Israel’s sin did not take God by surprise. Moses’ intercession did not awaken a compassion that had previously been absent from God. The God who listened to Moses had appointed Moses. The God who sustained his forty-day fast had also placed a supernatural love for Israel within his heart. The God who answered the prayer had supplied every covenant argument for that prayer.

The God who heard the mediator first gave the mediator. And Moses was only a shadow of the Mediator God would ultimately give.

So when you see Moses stretched out before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, do not merely marvel at the compassion of Moses. Look through Moses to the God whose compassion produced that intercession. And then look beyond Moses to Jesus, who did not merely plead that judgment would pass from His people. He took God's judgment upon Himself. Amazing grace! Amazing grace!

Perhaps you fear that your record of guilt is too long, or your rebellion is too deep, or your failures are too repetitive. This text does not encourage you to minimize any of those things. Israel’s guilt was real. Aaron’s guilt was real. God’s wrath was real. Your sin is real too. And you need to be motivated to destroy your golden calves.

But the Mediator is also real. And He is greater than Moses.

Do not plead your merit. Plead His mercy.

And then let mercy make you merciful - just as it made Moses merciful. Moses did not use another person’s rebellion as an opportunity for self-promotion. He prayed. When a family member wanders, pray a God-centered intercessory prayer. When a covenant child rebels, pray a God-centered intercessory prayer. When a church member falls into serious sin, pray a God-centered intercessory prayer. When a leader grievously fails, do not excuse the sin, and do not protect the idol—but pray. Stand in the breach. Plead God’s promises. Ask Him to crush the idol and restore the sinner.

We do not know whom God may preserve through your prayers that He Himself moves us to pray. But hey - if He moves us to pray, you know that your prayers are not futile. God never puts a prayer burden in your heart without a reason. He transfers His heart of mercy to your heart so that you in mercy will pray, pray, pray. May each of us experience the compassion Moses had for this rebellioius people, realizing that we ourselves are recipients of a deep, deep mercy.

But if there is only one lesson you take away from this sermon, let it be at least this - glory in the wonderful gospel of Jesus Christ and thank Him every day for it.

Amen.