GOLDEN GODS
Exodus 32
Unveils the tragic anatomy of idolatry: Only pure intent towards God can wait on God. If God be not our sole desire we will settle for something else, something less. Even something we claim to be Him. Aaron made a God from his own hands and presented it as Yaweh. They eat at the table of the Lord and then rise up to sin against Him. God has every right to destroy them Moses, as a type of Christ, intercedes for mercy even placing himself in their judgment. When confronted Aaron made little of his evil and excused it with a lie. Moses with holy jealousy burned the idol and cast it upon the waters.
This chapter is a divine photograph of the kind of rebellion in our natural human hearts. We must remember that these are not pagans but pilgrims. These are God’s people. They heard the thunder of God. They saw the smoke of Sinai. They tasted the manna of heaven—They had passed through the sea on dry ground. They saw Pharaoh drown. They stood under the pillar of fire by night and cloud by day. They know His presence and power. Even still, they made an idol of our own hands. Waiting has a way of exposing the idols in their hearts. Their idolatry did not spring from ignorance, but from impatience. Only pure intent towards God will refuse to settle for anything that is not exactly Him. And thus, the human heart is revealed. And the sad truth remains— man would rather have a visible idol than an invisible God. Something we can control. Something that serves our interest. Something that we shape from our own substance. Behold Aaron, yielding to their desires, melting their gold and forged a god! O tragic sight—the hands once anointed for the tabernacle, now fashioning an idol image! Aaron defended his spinelessness - “I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.” He shifted the blame suggesting that idolatry is something uninvited, and innocent. So often our rebellious heart seek to disguise itself in the garments of accident. So as not not take the full credit for out revolt. Can you believe that they named this idol Yaweh? Even today, men create their own way and call it Yaweh. Delirium! Oh the evil of the human heart when it ceases to bow before the living God. The human heart, if it be not set upon God for God alone, will always forge a substitute. So often we settle for religion in place of relationship, we perform services that ignore the Savior. It is important to note that the golden calf is not merely an object—it is a theology: a God we can touch, manage, control. A god made by the manipulation of man for man. A religion without the presence of God. Without the voice of God.
May we read and tremble. For this story is not an ancient Israel problem; it is alive in every age. John Calvin is famous for saying, “heart is an idol-factory.” I like to say “The unsatisfied heart is an idol factory.” We learn from this instant that idolatry often begins when we are no longer aware of God’s presence. When the soul is distracted from God’s presence, it is tempted to shape a counterfeit—sometimes of gold. When the soul wants something more than God it will not wait for Him. It will recreate Him and move on without His presence and voice. In these days the idol takes the form of carnal desires, worldly ambitions, material possessions, success in ministry, self-absorption. But, while the people danced, led and defiled, Moses prayed. He pleaded with the Lord, arguing not with sentiment but covenant: “Why should the Egyptians say…?” “Remember Abraham…!” He speaks to men for God, but also to God for men. And herein we find a the cream of the chapter—a sacred shadow of Christ. Jesus has stood in the gap for us. He is our great intercessor. Moses prays “Blot me out rather than blot them out.” The echo of Calvary in that cry! Jesus is the final mediator who would come, not only to plead, to bear the wrath, and to restore a covenant broken by rebellion. Oh, that we would see our modern idols for what they are! They are not golden calves, but they are equally God-eclipsing. Some bow to the shrine of platform and ministry; others adore the opinions of men or the pleasures of the world. Even sound doctrine, when divorced from love and presence, is a lifeless image. Oh the great danger of—orthodoxy without intimacy! Paul the Apostle warns us in 1 Corinthians 10 that “these things happened as examples for us,” and that “we must not be idolaters as some of them were.” He does not speak to pagans, but to believers! To those who “ate the same spiritual meat” and “drank of the spiritual Rock.” He says, “let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall.”And there is something more dreadful still - some early Jewish scholars believed that golden calf may have moved—animated by demonic power, or dark enchantment. Whether fable or fact, the truth remains: We empower what we adore. What we give our hearts to will rule us. And what we desire more God will one day mock us. Let us hold fast to the invisible, and refuse the golden glitter of lesser gods. Let us hate that which we make for ourselves and receive only Him sent from above. Let us, like Moses, dwell in the cloud, face to face with God, even when everyone else dances in self gratification. Let us, like Christ, be found interceding for the guilty, rather than condemning with stones. Let us cast down our idols! Let not our ministry, our reputation, our theology, our pleasures, nor our own wills rise up to take His place. May we grind each competitor to powder and scatter them on the waters. For what we have made with our hands could never satisfy like He who made us with His hands. I once had a dream in which my eyes were fixed upon the lovely Lamb of God. My heart was full of joy and peace. I cannot describe the bliss I felt in looking at Him. When I removed my eyes from him, and fastened them on other things, the longer I looked at them the more they gradually turned to gold. My kids, my wife, my house and books and friends. The most terrifying of all was as I looked at my own hands gold was slowly taking over my flesh. I came out of the dream realizing that whatever takes my hearts affection from the Lord will turn to gold and become an idol. I know that my heart, like theirs, is constantly tempted to shape gods of our own. Even now, our own selves can turn to gilded calves. Yet amidst the ashes of rebellion, the mercy of God calls again—covenant restored, tablets rewritten, fellowship renewed.