SUMMARY:
“So Moses went back to the LORD and said, ‘Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin — but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written’” Exodus 32:31-32 NIV
Exodus 32 (NIV) —
When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered round 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.”
Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 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, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD.” So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterwards they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry. Then the LORD 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, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’
I have seen these people,” the LORD said to Moses, “and they are a stiffnecked 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.” But Moses sought the favour of the LORD his God. “O LORD,” he said, “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’? 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 for ever.’” Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened. Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war in the camp.” 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.” 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. And he took the calf they 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. He said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?”
“Do not be angry, my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil. They said to me, ‘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.’ So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewellery, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!” Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies. So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the LORD, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him. Then he said to them, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbour.’ ” The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the LORD today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.” The next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” So Moses went back to the LORD and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin — but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.” The LORD replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you. However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.” And the LORD struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.
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...the golden calf of self-righteousness and
manufactured religion made from
your own possessions... |
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WE will be considering this prayer of Moses (there are others) in relation to the current circumstances. For Moses is an example of an intercessor.
First we may need to be reminded that world events terrible as they are, should not exactly surprise us as Christians. Our Master warned us that these things must happen:
“You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth-pains” (Matthew 24:6-8 NIV).
“Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken” (Luke 21:26 NIV).
We do not believe that the world is getting better and better, but rather increasing in godlessness and rebellion. We do not believe than man can bring peace, only the Prince of Peace, the Lord Jesus Christ can do that. Meanwhile the church’s task is to bring the gospel of peace: peace between each person and God through the blood of Jesus Christ on the Cross. If these events produce repentance and a realisation of our terrible plight, then good comes out of the evil of the acts.
Let us look then at the prayer of Moses.
“So Moses went back to the LORD and said, ‘Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin — but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written’” (Exodus 32:31-32 NIV).
The story portrays the situation: the golden calf.
A brief survey of why it began
Moses was “up the mountain” and had been gone some time. Result: impatience and forgetfulness.
This is a situation we so often get ourselves into. Why doesn’t God do something? Why do we have to wait so long? Before long we start forgetting the very commands of God to us through Jesus: watch and pray; keep on serving until He comes — though He may be long delayed. There are many teachings and parables of Jesus about this, yet we still become impatient.
Result?
The Israelites ask their leaders to get a “show on the road” of some kind.
The result is a great confusion of who God is: “Make us gods”; “tomorrow is a feast to the LORD”. A mixture of what is pagan and what is true. But of course once you mix truth with lies the truth itself becomes a lie.
We see how often the church has fallen into this particular trap; mixing the pagan with the biblical often for supposedly good reasons — very often through following the pressure of the people, rather than being obedient to the precepts of God. Being men pleasers rather than pleasers of God. Notice it is Aaron, the second in command, who, without protest, sets up the golden calf.
There have been many golden calves in the church’s history and I need not repeat the current ones. On this occasion the cause was mere boredom, on other occasions, a threatening situation causes a rebellion like this one.
The current highly charged, understandable, emotional response in the west heightened by those magnifiers of perceived opinion, the media, has placed the leaders in the not dissimilar situation of Aaron.
They must follow the generated “public opinion”. And to be sure, they will doubtless produce a “golden calf”.
But it’s easy to point the finger elsewhere. What is Moses’ response?
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People are bored with the straight gospel about sin, forgiveness and salvation. They want something different. |
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1. He is clear about the disobedience of the people.
We too must be clear about knowing and putting into practice the will of God as revealed in scripture and be God pleasers, not man pleasers.
2. He loves the people, as they are, and intercedes for them.
Intercession means to “go between” i.e. to put yourself between two warring parties. [Like the president’s men place themselves between the president and an assassin.]
3. So he offers himself — despite the fact that God has actually offered him the chance to become the “new Israel”.
“‘I have seen these people,’ the LORD said to Moses, ‘and they are a stiffnecked 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.’ But Moses sought the favour of the LORD his God. ‘O LORD,’ he said, ‘why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?’” (
Exodus 32:99-11 NIV).
32:99-11 NIV).
Moses intercedes both here and in those final verses where he literally offers his life for the life of the disobedient people — a substitutionary sacrifice.
God cannot accept the offer, for the excellent reason that Moses himself is a sinner too: “the soul that sins it shall die” means that Moses cannot substitute for another.
There was another in the NT who similarly expressed such a desire:
“I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit—I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises” (Romans 9:1-3 NIV).
Paul saw how many of his own people were rejecting the true God as revealed in the Messiah Jesus, and turning to the golden calf of selfrighteousness and manufactured religion made from their own possessions.
Indeed after 70 AD this is exactly what they would do: manufacture a new religion, without sacrifices, which new religion — not the religion of Moses — is what religious Jews today still practise.
Paul expressed a heartfelt desire to intercede for his people, but could not go further, for that great intercession had already been made.
Moses promised,
“The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him” (
Deuteronomy 18:15 NIV).
1. Moses escaped death at the hands of a wicked Pharaoh.
“Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: ‘Every boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live’” (Exodus 1:22 NIV).
Likewise Jesus escaped death at the hands of Herod.
“When Herod realised that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi” (Matthew 2:16 NIV).
2. Moses was brought up in the king’s palace.
But he was ready to leave all that and rescue his people from bondage in Egypt. So too was Jesus!
Jesus is truly the KING’S Son. And He too, left all that behind to rescue His people.
“Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:6-8 NIV).
3. Through Moses, the people were fed on their long journey through the desert.
Manna from heaven, they called it, yet the bread they ate was temporary food, physical sustenance only. Even now the Israelites look back on that time as a time when they were fed by God’s Hand.
But now consider the parallel!
“After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, ‘Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.’ Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by Him-self. ... (31) Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ Jesus said to them, ‘I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘from now on give us this bread.’ Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty’” (John 6:14-15; 31-35 NIV).
After the feeding of the 5000, people indeed began to think back to those “good” old days when Moses had fed them. (Of course, they did not remember them personally — but it was brought to their remembrance through Passover and the reading of the TORAH.) Jesus said, “My father gives you true bread from heaven.” Moses merely provided for the outward needs: if we live to eat we shall die! Jesus gives us the bread of Heaven, “which gives life to the world.” “I am the bread of life...” (verse 35).
4. But note too that both Moses and Jesus experienced rejection:
“The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, ‘If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!’” (Numbers 11:4-6 NIV).
“At this the Jews began to grumble about Him because He said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven’” (John 6:41 NIV).
Both then experienced rejection by the very people whom they came to save.
This pertains today. We are told we live in a post Christian Age. We have outgrown the “bread from heaven”. People are sick of the straight gospel about sin, forgive-ness and salvation. They want something easier.
“From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. ‘You do not want to leave too, do you?’ Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God’” (John 6:66-69 NIV).
5. Moses offered himself FOR his people. (Read Exodus 32:30-34.)
But that offering was refused for Moses was a sinner like the rest of us.
“But we see Jesus...‘The Son of Man has come to serve and give his life a ransom for many’” (Matthew 20:28 NIV).
And, glory be to God, His offering has been accepted for us. Under Moses, there was no possibility of forgiveness for real sin — only ritual sin. With Jesus true forgiveness is possible for the price has been paid in full.
We too are rebellious (Oh, I know we have our excuses!) We need forgiveness desperately. “It is paid.”
6. Moses has a place in glory.
There was ambiguity about his burial. There is assurance in his appearance with Jesus at the Transfiguration.
“And Moses the servant of the LORD died there in Moab, as the LORD had said. He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is” (Deuteronomy 34:5-6 NIV).
“There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah’” (Matthew 17:2-4 NIV).
Jesus is exalted to the right hand of the Father: Truly raised from death and truly ascended to glory.
But we too have Christ indwelling in us by His Spirit. We too must and can intercede for people who are rebellious — both inside ‘the churches’ and outside in the world. They need to know the Gospel before it is too late. We must pray and we must preach.
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Appeared in Issue CETF NR 31 2005
"...contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" -- Jude v3
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-Last revised-
Monday, October 09, 2006
