#4 - killing Kryptonite - The Golden Calf

The Golden Calf

Exodus 32:1–10 NIV

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 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, 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.”

I want you to think of the story of the golden calf at Mount Sinai. If you remember, God had just saved Israel from Egypt through many powerful miracles and had led them through the wilderness to Mount Sinai. He spoke His commands to them, but they all shrank back and insisted that Moses go up the mountain to talk to God alone. 

While Moses is gone, the people lose patience. They go to Moses’s brother, Aaron, and demand that he make them gods to lead them into the Promised Land. Now, the word they used for “gods” is Elohim, which is used in the Old Testament to refer to both pagan gods and the true God, so we don’t really know who they are talking about yet. 

Aaron bows to their demands, fashions a golden statue of a calf, and they say, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt” (Exodus 32:4). We still don’t know which God they’re talking about, but Aaron makes it clear right away. 

He says, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord” (Exodus 32:5). Now when it says, “Lord,” what’s written there is the name, “Yahweh,” the name of God. Now we know who they are talking about. 

Api

Two popular Egyptian gods, Hapi and Hathor were thought of as a bull and a heifer. The Canaanites around them worship Baal thought of as a Bull. Baal was their sacred symbol of power and fertility and was closely connected to immoral sexual practices.

No doubt the Israelite's, fresh from Egypt, found it quite natural to make a golden calf to represent the God that had just delivered them from this oppressors.

But in doing so, they were ignoring the command he had just given them:

Exodus 20:4 ESV

4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

They may even have thought they were worshiping God their apparent sincerity was no substitute for obedience or excuse for disobedience.

Here’s what’s going on: They are declaring, “Yahweh is our God. Yahweh saved us from Egypt. Yahweh is our Lord,” yet they are worshiping an idol. We must see this warning, because if they could have all the right declarations while still worshiping an idol, we can too. 

In fact, many Christians do this every day. They declare, “Jesus is Lord,” but they don’t follow Jesus. Just as Israel said they worshiped Yahweh, but followed their desires instead of God’s declared will, many Christians pick and choose which passages of Scripture they want to follow, and then ignore the rest that challenge them! 

This is creating a knockoff Jesus—an idol. It is not worshiping Jesus in truth. 

Even if we do not make idols, we are often guilty of trying to make God in our image, molding him to fit our expectations, desires and circumstances.

When we do this, we end up worshiping ourselves rather than the God who created us - and self-worship. Today as in the Israel’s time leads to all kinds of immorality.

The question we must ask is, how can we know we are worshiping the true Jesus, not a knockoff Jesus?

What is your favorite image of God? is it biblical? is it adequate?

Do you need to destroy it in order to worship the immeasurably powerful God who delivered us from bondage to sin?

2 Corinthians 11:2–4 NIV

2 I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. 3 But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.

Paul was anxious that the church’s love should be for Christ alone, just as a pure virgin saves her love for one man only.

The Corinthians’ sincere and pure devotion to Christ was being threatened by false teaching.

Paul did not want the believers to lose their single-minded love for Christ.

Keeping Christ first in our lives can be very difficult when we have so many distractions threatening to sidetrack our faith.

Just as Eve lost her focus by listening to the serpent, we too can lose our focus by letting our lives become overcrowded and confused.

Is there anything that weakens your commitment to keep Christ first in your life?

How can you minimize the distractions that threatens your devotion to Him?

Today there are many false teaching that seem to make sense. Don’t believe someone simply because he or she sounds like an authority or says words you like to hear.

Search the Bible and check his or her teachings against God’s word. The bible should be your authoritative guide (reliable, dependable, trustworthy).

Don’t listen to any “authoritative preacher” who contradict God’s word.