Baptists Preaching: Dr. Ralph D. West

this is the day the lord has made we rejoice and we are glad in it thank you choir for reminding us that we don't have to fear the lord is our light in a dark world on this lord's day when you take the word of god i want to take a side step from our series under the title the praise imperative the lord's will and by his grace next week we'll return to it but today i wanted to say something to our church and to the larger community of faith as we gather in the name of our lord needless to say that the last few days have been terrific and terrifying positive and negative light and darkness up and down events over the last several days may be surprising disconcerting disenchanting to some of us but nothing ever catches our lord by surprise would you take the word of god and open it to exodus chapter 32 moses is on the hill receiving god's word his constitution for his community and how they actually will operate as a nation and so let me read excerpts i'll try to cover as much as chapter 32 by sketch not in detail this would be a good chapter for you and your children are for you to read along this week beginning at verse 1. now moses has been in the mountain meeting with god and when the people saw that moses had been a long time coming down from the mountain they gathered around aaron the religious representative and said come make us gods who'll go before us and for this fellow moses who brought us out of egypt we don't know what has happened to him aaron answered them take off the gold earrings that your wives your sons your daughters are wearing and bring them to me and so all the people took off their earrings and brought them to aaron he took what they had handed to him and they he made it into an idol in the shape of a calf fashioning it with a tool and then they said these are your gods israel who brought you out of egypt in verse 7 the lord says to moses go down because your people whom you brought up out of egypt have become corrupt verse 11 but moses sought the favor of the lord the god of and he said why should you your anger burn against your people whom you brought out of egypt with great power in a mighty hand why should the egyptians say it was with evil intent that you brought them out to kill them in the mountains to wipe them from the face of the earth turn from your anger relent and do not bring disaster upon your people remember your servants abraham isaac and israel to whom you swore your oath that you'll make their descendants numerous as the stars in the sky and you'll give their descendants all the land that you promised to them and then the lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster that he had threatened moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets the covenant law in his hands and they were inscribed on both sides front and back the tablets were the work of god the writing was the writing of god engraved on his tablets verse 19 when moses approached the camp he saw the calf in verse 21 he said aaron why did these people what did these people do to you that you would lead them into such sin don't be angry my lord verse 22 aaron answered you know how prone these people are taught evil they said to me make us gods who would go before us and for this fellow moses who brought us up out of egypt we don't know what has happened to him so i told them whoever has gold jewelry take it off and then they gave me the gold and i threw it into the fire and out came the calf the next day verse 30 moses said to the people you've committed a great sin but now go up to the lord and perhaps i can make an atonement for your sin so moses went back to the lord and said oh what a great sin these people have committed they made themselves gods of gold but now please forgive their sin but if not then blot me out of the book that you have written this is the word of god thanks be to god amen let me tag this text this week colon let's get to the bottom of it there remains an uncanny fascination with mountaineers to assault the summit of mount everest i learned recently that everest has been given more feet it stands still the tallest place on earth more than 29 029 feet and for some reason since 1953 when hillary and norgay made their journey and assaulted the summit people have been inching literally to repeat the accomplishment last year may of 2019 was one of the highest recorded death rates on the everest mountain not since 2015 when an avalanche wiped out 17 people at once at the base camp had not more people died getting to the top of everest reports are that these deaths are called because of caused because of overcrowding and so it makes it dangerous for the people when they gather at the summit if they make it even beyond that at 26 000 feet all the mountain climbers know that now you're crossing into the death zone and so you make the assault you try to reach the summit and if you do then people are cheering the question is asked to know that the climb is so dangerous why would anybody continue to seek to do it and so recorded responses of those who have assaulted the summit as they refer to it said well one person in a time magazine article george mallory a mountain their climate he said because it's there well that's a good reason to climb everest because it's there others have climbed it and have survived it and said because they have a risk gene that they thrive on living on the edge others said they climbed it and was hoping for popularity visibility that they were looking for a claim and i guess anybody that would reach the summit would certainly go down in the annals of history this morning we have another mountain and we have another climber it's not the first time he's been in the mountains and it's not the first time he's climbed but on this occasion he's not doing it for popularity neither is he assaulting the summit for any recognition it's a meeting that he will have with the eternal god as a friend to god almost in conversation face to face with him and when you read in detail chapter 32 you pick up in the first line that moses has been on the mountain with god for some a good amount of time and he is receiving from god god's revelation anachronistically let me say he's receiving god's constitution for the governance of his people now he's been gone for a good while and now the people at the base of the mountain are beginning to become unruly and so they ask aaron if he could replace this invisible god with some god that they can see aaron who represents moses and is the religious authority of the community says bring me the earrings of gold and they do and he fashions it and creates an idol those of you that are slightly familiar with the story of moses knows that we're already in the territory of religious spiritual biblical conflict you know anything a modicum of history of israel you know this sounds like trouble and so this golden calf is accredited with these words according to verse number four that these are your gods who brought you out of egypt how soon we forget now let me move on god hears that there is some insurrection that's taking place at the base of the mountain and he says people i keep being good to them and for some reason their necks stiffened toward me i just need to get rid of them and to that response to the actions of the people at the base moses intercedes and says spare her life you don't want the egyptians to accuse you of being a cosmic sadist and say that you just brought them out so that you could abuse them and there's this beautiful word that many bible classes begin to dispute and they say and it says god relented and out of that people began to say well can god change his mind and my answer to that is god is god and according to what he has given to moses he relented and whatever relent means that's what god did and so now moses leaves the top of the mountain and goes to the bottom of the mountain and at the bottom of the mountain he's met i guess at the base camp by joshua and he says what i hear is not the sound of victory i don't hear the sound of defeat i hear singing and they are rejoicing about this new god that has brought them out they have pledged their loyalty to an idol they are bowing down and worshiping at the altar and accrediting something that they have imagined in their consciousness to be the reason why good has come to them and so now moses gets there and he brings before them the tablets of god that god has inspired and god is written to them he calls for a community that believes in god to rise up and they do and things get pretty brutal now that judgment is exacted lives are lost are taken our judgment is executed and then we find moses once again being an intercessor going before god making his claim and asking god to forgive these people for their sins and that's the broad scope of the story this text is tailored to teach us for this morning that chaos at the bottom of the mountain will not thwart the purposes of god on top of the mountain what god's on what god is doing on top of the mountain shall never be strangled it shall never be affixiated by the hands of those at the base of the mountain and one reason why that will never happen is because god has never abandoned the mountain that big bible verses that we lean on because in the scriptures when we come to the mountains of god this is where god lives now you and i know that god cannot be contained in any particular geography it becomes a metaphor and an image of this is where god dwells but it also points to highness loftiness that when we come to the mountains one of the psalms that the church loves to recite or to sing is leaning into those words i will lift my eyes to the heels from which cometh my help my help comes from the lord the creator of the heavens and the earth and we know that we look to the hills but really we're looking way beyond the hills we're lifting our gaze upward loftily to the one that lives beyond the hills because he's the creator of the hill and god has never abandoned his hill and god meets his people often in the hills he met abraham there with moriah on mount moriah when he brought his son isaac and god revealed that he is the provider and god met moses on one mountain and remember moses is the man of multiple mountains but on one mountain we meet moses and he is looking into the future possibility of what we can be and what we can become or we climb the mountain with elijah and we see how god met him on more than one mountain how he revealed himself not in an earthquake not in a tornado not in the burst of wind but in a still small voice and even our lord climbed up the mountain and so mounting images are not relegated merely to the old testament even in the new testament jesus himself will assault the mountain and there be transfigured and put on a living light show and people will see his resplendence and his corona glory and there they will meet with god in that place and there's something about god being in the mountain on the hill in which people want to gather and meet because the hill is a quiet place the hill is a reverent place it's a place of history and meaning and purpose the hill is symbolic of god's presence but you can't always stay on top of the hill as much as you want to be there you you can't stay there once you reach the pinnacle you don't stay that long i began by talking about mount everest and one of the things you pick up immediately once these mountaineers surpassed 26 000 feet into the death zone and they are sucking down oxygen and they are trying to preserve their energy and strength the conditions on top of everest are so dangerous that even when you get to the pinnacle stand on the summit take your picture you're trying to get out off the top as fast as you can because every minute that you're there you're risking your survival that image feeds itself back into the scripture doesn't it we remember that there are those that with they when they cannot meet god on the mountain they decided that they wanted to build their own mountain so that they could be equal with god on the mountain in genesis 11 we call it the building of the tower of babel uh this bell tower that they are going to go up and they're going to assault the heavens they're going to build this tower erect this mountain i mean god saw it he had to put an end to it because they started assuming that they would be equal with god god has never abandoned the mountain and that ought to be good news for people this morning that when you see what you saw and i'm speaking to christians and i'm no pollyanna optimist either but at my gut level i'm very much aware that god is not just the god of the mountain and beyond the mountain but it is an image of god's stability that god is stable and controlled anderson cooper interviewed barry black who i know and had the privilege of preaching with on occasions he is the senate chaplain and barry was asked about that moment and called to pray and as he always is eloquent began to speak of the transcendence of god and god's purpose in god's presence and as he was saying his beautiful voice that god can be providential you know mountain is a good place to be but you can't stay there but even though you're at the mountain only hill in an environment that is so peaceful and pristine and preserved never forget there's always something going on at the bottom of the mountain it could be moses on mount sinai receiving god's written revelation and signed by god's own finger and at the base of the mountain the very people to whom god has emancipated out of enslavement will have the tendency to want a god that they can see with their own eyes and unfortunately aaron is as responsible for that that went down at the base of the mountain the religious representative was as guilty and complicit and involved as anybody else they swapped god's message for some kind of political motivation and helped instigate an insurrection in the language that they mimicked and imitated from their pulpits you can be on the mount of transfiguration with jesus and watch him transform and you can even declare it is good for us to be here but at the base of the mountain there are broken homes distorted fathers sick children in need of assistance you don't live long without picking that up all of us wish i know i do that i could always stay on top of the mountain i would rather be on the mountain along with god but that's not how life is constructed is it we have to go back into the world and there's always something going on some kind of chaos that's taking place at the base of the mountain that's what happened here in this story there was chaos at the base of the mountain when they should have just been waiting it took some time i mean their new nation it would take moments but here it is there's always somebody a group of people gathering around and a weak leader that's left on the ground that succumbs to that kind of pressure and wants to supplement god with a substitute we know something about chaos at the bottom of the mountain you don't have to look far you don't live long without recognizing that there's always something chaotic that takes place at the base of the mountain always something you look at it and you see that none of us are immune to chaos there was chaos at the base of the mountain in 1861 over the american debate and struggle of slavery in america that was chaos at the base of the mountain in 1877 over the reconstruction period that was chaos at the base of the mountain in 1921 in the burning down of black wall street and human massacres there was chaos at the bottom of the mountain in 1965 bloody sunday edmond pettis bridge that would lead to the voters right act there's always been chaos at the bottom of the mountain and there is no less chaos today at the bottom of the mountain and we saw it with our own eyes it invaded our homes on our iphones and our computers everything was right there observed saying look at this and people said i can't believe it it's the worst thing that ever happened you think there's a thing called slavery that's pretty bad plessive versus ferguson pretty bad brown versus the boy pretty bad the dred scott decision pretty bad and so as christians you and i we are not alarmist we're not packing up and moving somewhere else is because we know that the god of the mountain have never abandoned the mountain even when there's chaos at the base of the mountain it's not enough when you've been through what we've been through you know that this phrase is more than cliche that the lord he will make a way somehow but here's the good news what happens at the bottom of the mountain chaos anarchy insurrection sedition in the name of patriotism now i could go on and on about this is what we saw at the base of the mountain over the last past days worse than someone that just took a knee on a football field to say all i'm trying to do is call attention to injustice in america that's all injustice in policing and will you not believe that there are those that last week would simply still say that that was worse than what they were doing serious concerns have been raised now in our country they've always been there they just walked into our living rooms now i was looking this morning on my way to church at a video clip of the young lady in new york who lives in california who accused the jazz musician's son of stealing her telephone and her telling the manager who ridiculously would participate in that because people know that for african-americans our crime is not what we've done is just who we are it's just being black that's it period and i don't care what achievements you have america lets you know that your crime is your blackness and i watch how she was handled in new york she was arrested and police had to lay her down on the ground and handcuffed her and a mother soon put her hands on the police officer and he gently pushed her away and she came back and pushed away i said it must be nice i said that must be nice to live like that that you can try to reason with the police they're doing their job they have to do it but you can just be gently pushed away must be nice that you can assault the nation's congress and not get killed i mean to go into the speak of the house office and put your feet on the desk and not be shocked it must be nice i said lord it must be nice to have no fear of reprisal just because of whiteness amazing and what makes it worse is that aaron the religionists won't stand up and just lift up their voice and say listen we are created in the imago day and we are all god's children black men white men brown men yellow women men all created i'm done all that just led me just simply to make one statement and that is thank goodness that the base of the mountain doesn't have the last word because if it did people would be despondent and they would want to give up and they would want to quit on life and they would want to keep quit on america but the base never has the last word god is not abandoned the throne chaos has always been at the foot of the mountain chaos does not have the last word because god always has a message that he would bring to his people from his men and now you know why i'm so hard upon aaron because god has entrusted him with the message and now god has given that message to moses and says you go down there to my people and here's where you have to be loving even when you're angry and moses goes down there and it gets kind of humorous because when he confronts aaron aaron he just punched the ball how did you get into this pickle and aaron says and this is the humor of the story and i'm done is that uh they gave me that goal we started a fire threw it in and out comes the calf i heard language like that in the middle of all it is i heard one news outlet said that what we saw in the nation capital was not what we saw it was black lives matter in disguise now let me help all of america with something now black folk may get upset and break into the store they may take the television they make but let me tell you something negroes ain't been a run-up in no capital i'm just going to tell you that now in the summer march you saw whatever you saw i don't know who did what but i know this much you didn't they didn't need that much policing for the capitol because we wasn't climbing up them steps that's been instilled in us not a fear but a reverence that we actually live by and a lot of white folk i wish that you would get to know black people you would really really be blessed we're more than what you read in the newspaper or see a clip in the media or video we'll we'll have more than that we'll community that when you drive down west montgomery a cullen to the cemetery and we see the procession we still stop even when we got liquor in our hands cigarettes in our mouth we put them down as a sign of reference it's built in us a kind of reverence for life you ought to get to know us stop demonizing and criminalizing us trying to sum us up you don't have to worry about that i've been telling people for years you ought to be scared of black folk we scared a white folk but you ain't gonna be scared of black folk you can walk through our neighborhood we might say what you're doing here and we probably escort you out but we're not gonna do much more than that but we already know that wherever we go we're criminal from the beginning well thank goodness the base and the chaos doesn't have the last word last word god has a message that god sends to his man and in that message it is a message of hope it is a message in which god gives to his people and i mean when you hear moses going to god and pleading for god the next morning after god exacts judgment upon the people moses says be merciful let me see if we can get some atonement some redemption reconciliation and moses says something that's so dramatic where he says that if not then blot me out of the book just make me a dash in the book and that's how good god is you know even when we're chaotic and disruptive god always leaves a door for his people to return to him and i know that because when you think about this story and you reflect upon the mountain then you know that i'm talking about mountains but more than just these mountains i mean mount moriah that's a good place to give us a vision of god being a provider and being on mount sinai receiving god's revelation on mount nebo with moses at 120 and looking at the future possibility or standing on the pinnacle of mount carmel with elijah and seeing idolatry's back being broken of jesus assaulting the power of personal temptation and political and religious temptation when he looked up and saw all of the governments from that place he could have bowed down he could have succumbed to the pressure of temptation but he didn't when he saw the roman standard raised and saw the naval ships on the mediterranean he could have given in to that but he didn't he didn't have to because he's the lord of creation those are mountains but none of them compare to another mountain in fact it's not the tallest mountain but it's the highest mountain it's not as high physically as mount everest but it's higher than mount everest everest takes life but this mountain calvary gives life and on this hill that our lord lived on and then died on gives life to us that that that on that hill calvary is what makes the difference this was when i wish i was in church with a whole lot of people here to help me along now because at calvary we understand that something happens at calvary sin loses its power at calvary at calvary god brings that which has been broken and mended that which has been divided he reconciles it back to himself at california at calvary as well he gives life to dead people light to those in darkness joy to those who are sad and hope to those in misery that's what happens at calvary and i'm glad that i'm a calvary christian i'm glad that i don't stop over in exodus because at that moment i might be doing just like moses calling the levites to draw that source the exact judgment but when i get to calvary i'm reminded that my sins have been healed not in part but in the hole and they have been nailed to the cross and i bury no more and that's why i can say it's well it's well with my soul and so today those of you that are listening don't you forget that always remember god is not abandoned he's not abandoned the mountain and just because he's not abandoning it it doesn't mean that there's not chaos at the base level but chaos is just part of life because god has the last and the final word and we can say today it'll be well brother sister you hear what i'm saying it'll be well not just african-americans that's listening to me today asian-americans anglo-americans native americans not just here in america but in africa and in new zealand and switzerland and all around the globe it'll be well it'll be well that's what god gave to moses that's what god has given to us it'll be well the lord has not abdicated the throne i got to sit down when i was a college student many of you listening now probably remember the 444 days where it says america was held hostage the ayatollah khomeini and the question that was on the lips of everybody was has god abdicated the throne that was the theological question has god abandoned and i'm here to tell you something god didn't abandon the throne in 1861 1877 1921 1965 or 2020 god is not abandoning the throne god is very much god of control and that's why we have our hope and that's why we can stand in the midst of all of the chaos and know that god got the whole world in his hand he got you and me brother in his hands he got you and me sister in his hand in his hand in his hand our father we thank you that we do put our confidence in thee thank you for being the god of the mountain in the face of all confusion and thank you that chaos insurrection sedition doesn't have the last word forgive us our sins who've had the right and the responsibility to open our mouths and speak truth to injustice and we fail to do it and so now we ask of you that you would be gracious and merciful in the name of jesus christ we pray who gives us redemption and reconciliation in his name and for his sake we pray and all god's people say amen

Channel: Baptist Standard

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Keywords: baptists preaching, texas baptist, sermon

Id: MMJEAldMLJQ

Length: 43min 51sec (2631 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 13 2021