In this sermon, the preacher discusses the concept of redemption and the journey of the Israelites from bondage to freedom. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing one's own bondage and need for deliverance before God can help. The preacher also highlights the consequences of sin and God's hatred towards it, as demonstrated by the punishment of three thousand people in the camp. However, he also emphasizes God's grace and mercy, as Moses pleads for the people and God withholds his wrath.

We turn to Exodus chapter 33. We have just read the 32nd chapter. I choose to read, beginning with the first verse of the 33rd chapter. And the Lord said unto Moses, Depart and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I swear unto Abram, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it, and I will send an angel before thee, and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, unto a land flowing with milk and honey. For I will not go up in the midst of thee, for thou art a stiff-necked people, lest I consume thee in the way. And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned, and no man did put on him his ornaments. For the Lord said unto Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, You are a stiff-necked people. I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment and consume thee. Therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee. And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the Mount Horeb. And Moses took the tabernacle and pitched it without the camp, far off from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass that everyone which sought the Lord went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp. And it came to pass when Moses went out unto the tabernacle, that all the people rose up and stood every man at his tent door, and looked after Moses until he was gone into the tabernacle. And it came to pass as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose up and worshipped every man in his tent. And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of man, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle. You have heard the reading of the Scripture, and it equates you with the fact that God had brought out of Egypt a people for his praise. We have through the years been taught that Egypt speaks of the world, and the drawing of Israel out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, into the wilderness, was a picture of redemption. God's redeeming love and purpose and might was displayed in this work in behalf of this slave people. We associate ourselves with it by saying that we were the slaves of sin, even as Israel made bricks without straw, that we were under a greater than Pharaoh, even Satan himself, that we were in bondage that we could not break and from which we could not deliver ourselves. But God in his grace and mercy and power reached down and drew us out, out from and into, from our bondage and death into life and freedom. And this we have understood to be the pattern and the teaching of this event. But we also recognize that after one has come into the wilderness, there are battles to be fought and issues to be met. And here we find a redeemed people, at least in picture and type, that in due to the absence of the teacher Moses, who is up in the presence in the mountain with God, becomes concerned about their own interests. And so they take things into their own hands. And not able to trust the Lord, they are aware they're in a desert, they've got to have water, they must have food, and they need a God that will help them. The God that has brought them out of Egypt is no longer visible to them in the person of Moses, who is there as his representative. And so they make Aaron, induce Aaron, persuade Aaron to make a golden calf. Now we are not sure where the author of this idea of the calf comes from. The worship of the calf in this form was not associated with Egypt. It is not there. They worship the living ox or bull in Egypt. It is probably Semitic. It goes back to all the Chaldeans in that time before the moving movement of Jacob's sons down into Egypt. But at any rate, a calf is made, and the people are told that this is their God, and they bow before it. Now God allowed all of this to happen, as we saw Wednesday night last, in order that Israel might discover themselves. You see, before even God can help us, we've got to see ourselves. Now they knew they were in intolerable bondage, and they wanted to be delivered from that. They knew that they were in tasks that were demeaning and degrading, and they wanted to be free from that. But you see, they didn't understand themselves. And so after he delivered them from that which speaks of the sentence of death, by the blood on the doorpost, and by his grace manifest in carrying them through the Red Sea, they still had to face themselves. And so it was circumstances that brought them to the unveiling of their own hearts. And I may speak to someone that years ago found forgiveness of sins and pardon of past transgressions, and you've named the name of Christ, and know or feel at least that if you were to die today, on the basis of the finished work of Christ, you'd go to heaven. But my friend, God's purpose isn't only to deliver us out of Egypt, it's to deliver us from ourselves as well. And so we find that this people have come out of Egypt, but they haven't come out of tyranny and bondage to themselves. And here is seen their unbelief. Here is seen their pride and avarice. Here is disclosed their desire to be something that they are sure they can't be, and they haven't confidence enough to trust God to bring them into. They need water, and so they've got to have a golden calf that they can petition for water. They need food. They've got to have daily supply for a company, some have said as many as two and a half million people and they're in a desert. Where are they going to get it? And so they have to take matters into their own hands. And my friend, every sin that's ever committed comes because a person yields to temptation. Temptation is the decision of the will, the temptation rather is the proposition presented to the mind to gratify a good appetite in a bad way. The appetite isn't bad, the appetite for food, for knowledge, for sex, you name it. If it's there, if it's part of human personality, God made it, and it isn't bad. Temptation was Satan's proposition to Eve, to take things into her own hands, to become her own god, to make her own golden calf, and to decide how she was going to satisfy that good appetite. And sin is the decision to do it. And so here they have needs and pressures which are recognized as being valid, God's aware of them, but they aren't willing to trust Him. Instead of trusting their desires and their needs to the Lord, they do it themselves, just as perhaps you've done. Forgiven of the past, but you couldn't trust God for status, to give you the position you deserved, and the recognition you deserved, and the honor you deserved. And so the only way you've known to do it is to become your own god and to climb up somebody else's frame, stand on their head and neck so that you can be six inches higher than you were before. If you backbite, if there's whispering or backbiting or gossip, this is what it is, a tearing down of another to build oneself up. It's the making of a golden calf. If a person has to use means of duplicity and dishonor in order to have security and to have the sufficient for themselves, they've made a golden calf. They couldn't trust God to take care of their daily supply of food, and so they've had to change it in such a way as to make sure that if God fails, they'll still be taken care of. Whenever a Christian stoops to anger, wrath, or malice, bitterness, or strife, to whispering, to backbiting, to uncleanness of imagination, whenever a Christian sins, it is equivalent to making a golden calf. He doesn't make it out of earrings, but he makes it out of words that have gone into his ears. He doesn't make it out of wood, but he makes it out of ideas that have come into his imagination. And so he has to find some way to ensure that he's going to get what he wants. This is the sin of the golden calf, turning away from God, turning their trust away from him, and taking matters into their own hands. But we find that God dealt with this as the enormous sin that it is. Now I will have to say it again, lest anyone has missed it, that to be delivered from the past is wonderful, but it's only a fragment, a portion of God's delivering purpose. He did not only want to deliver us from what we have done, he wanted also to deliver us from what we are. But before we can ever be delivered from what we are, we have to discover what we are. So God withdrew Moses for forty days. God allowed these people to be in this situation for this period of time, in order that under this abrasion of experience, they could have the little sophistication of their spiritual pride rubbed off, and the raw flesh of what they were would show through. This is what God does in your circumstances. You're put in a situation where the one that you work for, the boss or the people at the factory, just go you the wrong way and rub you the wrong way, and they cut you and tear you. Do you think you're there by accident? Never! God has allowed this situation to come in order that you can see yourself. Because of what happens to you never hurts you. It isn't what happens to me or to you. They weren't hurt by being in the desert. It's what they did about what happened that hurt them. When moved with unbelief, when moved with avarice, when moved with vanity, they made golden calves, they were hurt. But it wasn't what God did, it's what they did about their circumstances. And so it always is the case that we reveal ourselves. God said to Moses, they have corrupted themselves, they've turned out of the way. Sin is ever thus. Always it's thus. Now as Moses came down from the mountain where he had interceded in behalf of Israel, staying God's hand by his intercession, he now came as the ambassador for God. Previously he'd been the representative of Israel. He'd been an intermediary. He'd been a lawyer. He'd been an advocate appointed by the court in behalf of some guilty people. And so Moses in the mount, talking with God, begins to say, these are your people whom you have brought out of Egypt, and they're your responsibility. Your glory is at stake. Stay your hand, hold back your wrath. And because he pled for them, not that they were innocent, but that God was gracious, God stayed his hand, but said he would not go up with them. Now Moses comes down from the mountain, and as he comes down he sees Israel gathered around this golden ox or calf. They've been eating, they have sat down to eat and to drink, and now they are risen up to play, probably in some orgiastic rite that had been conveyed to them by some means, and so here they are engaged in all the foul vileness of idolatry. And thus Moses, seeing them, takes the tables of stone which had on them the Ten Commandments, and he dashes them to the ground. Now they have broken the first commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before me. And God is thus testifying that he that is guilty of breaking one law has actually broken them all. He that has sinned in one point is guilty of all, and one sin leads to another, for making this has now led to immorality and to all drunkenness, all the other things that are associated with it. And Moses breaks the table of stone, testifying of God's anger that this is a people that are under the sentence of death. Then the next thing he does is to break the idols. He takes this golden calf and burns it. It possibly was wood that had been carved and covered with gold, or however it was. He burned it, he strewed the ashes on the water and forced the people to drink the water, thus symbolizing that they are actually participants in the crime. Then he reveals a great and just anger against Israel for her sin. He not only reveals the anger, but he proceeds to judge them and to chasten them and to vindicate God as he attacks this crime that they've committed. For we find in these verses here of 21 to 29 a setting forth of the awful, the awful anger, and I say awful in the proper use of the word. Here is Moses that has given a demonstration of how God feels about sin. He's been close enough to God long enough to feel the same way that God feels. It is a terrible thing when people's Christian people sin. When a child of God allows sin in his life, he somehow feels that it isn't as serious as it was before he was saved. But I submit to you on the basis of the authority of God's word that he's never changed, and that sin in my life or your life is hated just as much as it is in any pagan anywhere in the world. Where did we get the idea? How did it come into the church? How did it ever get into Christian theology that God saved people in their sins? Where did it come from? It's out of the pit. There's no answer but out of the pit. God hates sin as much in a prophetic Christian as he does in the vilest sinner out in the world. His attitude towards sin has not been ameliorated by the cross. There is a revelation of his wrath and not the amelioration of his wrath. Do you see it? He didn't give us a card-blank credit card that when Jesus died and said, here, go out and charge your sins. They've been paid for in advance, and there has been a deposit made that you can draw on, so sin as you will. This isn't what he said, but this is what I hear people saying in his behalf, making him the minister of sin, it's a terrible travesty. My friend, God hates sin. If that's the last word I ever utter over a pulpit, I want it to be known that God hates sin. God is angry with sinful people, whether they are church members and know theology and have accepted the plan of salvation. God hates sin. Ours is a generation that's lost the fear of God before their eyes. And someone said about a certain school in this country, said the young man said, no, I'm sorry, my father sent me there, because they do everything there that they do in the high schools in the city, except it's all done with Christians. And this makes me, he said, feel that I shall carry through all my life a depraved view of the gospel of the grace of God, and I'm sorry my father went to the expense of sending me to that school. Now I submit to you, dear friend, that there's provision made for the Christian that sins when his attitude is right and he fulfills the provisions that God has exacted. But the idea that a person can accept Jesus and then go on living without any concern in sin is so utterly foreign to this book as to make it just laughable that it should have to be refuted. But we must refute it, for I know of some teachers that say that because the person has named the name of Christ and accepted him, one man proudly put into his paper that as Christian could live in sin, could die in the arms of a harlot and go straight into heaven, then this being the practice of his life, I submit to you on the authority of God's word that this is a travesty, this is a heresy, this has no relation to the revelation of God and his work. For the scripture says, Whosoever is born of God doth not keep on practicing sin, for God's seed remaineth in him, and he cannot practice sin because he is born of God. In this is manifest the children of God and the children of the devil. It is to be said and said and said again that our God is a holy God. He said to Moses, call the people, and so he called, and Levi came. He said, Put your sword on your side and go through, and every man find his brother, his father, and his family, and slay those that are nearest to you. Three thousand people died in the camp that day as God had instructed Moses to give this revelation of his wrath, but the fact is that three thousand is but a testimony that all deserve to be slain. Now this is the truth that we see here. God hates sin, but what is God's response to this? What does he say? After Moses sent them through, after they burned, broken the idol, burned it, made them drink it, what does he say? Is it finished? No. God calls Moses up into the mountain, as we read in the thirty-third chapter, and he says, You go down and tell these people that they are a stiff-necked people, for they haven't seen even yet. For there they are, they've put their earrings back on, their necklaces on, their bracelets on, and incidentally it was the men that did it. You go down and tell them that they have not seen or understood the nature of their sin. Then he says, I will not go up with you. I won't, because if I do, seeing you as you are, I'm going to simply consume you in a moment. When Moses came down and told the people this, they stripped their ornaments from their body, they made themselves a base before the Lord, they repented of their sin. Now, understand that these are the people that have seen marvelous things happen. They've been living in the midst of miracle. They stand as a redeemed people. Can it be possible, can it be possible that a child of God can sin? Yes. After all, I've said it is possible that a child of God can sin and still be a child of God. I haven't said anything about, I said he can't practice it. He can't keep it on, keep it up, and justify it and vindicate it. He can fall into sin, he can be overtaken in the fall, but he cannot go on vindicating and justifying it. He must deal with it. We find that this is what has happened at this time. Here God has Moses take the tabernacle, it wasn't the main tabernacle later to be built. It was just a little tent that was set aside for a meeting place of God with Moses. And so he says, take this tabernacle way off from the congregation. And Moses rolls down this tent of meeting and takes it up and some distance away, he sets his tent up, the place where he's going to meet with God. And then he came back into the people and he said, if you want to be included among the blessed, if you want to have fellowship with God, it's absolutely imperative that you do something about it. And they said, what shall we do, Moses? He said, now that you've stripped the ornaments from off you, now that you have taken your insignias of your vanity and your pride and your effort to please yourself away, you have got to go out in the sight of all Israel to that tent way out there. You've got to separate yourself from your day and your generation, the opinions of your family and your friends, the contempt in which you'll be held. You must be different. You must be different. And so he moved the tent way out there. You say, does this have any counterpart in the present time? Oh, indeed it does. Indeed it does. I said that we were in the midst of a revival, and we are. It's not following the usual patterns, but it's of God. And we rejoice in this. Let me give you the equivalent to the present time. And I'm reading from 2 Corinthians 6, 15. And what concordeth Christ with Belial? For what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God. As God said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore, come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty, having therefore these promises, dearly beloved. Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. God is saying it again to the church at Corinth as he said it through Moses to Israel. If you're going to have fellowship with me, you've got to break. You've got to break with the past, with past attitudes, with past relationships, things that may have been right yesterday, but now in the light of what you've seen from my face, they're not right today. You break today. You break with every questionable thing. You break with every doubtful thing. You break with everything that at any wise is going to grieve him whose name is holy. I submit to you that if you are to be in the center of God's moving and blessing and want to be under the cloud of his presence, it's going to be absolutely necessary for you today as a 20th century Christian to experience brokenness of heart and brokenness of mind. You heard it in the song that was sung. It's in the 51st Psalm. It's in the word throughout the broken and the contrite spirit. I will not despise the sacrifice that God desires out of broken heart. And again, he has said, my name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place with him that is of a broken and a contrite spirit. This is what we learn from what we've seen that repentance, and that's what it is, a willingness to change our mind about any action, about any attitude, about any acquisition or possession, about anything that we have, of bringing ourselves into agreement with God. Dear heart, you've got to choose. You must choose. How much do you want God? How much do you want the presence of God and the blessing of God? You say, Moses didn't do it. The leader, the preacher. And some of you might look at me and say, we've heard from you about the deeper life and the spiritual life and the Christ-filled life. We've heard for years and years and nothing's happened to us. My friend, it will happen. It will happen when you break, when you bend, when you bow, when you come to the cross, when you come to the end of yourself, when you go outside the camp. It will happen. The cloud will come down and God will meet you. You can't blame it onto Moses. You can't blame it onto a preacher. You can't blame it onto a teacher. It's a personal matter, meeting God. It depends on whether you are prepared to pay the price. You're prepared to close your heart. You're prepared to say, I'm going out there with Moses. I'm going out there with God to that tent of meeting. And all the friends look and say, he's queer, going to get excited, he's fanatical. You come to someone and say, I want you to forgive me. You know, my heart has been utterly wrong toward you. I want you to forgive me. And they look at you and say, well, all right, I guess you want to. And they see you walking out towards the tent. You go to someone else and say, I took this and I've got to restore it. And they look at you and say, well, that's not a very big thing. And so here you are, you're the fool, you're the fanatic, you're the weird one because you're breaking, you're bending, you're bowing, you're meeting God's conditions and you're moving out toward the tent of meeting. And that's the place where the cloud comes down. And what we've been asking for, you see, is a revival that won't cost us anything. We've been asking for God to meet us at his expense where it's not going to involve us. I've known people that have prayed every day for many years, I suppose, for revival, and they don't want it at all because they'll be embarrassed. It'll break them. It'll make them sensitive about little things. It'll make them concerned about the inconsequential. It'll mean they'll have to turn over the whole of the past and bring it under the blood and admit that their life has been lived in futility and emptiness. And they don't want revival. What they want is a great emotional upsurge that will leave them unchanged and bring in a great many other people into the church. But revival doesn't begin with the outside. My people, call by my name, will take off their ornaments, will leave the camp and go way out there in the front of everybody, alone and conspicuous. Then he said, I'll meet them. I'll meet them. And this is exactly what happened. And this is what God is saying today. And the ones that he's going to meet, I see no prospect. Hear me now. I'm speaking carefully, though fervently. I see no prospect of revival coming to this church. I see no prospect of revival coming to any church because revival doesn't come to churches. It comes to people. Comes to people. God can meet you. God can bless you. But it's going to be a lonely thing when you have to take the sword of his word and clap it to your side and go through, and the darling of your heart, this position, this relationship, this interest, this possession, and that sword of his truth cuts and cleaves the dearest thing you've known. But it must, if you're to be his, must go through all ambitions. It must go through all relationships. It must go through all possessions. It must go through every interest. Fathers and brothers must die. The things we've borne of our own flesh, not our family as such, but these ideas, these positions, these interests, they've got to go. They've got to go because they've been in the place of God. Oh, dear heart, today see what the reward is. What did he say? Come out from among them and be separate so that you can be queer and peculiar and get your satisfaction from the fact that you're not like other people. Oh, no, no, no, not that at all. Here's what he says. Come out from among them and be separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you. He's asking you to break over everything, every attitude, the smallest, the littlest thing, anything that he shows you. He's asking you to instantly forsake it, instantly confess it, instantly put it under the blood. Why? To hurt you? No. To bruise you? No. To embarrass you? No. But so that it can be full, I will receive you. I will pour flood water upon the dry God. I will pour floods upon him that is thirsty. Oh, yes. It's when you come dry enough and when you become weary enough with yourself and you want deliverance from the tyranny of what you are and you want freedom from yourself and you're willing to come outside the camp and you're willing to say, I'm a failure. You're willing to say, I've been identified with this that is so far below the standard. I'm willing to admit that you have a need and break and take the sword and put it right into the dearest thing you've known, your own pride, your own spiritual complacency, your own satisfaction, and slay the darling of your heart, and then strip from you all the things that have stood in his way, and out there is a place of meeting. So lonely, such a lonely walk, because you see, my friend, your wife isn't going to do it with you, and your husband isn't going to do it with you, and your brother won't, and your sister won't, and if you ever meet God, my dear, you've got to meet him all alone. You can't wait for anybody else. The sword's got to go right down, right through, but I know this, that if you're prepared to meet God, God's prepared to meet you, and if you'll break, and you'll bend, and you will bow, and you'll put the sword through, and strip the ornaments, which is just a picture of repentance, and go to that little place of meeting out there, the cross outside the camp, in brokenness, he'll cleanse you, he'll give you victory, and then he'll fill you with himself. He promised to do it. You've got to pay the price. Let's bow in prayer. Father, thou art working today, thou art working here, we've been hoping we could give some good tasty morsels of news to the people that thou art forgetting about thy terms and principles, and if churches will just have an all-night prayer meeting, why thou won't send revival? But Lord, we have to be honest with them and with thee, and tell them that that's not how thou art meeting people today, that this revival is not something that's involving churches, it's just involving men that are tired of their failure, and weary of their sin, and hungry for thee, till nothing else counts or matters, they must have thee. We thank thee that thou art finding some, we trust and pray thou'll find some here that are so desperately hungry, that they'll say whatever anyone else does, I must seek God. I can't, I'm going to let the word, the sword of God's truth go right through the dearest things, let it do its worst. I'm going to strip the ornaments, I'm going to go and drink the water with the golden calf in it, I've been guilty, and then I'm going outside that camp to that place of meeting at the cross, and throw myself down there, and ask him who cleansed me from the guilt of past sins, to cleanse my heart and deliver me from the tyranny of myself, and to fill me with his spirit, and the cloud will come down and cover the tent, fill it. Father, this is the word we have to tell them, we do want this people to go, thou knows how for six years we've hoped and prayed that time would come, that some Sunday, some day, the whole church would just move up toward thee, but we see now that isn't thy way of dealing, it's just that lonely one, like Levi, that turns his back on his brothers and stands with thee. It's a personal matter, we see it Lord, and perhaps some thou has spoken to today that say I'm so hungry for God, I'm willing to deal absolutely honestly with his word, with everything that's sin, I want him to cleanse me, and I want him to fill me, I can't go on, I've got to meet God in a new way, while our heads are bowed and eyes are closed, I wonder if there are not some this Sunday morning in this closing moment, who would stand and take the first step outside the camp saying yes, this is me you've spoken about, and I'm so hungry for God, and I'm willing to meet him on his terms, I know you don't have any formula that you can, I'm just going to meet God, I'm going to deal with everything that grieves him, I can't, I've got to take a step outside today, I'm the one, would you stand right now for a word of prayer, if this is your case, thank you, thank you, thank you, yes, with your heads bowed and eyes closed, this is very personal, just between the individual, you pray, others, I'm the one, are there any others, any in the balcony, I'm the one to stand, five women, where are the men, it was Levi that stood with Moses, where are the men, are there others, thank you, God bless you, now our father, we thank thee for these that are here, thou knowest other hearts, we pray for everyone that has a testimony of the past being under the blood, but has been worshiping at some golden calf of vanity or pride or bitterness or strife or jealousy or less unclean thoughts, some other calf they've made, that they may see what this has done, that thou wilt not bless them, thou wilt not meet them, there's got to be an absolute transparency, a complete brokenness, we thank thee for these that have stood, we pray for those that should have and haven't, and just now our father, we ask that the Holy Spirit will speak in a very precious real way to their hearts, and dear friends that are standing, if you wish, you may slip out now and go into Wilson Chapel and I'll come and join you for prayer, if you wish to remain where you are, that's well and good, I'm going to ask everyone to stand, but you that are standing, if you'd like to go, I'll meet you in just a moment, let us stand together for the benediction, our father brewed upon us, this is the place of revival, this is the place of blessing, this is a place where a nation was spared, this is the place where America will be spared, when those who name the name of Christ in America begin to feel about sin the same way the artist feel, and that there's nothing that's unclean, nothing that grieves thee with which they can make peace, and there'll be brokenness, and are going outside the camp to meet thee, so that thou will have a people separated unto thyself, that thou canst bless and meet, bind this truth upon the frontlets of thy eyes, O grant that we'll be a sober people as we part, sensing that somehow God has spoken to us, and O father how we long for thee to have thy way in each life, we plead the precious blood of Christ over us and upon us, let thy word continue to do its work, now may grace, mercy, and peace from God the father, son, and holy spirit be in abide with each of us, now and until Jesus comes again, amen.