Now for the last big story in Exodus. The golden cow: the catastrophic sin through which 3000 people died and Israel came to the very edge of losing their whole destiny. 1 Corinthians 10 recalls it and says `These things were recorded as examples for us.’ So: What went wrong here? Could we go the same way?
It’s tragic. In Ex24 their leaders had had a rare, amazing experience, they’d actually seen God – and still this happened. I would love to see Jesus! But two of my friends have, and yet they both drifted away from Him. The amount God reveals Himself to us doesn’t determine whether we are stiffnecked or not. So Moses says, Remember this crucial event and never forget it (Deut 9:7). What went so disastrously wrong?
First: Disaster happened because they resented God’s delay, resented waiting for His plans. They ran out of respectful patience, waiting faithfully for this man who had supposedly gone up to God but showed no sign of returning, and began to doubt if he ever would (v1).
How is that an example for us? Well: have we too a Man who has gone up to God and shows no obvious sign of returning? Both Jesus Himself and apostle Peter say that if we lose our longing for Him to return, there will be psychological consequences: we’ll drift into evil desires and unholy lifestyles like the Israelites did so disastrously. (2 Peter 3:3-4, Matt 24:48-51.) Have I lost it? I know we’re meant to take the bread and wine of communion consciously `until He comes` (1 Cor 11:26), but really, how much does Christ’s return as King, ending the whole system of this world, really figure in my longing, my consciousness (and my worship)? Or, a wider example: Am I willing to wait for God to do things his way? Sometimes I’m not. A helpful symptom of my growth is how far I’m willing to wait for God: trust Him; choose to want Him to do things His way, and in His time. It’s not easy. Let’s pray!
Then secondly, Acts 7 tells us that `in their hearts [the Israelites] turned back to Egypt`: implying that if we lose expectancy of the greater Moses’ return – if we lose expectancy of the second coming – we too may turn back to `Egypt`, to the world’s values; and as the world does, turn, fatally, to idolatry, to worshipping something else in the place of God. So disaster happened here because, not waiting for God, they wanted or needed new gods to live for: `Make us gods` (v1 again)! We’re built to worship something, built to live for something; and so once in stiffneckedness I turn away from the true God I will end up fabricating idols, something to fill the God-shaped hole in my being.
What will it be? What am I myself tempted to live for? Being stiffnecked towards God results in our turning other things, gifts from the Lord even, into our gods, taking God’s central place. It may be possessions; successes; relationships; our bodies; our homes. But no idol, nothing but God, is adequate for that central place.
It’s a crucial life-secret, essential for our joy: good things get twisted, even destroyed, once we turn them into idols and make them more important than the real God, because we’re making them carry a weight as our lives’ centre that they weren’t designed to bear. (If successes and achievements become our idol, often we can’t relax and enjoy them, because sooner or later they fade into the past and we need more; in the end, the idolatry of success leads to a sense of failure. If my family matters so much to me that it becomes my idol, that can easily lead to a controlling, unpleasant relationship, instead of joy. If possessions become my idol, it may well mean I can’t enjoy them where they might get damaged (I daren’t park my car where it might get scratched). If sporting success is my idol, soon perhaps `winning is not the main thing, it’s the only thing`; it’s not fun any more.) Nothing but God is big enough to be God in our lives; and if we give anything else that central place in our hearts and priorities, we will probably twist and even destroy it.
And Lord I don’t want to do that, putting other things in Your place! Thankyou for Your loving Spirit – may He help me see when I‘m starting to live that idolatrous way!
Really serious issues for Israel, and for us. Two more very practical things next post…!
