This evening would you please turn me and your Bibles to Exodus chapter 34. We'll be looking at Exodus 34, the first nine verses, reading them here together as we as well consider The Belgian Confession, Article 20, concerning God's justice and mercy in Christ. So we'll be reading from Exodus 34, the first nine verses, and then reading also from the Belgian Confession, Article 20. Exodus 34 is page 94 in your Bibles, and then the Belgian Confession, Article 20, is page 173 in your Forms and Prayers book. So we will read first from Exodus 34. Hear the word of the Lord our God. The Lord said to Moses, cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. "'No one shall come up with you, and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain.' So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. And he said, if now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance. And this ends our reading from God's Word. Again, we're looking at this in connection with Article 20 of the Belgic Confession concerning the justice and mercy of God in Christ. Page 173 in your Forms and Prayers book. So here in Article 20, we confess that we believe that God, who is perfectly merciful and also very just, sent his son to assume the nature in which the disobedience had been committed in order to bear in it the punishment of sin by his most bitter passion and death. So God made known His justice toward His Son, who is charged with our sin. And He poured out His goodness and mercy on us, who are guilty and worthy of damnation, giving to us His Son to die by a most perfect love, and raising Him to life for our justification, in order that by Him we might have immortality and eternal life. And thus ends our reading from the Confession here tonight. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, when it comes to the modern liberal understanding of the Christian faith, a man by the name of Richard Niebuhr famously summarized it as follows. A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross. That is the gospel a lot of self-proclaimed or self-professed Christians believe. That is the gospel they hold to. A God without wrath brings men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross. You may wonder how that could be good news in any sense of the term, much less fit what the scriptures teach us. But yet, that conviction remains within their hearts. And while it completely destroys the gospel, I think there's another side to that kind of understanding we need to appreciate. How it also destroys any true glorious understanding of God. Would I really want such a pathetic God like that? Would I really want a God without wrath, without judgment, without a cross? Is such a God really so appealing? Perhaps some of us may be tempted to think so at one time or another, but the Bible provides us with a much different understanding of God, and a much more glorious understanding of God at that. You see, as we come to Article 20 of the Belch Confession, it's kind of like we're taking a break In a certain sense, it summarizes Articles 14 through 19 and introduces to us Articles 21 through 24. But as it takes this momentary break, summarizing what came before, introducing what's coming ahead, it really points us back to God. We're in this section dealing with our deliverance, and it's spoken of Christ, it's spoken of the Christ who was to come, who took on our nature, who took on our flesh. And it takes a bit of a break so that we see the God who is behind the Christ. We see the God and his marvelous character in this Christ who is sent to take on our flesh and to die in our place. And this article is concerned to have us see the glory of our God. Long ago, the apostle Philip looked at Jesus and asked Him, show us the Father. Show us the Father. And in reply, Jesus declared, whoever has seen me has seen the Father. In other words, when we look to Jesus, we're supposed to see God, the Father. When we look at Christ, we're supposed to see God, the Father, behind him. When we see the work of Jesus Christ, the person of Jesus Christ, we are to see behind this Jesus the glory of our God and Father. And you see, that's what we want to do tonight in our time together, to focus upon God the Father who is behind Christ his Son, and how God has particularly made his saving kindness to us known in Jesus Christ. We see God in his saving kindness in our Lord Jesus Christ. And there are three sides, you might say, from which we want to see the glory of our God, consider the glory of our God in Christ as we look to the cross. And first, we want to look then at God's perfection. Secondly, we want to look at God's justice. And then thirdly, at God's mercy. So God's perfection, God's justice, and God's mercy. So here, we're looking at Exodus 34. And when we're here in Exodus 34, we understand that Israel is before Mount Sinai. And they have actually just sinned against the Lord by worshipping that golden calf. You remember Moses was gone for a while. They go to Aaron, make us gods who will go before us. Aaron fashions a golden calf. And Israel rises up to play and to worship this golden calf. And the Lord reveals this to Moses. Moses comes down the mountain, and he smashes those tablets upon which were written the Ten Commandments. And he grinds that idol into dust, and he forces Israel to drink that dust, and so on and so forth. And what happened after that took place is God told Israel, it's time for you to leave. It's time for you to go, because if you stay with me, you're gonna be consumed. You are a wicked people, you are a stiff-necked people. Go away, because if you stay and I am among you and you are by me, you will be destroyed. And Moses, on his part, intercedes for Israel, and he begs God, he pleads with God to stay with his people and to go with them, to go with them. And as Moses makes this prayer, he says, Lord, please also make yourself known to me that I might know who this God is that will go with us into the land of Canaan, into the land of promise. And what we have here in Exodus 34 is God's answer to Moses' prayer, where the Lord reveals His glory to Moses, reveals His marvelous character, the character of this God who will go with His people. We read about the Lord descending in a cloud, standing with Moses there, and how the Lord proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, the children's children, to the third and fourth generations. The Lord reveals His glory. But even as we read that, I think that we all instinctively feel that there's something wrong with that. Or rather, it feels that there's some kind of contradiction here, doesn't there? Not that there's an actual contradiction, but it feels like there is one. After all, the Lord says that He forgives iniquity and transgression and sin. He forgives as a gracious and merciful God, but then He goes on to say, I will by no means clear the guilty. How can God say He is a forgiving God who forgives of sin, who forgives of transgression, who forgives iniquity, but then also says, I will by no means clear the guilty? How can both of these things be true? How can both of these things be true about God, that He forgives but will not clear the guilty? What is the Lord showing us, telling us about Himself here? The Lord is showing us His perfection. He's bringing before us His perfection, that He is both a just and a merciful God. and that in his perfection, in his own being, in his own nature, this justice and this mercy are not opposed to one another. In other words, God is saying, yes, I am a just and a merciful God, and as a merciful God, that doesn't mean I don't care about justice. And as a just God, it also doesn't mean that I have no care for mercy. But no, I am a just God and a merciful God so that I forgive, and yet at the same time, I am a God who will by no means clear the guilty. Now, it's hard for us maybe to grasp exactly what the Lord is saying here, but God is saying, I am both just and merciful. And these, this character of mercy, this character of justice, there's no opposition between these two things in me, in me. And you see, there's a lot of Christians who fail to understand this and who mix it up and who mess it up. Many people believe, many people think that it's either one or the other. If you're merciful, that means you are not being just. And if you're acting in just, that means you're not being merciful. It's either one or the other. They say it's impossible to be both, right? You cannot be just and merciful at the same time. It is one or the other. Many Christians believe that. They act that way. They think that way. And they think that way, too, in the way that they react or interact with others. Well, I'm going to choose to be merciful to you, and that means that I throw out any idea of justice. Or I'm going to treat you with justice, and that means I throw out any notion of mercy. But you see, that's not how it is in God. That's not how it is with God. God is absolutely perfect, just as our confession says. We believe that God is perfectly merciful and just. There's no friction in God between His mercy and His justice. They aren't at war within God, as if He needs to deny His justice in order to be merciful, or He has to deny His mercy in order to be just. No. God is both these things. perfectly and there is no warring between them. I appreciate the way C.S. Lewis once put it. He said there are plants that will flourish only in mountain soil. So it appears that mercy will flower only when it grows in the crannies of the rock of justice. Which again is to say that in God, mercy and justice come together. They're not enemies, they're not at war, they're not fighting, but in God you find both perfect mercy and justice. And that's a riddle to us, it's a paradox to us. God is merciful in his justice, he's just in his mercy. And you may say, explain it to me, pastor. How can God be both those things perfectly in himself? I can't explain that to you. That's God. That's who he is. It's his perfection. But you see, what the confession reminds us of or points out to us is we see the truth of this in the cross. This is part of the glory of the cross. This is part of the beauty of the cross. The Bible teaches us that this is what we see in the cross. We see God's justice and His mercy. We see God make known His justice towards His Son, pouring out as well His mercy on us who are guilty and worthy of damnation. We see the justice and the mercy of God there in this one event of the cross. We see God justly punishing all our sin in the person of His Son. And yet, giving us the blessings of mercy upon mercy, grace upon grace, God acts in perfect justice and perfect mercy at the same time in the same action. God, in one sense, does not clear the guilty. He declares His Son to be guilty, and He punishes His Son who's considered guilty. And at the same time, He shows us mercy, forgiving us of all our iniquity, sin, and transgression. There, in that one act of Christ's death, you see the justice and mercy of God in His perfection. Perfect mercy, perfect justice. A perfect justice that doesn't ignore sin, that doesn't simply sweep it under the rug, that doesn't simply treat it lightly, but justice that truly acknowledges the full wickedness of sin and pours out full judgment upon that sin in Christ. At the same time, a perfect mercy that on the one hand acknowledges us, who we are, all that we have done, but yet legitimately grants us what we do not deserve because it imputes to us the work of Christ. You see, that's how we, if you will, solve this paradox of God's justice and mercy. We see that ultimately, it's because of Jesus, that God can say, I forgive all your iniquity, transgression, and sin, and say at the same time, but I will by no means clear the guilty. How can God do both? He can do both, and he does both because of Christ. And we see that there at the cross. In Christ, as he hangs on the cross, we see the perfection of God. We see the perfection of God, this God of perfect justice and mercy. who punishes his son and shows grace and kindness to us. And so as we look at the cross, we're to see the perfection of God. who treats us in this way even as he treats Christ in that way of justice. But as we think about this a little more, I wanna focus for a moment on God's justice, about God's declaration that he will by no means clear the guilty. That's what he says. He tells Moses, I will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. What is God's justice? What do we mean when we speak of God's justice? Well, in the Bible, the word for God's justice really means, or really has to do with doing what's right. God's justice is His, He will do what's right. He will always treat others rightly. He will always treat them rightly in accordance with what is right and true and good. God's justice, again, is doing everything right. and God will always be right. And so here in Exodus 34, God's making clear through Moses that in his justice, in doing what's right, he will by no means clear the guilty. Sinners, as you know, deserve to be punished. Sinners deserve to be punished for their sin, and God is saying, I will punish them. I will do what's right. In my justice, I will punish sinners. And the whole sacrificial system, even in that way, was powerfully to confirm that point. Bulls and goats slaughtered, birds their heads twisted off, lambs slaughtered, rivers of blood poured out on the ground and the altar. There was no access for a single Israelite into the presence of God apart from death. Anyone who approached God, anyone who came near to God, anyone who came to worship God had to approach through death. Because God cannot let sinners go free. He has to punish them. It is impossible, you see, it is impossible for God not to punish sinners. which again highlights the glory of what we just saw. God does punish our sin. God does pour out his judgment and justice upon our sin, but he has done it in Christ. God cannot let sinners get off the hook, and therefore he has punished his only begotten son rather than us. See, we are set free from God's judgment. But don't conclude by that, that God somehow just lets sinners off the hook. He doesn't, because he punishes his own son. It is impossible for God not to punish sin. It must be punished. And so God has given Christ that we might have received mercy. But why does God mention his justice here in Exodus 34? Is it just to draw attention to the fact that God must punish sin, that he will not let it go unpunished? Is that all that the Lord is saying here? I think one commentator's correct when he wrote that this last part is God's correction to those who think that because an infinite God can show infinite grace, that sin has no consequence. In other words, they're saying God includes this last statement about how he will by no means clear the guilty to keep us from treating sin lightly. Now you might not think we have much of a problem with that because, after all, we aren't the kind of people who say that our God is a God of love, who's some kindly old grandfather who doesn't get angry and has no wrath and, you know, just kind of ignores sin and heaven for everybody. We don't confess that. So you might think, well, we don't have a problem with sort of treating sin lightly, do we? And yet, and yet, I'm always surprised by the kind of easy attitude Christians have towards sin, and I include myself in that category. How easy of an attitude we can have towards sin. How often don't we tell ourselves that we can go ahead with this or that sin because God is going to forgive us anyway? Or we say, well, well, well, In Christ, we have God's mercy, and so my sin doesn't really matter anymore because God is merciful toward me. God doesn't treat me with justice, and therefore, since I have God's mercy, my sin is really this small, insignificant thing, and it's really no big deal if I continue to live in sin or continue to pursue sin or continue to give myself over to sin. But you see, brothers and sisters, every time we sin, we're not only denying, in a way, God's omniscience that God sees and that God knows what we're doing, but we're also, in that way, denying God's justice. When we sin, we deny God's justice towards us, that God treats us in justice and holiness. We say, well, I believe in Jesus, and so my sin doesn't matter anymore. Jesus paid for all my sins, and therefore, God can't be angry with me anymore. Therefore, God can't bring any consequences upon me for my sin, and my sin can't influence my eternal well-being. See, there are a lot of Christians who rationalize their sin this way. They say, oh, look, God has made known his mercy to me in Christ, and therefore, I'm free forevermore of God's justice. But that's wrong. And God here through Moses is giving a corrective to that kind of mentality. You know, it's like I said just a moment ago. There are many people who think mercy cancels out justice. That because we have mercy, therefore, we will never more face the justice of God. But that's wrong. That's wrong. I would remind you, congregation, of how Jesus teaches us that we will have to give an account for every careless word we speak. Paul writes to the Corinthians and tells them that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one of us may receive what is due to him for what he's done in the body, whether good or evil. Notice that. We have received mercy in Christ. We have received mercy in Christ. We've been set free in Christ from the guilt of our sins, and yet we will still be judged for how we have lived while on this earth. And you see, there's people who are confused by it, but I think the confusion comes because, again, we suddenly get into this notion that because God has mercy towards us in Christ, I don't have to think about God's justice anymore. And God is saying through Moses, no, that's wrong. That's wrong. My mercy does not cancel out my justice. Yes, my mercy delivers you from condemnation. Yes, my mercy delivers you from being punished with eternal death and hell. Yes, my mercy means that you are set free from the guilt of your sins and you will not be cast off forever. But, but, but, I will still treat you justly. I will still deal with you according to justice. You might say, We have mercy in Christ, but it doesn't set us free from God's justice. It just means that God now treats us mercifully in his justice, right? God's mercy in Christ doesn't forever set us free from God's justice. It means that God treats us mercifully in his justice. And the reason why I emphasize this point again is because there are so many people, so many Christians who again think, well, I have God's mercy and therefore my sin doesn't matter. I can go on living as I please. I can give myself over to sin. I can go on doing all these wicked things and it will not matter. It will not affect me. It will not touch me. It will have no influence on my eternal well-being. And God is saying through Moses, no, Your sin still matters to me. Your sin still offends me. Your sin still is, as it were, important to me. Yes, you're free from being everlastingly punished in hell, but you still can offend me, your father. And I will still bring consequences upon your life for your sin. And it is not for you to say, well, I have your mercy and so I'm free from your justice, God, and now I can go on living as I please. But no, says the Lord, I will by no means clear the guilty. And if you live in your sin and you pursue your sin and you refuse to obey my word and my commands, you will receive the punishment of sin. And you will have to answer for how you lived while you were in this life. See again, as the Lord reveals his justice here, he's calling his people to not take sin lightly. That even though he is a gracious and forgiving and merciful God who forgives us our iniquity and transgression and sin, we must not therefore conclude that we're forever free of God's justice and never worry or think about it again. No, God says no. No. I will treat you mercifully in justice. I will treat you mercifully in justice. And so, turn away from your sin, renounce all ungodliness, and commit yourself to a life of holiness and righteousness in your Savior, in whom you have my mercy and my grace. So, brothers and sisters, don't be deceived. There is mercy in Christ, even as we'll come to see in just a moment, plenteous, glorious mercy. But God is a perfect God, and he still treats us in justice, in righteousness, and holiness. Christ means he treats us merciful in his justice, but we are not free from it. So we are to take heed to ourselves and flee from sin, recognizing that our God is and remains a just God. to us as well as Christians. But the main emphasis of our passage, which we certainly don't want to lose in any respect, is the wondrous mercy of God. Verse 6 and the first part of verse 7 are so glorious in the declaration of God's mercy. It's so glorious. In fact, it's one of the greatest statements of God's mercy and forgiveness in the whole Old Testament. In fact, these couple verses here are quoted more than a dozen times elsewhere in the Old Testament, in the Prophets and in the Psalms. For instance, Psalm 83, you can hear almost verbatim what is said here in Exodus 34. Psalm 83 says, the Lord is a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. The prophet Joel says, return to the Lord. He invites us to return to the Lord. And why? Because he is gracious and merciful. slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. You see, these words here in Exodus 34 become, even as it were, something of a confession of faith for Israel. These words continue to inform and to guide and to direct their further thinking and thoughts and confessions and the words that later come through the mouth of prophets and so forth. These words stay with Israel from this time forward. They continue to be that word of comfort and rest and hope that they cling to throughout their life. And these words are so powerful in part because of the context in which God spoke them. As I said at the beginning, this is just after Israel sinned by worshiping the golden calf. And Moses broke that first set of the Ten Commandments. And you see, when Moses broke that first set of the Ten Commandments, it was a picture. It was a picture, it was a sign about how Israel had broken God's covenant. And just think about that for a moment. Israel broke God's covenant basically immediately. that on the same day almost, as it were, this is likely a couple days later, a few days later, a month later, whatever, but within a number of days of God establishing this covenant, they've already broken it. God, I mean, it's like the ink has hardly become dry in the contract before the people break it. It's like a husband or a woman who commits adultery on their honeymoon. That would be unbelievable, that would be ludicrous. I mean, we would all just find that completely revolting and disgusting. And that's what Israel has done with regard to God. They've broken the covenant the moment God established it. And what does the Lord do? And what does the Lord say after Moses pleads with God to remain with his people? God says, Moses, make new tablets. Come up to me. I will show you my glory. In other words, God reestablishes his covenant. Israel has broken it right away, and God, as it were, turns around and reestablishes it. Israel forsook the Lord, and God renews the covenant. And so when God passes by Moses and declares his glory, it adds, you might say, such a wonderful flavor, nuance, to this declaration of his glory. Because how does God show his mercy and grace? How does God reveal his slowness to anger and his abundant, steadfast love and faithfulness? by covenanting, by covenanting with lost, hell-deserving sinners, covenanting with them that they might know His love and His favor. And I draw our attention to that very reality here in Exodus 34 because it is such a marvelous foreshadowing, such a marvelous, you might say, prophecy of what the cross of Jesus Christ is for us. in a far greater way than what we read here in Exodus 34, because we see in Christ's death God as well establishing a new covenant in his blood. God in mercy establishes a new covenant with us in the blood of Jesus Christ as he endures the full justice of God. by dying for our sins. God establishes a new covenant with us in mercy where he now takes that law and he writes it on our hearts, where he takes these hearts of stone and rips them out of us and he gives us instead hearts of flesh. This new covenant where he forgives us of all our sins in truth in the blood of Jesus. This new covenant where he pours out his spirit upon us that he might make his home within us. Right, isn't that wonderful to think of God's mercy as we look at the cross again, God covenanting with us lost, miserable sinners deserving of his judgment, deserving of the full outpouring of his justice against sin. but God instead covenanting with us. We have broken covenant, but God covenants with us anew that we may have his mercy and his grace, that we may have the forgiveness of our sins. That's what our confession is pointing to, just a marvel of God's mercy in Christ there at the cross where he punishes Christ as the guilty, though we are the guilty. where he sets us free from all our sins by putting our sins upon the shoulders of Christ, where we are given life because Christ goes down into death, where we are set free from condemnation because all the condemnation falls upon the head of his own son. The coming articles of our confession will explain that a little bit more, explain a little more about what Christ has done and suffered for us, that we might know God's mercy. But again, it wants to direct our eyes to the character of our God, the behind the cross, the character of our God who's behind the cross and the wonder of his mercy. You know, it's again so astounding, isn't it? And that's why I love how the Scripture really would drive home to our hearts that there is this merciful God behind the cross. You know, I've mentioned it before, how there's many people who act as if, you know, Jesus had to go to the cross and there convince God to be loving and merciful towards us. That God had to, you know, on the cross twist God's arm to force him to now love us and be merciful towards us. But the scriptures don't allow us to say that or to think that because the scriptures again in many places want to see behind the cross the mercy of God. We're told that while we were yet sinners, God loved us and sent Christ to die for us. God, in his love and mercy, sent Christ to go to the cross. Christ didn't have to convince God to be merciful to us. God was already merciful to us. That's why he sent Jesus. You think we talk, too, sometimes about the covenant of redemption, that covenant that God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit made before the foundations of the earth were laid, where God the Father calls Christ, as it were, to one day take on flesh and to redeem lost sinners, and where the Son pledges to go into the world and to redeem them. that God's mercy there already in eternity, already setting us apart to life in Jesus Christ, already deciding on this plan to redeem and to save lost sinners, the mercy of God that extends all back into eternity, that the cross is the fruition of God's eternal plan and purposes in Jesus Christ. Jesus didn't have to convince God to be merciful to you. God didn't have, rather Jesus didn't have to twist God's arm to show you mercy. God had mercy towards you and Christ going to the cross enabled those rivers of mercy to be poured out upon you and me. Marvelous, marvelous, marvelous. And you think here of what God tells Moses, reveals of himself, you know, God who is merciful. And in his mercy, he shows us grace. In his mercy, he gives us what we do not deserve. In God's mercy, he is long-suffering towards us. You know, Peter tells us that God isn't slow in keeping his promises, but he's instead patient, not willing that any should perish. In his mercy, in his desire to show mercy, God endures our sin, he endures our rebelliousness, that we may have time to have his word reach our hearts and convert us and bring us to faith in Jesus that we may know salvation. In his mercy, God shows steadfast love to us and faithfulness. In His mercy, God stays loyal, even though we are so often disloyal to Him. In His mercy, God is true and faithful to us, though we ourselves, again, do not often remain true to Him. And in His mercy, God doesn't only show love to us, but to thousands. from people from every background, from every nation, from every language group, from generation to generation, from parents to children to grandchildren, God pouring out the fullness of his mercy and love time and time and time again, bringing abundant forgiveness for all our sins. And you know, that's why I love even the way that our confession puts it. Notice how it says that God made known his justice toward his son, but he poured out his mercy and goodness on us. Isn't that marvelous? God makes known his justice toward Christ, but he pours out his mercy upon us. As we look at the cross, we see God pouring out His infinite love and mercy upon us. We come to the day of Pentecost when the Spirit falls upon the church and mercy poured out upon thousands of those who hear the word and the gospel of Christ and come to faith. Mercy poured out time and time again as we look throughout all the centuries, the thousands of years since Christ first entered into the world. Mercy poured out upon the world to countless men and women and children. You see, that's the message the scriptures want to make oh so clear to us. The mercy of God poured out upon us. The mercy of God there to be received and to be known and to be experienced as we look to Christ. The perfect, infinite mercy of God. So that when our doubts rise up, we come back to the mercy of God. That when you're filled with fear of God's justice, you come back to the mercy of God in Christ. That when your sins weigh heavy upon your heart, you come back to the mercy of God. And you remember that in God's mercy to you, through Jesus Christ, you now stand as the justified. You are those who have put on immortality. You are those who enjoy eternal life. life, the mercy of God, the very heartbeat and soul of the Christian faith, the mercy of God in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Fountains of mercy for you and I to know and discover in Christ. How wondrous, how glorious, how immeasurable is the glory of our God. And that again is what we seek to capture, to understand, and to see gathered here tonight, the glory of our God behind our Lord Jesus Christ. God in mercy sending his son. God in mercy punishing his son. that we may know everlasting life. Our God is not the pathetic God of those who foolishly believe He has no wrath or has no justice and has no need of a cross, but our God is the God of justice, the God of wrath, the God who yet has this cross where He satisfies the full demands of His justice in order that we might have mercy and salvation, the forgiveness of all our sins. Isn't that marvelous? Moses says, Lord, please show me yourself. Please show me the God who will go with us. Show me the God who will be by our side, the God who will take us on to the land of eternal rest. And what does the Lord say? A God merciful and gracious. You see, that's who's with you too, brothers and sisters, as you come to Christ. That's who's with you. who's with you, who's by your side, who's walking with you, who's guiding you, who's leading you to the land of everlasting rest. This God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Show me yourself, says Moses. God says, here I am, and know my mercy and my grace, even as I punish my own son, that you may have life and life forevermore. This God is your God, and this is the God who goes with you, brothers and sisters. And may that refresh your hearts here this evening and may it give you all manner of joy and confidence and encouragement. Again, as we look at this new week, as we look at the rest of our days, our days may be many and the troubles may be great, but the mercy of our God endures forever. Amen. Let's pray. O Lord, our Heavenly Father, again we come before you tonight amazed and so overwhelmed by the glory of your character to us in Jesus Christ. Father, how great is your mercy and your love as you poured out your justice upon your own Son that we might be set free from our sin and from your judgment. Lord, our God, help our hearts to lay hold of that promise that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ. May we go forth in that great assurance of salvation in Christ Jesus, that we may have seen you, Father, even as Moses once saw your glory there upon the mountain, to see your glory in the person of Jesus Christ, how true it is that you are the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. O Lord our God, reveal Yourself continually to us in the person of Your Son, that we may have all peace and hope and joy. Father, grant us Your blessing and hear us, we ask, for Jesus' sake. Amen.