You Neither Believed Him Nor Listened To His Voice

Do you have a favorite Bible theme that you just like to talk about? What are your favorite Bible themes? I'm actually curious what you like to talk about. Does anyone have any? Hope in Christ, that is Eric. He's always smiling, hope in Christ at you. Yes, except Ruthanne, he doesn't always smile at her. Or maybe the kids. What else? So that's always on your heart and mind, the fear of the Lord? Good, yes. Victory, Tim Dukeman likes to talk about victory. He is not about losing. Good. Provision. Yes, God's provision. Amen. Miracles. Yes. Okay, Jaron, what? Speak up. Him knowing the future. Yes. Nico, you love talking about David and Goliath. Good. Every little boy's favorite story. I'm going to ask you a question. What is your pastor like to talk about? What's my favorite theme? Sin.

If we were playing whatever that game is where you vote family feud, is that what it is? That's the A number one answer. He's right. He's right. And if you've been here for a while, you know that that's what I'm always talking about is our sins. And it is my favorite topic. It is my favorite topic, our sins. Now, how come it's not any of your favorite topics? It doesn't have. Yes, I've covered it all well enough. Well, this morning, we're coming to Deuteronomy chapter 9, and Moses is continuing his rebuke of Israel's past sins. It's just right up my alley. I will say this about it. Tim is right, and I knew you would know that, Tim. I wondered if any of the rest of you knew that. Eric probably knows it. He listens to me talk enough. I actually don't.

Just love talking about sins. I actually think that when we get a hold of our own sinfulness, then we find grace and freedom. But you'll never find that if you don't first come to terms with your sins. And that's why I always talk about them. Every week, I feel like I'm just telling you you're bad people. And you know what? I am. Because I think that once you actually believe that, you'll grow. and you'll have joy. We all think that joy comes from encouragement, but I think joy comes from knowing your sins are forgiven. So that's why I always talk about it. I don't always say it that explicitly, but that's why I like talking about it. Now, in our section, our text this morning, Moses reminds the Israelites of three, really four different occasions of their rebellion. And then he concludes the passage.

by saying that they hadn't believed or listened to the Lord, and they've always been like that. It's my favorite passage, you know? This theme of their rebellion and their stubbornness, their stiff-necked nature has been a constant refrain of this chapter and really the last 40 years of their lives. And we have to ask, why, Moses, or why, Lord, do you go on and on and on, reminding them in great detail? about theirs and their father's rebellion. They're on the eve of going into the promised land. Why are we talking about the sins of the past? I believe Moses had many purposes, a few of which are to humble them and to guard them against returning to their former sins. And my hope is that God will use this sermon to do that in us, to humble us and to bring us to repentance, that we might be guarded against returning to our sins and living in them.

Israel was disciplined very severely because of their return to their sins, their lack of repentance. I actually want that not to be what marks our lives. That's why I preach the way I do. Our text this morning is Deuteronomy chapter 9, verses 22 to 24. Would you please stand as we read the word of the Lord? This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Again, at Tibera, and at Massa, and at Kibroth Hatava. You provoked the Lord to wrath. When the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you, then you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. You neither believed him nor listened to his voice. You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day I knew you. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Now, some of you might...

be able to tell us what happened at Tibera and Massa and Kibroth or Hazaroth, depending on which translation you're using. But I would like to recount for us so we can orient to what he's recalling because they're just funny, weird names to us. But to the people who had heard it, they remembered what happened there. And so at Tibera, in Numbers 11, it says that the people complained of adversity. And their particular complaint was, that they had no meat but just this manna, and they were really complaining about the manna. They were sick of bread. And you know that they actually had complained before that about not having food, and so they got manna, and now they're complaining about having manna, and that's not good enough, and we're going to come to them complaining about meat. But in Numbers 11, verses 4 through 6, This is the description of the complaint that was going on. And it's worth noting that it wasn't all of them that complained in the same way, but that there were those among them who led the complaining. It says, the rabble who were among them had greedy desires. And also the sons of Israel wept again and said, who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks, the onions and the garlic.

And now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all to look at except this manna. You ever gone into your pantry and done that? Which one of us hasn't? That's what they were doing. Pantry full of manna. But we have no vegetables and no meat. So what did the Lord do? He burned with anger. He sent fire and consumed some of them, it says, around the outskirts of the camp. So he struck them down for this complaining. And it's interesting to note that when we do things like this, I don't think it rises in our minds to the level of being even potentially sinful. I'm just hungry. I just have a taste for something. So what was the sin? Was the sin that they just, they liked flavor? No. What was their sin? Their sin was that they were discontent with the Lord's provision.

And they grumbled and complained about it and said, it's not good enough. All we have is this man. I'd rather not eat than eat this. Have you ever had your kids do that at the table? You should read them this story from Numbers 11. You should say, this is what happens to people who complain about their food. But you better not set them the example before that of you complaining about your food. Or you'll know where their grumbling came from. So those who grumbled and complained, those who had greedy desires, or who, the Hebrew says, who desired a desire. That's actually the way that's translated literally. Those among them who had desire to desire, who'd just gotten a, you know, they wanted it. They were struck down. They were killed for their contempt and their discontentment. And then at Massa, they threatened Moses almost to the point of death because they were thirsty. We find this account in Exodus chapter 17. It says, then all the congregation of the sons of Israel, this is verses one through seven.

Then all the congregation of the sons of Israel journeyed by stages from the wilderness of sin, according to the command of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim. And there was no water for the people to drink. Now, before we read on, you have to think, why did they leave the wilderness of sin, and why did they stop at Rephidim? They just thought, we're going to go for a walk today, just us and all our tribes and all our everything. Why did they leave, and why did they stop at Rephidim? You're saying it. God led them there. He said, pack up. If you were to read the text surrounding this, it talks about how they left. Like this tribe packed up and left. And then the other tribe packed up and left. And then the other one. And they're all just doing this because the Lord has purposely commanded them to get up and to go. And now they come to Rephidim. And in Rephidim, there's no water for the people to drink. Therefore, the people quarreled with Moses and said, give us water that we may drink.

Again, is this the sort of thing we even register as potential sin? And Moses said to them, why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord? But the people thirsted there for water and they grumbled against Moses and said, why now have you brought us up out from Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? So Moses cried out to the Lord saying, what shall I do to this people? A little more and they will stone me. Then the Lord said to Moses, Pass before the people and take with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. He named the place Massah and Meribah.

Because of the quarrel of the sons of Israel. And because they tested the Lord saying, is the Lord among us or not? Was their thirst unreasonable? No. Was their seeking to have it met unreasonable? No. But how did they go about it? Oh, they grumbled and complained. Why'd you bring us out here to kill us? Have you ever overreacted because you were hangry? We just kind of chuckle about it. And we're just like, oh, he's just hungry. His blood sugar is too low or too high or he didn't get enough sleep last night. But that's not how the Lord sees these things. What happened to them there at Matheson or at Meribah? I didn't read it to you. What happened to them? The Lord gave them water, didn't he? Do you think he was intending to give them water or was he intending to take them out to consume them? Have you ever asked yourself the question when you're in a tough spot, did God bring me to this place just to...

Just to grind me into the ground? Like, was that his intention? Was just to bring me through all of this difficulty out here to this so everyone's looking and then just to wipe me up? That's what they're thinking. Could they have done anything else? Could they have been not thirsty? Probably not. Animals don't just be not thirsty when you've got them walking around. Could they have just kept to themselves their own frustration or their own discomfort or their own need? We say, no, that's probably not right either. So what should they have done? What could they have done? What ought we to do when we're in situations like this? It's not a trick question. How about we pray and ask God to provide us with what we need and give us contentment with his time and don't grumble and complain and threaten to kill Moses? These things, the manna, the thirst, Many other things. We'll come to a few more here. These are tests. These are tests. What is the point of a test? The point of the test, whatever subject matter happens to be, is to see if you have understood and are proficient at the subject matter. Do you know how to do the problem? Do you know how to read and understand? Right? It's a measure. So these are tests. How's Israel doing on their tests? Not good.

John's not good. John's not good. They're not doing good. Some of them are dying. They're not doing good, right? They're behind. The clock's running down, and they've got a lot of wrong answers. You who are students or have taken tests, what do you do when you get a bad grade on a test? Do you know what drives me nuts about teachers? Teachers don't give Fs anymore or Ds. It really, it really bugs me. What do teachers do if the kids get bad grades? Well, first what happens is their parents call and complain. Because the kid went home and complained to mom. It wasn't fair. And then the mom or the dad writes an email or calls the teacher and says, my son says that, is there anything that can be? And what do teachers do? Some of you probably, you have to remember back to when you were in kids. You don't have kids that are going through this yet. What do teachers do? What do your teachers do? Okay, they curve it. What do you mean? Okay, so they basically just give some mandatory, some like, extra credit. Here's just some points.

You can all have some points. Socialists, right? What else do they do? Hold on. Retakes. Oh, we took the, did you know that the test was coming? We all knew the test was coming. Were you taught about the subject matter before the test came? Yes. We take the test and you do poorly. What do we conclude? The teacher must not, like, he just don't deserve the grade you got. So we're going to retake the test. What else do they do? Nico, you raised your hand. Speak up. You're so loud. Be loud. Yes, extra credit. That is the worst thing I can think of. Extra credit. You failed at the test, so what we will do is we will give you some easy work to make you feel better about yourself. I don't like any of that. Not one little bit. I would rather that if a kid didn't do well on a test, that they get an F. We have teachers sometimes that are just like,

We're just going to, we actually had it happen one time. It would just been going on that the grades were consistently bad, not for our kids, but for other kids in the class. And what they did was they just said, oh, we're like a month into the semester. We're just going to wipe all the grades away and we're going to start over. And I'm just like, what kind of gospel lesson are you teaching these kids when you'd pull this crap? They never fail anything. And then they never have the benefit of learning from their failures. They never learn that actually things in life aren't always easy, and sometimes you screw it up, and sometimes someone else notices, and they give you a big red F. That's what Israel's getting right here, big red Fs. And Moses is reaching back into the file folder, and he's going, you remember this F? Do you remember this one? You ought to look for opportunities to point out shortcomings, sins. It's happened at my house on occasion.

Our kids get, this is just an example, they get reading logs. And they give them to you, and what grade do you guys start getting them? Third grade? Cypress, do you have reading logs yet? Yeah? Third grade. Okay, how old are third graders? How old are you? Eight or nine. Okay, so eight or nine years old, right? And so they give them this paper, and the eight or nine-year-old's supposed to keep track of it for a whole month. It's just a calendar, and they're just supposed to write how many. You have to read this many minutes this month. It's a pretty simple thing. Really low bar. It's not like a thousand minutes. It's like, can you read 300 minutes over the course of 10 minutes a day? You know, something simple. And at the end of it, your parents just have to initial it and say you did it. The difficulty is the kids have to keep track of a piece of paper for a whole month. Note that I didn't say their parents have to keep track of it for a whole month. Not my job. For my third grader, not my job. I'm not keeping track of your homework.

I will deal with you getting a zero on that. I will not deal with whether or not you do your reading. Your job is to do your reading. And so it's happened at my house over the years that we've had kids that will do the reading, but never write it on the paper. And then comes the 26th or the 27th of the month, and their teacher reminded them, hey, don't forget, you got to turn your paper in on Friday. And they go, and they come home, and what do they want me to do? They want me to sign that they read all these days, all these hours, all these minutes. And you know what? I don't do it. Even though I know they read. I don't know when they read. I don't know how much they read. They may have read twice as much that month as they were supposed to. I don't sign the paper. Because that whole thing is I have to testify that you actually did this, but I have no evidence, proof, of when you did what you did. So I guess you can write 300 minutes in the next three days, which isn't impossible.

And I'll sign on that. Or you can get a zero, in which case you will get in trouble at home for getting a zero. Even though you did the work but didn't record it. Is that how it works in my house? They all cry at some point about it. But they only cry about it once or maybe for two months. And then they do their reading logs and they get 100% all the time on them. And sometimes they get spanked for it. But we talk about failures. We remember failures. We put people in positions. to test them to see if they will fail so that when they fail, they learn something. Isn't it that way in the military, Gabe? Isn't it like the whole point of basic training? Like, we're just going to see if you have guts in you. Like, are you just a wimp or are you going to quit? Because at some point, your life and other people's lives are going to depend on your ability to not quit. So at Tibera, we don't have any meat. Some of them were consumed. At Massa or Meribah.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians that at Meribah, they were given to us as an example so that we wouldn't be like them. The Lord was angry with them and did what with them? It doesn't say, I didn't read it here in Exodus, but what did he do with them? Struck them down. Struck down a bunch of them. Killed them. And they did that because of their complaining. And Paul recorded it as an example for us so that we would, having seen it, wouldn't be like them. And then we come to Kibroth Hathava. area of Hazaroth. Something else is going on. So Moses is kind of flipping around here. Now we're coming back to Numbers 11, just a few verses beyond the grumbling about meat, right? They said, we don't have any meat. And now we come to the passage where they get the meat, and it's just shortly thereafter. Numbers 11, 31 to 34, it says, now there went forth a wind from the Lord, and it brought quail from the sea.

And let them fall beside the camp about a day's journey on this side and a day's journey on the other side. All around the camp, about two cubits deep on the surface of the ground, the people spent all day and all night and all the next day gathered the quail. He who gathered least gathered 10 homers. And they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. It's a good day, right? We grumbled and complained and got what we wanted from the Lord. He heard us. This is how you get what you want. You grumble and complain for it. Isn't that the lesson we've all learned and taught our kids? If you complain and fuss enough, you'll get what you want. That's a failure, by the way, parents. If you teach your kids that by grumbling and complaining, they get what they want, it's your fault when they grumble and complain all the time. But here, they grumbled and they needed food, so the Lord sent manna. And they grumbled.

And they complained because they were thirsty and the Lord sent water. And they grumbled and they complained because they didn't have meat and the Lord sent meat. And they went and gathered it up a day and a half. They were out there working their tails off, gathering it all up, setting it all out, happy. The text goes on and says, while the meat was still in their teeth, before it was chewed, the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people and the Lord struck the people with a very severe plague. So that the name of that place was called Kibroth Hatava, because there they buried the people who had been greedy. Now, these aren't the same greedy people who were struck by the fire just earlier, the ones who were saying, we want the food. We need meat. This is a new set of greedy people who were infected by their greediness and who, when they received it, exposed themselves, exposed who they were, their greed. Here it comes out of them. Greedy people. And so the theme of these passages is you lack something that's legitimate.

desire to want it's not a bad thing you grumble and complain about it the Lord gives it to you and the way you went about it was wrong and what you do with it was wrong and the Lord struck them down for it they failed these tests they didn't learn it wasn't that long since the fire when this happened with the quail it wasn't that long Like probably days before that there had been a fire and they had pleaded with Moses and Moses pleaded with the Lord and the fire subsided. And it's just a few days later and they're out there being greedy. They didn't learn anything. It's like if you touched a hot stove, you still had like the shiny spot where there used to be a fingerprint still on your skin. And you just put your hand right back on the stove. Like we all can see how dumb that is. And that's what they're doing.

They didn't get it. They could not see their sinfulness. They couldn't internalize it. They didn't ever go, you know what? This thing just happened, and I don't want that to happen again. Now, maybe some of them did, because in all of these passages, there's only some who are struck down. Not everyone is struck down, which means that when all these quail were provided, there were some who went out and weren't greedy, but went out and took what was necessary or appropriate. And they enjoyed the meat. But there were some who didn't. Again, if they were hungry and wanting food, they ought to have asked God, how come we don't approach God in faith and humility when we're suffering? Why is it that we grumble and complain so quickly and so consistently? Why is that the first thing out of our mouth? As soon as something bad happens, it's just like we jump on it. It's kind of embarrassing, isn't it? You know, some of us can't help ourselves. We have big mouths.

Here it is. Some of us think better of it and we keep our thoughts to ourselves, but we're no better. We're just quieter about it. Maybe when we do it at home. Do we really think that God doesn't care for his people? That he's not able to act? Or that, as I said earlier, he just enjoys taking his people out and grinding them into the dust for the sake of it, for the fun of it? None of these things are true, but they seem true to our sinful hearts. Why are we so stubborn and foolish? And dull of hearing, it's because of the depth of our sin. We all think we see clearly. We all have such strong opinions about so many things. And we're sure we're right. And when we've been wrong, we have an incredible ability to forget that we were wrong. Because now, but this time we're right. I learned from being wrong and now I'm right. But we don't take into account we're behaving the same way. Like if we're wrong, we should...

That should be evident the next time around. Hey, I've been down this path before, and last time, I fell in a pit. I'm walking down the path again. Here's an idea. There's a dangerous pit up there. I don't want to fall into it again. I ought to conduct myself differently. But we don't learn those lessons. This is sort of the idiocy of timeouts with kids. I'll just have you know, timeouts are stupid, and you shouldn't do them with your kids. Removing the temptation or the danger of them from a situation where they're really weak and struggling, that's fine. Go sit in the corner and go to your room and think about what you did is worthless. It's just worthless. If you as a grown adult can't think through some situation and come up with good conclusions, any better than they have and any better than I've been impressing upon us, why do you think a three-year-old's going to do better than you? All they're going to know is that wasn't fair. I don't like that.

I just have to do this for a while and they'll go along. But there's no positive benefit. It's not discipline. If your kids need to be disciplined, discipline them. And then when the discipline's over, it's over. But it's not this lingering, lasting, emotional manipulation. Spank them. Take the thing away from them. Pray with them. Be done with it. Time and time again, the Lord's wrath is provoked against these people. They don't learn because they can't see. Their sin is blinding. And so when I talk about sin all the time, and we can all kind of joke and laugh that that's what I talk about, it's because we're blinded by it. And I need you to show me my sins, and you need one another to show you your sins because you don't see them. One other thing we can learn from this is that the Lord's judgment is not indiscriminate.

Not everyone was struck down in any of these examples. The greedy were struck down. The grumbling were struck down. But not all. And so even as the Lord strikes down the rebels, he does preserve the rest. The hope is that the rest will learn. But we're dull of learning. And so we ought not to fear being swept away because of the consequences of other people's actions. Though we should always bear in mind that if we were judged, it wouldn't be undeserved. Psalm 103 says, if you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? And so if judgment comes, if hardship comes, and I'm swept along in it, it's not, it wasn't a mistake. But if judgment comes and I'm not swept along with it, I ought to learn so that I'm not swept away next time. There's always this, there ought to always be this biblical suspicion of yourself and your motives in you.

all the time. Not because I'm trying to make you timid or fearful or insecure. Because anything you find, when you're as hard on yourself as you could possibly be, as hard as you are on your kids or your spouse, if you were just that hard on yourself, you will not discover one thing in your heart that the Lord doesn't already know about. And he's not swept you away. And so realizing your weakness is no... New revelation to God. It's just you being honest. And so when we read about them grumbling about manna and we read about them being thirsty and we read about them wanting meat, we ought to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, why and what do I grumble about and complain about? How am I not content with the Lord's provision? Where do I accuse God of injustice? How come I'm so quick to believe he's abandoned me?

These are all the things that Israel was doing when those who were guilty of it were struck down. Are you saying I would have been struck down if I was there? I don't know, but I think it's a really good question to ask yourself because you haven't been struck down yet. It's not a question to ignore. Then we come to the fourth example. These three were all just kind of like rapid fire. And then we come to the fourth example. It says, when the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea saying, go up and possess the land which I have given to you. Then you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God.

So what was happening when they went up from Kadesh Barnea? What was that all about? Well, that was when they were supposed to go into the promised land, right? And he says, go up and possess the land which I've given you. He says, then you rebelled against the command of the Lord. So in the first three, the example, the words given are, you provoked the Lord to wrath. Here he says, you've rebelled against the command of the Lord. There's a difference between those first three and this one. Those first three, hunger, thirst. There's no command. There's no prohibition. There's none of that there. It's just you're hungry and you want food. But they grumble and they complain. Now we come to a command. The Lord sent you up saying, go up and possess the land. Explicit, go do this. Did they fare any better? They didn't fare any better. Then you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. The direct command of God. And they were like, nope, we're scared. We're really scared.

terrified even. And so in their minds, their rebellion was justified. But in God's law room, it was not justified. All of their men, 20 and older, were struck down, 40 years of wilderness, wandering. God didn't accept their fear as a reason for their disobedience. And so one of the things we learn from this, and this is a hard thing, but a helpful thing for us to learn, is that God doesn't accept our excuses. But wouldn't we all like to have a math teacher like the ones I've described earlier? Wouldn't we all like God to be that way? Well, here's some extra credit. Why don't we just retake the test? How about we just get out my big cosmic eraser and just erase all of the failures? Oh man, there isn't anything that justifies our sin. And so we ought to be very careful when we've justified our actions to ourself and we are convinced that we're right.

The question is not whether we're convinced we're right, but whether or not God is convinced we're right. And if we're in disagreement with him, we lose every time. So there really is nothing that justifies our disobedience and our rebellion. There's nothing that justifies our grumbling and complaining about not having the things we need. There really isn't any excuse for us not serving the Lord and being content with his provision, whatever it is. in the moment, or throughout our whole lives. We don't have excuse. But man, we're full of them, and they're dangerous and damning. And so we would do well to ask ourselves, do I think, like, I believe I'm justified in this, but is God going to accept what I'm telling myself as good reason? And I think what you're going to find many times is, no, he's not.

Because for him to accept that good reason, it means that he has to agree with you that he failed you. But he hasn't failed you. Not any one of us has he failed. And so it is the height of foolishness to expect God to hear us say, you failed me. And him go, you're right. He will never say that. Not because he's a liar or because he's cruel, but because you're wrong. He has not failed you. When they were hungry, he had not failed them. When they were thirsty, he had not abandoned them. When they were without meat, he had not forgotten about them. When he sent them up to the land flowing with milk and honey and also giants, he wasn't sending them to their death. But man, they thought all those things were true and they were wrong. So far, we've been talking about all of this is in terms of Israel. I mean, I know I've talked about children and marriage a little bit, but one of the things I can tell you is as you get older,

you'll start to realize these things are true about you. You'll start to realize you're a sinner. And if God's really merciful, you'll be slower about making excuses for it. I'd love, I have not gotten to the point where I've stopped making excuses about it. I'm still working on that. But you just, at some point you go, yeah, I've seen a lot of God's faithfulness and there's, I mean, I'm just making excuses here. I really don't have any reason. I really am that sinful. And God really has been merciful to me these years and decades. He's not swept me up. He's not ground me into the dust. He sustained me. He's given me the desires of my heart in many ways, though not in all ways. And there really is no reason for me to behave the way I am. That's a gracious and mature thing for a Christian to say. It's what you ought to expect.

to as a Christian. I want to get to the point where when I see my sin, I say, come Lord Jesus. Come Lord Jesus. I'm so weary of this. You've been faithful to me all these years and I'm ready. I'm not going to become perfect here on earth. You could give me a thousand years and it would only make me long for you more to spend that much longer seeing my weakness and my failures. These are the lessons we should be learning as we look at Israel. We should be looking at ourselves and going, when is it that this weakness will be done away with? It won't be until Christ comes back or takes you home. So seeing that you're a sinner, having to listen to me or Eric or whoever every week and press upon you in one way or the other your sins, it's a kindness of God to you because you don't see it otherwise. When was the last time something bad happened and your first response was, that's my fault?

I screwed this up. It's always somebody else's. It's your spouse. It's the economy. It's your coworkers. It's your parents. When is it ever you? Like right out of the gate, you're like, man, we wouldn't be in this trouble if I hadn't done what I did. Maybe you come to believe that after a while, but we don't learn it and we don't say it quick enough. We're not there. And so how long is the Lord born with? that weakness in us. Some of us, it's been decades. And for some of us, it'll be decades still. So when the older men or older women, when your parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, when they just cut through the crap and they just say, that's a waste of time and you're wrong. It was stupid. I remember when I got my first tattoo, I thought I'd let my grandma die without knowing about it. It just is on my back, you know? It's like, you can't see it unless I show you.

And I was like, my grandma never wanted me to get a tattoo, so I just thought I'd let her die not knowing about it. My mom thought better of it, though. My mom said, show your grandma what you did. And I gave her the look that you've either given to your parents or received from your kids of like, why are you saying that? Why does grandma need to be upset? Why are you upsetting grandma? Who upset grandma? Did mom upset grandma? Or did I upset grandma? I upset grandma. And she just looked at me and she just went, you had such nice skin before you went and did that. And she just shook her head again and that was that. That's all grandma said. And I was like, well, I got a whole bunch of other nice skin I didn't mess up. You know, because it's the young stupid people think. You minimize the, you know. My grandma knew what was important. My grandma wasn't a Christian. But her age had purified her priorities.

And she's like, that's just stupid. You're just young and being dumb. The danger of youth is thinking that the way older people think and prioritize is due to their blindness. When the fact is, we tend to get more clear-headed the older we get. If God's been gracious and merciful to us, and we've been students in his school studying his words, we actually get more holy. And our priorities are improved over time. And so we all would do well as young men and women to listen. to those who are older and wiser. Moses concludes by saying, you've neither believed him nor listened to his voice. You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you. And this is sort of just like dessert. From the day that I knew you, it like hearkens back to when Moses was born and was like hidden by his mom.

and then rescued by Pharaoh's daughter, and then he could go and he could be Pharaoh's, he could be done with Israel, but was Moses done with Israel? No. When he came of age, what did he say? I don't want the riches and the spoils of Egypt. I want to go back and be with my people. From the day that I knew you, because then when he came back and he was with his people, how did they receive him? How did they treat him? Moses, we're so glad you're back. Who made you a king and a ruler over us when he stopped them from killing each other?

Oh man, from the day that I knew you. And that little phrase, it's like all of his life's testimony and experience with Israel has come to the forefront. And he's just like, y'all are like this. And what could they say in response? Yes, but with an excuse, guilty. I mentioned to you in a previous sermon, I said that one of the incredible things is last week, you remember when Moses prayed and he said, Lord, please forgive these people's sins. But if not, would you blot my name out of the book as well? Like he was with them and he's still with them. And next week we'll come to his prayer is recorded at the end of this chapter. And he pleads with God, these are your people. These are your people. These are your people. These are my, we are your people. And so these things that I've been talking about, the things that are true of us, when we're honest about us, ourselves doesn't make us not the Lord's people. It just makes us not what everyone else expects the Lord's people to be like. Do you still cuss? I know some of you do. I try not to. And for a long time, I really didn't. And I don't hardly ever say the F word. But I get around people as a pastor, and you know what they always think offends me? Cussing. Cussing.

That's what they think. They think it really bothers. They can take the Lord's name in vain a hundred times. And they don't even know what it is, right? But man, if they drop an F-bomb, they're just like, oh, I'm a pastor, right? And there are times I get angry and I want to cuss. And there are times I want to make fun of somebody and I want to cuss at them. And you know what? Sometimes I do. And sometimes I do it because I don't have the self-control to restrain myself. But sometimes I do it on purpose. Just as a shot across the bow of the people that think that we're different than them. Now, is that stupid? Who said yeah? Well, I'm not better than them. I just, I had a, I went and got an insurance quote this week with a guy who goes to Plainfield Christian. And he's big Dave and I'm medium Dave in the circles we run in. He's a big, big man. Taller and bigger than me.

It'd be like Clay standing next to me if I was standing next to him. He's quite a bit bigger than us. He's Big Dave. And he's a sweet man and spends a lot of time at the casino. And we were talking, and he said, you know, we were talking about a mutual friend of ours. He says, we have a mission. And I said, oh, yeah, what's that? And he says, we need to get this guy to go to church because we're really the only two Christians he interacts with. And Big Dave and Medium Dave, we come from different places. Theologically. But we're the only Christians our mutual friend has. He says, we need to get him to come to church. And he said, one of the things that our friend has noted is that he always looks at me, our friend. We'll call him Bill, okay? Bill's not his real name. We'll call him Bill. Bill always looks at me. I kind of feel like I'm an exotic animal at the zoo on display when Bill looks at me. Because I have 11 kids, and he's my age, and he's engaged to second marriage. He's had cancer.

basically a functional alcoholic, and he just looks at me like I'm an exotic animal in the zoo. He can not quite make sense of me because I'm not what he thinks of as Christians. I'm competitive. He's one of the people I've cussed around. He's one of the guys I've gone out to lunch with, and when he got drunk, I've rebuked him for it while he's drunk. Why do I cuss around him? Sometimes, occasionally, on purpose. It's just to remind him that I'm not all that different than him, but that God has been good to me. That's what I want him to learn, and that's what I tell him.

I'm not going to conform and lie to his, I'm not going to conform to his misconception about what Christians are like. And there have been times I've sinned and I've had to go back and say, that was wrong of me and I shouldn't have done that. Would you forgive me? And I don't make any sense of that either because nobody does that either, right? But this is ministry. This is knowing who you are and what you're like. And I would love if we would stop trying to get everyone to believe lies about ourselves. about us. I wish we would tell them the truth. I wish we'd stop being as concerned as they are about cussing or about smoking or whatever your shtick is. I wish we'd just be Christians who would be like, you know what? Oh man, if you knew me, in fact, I'll get close enough to you so that you do know me. And then we'll have something to talk about. And there'll be real hope to be offered to them for

For salvation, because you're not different than them. You're not one of the good people who haven't screwed it up. That's not actually true of you, is it? You made it through life not screwing it up? In some ways, yes, but only by the grace of God. But you have fallen. And it would be a good testimony to the unbeliever of the grace of God for you to say so and to stop hiding who you are. But first, you've got to accept who you are and what you're like. And if you're bitter and angry and grumpy and have an explosive temper, wouldn't it be nice if someone saw it? Because then they could see what you do with it afterwards. I think that's evangelistic. I think that's helpful. I think that's taking sin such as it is in our lives and we battle with it and saying to those around us, we have hope and we have a God who's strong and a God who's merciful and who loves people like me and like you.

That's what I think about when I read this passage. When I say, you've been like this since the day I knew you. I think, and praise God for his mercies, which are new to us every morning. Oh man, I have to stop. I want to talk to you about how you treat each other, but I don't have time. Let's pray. Father, we confess to you that we're sinful and wicked. We spend so much time lying about it, hiding it, and trying to clean it up. And we're like little kids smearing peanut butter on the table. We just make a bigger mess.