Today’s Sermon Notes: 7-26-2026
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“Second Alters”
A Sermon Series on Idolatry
“You Are God’s Ambassador”
Exodus 32:7-14
Introduction
Genesis 18 “Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it?” and God responds by saying, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”
What if the city had no one righteous – no not one? (Romans 3:10)? What if you are called to represent a people who you know are guilty and whatever punishment God is handing out – they are justified to receive it? Today Moses is commanded to return to camp from the mountain in order deal with the golden calf and their rebellion against god. How would you lead them? They are stiff-necked and wicked?
God’s Reveals His Heart (vv. 7-9)
7 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” 9 And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”
Romans 6:23 says, “the wages of sin is death,”
Romans 2:5 tells us, “But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”
God’s mediators always put God’s glory first, over their own.
Knowing Your Calling Keeps You From Giving Over To Temptation.
2 Corinthians 3:5-6 “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, . . .”
Moses Reveals His Heart (vv. 11-14)
11 But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14 And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.”
Deuteronomy 9:25 says, “So I lay prostrate before the Lord for these forty days and forty nights, because the Lord had said he would destroy you.”
1) Why send Moses back down the mountain? God’s plan was to save them through an intercessor.
Psalm 106:23 “Therefore he said he would destroy them—had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them.”
2) There is a pronoun shift, Moses these are your people
3) (v. 10) “Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them,” – God has called Moses to be the intercessor for his people. But this really is a question – will you stop praying for your people. Will you give up on your community?
God’s mediators love their people.
2 Corinthians 5:20 “All this (meaning salvation) is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.”
Conclusion
Jonah 4:1-2 “But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.”
You have been called to salvation and given the message of reconciliation – is your heart loving toward those whom you have been called to share that message with?
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[1] C.F. Keil and F. Delitzch, Commentary on the Old Testament In Ten Volumes, Volume I (Grand Rapids, Michigan; William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1985) 223.
[2] C.F. Keil and F. Delitzch, 224.
[3] Ryken, 935.
[4] Keil & Delitzch, 224.
[5] Philp Graham Ryken, Exodus, Saved for God’s Glory (Wheaton, Illinois; Crossway Publishing, 2015) 934.
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