As a former public-school teacher, I can readily and easily relate to the scene in Exodus 32. I totally get it! When a teacher is summoned to the door of the classroom; our eyes are directed away from our students to the person who has interrupted the lesson. As soon as we answer the door, no, even while we are walking to the door; our students who have lost eye contact with us think we as teachers no longer see them—or hear them!
Talking rises to a new decibel. Some will leave their tasks and decide to play, and others will pull out all their finely tuned tricks of misbehaving with rapid fire. All this happens in nanoseconds as the teacher deals with the person at the door. Even if it is the principle at the door; it does not matter to those who are left unsupervised—or so they think!
The principle, Moses, leaves God’s People in the care of Aaron, the assistant principle while he goes up the mountain to get God’s instructions. God’s seminar of detailed directions is taking forty days and night because it includes God’s Laws given with purpose so that the people will know HE is God and God alone.
However, since Moses’ eyes are diverted away from “his students” and focused on God, the creator of all life; mischief beyond his imagination ensues. Aaron can’t handle the peer pressure as he has never been in a situation like this so he caves to the wishes of the people led by selfish desires to only follow what they can see and touch—made by human hands.
God’s Rescued are doing exactly what He, Himself, told His people not to do. God commanded them as they gathered at the base of the mountain; “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” Exodus 20:4 This command was number three of the non-negotiable Ten! But while Moses is away, this is exactly what the people do.
While concluding the seminar; God informs Moses of what the people are doing while they are together on the mountaintop. Nothing escapes the notice and attention of God! (You might say, as many say of teachers; he does have eyes in the back of his head!)
While Moses is engrossed in God’s seminar to learn from Him all he needs to know to tell God’s rescued and redeemed people how to love God back with how to love and treat each other—the people misbehave in ungodly ways and will have to pay the consequences of their sins against God.
Exodus 32
The Golden Calf
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.”
2 Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 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, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”
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.” 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.
7 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. 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, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’
9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. 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.”
11 But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 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. 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.’” 14 Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.
15 Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. 16 The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war in the camp.”
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.”
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. 20 And he took the calf the people 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.
21 He said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?”
22 “Do not be angry, my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil. 23 They said to me, ‘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.’ 24 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!”
25 Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies. 26 So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him.
27 Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’” 28 The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. 29 Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.”
30 The next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”
31 So Moses went back to the Lord and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. 32 But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.”
33 The Lord replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. 34 Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you. However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.”
35 And the Lord struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.
WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?
“O you, of little faith” says Jesus to His disciples who are in training. When our attention is fully on God; we are in awe of God with a healthy fear of the One who is able to do anything in heaven and earth for our good and His glory. God is the One and Only God who provided the Way (Jesus, His Son) to be redeem us from our sins and selfishness to be reconciled back to God! When our eyes are diverted from the Teacher; we miss His glory and goodness at work all around us. And when we miss seeing and hearing God at work; our faith is weakened. When our faith grows weak; our resolve to love God back in grateful praise and to love each other like He loves us is in danger of being prey for the Enemy of God. It’s an age-old problem in our broken world with God.
The Master Teacher, Jesus taught a “hands-on seminar” his students never forgot because they told it to us so we would never forget the desire of God coupled with all the power of God used by God to rescue us.
“Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.
27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”
29 “Come,” he said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”
31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
32 And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” Matthew 14:25-32
Are you crying? I am—tears of gratitude! I have been the disciple who didn’t even get out of the boat and I have been the disciple who took the risk to miraculously walk with Jesus while led to do a new thing for the Lord that I could not do without Him. What I have learned is that it is not the task but our faith of obedience that God is teaching. “One to three—eyes on Me,” I used to say to my students. This is the same message God is teaching us daily!
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace…
When Jesus reaches out His hand to rescue us—get a grip and don’t let go of the hand who wants to save us from drowning in the desires of the world around us. God’s eyes of compassion are always on us. “God with us”, Immanuel, taught us this truth when He walked the earth to “seek and to save the lost.” Look up and live! Focus on the One who holds our best in His heart. May we truly believe and place all our hope and faith in the One who loves you and I most.
Then go and tell, living as redeemed people who long to share where the Bread of Life who feeds and fully satisfies our hunger can be found. Enjoy quenching your thirst with the Living Water from the well of God that never runs dry!
Lord,
Thank you for rescuing me from my own sins of self along with the effects of sin of others. Thank you for teaching me Your Word that encourages us to remain faithful to you who is faithful to us always. Thank you for coming down, as Moses did, to reconnect us to You who is Truth.
In Jesus Name, Amen
Daily Manna (Coffee with Jesus) 