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GOD REVEALS HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS TO LEAD HIS PEOPLE SAFELY TO THEIR ETERNAL HOMEEXODUS 23:20-33INTRODUCTION Over 700 years prior to the events recorded for us in Exodus 19-23, God made a promise to one man that he was going to make him into a great nation. He promised a lone, idol worshipping man, who had a wife who could not bear children that he was going to have as many children as the stars in the heavens and as the grains of sand on the seashore. He stated that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through the nation that would come from him. He also informed this man that even though his descendants would become the slaves of another nation, yet he would rescue them from that great nation and then give to them the land of Canaan. God promised Abraham and then Isaac and Jacob after him, that he would give to their descendants rest and prosperity in the land of Canaan from the Nile River to the Euphrates. We have watched, as we have studied our way through Genesis and Exodus, God exercise his omnipotent, sovereign power to progressively fulfill what he has promised. We have witnessed him overcome seemingly impossible obstacles to the accomplishment of his promise. Barren women, dysfunctional families, hostile enemies, famine, jealous siblings, enslavement, ethnic cleansing, stubborn kings, large armies and grumbling people have all opposed God’s great plan to make Israel a great nation living in the land of Promise. Yet in spite of these insurmountable odds God has led the descendants of Abraham out of captivity in Egypt, through the Red Sea, across a barren desert to Mt. Sinai where he has revealed himself in an awesome display on top of the mountain and given directly to them the Ten Commandments and through Moses the beginning of the other laws that were to govern their life as his people. In our passage today God concludes his law giving by restating his promise to take them into the Promised Land and reminding them of their duty to obey and worship him alone. What we discover in this passage is that God’s promise is not simply that he will give the nation Israel a holy land but that he will make them a holy people, fit to dwell in that holy land. This passage, coming at the end of the giving of the law, points to the gracious nature of God’s salvation. We have in this passage a clear revelation of that far greater promise of which God’s promise to national Israel is but a dim foreshadow. This passage points us ahead, from what God is doing and will do for Israel to the coming of Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of God’s word to Israel and to his salvation which is the true salvation of which gaining the land of Promise is but a shadow. We who live after the coming of Christ and who are the recipients of the gracious work of the Holy Spirit and possess the full revelation of God in the NT as well as the OT can see the greatness and the glory of God’s impressive work fulfilling his promise to Abraham and his Seed. God reveals here how he is fulfilling his ultimate promise to make a holy people who will live forever with him in his holy land, the new heavens and the new earth. MAIN POINT God’s gracious salvation creates a holy people fit to dwell in his holy land because…I. It is based on the work of the divine and human Messenger (vv. 20-22) As the Lord finishes telling Moses his commands he reminds Moses of the Promised Land. He tells Moses that he is going to send an angel ahead of Moses and the people of Israel. Notice that this angel has as his mission to guard them on the way and to bring them safely to the place the Lord has prepared for his people, which in the case of national Israel is the land of Canaan. What an encouragement such a promise would be! These people had been slaves just 90 days before these words were spoken. None of them knew the way to the land of Canaan. None of them had ever fought in a war. Like Gandalf telling Frodo that he would go with him on his journey to destroy the ring or like John Wayne agreeing to the be the wagon master for the wagon train full of farmers heading west, God promises to send his angel to guide, guard and bring the people of Israel safely to the place he has prepared. Who is this angel? First, it is important to note that the same word that is translated “angel” can also be translated “messenger”. Indeed an angel is a messenger of God. The word itself communicates a being that is operating on behalf of another. Messengers are sent from a person in authority to communicate and sometimes execute the will of the one who sent him. Thus, this "angel" is God's messenger to Israel both to command and to act on behalf of God for them. Second, notice what we discover about him in the three verses that follow. First, he is to be obeyed and treated with respect for two reasons. He will not forgive rebellion against his word and the name of Yahweh is in him. Then in v. 22 listening to what he says is exactly the same as listening to what God says. Then in v. 23 the angel bringing them into the land is the same as God wiping out the Canaanite tribes. In other words, when the angel speaks God speaks and when the angel acts, God acts. If you are at all familiar with the gospel of John you will know that Jesus says on numerous occasions that when he speaks the Father is speaking and that he is doing what the Father does. Jesus repeatedly says when he speaks God speaks and when he acts, God acts. Jesus says about himself that he has been sent from God, i.e. He is God’s messenger. The name of God is in Jesus as he says in John 8, "Before Abraham was born, I AM," thus applying to himself the very name of God, Yahweh. He says that everyone who honors him, honors the Father and whoever dishonors him dishonors the Father. Then in John 14 we have this remarkable statement that faith in Jesus is the same as faith in God. Like the angel, He is going before us to prepare a place for us in his Father’s house. He is the way to that place. Later he tells his disciples that he will be with us to guide and guard us through the H.S. to bring us safely to his Father. Also in John 14 we are told that all those who trust in and love Jesus do what Jesus says. He says that all of his disciples are obedient to his word. This same angel of Yahweh shows up at least 8 times in the book of Genesis and has been talked about three times prior to this in Exodus. When we put together all the info we are given from these occasions we find out that this angel often appears as a human being. He is a person who is distinct from God and yet is God. You can see this clearly in Genesis 22 when the angel of the Lord intervenes in Abraham’s offering up Isaac and yet it is the Lord who is speaking to him. In fact, Jacob, when he blesses Joseph’s sons in Genesis 48 calls Yahweh his angel. "May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the Angel who has delivered me from all harm--be with these boys…." You cannot more closely identify God and the angel of God than that. It is as Jesus said of himself, "I and the Father are one." "He who has seen me has seen the Father." This angel regularly speaks God’s messages to God’s people and performs God’s actions. This angel is the foreshadowing of the incarnate, eternal Son of God manifesting his presence with his people. He is the human and divine messenger that God sends to deliver and guide and guard his people so that they safely arrive in the place that God has prepared for them. If this angel is the Son of God manifesting himself prior to his incarnation and foreshadowing the saving work of Christ several thousand years later, what are we to make of the statement in v. 21, “Do not rebel against him, he will not forgive your rebellion?” And then in v. 22 God’s acting as an enemy against Israel’s enemies is conditional, “if they listen to this angel and do what Yahweh says then he will be an enemy to their enemies.” How are we to handle this conditional statement here and in what follows? (NOTE: Notice the structure of vv. 20-33: there are three unconditional promises (v. 20, v. 23, vv. 27-31) followed by warnings, commands and conditional promises (vv. 21-22, vv. 24-26, vv. 32-33). The first thing to realize is that this is how the law functions. The law says that God’s favor only comes to the obedient. In order to be just God can only reward or give his blessings to the righteous, to those who do what he says. If God rewards the disobedient, then he is open to the accusation of being a liar and an unjust judge. What Israel and we are supposed to learn from God’s dealings with Israel is that God must have a way to reward the disobedient without being unjust and unfaithful. This ought to be obvious because of what happens right after God tells Moses this. Look at 24:3 and then 32:1-6. Less than 40 days after hearing God’s law to not worship idols and after declaring they would obey God they blatantly disobey God by making an idol. At that moment, what God ought to do, based on what he has said, is to destroy Israel. However, he doesn’t. In fact, he goes on to fulfill his promise to bring them into the land in spite of repeated violations of this law, which he says here is the condition for him bringing them into the land. Doesn't God mean what he says? How is it that God is not an unjust judge? How can God justly continue to guard Israel and bring them into the land when they have not done what he says? This is the big problem in the OT. Most people have a hard time understanding why God seems so mean in the OT. Why does he wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah, including babies and little children? Why does he command the destruction of every man, woman and child in the Canaanite cities? Why does he kill Aaron’s two sons for just burning the wrong incense? None of that is difficult to explain. What is difficult to understand is how can God keep fulfilling his promises to Israel when he has told Israel that he will only reward the obedient and they are so disobedient? How can we trust anything God says when he continues to fulfill his promises to this disobedient people? The NT has the answer to that question. Romans 3:25 says, "God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice because in his forbearance he had passed over the sins committed beforehand." God the Father killed God the Son to prove that God was not unjust when he passed over the sins of Israel and fulfilled his promises to them, a disobedient people. It is true that God only rewards obedience and he always punishes disobedience. He rewards the obedience of Jesus and punishes our disobedience in Jesus. Jesus obeyed all of God’s words for all those who trust in him and he bore the punishment due to those disobedient ones who trust him. All who trust in Christ receive the rewards of obedience because of Jesus’ obedience and don’t receive the just penalty for their sins because Jesus died in their place. Whenever we read these conditional statements in the Bible we ought to thank God that even though I have not fulfilled the conditions he is rewarding me as an obedient person because Jesus fulfilled the conditions on my part and he is forgiving my sins because Jesus already suffered the due penalty for them. However, there is another point being made by the way these unconditional promises are followed by these conditional commands. God’s gracious, saving work always produces a people who are eager to do good. Grace precedes and always produces faith. These people are here at Mt. Sinai purely as an act of God’s unmerited, unearned, free and sovereign grace. He chose them. They did not choose him. The impact of his grace on the lives of his people is that we are given new hearts that want to obey him. When it says that this angel will not forgive those who lay claim to his protection but who rebel against him, he is merely saying exactly what Jesus says in Matthew 7:21-23. "Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven but only he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out many demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me you evildoers.'" Jesus refuses to forgive those who say they trust in him but who demonstrate by their disobedience to him that they are not trusting in him. Notice, the acts of faith are not the grand acts of ministry but the daily acts of love for neighbor and restraint of appetites for the sake of Christ. If you would permit me to say a word of application to our Mongolia team at this point. Your going to Mongolia is not the chief evidence that you trust in Christ. Loving and serving one another while you go to Mongolia is evidence that you trust in Christ. There are a lot of reasons a person might go to Mongolia that have nothing to do with faith in Christ. However, you will not love, serve and forgive one another apart from faith in Christ. God’s salvation is a salvation from sin, not a salvation in sin. Listen carefully to what I am about to say: While nobody will be in heaven because of what they have done there will be nobody in heaven who has not, by grace, through faith performed acts of obedience to Christ. This is one of the most often repeated descriptions of God’s saving work. God saves us by Christ, the human and divine messenger, entirely according to the freedom of his own pleasure and will and all those whom he saves receive new hearts that trust in Christ and seek to perform acts of righteousness. God’s gracious salvation creates a holy people fit to dwell in his holy land because…
II. It effectively eliminates all opposition (vv. 23-26) Notice, in v. 23, God promises that this angel will destroy all Israel’s enemies and make the land a safe place for the people to dwell. What more fitting description of the work of Jesus Christ could we make? While here the work of the angel will be to physically conquer human enemies it is a picture of how Christ has overcome all that stands between us and the kingdom of God. In the NT these enemies are described as Satan, the world and our own sin, which brings us under the condemnation of the law. The NT says in numerous places that Jesus has destroyed Satan by his death and resurrection. "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil…" (Heb. 2:14) In John 16 he says that he has overcome the world on our behalf. Over and over the NT tells us that Jesus by his obedient life and his willing death has destroyed the power of the law to condemn us and by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit has set us free from our slavery to sin. Notice in v.24 that those for whom the divine Messenger conquers enemies are those who refuse to worship the idols of their enemies and who aggressively set out to destroy all false worship. The reason that God gives for his hostility to the Canaanite tribes is the perversity of their idol worship. Not only do they worship gods who are not gods but their worship is comprised of sexual immorality and they even offer their children as human sacrifices to their gods. After God's Angel conquers these enemies then Israel is to wipe out ever vestige of their perverse and wicked idol worship. In God’s admonition to tear down all the religious objects of the pagan nations we see pictured for us the fight of faith. Let's think for a moment about idol worship. Asherah was the name of a regional fertility goddess of the Canaanite tribes. This goddess in the view of those who worshipped her controlled the fertility of the women, of the female animals and of the grain they planted. If you wanted a large family or lots of baby sheep or a bumper crop of wheat, then you would perform the acts of worship that were required. You trust the promise of Asherah and then you do what Asherah requires in order to obtain what Asherah promises. What God wants Israel to do is to demonstrate that their faith is in him and his promises by destroying the worship centers of the false gods. Every time they destroyed an Asherah pole or shattered a pagan altar they were demonstrating that they were trusting the promises of Yahweh, not the promises of these false gods. Living as God's people required both their trusting in him and their refusing to trust the promises of the idols. Verse 25 literally says, "Serve the Lord your God…" Everyone is either serving false gods or they are serving the true and living God. It is impossible to serve both God and a false god. To serve God does not mean that you are fulfilling some need that God has. He lacks nothing and he does not need our help. To serve God means that we trust him to be for us all that we need. This should call to mind Jesus' statement that "no one can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or love the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." How do you serve money? You serve money by believing that money will give you what you want and need: a comfortable life, sensual pleasure, security in old age, power over others, physical health, etc. You serve money by organizing your life to get more of it. In the same way, God is calling Israel and us to live as if belonging to him is the best and only thing we need to be happy. When you live as if being loved by God is all you need, that is when you are serving God. So each day you and I must get up and set our hearts on destroying the vestiges of idol worship that remain in us because Christ has decisively conquered our enemies. Each day we must trust that Christ has fulfilled the law for us and taken upon himself the wrath due to us and therefore we are loved by God, our sins are forgiven and we are going to heaven. As we refuse to trust the promises of sin, Satan and the world but trust the promises of God we will live lives full of love for others. We will die to our demand to find life here and live as if we expect to gain life with God in the new heavens and the new earth forever. That is what God's promise in v. 26 to give them prosperity, large families and long life is ultimately referring to. The language of prosperity in the land in the OT is picked up in the prophets and in the NT as a symbol of the new heavens and the new earth. It is a return to the Garden of Eden, the land of peace and prosperity where God dwells with his people and supplies all their needs. It is a great error to teach or believe that God promises material prosperity and health here and now to his obedient people. It is an error first of all, because there are no obedient people. Anyone who connects their prosperity or health or some material blessing in this life to their obedience is living on the basis of the law. All the law can do is condemn you because even your best acts are riddled with wrong motives and evil desires. The law demands perfect obedience all the time in order to obtain the blessing it promises. Anyone who claims that God is obligated to bless them in any way because of what they have done has fallen from grace and is seeking to live before God on the basis of law keeping. All who live this way will only find a judge who will condemn them for their gross disobedience, not reward them for their supposed righteousness. In addition it is an error to believe that God promises health and prosperity in this life as the reward of obedient faith because Jesus is the only one who ever perfectly served God and yet he did not receive a long life or prosperity in this world. He received the fullness of these promises after his suffering. He was exalted after he suffered on the cross. He is the pattern we all must follow. As Paul told the churches in Asia Minor, "We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God." As you have heard me say many times, Jesus did not die to bring heaven to earth now but to bring us safely into God's new heaven and new earth at his final appearing. God’s gracious salvation creates a holy people fit to dwell in his holy land because…
III. It is the execution of his sovereign, wise, good and eternal plan (vv. 27-33) In vv. 27-31 God explains two things to the Israelites. First, while they are the ones who will have to fight the Canaanite tribes they should never think that it is their effort which obtains the victory. Rather, God is the one who has gone before them and has caused their enemies to be terrified of them. He uses a very graphic metaphor in 28. He says that he will send the hornet ahead of them to drive out the pagan tribes. What happens when a large hornet buzzes a group of people sitting at a picnic table? They all jump and run away. This is especially true if the people sitting there are certain members of my family. It is the threat of the sting that sends people running. Rarely do people run because they have been actually harmed by the hornet. In the same way the Canaanite tribes will flee from Israel just because they show up, not because they have actually done anything to them. In the same way, as Christians, it doesn't take a lot for us to overcome sin and the devil. All we have to do is show up. If we'll trust Christ as our Savior and Lord and show up for the battle we will overcome our sins and the temptations of this world. It is when we fear sin or make room for it in our lives and refuse to show up that we get in trouble. When you stop praying and reading his word and being with other Christians and confessing your sins and consciously trusting the promises of God as superior promises to the promises of sin is when you get in trouble. Show up and you will overcome because God has sent the hornet. The second thing that God tells Israel is that he is not going to destroy their enemies all at once. Notice he is going to do this for their sake. He knows what is best for them. He has a precise and powerful plan in place to drive out their enemies little by little until they occupy the entire land. Do you ever wonder why it is that you are not perfect yet? Why is it that you still struggle with sin, even after you've been a Christian for a long time? It is because God is driving out your enemies little by little until you are ready to fully occupy the land. God is preparing you for heaven and heaven for you. In other words, here is a clear statement of the progressive nature of God's sanctifying work in our lives. Those who teach that Christians are able to attain sinless perfection in this life are lying to you. Until we are in the land, the new heavens and the new earth, we will be fighting against our enemies, slowly taking over more and more of what God has promised us. God knows what he is doing. He is in full control of the details of our lives, including our sanctification. He is working to make us into the image of his Son on his own timetable that is controlled by his good, perfect and pleasing will. Notice in v. 32 that our responsibility as God takes over the land little by little is to make no covenant, no treaty with the enemies that remain in the land. We are never to make peace with our sin or with the world. We must always remain enemies to sin, Satan and the world. We must never become complacent and live as if it doesn't matter that sin still remains in us. We must not live in the world as if it is our home. We must never make a treaty with false teaching or the false promises of the myriad of demonically inspired false teachers who claim to be telling us the gospel. We are always in a war and must never make a treaty with sin. We pray and read Scripture and live in the community of the saints and die to ourselves and give the enemy no quarter while we trust God to overthrow what remains of sin in us. This is the tension of living as a Christian. We must never excuse our sin. We must never be comfortable with being an angry person or a depressed person or a worried person or a bitter or a self-indulgent person. We must never give ourselves excuses for not loving and forgiving others. We must never live as though our over-eating or over-purchasing or over-drinking doesn't matter. We must always fight to trust in Christ so that we overcome our anger, depression, anxiety, bitterness and self-indulgence. Yet we must never grow impatient with God for not delivering us quicker. We must always cry out, always fight and always rest in his sovereign and gracious work on our behalf. He has begun a good work in us and he will carry it on to completion at the day of Christ. We must work out our salvation with fear and trembling because God is the one who is at work in us to will and to act according to his good pleasure. God’s gracious salvation creates a holy people fit to dwell in his holy land because…
© Copyright 2006 John Swanson.
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