Golden Calf - Part 1

The Life of Moses- ep. #25 🐂 What if our impatience with God's timing could lead us into dangerous spiritual territory? On this episode of Whispers of Grace, we uncover the hidden perils of idolatry through the story of the golden calf in Exodus 32:1-6. We kick off by exploring Paul's exhortations to the Corinthians, using the Israelites' experiences as a mirror to reflect on our own vulnerabilities. Humility is key, as we examine how feeling immune to idolatry can set us up for a fall, and how acknowledging our weaknesses brings us closer to Christ’s saving grace.

We'll also journey back to Mount Sinai, where the Israelites' impatience and anxiety led them to create and worship a golden calf in Moses' absence. This act of idolatry, despite their firsthand experiences of God's miraculous power, serves as a potent reminder of the dangers of straying from confident expectation in God. By dissecting the motivations behind their actions, we gain insights into how our own impatience can drive us to prioritize our desires over God's will. Through these ancient stories, we learn to foster patience and deepen our trust in God's timing, walking more closely with Jesus in our daily lives. Join us with open hearts and minds as we confront the idolatry that may lie hidden within us all.

Chapters

• 0:19 Exploring the Dangers of Idolatry
• 4:19 The Golden Calf Incident
• 7:40 Impatience With God's Timing

Transcript

Julie: 0:19

Kia ora, and welcome to Whispers of Grace, a place for women to be encouraged by God's Holy Word. I'm your host, julie Colbeth, and I am overjoyed to dig into the Bible with you today. Hello friends, kia ora, welcome back to Whispers of Grace. Today we are going to dive into idolatry, everybody's favorite topic, but this is a fantastic opportunity for us to realize our own weakness. The more that we can understand our own hearts and how easy it is for us to fall away in sin, the closer a walk with Jesus we can have. It's more genuine and real. So today we have some tough things to walk through and to think about, but it is so valuable and important to be doing those things. And as we start off, I just wanted to read to you a piece of 1 Corinthians 10. This is written by Paul to the church at Corinth, and it gives a little bit of context about what we're going to be reading today. Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea. All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. But with most of them, god was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted, and do not become idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did and in one day 23,000 fell. Nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted and were destroyed by serpents. Nor complain, as some of them also complained and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now, all of these things happened to them as examples and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

Julie: 2:41

So I wanted to start with this today, because Paul encourages the church in Corinth that the things that were written in the Old Testament, what we're reading in the life of Moses, these things were recorded for our admonition or our instruction. They're there to teach us something, to show us something. So there is so much value in what we're doing and what we're thinking about. So there is so much value in what we're doing and what we're thinking about. And verse 12 reminds us that if you think that you stand and the thought of idolatry doesn't affect you, you feel as though this is a message for someone else or a different culture than yours. It says to take heed, to beware, to be warned, because you can very easily fall. So, like I said at the beginning, humility is the key to having a vibrant walk with Jesus, because when we know who we really are and how weak we really are, it pushes us to Christ and it makes him so much more precious to us, because we see what we're being saved from, not just in the past, with our sins forgiven, but right now, every day, what he's given us to be able to walk in holiness, and we're all susceptible to the same things. So today, as we look at this blatant idolatry of Israel, it will put the weakness of all of mankind on display, and we are so blessed to have these stories preserved so that we can study them and learn about them. So let's approach this material with humble hearts and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal things to you about the roots of idolatry that can easily find purchase in each one of us.

Julie: 4:19

So today we're going to pick up our story in Exodus, chapter 32. We're only going to do verses one to six and I'm going to do the rest, of the golden calf, in the next episodes. So where we're starting today, moses is still up on Mount Sinai with God because, remember, he's up there for 40 days, which is a long time. And what's he doing up there? While he's up on the mountain, all of Israel is down in the valley waiting on him, and Moses is receiving all of the plans for building the tabernacle and the instructions for setting up the priesthood. God is also explaining how exactly these people are supposed to live these holy lives. The sacrificial system and all of these important roots of Israel are being established. So that's what Moses is doing. But down in the valley. That's what we're going to focus on today, exodus 32.

Julie: 5:13

Now, when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him come, make us gods that shall go before us. For as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, before us. For as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt. We don't know what's become of him. And Aaron said to them break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters and bring them to me. So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron and he received the gold from their hands 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. So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it and Aaron made a proclamation and said tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. 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 they rose up to play. So these six verses tell us a really powerful, impactful story about Israel and about ourselves.

Julie: 6:24

So what I want to focus on first is the motivation behind this idolatry. What are the roots? Where did it start? So it starts with Moses delaying coming. That's the first thing that stood out to me as I read this verse. Right in verse one, it says now.

Julie: 6:41

When the people saw that Moses delayed coming down the mountain, think of this it's been 40 long days. Israel has only been a few months out of Egypt. Out of slavery, they're living in the desert. They were told that they're going to the promised land, yet they went in the opposite direction and here they are, camped at the base of Mount Sinai. Now God has done amazing things for them. They saw plagues, they saw fire and cloud. They saw the manifestation of God's power shaking the mountain with fire and thunder. They heard the voice of God speaking out the Ten Commandments. But then Moses goes up into this terrifying situation and now he's gone for 40 long days and the people are still down here waiting. And remember they are just freshly out of a pagan society that they lived in for hundreds of years, so here their instincts are going to kind of kick in.

Julie: 7:40

But what I want us to notice is the motivation and the roots of this idolatry is that their expectations were not met. They didn't think he was going to be gone as long as he was and they thought they should be in the promised land by now, and they decided that they were done waiting. Now I don't know about you, but I see myself in there quite often. How often do we get ourselves into trouble when our expectations aren't met and we don't have any patience? The impatience with God's timing. It is a frequent thing in my life and in the lives of so many others. He's not doing it how and when they wanted, so Israel here decides that they're going to do it their own way.

Julie: 8:29

So here's a few things that I pulled out. There's so many more, but this is what I saw, things that we can learn from the situation. So this impatience with God's timing that lives in our hearts. Number one it endangers our souls. Did you ever think of it like that? That impatience with God's timing can actually be a dangerous place to be, because you're putting self on the throne when you're choosing to be impatient instead of waiting on God, you're putting your timeline above his timeline, and that is a dangerous place to be. Number two impatience with God's timing. It impairs our decision making.