Do We Worship Golden Calf?

Introduction

I’ve noticed that there are some moments that just leave me not necessarily scratching my head, but more like full-on slapping it, really. And it usually revolves around me thinking, how did this just happen? And it seems like something ridiculous and something that should have been avoided. One such example is with my Mimi. Many of you may know her, Irene Gregory. And she is a very wise woman. She’s very smart. Many of you may know her for her poetry, or for her wise counsel at geography. And yet I can attest, and we have video not of the actual incident, but of the surroundings, of where we were on vacation, my family and my grandparents, and we were at this state park called Jenny Wiley State Park. And I attest to you this morning, my wise grandmother, someone who’s more well-read than most people in this room, perhaps put together, was stuck in a fence momentarily at the state park.

I want you to think about that. You didn’t laugh hard enough. You’re going to think about it. There is an older woman stuck in a fence. Okay? How did that happen? Well, sometimes we’re so focused on something that we miss out on the obvious obstacles. And I think if you look at the Bible story, there’s plenty of examples of the people. And you look at them and you say, especially with the Israelites, how could you do that? After all God has done for you, how could you turn your back on him like that? Open your Bibles with me to Exodus chapter 32. If you have a marker, leave it there. We’re going to look at one of those examples this morning. And if you have a hand available, hold it down because you may want to hit your face.

1. Moses Was on the Mountain With God

Exodus chapter 32. Beginning in verse 1. When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, Uh, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. And just like that, you know, the stage has been set, and the story is about to be underway. Well, let’s take a brief moment to understand where Moses is. Look at me, that’s just chapter 20. That chapter is going off in your head. You’ll see there when you turn there why it is. Exodus chapter 20. And notice what is being given in verse 1.

And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. That’s where they were. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me. But showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. Certainly in Exodus chapter 20, you’re familiar.

They’re talking about the first few of the Ten Commandments. So this is where Moses is. Look now at Exodus chapter 24.

I’m being told I need to stay right up here this morning. The microphone is not working. So at Exodus chapter 24. That might explain why there was less laughter, but I’ll go with my my reasoning. Exodus chapter 24, notice in verse 15. It says, Then Moses went on up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain, and the glory of the Lord dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. Now note verse 18. Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain, and Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

So, when we read in verse one, the people were wondering, What has become of Moses? We know where he is. He’s up on the mountain. Whose glory is he in? Whose glory is he in? God’s. He is with the presence of God. Now turn back to Exodus 32, and we’ll continue the reading. In Exodus chapter 32. We’ll reread verse 1. When the people saw that Moses to delay to come down from the mountain, a period that lasted only forty days and forty nights, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.

So Aaron said to them, Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

Now, I haven’t seen too many people actually make contact with their foreheads, but I hope you realize how utterly absurd this situation is. God has just taken this people out of Egypt, out of slavery. He has saved them, he has freed them through their leader, Moses. And Moses is gone for this period of time that is no longer than forty days. They’re probably talking about a month at this period, at this particular time. And they have not only rejected God, they have allowed themselves to have their leader fashion for them a golden calf to do what with? To say, look at what we did? No. To worship. Notice the powerful nature and just the horrifying realization that happens in verse 4. And they said in the second part, these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

Okay. Have you ever thought about just how ridiculous the situation is? Can you picture? And I know you can hear me this time because I have the microphone. Picture with me these people dancing around and bowing before a golden calf. A statue bowing before it saying, These are the gods who took me out of Egypt. Can you imagine if we had a golden calf set up before you this morning on stage and you were to come up and to pay homage to it? To offer to give offerings onto it for it? And to worship it as your Lord as your God? That is in in it’s just confusing. It’s not even interesting. It’s frustrating to think about how people who should above all else know who God is and what God can do for them would be worshiping this golden calf.

And yet it happened. So we can sit here in our 21st century church building and sit back and say, oh, those silly, silly Israelites, all we want. But I want to examine the story and figure out why it happened. What happened. And perhaps how are we going to look in the future for things that we are doing today. But I want to notice some good news first in the story. We talked about verse 4. Part of the absurdity of this is they worship the golden calf as the gods who took them out of the land of Egypt. At least they were giving credit potentially to God, right? In verse 5, notice what Aaron says. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation.

2. Consider Where They Were From

Who is the proclamation to? Well, the people, tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. Well, there’s good news here. The people are going to be offering to the Lord. They got the right entity, right? Verse 6, more good news. They brought offerings to the Lord. The one who brought them out of Egypt and out of slavery. That’s good news, right? No. Of course not. But I want to hold on just a second. And I want you to think about the people of Israel and their background. Okay? Consider with me this morning. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Consider where they were from. And this particular group of people, because of what they should have known, because of how they saw God, we often throw that part out.

We need to remember they were from Egypt. And what that means is they were used to idolatry. They were used to a system of religion that was pagan in every nature. They bowed and worshiped to different entities all the time. Idolatry would be nothing new. In fact, it would be more of what they were used to than this one God system. They’re fresh out of Egypt. They had just been taken out of the land, chased down by the Egyptians. And yes, they made it, but then here they are in the wilderness, and their leader, the person who has taken them out of it in a physical way, Moses, is gone. So imagine you’ve tied all your hope and you’ve had all these great blessings. Your life has suddenly opened up, and you have no idea where you are.

You don’t really know how you got there. You worship God and trust that this God is watching out for you. And the man who has led you, appointed by God, has now been missing for a month. You see, all of a sudden the cards are a little more stacked in the Israelites’ direction than just these silly people bowing down and worshiping to this ridiculous golden calf. Do you see the difference when you consider who they were, where they came from, and what their history was? I think we’d be very wise to consider in our own lives what our history is, how our shapes, how our mindsets, our opinions have been shaped and molded. What do we perhaps accept that really isn’t in accordance with the will of God?

3. We Worship the Golden Calf

Because we were grown up, we were taught that way growing up. Because that’s the way we first came to understand the Bible when we read it by ourselves with no understanding, with no help. We need to be very careful that we understand what the will of God is and do it in its entirety. And we need to make sure that we, unlike the Israelites, recognize God as the God and worship his commandments as those of the one and only Jehovah. But I want to get back to this figurative setup that they had with this golden calf. I’d like to suggest to you this morning that we do this same thing. We worship the golden calf, and I can tell you what it is because it’s different for me.

But for me, it might be something that’s different from Tim and from Ralph and from David. Because a lot of our faith sometimes gets tied up in the physical. Isn’t that the problem with idolatry? The problem is removing God from his headship, removing God from receiving all adolescent, all praise, all adoration and all glory, and replacing it with anything else, removing God from his rightful place as the Jehovah God. And sometimes with our faith, we tie it up in a church building, don’t we? I go to worship God there. I’m a member of the church, so I’m saved. Or I go where Brother So-and-so preaches. Or where Brother Adam is doing another part of his series in divorce and remarriage. I go to a church that doesn’t do this.

We don’t do that. We abstain from these practices. And so my faith is in those things, not so much in God. What do you believe? I’m less interested in what we don’t believe and far more interested in. Do we accept Jesus as the Son of God and proclaim his death and resurrection to anyone who will listen? Because just like the people, they put up a golden calf to represent God, but they also allowed Moses to be kind of their representation of their faith, didn’t they? Make no mistake, it’s not a coincidence that when Moses left them, is when this happens. And it’s not just because Moses has some iron rule, it’s because they could see God in Moses. They saw his leadership, his representation. They saw the authority of God in Moses.

Do we allow our faith to be put up in a man? Or perhaps we allow our faith in God to be put in our life circumstance. It’s pretty easy to worship God when everything’s good, isn’t it? When the money’s flowing in, the bank account’s high, people are looking out for you, you have a bunch of friends and relatives at the church you go to. But what about when things get hard? What about when whatever you’ve put your faith in or allowed you to say, I know God is with me because of the job I have? What happens when you lose it? What happens when you say, I know God is with me because he has protected me and he brought me my wife? What happens when your wife is struck with a disease or is taken from you?

What about when you’re recently pregnant? And you say, God has blessed me with this child, and the child dies while in the womb. Where is your God then? Is your faith still strong or does it disappear? Like the people of Israel’s faith disappeared when Moses left. What is your symbol of faith? If it is anything but God, it will be removed and it will be crushed in this lifetime. So we better change it now in the good times. Because God will get us through. God is our rock. God must be our everything. You take anything away from the lesson this morning, that is it. The problem with idolatry, the problem with the people of Israel was not because they made a golden calf. It’s because they allowed the golden calf to stand in the place of the mighty works of God.

4. Who Are the People Giving Credit for the Deliverance?

We must hold firm to God and recognize He will deliver us, not Moses, not our elders, not our preachers, and not even our best friend and the people who showed us to the faith, but Jesus Christ alone. The church does not save, the elders do not save. Jesus, his blood, paid the penalty for your death. Jesus saves. Have you taken part in that salvation this morning? But I want to go back to the story again. Look with me in chapter 32 and verse 1. When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, Up, make us gods. For what purpose? Who shall go before us? As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.

Who are the people giving credit for the deliverance? In fact, I see two answers to that question, and neither of them is the right one. The right answer is God delivered them from Egypt. But notice what it says in verse 1. The first answer is, Up, make us gods who shall go before us to lead us. And then, as for this Moses, the man who has brought us up out of the land of Egypt, you see, that’s the problem with idolatry in a nutshell. Anything that is not God has replaced God. They looked at Moses and said, He led us out of the land of Egypt. It was no more Moses than it was the Apostle Paul giving us inspired words. It is all from God.

Men were moved by God. You remove God from them. Moses and Paul’s power is vanquished. The splendor, the almighty nature of our scripture is because it is God breathed, not because it is man written. Do you see the difference? And we need to be careful that we don’t fall into the same trap. And we don’t point to things and say, this job is what provides for my family. No, God gave you that job. Don’t be comfortable with the life and the money you have because God gave it to you. We didn’t do anything. God provides for his people. And if you believe that, it would so change your life that that thought would never escape you. But sometimes it’s hard when Moses is in front of you, when God is making everything so simple in your life that we’re not necessarily prepared for when the hard times come, when your spiritual leader leaves, and it’s up to you to see God when otherwise it’s completely dark.

God has never set us up for a system to where we should see him and react based on what we see. We’re supposed to act on faith. What does 2 Corinthians chapter 5 say? We are to walk by faith, not by sight. The people of Israel wanted a physical God. They wanted something physical that they could see going before them to the nations. And that further moved God down the list. And the implications of having a physical God are enormous. First of all, it completely violates the commandments that God had of making no shape of anything heavenly. Don’t conform God to our nature, but it does something else. In a physical way we conform God with idolatry, but in a very spiritual and real way we can form him when we stick him into our mind too.

How often do we try to trap God and we read passages in the Bible and we say, How can God know this and then do that? Or how does God allow suffering if he can just swoop in and stop it? We try to trap God based on our limited understanding. It is us who are trapped. We’re trapped in the power and the delinquency of our minds. It is not God who is flawed, it is not God who is weak, but our faith. Our lack of belief that God can truly do all. Because if you believe in a God who can do all, you too can do all because you can trust in that never-changing, never-moving God. What a blessing that is, amen. But before we move on to some very real and practical applications this morning, I want to note how this game ended up and where the players on the board finished.

5. How the Story Ended

If you will, look with me at verse 11 of Exodus chapter 32. Excuse me, I’ll begin in verse 7. And the Lord said to Moses, Go down, for your people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I have commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.

What is Moses’ response to God’s wrath and to God’s promise to him that he’ll make a nation from Moses? Verse 11. But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, with evil intent, did he bring them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. So Moses is on the board here. What is he doing? He’s praying to God, relent from your anger. Stop your wrath, spare them. Verse 15. Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand.

Tablets that were written on both sides, on the front and on the back, they were written. Notice in verse 18, as he’s approaching the camp. But he said, It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear. And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel to drink it. So now we’re introduced to more players again.

So Moses is furious. He breaks the tablets. He breaks down the calf and puts sprinkles it throughout the water, making the people ingest it. Okay, but what happens to those people? Well, I’m more interested at this moment, and what happened to their leader? Do you remember verse 4 of Ephesians chapter 32? What Aaron says to them, what the text says about Aaron, excuse me, it says, And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. Here is Aaron’s role in this. He was the leader, he let it happen. In fact, he engraved the image. Now, skip down to verse 26. Excuse me, verse 24. Notice what Aaron says to Moses. So I said to them, Let any who have gold take it off.

So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf. Okay, we’re back to the ridiculous part of the story. Okay? Aaron’s telling Moses, well, really, it’s the people. They made me. They rallied around, they wanted me to do it. I just threw all their gold in the fire, and this calf just came popping out. Okay? We know that’s not true, both because we have common sins, and also because verse 4 very clearly rejects that. So Moses is not fooled by this, but keep reading in verse twenty five. And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose, for Aaron had let them break loose to the derision of their enemies, then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, Who is on the Lord’s side?

Come to me. And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. And he said to them, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, put your sword on your side, each of you, and go to and from, gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor. The sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses, and that day about three thousand men of the people fell. Now notice two things happened here. Moses gives the people a chance. What does he say? Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me. The sons of Levi came. What was the punishment for those who didn’t? About three thousand men of the people fell that day. But it gets worse.

Look in verse thirty-one. So Moses returned to the Lord and said, Alas, this people have sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if you will forgive their sin, but if not, if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written. But the Lord said to Moses, Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you. Behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them. Then the Lord sends a plague on the people because they made the calf, the one that Aaron had made.

So the story doesn’t end very well for those people who maintained their sin and continued dancing around the calf. Now does it? But you see, God punished them for their wickedness, for their idolatry. Because God had made a law and they didn’t follow it. It really is that simple when you break it down. Although it’s kind of confusing to us to think about how people would be kind of sucked into this mindset of worshiping this golden calf. That’s what they were doing. And God punished them for it. But notice God is a loving God. In fact, God is a forgiving God. Moses prays to him, talks to him, entreats to God, and God spares the people, some of them. But notice there’s a chance given. Moses said to all who are on the Lord’s side, come to me.

6. Why the People Would Worship Idols

Sons of Levi did. And they went out. And those who did not respond to the Lord’s call were punished. But before we come to the final applications point, I do want to get cover one instance here. I want to talk about why idolatry is such a big deal. Why is it so serious to God that it involves the Ten Commandments? That God would strike down these people, that God cared so much. Have you ever wondered even why the people should even worship the idols? I want to try to answer both questions before we’re finished this morning. With regards to why the people would do it, I think it’s very clear. If you look at the first four verses of this chapter, chapter 32, it’s because the people wanted a physical God.

They wanted something they could see. Moses was gone. They couldn’t see him. God was with Moses. God wasn’t directly helping them in their life that day enough. And so they needed something better. They needed God’s to be made for what purpose? To go before them. They wanted something they could worship. Now that doesn’t sound so bad, does it? They want to worship. They just want to have some leadership. It’s a problem because it’s not God’s leadership. It’s a problem because it’s not God’s plan. And without God’s plan and God’s leadership, you are lost, and we might as well be worshiping idols. Because men do not have the necessary wisdom to come up with the plan that God has and to think through things the way God does.

And most importantly, we do not have the ability without God to be saved. We need to stick with what God has given us, and that’s everything. It is salvation. The same way he pulled the people out of Israel, he has pulled us out of sin. Do you realize that? God took the people out of Israel of Egypt, and we say, that is fantastic. He parted the Red Sea, but I’ll tell you, he did saw something so much greater. He pulled us out of sin. We were stuck, we were dead. And he took us out and made us alive. What do we have to show? What do our lives exhibit? Are we bogged down in the physical? Or do we recognize God and his spiritual glory and greatness?

But perhaps the second point, and this is one that I think is very real to us even today, is they probably felt distance from God. Remember the reading in Exodus chapter 24 and verse 19 revealed that Moses had been on the mountain for about 40 days and 40 nights in totality. Have you ever wondered where God is in your life? Have you ever wondered where’s God now? I know he’s there, and I know as a Christian, I know I believe in God, but really where is he? It reminds me of a story I heard Brother Wilson Adams tell one time, and he’s talking about how there’s this man named Harold and his wife driving down the road, and behind them there’s this honeymoon couple. We’ll call them Brandon and Cayley.

And they’re sitting really that’s a young married couple for those of you who don’t know. Okay. I want you to get this example because I think it really makes it clear. They’re driving down the road, Harold and his wife, they’re in their upper 70s, and behind them is this young married couple, and they’re sitting real close together. The young married couple is, and they’re just having a good time, and they’re just happy to be together, and the wife looks over at her husband Harold and she says, Oh, Harold, aren’t they just so cute? Oh, Harold, remember when we were that excited in love? Oh, Harold, why don’t we sit so close together anymore? Oh, Harold, you never do anything for me anymore. Oh, Harold, look at the way he holds her hand.

Oh, Harold, they’re just so happy and in love. What happened to us? Oh, Harold, we used to sit so close together. What happened? And Harold turns his head. And he says, I never moved. When we’re claiming that God has left us, or we’re wondering, where is God? Who do you think moved? The rock. Christ as our foundation, never moves. Just as the steering wheel in an American car is on the left, and the seat remains in about the same location. God will always remain there for his people. God will always hear the prayers of the righteous, and he will always desire that all men be saved. The only question is, will you stay next to him? Will you keep seeking him? Or will you go for some cheap imitation, some cheap sin or cheap thrill that pulls you farther and farther away from your heavenly Father?

One final point is that, and why the people would want idols is because perhaps other nations around them did it. I’m reminded, of course, of 1 Samuel chapter 8, when the people of Israel are now seeking a king. Notice in verse 4. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Rama and said to him, Behold, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, obey the voice of the people and all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them, according to all the deeds that they have done, and from the day I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you.

Now then, obey their voice. Only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king, who shall reign over them. God’s message to Samuel was they’ve done this all along. You can only imagine what God’s perspective is with the Israelites. Perhaps a lot of this, a lot of anger, sadness. What about our lives? How does God look down at us? I know that we don’t consider ourselves absurd or ridiculous, because we don’t worship a golden calf. But I think we sometimes worship a box that emanates picture and sound. In fact, I think we spend a lot of time, perhaps more than the people of Israel did bow down in front of their golden calf. We spend more time lounging in front of this golden wonderful screen.

We pay to go see movies. We watch movies that we pay for on cable. We rent movies from the store from Red Box. We stream them to our devices. We listen to radio all the time. We ingest media all the time, and we have the audacity to look back at the Israelites and say, they bowed down and worship the God. How could they do that? My question is, how can we serve God in such a laxadaisical way and view others as any worse off than ourselves? The same God who has always been there with the people of Israel to take them out of Egypt and constantly endured their wicked, idolatrous adultery is here with us today. What has he endured from you? What does he see you worship?

Conclusion

How do you spend your time? How do you spend your focus? What do you truly worship? Who do you truly submit to? This idol of yourself and your pleasures and of your wisdom? Or the one true and living God? You see, that choice is yours, and we can make it every day. You can choose to stop worshiping the golden calf. The sons of Levi chose the Lord’s side. Perhaps they never even gave in. But the fact was when the time came, when the call was made, they were there and they did the Lord’s work. My question is, are you prepared to get up and get out of the filth? To stay out of it and to fight on the Lord’s side this morning? Because you see, as powerful as God is in taking the people from Egypt, he has done, he has made the greatest plan.

He sent His Son Jesus, who did the work. He gave the sacrifice. He gave Himself for the forgiveness of our sins. Please, read your Bible. Submit to your God. Recognize this day that God is good and He has made everything in it, and so we will live, giving all back to Him. If you wish to make things look right today, perhaps you’ve been living a life of sin away from God. If you’ve been worshiping something that is not the one true and living God, recognize you can make it better today. God desires that you come to Him. He will spare you if you come now. Come now while you have the opportunity. In fact, come right forward as we stand and as we sing.