We’re feeding on Exodus’ last big story – the golden cow: the disastrous 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.’ Moses says, Remember this crucial event and never forget it (Deut 9:7). So: What went so disastrously wrong? Might we go the same way?
We saw two vital answers last week: they weren’t willing to wait for God’s plans, nor for His man to return; and so they ended up `making gods`, idols, making alternative gods for their lives (v1). Now two more this week, things we need to think and pray about……
Thirdly then, v4: Disaster happens here because they’ve lost their mental grasp of what God has done for them in the past. (`These are your gods, who brought you up out of Egypt`, they say of the golden cow (v4).) Remembering and passing on to the next generation what God has done is a huge issue in Exodus (eg 1:8,3:6,10:2, 12:26, 13:14, 13:19, 15:2, 16:32). How do we help ourselves remember, and help the next generation remember, just what God has done in the past and just how He did it, the ways He actually works and can again? That’s why we give time to feeding in depth on the old testament, and teach it to our kids! (Strikingly in 1 Kings 12 we find that what destroys the northern Israelite kingdom is that they forget this history, and so make exactly the same mistake again, making golden cows to worship; their kingdom never recovers and ends up in slavery, and 2 Kings 17:21 makes clear that this (repeated) sin is why.) `Remember this and never forget`, said Moses: disaster happened here because they didn’t feed on what God had done in the past, and how He did it. This is why we feed on the Bible, shaping our minds with its histories…
And fourthly, and so relevantly: disaster comes because (as a result) they used the same name as before for the Lord, but actually were worshipping a different God altogether (vv5-6). So, supposedly not rejecting Yahweh, the Lord, yet changing their picture of Him, focusing instead on an image they’d made that supposedly helped them worship. Well: how might I do that? `My Jesus doesn’t judge people’s behaviour, and doesn’t send people to hell; that makes it far easier for me to feel intimate with him.` But using Christian words, even singing Christian words, doesn’t mean I’m not actually worshipping a catastrophically seductive idol. This is why doctrine matters. Says John White in his brilliant book People in Prayer (also called Daring to Draw Near): The crucial question is, What does God show us He is really like? And do I humbly follow him as He really is, or only if I can pretend He’s something else? Am I making my own golden cow, God the way I want Him to be, rather than the way He shows me He is? We know just how that ended up here.
So in v6 they worship; passionate, celebratory worship, it seems; and (vv7-10) as a result they’re headed for judgment, and total destruction from God. The real twerp in this story is (v5) Moses’ brother Aaron, who’s been left as spiritual leader while Moses is away. Poor Aaron: he fails pathetically. He doesn’t want to tackle the people on these doctrinal issues of what God is really like, providing in the worship they’re still saying Yahweh, Yahweh. But (v10) that’s disastrous. Doctrine matters. Some of us are in situations where we’ve got this kind of leader – just keep the show running, keep it together, just ignore the doctrinal issues. But as we see so often, it isn’t enough for a leader to be committed themselves to the Bible and the gospel; it matters equally how much they care whether others are. Vv21-24 are tragically funny. (`They gave me their gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!` Yes, Aaron, I’m sure it did.) But with their leader failing like that, Israel came within thirty seconds of total catastrophe. In v11 Moses’ prayers save the situation; next week we’ll see how – although, judgment does still come, in that three thousand Israelites die. (Yes: when the Law comes at Sinai, 3000 die; when the Spirit comes at Pentecost, 3000 come into eternal life. That figures!)
So what do we take from this extremely serious story? That holiness matters, matters enormously; if (as we saw two posts back, and as is still wonderfully true) God is preparing a people to dwell among, then sin must be sorted out. Which, here, it rather dramatically is… Churches can die too (Rev 2:5). And the four serious mistakes we’ve seen here pose direct questions for us to pray over: Is there anywhere in my life one of these things that lead to disaster?
But: thank God, if we’re His children, we now have a `Great High Priest`, better even than Moses, who prays for us – even when we’re being seriously stupid! More about that (thank you God!) in the next posts…
