Moses the Mediator

She'll open your bibles to Exodus chapter four, will continue our journey here in this great book Exodus chapter four, and an eventful journey it has been. We come here to the last section of the call of Moses, and as we look at this last section in his call before he returns to Egypt, we see God's perfect work with an imperfect servant. We see Moses' imperfections here. We see his weakness and frailty here. And it's not just his age that we see here. He's not just weak and frail because he's eighty years old. He is weak in frail because he is a sinner. He is weak and frill because he is fearful. He is weak and frill because he's disobedient. And we see this, and it's important to see. I remember early on an older, mature minister making this statement to me, son, make sure you're not always the hero of your own stories. The man who shared it with me said, if a preacher only tells stories that make him seem larger than life, his hearers will eventually believe that he is, and that there is no way they can live the kind of Christian life that he lived, since they are not that was important advice. That was helpful advice, because when you start to stand before people and proclaim God's word, your automatic assumption is that you need to make people will like you and respect you and think highly of you. Your automatic response is you need to make sure that people feel like you're worthy to be standing up before them, and so you say things and do things in order to bring that about. It takes a while to figure out that your job is not to make people like you. Your job is to actually make the gospel clear. That your job is not to make people think much of you, but your job is actually to make people think much of God. And that your effectiveness is not seen in people saying, after you're done, what a great preacher, but it's actually seen in people saying, after you're done, what a great God. And I believe that that is what Moses does here. We have to remember that Moses is the author of the Pentituch, so as we read what we read here in chapter four, know that this is Moses telling on himself, and he is not the hero of the first part of chapter four, not by a long shot. We'll see that as we examine this. The first thing we see that is of importance. Here is the message. God's perfect work with an imperfect servant. First and foremost involves a message, and we can confuse that message. Look with me in verses one and five. Then Moses answered, but behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say the Lord did not appear to you. Now go down to verse five. Verse five says that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you. The first thing that's interesting here. Oftentimes, when we look at this part of Moses's call, this last part of Moses' call, especially because of the miracles that we're going to look at, in a moment, we think that this is about Egypt. We think that God is preparing Moses to go stand before Egypt. But if you look at verse one and verse five, these miracles that God is about to give him are not for Egypt. They're for Israel. So Moses' fear here is not that Pharaoh won't listen to him. By the way, that is one of his fears. He's though he said that his fear here in this particular section is that Israel won't listen to him. This message is for Israel. This is important for a number of reasons, and I believe we need to look at these in order to orient ourselves rightly. First of all, God is not just calling for Egypt to let Israel go. Exodus is not a story primarily about deliverance from oppression. We talked about that a couple of weeks ago. There are a lot of people who have reduced it to that this is about deliverance from oppression. If that's the case, God can justslaughter the Egyptians and allow the Israelites to take over Egypt. But he doesn't. He doesn't. God is not just calling his people out of Egyptian bondage. God is calling them to go to the land that he promised. This is about his covenant. There is a place that they're supposed to be, and that place is not in Egypt. He has to get them from Egypt to the place where he has promised. And God is calling his people out to worship him and to make his name known. This is key. This is what the Exodus is about. God is not just saying they're oppressed. I don't want them to be oppressed, so I'll get them out of oppression. God is saying, I will get them out and bring them to a place where they will worship me. I will put my name on them. They will be a nation, a holy nation, a nation set apart for God. That's the idea here, and we have to keep it in mind. The deliverance will show God's power, their law will show God's righteousness, and their tabernacle will show God's presence. That's what the Exodus is about. God is calling out a people. Therefore, Moses's mission is of the utmost importance. They have to follow Moses. Moses can't just get Egypt to let them go. Moses actually has to lead them out of Egypt and into the land of Promise. He's not the deliverer from he's the deliverer to the problem is that they're in the wrong place, and the problem is that they are not free to worship God. The problem is they are not existing as their own sovereign nation. The problem is that God is not at this point fulfilling the promise that he made to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob. And he reminds them of that they need to follow Moses so that God God can fulfill the promise. They need to follow Moses so that God can make them a distinct people. They need to follow Moses so that God can take them to a distinct land. They need to follow Moses so that God can give them a distinct law. They need to follow Moses so that God can teach them distinct worship. This is all about Israel and their distinction. What Moses is communicating to them is hard to believe. And oftentimes we look at chapter four, verse one, and we assume that Moses sinned there in verse one. There's no sin there that God's going to get angry, but that's later on. Do you notice that it doesn't say that God became angry with him here in verse one. Look at it again. Moses answered, but behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, the Lord did not appear to you. The Lord said to him, what is that in your The Lord didn't say to him, how dare you, oh ye of little faith? Actually Moses is right. Moses has a point. Why should they believe him? Or let me put it this way. Guy walks off walks up to you and says, hey, I was a funny thing. I was with my sheep, and you know, I was on the side of the mountain and I saw this bush and it was burning. It wasn't burning. There was fire, and there was the bush and there was the fire, but the bush wasn't like the bush wasn't on fire. Listen, it was God. And so God spoke to me through that and he sent me here, and so you need to follow me. I don't know about you, but I'm not going a man, I'm not going. That's not enough. Just because someone says God, that doesn't mean God told him. You have to remember also, there's been four hundred years and they haven't had direct revelation from God. And it's been forty years. Moses has been gone. There's a generation that doesn't even know him anymore. And he's supposed to just walk in and say, hey, I met with God on the mountain. Follow me, We're going to get out of here. Absolutely not. And that's why God doesn't rebuke him, but instead gives him the signs. The Israelites were right to be suspect. In fact, elsewhere we see this, for example, in the prophets Jeremiah twenty nine to eight. For thus says the Lord of Host, that God of Israel, do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream. Not everyone who who claims to speak for God is speaking for God. Nor is it wrong to question people who say they're speaking for God. Listen to this in the New Testament for Stissalonians five nineteen to twenty two. Let's just look at part of that. Do not quench the spirit, do not desire prophecies, but test everything. Hold fast to what is good, abstain from evil one John four to one. But loved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. Israel would not have been wrong for questioning Moses, and Moses was not wrong to bring up this objection. Moses was absolutely correct in bringing up this objection. This is important for us us in our day, because, as I've alluded to earlier in this series, there is this sense in our culture, and there is this ease with which we use the phrase God told me and God said to me. And when somebody says to you, God told me ABC and XYZ, that's a signal for you to not question what they're about to say. Because if somebody says God told them something and you question them, now all of a sudden, you're questioning God, because that's who they said it came from. Right, This is problematic. In fact, there are those who think that it's inappropriate at any time to question anyone who is speaking for God, or at least who says they're speaking for God. And in fact, if someone claims to be speaking for God and you investigate their claim, you're said to be judgmental, because, after all, who are you? Who are you? The fact of the matter is, we're told to test the spirits. We're told not to believe everything that everyone says. But here's the question for the Israelites to do that. They looked at the miracles that were performed, and they looked at the consistency of the message that Moses brings, this message from the God of their fathers, from Abraham and from Isaac and from Jacob, and with these miracles that he performs, what do we look for. We're not in the age of Moses. We're not in the age of the prophets. We're not even in the age of the apostles, although there are those individuals today who call themselves apostle. And when they do, run Amen. If a man introduces himself to you as an apostle, run because the apostles have the authority of scripture, and any man who calls himself an apos is claiming to have the authority of scripture, and the canon is closed. Hebrews two, verses one to four turn to that police. We need to look at this because this is a very important issue that we face. Therefore, verse one of Hebrews chapter two, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how should we escape if we neglect such a great salvation. It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to His will of course, this follows Hebrews chapter one, where we see that God, after he spoke to the fathers through in many portions, in many ways, through the prophets, and these last days, has spoken to us completed action done, has spoken to us through whom, through Christ. Now we see again that this final ultimate revelation of God is in the person, in the work of Christ, and that the apostles had authority because the apostles brought the direct revelation from Christ. We don't have apostles anymore. So nobody's bringing us direct revelation from Christ. So no one today has the authority to speak as an apostle. No one today has the authority to speak as though they speak the word of God. No one does. We have a closed canon. It's a done deal. We have the Bible. So in order to understand whether or not Moses was authoritative, they looked at two things. One does everything that he says come to pass? That's the Old Testament test of a prophet, does everything that he says come to pass? If it doesn't, you've stown him to death because he lied. And not only did he lie, he lied on God. Amen, how many of you are glad that we don't have the Old Testament test of to thank you amen. The second test was signs and miracles and wonders. So does what they say come to pass? Is it consistent with what's being revealed before? And does it come to pass? And secondly, is God a testing his word through signs and miracles and wonders all the way up through the apostles? That was the answer. Is this an apostle? Is what he's saying consistent with what we've heard? Is it consistent with the other apostles? Has God affirmed and confirmed this apostolic ministry? Yes he has. We have his word. Now we have a closed canon. We are not still in the process of receiving the word of God. There is a closed canon, by the way. That's why there are those who would argue, for example, they want it, they want church to look like Church in Corinth. And there are many who argue that the act of standing up and preaching, that's something that you know, this new fangled later on modern stuff, and the church is not supposed to look like that at all. You're supposed to get down, you know, you know, there's just supposed to be a few prophets who speak and these people speak, and these people will test it, and these people will have a tongue, and these people will test it, and so on and so forth. Interesting thing about that number one was during the Apostolic age. Number two Corinthians is not a pastoral epistle. If you want to know how the church is supposed to be organized in shape, you look at the pastoral epistles first two, Timothy and Titus. We're in the post Apostolic age, so preaching from a closed canon looks like exposition, not bringing something new. When the canon is closed, we we're aligned to it, we're accountable to it. When the canon is closed, we preach the Bible. We don't go beyond the Bible. Because the canon is closed. God has communicated to us what he intends to communicate to us, and we have a closed canon. So preaching today, the prophet today is the one who opens the word of God and makes it clear as God has revealed, both in the old ways through the prophets and in the new ways through the apostles. I don't have their authority, so I preach the scriptures as closely and tightly as I can. That's what I'm obligated to do because we have a closed cannon, we don't get new revelation. We're done. And I say this to you because it's something that's not only not understood among Christians today, but what I just said to you is highly offensive to Christians today. Holding to the position that I just laid out for you is highly offensive to Christians today. And people say things like, oh, you're putting God in a box. No, I'm not putting God in a box. God put his revelation in a book. Amen. Oh well you don't think God can Oh, stop right there, stop right there, because even our children understand the answer to that question. Children, Can God do all things? Yes, God can do all his holy will. Amen. Amen. And the God who can do all his holy will has communicated to us that he has chosen to close the cannon. I believe he can do that, and I believe he has done that. Amen. This is not about the power or the authority of God. This is about the power and the authority of man, which is limited because of the power and the authority of God. And people use this to exercise unbiblical authority over other people, as though you're just some little Christian you know, who has you know who has this little faith. You're some little Christian who has this nominal relationship with God. But me, I'm super Christian and I still get revelation just like Moses did. You poor pitiful thing, bow at my feet and gravel. This is what it does, and it's grossly unbiblical. Folks, listen, you will spend the rest of your life trying to master what God has already revealed. You don't need some more amen. You'll spend the rest of your life trying to master this. There's books that we've preached through that we could start preaching through again and not repeat what we preached the last time, because there is just that much depth and breadth to the revelation of God. So, yes, Moses had a legitimate claim here. They got no reason to believe me, and they didn't have a reason to believe him. He was telling the truth, but his authority needed to be validated, just like everyone who brings the message of God, their authority needs to be validated. Now, how is people's authority validated? You open your Bible and you follow them like a Borean. You open your Bible and you follow me like a Borean. And if I start making things up that aren't in the book. Then we need to sit down and talk, and you can say faster, I don't know. I just you said that, and I don't know. I didn't help me. Please please help me because I didn't see that. The proper response when you do that with somebody who's a preachers for them to explain where they got it from, not for them to look at you and say, how dare you do not touch God's anointed. I get things from the Word that you can't get from the Word because I am super Christian and you are not. That's the wrong answer. But again, that's the answer of the Cares movement, that's the answer of the Prosperity Gospel. That's the answer, and it's the wrong answer, and it's an unbiblical answer. Even Moses himself, who heard God speak from a burning bush, knew that he needed to validate himself be validated by God better. Yet as he went before the Israelites, how much more do we need that today? Here's what's ironic. Moses needed validation, and instead of us thinking we need validation, we think we need burning bushes. Wrong answer. Beyond the message, we get to the miracles. The miracles are very interesting. They're actually intriguing. Look at the first miracle the Rod, verses two through four. The Lord said to him, beginning verse two, what is that in your hand? Alone? That question? He said, a staff, And he said, throw it on the ground. So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it. Amen, Hallelujah, praised the Lord. That's how men are supposed to respond to serpents. The serpent's crawling around, and the man's going to get it. Somethings wrong with him. Okay, But the Lord said to Moses, that's it. Isn't that interesting. A bush was burning, and he walked toward it. The serpent's on the ground, and he runs. Lord said to Moses, put out your hand and catch it by the tail. So he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand. That they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, out of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you. So this first miracle, first of all, we need to understand the Egyptian context. This is not something that God just did normally. This is not something that was done regularly throughout scripture, but this is something with which the Egyptians would be familiar. Listen to this in an article in the Zonof and Background Commentary. Tales even from the modern era have been told of an Egyptian magical act in which a snake becomes as stiff as a staff. One account refers to both a snake and a crocodile thrown by hypnosis into the condition of rigidity, in which they could be held up as rods by the tip of the tail. The sign given to Moses is the opposite, which raises the possibility that the sign is an obvious reversal of Egyptian magic. The Egyptians did a trick. God did a miracle. The Egyptian hypnotized the snake. It became rigid and they held it. It was like a staff. God took an actual staff and turned it into an actual snake. And there are those who argue you all you know, no, no, no, God just sort of made it appear to be an actual snake. And he didn't really turn it. No, it became a snake. Why is that so hard to believe? He made a man out of dust, he can make a snake out of a stick. Amen. There are implications here. First, remember the Israelites are in Egypt. They would have been familiar with the concept that God used, and they would have understood it. They would have understood that the magicians in Egypt did something very similar, but it's not the same. The superiority of God's power over the Egyptians is also made clear in this miracle. Here's the other thing, the great irony. Do you remember when Joseph was bringing his family in, he said, you're going to go to the land of Goshen. When you go before him, tell them that you're a shepherd. Because the Egyptians despise shepherds. Do you remember that, Tell them you're a shepherd. They hate shepherds. They despise shepherds. They're not gonna want you close to them because you're a shepherd, and they'll give you fine land. What does Moses become after he leaves Egypt? A shepherd, which is what they despise. The first miracle that he shows them is what Take your shepherd's staff and throw your shepherd's staff down on the ground, and do with your shepherd's staff something superior that the trick that these highly regarded magicians in Egypt do. There's an irony here that is not to be missed. Finally, I love the question, what is that in your hand? That's what God uses. Here's the staff that Moses is familiar with. It feels comfortable in his hand. It just belongs there. I imagine he'd been carrying it so long that there was probably a place where his hand just settled right in, and he knew he was in the right place. It wasn't too high, it wasn't too low. It was well worn, no chance of splinters or anything like it. This was his. The weight on it was perfect, the balance on it was perfect. He knew he was comfortable with it. And God says, I'm going to use that. This is the mercy of God. When God calls us to serve him, he doesn't ask us to become something that we're not. He uses what we have in our hands. And this is what God is doing. Even through this first miracle, the second miracle, the hand looked beginning at verse six, again, the Lord said to him, put your hand inside your cloak. And he put his hand inside his cloak. And when he took it out. Behold, his hand was leprous like snow. Then God said, put your hand back inside your cloak. So he put his hand back inside his cloak. And when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. If they will not believe you, God said, or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign, the second sign leprosy. There's an Egyptian context, an ancient Near Eastern context. Here there are writings from the ancient Near East about people with leprosy. There are various different versions of leprosy. There were leper colonies. There have been leper colonies all the way up to the modern age. It's very contagious and debilitating disease. It's a disease that would spread and eat away at a person's flesh and was very contagious, which is why they were put away in colonies. People were terrified of leprosy, as terrified of leprosy as they were of serpents. And this is exactly what God uses here. He demonstrates not his ability over inanimate objects, but he demonstrates his authority over even the body of man and his health and his well being, his ability even to heal what man could not heal, his ability to overcome what man could not overcome. He demonstrated his authority over everything in this world through this second miracle. I'm God. First, he says, I'm God, look at me. I'm going God. I can do not only what the Egyptians do, I can actually do it and not make it a trick. Then he says, I'm God, look at me. I'm God. I can heal what you're terrified of and don't know how to heal. And besides, I can also afflict you with that thing as well. I am God. And there's a third miracle verse nine. If they will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, he shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. And the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground. The third one has a definite Egyptian context. Egypt was dependent on the Nile for its sustenance, for its wealth, and for its protection. The Egyptians worshiped the God of the Nile. The Nile was there everything. They got food from the Nile, they got water from the Nile. They had a border because of the Nile. The Egyptians had trade because of the Nile. The Nile was there everything, and the Nile represented life. And what does God do here in this miracle? He takes the water that represents life to the Egyptians, and when it's poured out on the ground it's blood, which represents death. Here God strikes at the heart of Egypt, and eventually this will be the sign that he shows before the Egyptians, although here it's designed for Israel. In all of these signs, God is demonstrating who he is. He's demonstrating his authority. And remember where we started, He's demonstrating to his covenant people that this is one to whom you should listen, Which gets this to the last issue, and that is the mediator. God always uses mediators, and here Moses is the mediator. Think about this this idea of mediation. First, Moses is Pharaoh's mediator. I was turning this over in my mind this week, and all of a sudden it dawned on me. God showed up a burning bush before Moses, but he didn't show up before Pharaoh. Before Pharaoh, he shows up in the mouth of Moses before Pharaoh. He shows up through a mediator. Moses is his mediator. So Moses gets this direct communication. But beyond that, Moses is the mediator. He first and foremost the mediator for Pharaoh. And God doesn't say to Pharaoh, I'm going to come to you personal. He says, I'm going to speak to you through my mediator. Why is this important Because God is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. God is the God of these people. He has chosen these people. He is revealing himself through these people. He is revealing himself to these people. So God doesn't just want Pharaoh to know that God exists, but God wants him to know that he's the God of the Hebrews. So Moses is a mediator for Pharaoh. Moses is also the mediator for Israel. God does not reveal himself to every individual Israelite. He doesn't have every individual Israelite getting the message individually, but they get the message through a mediator. And this is important. It's crucial in understanding the blessing of the New Covenant because one of the great blessings of the New Covenant is that everyone has access. Thirdly, Moses is Erins mediator. Isn't this interesting Erin's going to become the first Leevite priest, and yet this first Levite priest has the message mediated to him through Moses. Israel would always have mediators. They would have the priests as their mediators. They wouldn't just go out in their backyard and offer a sacrifice. They would come to the temple and the priest would offer the sacrifice on their behalf. As a mediator. They would have the prophets as their mediators. They wouldn't just get the word directly from God, but they would get the word from the prophets. They would test these prophets to see that they were actual prophets, but the message would be mediated through the prophets. The kings were their mediators as well, representing Israel before God, Israel being blessed because of obedient kings, and curse because of disobedient kings who were their mediators. And then there is one who comes who is prophet, priest and king and the one and only mediator between God and man, who is actually the God Man, so that the mediator is God himself, which means we no longer have a mediator between us and God, because Christ is God. This is the gospel significance of this passage. When we look here at the mediator, we've got to look at Moses as a mediator as compared to Christ. First, Moses is a reluctant mediator, whereas Christ is joyfully obedient to his fad father. Look at verses ten through thirteen. But Moses said to the Lord, Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant. But I am slow of speech and of tongue. Then the Lord said to him who has made man's mouth, who makes him mute or death, or seeing or blind? Is it not I the Lord? Now therefore go, This is the fourth time, He says, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak. But he said, oh, my Lord, please send someone else. Now he's in sin. He didn't sin the first time. God, They've got no reason to believe me. He was absolutely right. Why the response to that three miracles? Now he says, Lord, Lord, Lord, I'm just I just don't talk so good. You can sense God's patience running out. Who made your mouth? Who makes men speak or not speak? I'll be with your mouth. Just go, And it's the fourth time he says go and he doesn't go. Most this is not the only one who's had this difficulty, but he crosses the line when he says send someone else. Isaiah had this difficulty Isaiah chapter six, verse five. And I said, woe is me, for I am lost. I'm a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. My eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Host. And yet he went and he spoke Jeremiah one to six. Then I said, ah, Lord, God, behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth. And yet he went and he spoke. Nor is that necessarily a hindrance Paul For example, First Corinthians, chapter two, verses one through four. And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling. And my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power. It was in his speech Sego Corinthians eleven six. Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge. Indeed, in every way we have made this play to you. In all things, he was not skilled in speech, but he was skilled in knowledge. He knew God. This is the proper response. Not send someone else. Listen to John Calvin. He might, if he had chosen to use Moses as his ambassador, have made him eloquent from the wound, or at least, when he sends him to his work, have corrected his stammering tongue. It seems a mockery, then, to give a commission of speaking to a stammering to a stammerer. But in this way, as I have said, he causes his glory to shine forth more brightly, proving that he can do all things without extrinsic aid. God wanted Moses's weakness, and Moses didn't trust him. We also have an imperfect mediator versus a perfect one Verses fourteen to sixteen. Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and he said, is there not aaron, your brother? The Levite I know that he can speak. Well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you both what to do. He shall speak for you to the people, and he shall be your mouth, and you shall be as God to him. There's the mediator. What's wrong with this? What's wrong with this? Here's where we see the sin. God, I don't speak, will send someone else, And God says, fine, I'll send Aaron, and you just speak to Aaron, and then Aaron will speak. You'll be as God to him. You'll be the mediator for Aaron. You know what the answer should have been, if Moses was being honest, the answer should have been, wait a minute, God, you see, I can't speak clearly. Therefore I can't even speak to Aaron clearly. Right if clarity is the problem, saying okay, don't speak there, speak here, That doesn't solve the clarity problem. But he says, fine, you don't want to speak before Israel, and you don't want to speak before Aaron, before Egypt, before Pharaoh, just speak to Aaron, and then Aaron will go and be your mouth peace. And Moses is fine with that, which means he believes he can communicate clearly enough for Aaron, which means he could communicate clearly enough for Pharaoh. This is not a speech issue, it's a heart issue. He's afraid, he's a coward, and he's disobedient to God because he's more afraid of man than he is of God. There's the problem. There's the problem. Compare this to Jesus as a mediator Hebrews three to three, For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. Last thing I want to say about this particular issue is that it's a foreshadowing, foreshadowing of what. Why does Moses not get to go into the Promised Land because he disobeyed God's command? And here here we see the root of the sin that eventually left him out of the Promised land. Israel's mediator is Israel's mediator. Christ is the mediator for the nations. You see, this covenant with Israel is just a national covenant with Israel. But the covenant that Christ mediates is not a national covenant with Israel. The covenant that Christ mediates is a multinational, international, universal, global covenant with the people of God from every tribe and kindred and tongue and nation. Here God is just trying to call out his people so that God can show who he is through this one nation. But through that one nation, ultimately we will get at Christ, who is the true Israel. And through the true Israel of Jesus Christ, all of the nations in the earth will be blessed and be part of the new Covenant, which is greater than the Covenant of Moses. Moses is a human mediator. Christ is a divine one made flesh, and Moses is the mediator of an inferior covenant. Listen to Hebrews eight six through seven. But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediated is better since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. Amen. Moses is a mediator, but he imperfect. He's mediating a covenant, but it's insufficient. There is a better mediator to come who is greater than Moses, who mediates a covenant greater than the mosaic covenant, and that is Christ. The covenant that he mediates is this new covenant in his own blood. He dies on the cross and inaugurates this covenant into which we enter with him and all those who place their faith in Jesus Christ, whether Jew or Greek, or male or female, whether young or old, we are all made one in Christ through this new covenant. So what do we take away from this? Several things. First, the doctrine of election is on display. God is not throwing out his message in Egypt and hopes that somebody will respond and opening his arms wide to anyone who will come. He is sending his mediator to go get his people, and that's exactly what his mediator does. He goes and gets his people. We see this same doctrine in that Christ came for his people. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for her. Specifically, Christ gave himself for her. Christ gave himself for his bride. Christ didn't just come shopping hoping that anyone would come. He came to specifically lay down his life to redeem people, particular people, and he did redeem those people. He didn't just come and hopes that someone might be redeemed. He came, and as a result, people actually are redeemed, a particular people deemed by Christ. Secondly, God's sovereignty is not the same as fatalism. This is important. God is God sovereign. Yes, He's absolutely sovereign. Well, there's nothing I do matters, Yes, it does matter. There is obviously a relational issue going on between God and Moses. Amen, there's something relational happening between God and Moses, and Moses's actions have consequence consequences. How does that fit within the sovereignty of God. Well, God is sovereign. God knows Moses. God is not surprised. He knows who Moses is, and he chose Moses in spite of who Moses was. Whomever God chose was going to be sinful. This was Moses' particular area of sin. But at the same time, there is this interaction between God and Moses that is meaningful, And there is an interaction between you and God that is meaningful, and one of the things that people sometimes lose sight of was when they come to grasp the doctrines of grace and come to believe and hold hi the sovereignty of God is somehow we believe that this idea of an actual meaningful relationship with the Most High God is gone. That the only way you can have a meaningful relationship with God is if he's not sovereign. May it never be. That's the beauty of our relationship with God, that the sovereign God of the universe has an intimate personal relationship with us, and it's real. Finally, you don't outgrow your sin. You don't outgrow your sin. Moses is eighty years old. We saw him at forty and there were particular sins that he was dealing with at forty. Remember he was just so just so impulsive at forty, and that was hugely problematic that he was so impulsive at forty. He made bad decisions at forty. Now at eighty, he's fearful and disobedient. He's eighty years old and he's still dealing with sin. There's some of you who believe that all you need is just to get older. News flash, you don't age out of sin, Amen, somebody, you don't age out of sin. In fact, for many people, as they get older, their sins just change because there's some things they're too old to do. Now, Amen, you will deal with sin until they put you in the ground. Moses at one hundred and twenty years old is sinfully disobedient again, and he doesn't get to go into the Promised Land. Why because you don't get too old to sin. You See, we think that. See, we don't believe in sin. Actually, we believe that we do things because we're young and uninformed, so that as we get older, we'll get more informed and then we'll do better. That's a problem. That's why sin grabs you and drags you down at an old age, because you believe that all you need is gray hair, and that gray hair will make you stop sinning. No. Gray hair just makes you more complex in your sin because now you don't have the energy to sin the way you used to, so you sin in other ways. You just get more sophisticated in your sin as you get older. But it's still sinful. It's still sinful. We battle sin every day. We battle sin all our lives. Sanctification is a fight that we fight until glorification comes. Amen, and we must. And this reminds us you don't just age out. But what is it? What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me ho again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. That's the only answer. Here's a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guiltiestings. It's Christ. It's Christ. You need Christ when you're ten, and you need Christ when you're a hundred. It's Christ. You don't just need to become more mature. You need to be born again. You need to be saved. You need to be delivered. That's what you need. Young or old, you need Christ. You realize that there are people who are sixty, seventy eighty years old and have been in church for a long time and are still not saved. What do they need? They don't need to learn more stuff. They need to flee to Christ. He is our hope, He is our answer. Cling to Him with everything that you have. Cling to him and then pray that He might give you great to cling to him all the more because Christ is your hope. He is the mediator of a greater covenant. He is the perfect mediator, the willing mediator who laid down his life for his sheep, the great shepherd. Trust in him, trust in him alone. Let's pray, Oh God, our great Father, author and finisher of our faith, our redeemer and savior, our sustainer. God. We bow before you, acknowledging the fact that we are helpless and hopeless apart from Christ. Bow and adoration and gratitude. Thankful for the new and greater covenant inaugurated in His blood, confirmed and sealed by it. Thankful to you that it is through Christ that we are made righteous and through Him alone. Father, thank you for reminding us of the frailty of your servant Moses, as it reminds us of our own frailty and our great need for Christ as our mediator, as our prophet, our priest, and our King. We recognize that we are weak. We recognize that we are sinful, and we recognize that we are helpless. We recognize that we are ignorant, and for that we are all the more grateful that through Christ you have made away that though we are ignorant, though we are sinful, and though we are weak, we can be made right. We can be made righteous, we can be made whole, We can be made yours. Grant by your grace that we might rejoice in our Mediator, that we might rejoice that through Christ we have direct access to You, that we might know you, God, that we might know you through your Son, and in the power of your spirit, might open your word, and that we might read it, and that we might find you there. Grant that this truth would make us more diligent to seek for you. I pray for those under the sound of my voice who have not come to know You in the pardon of their sin. Grant by your grace that their eyes might be opened, that the scales might be removed, that they might see and flee and cling to Christ, that he might be their hope. And they're all in all and for all of us. As we come before the Lord's table, may we be reminded of that greater covenant and that greater mediator, who is Christ, our Lord, and whose name we pray. Amen.