“Moses, the Intercessor” (Exodus 32:7–14)

“Moses, the Intercessor” (Exodus 32:7–14)
Pastor Cameron Jungels
Eastside Baptist Church
Sunday PM, February 17, 2019

Exodus 32:7–14 (NIV)

⁷ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. ⁸ They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’

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

¹¹ But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? ¹² Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. ¹³ Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’ ” ¹⁴ Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.

1. The Lord’s Holy Anger (vv. 7–10).

a. The Lord’s Holy Anger Brings Relational Alienation (v. 7)
b. The Lord’s Holy Anger Is in Response to Actual Sins Committed (vv. 7–8)
c. The Lord’s Holy Anger Is in Response to the Internal Inclination toward Rebellion (v. 9).
d. The Lord’s Holy Anger is Just and Righteous (v. 10).

2. Moses’s Effectual Intercession (vv. 11–13).

a. Effectual Intercession Is Humble (v. 11).
b. Effectual Intercession is Persevering (Deut 9:25).

⦁ I lay prostrate before the LORD those forty days and forty nights because the LORD had said he would destroy you. (Deut. 9:25 NIV)

c. Effectual Intercession Is Reconciliatory (v. 11).
d. Effectual Intercession Seeks the Glory of God’s Name (v. 12).
e. Effectual Intercession Relies on the Revealed Word of God (v. 13).

3. The Lord's Amazing Mercy (v. 14).

Main Idea: We worship a Holy, Righteous God who Justly burns with anger against sin; but we have a Great Intercessor who pleads our cause before him and receives on our behalf mercy and forgiveness.