Cow Tipping - Money Series

Series: Cow Tipping

Thesis: Cow tipping has to do with tipping over and destroying idols in our life that usurp God. They come in many forms and shapes.

Introduction:

They myth of cow tipping: Wiki notes: Cow tipping is the purported activity of sneaking up on any unsuspecting or sleeping upright cow and pushing it over for entertainment. The practice of cow tipping is generally considered an urban legend, and stories of such feats viewed as tall tales.

Illustration: My own cow tipping experience at the Converse farm.

But as we talk about Cow Tipping over the next month the point is to identify any idols we may have created in our life that are hindering our relationship with the Lord and that need to be tipped over and destroyed.

Prayer: I pray God would show you what is hindering your relationship with Him – prayer!

Video Clip: From 10 Commandments Moses and the Golden Calf

Scripture Text: Title: The Holy Bible, New International Version - Exodus 32

Exodus 32:1

When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around 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.”

Exodus 32:2

Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.”

Exodus 32:3

So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron.

Exodus 32:4

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.”

Exodus 32:5

When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD.”

Exodus 32:6

So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.

Exodus 32:7

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

Exodus 32:8

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.’

Exodus 32:9

“I have seen these people,” the LORD said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people.

Exodus 32:10

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.”

Exodus 32:11

But Moses sought the favor 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 32:12

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.

Exodus 32:13

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.’”

Exodus 32:14

Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.

Exodus 32:15

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.

Exodus 32:16

The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.

Exodus 32:17

When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war in the camp.”

Exodus 32:18

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.”

Exodus 32:19

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.

Exodus 32:20

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.