Moses was up on that mountain with God for long over a month.

Meanwhile back at the camp the Israelites were growing restless.

HOW SOON WE FORGET

Maybe they thought Moses had deserted them, or that he had been killed, or simply that he was not coming back. Who knows where their thinking began to move off from the right path; but things definitely went south when Moses took so long in returning to the camp.

Finally the people all gathered around Aaron and said those horrible words “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.”

Just as quickly as that; they forgot about Moses and all that he had taught them.

THE OLD MINDSET FROM EGYPT HAD NOT YET BEEN CHANGED

They had already begun to think of new religious rituals; rituals that had nothing to do with the God of Moses who had delivered them from slavery and led them out from Egypt.

As a matter of fact; their thoughts seemed to be a lot like the thinking of the people they knew in Egypt; that of a people who worshiped many gods instead of The One True God of Heaven and Earth that they had ALWAYS known; even when they had been held captive in Egypt. Their memory suddenly went out the window without a good strong leader to guide them.

IT ALL STARTS WITH ONE TINY LITTLE COMPLAINT TO A WEAK LEADER

Isn’t this so typical of human nature?

Can’t you see this parallel happening in our cultures today?

When a leader is absent, or weak, or doesn’t take a strong stand for God; the people soon become forgetful of God.

They weaken and forget to remember and begin to accept the pagan practices of the cultures around them.

For a culture to be strong and steeped in the practices of The One True God; it must possess a godly leader who is unwilling to waiver from right to wrong with the whims and whining voices of the weak of the culture.

This whole culture weakening process usually starts with one tiny little complaint from one single person.  Then it grows and grows and more people begin to complain and their complaints become louder and louder until those next-in-charge cave.

Before you know it the whole nation is participating in sinful and shameful practices.

INTRODUCTION

Thank you for joining our ongoing Thursday bible study called COME AS A CHILD. We hope you are still approaching this study with the wide-eyed wonder of a small child who is just learning and beginning to see the great wonders of The Father of The Universe.

How great they are!

Today our study in Lesson 177 takes us through a passage found in Exodus 32. If you missed our last lesson you may review it here: https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/keeping-sabbath/.

AARON LIVING IN THE ABSENCE OF MOSES

All of the above is exactly what happened to Aaron in the absence of Moses; he caved in to the wanton desires of the culture.

Many speculate that the people were so charged up with their sinful passions that he feared for his life.  Nevertheless; he allowed what Moses had always forbidden to take place inside the camp.

Is any of this beginning to sound familiar?

Do you think in the absence of strong leaders who are willing to stand firm that our own culture has from time-to-time, over and over again, allowed what God has always forbidden to take place in our lives?

All you have to do is walk down the streets of the world today and take an inventory of how much paganism and sin we have allowed to slowly seep in; like the slowly heating pot of water with a frog inside that has become accustomed to the temperatures around him because they have come slowly and not all at once. He doesn’t even realize he is sitting in boiling water until it is too late.

THE ARRIVAL OF SOMEONE STRONGER THAN MOSES

I fear we have come to such a state in the world today, and it will take the leadership of people like Moses to lead us out of this disaster that we have brought upon ourselves.

The good news is that someone stronger than Moses has already come!

AARON STALLS FOR TIME

So Aaron says to the people; take off your gold earrings and bring them to me.

Do you think perhaps Aaron was stalling for time; hoping that the people would be too greedy to part with the gold they had left from what they had brought out of Egypt?

Do you think maybe he was hoping that their sin for greed was worse than their sins for idolatry?

Sorry Aaron; no such luck!

The people brought their earrings to Aaron. So there he was holding all of their gold.

BETWEEN A ROCK AND HARD PLACE

Now Aaron had to follow through with the plan or they would think he was just taking their valuables for himself. Aaron was between a rock and hard place and he kept sinking deeper and deeper into a hole that he had dug for himself by not speaking out in the first place and commanding the people to act righteously before God.

Do we have any well-known priests and/or religious leaders today who are just taking people’s gold while allowing them to keep worshipping idols because they are simply trying to keep the people on their side instead of persuading them to worship God in truth?

I wonder if that could ever happen again?

True godliness never involves a popularity contest.

AN IDOL CAST IN THE SHAPE OF A CALF FASHIONED WITH A TOOL

So Aaron took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf.  He fashioned it with a tool.

This is almost laughable.  Do you not shake your head in wonder to think that people would believe that an object fashioned from a man-made tool and shaped from the hands of a man could be a god?

After this the people said “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

It was all a lie; but the people fell for it, hook, line and sinker!

I wonder if that could ever happen again?

THE DAY THAT AARON PANICKED

When Aaron saw this scenario playing out before his eyes he probably thought about those plagues of Egypt and how God had performed them to harm those who were worshipping idols instead of God!

Aaron probably panicked.

Maybe he suddenly remembered how they had crossed the Red Sea on dry ground through walls of water, and how God had sent the waves crashing in on Pharaoh’s armies after they were safe.

Something clicked inside Aaron’s mind and he began to side-step.

He quickly built an altar in front of the golden calf and announced; “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD.”

IDOLATRY AND GODLINESS WILL NOT MIX

Who do you think believed him?

Do you think Aaron was going to try to twist what the people were doing, hoping to slowly lead them back into the right course by mixing the golden calf worship with a festival to the LORD?

If so; he was dead-set on an impossible mission.

You can’t mix idolatry and godliness.

It just doesn’t work.

GOD KNEW ALL THE TIME

We don’t really know exactly what was going on inside Aaron’s heart and mind; but God knew.

The next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings in front of that golden calf.

Afterwards they sat down to a feast and began to eat and drink and to indulge in all types of revelry.

Up on the mountain with Moses; God knew.

GOD SPEAKS TO MOSES ABOUT THE PEOPLE

God said to Moses; “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. 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.

A STIFF-NECKED PEOPLE

I have seen these people 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.”

Moses heart must have sunk. He had no desire to become a great nation unto himself.  His heart was full of love for his people.

What could he do now?

How could such a thing even be possible?

What had these stiff-necked people done?

It defied all logic; but human nature sometimes does defy all logic. God had made EVERY provision for them and was even preparing to educate them further by giving them His best ways to live as a perfect gift; and they had STILL turned to idols.

A PORTRAIT OF JESUS AND THE PEOPLE WHO JESUS LOVES

I can’t help but think of Jesus. He, even right now; must feel a lot like Moses on that mountain.

He has led His people into a place of salvation and shown them the path to holiness.

He has opened their eyes to a whole new wonderful way of life; a life full of the blessings of God.

STILL the people of the earth turn to their own ways.

Every group of people repeats the sins of the ones who came before them.

They set themselves and their gold up as idols. They have a FORM of godliness; but it isn’t true. They worship at the idol of self-righteousness and greed.

Yes; they go to their glorious buildings that they once dedicated to God, and they walk before the altars that should belong to God, and they go through rituals that seem to be righteous; but then they go back home to live like all the other foreign cultures that do not know God’s ways or follow His laws.

They stack up possessions for themselves and they forget to love their neighbors. They desecrate God’s Sabbaths and they ignore His commandments. They look to one another for advice and confirmation instead of praying to The One and Only God of Heaven and Earth.

YOUR PEOPLE WHO YOU BROUGHT UP OUT OF SIN HAVE BECOME CORRUPT

Even today God must be looking down from Heaven upon the earth; just like he looked down from the mountain on those people worshipping the golden calf.  God knows.

Any day now God could turn to Jesus and say to Him; “Go down, because your people who you brought up out of sin have become corrupt!”

We all know it is true!

Some things never change.

THERE IS ONE MORE POWERFUL THAN MOSES

Fortunately for us today; Jesus has even more persuasive power with God than Moses.

In the case of Moses; he quickly turned to God and began to ask questions.  He asked;

“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?’”

Moses pleaded with God interceding for his people.

“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.”

CHRIST PRAYS THE SAME PRAYERS FOR US

And so it is probably with these same words of Moses that Christ stands at the right hand of God today and pleads for us.

He is our great advocate.

He knows, like Moses knew, that we serve a righteous, good and merciful God who always keeps His promises.

So Christ intercedes for us every minute.

Moses also interceded for the Nation of Israel.

THEN THE LORD RELENTED

Finally; the scriptures give us those golden words we all long to hear: “Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.”

A good Father always loves his children in spite of their sins and flaws.

God is good.

He was angry, and His anger was righteous anger! He had every right to be angry; but he also decided to show mercy to those who did not deserve mercy.

SOMETIMES LOVE TRUMPS JUSTICE

It would have been so easy and clean to kill off all the people and have a fresh new start with the family of Moses; but what good would that do?

Didn’t the same thing happen previously with Noah?  Well, here we are again; right back in this same old pool of human disaster that is totally self-imposed. Once again, God had given man free-will and they had misused it in every way.

Still; God did not want to remove that free-will.  Why?  Because love as well as sin has to be free and willful.  It cannot be forced.

A father can exercise rules that bring his children into total obedience and he will have just that – total obedience.

Some fathers take a different path. They let their children fall into their own mistakes and sinful traps until they eventually by trial and error learn to listen in love.

When these same children that were sinful and disobedient decide to change and they begin to listen to the words of their father and turn and become obedient; then the father knows that they truly love and respect him.

LOVE BRINGS OBEDIENCE IN THE END

Blind obedience born out of fear can bring order from chaos; but total obedience out of love; though slow and messy at times; brings peace and harmony which leads to total joy and celebration.

God, in all of His great wisdom chose the second way.

He loved Moses enough to give the people another chance to become obedient to him.

He loves Jesus even more than Moses.

TODAY IS OUR SECOND CHANCE FOR OBEDIENCE

We are all right now living through our time for a second chance for obedience to God The Father; not from a heart of fear; but from a joyful heart of love.

The intercession of Moses made this possible for the Israelites.

The intercession of Christ makes it possible for us today.

So Moses turned and walked down that mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hand. They were inscribed on both sides; front and back. The tablets were the work of God; and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.

Moses’s assistant, Joshua was waiting for Moses halfway down the mountain. From where he was waiting he had heard the noise of the people from the camp shouting. Joshua said to Moses; “There is the sound of war in the camp.”

THERE IS THE SOUND OF WAR IN THE CAMP

And Joshua was so right.

It was the sound of the same old war that has happened across the face of the earth ever since the day that God threw Satan from Heaven and He and his demons landed on planet earth.

It happened then and it is still happening now. The war of sin and evil will continue until the day that Christ returns and saves us from ourselves.

Those sounds of this war at the camp of the Israelites was about to meet the wrath of Moses who had been brave enough to risk his life and intercede to God for the people.

Never stand in the way of a man whose heart is right with God!