Time Out! Series

March 29, 2025

Moses had been up on the mountain for nearly 6 weeks receiving the blueprints for the Tabernacle - the emblem of God’s desire to dwell among his people.

Meanwhile, at the bottom of the mountain, the people had gotten restless and imagined all sorts of scenarios for Moses’ “abandonment.”

The next day as the party was in full swing, Yahweh said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. 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, 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."

And can you blame him? After the demonstration of his power on their behalf – After all the evidence of his care – After he had spoken to them directly – After they had voluntarily entered into a covenant relationship with him:

Exodus 19:8 - And all the people answered together and said, "All that the LORD has spoken we will do!"

Exodus 24:3 - The people answered with one voice, and said, "All the words which the LORD has spoken we will do!"

Exodus 24:7 - Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, "All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient!"

After all that, THEY had committed spiritual adultery. THEY had abandoned the covenant. THEY had broken their vows.

• Public Convictions: Convictions I WANT other people to think I believe, even though I may not really believe them.

• Private Convictions: Convictions that I sincerely THINK I believe.

• Core Convictions: Convictions that are REVEALED by my daily actions – by what I actually do.

The Israelites had proven that what they claimed to believe and what they actually believed were two very different things.

Now they were no longer “Yahweh’s people” they were “Moses’ people.”

Yet, even in that moment, Yahweh gave Moses an opportunity to intercede on behalf of the people:

Moses: O LORD, 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 forever.'

Moses turned and went down the mountain with the stone tablets on which God, himself, had engraved the 10 Commandments.

Halfway down the mountain, Moses met Joshua and they finished the return trip together.

Joshua thought he heard the sounds of battle in the camp, but Moses responded, “no, it is the sound of singing.” Yet, nothing could prepare him for the sight that greeted him. His anger increased as his eyes moved from the erotic dancing to the golden calf.

Have you ever been so angry that you just wanted to punch something? Well, then, you can relate to Moses’ emotions as he witnessed the idol worship of “his people.”

With deliberate action, he raised the tablets of the Testimony – the symbol of the covenant – above his head and threw them to the ground. They shattered into pieces – a fitting symbol of the shattered relationship that now existed between Yahweh and the Children of Israel.

Not finished, Moses took the golden calf, melted it down, ground it into powder, scattered it over the people’s source of water and said, “Drink up!”

Then off he went to find Aaron: “What did the people do to you that caused you to lead them into this great sin?!”

Aaron: Don’t be mad at me! You know how these people are – quick to chase after evil. They said ‘Make us gods who will go before us because Moses is MIA.' All I did was tell them to take off all their gold jewelry. And then when I threw the gold into the fire, out popped this calf!

Now is a good time to remind ourselves of God’s goal for Israel – to take an enslaved people, free them and make them a kingdom of priests and a holy nation for the purpose of blessing the world. But at this point in the story, Israel had taken everything God had done for them and the promises they have made to him and thrown it all back in his face.