Ex 32 The Golden Calf
GOD’S OUTSTANDING CHURCH
The Making of an Outstanding Church: A Place where God Rules through Jesus Christ
Grace to you, and peace through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Have you heard the story of “The Golden Calf” from Exodus 32? It couldn’t walk or talk or do anything. The dumb thing is that people worshipped it. Actually, it is an anticlimax to the Exodus story. God had summoned Israel out of slavery in Egypt with many miracles, particularly the Passover and the crossing of the Red Sea. He gathered them together at His Holy Mountain. He had one singular purpose in mind. That purpose was that they be free to worship Him before the watching world in order that ALL COULD COME TO KNOW THE ONE TRUE LIVING GOD.
That part of the story is repeated in our lives today. God has summoned each one of us out of slavery to sin through the miraculous provisions of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. He gathers us together today at this Holy place of worship. He still has one singular purpose in mind. That purpose is that we worship Him unashamedly before the watching world, so that all can come to KNOW THE ONE TRUE LIVING GOD AT WORK IN OUR MIDST.
The gathering of God’s people at Mount Zion was a Holy and momentous happening. Our being here today is a Holy and momentous happening. God has come here today with this purpose in mind that we, here at St John’s, take our place in this world as HIS OUTSTANDING CHURCH. I like the sound of that. Don’t you want to be a part of a Church that stands out in the community for all of the right reasons?
I wish to talk to you about The Making of an Outstanding Church: A Place where God Rules through Jesus Christ; and how you can be an outstanding individual for God.
He wants to make an outstanding man of you - a man who stands out in the crowd!
He wants to make an outstanding woman of you - a woman who stands out in the crowd!
God wants each and every man, woman and child here to stand out in the crowd!
It is not for play or entertainment that we are here today. Our faith is not some sort of “make it up your-self religion”. We do not get to tell God what He should do or be like or how He should run our lives. If that were the case, the only thing that we would stand out for would be sinfulness. Then the response of the watching world would rightly be: “What makes you so different from us that we should join with you?”
Let me ask you these questions:
• What sets you apart from your non-Christian friends?
• What gives you your identity?
• What determines (constitutes) what you believe?
• What determines your constitution as a person?
• Who makes the rules about how you are to live?
We can ask these same questions of our Church:
• What sets our Church apart from the world?
• What constitutes what we believe as the people of God?
• Who determines our constitution?
• What gives us our identity as the people of God?
The answer to all of these questions is given to us by God Himself. When He gathered the Israelites at His Holy Mountain He gave them a constitution to live by. It was to be a defining moment for them individually and as a community. The 10 Commandments are a summary of God’s constitution for His people – they are not the sum/total constitution. Their purpose was simple. It was to establish an outstanding group of people among whom God rules, who get their identity from Him and what He does for them, and who know how to live – to really live and love life and God and others!
The story of “The Golden Calf” represents Israel’s breaking of the 1st Commandment. It is given to us as a reminder as to what happens when we do not keep the 1st Commandment.
How easily it happens!
We are called to a distinct allegiance to God, not just any god, but the Creator God who reveals Himself to us personally in His Word.
We are called into a personal relationship with God who has revealed Himself down through history. History has always been His story. He has and always will be the central actor in history. He is actively concerned for individuals and nations alike. He is involved in the course of history. He has never left the scene. He has never left your life, or mine, or the stage of world history. He has always been there, deeply involved in our suffering in Egypt, in the Wilderness, on the mountain tops and in the valleys of deepest darkness.
The Israelites had seen 10 miraculous signs. Their lives were spared grief by “The Passover”. They had been rescued by the parting of the waters of the Red Sea in which Pharaohs’ army got drowned. God’s presence was with them day and night, either in the form of a cloud or a pillar of fire. At the top of Mount Sinai God was bellowing forth in thunder and lightning while He spoke with Moses. How could they carve out a false image of God?
It is amazing that they thought God could be represented by an idol. God is so awesome that they could not stand His Glory. They even cried out for protection from the glowing reflection of God’s Glory on Moses’ face, so much so that Moses had to wear a veil. When God wanted to make Himself known on Mount Sinai He had fences built around the foot of His Holy Mountain. These were no stand zones. There were hands off – do not touch zones; take off your shoes zones; no see or looking zones A person could not see God face to face and live! (1Sam 6: 19,20; Nu 17:13).
We have much the same kind of problems today as the Israelites then. Left alone for a little while we will re-invent God. When we take our eyes off who God is and what He has done we immediately set them on to something or someone else. How is that?
As with the Israelites, our problem is not always that we forget what God has done. That happens! The bigger problem is that we hang on to every bit of Egypt that we can, taking it with us wherever we go. We do not let go of our slavery to sin. We enjoy it too much. You know what I mean. The Israelites liked the use of idols. They were familiar with the names and rituals associated with the gods of Egypt – why not? There was a fair bit of promiscuity tied in with pagan idolatry – just like on our TV sets!
Our problem is not that we forget the 1st Commandment, “You shall have no other gods”. Our problem is that we mold God after our image or sinful imaginations – just so we can hang on to this or that sinful behaviour: the worship of gold, money, sex, image... We tell ourselves that a little pornography or a little lie here and there will not hurt; that God won’t mind a bit of godless chatter; that He won’t mind a little gossip; that a bit of pastoral criticism is in place. Imagine what the god of gossip looks like: a gigantic ear and mouth all rolled in one! No doubt it would be made of pure gold!
Don’t you love Aaron’s response to Moses’ shock over the golden calf: … “out came this calf”.
Verse 4 says that Aaron “fashioned the idol with a tool”.
Aaron, you have to be joking. What sort of self-deception is that?
Don’t you want to respond to Aaron, “Man, own up!”
But, don’t we do much the same as Aaron?
We excuse ourselves too easily:
• My circumstances made me do it.
• My passions made me do it – they were too strong!
• My friends influenced me to do it.
• The times have made an unbeliever of me – they have made me doubt. They have made me skeptical.
• The pressure was too great. I couldn’t help it!
Aaron said, “out came this calf”, as though it was an accident.
No sin is an accident! It may not always be intentional, but it is never an accident.
All such sin is sin against the 1st Commandment. This is because all sin draws us away from God. It puts something else before God, which in turn makes whatever it is a false god. And, having another god is sin; it is creating an idol or holding on to a demon.
St Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10: 20, “the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons.” This explains how cleverly sin can take us into bondage to false gods.
The honest and hardest thing to say is, “I did it. I was wrong. I took the easy way out. I made an idol out of my reputation, or money, or power, or sex. I have taken a false god. I have taken a demon to be my god. I did not stand up for what was right. I did not stand up for God.”
The result is that when we no longer stand up for God we no longer stand out in the crowd the way God intended. Thus we fail to be a light to our communities/the nations.
God is not ashamed to cleanse his house of those who do not stand up and therefore stand out for him (verses 27 – 29 and verse 35; Matthew 10: 32-33):
The God of the Bible has not made a secret out of who He is or what He is like. We do not need to make an idol, or take a false allegiance to a secret society like Freemasonry to learn the name or secrets of God. The God that they call “Jabulon” is foolishness, a combination of names. Ja is short for the Hebrew Yahweh. Bul is short for the Canaanite Baal. On is short for the Egyptian Osirus. God has already revealed Himself using the name above all names, the name of Jesus. You cannot better that! He does not share His bed or His Altar with Baal, or Jabulon, not to mention a golden calf.
Our God has revealed Himself with simple and utter clarity in the person of Jesus. He approaches our tent, knocks at the door, calls us His friends, promises to be with us through thick and thin…He has taught us to speak with Him as friends with a thankful attitude because we know what He is like… He is passionately in love with us so much so that... (John 3:16 – expect congregational participation)
We should not play with the names and character of God, lest we trivialize them. They are Holy. We do not need to invent or re-interpret teaching about God and his names and Holy things. We should only teach and apply it as it is clear in His Word. The question is not “what does it mean to me or you?”, but “what does it mean for me and you?”
The problem with our being relevant to our culture is not that the names and character of God (as He has revealed Himself) in the Bible are limiting. There is enough there to keep us relevant for all time to come. Go out and buy a book on the names of God to see what I mean. The problem is that we want to MAKE GOD relevant AFTER OUR OWN IMAGE or someone else’s imagination. Let’s not do it anymore!
The reason that God gave us the 10 Commandments was not to establish His Rule over us through rules. Rather, He gave us these rules to show us how easily we fall into sin and bondage. The idea was to show us that His Rulership was dependant on His ability to deal with our sin (righteously with justice and mercy). To do this He consistently appointed prophets and priests to act as types of Jesus to come, so that we had go-betweens between God and us when we sinned.
In the story of “The Golden Calf”, Moses was the prophet and Aaron the priest. When one slipped in his duty, the other was to step in; else God’s people would have been destroyed. The role of go-betweens, these prophets and priests, was to keep our relationship with God open, honest and healthy. They were to make prayers (intercede) for us, and to offer sacrifices for our sin - until the right time had come for Jesus to deal a deadly blow to sin, death and the devil. And He did! He is “The Bondage Breaker”. Thus, God rules not by rules, but by His relationship with us. And guess who did all of the work to get this relationship up and running? You got it – He did! Don’t you just love Him for it?
Moses confronted the Israelites with a simple question: “Who is on the Lord’s side?” Then he said, “Come to me.”
Joshua made a similar statement:
“choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served on the other side of the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15 (draw congregational participation)
During the Second World War a company of American soldiers was marching through France when a little old lady approached them with a broom over her shoulder. She joined the soldiers and began to march with them.
The soldiers smiled at the lady and told her to please step aside because she could not do anything with her broom. “Maybe not,” came their reply, “but I can let them know whose side I’m on!”
Moses asked the question that all of us need to answer, “Who is on the Lord’s side?”
God wants to make an outstanding Church out of St Johns. Let me ask you again, do you like the sound of that? He wants you to be an outstanding individual for Him. Is that your heart’s desire?
You can be!
Let’s start right here and now: won’t you join me in renouncing the devil and giving your allegiance to God?
Satan, listen to me! Many of these people are going to renounce you and all false allegiances in their lives as they repeat a declaration after me. As they do so, I tell you, let them go in the name of Jesus! They will enjoy freedom and health and new life in Christ. (Give exhortation…If you have compromised your faith… If you have been involved in)
(People,) I ask you to repeat after me: “I renounce the devil and all of his works and all of his ways. I rededicate myself to you the one true, living Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to be true to you to my end. So help me God!”
Now, follow Jesus by standing up for the truth of His Word. Do not be ashamed to stand up for what is right. Let Christ be part of your work and social relations. Resist temptation, especially the tendency to carve out a god in your own image or according to the ideas of another group of people. Follow Him in loving God and loving others.
Above all keep a clear mind on who God is and what He has done for you. In Exodus we read,
“You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Exodus 19: 4-6
Don’t only remember what God has done for you. Remember why He did it. You needed His intervention! You were slaves to sin. He gave His only Son as the full purchase price to get you out of that hell hole - so that you could be a light to draw others to Him.
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” 1 Peter 2: 9-10 (expect some congregational acknowledgment of these verses)
What a reversal: From a nobody to a somebody! From a sinner to a saint! From being a slave to sin to being a servant-friend of the Most Holy God.
All of this is, as you will agree in Christ, OUTSTANDING!
And, all that is left is for you to be that which God has made you: An Outstanding People: A People in whom God Rules through Jesus Christ!
“The peace of God which surpasses all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
Stand up, stand up for Jesus
Ye soldiers of the cross.
Lev 26: 13 walk with heads held high
33 scatter you among the nations
37 not be able to stand before your enemies
38 you will perish among the nations
unauthorized Nu 3: 4; 3:10 (+note), 38 death; 18:17
; Jos 7; 2 Sam 6: 7; Ac 5: 1-11
Nu 4:15 not touch; Nu 4:20 not look
