Rejecting God!

Exodus 32.

Some time has passed, and Moses was up on Mount Sinai getting instruction from God

There had been a lot of teaching of how the people need to live

and this trip up the mountain, is where Moses received the stone tablets with the writings from the finger of God.

He was up there for 40 days and nights.

This is where we pick up in today’s message.

vs. 1

The New International Version (Chapter 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 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.”

The Israelites grew tired of waiting

so what is the obvious answer, let’s break the first two commandments and go against the vow we made to obey God.

Unfortunately, Aaron, who is supposed to be a leader, listened to them and told them to bring them the gold.

This shows that this type of leadership is not only going on today.

Bowing down to the will of people rather than standing up for the will of God.

It happened here with Aaron and it is happening with mainstream Christianity and mainstream Christian leaders on a daily basis.

One thing that stands out in this text is the gold that was used.

These gold earnings would have been some of the gold they had gotten from the Egyptians as they were leaving Egypt.

So the choice was made to make an idol to worship, built from the materials of those who had enslaved them

In different ways it seems like we run back to the world time and time again, enslaving ourselves over and over again.

vs. 5

The New International Version Chapter 32

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.”

Recognize what happens here in verse 5,

Aaron says they will have a festival for the lord. He is referencing this idol

They made sacrifices to it that the real Lord had prescribed.

This celebration they were having was founded on the rejection of the true God.

Meanwhile, on the mountain, Moses was ignorant of what was happening with the Israelites.

Then God informs him of what is going on.

notice at this point, God calls them “your people”

as they have rejected him, He is not calling them His own.

Then we see the anger of God at these people and shares that He may destroy them and make Moses a great nation.

can He do this with one man?

He started with one in the beginning and he could do it again.

vs. 11

The New International Version Chapter 32

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.

15 Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. 16 The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.

17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war in the camp.”

18 Moses replied:

“It is not the sound of victory,

it is not the sound of defeat;

it is the sound of singing that I hear.”

19 When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. 20 And he took the calf the people had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.

Moses pleads with God not to wipe out the nation

He reasons with God and tries to remind him of things (things that God of course knows)

God relents and does not bring down the judgment he had threatened upon the people.

The Lord did not destroy them, however, he did punish them for their wickedness.

It is important to not that God did not change here

He says in Malachi 3 that he doesn’t change

however, He also declares in Jeremiah 18:8

Jeremiah 18:8 NIV

and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned.

so he sill relent if they change their ways.

When moses came down, he saw what had gone on, which God had told him about, and he shows his anger.

Then He issues the punishment

he melted the idol

grounded it into powder and scattered it on their water and made them drink it.

Who is ready for science class?

Gold is chemically inert, or inactive

this means it will not react the way most things do in the body by breaking down.

Therefore cannot be digested

so it will pass through the body and expelled as waste in the same form it was when they swallowed it.

The disgust of the though of that, is the example that God wanted them to see as the disgust of their willingness to turn from God so quickly.

When we willingly turn from Him

When we walk away from him, this is how disgusted we should feel

Turn to him

run to Him

and do not walk away.