Sermon Tone Analysis

“Father, we pray that you would open our eyes, convict our hearts, move us to repentance.

May your Word, by your Spirit, guide us.

For Jesus’ sake and in His name we pray.

Amen.”

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“Where is he?”

“When’s he coming back?”

“How long does it take, really?”

“I mean, come on!

This is getting ridiculous!”

“It’s been, what?

40 days?”

Moses had been on Mt.

Sinai with the Lord—receiving instruction from the Lord about the tabernacle, priests, sacrifices, etc. Moses was gone for a little more than a month.

40 days and 40 nights.

And in his absence, what happens at the foot of the mountain of God is unreal.

If it wasn’t so believable, it would be entirely unbelievable.

Let’s remember the context: the people of God have received the Law (the Ten Words, Exodus 20); and they’ve received the practical application of the Law (Exodus 20-23).

And then, in Exodus 24, the people of God promise to keep the Law; they vow to do so.

Twice we read:

A covenant is struck between the Lord Yahweh and the Israelites, sealed in blood.

But it doesn’t take long at all for the people to break the covenant, and hard.

“We will do everything the Lord has said…that is until Moses steps away for a little bit.”

“We’ll do everything the Lord has said until we become impatient with Lord and His servant, Moses.

And then, we’ll do the exact opposite of what the Lord has said.”

Idolatry is Rebellion Against the Lord

What the people of God do here in Moses’ brief absence is shocking; it’s so far past wrong, they’ve lost sight of what wrong is.

They break the 1st and 2nd Commandments in one fell swoop.

To be fair, the Israelites who are encamped in the dessert are still mostly Egyptian in thought and practice.

These people had lived their entire lives in Egypt, among the Egyptian people, surrounded by the Egyptians’ religious practices.

This kind of idolatry and idol worship was commonplace.

It doesn’t mean that the Israelites are justified in what they’ve done; not even a little bit.

But it helps us makes sense of how they were so quick to do something so blatantly sinful.

It’s what they were used to.

It’s what the world around them was doing.

The people want a tangible, visible god.

Something they could see and touch and make sacrifices to.

It’s almost as if they forgot the God who had gone before them in a pillar of cloud and fire, the God who had done great and mighty things in their sight.

As for this fellow Moses, they forget that Moses is up on the mountain meeting with the Lord.

They saw Moses and the other 73 men go up on the mountain to meet with God.

When God called Moses to join Him further up the mountain, the other 70+ men went back to the rest of the people, and I have to assume, told them what Moses was doing.

What the people had wasn’t good enough.

They wanted something else.

And in their wanting, they sin in the most severe manner imaginable.

The sad part—the really sad part to me—is that Aaron (Moses’ brother and high priest of Israel) goes along with all of it!

When they came to Aaron, gathered around him (even if they were aggressive about it as some think the word gathered infers) and said, “Come on, man, and make us some gods who will go before us..”, Aaron claps his hands and says, “Okie dokie, let’s do it; sounds good!”

Aaron should have said, “God forbid!

The Lord alone deserves our worship, the Lord and no one else; the Lord and nothing else! Were you not paying attention to the Ten Words?

Don’t you remember the commandments the Lord Himself spoke to us?

“You sinful people!

Repent!

Turn from your wicked ways and return to God!”

If only Aaron had taken a stand for what was right and said anything of the sort; if only Aaron took steps to prevent the people from their wanton disregard for the things of God.

If only Aaron had a spine and a conscience.

Aaron not only allows their pagan idolatry, but he helps them in it.

He encourages them in their idolatry.

Aaron leads the people, aiding them in their spiritual prostitution.

He takes them by the hand and leads them into full-blown idol worship.

Left to ourselves, we will worship something other than the living God.

As my good friend, John Calvin says: “The human heart is an idol factory.”

We’ve spoken about idolatry several times, and that’s because the Bible has so much to say about it.

It creeps up in almost every book of the Bible.

The people of God in the OT and the Church in the NT and Christians today have an idolatry problem.

It’s a problem—prevalent and perennial.

It shows up over and over, again and again.

Why?

Because our hearts are constantly giving to people and to things affection and worship and allegiance that belongs only to God.

We give our hearts to many, many gods.

You might not be worshipping and bowing down to a golden calf, but you have something (or several things) that you would have trouble living without.

If you can’t imagine your life without that item or that person or that (fill in the blank), then whatever that is, is an idol.

An idol is whatever you center part of your life around, that which gives you your identity, that which you cannot do without.

For you, it might be money or your job.

Maybe it’s family—your spouse or children or grandchildren.

Or country.

Fame, status, power, respect, tradition.

Now, maybe you don’t idolize any of those.

I don’t know your heart, but I do know something true about your heart (it’s an idol factory).

I promise you: you have idols because you have a heart—sinful and deceitful above all else (Jeremiah 17:9).

We will find something to worship; it’s part of what it means to be human.

And part of what it means to be human is to have a nature bent toward sin and idolatry.

All idolatry—even that which is common, especially that which is common—is rebellion.

Idolatry is cosmic treason.

Idolatry is taking praise which belongs to the Creator and giving it to the creature; exchanging the glory of the immortal God for mortal, temporary, earthly stuff.

“Lord, help us.”

The people of God rebel against the Lord in the most blatant and heinous way.

The Lord Sees and Hates Idolatry

The Lord’s anger toward His people is justified.

It’s righteous anger.

He is right to want to destroy them.

They have sinned against Him.

They have broken His covenant.

They have willfully disobeyed.

They deserve His wrath.

Sound like anyone you know?

It should; you look them in the mirror (in the selfie, in the SnapChat) every morning, multiple times a day.

The Lord sees what these people are up to, and He is angry.

The Israelites aren’t sure where Moses is, and might even think the Lord is off on vacation.

But the God of Israel—the Lord Yahweh—neither slumbers nor sleeps.

He is not absent.

He sees.

He knows what the people are like.