Amos - The God Of Justice - Preach The Word

THE GOD OF JUSTICE
David Legge
to turn tonight to Exodus 32, you would see the incident of the golden calf, and how
Moses was on the Mount meeting with God and receiving the law of God. Then God
informed him what was going on down at the foot of the Mount. The children of Israel,
what had they done? At the behest of Aaron they had taken their golden earrings and
jewellery, and they had put them into the fire and, as Aaron put it, out from the fire
jumped a golden calf! They made it, and they wanted an idol, they thought Moses was
dead up on the mountain. They started worshipping this golden calf, and God said to
Moses on the Mount, listen to these words: 'Let me alone' - God is saying to Moses,
'Let me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them, and that I may consume
them'. Do you know what an intercessor does? He doesn't leave God alone, he gives
Him no rest! Then Moses pleaded, and said to God: 'The Egyptians will say, if You
destroy them, 'He brought them out of Egypt not to save them, but to harm them''.
When Moses said that, we read: 'Then the LORD relented of the harm that He would
do' - what was Moses doing? He was appealing to God's character again: 'You brought
them out of Egypt to save them, and the Egyptians will say You destroyed them, and
You only brought them out to harm them'. He went between a sinful people and a
holy, just God - he interceded.
Come with me again to Numbers 14, Moses once more. This time the children of
Israel are afraid to enter into the Promised Land of Canaan because of the enemies.
They have arisen up in insurrection, and they want to go back to Egypt. They
disregard the promises of God, and they in fact are now going to lift up stones and
stone Moses and Aaron to death! God says, because they're rejecting the prophets of
God for them, and their leaders, God says: 'I am going to strike them with a
pestilence, and I'm going to disinherit them'. He turns to Moses, and He says: 'Moses,
I will make a nation of you. I will eradicate them, exterminate them, and start all over
again with you, Moses'. Moses says, listen how he pleads with God, Moses said to
God: 'Then Egypt will hear of it, and they will tell the Canaanites, saying 'The LORD is
not able to give the land He swore to His people''. Moses the intercessor, what does
he do? He pleads to the covenant of God, to the promise of God, and he touches the
character of God on behalf of the people. Here's how God responded again to Moses:
'I have pardoned the people according to your word, Moses'. What a statement! Do
you see the power of the intercessor? 'I have pardoned the people according to your
word'.
Oh, I could go on, Samuel was a great intercessor, 1 Samuel 12, you remember the
people, the Israelites again, wanted a King. Samuel knew that this was wrong,
although it was in the permissive will of God. You see Samuel calling down thunder
and rain upon their harvest, and the people go spare and they say: 'No! Don't do
that!' - and the thunder cracks, and the rain falls, and they think famine is ahead.
They plead with Samuel, the intercessor: 'Pray for us' - and Samuel retorts, 'God
forbid that I should sin in ceasing to pray for you'. This was a man, essentially, whose
ministry they had rejected - but he wasn't going to cease praying for them! Elijah, in
1 Kings 18 is an intercessor. He cries to Jehovah who answers by fire, and the fire
falls. We go into the New Testament and we see Paul the apostle as an intercessor, as
a go-between in Romans chapter 9 for the Jews. He says: 'I could wish that I myself
were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh'.
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