Take Heed, Lest You Fall

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David Platt on Exodus 32

If you have a Bible, and I hope you do, lemme invite you to open with me to Exodus chapter 32 as well as one Corinthians chapter 10. So can I have both of them in just a minute? We’re going to read it back to back in a minute.

Exodus 32 in One Corinthians chapter 10. I am so thankful for Southeastern Seminary. I’m so thankful for your president and his wife and their friendship and ministry to me and to my family. I’m so thankful for this faculty, for students.

The grace of God is evident in this place and in wonderful encouraging ways. I pray that his grace in this place will indeed be to great effect for his glory through you in the church and in all nations. So I’m always honored to be back here.

I have prayed a lot about what to share with you this morning, even late into last night and early into this morning. I want to be vulnerable with you today in a way that I wouldn’t be in just any place or before any group of people. These last few months have been a difficult season of ministry for me as a pastor.

Pastoral Wisdom

I’ve only been a pastor for a short five years, so I have a long way to go and there are many brothers who have a lot more pastoral wisdom than I do that could and probably should be standing here right now.

But these last few months have probably been the most challenging in a variety of ways for a variety of reasons. The specifics of which I’m not going to go into. But I do want to share a few things with you from the overflow of my heart over the last few months that I hope will serve you well, either where you are doing ministry right now or maybe where you’ll be involved in ministry in the days ahead.

And these things spring from Exodus 32 and Corinthians 10. So let’s read Exodus chapter 32 starting in verse one. When the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together with Aaron and said to him, up, make us Gods. Who shall go before us? As for this, Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.

So Aaron said to them, take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. So all the people took off the rings of gold, put them in their ears, and brought them to Aaron and he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf.

And they said, these are your gods O Israel who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it and Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.

And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. And the Lord said to Moses, go down for your people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt to have corrupted themselves.

They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, these are your gods O’ Israel who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

The Lord & Moses

And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen these people, and behold it is a stiff-necked people now therefore, let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them in order that I may make a great nation of you. So that’s Exodus 32.

Now, now One Corinthians chapter 10, Paul refers us to Exodus chapter 32 and other stories from the Old Testament people of God star in verse six, first Corinthians 10, six, Paul says, now these things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did, do not be idolaters as some of them were as it is written quotes, what will now sound familiar to us.

The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did. And 23,000 fell on a single day and starts recounting other things.

We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on when the end of the ages has come. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.

Temptation Has Overtaken You

No temptation has overtaken you. That is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure.

And then he continues on encouraging them to flee from idolatry. So here Paul, helping us understand why we have at least in part Exodus chapter 32, Paul is saying these things in Exodus 32 happened in part as an example for you as an instruction to you in a very real sense as a warning to you, we have a tendency to read stories like Exodus 32 and the golden calf and just wonder what were they thinking? How could they do that and begin to rail on all the ways they missed it?

And Paul shouts into our ears at that point. Take heed lest you fall. He says this is an example, an instruction, a warning to you. You’ll be tempted in similar ways. So I would like for us to carefully, humbly, and clearly consider what Exodus 32 is warning us about.

I see four warnings here and now come back to Exodus 32, 4 warnings. One, we will be tempted. Two become leaders without conviction, we will be tempted. You and I will be tempted to become leaders without conviction. So we’re back in Exodus 32. Do you remember the setup Israelites delivered out of slavery in Egypt?

They came to Mount Sinai where God revealed his glory to them, and gave them his law. In Exodus four, God confirmed his covenant with them. Then Moses went to the top of the mountain to meet with God and the people of God were left at the bottom of the mountain with Aaron. Moses had said in Exodus 24, verse 14, Aaron will stay with you and lead you while I’m gone.

And Exodus 32 verse one says, when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together with Aaron and said to him, up, make us Gods. Who shall go before us?

As for this, Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. This is astonishing. These are people who have been delivered out of slavery.

The Power of God in the Passover

Through miracle after miracle plague after plague the power of God in the Passover, passing over homes, saving the Israelites, striking dead Egyptians, brings them out of slavery to the edge of a sea. He splits the sea in half and they walk through on dry ground. When they are hungry, they receive bread from heaven.

When they are thirsty, they receive water from a rock. They’re brought to a mountain where they see the glory of God revealed before them. He speaks to them and gives them his word. After all of that just days pass with Moses, this is a matter of days that Moses has been on the mountain and they come to Aaron and they say, we need to make some other gods to worship.

And Aaron gives them exactly what they want. The leader gave sinful people exactly what they wanted and you and I will be tempted to do the exact same thing. We have created an entire church leadership model in our day that revolves around giving sinful people what they want.

The name of the game in our day is felt. Whatever they want. It is your job to provide. I remember when I first started talking about talking with some publishers when it came to book stuff and I had been writing, the whole goal was just to write something for the Church of Brook Hills and I was going to self-publish it just for our church.

And a few people said, well, you need to talk to some publishers about that. So I started having these conversations with publishers. In each conversation, their central question was, well, what is the felt need here that you are trying to address? What is it that people want that you are helping provide? What is the felt need?

And I would say there are billions of people going to hell without Christ. Do you feel that need? There are millions and millions of our brothers and sisters who are starving to death and the response was, nobody wants to read about that.

We Will Not Turn People Away

It does not feel neat. And so one by one they said, we’re not going to publish this until one was kind enough to give a little bit of an offer. So part of me wants to go back to those others, but I’m not going to go back to those others. But this is the reality, not just of the Christian marketplace, but of the Christian Church, that we are tempted at every turn to give sinful people what they want.

The reality is we are tempted at every turn to manage a cultural Christianity that revolves far more around man-centered traditions than God-centered truth. You and I are tempted on a continual basis to espouse a cheap Christianity that promises people everything and costs people nothing.

We are tempted to get behind a crowd-pleasing Christianity that attempts to make people feel good about idolatrous devotion to money, big houses, nice cars, possessions, sex, sports, and success. And it’s not just them, it is us.

The reality is we are in the picture that we are in our church culture because of leaders without conviction. I imbalance, put it this way, the Church of God makes or is made by its leaders whether it makes them or is made by them. The church will be what its leaders are. A church rarely revolts against or rises above the religion of its leaders. That’s humbling in this room.

It’s really humbling. I’ve seen this in my own life and leadership. So let me just speak generally. so I can think of, okay, just generally over the last five years, I think of one particular instance where a brother pastor in our midst had fallen into sin that disqualified him from leading.

And this was a gifted brother, wonderfully gifted brother, just so valuable to the ministry that we were doing as a church. And one of those guys, you think, I don’t want to ever have to replace that guy. And so when this happened, you know what came to my mind first, what came to my mind first was how can we make it possible for him to stay?

Success in the Ministry

What can we work out? And I can remember the exact place where I was sitting when God spoke, albeit not audibly, it was clear and said, David, I am more interested in the sanctity of these people than I am in the success of your ministry.

And it is true. God is absolutely more interested in the sanctity of his people than in the success of our ministries. Let us be warned that we will be tempted to become leaders without conviction. Second warning, we will be tempted to celebrate salvation without dedication. We will be tempted to celebrate salvation without dedication.

When they were in Egypt, the people of God were completely surrounded by idolatry, including idols in the form of animals like this calf. But God saved them, and delivered them from Egypt and all of its gods. Yet upon deliverance at the first opportunity they have, they’re running back to their Egyptian gods. But here’s what’s so interesting. While indulging in their sin, they are celebrating their salvation.

Did you hear that? Listen to verse four. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf and they said, these are your gods of Israel who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

That’s the same phrase that was used in chapter 20 verse one when God inaugurated the covenant and said, I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Don’t miss this.

The blood of the covenant had barely had time to dry, and they’re dancing around a calf claiming salvation while they indulge in sin. Salvation with no dedication. A picture that is all too familiar in our day claiming salvation,

Celebrating Salvation

Celebrating salvation while indulging in sin. The story is repeated Time and time and time again. People who year after year after year are indulging in persistent sin and yet they think, I know I’m indulging in sin, but I prayed a prayer back then.

So I am okay praying a prayer not in scripture, but it is what we have preached to them in our contemporary efforts to reach as many people as possible with the gospel. We have maligned the very gospel we are called to preach, pare it down as best as we can to a shrink-wrapped presentation that if we can get people to say the right things back to us or pray the right things back to us, then we can pronounce them saved and move on. And their salvation is complete, not true, not gospel.

Its modern evangelism is built on sinking sand and it is disillusioning millions and millions of souls. The gospel confronts sinners with the law of God and the Lordship of Christ and causes us to see Christ’s glory not as one who is looking to be accepted or invited in, but one who is worthy of infinite and total immediate surrender. That is God nowhere intends to save us without dedicating us to himself.

We will be tempted to celebrate salvation without dedication. So let us then. Let’s preach the gospel. Brothers and sisters, let’s preach grace and mercy in all of its abundance. Let’s tell people it is full. It is free.

You are not saved by anything you have done or can do. You are saved only by what Christ has done for you. So preach Christ as gracious, but also preach Christ as glorious as a king who deserves praise and honor, who deserves so much more than nominal adherence and church attendance. He is worthy of total abandonment and supreme affection.

Preaching is king. Let’s preach the gospel. Let’s be warned in such a way that we will preach the gospel not in ways that will produce lazy Christians who will sit back and say, well, I’ve got grace and so I’m covered while billions perish without having heard the good news.

To Be Saved

So let’s preach the gospel in a way that doesn’t promote lazy Christians or licentious Christians, either Christians who are sitting back and saying, well, in Christ, I’m free to do whatever I want. Not true in Christ, you are free to do whatever Christ wants. It’s what it means to be saved. We have a new life. We live to Christ, not to ourselves anymore.

So preach the gospel graceful grace for glory, not in a way that promotes laziness or li consciousness, but in a way that promotes a longing for the glory and grace of Christ, we made known among all the peoples of the earth. Salvation with dedication. Be warned, we will be tempted to celebrate salvation without dedication.

Third warning, we will be tempted to manufacture worship without humiliation. We will be tempted to manufacture worship without humiliation as if the text could not startle us more. We get to verse five and verse five says, when Aaron saw this, he built an altar of the fort, he built an altar and Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. To the Lord.

In the midst of all of this idolatry, we will have a feast for the Lord. The next verse talks about sacrificing burnt offerings, and bringing peace offerings. Do you see this? They’re taking the guidelines for the worship of God and using them to worship an idol. to the point of calling the idol the Lord they were worshiping.

The only thing they’d forgotten was God. Well, who were they worshiping? Then you look at the end of verse six, it says, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play the wording there, the same wording that’s used in other Old Testament passages to refer to sexual activity.

The reality is they were worshiping themselves. They were worshiping themselves under the guise of worshiping God. We must be very careful brothers and sisters not to focus so much on the forms of our worship that we forget the object of our worship, that oh, that our worship of almighty God would not become routine to us. Rote, monotonous, weekly exercise that we would know who we are worshiping and we would approach his worship with the gravity that is involved in our day.

All it takes is strong worship services, good musicians, smooth transitions, charismatic speakers, likable songs, and sermons. Put ’em together, good worship service. Remember what it took in the Old Testament for a good one, Nehemiah eight, Ezra stands, all he does is open the book. He just opened the book. All the people stood up.

Worship God

They raise their voices, they lift their hands, they shout. Amen. Amen. Then they bow down with their faces to the ground and they begin to weep. The word of God is sufficient to incite the worship of God. Where are the pictures of Ezra and our day who rose before God and then fell on his face and said, I’m too ashamed to even look up?

Where are the Isaiahs and our day when it comes to seeing the holiness of God who cries woes me and receives mercy and grace in humility before his greatness? Tozer said, in my opinion, the greatest single need of the moment. Toes are railed on a lot of things. So this is a big statement.

In my opinion, the greatest single need of the moment is that lighthearted, superficial religionists be struck down with a vision of God high and lifted up with his train filled the temple. The holy art of worship seems to have passed away like the Shekinah glory from the Tabernacle.

As a result, we are left to our own devices and forced to make up for a lack of spontaneous worship by bringing in countless, cheap and tawdry activities to hold the attention of the church people. Oh, brothers and sisters. We do not need cheap and tawdry activities to hold the attention of the church people.

The greatness of God is more than sufficient to hold the attention of the church people. So where is the, where’s awe and confession and weeping in our worship? Is this too extreme for us? Remember the words of God?

And Isaiah 66, this is the one I esteem. He was humble and contrary in spirit and who trembled at my word. If brokenness and humility do not have a place in our worship, then God will not have a place in our worship. We will be tempted. We are tempted to manufacture worship without humiliation. Final warning,

A God Without Retribution

Tempted to lead without conviction. Celebrate salvation without dedication. Worship without humiliation. And finally, we will be tempted to create a God without retribution to create a God without retribution. This was the beauty of the golden calf.

Set up an altar, give your offerings, indulge in revelry and nothing will happen. What could the calf do? One writer said the cow gave no law and demanded no obedience. It had no wrath or justice or holiness to be feared.

It was deaf, dumb, and impotent, but at least it could not intrude on their fun and called them to judgment. This was a religion designed by men, practiced by men, and ultimately useless for men. And God responds in verse nine and says, I’ve seen these people, it’s a stiff neck.

People now, therefore, let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. You and I know that we are living in a day in the church when the wrath of God is being maligned, doubted, or virtually ignored. That was a hell of a game. We had a hell of a time. The way we speak about health shows that we have no idea.

What we are speaking about for hell is real. The character of God is just, and the wrath of God is eternal. Fear Him. Jesus says, fear him. Who after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell? Yes, I tell you, fear him hell.

A place of eternal wrath, fiery agony. Mark 9:43 hand causes you to sin. Cutting it off causes you to sin. Cut it off, throw it away. It’s better for you to enter life maimed than to go to hell. Two hands, two feet where the fire will never stop burning.

Say, well, isn’t that just symbolic language? And do we really know that’s a real fire in hell? Well, let’s assume for a second that it is symbolic. If so, what is that symbol for snow? A cool day. Breeze at the beach. Happy hunting grounds.

Symbols are intended to depict something worse that can’t be described in language, A place of conscious torment. Lucas 16, A place of total darkness. Matthew 22, verse 13, A place of everlasting duration. Matthew 25, 46, Revelation 14, the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. This is real. Brothers and sisters,

This is real. We’re not playing games here. We’re in a war. You are in a war. To use the language of two Corinthians four, four through six, verse four. There is a God, a little god in this world who is blinding minds distorting, hearts deceiving. There is a little G God in this world that wants every person in Wake Forest, North Carolina, Birmingham, Alabama, into the ends of the earth, wants every one of them to burn in hell.

And there is verse six, two Corinthians four, A God, capital G God over this world who is shining light into hearts. He has shined the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ. Shining light a God over this world who two Peter three, nine desires everyone, everyone to repent and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

He wants all people to be saved. And so there’s this battle raging, verse four, God of this world, blinding minds. Verse six, God over this world shining light in the hearts in the middle. Verse five, we preach Christ, we preach Christ in the middle of a cosmic battle for the eternal souls of men and women. We’ve not been called into a game here.

Be Careful of Warnings and Temptations

There’s so much at stake. So let us be very, very, very careful when it comes to these kinds of warnings and temptations. The whole point of Exodus 32 is that we clearly need a savior and we have one. He has taken the retribution of God, do you and me. He has taken the wrath and the payment of sin.

Do you and me? He has saved us from the eternal judgment we deserve. So humble yourselves before him and he will lift you up. Call people to humble themselves. Call them to abandon themselves before he will lift us up in salvation that absolutely involves dedication.

Dedication of our lives, our families, our resources, and everything we have in our churches to making his glory known in our communities and to the ends of the earth. And you stand on that with conviction.

You trust his word with unshakeable conviction and undying confidence that God will show himself faithful to his word and his people and to leaders who trust in him and worship him even when it is not easy. Will you pray with me? Oh God. We confess humbly today, our own tendencies to mirror your people in ages past In their sin. We confess that we are prone to turn from you. We are prone to not trusting you.

So we pray today in this room that you would by the grace of Christ, make us leaders with deep conviction, unshakable conviction in your word that holds no matter what comes our way, that you would show us the joy of salvation with dedication, that you would restore humility and brokenness to our worship today, and that you would forgive us for the way we have maligned your wrath. And in the process minimized your mercy. Help us to realize what is at stake and use us to lead souls from eternal darkness to eternal light in Christ our Savior and King we pray.

Amen.