Exodus 32:1-29 - 2011 - Skip Heitzig

[Music] welcome to expound our weekly worship and verse by verse study of the Bible our goal is to expand your knowledge of the truth of God by explaining the Word of God in a way that is interactive enjoyable and congregational we call this a textual community let's rejoice and learn God's Word in an interactive and enjoyable new way Lord we do as Paul said to place ourselves before you and surrender ourselves before you as living sacrifices and we do that our bodies are yours you gave life to us and here we are devoting this next almost hour of our time to think through with our minds and to apply in our lives the history the principles the truths were spoken to Moses through Moses to your people thousands of years ago and the lessons still live the Word of God is alive it's powerful and we pray that it would powerfully work and everyone who has come in Jesus name Amen in your mind complete this sentence I picture God as I picture God as because everyday people are filling in the blank and answering that question or completing that sentence I picture God as a smiling tolerant grandfather in the sky I picture God as a mystical force or essence surrounding all of the universe or I picture God as a distant aloof detached being who wound up the universe and walked away or I picture God not as a him but as a her the great God s why a male why not a female people have and carry around in their mind some picture not everyone but many people a picture an idea of what God is like why is that important well J I Packer tells us why J I Packer was some of you know the professor of theology up at Regent College in Vancouver he put it this way metal images are the consequence of mental images people make out of wood or out of metal they fashion an image based upon how they think God is metal images are the consequence of mental image so with that introduction we come now to chapter 32 of the book of Exodus where the people had something in their mind about God that really wasn't working out so far with Moses up on that mountain for a month in ten days and they want to make things a little bit different they want a visual reminder of God and they will cast a metal image based upon a mental image chapter 32 I'm gonna call it the chapter of the book of Exodus God delivers the people of Israel out of Egypt so far so good they crossed the Red Sea so far so good a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire at night helps them navigate so far so good Moses goes up on the mountain gets the Ten Commandments and gives them to the people so far so good goes back up again gets the blueprints for the tabernacle the priesthood etc so far so good now we come to chapter 32 and it's uh-oh this isn't good what happens here is well it's sort of like the Romans seven of the Old Testament you're going through the book of Romans then suddenly Paul has this confessional chapter of Oh wretched man that I am who will deliver me from the body of this death and he speaks about how the law exact sir Bates his own sinful behavior and sinful heart and sinful mind and how he cries out for deliverance and for redemption that's sort of what we have here in the book of Exodus the scene shifts if this were a film and I were the cameraman the camera that has been on Moses on the mountain quickly pans down to the valley where we look at the people so we go from the mountaintop above with Moses to the valley floor beneath with the children of Israel on the mountain there has been revelation in the valley there is now imagination actually there are only two sources of information that you can get about God and one is revelation God will reveal himself he'll will disclose who he is and he has done that through the Bible he has revealed his character his nature his wishes what he loves what he hates his plan for your life all in the principles of the Word of God that's revelation if you push revelation aside as we will see happens here you are only left with making it up as you go along imagination so either through God's revelation or man's imagination people have a concept of who God is so Moses has been on the mountain chapter 32 he goes down see that is that is always the problem with the mountaintop experience in every mountaintop experience you got to come down the mountain you know what it's like you go to a retreat up and glorietta up in the mountains the air is cool the worship is great the fellowship is perfect everything is good you're challenged you're you're comforted it's been a wonderful mountaintop experience at the retreat and then you go back to life as normal go back down the mountain and we find this principle throughout scripture even in the New Testament Jesus went up on a high mountain took his disciples with him especially Peter James and John they saw this huge vision of Moses and Elijah transfigured with Jesus Christ and they're talking about the coming Kingdom Wow but then they came down the mountain and what was meeting them a demon-possessed man Moses comes down the mountain and what does he find a people his people God's people engaged in idolatry and sinful revelry already it only took a month and ten days idolatry is rampant in the camp if you were to look up the word idol or idols or idolatry you would find that it appears 111 times in the Old Testament alone SiC significantly less in the New Testament but a hundred and eleven times in the Old Testament what is an idol an idol is anything in your life that takes the place of God anything that you let divert attention away from the primary objective and that is to know in to worship God things that aren't idols can become idols but back to our story in chapter 32 it says when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him come make us gods that shall go before us now stop right there it's hard to have a relationship when the person you're having a relationship with you can't see invisible back in 1897 the author HG Wells wrote a fun little idea book called The Invisible Man the idea the Invisible Man is through modern chemistry as modern as it could be back then this man could make himself invisible so that he could be in a room would know he's in a room he could choose to reveal himself or not and you couldn't see him unless he did something war something put paint on or some kind of manifesting mechanism for people to see him and what he discovered is that it wasn't a good idea to be invisible that people started not trusting somebody they couldn't see and nobody liked the idea of somebody being in the room hearing them or watching them if they didn't have the benefit of knowing he was in the room the children of Israel after one month and 10 days are struggling with this idea of the invisibility of God even Moses will read about it in the next chapter in chapter 33 even though Moses has seen incredible physical visible manifestations of God he cries to God in chapter 33 oh God show me your glory he wants to see God basically were a people who are visual we want to see we can relate to what Isaiah said in Isaiah chapter 45 when Isaiah said verily you are a God who hides himself and like the little boy who said to his mommy you sure God is up there oh yes sweetheart he's up there and then he said mommy don't see what she just poked his head through once in a while so we could see him he's not the only one Moses desired it the people of Israel desired it and that is what is so appealing to us about the coming of Jesus Christ as it says in the New Testament looking for that blessed hope and that glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ we want to see him we want to have the completion of our life when we can lay our eyes and behold him and we will one day until that day you and I are in a position of walking by faith and not by sight after a month in 10 days the people of Israel got tired of that so they approached Aaron and they said come let us make gods that shall go before us as for this man Moses the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt we do not know what has become of him it seems that it's always hard for God's people to wait for God we hate to wait we sing I must wait wait wait on the Lord but I hate hate hate doing it but the Bible says those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength yes they will but at first they'll lose their patience it takes a while to gain your strength because we hate the idea of waiting on the Lord we want instant gratification and if God doesn't come through when we think he ought to come through our whole belief system can tremble sometimes I think we're seeing that with these people now from their vantage point in the valley looking up on Mount Sinai if you remember the description the Bible tells us that there were thunderings there was lightning there were these tremendous sounds and it looked like the appearance of fire on the mountain so they've been waiting a week two weeks five weeks six weeks almost and so they get a little bit antsy and they figure you know he probably died in that explosion that fire or whatever was going on up there he probably died in it he's not coming back down so they're gonna do something about it now let me just set a record straight so your mind didn't go in the wrong direction they're not switching gods here they're gonna do something that feels and looks a lot like something they would have seen in Egypt with pagan idolaters but they're not switching gods here what is happening here is they want a physical visible manifestation or representation of the God that they're called to have a covenant with and I say that because by the time we get down to verse they're gonna have a festival to Yahweh they're gonna make a golden calf but have a festival to the Lord and it's in capital letters in verse five and that always signifies in the Old Testament the covenant name with Yahweh they they knew the God they were called to worship and serve but they're not worshiping God the way God wants to be worshipped verse two and Aaron said to them break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives your sons interesting your daughters and bring them to me so all the people broke off the golden earrings which were which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron now with that gold they're gonna make an idol a representation in image and icon if you remember in your mind back to Exodus chapter 20 the first two Commandments the first being I am the Lord your God you will have no other gods besides me or before me and the second is you won't make an image to represent me in terms of using that image to worship so the first commandment was forbidding them to worship the wrong God or a false God the second commandment was forbidding them to worship the right God in the wrong manner that's just as important to God not only are you to worship the right God but you're to worship the right God in the right manner and part of that is you will have no images before me verse 4 and he received the gold from their hand and he that is Aaron now is the first High Priest this is Moses bro he was the co-leader before Pharaoh he fashioned it with an engraving tool and he made a molded calf then they the people of Israel said this is your God o Israel that brought you out of the land of Egypt and I can hear them chanting that over and over again when Aaron saw it now I've read this through several times and when I was doing a fresh read this week I always anticipate reading something like this and when Aaron Siot he came to his senses and was appalled and said oops we made a mistake unfortunately we don't read that when Aaron saw it he built an altar before it and Aaron made a proclamation and said tomorrow is a feast to Yahweh or feast to the Lord so what bizarre syncretism this is or a mishmash of worship ideas you've got an idol you've got an altar and you've got a feast to Yahweh it seems they're making it up as they go along verse 6 then they rose early on the next day offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play if you have a new international version that says to indulge in pagan revelry the idea of the verb to play means to get involved in illicit immoral sexual behavior the kind of worship practices that the Canaanites often practice I've told you before about how they used to worship bail the chief God in nature and that's the idea is to rise up and play in fact listen to that verse in the Living Bible it renders it this way they sat down to feast drink at a wild party followed by sexual immorality now what's the deal with this golden calf ok where did they come from what country had they been in Egypt in Egypt one of the one of the representations in the pantheon of the gods that were worship was a bull by the name of APIs ap is he was the symbol of strength power virility it seems that they wanted an image that represented Yahweh this covenant God as strong God a powerful God a virile God so what we have is God's people patterning their style of worship after what they had seen in the pagan land of Egypt just a little heads up on this idea of worshipping the bull the chief god in Egypt and it's hard to really ascertain what that was at what dynasty but Osiris was often depicted as riding upon APIs the bull using APIs as the platform to show off Osiris the strength of Osiris was seen by the strength of APIs that's how it was depicted in in the mythology of the Egyptians so we have some problems going on here as to why they did it I'm gonna suggest a couple number one is peer pressure it's good to have peers and peer pressure can be good if it's a good peer pressure but this is bad peer pressure the people of Israel lived in Egypt and were surrounded by a pagan style of worship they were on their way to Canaan again they will be surrounded by pagan worship and in the camp of Israel is a group called the mixed multitude many of them are Egyptians word gets out hey you know this whole Yahweh thing isn't working out for you guys is it this Moses this mediator he's not coming back is he you know we always had visible representations of our gods we could we could be reminded of how strong and powerful that God is when we had icons I don't know what channels this idea went through but the gold was cast and they had their pagan idol you ought to know something about images in ancient times it was more than just a depiction the belief of the ancient worshipers was that the spirit of that God would reside in the icon itself so that whatever happened around the icon or to the icon the God were that God would be would sense and feel those things and be able to relate to people through the icon so in ancient Egypt and in ancient Mesopotamia they would often have ritualistic practices of bathing the gods cleaning them up which made the gods really happy and then they would put clothes little fashion statements on their gods which again would make the gods really happy you dressed your God up today and then they would bring food offerings like milk and meat and place it before the idol and their belief was that but God itself was deriving strength from the human food placed in front of the icon now excuse me but I don't want to worship any God that I have to dress been there done that they're called children I don't want to have to worship any God that I have to feed all the time but that was the belief system and that seems to be the idea that has permeated the camp of Israel peer pressure so many people around them were worshipping God a completely different way this singular way they just didn't get into it God was invisible they need a visual representation here's another problem and I believe this is really at the heart of idolatry in general and that is the problem of personal loss if I say well I need a statue to remind me of God that indicates something about myself that my relationship with God is so weak that I need a reminder people that have a intimate close ongoing abiding relationship with Christ they don't need a reminder Friedrich Nietzsche once said God is dead I beg to differ I just spoke to him this morning he's alive and well and everything's under control but when a person makes an idol it's making the statement about the person that he has law intimacy with God and he is trying desperately to gain back that intimacy by carving a reminder to on cue remind him of the God that he lost now let me throw something else at you did you know that the incident here in chapter 32 and this is why I'm slowing down on this chapter this will become as important almost in the history in the annals of Israel as the Exodus itself what I mean by that is as the story of Exodus will be told and retold and retold throughout Jewish history what happens in this chapter becomes a blot on their historical record and they're reminded of this time and time again and I'm just going to give you one scripture there are several but I'm just wanted to trim it down and this is out of Psalm 106 verse 19 they made a calf in Horeb and worship the molded image thus they changed their glory into an image of an ox that eats grass they forgot God their Savior who had done great things in Egypt wondrous works in the land of ham awesome things by the Red Sea therefore he said that he would destroy them had not Moses his chosen one stood before him in the breach to turn away his wrath lest he destroy them so this failure becomes a blot that will never go away we'll be woven into Jewish history and retold throughout generations by the psalmist by the prophet Ezekiel by Stephen in the book of Acts chapter 7 as he recalls the history of Israel before the Sanhedrin verse 7 and the Lord said to Moses go get down now he didn't mean this in a rhythmic sense like dude get down Moses but literally physically descend get down for your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves interesting did you notice how God put that see up to this point God has always called them my people he has he's called them my people these are my people that I'm bringing out now he says Moses your people whom you brought out of Egypt does that sort of sound like a husband and wife when the son or daughter misbehaves I'm so proud of my boy until he misbehaves your son you wouldn't believe what he did today well understand don't please don't place God in that position there's a deeper reason for that I'll get to in a moment verse 8 they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them they have made themselves a molded calf and worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said this is your God o Israel that brought you out of the land of Egypt now it could be that if you're not familiar with this text or you're sort of new to Bible study you might be thinking at this point okay so what's the big deal for God to not allow a visual idea or representation a form of him on the earth what's the big deal if if if the people of Israel are weak in their faith and they need a visual why wouldn't God let them have a visual I'm glad you asked that or I'm glad I asked that for you number one any image made of God obscures the glory of God and this image of apus the bull or God Yahweh as the strong commanding type with a gold calf obscured the glory of God here's why God is spirit God is unlimited in his essence and his nature God is boundless if he's limitless he's boundless because he is spiritual the moment you make a physical image of God I don't care what representation it is you are now limiting God by casting him as an image you are denying that some of the very basic nature of God and that God is unlimited and boundless so it obscures the glory of God the prophet Isaiah said to whom will you liken God or what likeness will you compare to God what representation could possibly be made by the world's best artist that would capture all of God's glory answer is none God transcends any depiction of him thus to limit God by a depiction according to God is wrong now here's the belief in Egypt go back to Egypt for a moment the belief was that a flash of light happened over a cow in Egypt at some point in their history like a lightning bolt or this brilliant flash of light that hovered over a cow and the result was that the calf that was born was this deity APIs the bull APIs the bull was born by a flash of light that came from heaven what did the people see as they looked up on that mountain flashes of light it reminded them of the myth of the Egyptians that they had been raised with for years and so they made this representation okay I get it God is strong that's what you're trying to say by the golden calf but but the golden calf says nothing about God's moral characteristics his love his grace his goodness his mercy none of that is represented by the strength and virility of a golden calf number two not only do images obscure the glory of God images mislead people it's not just what statement you're making by the image it's what is left out these sort of dovetail points 1 & 2 but it's what the image doesn't reveal about God it's a psychological fact that if you focus on an image of the one that you're praying to you come to picture the one you're praying to as the image it represents so they're picturing a strong commanding virile God in APIs the bull what is their worship like strong frenzied worship their worship is commiserate with the depiction they have made of God in the golden calf so they're worshiping him in a strong frenzied kind of a fashion because that's the depiction that's what they're focusing on so if I prey to a depiction of Jesus Christ hanging on a cross the greatest work he ever did upon the earth his sacrifice for me he bloodied himself he paid for my sins as we sang tonight as wonderful as that act is I'm looking at that image I can fixate upon that image and my worship can I'm not saying always will but can become a morbid kind of worship and there are groups of people that crawl on their knees to shrines bloody themselves up beat themselves with whips because of that image that icon that picture of Jesus suffering for them their worship is filled with pain and suffering because of this very very fact obscures the glory of God and it can mislead people in the totality of the revelation of God verse 9 and the Lord said to Moses I have seen this people and indeed it is a stiff-necked people now therefore let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them that I may consume them and I will make of you Moses a great nation if you hear what he's saying here do you understand that God by that last couple of sentences is basically offering Moses the deal that he made to Abraham back in Genesis chapter 12 God said to Abraham Abraham I'm gonna make out of you a great nation out of your family I'm gonna start with you I brought you out of the Cal D's and it's through you and your progeny that I'm gonna make a great nation so there was Abraham Isaac and Jacob and the sons of Jacob and they multiplied in Egypt and God is saying you know what I'm willing to start from scratch to get rid of all of them and do what I did with Abraham again through you Moses now I wonder if I were in Moses shoes what I would do if that offer were made me now I don't know how much you know about the wilderness wanderings or what Moses had to put up with and how much he bore the complaints and angst and the anger and the threats for years of the people of Israel but if God made this offer especially a little bit later on in Moses experience I'd be tempted to take the offer but Moses pleaded with the Lord verse 11 he pleaded with the Lord his God and he said Lord why does your wrath burn hot against listen your people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand so I'm doing that on purpose I want you to compare those two verses in fact go back to verse 7 the Lord said to Moses get down for your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves verse 11 Moses pleaded with the Lord as God Lord why does your wrath burn hot against your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand now let me tell you that I believe that the reason God phrased it to Moses as he did in verse 11 was to draw something out of Moses and that was intercession God had a plan God had a purpose he wasn't like vacillating and fluctuating he makes a threat but not a decree I'll get back to that in a moment but what he's doing is saying this he wants Moses to hear it it sort of shocks him and Moses starts praying and what's interesting is he prays not as much for the people as for the glory and honor of God the reputation that God's going to get around the world if he were to kill these people and start all over again it would be a bad rap on God's character so he reminds God that they're his people that it was a covenant that he made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and gods been faithful to that reminding God of the promise not because God had forgotten but he's standing upon the word the promise that God has made God is trying to draw out for Moses intercession he wants Moses involved in praying for his people and he does Moses continues in verse 12 why should the Egyptians speak and say he Yahweh brought them out to harm them to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth turn from your fierce wrath and relent from this harm to your people remember Abraham Isaac and Israel your servants to whom you swore by your own self and said to them I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and all this land that I have spoken of I will give to your descendants and they shall inherit it forever so the Lord relented from the harm which he said he would do to his people this verse bothers lots of folks the idea of God relented or as the old King James put it repenting when the Bible in the Old Covenant in the Old Testament God says I am NOT a man God is not a man that he should lie or the son of man that he should repent so why is the word used here by Moses the author of this book saying so the Lord relented we call this you will call this an anthropomorphism you may want to write that down you'll impress people if you say it tomorrow anthropomorphism an anthropomorphism is expressing in human language a divine response a divine action a divine activity expressed in human language is an anthropomorphism it's simply because God is invisible God is outside our time and space continuum God is transcendent and the only way humans are gonna figure God out at all or understand God is to have him somewhat expressed in human terms the eyes of the Lord go to and fro throughout the earth that's an anthropomorphism the hand of God was upon me said Ezra that's an anthropomorphism God doesn't have eyes necessarily or two hands any more than as David said I hide under the shadow of the Lord's wings God is in a chicken these are depictions that humans get to describe divine action or a divine response this is how I see it God never does anything outside of the boundaries of his own nature and character God is not changing his mind he knew exactly what he was going to do he makes a threat not a decree to destroy them and it was the threat that perked Moses up and got him on his knees to pray for his people a good reminder we see things happening in our country go home man could this be it could this be the judgment I'm gonna pray for our country good it's good to be perked up to be woken up by these reminders verse 15 and Moses turned and he went down from the mountain the two tablets of the testimony were in his hand can you picture that old guy walking walking with the two stone tablets the tablets were written on both sides on one side and on the other side they were written now the tablets were the work of God and the writing was the writing of God engraved on tablets that just fascinates me I wonder what God's penmanship was like what those letters look like as Moses could read them and was about he thought to show them to the people of Israel he won't get that privilege he would be the only ones to see that writing those stone tablets would be broken before we got down to the valley floor and when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted he said to Moses there's the noise of war in the camp okay so what's going on Moses coming down he meets Moses before he gets down probably Moses was somewhere in the vicinity because the Bible tells us he was the servant of Moses he was the assistant he was there to care for any needs that Moses might have so as his assistant mediator or assistant pastor or what have you he meets Moses he has heard the noise of the people now Moses will become the general he's a man of war so he hears the noise and he thinks there's fighting going on it's first thing that comes to Joshua's mind he's a soldier said it's the noise of war in the camp but Moses said it is not the noise of the shout of victory nor the noise of the cry of defeat but it's the sound of singing that I hear these people are worshipping so it was as soon as he came near the camp that he saw the calf and the dancing so Moses anger became hot a few verses ago Moses was trying to it seem tame God down a little bit God why is your anger so hot against these people I can't believe it just a few steps down the mountain it says Moses anger became hot and he casts the tablets out of his hands and he broke them at the foot of the mountain why'd he break them it was symbolic in breaking literally the stone tablets that the people of Israel God's people this nation had broken God's laws then he took the calf which they had made burned it in the fire I imagine it was made out of wood overlaid with gold as many of the images were burned it in the fire and he ground it to powder so now you've got powdered dust gold calf and he scattered it on the water and he made the children of Israel get that's hardcore I'm gonna take your God grind it up and you're all gonna drink it it's sort of like alka-seltzer in Reverse instead of taking away an upset stomach I imagine drinking powdered Golden Calf and mixed with water that that would give you an upset stomach and maybe that's exactly what Moses wanted them to have an upset stomach I want you to be sick of your sin something else and I'm not trying to press the analogy forgive me if it seems that way but it was brought up in a couple of different commentaries in drinking that it would eventually become their waste and that's what God thought of their Idol it was a very very poignant moment he grounded up he made them drink it so I'd like a golden calf latte actually if the calf was gone it would be a decaf latte wouldn't it sorry sorry it just came to my mind there's no calf anymore okay that ranks that's got to rank up there in the top three bad ones right how do you recover and get serious and spiritual after such nonsense well I'll try we can see as we go through this little text why the people of Israel will become very adamant about not having idols okay they're gonna go back and forth between idolatry their whole history but when they when they do come to those periods of coming to their senses they're really really annabet about not having idols let me tell you a story about this sort of fits in with it and we're gonna fast-forward to the New Testament because the second commandment about not including images in worship was so potent to the Jews that in part it led to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ when punches pilot in the New Testament the governor of Judea he'd only reigned for five years he was young he was inexperienced his his posture in dealing with the Jewish population especially in Jerusalem was so flawed that his career was at stake because he made two bad mistakes mistake number one punches Pilate had these in sons made these depictions made on on the banners or on the poles of Roman soldiers and on the front of the insin was an image of Caesar in Rome he did it to honor Caesar the soldiers marched through the city of Jerusalem with these image Laden incense and when the Jews saw an image going through the holy city of Jerusalem they sent a delegation to Caesarea we're punches Pilate had his main headquarters in the country they went to says areia and they demanded that Pontius Pilate removed the instance from the city of Jerusalem punches pilot thought who are these Jews ordering me around he had a soldiers take their swords out and say we're gonna cut your heads off what happened next Pilate didn't expect the Jews who were threatened fell to the ground ripped their collar down bare their necks and say please cut them off now we're not going to back down go ahead and cut our heads off another delegation will come were not backing off this this so bewildered Pontius Pilate that he indeed had the instance removed from Jerusalem Caesar heard about that and it was a strike against Pilate a few years later Pilate did it again this time he took shields and put a depiction of Tiberius Caesar on the front of the shields and gave them to the soldiers who manned the fortress in Jerusalem the Antonia fortress the main bulwark of Roman authority there in Jerusalem and so those those shields were were placed in his palace and in the Antonia fortress the Jews at this point forgot about going to Pilate they sent a letter and protested to Caesar himself this time Caesar Tiberius demanding that the shields be removed Caesar wrote a letter rebuking Pontius Pilate and he ordered the shield's removed so now there's two strikes the next infraction could be seen as insurrection against Roman could cost Pilate his job so when Jesus is brought before Pontius Pilate and Pilate says I see nothing in him that deserves death I see no fault in this man I washed my hands of this man I'm gonna let him go free the Jewish people said if you let him go free you are no friend of Caesars that was a threat in other words we know that there's two strikes against you he's gonna hear about this his job was at stake and when he said you're no friend of Caesars that's when Pilate turned demanded that Jesus be flogged and committed him to be crucified so this law has a very potent foothold in the history of the Jews throughout verse 21 I better hurry up Moses said to Aaron what did this people do to you that you have brought so great a sin upon them so Aaron said do now that the anger of my Lord become hot that sounds like Moses talking to God a few verses ago you know the people that they are set on evil for they said to me make us gods that shall go before us as for this Moses the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt we do not know what has become of him and I said whoever has any gold let them break it off so they gave it to me now watch this I cast it into the fire and this camp came out this is Aaron I thought Aaron was brighter than that but you know what when you sin you'll come up with any lame excuse you know what a lame excuse is right the reason I am the way I am B is because of you the reason I lose my keys I always put them down here and you move them whatever it might be it seemed that we we always want to blame either people or furnaces either people or circumstances never my fault I'm always the victim it's their fault or it's the circumstance the furnaces fault I just put the gold inside the fire and out walked a golden calf dude it was a awesome you should have been here actually if you want to hear about clever excuses talk to a police officer they hear him all the time I heard one a policeman pulled over a guy he had run two red lights ran right through him when the police pulled him over and said what's the deal you ran two red lights the man in the car said this is a v8 you try stopping it as if he had no control at all sounds a lot like this so Moses saw that the people were unrestrained it means they had given up all moral restraint and then Moses stood in the entrance of the camp and said whoever is on the Lord's side come to me and all the sons of Levi gathered themselves to him and he said thus says the Lord God of Israel that every man put on his sword on his side and go in from the entrance to and remember theirs least to the three million people in the camp of Israel to go from one end to the other throughout the camp and every man kill his brother every man his companion every man his neighbor and so the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses and about 3,000 men of the people fell that day now apparently it would seem that these 3,000 men that were struck down were the ones that persisted in idolatry they wouldn't give it up they were bent on it they were unrestrained they wouldn't relent they wouldn't change 3,000 out of about 3 million that's about what one one-thousandth of the people refused to change so 3,000 is a lot of people but in comparison it's a minority this is what I want you to compare this is day 1 of Moses coming down from mown with a new covenant or the old covenant the Mosaic Covenant right the Covenant of Moses now get this on the first day that the Covenant of the law opens up 3,000 people died fast-forward to the New Testament the first day the New Covenant opens up on the day of Pentecost 3,000 people are saved compare law and grace and there is a graphic example of just what happened on the first day why kill the people any doctor knows the reason why sometimes radical surgery has to be done when the doctor says and in our family we know what this is like when the doctor said to my wife a few years ago there is a tumor we were gonna operate on it in a couple of days now I could say why would you cut into my wife that's gonna hurt that's so mean to cut out a part of her body why would you dare cut something out and make her hurt it's to save her life cutting out this tumor these 3,000 people that I believed had they persisted they could have stopped the children of Israel from entering into the Promised Land this cancer could spread so quickly and so 3,000 died that day how could such a thing happen so quickly how could it be think about it they had heard they had seen lightning and thunder they had said just 40 days before this Moses Moses go find out what God wants and tell us what God wants whatever God wants we'll do it all how could they go from that in 40 days to this well how could Ananias and Sapphira in the New Testament shortly after the resurrection of Jesus Christ lied to the Holy Spirit how could the church at Corinth established on good godly principles become so immoral so quick it's the nature of man it's the nature of fallen humanity I'm gonna call it spiritual entropy it's a term from the law of thermodynamics spiritual and entropy as as heat energy as get gotten lost and is irrecoverable there's this spiritual entropy that sets in we have to fight against it that's why the Bible says that we should gather together frequently and encourage one another daily encourage one another daily as that day approaches man at his best is that best still man and they are falling back to their old pattern of behavior then Moses said consecrate yourselves today to the Lord that he may bestow on you a blessing this day for every man has opposed his son and his brother and what came to pass on the next day the Moses said to the people you have committed a great sin so now I will go up to the Lord perhaps I can make atonement for your sin or provide a covering for - Moses returned to the Lord and said oh these people have committed a sin they have made for themselves a God of gold yet now if you will forgive their sin but if not I pray blot me of your book which you have written blot me out of your book which you have written is it possible to be blotted out of God's book we're gonna have to wait till next week to find that out let's pray Lord what happened that day was an act of judgment but an act of mercy you were sparing a nation that hadn't even gotten a foothold in a land they were so far away from but you were committed to them even though their commitment to you had waned they had forsaken a commandment that they knew and Aaron certainly knew it already but again we see and we understand from personal experience that man at his best is at best still man Lord I prayed that as the day approaches is we find troubling times that we live in as we get shaken by reports we might even get shaken by economic instability or just the barrage of bad news about our country it's politicians the economy etc etc then we would encourage one another we would be banded together as brothers and sisters reminding ourselves of your truths your word your promises and Lord we will say as you wanted Moses to say we are your people these are your people they are not my people there are no human leaders people they are your people and we trust that you're going to take care of every single one of them Nord I pray that if there's any excuses we're hiding behind even the excuse for not coming to Jesus Christ whatever lame excuse we would have it is lame because you are a God of love willing to forgive willing to eradicate our past willing to write our name in your book of life which can never be eradicated so father settle our hearts cause worship Lord do well in us not just at the end of a service or at the beginning but as the response of our heart daily thank you for your people thank you for this time in Jesus name Amen

Channel: Calvary Church with Skip Heitzig

Views: 7,861

Rating: 4.6952381 out of 5

Keywords: Calvary, Albuquerque, Skip, Heitzig, Jesus, Exodus, Sermon

Id: VTobOln0dVA

Length: 56min 16sec (3376 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 19 2018