Perhaps I Can Make Atonement

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Speaker: Dave Royes
Scripture: Exodus 32:30-35
August 24, 2025

Exodus 32:30-35: The next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” So Moses returned to the LORD and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if you will forgive their sin — but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.” But the LORD said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.”

Then the LORD sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made.

1 Peter 3:18: For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.

Sermon Outline

1. Introduction

• A treasured possession

• What if I’ve been living for myself?

• The confidence of a Christian

2. A lingering stain

• A debt has been incurred

• A relationship is broken

3. A determined mediator

• Moses pleads with God on Israel’s behalf

• Moses is grieved over sin not his own

• Moses appeals at the cost of his life

• Moses is insufficient to reconcile

4. A future visit

• A day of reckoning

• A day of atonement

Who is on the Lord’s Side?

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Speaker: Dave Royes
Scripture: Exodus 32:25-29
August 17, 2025

Exodus 32:25-29: And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies), then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.’” And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell. And Moses said, “Today you have been ordained for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day.”

1 Thessalonians 4: For this is the will of God... that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness... that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things...

Sermon Outline

1. Introduction

• Failure to heed urgent warnings

• The urgent call to us

• The main idea

2. A shocking sight

• A people out of control

• The derision of their enemies

• What Moses saw

3. A gracious call

• A gracious call from the place of judgement

• “Who do you belong to?”

4. A particular judgement

• A call to Levites to punish the unrepentant

• God sometimes uproots to preserve

• Some sins are more heinous than others

5. A blessed result

Aaron’s Reply

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Speaker: Dave Royes
Scripture: Exodus 32:21-24
August 10, 2025

Exodus 32:21-24: And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”

Sermon Outline

1. Introduction

2. A sobering question

• There is a representative responsibility in God-given leadership

• There was a great sin in the camp because there was a subtle sin at the top

• What of people in a leadership role today?

3. An evasive reply

• Aaron takes refuge in three “disguises”

• First disguise: “My sin is reasonable”

• Second disguise: “Their sin is greater”

• Third disguise: “Circumstances caused it”

• Our pathetic disguises

4. An enduring word

• What becomes of Aaron?

• Jesus, our great High Priest

Covenant Breaking

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Speaker: Dave Royes
Scripture: Exodus 32:15-20
July 27, 2025

Exodus 32:15-20: Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” But he said, “It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.” And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.

Sermon Outline

1. Intro

• The famous first half and the not-so-famous second half of Exodus

• Acquiring a taste for worshiping God

2. A covenant-making God

• God’s man is coming to God’s people with God’s gift

• God lovingly calls people into an exclusive relationship with him

3. A covenant-breaking people

• Sin as lawlessness

• Sin as spiritual adultery

4. A gracious covenant advocate

• Moses

• Jesus

The View from Heaven

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Speaker: Dave Royes
Scripture: Exodus 32:7-14
July 20, 2025

Exodus 32:7-14: And the LORD said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’“ And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”

But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wearh burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’“ And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing to his people.

Sermon Outline

1. Introduction

• A post-salvation people with idolatrous hearts

• Hearing from the person in charge

• God despises false worship yet raises up a mediator

2. God’s wrath stirred up

• A stiff-necked people quick to turn aside

• Beware of acting on intuition, while being passive to revelation

• God declares his wrath to get Moses to pray on the people’s behalf

3. God’s man raised up

• He exhibits God’s character

• He appeals to God’s glory

• He pleads God’s covenant

4. God’s forbearance lifted up

• God’s relenting is not an injustice

• The wrath-bearing sacrifice for those who believe

Make us gods!

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Speaker: Dave Royes
Scripture: Exodus 32:1-6
July 13, 2025

1 Corinthians 10:11a: These things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction.

Sermon Outline

1. The Heartbeat of Idolatry

2. The Heartbreak of Idolatry

3. Take Heart against Idolatry

Exodus 32:1-6: When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

Sermon Outline

1. Introduction

• Every picture tells a story

• The sobering picture portrayed in Exodus 32

• The main idea

2. The heartbeat of idolatry

3. The heartbreak of idolatry

• It is with the gifts of God

• It is in the name of God

• It distorts the image of God

4. Take heart against idolatry

• God is faithful

• God came down

“How Did We Get Here?”

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Speaker: Dave Royes
Scripture: Exodus 13:17-22
March 2, 2025

Exodus 13:17-22: When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.” But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle. Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.” And they moved on from Succoth and encamped at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness. And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.

Sermon Outline

1. A winding road

• The path is not humanly efficient

• Why God leads them on this winding path

2. A Word remembered

• God’s plan is unfolding

• God’s promise is prevailing

• God’s people need reminding

3. A wonderful revelation

• In Exodus, God came down in pillars of cloud and fire

• In the Gospels, God came down as a human

4. Applications