If Thou wilt forgive their sin.
Moses interceding for the people
It was a very happy thing for Israel that they had an intercessor. It is not that God needs it. God does not need the intercession of Jesus Christ--Christ told us so. “I say not that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father Himself loveth you.” And we believe that as the death of Jesus Christ availed for the believers in the Old Testament so did His intercession--that there was an anticipation of the intercession of Christ when Abraham interceded, or Moses.
I. And first let me give you three reasons why intercession is a very high duty.
1. It is a power given to every man to wield--a power of love, a mighty instrument for which we are responsible.
2. St. Paul puts it very prominently. You will remember that, writing to Timothy, he says, “I exhort that first of all supplications, prayers, intercessions, giving of thanks be made for all men.” What would we give for love that does not speak in prayer?
3. And you are never so exactly a copy of Christ as when you are praying for a fellow-creature.
II. The privilege of it is exceeding great. Let me mention one or two of the privileges.
1. It is such a beautiful way of giving expression to love.
2. It revives the spirit of prayer in ourselves.
III. Let me give you one or two words of practical advice respecting intercessory prayer.
1. Like other prayer, it must have intensity.
2. It should be accompanied with thanksgiving.
3. Let me also suggest to you that without which no duty is ever well performed--your method with your intercessory prayer.
Of course it must be left to every one’s own judgment how to do it. Only, have method, and have a period of the day, one of your stated prayers, which shall be, if not entirely, yet to a great extent, given to intercession. The method will be helpful, and it will give strength to the action, for what we do with design and plan we do always better than that which is left to the feelings of the moment. And amongst the arrangements of prayer it will be well to settle with yourselves when, and where, and how much shall be given to intercession. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
The forlorn hope
Moses was one of those who had greatness forced upon him, not being capable of pursuing it--the meekest and most retiring of men by nature, while appointed the leader of a rebellious multitude. Immovable as a rock, courageous as David, where the honour of God was concerned, his own honour, in the ordinary sense, was not his care, and for it he seemed to have no sensibility. Happy those who learn to forget themselves, and to have God only in their eye! And shall not God acknowledge and recompense the grace which, flowing from Himself, turns its streams to Him again? Is it not fit that He should distinguish those who withhold nothing from Him; who achieve no honour that they do not cast forthwith at His feet?
2. Look at another attribute of a heaven-formed character. Where among us are the men that have the gift of intercessory prayer in any measure like the Lord’s servant Moses? Who are they, in a day of general defection and rebuke, that, like Moses, uncontaminated with the sins, unseduced by the errors of their generation, find it their part to ascend alone into the mount, if peradventure they may make an atonement?
3. It has been conjectured by some that Moses here uses the language of desperation, and invokes upon himself the irremediable sentence of final perdition. But when we consider all that this includes in it, of eternal separation from the Fountain of happiness, of alienation matured into enmity, of abandoned association with the cursed and blaspheming spirits of the infernal world, it is impossible that so revolting a wish entered his soul, or that his heavenly spirit, held in the bonds of unchanging love, was violated by the intrusion of so cruel and abhorred a sentiment. It is probable he refers to the declaration made above, that in rejecting Israel God would make of him a great nation. This interpretation is quite natural, for how could his heart sustain the alternative? Could he, so true, so loyal an Israelite, separate his lot from that of Israel? Could he, bereft and bespoiled of the fruit of years of anxious toil, and of faith founded on inviolable promises, accept of this as an indemnification for his loss, or consent to console himself with new projects of happiness, or erect his name and found his greatness on the ruins of forgotten Israel? No; rather let the grave yield him a refuge from such parricidal honours. Life had cost him already too many pangs to leave him energy to commence it anew. It was enough now to be allowed to share the common desolation, and having sustained for a moment the dreaded consummation of his woes, that his life and hopes should be extinguished together. Faithful Moses! Thy interests as well as thy wishes were safe, left for decision at the righteous tribunal of the heart-searching God. ( H. Grey, D. D.)
The training of the missionary spirit
I. The Church contemplative.. Consider the communion of Moses on the mountain with God. No wonder that Moses should delay to come down. When the sublime truths of the Godhead find a lodgment and settled home in our hearts, so that we can treat them as the familiar things of our faith, and not as passing imaginations, we have great confidence towards God. Selfishness is purged out from us, and with selfishness goes fear. The pure in heart see the Holy One; the unselfish see the Eternal Son.
II. The Church militant. The spiritual life is vast and varied; quietism alone cannot express it, even though it be the fellowship of God’s own peace. The change which is wrought in Moses is immediate and startling. He who, alone with God, can venture on remonstrances with God, in the assurance that his pleadings will be accepted; when he sees the turbulent levity of the people, and hears their licentious singing, is transported with indignation. The degradation of idolatry is illustrated in Israel’s transgression.
1. It is, first, a revelation of the profound unbelief of the people. Moses was unto them instead of God. “Speak thou with us, and we will hear,” they had said, amid the lightnings of Sinai; “but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” Here was their first declining, and from this point the descent was facile. Moses instead of God, and a calf instead of Moses.
2. Next, the fatuity of the people is exposed. Ignominious as is their worship, still more ignominious is Aaron’s stupid account of it.
3. And then there is the people’s permanent demoralization. They are unconvicted by the remonstrances of Moses, unmoved by his earnestness; fear and the darkness of night alone could quiet them. “Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting.” How different is the sight of sin from our hearing of it: sin as it affects God seems so easily condoned; sin, when it affects ourselves, appears so heinous.
III. The Church sacrificial. The next day displays a new composure in Moses. A graver, wiser man, his conflicting emotions steadied under the constraint of a solemn purpose. He goes to commune with the Lord. The words declare his sense of the wickedness of the people, his feeling that nothing can be said to abate the heinousness of their transgressions. Submission is the only offering which their intercessor can present, and out of the submission comes a trembling hope. There is here the utmost tenderness of a human heart; there is also an absolute resignation to the will of God. They are truly sacrificial words, sacrificial in the self-devotion they bespeak, sacrificial in the force of their appeal to heaven. Some sort of premonition that his sacrificial purpose would not be ratified by God appears in Moses’ language. It does not mar the sincerity of his self-offering, but the words halt upon his lips in which a simple faith that he could be in the room of Israel would have been expressed. “If Thou wilt forgive their sins--; and if not”--what? Not, blot me, instead, out of Thy book which Thou hast written!--but, “blot me--that is blot me with my people--let me share their forfeiture; I ask no destiny but theirs.” It seems to me that one of the hardest lessons which saintly souls have to learn to-day is that they cannot sacrifice themselves for the sins of the world. It is hard, because the sympathy which impels them is so pure and deep; it has so much of the spirit of Christ in it. To the sacrificial Church God is able to reveal the true atonement, to makes us preachers of Him, in whom, “according to the riches of His grace,” the world may have “redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”
IV. The mystery of the Divine sacrifice. “He that is willing,” says Christ, “to lose his life for My sake shall find it.” Moses was accepted for the people in a deeper sense than he had thought of. He was reinstated in his post as leader, his passion of self-devotedness transformed into faith and patience. The qualified blessing of “an angel to go before him” was changed--as Moses, in his pleading for the people, revealed his undaunted confidence in God’s fidelity, and his quenchless affection for the people--into a larger promise: “My presence shall go with thee; and I will give thee rest.” And when, emboldened by all the love from God, he goes on to ask for more, there is more vouchsafed him. The Lord declared that He would make all His goodness pass before His servant; and intimated to him that beyond even this was a deep, unutterable secret, which none might rend, but of which, if we could but rend it, we should see the burden to be grace. To such surpassing heights of human efficiency do those attain who are willing to give themselves away. The reward of the Church sacrificial will be victory over the powers of evil. (A. Mackennal, D. D.)
The prayer of Moses
I. We are to inquire to what book moses refers in the text. He says to God, “Blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written.” I would observe that Moses could not mean the book of God’s remembrance. The prophet Malachi speaks of such a book. Moses must have known that there was not only a moral, but a natural impossibility of God’s blotting his name out of the book of His remembrance. God cannot cease to remember any more than He can cease to exist. And there is another book of God, often mentioned in Scripture, which is called the book of life, and contains the names of all whom He designs to save from the wrath to come, and admit to heaven. It plainly appears by God’s answer to Moses, that this is the book he meant.
II. What was the import of his request, when he said to God, “Yet now, if Thou wilt, forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written.” Here are two things requested, and both conditionally. Moses prays, if it were consistent with the will of God, that He would pardon the sin of His people in making the golden calf. “Now if Thou wilt, forgive their sin.” He prayed for the exercise of pardoning mercy towards the people conditionally, because God had seemed to intimate that He intended to destroy them, by saying, “Let Me alone, that My wrath may wax hot against them.” Moses had reason to fear that God would, at all events, withhold His pardoning mercy. And therefore to render his intercession more prevalent, and to express his most ardent desire for their forgiveness, he prays again conditionally: “And if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written.” This was implicitly saying, “O Lord, since Thou hast proposed to spare me and destroy Thy people, I pray that Thou wouldest rather blot me out of the book of life, and spare them. If Thy glory require that either they or I must be destroyed, I pray Thee spare them and destroy me. Their salvation is unspeakably more important than mine; and I am willing to give up my salvation, if it might be a means, or occasion, of preventing their final ruin.”
III. Whether this petition of Moses, taken in the sense in which it has been explained, is a proper one.
1. It appears to have been perfectly acceptable to God. He did not rebuke him for a rash request, but, on the other hand, plainly intimated that He was highly pleased with his noble, disinterested desire. And since God did not condemn it, we may safely conclude that it was highly acceptable in His sight.
2. It was perfectly agreeable to the dictates of reason and conscience, that Moses should have been willing to give up all his own personal interests, to promote the glory of God and the future and eternal good of his nation. He supposed that the glory of God was greatly concerned in the preservation of His people from deserved destruction; and he plead this as the most powerful argument to move God to forgive and spare them.
3. The petition of Moses was agreeable to the very law of love. God requires all men to love Him with all their heart, and their neighbour as themselves.
4. The request of Moses was perfectly agreeable to the spirit which Christ uniformly expressed through the whole course of His life on earth. He always gave up a less good of His own for a greater good of others.
5. That the prayer of Moses was proper, because it was agreeable to the prayers and practice of other good men. Paul said, “My heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.” Yea, he did solemnly declare, “I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”
Improvement:
1. If the prayer of Moses in the text was proper and acceptable to God, then true love to God and man is, strictly speaking, disinterested love. Moses expressed a love which was not only without interest but contrary to interest.
2. If the conditional prayer of Moses was proper, then it is impossible to carry the duty of disinterested benevolence too far.
3. If the prayer of Moses was proper, then none ought to be willing to be lost, only conditionally.
4. If the prayer of Moses was proper and sincere, then those who possess his spirit are the best friends of sinners.
5. If the prayer of Moses was proper and sincere, then none can pray sincerely for any good without being willing to do whatever is necessary on their part to obtain it.
6. If the conditional prayer of Moses was proper and acceptable to God, then the prayers of the people of God are always heard and answered. It is their wisdom as well as their duty always to pray conditionally and submissively; for then they may be assured that their prayers will be graciously answered.
7. If the conditional prayer of Moses was acceptable to God, then the prayers of sinners are always sinful and unacceptable to God. They are not willing to be denied on account of God’s glory. (N. Emmons, D. D.)
The broken sentence
I. The problem with which he had to deal.
1. Their idolatry. The great lawgiver and leader, acting on their request, thereupon withdrew himself into the Divine pavilion, and was “absent for about six weeks. At first, without doubt, the people were well content. Better to be temporarily deprived of their leader, than be exposed to those terrible thunderings. But, after a while, they became uneasy and restless. From one to another the word passed, “Where is he? He did not take food enough with him to sustain him for so long.” And then turning to Aaron, the man of words, sure that neither he nor twenty like him could fill the gap which the loss of Moses had caused, they cried, “Up, make us gods, which shall go before us.” We may notice, as we pass, the essential nature of idolatry. For in this marvellous chapter we have its entire history, from the first cry of the soul, which betrays a mighty yearning for an idol, to the draining of the last bitter dregs, with which, when ground to powder, the idolater has to drink its very dust. It is an attempt on the part of the human spirit which shrinks from the effort of communion with the unseen and spiritual, to associate God with what it can own and handle, so as to have a constant and evident token of the presence and favour of God. This was the case of Israel. It was only three months since they had stood by the Red Sea, and seen its waters roll in pride over the hosts of Pharaoh. Every day since then God’s love had followed them. But notwithstanding all, they had been carried away before that imperious craving of the human heart which cries out for a sensible image of its worship. Their idolatry, then, was a violation, not of the First, but of the Second, Commandment. They did not propose to renounce Jehovah--that was left for the days of Ahab; but they desired to worship Jehovah under the form of a calf, and in distinct violation of the emphatic prohibition which said, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or the likeness of any form that is in heaven above, or the earth beneath; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them.” This was the sin also of Jeroboam.
2. Their degradation. There can be no doubt that the worship of the calf was accompanied with the licentious orgies which were a recognized part of Egyptian idolatry. As much as this is implied in the narrative. “The people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.” It is an awful thing when a single man throws the reins on the neck of inordinate desire, but how passing terrible it must have been when a whole nation did it.
3. The claims of God. There was every reason to believe that God would exact the full amount of penalty, not because He was vindictive, but because the maintenance of His authority seemed to demand it. How could God maintain His character with His own people without imperilling it with the Egyptians? If He spared the people they would begin to think that neither His threats nor His promises were worth their heed. And if He destroyed them, His glory would be dimmed, and He might seem to have become unmindful of the oath which He swore by Himself to His servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. It would almost seem as if this proposal was like the suggestion made to Abraham that he should offer up his only son Isaac. In each case God tried or tested His servant. But there is this great difference between the temptations of the devil and of God. The former seeks to bring out all the evil, and to make it permanent, as the streams of lava poured from the heart of a volcano; the latter seeks to bring out all the good, and to make it ours; for moral qualities never become ours till we have put them into practice.
II. The emotions with which his soul was stirred. In the mount he acted as intercessor. It was not against the people, but against their sin, that his anger flamed out. “Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.” Those splintered bits leaping from crag to crag are an apt symbol of man’s inability to keep intact the holy law of God. When he reached the camp he seems to have strode into the astonished throng and broke up their revelry, overturned their calf, ordering it to be destroyed, and the fragments mingled with the water they drank. But as it would seem that this did not avail to stay the inveterate evil, he was compelled to use more drastic measures, and by the sword of Levi to extinguish the evil with the life-blood of three thousand men. Then when the next day came, when the camp was filled with mourning over those new-made graves, when the awful reaction had set in on the people and himself, the tide seems to have turned. His indignation was succeeded by bitter sorrow and pity. “Ye have sinned a great sin, and now I will go up unto the Lord, peradventure I shall make atonement for your sin”; but he did not tell them the purpose which was in his heart, nor the price which he was purposing to pay.
III. The offer that he made. He went quietly and thoughtfully back to the presence-chamber of God, as the people stood beholding. “Peradventure,” he had said. He was not sure. He felt that the sin was very great. He could not see how God could go back from His solemn threatenings. He was convinced that if the merited judgments were averted, it must be in consequence of an atonement. Yet, what atonement could there be? Animals could not avail, though they were offered in hecatombs. There was only one thing he could suggest--he could offer himself. And it was this which made him say, “Peradventure.” He could not be sure that the ransom price would be large enough. It may be asked how came he to think of atonement? But we must remember that probably there had already been much talk between God and himself about the sacrifices which the people were to offer. And Moses confessed his people’s sin to God, and added: “Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin--“ He would not finish that sentence. He could not trust himself to depict the blessed consequences that would ensue, if only God would forgive. But the dark fear oppressed him that free pardon was too much to expect. Ah! how little did he realize the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Of course, the offer was not accepted. No one can atone for his own sin, much less for the sins of others. Yet the people were spared. The passing by of their transgression was rendered possible by the propitiation which was to be offered in the course of the ages on the cross (Romans 3:25). (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
Moses intercedes for Israel
Notice--
I. The sin of Israel. This was a dreadful compound of ingratitude, folly, and impiety. Its greatness will be easily imagined from the indignation which both God and Moses expressed against it.
II. The intercession of Moses.
1. He reminds God of His relation to them.
2. He reminds Him also of His promise to their fathers.
3. He expresses his concern respecting God’s honour among the heathen.
4. He humbly confesses the greatness of their sin.
5. He wishes to be punished in their stead.
III. The reply of God. He remits their punishment. (C. Simeon, M. A.)
The godliness of Moses
The indication of an impetuous, fiery spirit in Moses, only reveals the beauty of the meek patience which marked his life.
I. In the story of the golden calf we see--
1. Man’s natural tendency to worship.
2. The Israelites employing the very tokens of their deliverance to build a god for themselves. The very gifts of heaven--wealth, intellect, power--men turn into idols.
2. In worshipping a golden calf the Israelites utterly degraded themselves.
II. The godliness of Moses manifested itself in self-sacrificing sympathy. Fronting death and its mystery, he stood sublimely willing even to be cut off from God if the sin of the people might thereby be forgiven.
1. His revulsion from their sin mingled with his own love for the people. The holiest men ever feel most deeply the sin of their fellows--they see its seeds in themselves; they find its shadow falling across their heaven.
2. He felt the promise of his people’s future. In them lay the germ of the world’s history; through them might be unfolded the glory of Jehovah before the face of all nations. Gathering these feelings together, we understand his prayers. (E. L. Hull, B. A.)
“Blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book
”:--There are various ways in which this passage may be understood. You may take it quite literally, and say that Moses really would sacrifice himself for a time, or fatally, but not sacrifice himself for ever. Christ made Himself a curse, but not for ever. If it would be possible to make myself a curse for a season for others, I should be within the pattern of Christ--for He made Himself for a season a curse. But I should transgress the boundary, I should go out into a sinful extravagance, if I wished to be accursed for ever--for after all I am not to love another soul more than mine--that is never commanded. And there is to be high measure of right self-love, because the love of a fellow-creature is to be proportioned to the self-love, and if I have no great self-love, I cannot have love to a fellow-creature. Therefore, I must love myself greatly--in the right way. How, then, are we to understand it? When Moses prayed that God would blot his name out of the book, it may have been out of the register of those who were to inhabit the earthly Canaan--that he would give up all the enjoyments of the land flowing with milk and honey, all the promised blessings of Palestine, for the sake of the forgiveness of the guilty Israelites. And if that was it--for securing their eternal happiness he was willing to give up all happiness here, I suppose he would not have been sinful. And I suppose our earnestness should go to that point--that I would give up all earthly happiness so that my child, my friend, my enemy, might be saved. Or, again, it may simply be the language of intensity--the expression of exceeding feeling. But, whichever it be--if you would intercede, it must not be in a light way, it must not be in commonplaces, it must not be superficial and cold. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Intercession for others
Never think lightly of this matter of intercession. There is a very light way in which people say, “Pray for me,” and a very light way in which people answer, “Yes, I will.” Be careful as to asking the favour, or promising to grant it. You may find it a good rule to promise, indeed, whenever you are asked by any one to pray for them, but to promise with this limitation--“I will do it once, I will do it the next time that I am on my knees before God, I will remember to pray for you.” That you will be able to do. But to undertake always to pray for all who ask it is a burden of the conscience--a thing impossible. You will have those for whom, doubtless, you do pray continually, and many; but as respects the ordinary request that you will pray, I would suggest to you not to withhold the promise, but with the limitation that you will pray once. For it is a blessed thing to have intercessors. And how blessed a thing it is God seems to teach us in that He has revealed to us that we have the Holy Ghost an intercessor, and the Lord Jesus Christ an intercessor. We have an intercessor always within us, and one always above us. “The Spirit maketh intercession for us [and in us] with groanings which cannot be uttered.” And here is the comfort--that “He that searcheth the heart,” God in heaven, “knows the mind of the Spirit” in the man. The Holy Ghost in the man asks everything that is according to the will of God. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Effective intercession
Amongst the many touching and interesting incidents that occurred in Stanley’s last journey, there are but few to equal the following:--Stanley had much trouble with his men on account of their current propensity to steal, the results of which brought upon the expedition much actual disaster. At last he doomed the next man caught stealing to death. His grief and distress were unbounded when the next thief was found to be Uledi, the bravest, truest, noblest of his dusky followers. Uledi had saved a hundred lives, his own among the number. He had performed acts of the most brilliant daring, always successful, always faithful, always kind. Must Uledi die? He called all his men around him in a council. He explained to them the gravity of Uledi’s crime. He reminded them of his stern decree, but said he was not hard enough to enforce it against Uledi. His arm was not strong enough to kill Uledi; some other punishment, and a hard one, must be meted out. What should it be? The council must decide. They took a vote. Uledi must be flogged. When the decision was reached, Stanley standing, Uledi crouching at his feet, and the solemn circle drawn closely around them, one man whose life Uledi had saved under circumstances of frightful peril, stood forth and said: “Give me half the blows, master.” Then another said, in the faintest accent, while tears fell from his eyes, “Will the master give his slave leave to speak?” “Yes,” said Stanley. The Arab came forward and knelt by Uledi’s side. His words came slowly, and now and then a sob broke them. “The master is wise,” he said. “He knows all that has been, for he writes them in a book. Let your slave fetch the book, master, and turn its leaves. Maybe there is something that tells how Uledi saved Zaidi from the white waters of the cataract; how he saved many men--how many I forget--Bin Ali, Mabruki, Koni Kusi, others too; how he is worthier than any three of us; how he always listens when the master speaks, and flies forth at his word. Look, master, at the book. Then, if the blows must be struck, Shumari will take half and I the other half.” Saywa’s speech deserves to live for ever. Stanley threw away his whip. “Uledi is free,” he said. “Shumari and Saywa are pardoned.”
Self-sacrificing devotion
An extraordinary act of devotion is described in the “Spirit of Missions,” as it was related by Bishop Boone, while on a visit to this country. He said: “I had a very valuable Chinese servant in my employ, upon whom I leaned with implicit confidence, and one day he came to me and said: ‘I shall be obliged to ask you to find some one to take my place, as in the course of a few weeks I am to be executed in place of a rich gentleman, who is to pay me very liberally for becoming his substitute’--such a mode of exchange, as the reader may know, being in accordance with the law of the empire. I then inquired what possible inducement there could be for him to forfeit his life for any amount of money, when he replied: ‘I have an aged father and mother, who are very poor, and unable to work, and the money that I am to receive will make them comfortable as long as they live. I think, therefore, it is my duty to give up my life for the sake of accomplishing this.’”
Pardoned, yet punished
The Lord may grant pardon, and yet there is a sense in which He will still “plague the people” for their sin. The drunkard may give up his sin and become a Christian, and yet come to a premature grave because of his former evil course. The man who has squandered vast estates in evil.doing may repent, but his repentance will not bring back that which he has lost. The boy who spends foolishly the time in which he should be gaining knowledge and virtue will feel the effects of that misspent time all his life. Some opportunities which me have carelessly allowed to slip by unimproved will never come again to us to all eternity. In that sense each of us must bear his own iniquity. (S. S. Times.)
An example of intercession
Said a servant to President Bacchus, “The physician said, sir, that you cannot live to exceed half an hour.” “Is it so? Then take me out of my bed, and place me upon my knees; let me spend that time in calling upon God for the salvation of the world.” It was done. He died upon his knees, praying for the salvation of sinners.