Worshipping In Spirit And In Truth

Turn now please to Exodus 32, the golden calf incident. Israel had been slaves in Egypt for the better part of 400 years before God delivered them through His mighty acts, the ten plagues. The people then traveled to the base of Mt. Sinai, received the ten commandments directly from God, and then waited at the foot of the mountain while Moses went up into the thick darkness to receive more instructions and laws from God, mostly regulations for the temple or tabernacle worship.

But the people grew restless waiting for Moses to come down. So they told Moses’ brother Aaron to make them an image of God that they could see, that could go before them, that they could bow down to and worship. That they understood this golden calf to be a representation of God, and therefore their worship to be offered to God, I think is beyond dispute. Pick it up at verse 4, Exodus 32:4 "And he (Aaron) received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf. Then they said, ’This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!’ 5 So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, ’Tomorrow is a feast to Yahweh’" . . . the original Hebrew has Aaron using the LORD’s proper name here. That’s important, because we need to recognize that their sin wasn’t that of worshiping another god; no, they were worshiping the true God. Only problem was, they weren’t worshiping Him in the manner in which He had prescribed. They weren’t worshiping Him in truth.

Go on, verse 6 "Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." . . . I can’t help but see a parallel here to contemporary worship services. What’s our natural inclination as human beings? To play, to have fun, to enjoy ourselves, to amuse and entertain ourselves. So it’s no wonder we’ve all had to sit through comedy routines in the place of worship, oftentimes from the pulpit itself, during the sermon! No wonder we’ve all had to sit through funny skits and entertaining musical numbers in the place of worship. I know, many of us miss those entertaining musical numbers. But when did God ever instruct us to make entertainment or humor or play a deliberate part of our worship?

Verse 7 "And the LORD said to Moses, ’Go, get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, "This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!" ’ " . . . Why is God angry at His people? Because they have turned aside – verse 8, out of the way which I commanded them – they have stepped outside the bounds of His truth concerning worship. And do you remember to which commandment God was referring? Turn back quickly please to Exodus chapter 20, to the ten commandments.