Complete Sermon Notes for Israeli Decalf
“Israeli De-Calf”--Exodus 32
April 9, 2006
Intro:
Backpacks—
I love packbacks. In fact, the problem that some women have with shoes, I have with backpacks. I can’t get enough backpacks. I have all I need (how many do you really NEED?), but whenever I see a good deal on one I have a real problem passing it up.
1. Purple Frisbee backpack—My first pack. Got it in high school. I thought it was going to be blue.
2. Sling backpack—Fun on the bike.
3. Cooler/stool—Not technically a backpack, but still cool. It combines two of my favorite things. It is multi-functional, and it was free.
4. Camel pack—only carries water.
5. Baby backpack—one of the first things I wanted when becoming a father.
6. Waterproof backpack—My prized backpack.
-It is totally water proof. It is ever air-tight. You could submerge this thing underwater, and it would no leak.
I saw it at an Eddie Bauer wherehouse sale. It was a lot of money, but at this crazy sale they would sometimes announce, “for the next 10 minutes all sweaters are 90% off” or something like this, so I spent all day next to this while my wife and her mother shopped. They never called backpacks for the 90% off sale, but my mother-in law bought it for me anyway for a Christmas gift.
In all, I have between 10-15 backpacks depending on your definition of a backpack. Last year at yard sale time I thought about getting rid of some, but I couldn’t do it. To be honest, I am looking for more backpacks. I don’t need more. I don’t even have a place to store more, but I just love them.
I recently asked myself this question: What is it about the backpack that is so great?
Maybe it is because the backpack means adventure. A backpack means a hike, or a picnic, or you are going to need to have a pair of cleats with you, or you have a lot of fireworks.
Maybe it is because the backpack is so practical. If it you are wearing a backpack it means that you don’t have to carry in your arms whatever is in there—your coat, or your lunch or whatever. Whenever we go somewhere as a family I almost always prefer taking the baby backpack to the stroller. Unfortunately, both my wife and my daughter prefer the stroller, so I am outnumbered. And campaigning for the backpack doesn’t help because once Julia is in there she has pretty much full access and reign over my head, so it is beneficial to me to keep her happy.
I guess it is a combination of these things that make backpacks so great. I just love the idea of being able to pick up and go. I love just going out for a hike and not having to come back early because I am cold or hungry—it’s all in the pack. Or being able to camp where there is no campsite because you brought everything you need in the backpack. I like being able to bike to the library and not have to try to balance plastic bags of books on the handlebars.
Today, we are going to look at a story from the book of Exodus chapter 32. If you have a Bible I encourage you to turn to that story with me. I do have a reason for bringing all of these backpacks to show you today, and I will get into that a little bit more later. For now let me say this—backpacks work great for carrying sack lunches, changes of clothes, tents, sleeping bags, and even babies, but you can’t put God in a backpack.
Exodus 32:1-6 p. 63 in the chair Bible.
-Moses is on Mount Sinai. He had just received the 10 commandments. He has been up there for 40 days.
Exodus 32
The Golden Calf
1 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 [
a] 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, [
b] O 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. [
c] Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
Items of note:
· The people had already heard the 10 commandments. (Deut. 9:12) (Picture of a cloud over a mountain?)
And this agreement was actually the same Ten Commandments [
c] he had announced to you when he spoke from the fire on the mountain. The LORD had written them on two flat stones with his own hand.
While the Israelites had not received the stone tablets containing the 10 commandments, they did hear the voice of God declare them in his own voice. And they were so afraid that they begged Moses to go talk to God and let them remain at a distance, Exodus 20 says.
--The Israelites could not be excused because of ignorance. They knew the command. They had heard it just days before and they chose to disobey it.
· The Israelites forgot Moses very quickly (v. 1)
As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him.
-This statement is almost funny. I love how they use the phrase, ‘As for this fellow Moses’
“You remember this guy? You know—white hair, big beard, always angry—he parted the Red Sea. Remember? Well, I think we can count him out. He has been gone for quite a while.”
--I think that what is happening here is that Israel has suddenly seen the advantages of forgetting Moses.
**Story about Julia at naptime.
-She yells and screams to get up, but as soon as I walk in the room she gives me a guilty look and lays back down.
-I don’t know what she expected to happen. Maybe she thinks some new parent who isn’t so hung up on things like naptime might come in.
That is what the Israelites must be thinking—“Hey if there is no more Moses, than we can make up our own rules.” They forgot the principle that God is God no matter what happens to Moses. And they thought this, not because they were convinced, but because it was convenient.
· This idol was made to worship God (v. 5) (Golden calf picture)
-I read this Bible story many times through, and I am now sure that what they did was not turning their backs on God in the sense that they worshipped false gods. What they did was they create a statue by which and through which to worship Yahweh—the one true God.
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."
“LORD” means Yahweh
--This means that the people were not breaking the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me”, but the second commandment, “You shall not make for yourself an idol.”
(Catholic 10 commandments are different than the protestant 10)
· The people gave a great sacrifice to make this idol.(v. 2) (Picture of a lot of gold)
2 Aaron answered them, "Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me."
--The people gave all of their gold earrings—presumably one of the only things of value that they owned—to make this idol.
-Some say that Aaron was asking them to do this to call their bluff—so that they would give up this idea of an idol. But if that is the case, it backfired. They gave their valuables freely for this cause.
· Both God and Moses were very upset (angry lego Moses face?)
o God says he would kill everyone (v. 10).
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."
This is the first of two times that God makes a statement of this kind to Moses, and both times Moses talks God out of it with the same kind of argument—“God what would your enemies say if they heard that you led your people out of Egypt just to kill them in the wilderness?”
o Moses smashed the tablets that God had written (vs. 16, 19).
16 The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
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.
What a valuable possession Moses had! He had tablets containing the law of God carved with God’s own hand—and he smashed them.
** This is worse than plate smashing mad.
o Moses made the people drink the gold (v. 20).
20 And he took the calf they 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.
--This was probably a lengthy process. It was very intentional on the part of Moses.
This was done to:
-Punish the people
-Moses wanted this to be an punishment they would not soon forget.
-Humiliate the people.
-They had to do this degrading thing, and they don’t get their gold back.
-Humiliate the idol
-It really couldn’t come to a worse fate than this
o 3,000 idol worshippers were killed (vs. 27-28).
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.
-It is a little unclear exactly who was killed here.
-Many Bible scholars believe that what is insinuated is that the 3,000 were killed at random from among those who were still unrepentant.
-Moses asks “Whoever is for the Lord come to me.” He gives people a chance to make their loyalty known.
-It might be assumed that those who were still out in public were the ones who were still unrepentant.
-Either way it shows how furious God really was about this sin.
o God struck the people with a plague (v. 35).
35 And the LORD struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.
-We don’t know exactly what this plague was, but we do know that this story is recounted many times throughout the Bible, even into the New Testament as an example of Israel’s disobedience.
What was the big deal?
-Why was this the sin to end all sins?
-Why would God dish out such a terrible consequence for this particular offense.
After all, they had not turned their back on God. It says in verse 5, that the first thing they did after making this idol was to have a feast to God.
The text does not say this, but is my opinion that God would have not punished the people like this if they had simply turned away and forgotten him.
-He would have left them on their own
-His favor would not have been with them
-They would certainly never receive the promised land
But I think God would have allowed them to walk away.
The problem is they wanted it both ways.
They wanted the comfort and security of God, but on their terms.
They wanted a Backpack god.
-They wanted to make the object of their worship something that they could pick up when they wanted, mover where they wanted, and pack in what they wanted.
Israel wanted God to be:
Convenient (picture of a calendar)
-Moses was taking far too long on the mountain.
-God was not operating in the time frame that they would have liked.
-Circumstances that God was orchestrating were not working out the way they would like.
-They thought they could put God on their schedule by making an image of him.
-They tried to counterfeit God, and pass it by God so they wouldn’t have to wait for him.
But God showed them that He is not always convenient, and he definitely does not like to be replaced with a piece of gold that is convenient.
Portable (picture of a backpack)
"Come, make us gods [
a] who will go before us.” v. 5
--The Israelites were tired of following God. They had been out in the desert for months, and were making no visible progress. Scary stuff was happening all of the time—like booming voices coming out of a cloud. And now their leader—the only one who had any faith that they were even on the right track—was gone.
--It seemed like a great chance to take matters into their own hands.
-By making this statue THEY got to decide where they wanted to go.
--Let me make something clear. I am speaking in terms of the intentional choices and direction that we take in our lives. God is everywhere, and when we need him he will meet us where we are.
-The error I am refering to is that these people wanted to pretend they were following God while they disregarded him entirely and went their own way.
-Isn’t it much more appealing to us as humans to follow something you can see rather than something you can’t see? Or, better yet, to follow something you can control?
Of course, but this thinking is contrary to God’s nature, and this is why he made a special point of commanding, “I am God—me, the invisible, uncontrollable, all-powerful God. Don’t try to reduce me and insult me by making images or statues of me.”
**Our move—
Right now we are in the process of moving our campus, and this is part of the reason that we are going through the book of Exodus—there are many parallels between this story and our own.
We are at a place right now that is not where we expected to be. Things are taking a little longer, costing a little more, and going a little more roughly than we had hoped. But I believe that God has led us here as part of his plan, and I hope you do too.
Let us not make the mistake of getting impatient with God. Let us not try to make God more convenient than he has chosen to be. Let us follow God, and not think that God will follow us—that we can pack him up and take him where ever we would like to go. If God leads us in an unexpected direction, than that is fine, but if we try to lead God—even on a path that seems wise to us—we will fail.
Unimposing ( picture of ?)
6 So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. [
c] Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
It looks like the way they offered offerings to God through this calf was different than the way they would worship the invisible, intangible, all-powerful Yahweh. –This “revelry” is translated in some versions as “pagan revelry” .
-We know that Moses could hear this going on from up on the mountain.
-The people will basically running wild.
--This is the real benefit of having a backpack god. When you don’t want him, you can zip up the pack.
--This seems to be a complaint that the people had about God. I’m sure they enjoyed his provision, his miracles, his freeing them from slavery, and his promise of a nation of their own, but he just didn’t let them do some of the things that they wanted to do.
--So they made up a God that would.
So what does this mean for us???
God is not:
Willing to compromise.
--God had said “Do not make any graven images”
-Maybe the people forgot.
-Maybe they didn’t care.
-Maybe they thought it would be okay as long as they worshipped God through the image.
-In any case God wasn’t willing to flex on this rule.
Who I want him to be.
-Idolatry is one of the silliest sins one can commit. What make us think that anything of spiritual significance, let alone a deity, could come out of something that we make with our own hands.
-It was silly for the people of Israel to think that they could make God into something.
God is who he is.
-How many times have you heard someone say something like, “I don’t think I could believe in a God who…”
Let me leave you with these closing thoughts today:
Seek God.
Seek him so you can know him. Don’t try to see how you might make him fit into your lifestyle, or your ethics, or your politics—seek him for who he is.
He has sought you. Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week when we remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for all of us. This was God’s plan to seek you.
We have a distinct advantage over the people of Israel. While they were required to wait at the base of the mountain while God spoke, we are invited to approach the summit. So go there. Seek him, and you will find him. Continue to seek him, and you will find more of him in a deeper and richer way.
