The Golden Calf

Prayer of Commissioning Alderson Family

The Golden Calf

We have been in this series simply called “Moses: Faithful Servant” all summer long and we have been looking at not only the story of Moses but the character of moses...

This reluctant leader who was asked by God to lead and if you remember when God asked him to lead Moses objects 5 times…And God is patient with moses but still calls him.

But that doesn’t matter, he is still called by God

Over the past few weeks we have been looking at this covenant with God and his people, and last week we looked at the 10 commandments

And just out of integrity I need to correct something I said last week. It’s small and minor but I think its a good lesson to you and me. I was making the point that the 10 commandments are not called commandments in the text and that is true for chapter 20…But as I was reading forward I had totally missed something...

Today we are looking at the story of the golden calf…and when Moses sees that his people have committed idolatry he throws these tablets down and breaks them that have the 10 commandments written on them.

Then later God has moses re-write all these commandments again…And remember the correction I am making here is that I said, no where are they called commandments because its a covenant:

Exodus 34:28 NIV

Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

So right here God does call them commandments…and while its true that in chapter 20 they dont call them commandments…the bible does later…and where I am wrong, I think it is impotrant to come to you and point that out...

This doesn't really change the content of that sermon at all but I was wrong so I am correcting that but there are

But this brings me to a very vital point about attending church:

You have a job in attending church. Not only to seek the Lord But!

Test everything and hold on to the good!

The apostle Paul made this point to the Thessalonian church.

Paul was warning the church dont let anyone just come in here and tell you anything and blindly believe it.

So what I am saying…if anyone makes a claim in a sermon or says something that kind of makes you question something a little...

test it against the word of God. research it, ask about it…

I think God is comfortable enough with his word that when we question it and go deeper we actually end up in a better more solid place...

So all of this to say

I am bound to make mistakes and where I notice them I’ll correct myself

Test what is spoken about, hold on to the truth!

Golden Calf

So lets get to this golden calf story:

So you have to understand some impotrant backstory, especially if your new with us.

God led his people out of Egypt using Moses and Aaron as his spokespeople…They have been the leaders of Israel...

The past two weeks have been really key in our series, chapters 19-20 are moses meeting with God on the mountain of God and God giving his people the 10 commandments...

In the narrative, they dont really move from the mountain of God for many many chapters

So before I read our text this morning you have to know that we are basically skipping from chapters 20 to 32 in the book of Exodus.

And I Want you to understand what is in these chapters so that you can understand where we are going today:

Chapters 21-24 are various laws and then chapters 25-31 are God’s plans for israel to build the tabernacle.

The tabernacle is a mobile sanctuary and the entire point of the tabernacle is for the atonement of God’s people…A good way to think about what atonement is is to break the word down: At-One-Ment…Atonement is when our sin is forgiven and we are at one with God

The Tabernacle is the place where heaven and earth meet!

So Moses is up on Mt. Siani for 40 days hearing about all of this…the laws the tabernacle…and then the camera shifts from what Moses is hearing from God to what is happening down at the base of the mountain

Lets look at the first 6 verses of Exodus 32

Exodus 32:1–6 NIV

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 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.” Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 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.” When Aaron saw this, he 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 and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.

So moses was up in this God cloud for 40 days and Israel is like…This is taking a long time. What if Moses slipped and fell....What if he broke a hip? I mean the guy is 80 climbing a mountain maybe something happened to him

So they gathered around Aaron and they say make us gods…Now the Hebrew Phrase for “gathered around” is the same exact phrase used elsewhere as “gathered against”

An Exodus Scholar who I think very highly of and use a lot named Douglas Stewart said

Exodus (1) Israel’s Idolatry with the Golden Young Bull (32:1–6)

it is safest to assume that Moses’ own usage would be consistent and that he intended his readers to understand that the people gathered in hostility against Aaron to pressure him into helping them return to idolatry

So the scene here is that the 10 commandments were given…When Moses is gone Aaron is in charge....There is a soft rebellion at foot....Hey the leader isn’t here…We need a new god to lead us to the promised land so Aaron you better play ball…If you catch my drift

So your first fill-in for today

Aaron compromised on the commands of God and caved to the pressure of the crowd.

This is the temptation and it always will be.

Hey there is always a crowd around us that wants you and I to join them in their sin.

The crowd is always pushing a golden calf

There is always a crowd that screams louder that their values are better

There is always a crowd that is constantly trying to use their influence to get you to join them in their sin

So what happens next we need to break down…

So Aaron says give me your gold…and if you remember, this was Egyptian gold that was plundered off of the Egyptians as the Israelites left Egypt

Exodus 32:2–4 NIV

Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 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.”

Ok so Aaron does the idol making,…But notice in verse 4 what the crowd says

Not Aaron…this is very impotrant

Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

Now I am imagining that Aaron is now beginning to realize just how bad he messed up when he went with the crowds...

Its like…your afraid of what the crowd will do to you if you dont go along…But you should really be afraid of the Lord.

So here is what Aaron does to try and salvage what he had just done

Exodus 32:5 NIV

When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.”

See whenever you read in the Old Testament a capitol LORD what you are reading is the name of God Yahweh.

So what Aaron is doing is saying oh no this is all for Yahweh...

Rather than condemning the crowd’s sin Aaron spiritualizes it.

See instead of Aaron standing up to the crowd the first time he makes an idol

And then instead of Aaron saying…Hey this isn't right we need to repent and trash this thing....He says…This will now be a part of our worship

and then he tries to integrate this idol into the worship of Yahweh

I was trying to figure out what is worse. Joining people in their sin or integrating that sin into worship....Christianizing the sin

God would later tell people hey you have to expel the immoral people from the community because they are leading people astray

The new age movement is a perfect example of this. It is the worship of self cloaked in the worship of God…And it has found its way into christian worship and theology

The idea of Manifesting the results you want and then taking that to god is this whole new age mysticism cloaked in worshiping God

I hear christians talking about vision boarding

The new age believes that “all is one” and in that everything is interrelated…rather than in HIM all things are held together

It leads you to the idea that you can discover your own divinity...

It puts you at the center and this is a very attractive message because our world of social media puts you at the center.

The new mix between new age and Christianity says that if you manifest positivity toward God when you pray then you will get positive results...

It literally teaches that God can be controlled or manipulated

And I bring this up because the Israelites built a golden calf…Not a dove or a snake or anything else…a calf…why?

Well we have dug up a number of Egyptian calf statues and they are frequently pictured like a baby cow with wings…and the gods of Egypt are standing on the backs of the calf...

In Egypt the calf wasn’t a god, but it was what transported the god’s from the heavens to the earth

See it makes sense…The people build a “god”…Aaron is like…lets have a festival to Yahweh...

Moses has been gone for a long time, maybe this calf will bring Yahweh down from the mountain

It puts Aaron in the place of manipulating God . Trying to get god to come down from the mountain

This is us people...

Ok God…if you do this in my life then I will serve you

Ok God if you just pay my bills …Then

Ok God if you just heal so and so then I will ...

Okk God if this relationship were to work out then I will…>XYZ

So basically what you are saying is Lord I will stop withholding my worship from you if you wow me…if you do some kind of song and dance that I can not deny

God can not be manipulated…he can not be tricked into your service, he can not be told what to do...

And this is the struggle around the golden Calf…>WHO WILL BE IN CHARGE?

Israel would have to learn the lesson the hard way...

Moses the Intercessor

So in the narrative of the story, God gets upset.

So much so that he is ready to wipe out his people

God is even like…Ok Moses…Leave me alone so I can kill all these people and I’ll make you into a great nation:

But Moses intervened

Exodus 32:11–14 NIV

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? 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. 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.’ ” Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.

See moses reminded God of the covenant and he asks him to relent

This is where God changes his mind in the Bible

This is why we pray by the way, not that we can manipulate God into our service but so we can say…Lord we love your plans…We want your will

Thats all moses did!

And he intervened for this group of people who were fickle and who burned him…He went before God on behalf of this people who were just stubborn and he prayed for them...

And God changed his mind

See somewhere along the line the greek Philosophers drew a picture of God as, “the un-moved mover” It is the God who makes moves in the universe but wont be moved by us…he is unmoveable,...

But Scripture paints an entirely different picture

God is actually the most moved mover, the one who hears our prayers and is moved by them....

So right after this, Moses goes back into the camp and finds the people acting wildly…and he sends levites in to actually kill everyone who was in on the golden calf deal…Then he goes back before the lord…after seeing this all first hand

So moses goes back to God and says

Exodus 32:30–32 NIV

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.” So Moses went back to the Lord and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.”

Remember that I had said that for 12 chapters in Exodus God had been telling Moses the laws and how to make a tabernacle and the main purpose was for atonement? Well that wasnt built yet so moses does something that is unheard of at this point in the bible

Moses offers his own life to atone for the sins of his people.

This is the first time this will happen in the Bible...

and it will set the stage for what Jesus will do...

God does not take moses up on the offer..He doesn't kill moses...

He forgives his people

But now Moses has set this idea of one person being willing to lay down their life as a ransom for many

People can be saved through the death of a person

The Apostle Paul will say this about Jesus many years later:

Romans 5:18–19 NIV

Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

Jesus even says:

Mark 10:45 NIV

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

See Jesus is the ultimate intercessor. Jesus did what moses could never do. he lived a sinless life and then offered his life of no sin as a ransom to be paid for all of us.

And through this exchange for a few chapters of Moses offering his life for his people and asking for forgiveness for his people God did something that would literally make Moses’ face shine…It would make him Radient because he sees God more clearly than ever

The Character of God

God would say his name and reveal his innermost character:

Exodus 34:5–8 (NIV)

Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”

Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped.

So the Israelites just angered God and broke the covenant, what they did with the golden calf is like Israel’s fall in the garden…This is the big sin that will continually be referenced everywhere in the Bible

So when God says hey this is my character…And by the way this verse will be used hundreds of times in the Old and New Testament to talk about God’s Character...

This is welcome news

So let’s go over the

Compassionate

The first attribute of Yahweh listed is that he is a “compassionate” God, meaning that he genuinely cares about humans and holds toward them a tender attitude of concern and mercy.

God genuinely cares for you

Gracious

Second, he called himself “gracious,” meaning that he does things for people they do not deserve and goes beyond what might be expected to grant truly kind favor toward people, favor of which they are not necessarily worthy.

Slow to anger

Third, he described himself as “slow to anger,” meaning that his patience with people’s less-than-satisfactory behavior and/or failures in any realm, including the moral, is very great.

The Hebrew phrase for slow to anger is “long in nostril” which if you think of a cartoon like the smoke billowing out of the nose of a character or something…What God is saying is, I have such a long nose that it takes a long time for the smoke to get out.

Abounding in love and faithfulness

Fourth, he declared himself to be “abounding” in covenant “love [loyalty].” Careful studies of the Hebrew word, ḥesed, translated as “love” by the NIV here demonstrate that it connotes long-term, reliable loyalty of one member of a covenant relationship to another. However fickle and unreliable humans may be in their relationship to God, he is nothing of the sort but can be counted on in every situation and at all times to be completely faithful to his promises for his people.

Maintaining love to thousands and forgiving rebellion and sin

He does not reluctantly forgive sins against himself and others; he does so eagerly, as a manifestation of his character, by which he delights in doing so. In the list “wickedness, rebellion and sin,” the final term, “sin,” is the most inclusive. These are not three distinct kinds of behaviors but three vocabulary words used together to indicate what any of them might convey; and since they are used together, they combine to indicate what Jesus meant when he said, “Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven” (Matt 12:31).

Yet he doesn’t leave the guilty unpunished

So God is endlessly forgiving to those who are repentant…But if your just going to sin and not care then that makes you guilty and god will punish for that. Its part of what makes him good…Not just that he forgives but he doesn’t let evil go

And this line, we have talked about punishing the sin to the third and 4th generation is a Hebrew Idiom that recognizes that when you have sin deeply rooted into who you are, you pass that on to the next generation and they experience that too!

Response

Tearing down golden Calfs

Sin that you have spiritualized

That needs to be surrendered because it is blocking

Trust in jesus

Jesus is the one who surrendered his life for you and made atonement for you!

Mark 10:45 NIV

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Surrender to the God who is compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness