Joy in Forgiveness Part 2 — Chuck Smith

Welcome to the Word for Today, featuring the Bible teaching of Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California. Pastor Chuck is currently leading us on a verse-by-verse venture through the entire Bible.

And on today's edition of the Word for Today, we'll be continuing with joy in forgiveness as we pick up in the 106th Psalm, beginning with verse 9. And now with today's message, here's Pastor Chuck Smith.

God's Deliverance at the Red Sea

God is now going to demonstrate to them the exceeding greatness of the power of the God who delivered them out of Egypt, out of the bondage of Egypt. And thus God rebuked the Red Sea also, and it dried up.

The tremendous power of God. Here they are trapped. There seems to be no way out. And Moses fell on his face and began to cry unto the Lord. And the Lord said, Moses, why are you crying unto me? Get up.

There's a time to pray and there's a time to move. And now's the time to move, Moses. So he led them through the depths as through the wilderness. And he saved them from the hands of those who hated them.

And he redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. That's because God is merciful. Praise the Lord. Give thanks to God for his good, his mercy endures forever. And in his goodness, he delivered them from the hands of those that hated them.

Forgetting God's Past Deliverances

He brought them out, though they provoked him. He was merciful. And so they believed his words. They saw the power of God, and they believed the word of God, and they sang his praise. Miriam, the sister of Moses, came out with her tambourine.

She led the Jewish ladies in the Hora, and they danced before the Lord and praised God for the deliverance, the rider and his horses as he cast into the sea. And that's the first recorded song in the Bible, the song of Miriam at the deliverance of the Red Sea.

Give thanks unto the Lord, and he's cast the horse and the rider in the sea. But they soon forgot his works, and they waited not for his counsel. But they lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and they tempted God in the desert.

How quickly we seem to forget the goodness of God and the mercies of God. God delivers us from a great affliction, from a terrible trial. And we rejoice, and we're all happy, and we're praising the Lord until the next trial comes along.

And then we forget what God has just done. And we think, oh, this is it. I've had it. There's no way out of this one. And the Lord's forsaken me, and God doesn't love me anymore. Look what I'm in, or look what I'm going through.

And how quickly we forget. God didn't bring them through the Red Sea to destroy them in the wilderness. God hasn't brought you through these many experiences to destroy you now, to let you go. God is going to continue his work of bringing you into that place of blessing and promise if you'll just be open unto him.

Don't forget what God has done. Paul the Apostle wrote, who hath delivered us from so great a death. I look back, and I see how God has delivered us. And he said, and doth now deliver us. Right now, I'm in the process of God working things out and deliver me, and I have confidence, he said, that he shall yet deliver me.

Whatever the future may hold, I know that God will be with me and that God will help me. And thus, he has, he is, he shall. Now, they forgot that he had. They forgot what God had done. That is why God set so many different things as reminders.

Holidays as Reminders of God's Faithfulness

He established holidays for them. The holidays were to be reminders to them of what God had done. So they had the holiday of the Passover. And they would go through the actions of the last supper in Egypt, that Passover meal, so that they could be reminded and so they could tell their children of what God had done in delivering them.

God knows how prone we are to forgetfulness. So we set up holidays to remind us of wonderful things that God has done. We set up Christmas to remind us that God sent his Son. But, oh, how quickly we forget.

And Christmas becomes now a time when we think about Santa Claus coming with his bag of toys on climbing down the chimneys, you know, and being led by Rudolph and the laws banning the Christmas carols in the public schools now.

We can't really remember what Christmas is about. And we don't want the children to know. We don't want them to remember what Christmas is about. So they can sing Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and deck the halls, but they can't sing Silent Night, Holy Night and the Son of God and the birth of the Savior and Old Little Town of Bethlehem.

Those are now forbidden by law in the public schools. They soon forgot. When the United States was established, it was established in prayer. In the public schools in the United States, the first textbook of our public schools was the Bible, and it was the only textbook for a period of time.

They had minted on our coins, in God we trust, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. But they soon forgot. It was God who had made them great. It was God who had delivered them and brought them out of their bondage.

It was God who destroyed their enemies, but they soon forgot. And they didn't wait for His counsel. They just pressed on without waiting upon Him. And then they began to lust exceedingly in the wilderness.

The Flesh Pots of Egypt and the Cost of Indulgence

And the tragic thing is that they began to lust for the flesh pots of Egypt. The old life in Egypt, they forgot their bondage. They forgot how hard it was being forced labor. And all they could remember were those flesh pots where they used to just sit around and eat meat until they were full.

And they began to lust exceedingly in the wilderness. And they tempted God. They tempted God to wipe them out, really. But they tempted God in the wilderness because of their unbelief. And so He gave them their request.

You want meat? All right, you'll have meat. Moses, go out and tell them I'm going to give them meat. Not for one, two, 10, 20. I'm going to give them enough meat to last them for 30 days. They'll eat it until it comes out of their nostrils, till they're sick of it.

I gorge them with it. And He said, tell them that tomorrow morning, go out and be ready because the quail are going to come flying in at three feet high. Take the sticks and bat them down. Children gathered them, threw them into piles.

All day long, the men were out there batting the quail. All day, all night, all the next day, until there were heaps upon heaps of quail. The family that got the least got 860 gallons of quail. And they put it out on the ground, began to dry it, and then they began to gorge themselves until they began to die.

While the flesh was yet in their mouth, the anger of the Lord was kindled against them. And He sent a plague in the camp, and they began to die. God gave them their request. You want meat? All right. But it brought to them a leanness of soul.

Walking by the Spirit in the Inner War

It cost them spiritually. Any time you indulge your flesh, it's going to cost you spiritually. The Bible tells us that if we walk after the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lust of our flesh. The Bible tells us that there is a warfare that goes on inside of us as the flesh is warring against the Spirit, or lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.

And these two are contrary. This battle that goes on for control over me. Will I be controlled by my flesh and my fleshly desires, or will I be controlled by the Spirit? And there is a warfare that goes on.

The battle rages over control. If I'm going to yield myself to the life of the flesh, or if I'm going to yield myself to the life of the Spirit. But the Bible warns us that if we live after the flesh, we will die.

That the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life, and joy, and peace. Not only did they sin in their lust, but then they envied Moses and Aaron, the saint of the Lord. Dathan, Abiram, Korah.

Envy, Rebellion, and Korah's Judgment

These fellows got together, and they began to create a rumble in the camp. They said, you know that Moses has taken too much on himself, and he's setting up his brother Aaron, made Aaron the high priest.

That's just because he was his brother, and that's not fair. We are the sons of Levi, and we have every much right to offer the sacrifices as does Aaron. We have as much right to take the incense in before the Lord as Aaron has.

And they got to some of the men from the tribe of Reuben, and they began to create this insurrection, this rumble. Until they said, well, let's go down and talk to Moses. Yeah, let's go. And here these guys came marching down.

They said, Moses, hey, you've taken too much on yourself. You've set up your brother as the priest. Look, we're sons of Levi. We have every much right as does Aaron to offer the incense before the Lord.

Moses said, well, why don't we let God decide this? Tomorrow morning, time of the offering of the incense, you guys come down here with your little incense burners, and we'll let God decide who is to offer the incense.

And so in the morning, these guys came down, 250 of them, little incense burners, were ready to go, rebelling against Moses. And Moses says, where is Dathan and Abiram? Have them come. So they sat, and the guy said, we don't have to obey Moses.

We don't have to come out there. Korah says, who's he to tell me to come? So Moses said, well, tell you what, fellows. If God's in this thing, then let him do something new. Let him open up the earth and swallow these guys alive right down into the pit.

And the earth opened up. Dathan, Abiram, Korah went down into the fault. And the earth closed up again. The guys were gone. They're tense and all. Great fear came on Israel. And fire came out from the altar, and it consumed these 250 guys with their little incense burners.

Moses said, well, looks like God maybe has chosen who he's going to have to burn the incense. But here again, rebelling against God's order, jealousy over another man's ministry, envious because of what God has called and gifted another man to do.

Jude uses this as an example in his little book there in the New Testament, in which he encourages us to keep ourselves in the love of God. And he warns about things that can remove you from the place of God's blessing in your life.

And in these warnings, he uses Korah as an illustration of a man who moved himself away from the place of God's blessing because of this covetousness, this envy that he had for Aaron and the ministry that God had given to Aaron.

So they envied Moses in the camp and Aaron, the saint of the Lord. And the earth opened and swallowed up Dathan and covered the company of Abiram. And a fire, this fire that came out from the altar, was kindled in their company.

And a flame that came from the altar burned up the wicked. Now, don't you think that that would be enough to cause them to really fear the Lord and walk straight? All it did was cause them to stay away from the fire.

The Golden Calf and the Sin of Idolatry

So they made this calf in Horeb. And they worshipped this molten image. Moses was up on the mountain receiving the law of God, the law that would be the standard for the laws of mankind, for civilization, for civilized man.

These were the standards that would be used for every civilized nation in establishing laws, that which is good and that which is bad, that which is right and that which is wrong. And Moses was up there for 40 days.

And God was writing on these tablets of stone those 10 commandments. And the first one was, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image to bow down to it and worship it.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. That was the first table of the law. The second table had laws that dealt with our relationships with each other.

And here is Moses coming from the presence of God, the glory of God upon him, holding in his hands these two stones in which God has inscribed his laws by which the people are to be governed. And as Moses is approaching the camp with Joshua, his servant, Joshua says, what's all that shouting and screaming?

Must be a war. And Moses said, no war, Joshua. The people have turned against God. And they came into the camp. And here was this big orgy going on, people dancing in the nude around this golden ox that Aaron had fashioned with their gold earrings and so forth that they had brought in to him.

And Moses was so disturbed by the sight that he saw, he took those tables of stone in his hands. God's law, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. And he threw them on the ground.

And they broke in pieces, symbolic of God's law that's being broken right here before you even have a chance to instruct the people. And thus they changed the glory of God into the likeness of an ox that eats grass.

Idolatry as a Distortion of God's Glory

Paul the Apostle speaks of the folly of man who worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forevermore. They changed the glory of an incorruptible God. And they begin to fashion their gods like corruptible things.

They make their idols look like men or like gargoyles or like fish or like oxen or like snakes, changing the glory of an incorruptible God, fashioning it, and then saying, well, this represents God to us.

No, we don't worship this idol. But the idol represents God to us, folly. The Lord has forbidden idolatry. And they went into idolatry. So they lusted exceedingly. They were guilty of envying the program of God with Aaron.

And then they went into idolatry, making this golden calf and worshiping this molten image.

We'll return with more of our verse-by-verse study through the book of Psalms in our next lesson as Pastor Chuck Smith continues with more on the joy in forgiveness. And we do hope you'll make plans to join us.

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That's right here on the next edition of The Word for Today. And now, once again, here's Pastor Chuck Smith with today's closing comments.

A Closing Exhortation to Walk in Holiness

I pray that God will make this a very special week for you, that you might follow after the things of the Spirit, that He'll protect and shield you from those influences of the world that are so prevalent.

We're surrounded by them on all sides, but may the Lord just put a shield around you. And may you walk in holiness and in purity and in righteousness before Him. May your life be committed fully unto Him.

And may the love of Christ just dwell in your hearts richly as you experience His love and power working in and through your life. In Jesus' name.

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