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Good morning my friends, Today we’re in Exodus 32, and I presume, if you know the story of Exodus, you’ve been waiting for this day… the golden calf disaster.
Surveys tell us Sunday church attendance is dropping all across America.
While folks in their 70’s-90’s are still very consistent, averaging about 48-50 Sundays per year in church; those in their 50’s & 60’s are still quite mobile and find weekends often draw them to visit family or other things which interfere with church, thus this generation averages around 40-46 Sundays per year in church. The generation in their 30’s & 40’s are busy people raising children, pursuing careers and often their weekends are filled with activities, thus they only average between 30 & 40 Sundays per year in church.
And finally those in their 20’s are averaging only about 20-30 Sundays in church. Of course ‘live stream’, of thousands of churches on the internet, enables someone to be anywhere and worship with any church on line, at anytime.
So look at your extended family, what do you see in their spiritual journey? What does this mean? How is it affecting the moral and spiritual culture of America?
Exodus 32 is heart-breaking.
Nearly 40 days have passed, while Moses has been up the mountain with God, the people have grown restless for leadership. The cloud still hovers over them by day and pillar of fire by night. Manna is still falling each morning from heaven, they all still have the “bounty of Egypt” in their tents, and any miracle debris they picked up from the shoreline after the Red Sea miracle. But still… they are so new to this relationship with Almighty God, that they clamor for Aaron to do something. “Come, make us gods 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.” (Ex. 32:1)
Aaron failed as leader… miserably. Remember he and 70 elders had gone partway up the mountain and they had met with God (Ex. 24:9). Aaron had been alongside Moses in all the miracles of God so far…but clearly Aaron did not have a life transforming relationship with God like Moses did. I think Aaron was like most everyone else…depending on Moses to have a dynamic, powerful, authentic, living relationship with God and then just following, whatever Moses told him ABOUT God.
Watch that friends… it’s happening all around us. That’s why church attendance is dropping off in our day. Who do you know who has a vibrant, dynamic, passionate relationship with God, which is the most important priority in their life? Remember, Paul once wrote to Timothy “Be diligent in these matters, give yourself wholly to them...” (1 Tim. 4:15) Aaron evidently didn’t, so when the people asked for spiritual leadership, all he could offer was fabricating a golden calf! As you read Exodus 32, watch carefully the emotions which rise up in you, what do they tell you about how you would have responded?
“Aaron took the gold they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool.“ (32:4) Do you hear words which describe Aaron’s thoughtful, carefully planned response to the people’s cry for spiritual leadership. How many days do you suppose this took him? Who helped him, maybe his sons? “Then they said, “these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt. Aaron built an altar in front of the calf and announced: ‘tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD.’ So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings…afterward they sat down to eat and drink and indulge in revelry.” (32:5,6)
What picture comes into your mind with that description? How long had it been since their mountain shaking, worship encounter with God in Exodus 19? Or their hearing the voice of God explain His Commandments for His people, a ‘kingdom of priests and a holy nation”, in Exodus 20? Or their proclaiming, in covenant to God “We will do everything the LORD has commanded us, we will obey” (Ex. 24:7), as Moses read the words of God and sprinkled them with the blood of the covenant?
But, before we throw too many stones, let’s look honestly at ourselves and our wandering hearts, what do we do when we are bored with God?
Look closely at what God says to Moses up the mountain in vs. 7-10. He sees it all, He’s God and sees everything (Heb. 4:13). Moses is totally unaware, he’s been immersed in the cloud of God’s glory, for more than a month. Do you see the big contrast here between what Moses has been doing and what the people have been doing?
Listen to what God says to Moses and I wonder what you would have said in response? “I have seen these people, the LORD said to Moses, and they are a stiff-necked people. 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.” Remember my friends, God is not talking about the wicked Amalakites, who had attacked them at Rephidim (Ex. 17). God is talking about the people He rescued from Egypt, the people He brought through the Red Sea, the people He called “My treasured possession…a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” But they had done, after only a few weeks, what they promised they would never do… they had made and worshiped a man-made idol, of an animal, and called it god, rejecting the only True Holy, Almighty God. They broke the heart of God… look closely, my friends, at ourselves…what do we do or say that breaks God’s heart?
Exodus 32:11-13 gives us a remarkable picture of Moses who, like a defense attorney, tries to make a case that would urge God to reconsider, and be merciful. What happens next is important. Did Moses win the debate and convince God His idea was a bad one and He should follow Moses’ lead? Or do we see here God’s Mercy balancing God’s Justice?
You’ll notice God didn’t say anything at that moment in response to Moses’ appeal. Instead, He gave Moses the two tablets of stone, He had engraved with His Commandments, and Moses turned, walked out of the cloud, rejoined Joshua, who had been waiting these 40 days outside the cloud, and they began their hike down the mountain. I’ve often wondered, how much of the conversation did Joshua hear, as he sat outside the cloud…perhaps every word!
I’m sure you’ve hiked down mountains… you can hear sounds from the valley, from far up the mountain. Clearly both Moses and Joshua were captivated by what they saw and heard, the closer they got to the refugee city…and it broke their hearts, as it had broken the heart of God.
Smashed tablets of stone… burned golden calf, ground into powder and sprinkled on the water and the people forced to drink it. And then, this monumental leadership question: “Moses said to Aaron, ‘What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?” Oh my friends let’s hold on to that. We all influence other people, and we need to regularly ask ourselves, how is my life affecting those I touch? Am I doing anything that is leading people into sin, or away from God?
“Do not be angry with me, my lord, Aaron said, ‘ You know how prone these people are to evil. They said to me, ‘make us gods who will go before us… So I told them, whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off. They gave me the gold and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.“ (32:22-24) What wells up inside you when you hear that nonsense? Seems to me Aaron has totally disqualified himself from any consideration by God for any leadership role with this 2 million people. And yet, God had told Moses on the mountain, that He was choosing Aaron and his sons to be HIS priests? Does that make any sense? I wonder if those who sometimes make the most tender spiritual leaders, are those who have experienced the greatest mercy, the greatest life transformation by God?
You’ll see in vs. 24-29 Moses drew a line in the sand calling those who would stand for the LORD in opposition to this wickedness, to rally, with sword in hand, and help him clean out the evil, that was spreading through the people. vs. 26 says “All the Levites rallied to him.” Aaron and his sons were leaders of the Levites, I wonder what they did? Stood there dumbfounded, or grabbed their swords in profound conviction? I know it seems barbaric, but the people had responded to God, ‘we will obey’ when Moses had reported to them that God said “Do not allow a sorcerer to live…whoever sacrifices to any god other than the LORD, must be destroyed.” (Ex. 22:18,26).
“The next day Moses said to the people, ‘You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the LORD, perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” Because the people had backed away from God, in Exodus 20, they had fallen into idolatry. And now their only hope, was Moses hiking back up the mountain, for a 7th time, to meet with God. Their future, in fact their very lives, hung in the balance.
In Deuteronomy 9:18-20, 40 years later, as Moses is recounting this story of Mount Sinai to the next generation, he says “Then once again I fell prostrate before the LORD for 40 days and 40 nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the LORD’s sight and so provoking Him to anger. I feared the anger and wrath of the LORD, for He was angry enough with you to destroy you.”
So for a second time, Moses spent 40 days and nights with God. This time in continual intercession on behalf of Aaron and the people, begging God for mercy, for a profoundly sinful people. Look around our world my friends. Honestly now, does the evil draw you to criticism and complaint, or intercession with God on behalf of a people so deep in the darkness, they cannot think with right minds? Remember 2 Corinthians 4:4? May I suggest we conclude our time today, joining Moses in the Presence of God, interceding for those you know who need God’s mercy, His forgiveness, His rescue from the moral and spiritual darkness which enslaves them?
Oh God. . .
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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