I. Introduction
-- turn in Bibles to Exodus 32:1-14
32
When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain,
they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods[a] who will go before
us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what
has happened to him.”
2
Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and
your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off
their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed him and
made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool.
Then they said, “These are your gods,[b] Israel, who brought you up out of
Egypt.”
5
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced,
“Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” 6 So the next day the people
rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings.
Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
7
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up
out of Egypt, have become corrupt. 8 They have been quick to turn away from
what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a
calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are
your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’
9
“I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a
stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against
them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
11
But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should
your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great
power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil
intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them
off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not
bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and
Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as
numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land
I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” 14 Then the Lord
relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.
-- In The Wounded Healer,
Henri Nouwen relates a tale from ancient India -- Four royal brothers each decided
to master a special ability -- they separated to work on their skills, and
after some time, they came together to reveal what they had learned.
-- "I have mastered a
science," said the first, "by which I can take a bone from an animal
and create the flesh that goes with it."
-- the second brother responded,
“Well I know how to grow skin and hair on an animal if there is flesh on its
bones."
-- The third brother said, "I
am able to create its limbs if I have the flesh, the skin, and the hair."
-- "And I," concluded the
fourth, "know how to give life to that creature if its form is
complete."
-- after seeing how their abilities
complemented each other, the brothers went into the jungle to find a bone so
they could demonstrate their specialties -- As fate would have it, the bone
they found belonged to a tiger -- the first brother added flesh to the bone --
the second grew hide and hair -- the third completed it with matching limbs --
and the fourth brought the lion to life
-- Shaking its mane, the ferocious
beast arose and jumped on his creators -- He killed them all and vanished
contentedly into the jungle
-- this is what happens when we
create idols in our lives -- they devour us
-- unless we first seek God’s
kingdom and His righteousness -- unless we put God first in our lives -- our
goals and our dreams will become idols -- creations of our own making -- that
will consume us and destroy us and destroy our relationship with God1
-- this is exactly what the
Israelites discovered in this passage from the Book of Exodus
-- as this story opens, Moses had
led the nation of Israel out of Egypt through the Red Sea -- they had seen the
power of God in the parting of the Red Sea and the destruction of the Egyptian
army -- they had followed the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night -- they
had eaten the daily manna from heaven and the quail that provided meat daily --
they had drunk from the water that came from the rock
-- God had led them to Mt. Sinai,
where God came before them and spoke to them from the cloud -- on that day, God
affirmed again the covenant with the people of Israel -- that they would be His
people and He would be their God -- and all the people agreed
-- they accepted the covenant of God
-- they received the Law and the Ten Commandments and agreed to follow God and
to obey all His laws and commands -- in Exodus 24:7, the people proclaimed, “we
will do everything the Lord has said -- we will obey”
-- now Moses has been called up onto
the mountain to receive more instruction from God, including the plans for the construction
of the tabernacle and how the Israelites were to worship the Lord -- as this
chapter opens, Moses has been on the mountain with God for forty days and forty
nights, receiving all of God’s instructions and revelations
-- but while he was in the presence
of God, disaster struck in the camp of the Israelites down below -- let’s pick
up this story in Exodus 32 and see what we can learn about living in the
promise and not forgetting it
II.
Scripture Lesson (Exodus 32:1-14)
-- verse 1
32:1
When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain,
they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods[a] who will go before
us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what
has happened to him.”
-- here we see the root of the
disaster that is about to occur
-- as I said, Moses had been called
up on the mountain to be with God, and he had been away for so long, the people
become impatient -- it seemed like nothing was going on -- it seemed like they
were going no where -- and now they had no one to lead them
-- so, they gathered around Aaron
and demanded that he make them gods who would go before them -- the Hebrew text
here tells us that this was more than just a polite request -- they surrounded
Aaron to the point of violence -- they threatened him -- they bullied him --
they forced him do their will -- to give them what they wanted -- and Aaron,
rather than standing in the truth and doing what he knew was right, gave the
people what they asked for
-- that’s the problem with weak
leaders or leaders who seek the applause of the crowd -- instead of standing in
faith-- instead of standing in truth against the crowd’s unrighteous desires --
they capitulate and do what the crowd demands -- they give the people what they
want -- not what they need -- whether out of fear or the desire for applause
-- despite all that the Israelites
had seen and experienced in their escape from Egypt, they still were lost in
their heart -- they still were far from God
-- in their time in Egypt, the Israelites
had become accustomed to the Egyptian religious practices of idolatry -- of
worshiping a physical representation of a god -- many of them carried with them
idols from Egypt even as they fled Pharaoh -- they had learned to put their
faith and trust in that which they could see or in the leaders that were before
them
-- for a time, they had followed
“this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt” -- but now he’s gone away,
and they can’t see him anymore -- and so they want something else or someone
else they can see that they can follow
-- this can be a problem with us today
-- we tend to see things first with our fleshly eyes and not the eyes of our
heart -- we forget the spiritual -- we forget that there is a spiritual reality
around us that actually controls the physical world we see
-- and we do the same thing the
Israelites did -- we seek the physical first in our lives and trust in what we
can see rather than that which we cannot see -- the Israelites had not followed
Yahweh out of Egypt, but Moses -- a physical being they could see and touch -- and
now, in Moses’ absence, they desired another physical image to follow
-- who are we following with our
lives? -- are we following the crowd? -- charismatic politicians? -- popular
preachers or teachers? -- are we following men instead of God? -- where is our
faith?
-- the people demanded that Aaron
make them a god who would go before them -- now understand, in their minds,
this was not a turning away from God, but the creation of an image of God --
something they could see -- something that they could worship
-- it’s a fine line -- as Charles
Hodge said, “Idolatry consists not only in the worship of false gods, but also
in the worship of the true God by images.” -- there’s a reason why God
expressly forbade us from creating graven images and idols in the Ten
Commandments
-- the Israelites thought they were
making a representation of the God they had pledged to follow -- but in
reality, they were trading the image of the Creator for the created -- and, in
doing so, they would be making God in their own image instead of worshiping Him
for who He was -- idolatry is always a form of self-worship, since the idol
that we make is a reflection of who we are -- idolatry is making God in our
image
-- “No created thing can convey
God’s true and complete character. That’s why God commanded Israel not to make
any image or likeness of anything in heaven or on earth as an object of
worship. Such images dishonor God because they distort His glory, and this can
lead to sin.”
-- verse 2
2
Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and
your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off
their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed him and
made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool.
Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”
5
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow
there will be a festival to the Lord.” 6 So the next day the people rose early
and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward
they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
-- Aaron has the people give them
their gold -- to make a sacrifice on their part -- so that he can make for them
the god they desired -- he melted the gold down and formed for them a golden
calf to be their god
-- “calf” is more properly
translated as “young bull” -- it was an image of power -- of fertility -- of
sexual strength -- the image of the bull was a common image of worship in Egypt
and other nations in that day
-- and when the people began to
worship the golden image, Aaron commits an even more grievous sin -- he goes
from just being an idol maker to an altar maker -- while Moses is on the
mountain with God being instructed on the proper manner of worship, Aaron sets
up his own religion with a priesthood, an altar, and a new god -- and
establishes an order of worship and sacrifice in opposition to the worship of
the one true God
-- the people embraced this new
religion -- they worshiped the golden calf instead of the God they had promised
to worship -- they broke bread together -- they ate the meat that was
sacrificed on the idolatrous altar -- and they joined together in celebration
and revelry, possibly to the point of engaging in sexual sins and sins of the
flesh -- idolatry and false worship always leads to excesses in our lives
-- verse 7
7
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up
out of Egypt, have become corrupt. 8 They have been quick to turn away from
what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a
calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are
your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’
-- the Lord sees all -- even as He
was meeting with Moses on the mountain, He was aware of the great sins
occurring below Him -- He tells Moses to “go down” -- other translations have
this as “go down, quickly” -- to return to the people because they have become
corrupt
-- notice how God addresses the
people in His command to Moses -- He tells Moses, “your people, whom you
brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt” -- your people --
because they had chosen to turn away from God and worship an idol in His place,
they were no longer His people, but Moses’ people
-- here we see how God views
idolatry -- the people had made a graven image to represent the God who brought
them out of Egypt, but you can clearly see that this golden calf is not God in
any form or fashion -- God Himself says in verse 8 that the Israelites have
bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and worshiped
it -- not Him
-- they were saying one thing with
their lips while their hearts were worshiping and offering sacrifices to a
false god
-- idolatry -- in whatever form it
takes -- is always a turning away from God and the exaltation of self
-- we can’t go our own way and still
go with God -- every day we have a choice to make -- whether to remain in the
covenant and stand in faith in the grace and mercy of the cross and be God’s
people or whether to turn away and do our own thing and worship gods of our own
making and no longer be the people of God
-- but there’s something you need to
see here -- something important -- we see grace and mercy in God’s command to
Moses -- when God tells Moses to go down quickly, He is calling for Moses to
stand in the gap -- to intercede for the people -- to lead them to repentance
and to turn them back to the one true God
-- what we are seeing here is an
example of God’s prevenient grace -- or, as Wesley termed it, God’s preventing
grace -- which always seeks to prevent us from turning away from Him -- it
always seeks to lead us to repentance -- it always seeks to draw us near to the
One who saves
-- God’s command to Moses is an act
of mercy and grace to a people who knowingly disobeyed God’s command and who
had violated the covenant they had made with Him
-- verse 9
9
“I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a
stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against
them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
11
But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should
your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great
power and a mighty hand?
-- God tells Moses to leave Him
alone that He might destroy these stiff-necked people -- as if Moses could stop God from doing
anything -- remember Who is speaking -- this is the Lord God Almighty -- the
all-powerful creator of the heavens and the earth -- the Great I Am -- there is
nothing that He can’t do and there is nothing that can stand against Him in all
of creation or in the spiritual realms -- so, why does He tell Moses to “leave
Him alone?”
-- because, in reality, there is one
thing that touches the heart of God -- a faithful intercessor -- in the sands
of the desert before the burning bush, God had called Moses to be the mediator
for the nation of Israel -- to stand for them before Pharaoh and before God --
to be their shepherd who would lead them out of Egypt and back to the promise
-- a picture of the Christ who was to come
-- God tells Moses, “leave Me alone
and I will destroy them and I will make you into a great nation” -- the fate of
Israel is now in the hands of Moses -- God would not abandon the covenant He
made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob -- the promise would continue through Moses
as the faithful son of Israel
-- this was a test of Moses in the
same way that Abraham was tested in the command to sacrifice his son Isaac --
would Moses choose self over righteousness? -- would Moses choose to allow
these people to perish so that he might be exalted?
-- the implication here in God’s
words to Moses to “leave Me alone” are that God would relent if Moses
interceded for the people -- there is power in intercession -- when we stand
before God on behalf of another -- when we stand before God on behalf of a
nation -- we see that here in the words of God to Moses
-- verse 11
11
But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should
your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great
power and a mighty hand?
12
Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them
out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’?
Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.
13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your
own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and
I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be
their inheritance forever.’” 14 Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his
people the disaster he had threatened.
-- Moses chose service over self --
he become the intercessor -- appealing to God for the people -- not because of
any righteousness or goodness on the part of the people -- but appealing based
on the goodness of God -- of who He was and the glory due His name
-- the people in no way deserved
mercy or grace from God -- they had chosen their path -- they had turned away
from God -- they had created an idol for themselves in His place to be their
god and the object of their worship -- there was nothing redeeming in the
people to cause God to relent and turn away from destroying them
-- this was also true of us, as the
Bible reminds us that all of us had sinned and fallen away from the glory of
God -- that there was none of us who did good -- we had all turned away to our
own selfishness and self-idolatry
-- but, as Moses points out here,
God’s grace and goodness far surpass anything in creation -- he appeals to
God’s name and reputation -- he appeals to the relationship God had made with
Israel -- and he appeals to the promise that God had given to Abraham that
could not truly be fulfilled if the nation was destroyed
-- God chooses to turn His wrath
away because of His sovereign grace and mercy, not because of anything that we
are or that we do -- God chooses to turn His wrath away because of His great
love for us, demonstrated through His sending Jesus to die on the cross for us
-- notice that in his intercession,
Moses calls the nation, “your people -- the people of God,” once again -- yes,
they had chosen to turn away -- yes, they had chosen to sin by making the idol
and worshiping it -- but they were God’s chosen people -- the people of the
promise -- and through God’s grace and mercy, the people would truly become His
again -- not just in name, but in deed and in their hearts
-- Moses’ intercession was
successful -- in verse 14 we read that the Lord relented and did not bring on
His people the disaster He had threatened
-- so, does this mean that God
changes His mind? -- no, not in the sense that we understand changing our minds
-- to change our minds means that we have looked at alternatives and decided to
take a different approach -- to try a better direction -- than that which we
previously had decided on
-- but the Bible is clear that God
is not like man -- He is immutable -- unchanging -- His word stands and does
not change -- as it says in 1 Samuel 15:29, “He who is the Glory of Israel does
not lie or change his mind; for he is not a human being, that he should change
his mind.”
-- so, what has happened here? --
verse 14 clearly says that the Lord relented -- some translations say
“repented” -- does that mean that God changed His mind or not?
-- the fact is God did not bring on
His people the disaster He had threatened
-- and that last holds the key to
understanding what is going on here -- the Lord had threatened a
disaster -- He had threatened to destroy the people -- but that
was a conditional declaration, not an unconditional
command
-- in other words, God’s declaration
to Moses in verse 10 was that His anger may burn against the
Israelites and that He may destroy them -- in other words, God might
do this -- it doesn’t mean that He necessarily will
-- remember, God is all-knowing --
He knew the people would eventually repent of their sin -- He knew the course
they would take even as Moses stood in intercession
-- so, God did not change His mind
-- He never said that He would definitely destroy the people -- it was a
conditional declaration -- because the people responded to God’s prevenient
grace through the intercession of Moses, God relented from what He said would
happen if they did not turn back
-- we see the same conditional
declaration in the Book of Jonah, when God calls Jonah to intercede on behalf
of Ninevah -- God proclaimed that Ninevah would be destroyed because of their
wickedness, but when they repented of their evil ways, God had compassion and
did not bring upon them the destruction He had threatened -- once again, a
conditional declaration dependent on the response of the people
-- God does not change His mind, but
He does offer conditional declarations and warnings to us based on our response
to His prevenient grace
-- in this case, even though God
relented of His threat to destroy the nation of Israel, they still suffered the
consequences of their sin, although to a lesser degree -- because of their
unfaithfulness and idolatry, we read in verse 35 that a plague came upon them
-- God’s judgment still came on the people because of their sin
III. CLOSING
-- so, what can we learn from the
story of the golden calf?
-- first, no matter how much our
hearts desire to return to Eden and the Promised Land, we tend to find
ourselves living in Egypt
-- in the absence of the presence of
God, we always drift away into idolatry -- as the hymn writer put it, “prone to
wander, Lord, I feel it -- prone to leave the God I love”
-- we need to make sure of what land
we are living in -- we need to make sure our feet are planted in the Kingdom of
God, and not in this world
-- when you start seeing idols in
your life -- when you start putting more importance and focus on money and
possessions and people -- on power and prestige and fame -- on anything other
than God -- this is a warning sign that you are drifting away from where you
should be -- that you are no longer following God, but following your own
desires
-- second, when we can’t see God, we
tend to search for substitutes
-- this whole episode with the
golden calf happened because the people lost sight of God and they searched for
something to replace Him -- when we lose sight of God, our faith begins to dim
-- how can we keep our eyes on
Jesus? -- by staying close to Him -- by keeping our focus on Him -- by knowing
Him through our prayers and our worship -- by keeping Him before us in all
things
-- it comes down to faith -- being
sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see -- God dwells in the
realm of faith -- and to make sure we are following Him and not an earthly
substitute, we must worship Him in truth and in faith
-- third, the judgment of God is
something to remember
-- Jonathan Edwards, the 18th
Century American Preacher, once preached a sermon called, “Sinners in the Hands
of an Angry God” -- God has given us boundaries -- He has placed limits on what
we can do, to protect us and to keep us safe -- to cross that line -- to go
outside the boundaries is to cross into the danger zone -- and there are always
consequences for our actions
-- to go too far is to invite the
wrath and judgment of God -- to go too far is to remove ourselves from the
protective hand of God
-- the Israelites flirted with
complete destruction by making an idol of a golden calf -- and even after God
relented of His threat to destroy them, the people still suffered the
consequences of their sin because of the plague that came upon them
-- salvation and protection are only
found in Jesus -- when we remain in Him and follow His commands, we are
protected from the dangers of crossing the boundary
-- finally, we are all called to be
intercessors for others
-- in Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus gave
us the Great Commission and charged us to go and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit and
teaching them to obey everything He has commanded us
-- we are to stand before the people
and point them to the cross -- we are to pray to the Father to withhold His
judgment and wrath and to pour out His prevenient grace on others and on our
nation so that they might return to Him
-- the Bible tells us that the
prayers of a righteous person are powerful and effective -- they move the heart
of God -- they lead people and nations from the brink of disaster
-- we are called to faithfully pray
for others and to tell them the good news of Jesus and the salvation of the
cross
-- as Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:18,
“always keep on praying for all the saints” -- and, I would add, for all those
who are yet to be saints
-- we’re going to close now in
prayer -- and as we do, I want you to take a moment to consider where you are
with God -- are you trying to straddle the fence -- living with one foot in the
kingdom of God but still drawn back to Egypt in your heart? -- have you been
making idols in your life? -- have you been faithful to the One who has called
you?
-- let God speak to you as we close and
as the last hymn is played -- and respond to His word as you are led by the
Spirit
-- let us pray
1
Modified from Nathan Castens, Chanhassen, Minnesota. Leadership, Vol. 6, no. 1.
2
Our Daily Bread
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