Sermon Tone Analysis

Whether you are an Auburn fan or an Alabama, it is hard to argue with the fact that Nick Saban is one of - if not the best - college football coach that has ever lived.

NICK SABAN

He has won eight SEC championships

He currently has six National Championships and is tied with Bear Bryant for the most National Championships by a head coach.

Alabama has 28 offensive players in the NFL and 39 Defensive players in the NFL

That is a total of 67 players that formerly played for Alabama that now plays for the NFL

It is also hard to argue with the fact that Bill Belichick is the greatest NFL coach that has ever lived.

BILL BELICHICK

He has been the New England Patriots for 20 years, and in those 20 years:

He has more playoff wins than any head coach with 21 playoff wins

He has won nine conference titles (the most conference titles by a head coach in the Super Bowl Era)

He has made twelve Super Bowl appearances (the most Super Bowl appearances by any head coach)

He has won six Super Bowls as the head coach of the Patriots and He won two Super bowls as the New York Giants Defensive Coordinator (More titles than any other coach)

And he is a three time NFL coach of the year

These are the two best football coaches that have ever lived.

Can you imagine how lucky a team would be to have the two best coaches in Football history on their team?

As it turns out, there was a time when both of these coaches were on the same team.

From 1991 to 1994, Nick Saban and Bill Belichick were employed as coaches together for the Cleveland browns

Nick Saban served as the Defensive Coordinator and Bill Belichick served as the Head Coach.

And in 1994, after a pitiful 5-11 season, the team that had what would become the two greatest coaches in football history fired them both

When the Browns didn’t get the immediate results they wanted, they threw away the gold mine that they held in their hands.

And that is the situation we see with the Israelites in

Lessons We Learn From the Story:

The Mosaic Covenant was Insufficient from the Start

Exodus 32:

The Noahic Covenant

Throughout Israel’s history, God made different covenants or agreements with them, and they were all contingent upon Israel’s obedience.

The Noahic Covenant

Immorality Always Follows Idolatry

Immorality Always Follows Idolatry

Deut.

11

The Davidic Covenant

Immorality Always Follows Idolatry

Immorality Always Follows Idolatry

Exodus 32:

The Israelites did not break the first commandment, but the second commandment:

Exodus 20:3-

The Israelites had spent 400 years in a polytheistic Egypt, meaning they had learned to worship many gods rather than exclusively worshipping Yahweh - the one true God.

So, when Moses goes up on Mt.

Sinai for 40 days and the Israelites are left without leadership, they revert back to the only thing they know - Idolatry.

But to the Israelites credit, they were not trying to worship a new god altogether, they were simply trying to create an image to represent Yahweh.

Exodus 32:

But idolatry, no matter how innocently it is birthed, always leads to actions we never initially intended.

As soon as the Israelites began to worship the golden calf a new desire for sin was born in their hearts and they began to indulge in revelry.

They began to say and do things that they might now would have formerly done.

Idolatry is the push that sends the wheel of sin barreling down a hillside

It makes men with good intentions go crazy with sin and immorality

Why do you think Christian men lose their minds during sports events?

Why do you think they scream and yell and say and do things they would never do or say elsewhere?

It is because they have commited idolatry

Idolatry creeps into our lives when we begin to feel like God is insufficient.

We begin to feel like God is all He is cracked up to be.

This is what happened to Adam and Eve in the Garden

Genesis 3:1-

Romans 1:21-

When the Israelites built that golden calf and bowed down to it, it symbolically brought them back to the slavery that God had liberated them from.

The captives who were set free walked back into their slavery all on their own

And when we return to immoral behavior, it as if we are putting the shackles back on and becoming a slave to the sin Christ set us free from all over again.

When we are set free from the slavery of sin, it makes no sense to return and revert back to the former slavery that held us in bondage.

When we try to revert back to sin, it is like an African American slave who escaped from his plantation, followed the underground railroad, and reached the north - gaining his freedom - only to turn right around and walk right back into his plantation.

It doesn’t make logical sense

Proverbs 26:11

2 Peter

Romans 6:16-

So, if it doesn’t make sense, why do we do it?

Because we all do it.

Even the apostle Paul did it.

He said, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate!

Wretched man that I am!”

We do it because as long as we live on this earth, until the Lord comes back and delivers us from this existence

Sin Always Has Consequences

Exodus 32:

Exodus 32:

1 cor.

10:

The Mosaic Covenant was Insufficient from the Start

A Holy God Provides a Mediator Between Himself and Sinful Man

Throughout Israel’s history, God made different covenants or agreements with the people, and they were all purposefully insufficient.

The Noahic Covenant

The Abrahamic Covenant

The Mosaic Covenant

The Davidic Covenant

These covenants were never designed to be a lasting solution to the massive separation God had from his creation.

God purposefully makes these insufficient covenants with mankind to show the insufficiency of mankind.

The issue is not God, it is man.

We can’t get to God on our own because we are woefully unable to obey Him on our own

That is why we needed a New Covenant; and that is why God gave us a New Covenant

The New Covenant

Jer.

31:31-

Human beings cannot keep God’s law, so God said “I will put my law inside of you.”

“I will transform you.”

We could not come to God, so God came to us

But for there to be a New Covenant, Justice had to take place

God cannot just excuse sin or He ceases to be God.

Richard Dawkins and Ravi Zacharias

And if God pronounced justice and judgment upon us for our sin, it would mean destruction and damnation for us.

So, for this New Covenant to work, there had to be a Mediator.

There had to be someone between a Holy God and a sinful people.

A Holy God Provides a Mediator Between Himself and Sinful Man

Exodus 32:

Exodus 32: