Exodus 32: 7-14 We learned last week that Isreal either got tired of waiting on Moses or figured that he wasn’t coming back….maybe God killed him….maybe he got lost…..who knows….all it says is that they saw Moses delayed coming back….I’m sure the rumors were running rampant in the camp. I would imagine that Israel waiting on Moses to return probably felt as long as it has for us studying through the book of Exodus. So, they decided to do things on their own terms and demanded that Aaron make them a god to go before them. Aaron had them remove their gold earrings and he made a golden calf out of them and they started to worship and sacrifice to it…..then it says that they rose up to “play”…..although it was a little more than playing. They were engaging in some pretty grotesque acts. If you want to hear a good sermon on the doctrine of sin, I encourage you to listen to Croft from last week. He nailed it. Obviously Isreal was in the middle of one of the most blatant sins…..worshiping another god.
Exodus 32: 7-14 (Stand and read)
7 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
• The Lord has disassociated Himself from Isreal. Whoa! Ok…this must be serious.
• How could they possibly be His people when they are bowing down in worship to another god?
• And this is not just any idol. This isn’t something that Aaron made by accident. He knew what he was doing. He was copying what I believe they knew and had seen from worshipers of other gods. We will see later on in Exodus that Aaron starts to crawfish when Moses comes down and confronts him…..he makes it sound like the calf just appeared out of the fire. I don’t buy it….
• This image of the calf as well as images of bulls were connected to other gods….both physically and spiritually…..It’s not just some static piece of metal….and on top of all that, they associated the name of Yahweh with it…..this is why it’s a big deal….big enough that the Lord is ready to destroy them all.
• The spiritual beings are at play here. This gets tied back to Genesis 6….and we all know the weird stuff that went on in Genesis 6 leading up to the point that the Lord said that all of man was corrupt…..there’s that word again “corrupt”…meaning to act wickedly, to act perversely, to be wicked……and what was God going to do?….destroy the land and everything in it. Except there was one righteous man….Noah. We all know how that story went and then how Noah acted as an intercessor with his sacrifices post flood that led to God vowing to not destroy the earth again.
• We could dig in further here, but it’s a bit above my pay grade. Some of the things that I studied about the calf was pretty crazy!
• It’s best fit is in a couple of weeks when Mitch preaches on the next section of verses. It is going to be clear why Moses was so angry when he came down off the mountain and laid eyes on what was happening AND why the Lord wanted to totally disassociate Himself from them.
8 They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, ‘This is your god (Or These are your gods), O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!’” • For this observation, I’m just going to let the word speak….
• Exodus 20: 2-6
2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before Me. 4“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
• Exodus 20: 23-24
23 You shall not make other gods besides Me; gods of silver or gods of gold, you shall not make for yourselves. 24 You shall make an altar of earth for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you.
• Exodus 22:20
20 “He who sacrifices to any god, other than to the Lord alone, shall be utterly destroyed.
• Deut 32: 16-17
16 “They made Him jealous with strange gods; With abominations they provoked Him to anger. 17 “They sacrificed to demons who were not God, To gods whom they have not known, New gods who came lately, Whom your fathers did not dread.
• I don’t think I need to say anything else. I think you get the picture. The Lord was very clear and Isreal agreed to everything and they have kept none of it.
9 The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. (or a stiff-necked people)(stubborn; disobedient)
• We see this theme a lot in scripture describing the posture of man’s heart being stubborn.
• Isaiah 48:4 “Because I know that you are obstinate, And your neck is an iron sinew And your forehead bronze,
• Acts 7:51 (Even generations later, nothing has changed…..Stephen addressing the Jewish Sanhedrin) “You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.
• For the Lord to say that He sees, it’s not only a physical visual. He sees their heart….He knows their thoughts…..their intentions.
• Psalm 139: 1-4
O Lord, You have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. 3 You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all.
• Israel was acting as though God didn’t see them. Foolish.
10 Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.”
• What a good deal for Moses?!
• I’m ashamed to say that if I was in Moses’s shoes, I probably would have been like…. “Yes, Lord…..get’em!!” After all, the Israelites had been a thorn in his side even before they left Egypt.
• Doing a little self reflection….I’m more like Isreal than Moses….we can learn from how Moses responded. • Moses’s response?…..he interceded on behalf of Isreal.
• Not to try to prove the worthiness of the people, but to appeal in protection of the fame and glory of God and His character.
11 Then Moses entreated the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people.
• Here Moses makes an appeal to God to change His mind……to protect God’s own reputation, not for the reputation of the people. He’s saying….don’t give the Egyptians a reason to ridicule Your name. After all, the Egyptians saw the mighty hand of God and the miracles that God performed to rescue His people from slavery.
• Moses doesn’t want anyone to have a reason to speak out against God being evil.
13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself (Genesis 22: 16-18)(Hebrews 6:13), and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants (seed) as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants (seed), and they shall inherit it forever.’”
• Moses reminds God of His promise….His promise to ALL the decedents of the patriarchs….not just the decedents of Levi…..which would have been the case, if God chose to make a nation from just the decedents of Moses.
• Moses is appealing to God to protect God’s character, God’s integrity to keep His promise…..His original promise.
Genesis 12 - God’s makes His promise to Abram
Genesis 15 – God sealed that promise with a covenant with Abram
Genesis 17 - Another re-assurance of the covenant…this time after changing Abram’s name to Abraham
Genesis 22 - God swearing by Himself….His covenant with Abraham after Abraham was going to sacrifice Issac
Genesis 26 - Repeats the promise to Issac
Genesis 35 - Repeats the promise to Jacob when He changed His name to Israel
Exodus 13 - Moses re-states the promise to Israel
14 So the Lord changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people. • So what happened here? Did Moses really get God to change His mind? Did Moses really tell God anything that He didn’t already know?
• Well….we know God’s character through reading scripture….so we know that He relents when people repent and turn from their wicked ways and we know that He responds to intercessory prayer.
• God is relational. He interacts with His people. Moses simply points out what he knew of God’s character and God chose to change His actions.
• We will read later on that God will for sure hold them accountable, so He didn’t change His character in relation to sin and it’s consequences….but He did choose to change His impending action to totally annihilate them.
The overarching theme here is the intercessor. Moses cried out to God to spare Isreal and He relented. Intercessor: Someone who acts as a mediator, pleading with God on behalf of others, seeking His favor, mercy, or intervention.
We see this all over multiple stories in scripture as well….. Abraham interceded for the righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah and God relented. Remember God was going to destroy both of those cities and everyone in them. He ended up saving Lot and his 2 daughters. Moses interceded, not just this time with the golden calf story, but frequently for Israel. Jeremiah, David, and many other prophets interceded for their people.
All leading up and pointing to the ultimate intercessor…..Jesus! Isaiah 53:12 Romans 8:34 Hebrews 7:25 He, being the greater Moses…..now constantly intercedes for us (believers). Through the sacrifice of Himself for the atonement of our sins, being raised from the dead, now sits at the right hand of God and continually intercedes for His people. And because of His atonement, God relents His judgements and punishments, because Jesus took that for us, paying our ransom in full. So, those who are covered in the blood of Jesus can stand before God and He calls them sons and daughters allowing full access to Him. Wow!
If you do not believe in Jesus, I hope that see that there is hope in the only One who can save you from the wrath of God. Believe in Jesus and He will consistently intercede for you and you too can have that same access. All you have to do is believe and Jesus does the rest as you seek Him and His Kingdom above all other things.
What a beautiful thing….of God placing in His word, story after story, of His people interceding for His people, so that when we get to the story of Jesus…..we can see clearly His plan from the beginning. He’s a relational God. It started that way in Genesis with God walking face to face with His people and even after man messed that up, He still made a way.
Application: 1. We have 2 applications this morning….
#1 learn to intercede for each other in prayer and
#2 Worship 2. If you are a believer, you can be an intercessor.
If you have proclaimed Jesus and he has rescued you from your sin, He calls you a saint. He has given you free access to Him and also has given you a helper in the Holy Spirit.
a. So, it’s not a question of “Can I intercede in prayer for others”; the question is “Do you?” b. Do you intercede for one another or others outside our church? If so, how often?
For me, I need to be more consistent. We need to learn how to practice together. We are going to act on our application this morning together. We are going to spend time in prayer for one another. I want you to think of someone….or a couple of people…..that you can pray for.
• Maybe you need to pray for God to intervene in someone’s life. Ask Him to reveal Himself to them and draw them closer
• Maybe out of an abundance of compassion for someone; you want them to experience God’s grace and mercy.
• Maybe you know of someone that is struggling and you are so close to that person or that situation that you can identify with their struggle and you want to intercede for them….for God to show His love and help through that struggle
• Maybe you have no idea who to intercede for……that’s ok…..then just call on the Holy Spirit to pray for you
Romans 8: 26-27
26 In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27 and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
I’m going to sit down and pray with you. Pray silently, pray out loud, pray with someone….whatever you choose.
Band….when you get finished praying yourselves, you can go ahead and make your way up. Once some time has passed, I will stand up and lead us in the Lord’s prayer and then we will worship together.
Let’s go to the Lord in prayer together.
Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever and ever. In Jesus name…..
