Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Consequence of Your Sin | Torah | Exodus 33:7-23

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

After you make a bad decision, you now live in a new reality from the outcome of your choice. You experience the consequence of your sin, but how does God respond to your sin? Is he mad? Does he even care? In today's episode, Jensen describes Moses interceding for Israel in Exodus 33:7-23 and explains the need for intercession. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Exodus 33:7-23

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair, and right now we're going through Exodus. When's the last time you messed up, made a huge mistake? Can you remember the feeling you had of deep regret? Of realizing that your mistakes, your sins, would now lead you into a new reality. There would be consequences, and you would have to live in life. light of those. I remember when I was little, I threw a croquet mallet at my sister. I was mad, but the second that mallet left my hands, I knew I had messed up. I knew I had hurt her badly.

And I knew I would have to face her hurt and my mother's discipline. And that new reality scared me. We all make bad choices. And those bad choices, and those bad choices, lead to a new reality we're left to grapple with. A choice to watch pornography leaves mistrust and dissatisfaction in your marriage. A decision to say a biting comment to a friend leaves a wounded, uncomfortable, disconnected relationship. A flirtatious comment made to a coworker opens up the door to a growing desire for an affair. A late-night decision to sleep with your boyfriend or girlfriend drives a wedge of regret and worry between you. There are so many poor choices I make in my life that I instantly regret.

Ones that have big and little consequences. But every time I make those choices, I feel the way of the new reality I live in. I made a choice that took me outside of God's desire for my life. And now, no matter what horizontal is, interpersonal consequences I face, I'm also facing discord in my relationship with the Lord. If you haven't already, go back and listen to Tanya's episode from yesterday. She does an incredible job of helping us sift through the tension the Israelites would have felt as they sat in the reality that they had rebelled against God.

They formed and worshipped a golden calf, and now they had to face their new reality. God has relented from destroying them, yes, but he has told his people that he would send an angel to continue on with them. He would no longer go to the promised land with his people. Now, right after this realization, there's this portion of scripture that feels oddly out of place, almost like it gets in the way of our storyline. Exodus 33, 7 through 11 tells us about how Moses goes outside of the camp to a tent. And that's where the people of Israel could seek the Lord. It was where Moses would go out to meet and speak with God. It feels out of place. But the reality described here should remind us that all is not right. This tent is far off from the people, far outside the camp. Just chapters before,

we learned that it was God's desire to build another tent, the tabernacle, so that he could, could dwell with and among his people. And here, in chapter 33, we learned that sin has fractured the relationship between God and his people, and the reality of the tabernacle is no longer available. The people must go far off to be with their God whose tent is not in the midst of them. God is still speaking to Moses, but there are real consequences to the sins of Israel. But there is hope. Just as he did before, Moses intercedes for God's people once again. Moses first asked God, who is promised to be with Moses as he leads the people of Israel, he asked God, who will God send to be with him? And God responds by reassuring Moses that his presence will go

with Moses and that he will give him rest. But that isn't enough for Moses, because he knows who God is and he knows what God's mission is. Then Moses said to him, if your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people

from all the other people on the face of the earth? Moses brings to the forefront of his request that the Israelites are God's people. At the beginning of chapter 33, God refers to the Israelites as Moses's people. But here, Moses switches the language. In verse 13, he urges God to remember that this nation is your people. And here again, he refers to the Israelites twice as your people. He also focuses on God's mission, his reason for choosing the Israelites as his own people.

God's plan has always been. that in blessing the Israelites, they would then be a blessing to the world. So Moses is asking God, if he does not go with them, what will make them different from the rest of the world? How will people know that the Israelites are distinct? It is Yahweh's presence with His people that makes them different, capable of blessing the nations. On their own, they cannot hope to accomplish God's mission. Verse 17. And the Lord said to Moses,

I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name. Moses's intercession paves away for God and his people to be rejoined. Now, of course, God's mission never changed. His character never changed. God is compassionate and merciful and good. and he reminds Moses of this in the following verses. But we have to see that the Israelites sin altered reality.

There were real consequences for their sin. It fractured their relationship with the God of the universe. And to be frank, they will continue on sinning, rebelling, and rejecting their God. And again and again, in God's mercy and grace, he remembers his people and his mission to restore all nations to himself. God has and always will make a way for his people to be restored back to himself. Now imagine with me for a minute how grateful the Israelites must have been to Moses. See, Moses was not the one in the wrong here.

God was still pleased with him. But Moses loved the Israelites and he loved God. He knew who God was and he knew God would always be faithful to his people. people because he is good, compassionate, and merciful. And so Moses humbles himself and asks God to show his mercy to his people. And through the interceding of Moses, God has mercy on his people again. Now let's remember that we know how the Israelites feel. We've messed up. We've made mistakes sinned against fellow humans against God. Daily, we have to face the cause. Daily, we have to face the consequences of our actions. We have to face the new realities that sin creates in our life.

But we don't do that alone. No, we don't have Moses interceding for us, but we do have Jesus. John 17 shares with us Jesus' final prayer. In it, he prays for himself, his disciples, and then finally, all believers. That's you. That's me. He prays that we would know. God, that through Jesus we would be reconciled to him. Verse 21 says, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. Jesus shares the heart of his mission on earth here.

He became man so that we might be able to know God, that he might experience humanity and live fully blameless so that upon his death as a perfect sacrifice, God might be reconciled to all believers. And that reconciliation, the presence of God with his people once again, would be so that, so that the world would see and believe that Jesus is king. You've probably heard this before, and I also know that while this is absolutely true, sometimes when we're in the midst of our mistakes, when we're deep in the consequences of our sin, it can feel lonely. It can feel like the depth of our sin keeps us from God. We know there's reconciliation in Christ, but we also feel the pain of continued sin. The Bible gives us hope in this. In Romans 834, Paul tells us, Christ Jesus is the one who died.

More than that who was raised, who was at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. See, Jesus interceded for us in his death, and he continues that work today. The reality is that we continue to sin, and we continue to face familiar emotions to the Israelites. And Jesus continues to intercede, to stand before God as our righteousness so that we can be in relationship with a holy God. And so when we face the reality that our sin fractures our relationship with others and with God, we see Jesus' intercession for what it is. Compassion and mercy from our good God, who became man, suffered on a cross and rose from the dead. so that you and I could be reconciled to the God of the universe.

This is good news. The Lord will go with us. He will be our God. We will be His people. Not because we deserve it. Not because we stop making mistakes. Not because we fix the mess we make. But because Jesus died for your choices, your mistakes, your mess-ups.

He died for your sin. He is interceding on your. behalf and reconciling you to your God today. Let us praise the Lord today for making a way back to himself and out of the dark reality of our sin. Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help encourage you in the middle of the work week and bring you deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.