The Fire and the Calf
Exodus 32:24
It happened four days after my seventh birthday, in a place I had never heard of.
At 3:15 am, on March 13, 1964, getting home from work, Catherine Susan Genovese, known to her friends as “Kitty” parked her car about 100 yards away from the front door of her apartment. As she walked to the door, she was unaware that Winston Mosely, an African-American man, was on a mission… to kill a woman… any woman. Mosely saw Kitty get out of her car and he parked and followed her on foot. Before she reached the door, Mosely ran up from behind her and stabbed here two times.
When he stabbed her, Kitty screamed, “O my God, He stabbed me. Help me!” Neighbors heard the scream. Some looked out the window and saw it… others heard the scream and assumed it was some drunks or lovers quarrelling. One actually raised the window and called to Mosely to stop, which he did, running away. One heard the scream but admittedly turned up the volume on the tv to drown it out. Because no one came out to help Kitty, Winston Mosely, who had attacked Kitty and run away… returned to finish the job. About ten minutes after leaving the scene, Mosely later admitted to police, he returned to the scene but Kitty was gone. In his car, he changed his hat to a wide-rimmed one to shadow his face. He systematically searched the parking lot, train station, and small apartment complex, ultimately finding Genovese, who was lying, barely conscious, in a hallway at the back of the building. Out of view of the street and of those who may have heard or seen any sign of the original attack, he proceeded to further attack her, stabbing her several more times. Knife wounds in her hands suggested that she attempted to defend herself from him. While she lay dying, he sexually assaulted her. He stole about $49 from her and left her dying in the hallway. The attacks spanned approximately half an hour. When neighbors finally found Kitty and called police, it was too late for Kitty.
The newspaper headlines read, “For more than half an hour, thirty-eight respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.”
Clergymen decried the incident from their Sunday pulpits, politicians spoke gravely of the country’s moral lethargy. Mike Wallace broadcast a CBS radio special called “The Apathetic American.” Loudon Wainwright concluded in Life magazine that Americans were “becoming a callous, chickenhearted and immoral people.”
But the one quote that stood out the most and wrangled the most people was the one by one man, who admitted to hearing the scream and seeing the attack, and justified his lack of action with the words that will live in infamy… “I didn’t want to get involved.”
What he was saying was… it wasn’t my fault.
That same lack of personal responsibility is on display in our text today, Exodus 32:24. Moses is the spiritual leader of God’s people, the Jews as they are traveling from 400 years of slavery in Egypt to freedom in their new home… the promised land. As he often did, God called Moses to the mountain to speak to him about important matters. On this occasion, the conversation was lengthy and Moses was gone for longer than usual. the Israelites believed he was dead. If he was dead, they reasoned, then his god is too weak, we need a new God. So they turned to the spiritual leader, the priest… Aaron and demanded that he give them a new god. Aaron, for many reasons, caved in and did what would please the people. He told them to give him their gold jewelry which he melted down and cast an idol… a golden calf. The Israelites bowed down and worshipped the idol.
At this point God gets angry, tells Moses, “Those people of YOURS” are guilty of terrible sin and I am going to kill them. Moses runs down the mountain with Joshua and can’t believe his eyes. The Isrealites see Moses and stop their revelry and their hearts melt with fear. Moses goes straight to Aaron and asks, “What in the world have you done?”
Aaron’s responses is sooooo typical of humanity… it was not my fault.
Actually listen to his exact words. This is stupider than “My dog ate my homework” or “I’m sorry officer, my speedometer is faulty. It reads 15 below what I’m actually doing".
Aaron actually said, “So I told them, ’Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!"
Did you hear that? Hey Moses, don’t get so mad at me, it was not my fault. You know these people, they are a stiff-necked and hard-headed people. I was just minding my own business and they came to me and forced me to make them an idol. I told them it was wrong. I told them you would get mad. But they would not listen. I had no choice. And I really did not do anything. I just took their gold and threw it in the furnace, that is all. Then, Moses you would not believe what happened next… This golden calf just came walking out of that furnace all by itself… really… all by itself. Then it sat down on that altar and hardened.
I wonder if Aaron had blonde hair ?
I think Moses must have felt like I feel when my kids give me some of the patented lame excuses. He probably wanted to tell Aaron, I don’t know whether to feel sorry for you because you are stupid enough to give me that excuse, or angry at you for thinking I am stupid enough to believe that excuse.”
Was there ever a speech so true of humans… It is not my fault, I did not do it, it just happened.
Let’s look at this speech and see what we can learn.
We humans are always ready to
BLAME THE FURNACE
It was true… Aaron did throw the gold in. and it is also true… the golden calf did come from the furnace.
But Aaron left out one little bitty matter… HIS OWN PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.
Verse 4 tells us the truth, He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool.
He had built a furnace to melt the gold, built a fire in the furnace, put the gold in, melted the gold, built a mold into which to pour the gold, poured the melted gold into the mold, taken the mold off and finished the piece with a tool to smooth and polish the gold.
Today we see evidence of Aaron’s offspring all around us.
Everyone wants to blame the furnace, the situation, the group, the society.
Doctors and lawyers have come up with some type of syndrome or condition they can use to excuse everyone of everything.
In 1980 a Boston court acquitted Michael Tindall of flying illegal drugs into the United States. Tindall’s attorneys argued that he was a victim of “action addict syndrome,” an emotional disorder that makes a person crave dangerous, thrilling situations. Tindall was not a drug dealer, merely a thrill seeker.
An Oregon man who tried to kill his ex-wife was acquitted on the grounds that he suffered from “depression-suicide syndrome,” whose victims deliberately commit poorly planned crimes with the unconscious goal of being caught or killed. He didn’t really want to shoot his wife; he wanted the police to shoot him. He was a victim
Dan White murdered San Francisco mayor George Moscone. His Lawyers claimed that White was a not a murderer, but a victim, They blamed the crime on emotional stress linked to White’s junk food binges. Lawyers convinced the jury that White suffered from Twinkie Syndrome.
Nowadays, nobody’s at fault for anything. We are a nation of victims.1
A teenage boy rapes and kills a teenage girl. At trial he pleads, It is not my fault. I grew up in a broken home, my father abused me, I watched too much TV, I played violent video games, I AM A VICTIM of a society that teaches “If it feels good do it.”
I am just the product of my society… I am the lump of gold tossed into the furnace, and this is what came out.
Don’t blame me… BLAME THE FURNACE.
But the truth is…
THE FURNACE IS THE TOOL
The furnace does melt the gold and make it pliable… but the furnace does not make anything.
The furnace certainly has an effect.
Broken homes, divorce, physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, violence in the media, in video games and in life, poverty, greed, drugs, bad friends, ALL OF THESE ARE THE FURNACE… they have an effect…
BUT THE FURNACE DOES NOT CREATE ANYTHING.
How do two people come from the same neighborhood (FURNACE) and one turns out well while the other ends up in prison?
How does it happen… two men work in the same office (FURNACE) and one cheats and lies to get ahead and the other is honest and hard working?
How is it that two students take the same class and one feels forced to cheat to pass while the other works hard and passes?
How is it two kids come from same home of an alcoholic father (FURNACE) and one is a tea-totaling success and the other is an alcoholic mess?
SAME FURNACE---DIFFERENT RESULTS
Aaron said to the furnace… melt the gold… and it did!
Aaron said make it soft so I can fashion it… and it did
BUT THE FURNACE DID NOT MAKE THE CALF
The furnace (situation) did not make Michael Vick a dog-fighter.
The furnace did not make OJ a murdering thief.
The furnace did not make Gary Busey a drunk
or Paris Hilton a TRAMP
The furnace had an effect… but the fashioning is OUR OWN DOING!
Was it mere deception on Aaron’s part… trying to convince Moses that he, Aaron, was not responsible?
Or was Aaron caught up in delusion and self denial so that he truly believed he was innocent?
I don’t think Aaron really believed that calf walked out of that fire on its own.
Aaron was lying.
This is the universal tendency… to overlook our personal agency and responsibility and blame the furnace.
But what is the source? and What is the cure?
There is no doubt as to the source(s).
1. SATAN—the father of lies. Satan wants you to believe you are not at fault… so you will not confess and repent.
2. YOUR OLD NATURE… that part of you that is a natural liar, born thief, hedonist, and idolater.
We are basically, at the core, lying, self-deluded hedonistic sensualists.
I know we bristle at that characterization of ourselves and our family.
It is natural for us to think the best of ourselves. But we are basically scoundrels.
In Jeremiah God performed a surgery where he cut the chest of man wide open and pulled out the heart. Then he cut that heart right down the middle and opened it up and showed us what was inside…”The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: it is beyond understanding?”
I am not saying you are like that!!! Well, I am saying that your old nature is like that. But we are not living by the old nature any longer. We have accepted Jesus and He has placed His Holy Spirit in us and we now have a power in us that helps us to overcome the old nature.
Greater is He that is in us now (HS) than he that is in the world (Satan and old nature)
It is kind of like a picture of buffalo protecting their young from wolves.
The adult buffalo form a circle with their backends toward the center, where the calves are, and their heads and horns to the outside. If the wolf attacks, they meet a wall of horns.
They buffalo know that if the wolf gets to the calf, the result is death.
We are like the adult buffalo… we have the wolf (SATAN) on the outside looking for an opening to get inside to where the old nature is, and if Satan can get to the old nature… the result is SIN/DEATH.
So what is the cure?
1. REFUSE TO BLAME THE FURNACE
Stop looking for scapegoats to blame.
Accept your personal responsibility for your actions.
Realize that just like Aaron… YOU PERSONALLY CHOSE to sin
No matter what factors came to bear on your decision
friends, economics, pressures, etc
YOU MADE THE DECISION>>> YOU CHOSE TO SIN
YOU DID IT………YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE
2. BE VIGILENT AND WATCHFUL FOR THE ENEMY
Satan is going to come to you with temptation. He knows that the new nature will not accept it or fall for it.
But he knows that old nature will jump on it.
You have to keep the enemy from getting to the old nature.
The buffalo keep one eye out for the wolf and the other eye on the calves.
You know your old nature. You know where it is weak and where it is prone to sin.
And you have experience with the enemy too. You know where he will tempt you.
BE VIGILENT.
And when you see the enemy approaching or the old nature trying to get out
3 TAKE ACTION
SOUND THE ALARM
to God for help
accountability
SPEAK to Satan to leave
TURN your back on old nature
SCRAM to the light accountability
Gospel Invitation
1 Louis Lotz, Sioux City, Iowa, Leadership, Winter Quarter, 1992, p. 57
Original sermon idea came from “The Protestant Pulpit”.
A powerpoint for the sermon is available if you contact me at reverick57@hotmail.com
