Exodus 32 - Strong vs Weak Leadership, Idolatry & The Golden Calf (Part 1)

Moses Delays on the Mountain and the People Demand an Idol

All right, go ahead and open up to Exodus chapter 32. The video is gonna be short because we're only gonna listen to the first 10 verses. So let's open in prayer and then we'll listen to verses one through 10.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this evening. Thank you for bringing all of us out here as we look to your word in this very important time in Israel's history, where they not only rebelled against you, but they really did it in a high-handed way when they pressured Aaron into building this idol, the golden calf.

Help us to learn something from this and certainly to learn how you view idolatry. Help us to recognize idolatry, whether it's in the literal form or in other forms where things can take the place of God in our lives.

So we ask that your spirit be with us as we look to your word. It's in Jesus' name, amen.

Exodus 32. 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, we do not know what has 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 hand 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,.

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 rose up to play.

And the Lord said to Moses, Go, get down for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf and worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, This is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt.

I have seen this people and indeed it is a stiff necked people. Now therefore, let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them and I will make of you a great nation.

The Danger of Weak Leadership Under Pressure

So Exodus chapter 32 begins with these words. 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, we do not know where has become of him. So obviously the implication is, Hey, we don't know what happened to Moses. Looks like he's never coming back at this point.

How long had Moses been gone? How long has he up on the mountain with God? 40 days. So think about it, that's a good long time. So, all right. So Aaron makes this golden calf, this idol for the people to worship.

And then he declared that the next day would be a feast unto the Lord. Skip down to verse six and it says, they rose early the next day, offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink.

So that's one thing they did. And the other thing they did is they rose up to play. Well, that might sound innocent, but it's not. I mean, obviously worshiping an idol is against the commandments of God, but we're gonna see what they were doing in just a moment.

And actually, let's just get it out there. First Corinthians chapter 10, who knows what Paul identifies this as. This phrase, they rose up to play is a reference to what? Fornication? Right, right. So they turned the desert there like a nightclub.

So yeah, they were committing fornication and all sorts of lewd acts along with the dancing and the feasting, worshiping this idol. So because of this high handed rebellion against God, the Bible says that 23 ,000 people died.

Okay, the Lord judged them 23 ,000. So 3 ,000 were killed by the Levites. We'll get to that Lord willing next week. And then another 20 ,000 would have died from the plague that the Lord brought upon the land.

So that tells you how serious this was. And really it could have been a whole lot worse because God sees this and he's prepared to destroy the entire nation. We'll just wipe them all out and Moses, I'll start over with you.

You'll be the new Abraham and I'll make of your descendants a great nation. But if you know the story, you know that Moses intercedes on behalf of the people as a type of Christ and the Lord relents. So we're gonna break this study down into a few parts.

We'll need a part two for next week. But first we're gonna look at the importance of having a strong leader, very crucial. Second, the issue of idolatry in general and this crass idolatry that they practice.

And then if we have some time, we'll go beyond that. But let's start out with point number one, the importance of having a strong leader. There's a saying goes something like this, when the cat is away, what?

The mice will avoid it. The cat is away from it. Yeah, so Moses is the cat in this illustration, but Moses obviously was a strong leader, right? Even under his leadership though, the people grumbled and complained and things still were messy at times.

But as soon as Moses leaves and he's away for any length of time, everything just falls apart. So without Moses, the strong leader there, things just start to crumble. So this chapter begins with the people seeing that Moses delayed his coming.

So you're working upwards of about a month and a half when you think about it. So the people wonder, maybe he's never gonna come back and this gives the bad element among the people, the idolaters, it kind of gives them an opening.

It kind of gives them a little time to band together and hey, let's go to Aaron and see if we can kind of drag him along to our way of thinking. So they pressure Aaron to make them gods. Yeah, they pressure Aaron to make them this idol.

Do you think Aaron would have done this on his own? I mean, we know it wasn't his idea. Do you think he would have done this if not under this pressure? Almost certainly the answer would be no. So Aaron, if we know that Moses was a strong leader, what do we know about Aaron?

Much weaker. Yeah, Aaron's a weak leader. And the thing about weak leaders, they're not necessarily bad people. There are bad leaders who are just bad men. But I don't think that was Aaron. So the thing about weak leaders, they're not necessarily bad.

They just make bad rulers. So when someone is put into a leadership position, there's always going to be those people that immediately test them to see how much we can get away with. If a man steps into a position, there will be people that they start doing things just to see how they're gonna react.

Or if this is done on a national level, we've seen this play out. When a new national leader comes in, foreign adversaries will start acting up just kind of trying to flex their muscles just to kind of test the waters a little bit.

I mean, this is just normal. This is what happens. Well, it only takes a few weeks of Moses being gone and Aaron being in charge. It only takes a short amount of time before immediately Aaron gets tested.

So the people pressure him to make this graven image. I'm guessing they never asked Moses to do this. It doesn't say. I'm thinking they wouldn't have dared ask Moses. What do you think Moses would have done?

Well, look at his reaction when he came down from the mountain and saw.

Right, right. So yeah, Moses, what does he do? He ends up taking the calf, grinding it into powder, throwing it into the river and making the people drink it. So that kind of gives you an idea.

Of how Moses would have reacted. Yes, Ray. He's got God there to help him out too, so.

Yep, yeah, absolutely. So they didn't ask Moses as far as we know. And they did ask Aaron. Aaron collapsed. Now, we're always trying to make application to the New Testament church. As we've been going through Genesis and Exodus, that's what we've been trying to do.

So mark it down. There will always be people in the church who will say and do things in order to get leadership to compromise. This is universally true in all denominations. There's that element. They wanna get leadership to compromise.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that it's happening here right now. Okay, it's not. But this does happen. I'm sure this has happened in the past. It's happened to me. Just to give you a short testimony of a few things that I've been through.

The first sermon I ever preached here, the following week, a woman from the congregation pulled me aside. She doesn't attend here anymore. She pulled me aside and she told me how I was wrong. And this certain moral issue, I shouldn't talk about it.

I was wrong, I shouldn't preach about it. Then after I became the pastor, a year or two in preaching through the text, that same topic came up again. And I simply preached what the Bible said. Well, the following week, another woman, a different woman who again, she no longer attends here.

She pulled me aside and she really began to admonish me. And I really shouldn't bring this up. And she was not very pleased, trying to get me to either change my view on this issue or to at least stop talking about it.

And then last summer on the radio, I brought this same topic up again. And a woman from town found out about it or heard what I said and make a long story short, she tried to put pressure on me and try to tell me I'm wrong and I shouldn't speak about that anymore.

All of that to say this, this is something I'm sure every pastor has gone through. I've heard testimonies, pastor will preach something, it's true. It's biblical, but there's somebody in the church that gets upset, makes that known.

And the purpose is to get him to shut up. The purpose is to either do that or if we can swing him around to an unbiblical viewpoint, that's always gonna exist. Okay, it existed in Israel, it exists in the New Testament church.

So Aaron, whatever he was, whatever Aaron was, he was no Moses. He was a weak leader, he caved in and he made this idol, a golden calf. Now, why do you think he made a calf? So it's a cow, why did he make this thing?

I think that was one of the symbols in Egypt.

Okay, for whatever reason, worshiping cows is not uncommon. There are still some cultures today and religions today that view cows as sacred. And yeah, I think Jim's right. They probably over that 400 year span in Egypt, they probably picked this up there or even the mixed multitude because there were some Egyptians mixed in.

Yeah, they probably got this from Egypt and now are trying to pressure Moses, or excuse me, Aaron into making it, which he does. So when Moses sees this, and again, we'll get to that next week. Moses, he kind of freaks out a little bit, doesn't he?

So what's he on the mountain doing? Receiving the tablets of stone. When he gets down and he sees what's happening, what does Moses do? Yeah, he smashes them. So very, very upset. Now, here's the thing that gets me though.

The people ask Aaron to do this. This is the same group of people that saw the Lord's hand of deliverance. They saw the Lord rain down the plagues upon Egypt. They saw the Lord part the Red Sea. He delivered the people through the Red Sea.

They heard God speak, his voice thundering at Mount Sinai just a short time earlier. So they knew God existed. I mean, that wasn't even a question, but they knew his great power and they saw how he wanted to fight for them.

Why on earth would they then rebel against God in such a way when they saw all of these miraculous things from the hand of God, who seemed to be with them? Why would they do this? Does anyone have any ideas?

It's a human nature thing for some reason. They're born with sin, but a human nature thing, I've seen instances a few times, human to human, where somebody was being helped by somebody doing them a big favor, and for some reason, their own independence or something feels offended and they might spend the rest of their lifetime hating that person.

I don't know why, but I don't know if this applies at all, but there's a reverse instinct in the sinful man.

And I think Emil's exactly right. It's really just a testimony to the depravity of the human heart. This is just the sinful nature on full display. Because there's people out there that will say, well, if I knew for certain that God existed, or if God would show me a miracle, if God would do this for me, or if God would do that, then I would obey him, then I would be his faithful servant.

You've probably heard something like this at some point. That's what people say. If God would do this, then I would do that. That's not true. Okay, so they knew God existed. They saw his power. They should have known better, but yeah, it's the depravity, the sinfulness of the human heart.

Any questions or comments so far?

All right. Well, I think, didn't Jesus go through the same extremes? Show us who you claim you really are. And they would verbally accuse him after he met with Pilate, and there, the soldiers, show us how you can save yourself.

And then at the cross, save yourself. So it was constantly badgered by that. And then some of the others too, Paul.

Yep. So we've learned Moses was a strong leader. Aaron wasn't. When Israel had strong leadership, things went pretty well. Now, there's always problems. That's true. But when there were strong leaders, so Moses, who's another strong leader?

Joshua. Joshua was a strong leader. You think of Samuel. Samuel was a strong leader. David, obviously, was a strong leader. And then you had other men who, you know, these are names maybe you forget, and then all the bad kings.

So when there were bad leaders or weak leaders, this was a very dark time in Israel's history. So yeah, things rise or fall on leadership. That's true. All right, moving on to our next point concerning the idolatry itself.

Idolatry, the Second Commandment, and the Mixing of True Worship with Paganism

Let's go back to chapter 20. Turn back to Exodus 20. But what we've seen concerning idolatry, based on God's reaction, that he's ready to destroy the entire nation. Based on that reaction, we see how serious God treats idolatry.

I think it's safe to say it's one of the things that God hates the most. Because really, it's one of the most insulting things to God. To have a cow, it doesn't matter that it's made of gold, but to have this cow, that is what God looks like.

That's an insult, right? If somebody made an image of you and it was a cow, you'd be offended. So obviously, how much more God? So people make these depictions of God, of animals and reptiles and all of these things.

God obviously hates that. But here's another thing. Idolaters hate God. So God hates idolatry, but idolaters hate God. And we're gonna see that here in Exodus chapter 20. But also Romans 1, before we read this, Romans chapter 1 talks about this, that they are haters of God.

But if you go back in that list in Romans 1, where does it start? Idolatry, that they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

And then it just kind of spirals downward from there. So idolaters hate the Lord. Look at Exodus 20, verse four. So this is the second commandment. And number two shows you how God feels, I think. You shall not make for yourself, what?

A carved image, or as the King James says, a graven image. You shall not make for yourself a carved image of any likeness, anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

So what is an idol? What is an idol? A substitute for God. Okay, a substitute for God. That's a good definition. Someone else want to give another definition? What is an idol?

Anything that takes your time or your resource.

Okay, something you put above God or on an equal level or above God. Yeah, so anything you put over God in your life and people, we're not gonna get into this because this is usually where this conversation goes, how football can be an idol for people or fishing can be an idol for people or whatever it is.

And those are valid points. But I just want to focus on tonight the crass form of idolatry, like literally bowing down to an object. So the definition for an idol that we're seeing here is a graven image or a carved image.

And what do the people do? They bow in front of it and they worship it. Did the people think that this calf was actually God? I hope not. Yeah, I hope not. All right, we'll touch on that in a second, but we're not gonna get to this.

But Moses is gonna ask Aaron, what did the people have to do to you to get you to do this? So Moses comes back, he can't believe his brother would do, what did the people have to do? Did they kidnap you and hold you at gunpoint?

Like, what did they have to do? You remember what Aaron's response was? Blame them. Well, he said, well, they gave me their earrings and I put it in the fire and this calf just leaped out of the fire.

Well, he didn't say leaped, but that was his response. Yeah, we put the gold in, I don't know, out came this calf. I mean, it was an absolutely ridiculous response that Aaron gets. Obviously, this would have taken a lot of time and effort to mold this thing.

So if you've ever seen pictures and images, it probably didn't look quite as nice and refined as the depictions you see today, but it would have taken a lot of work. So what is an idol here? It's a graven image or a carved image.

An idol can be of anything in heaven. So it could be an angel, it could be a man, it could be something like a calf or something in the sea, like a fish. Sometimes idolaters, they like to mix it up. Half man, half fish.

What idol was that in scripture that was half man, half fish? Dagon. Right, Dagon, the idol that the Philistines worship. So are all graven images idols? What do you think? Are all graven images idols?

This has actually been a... It's all in the eye of the beholder. Okay, it's in the eye of the beholder.

If somebody looks at that something, like that artificial group of flowers up there, you know, that could be a substitute. Okay. But you... Somebody would, I think it's an individual.

Well, it has to be something living, okay? Because any object... Well, I just put that as an example. Right. But I mean, people have said that. They've said, well, the cross is an idol. Have you ever heard people say that?

A cross can be an idol. No, I think it has to be something, to fit this context, it has to be something living, like an angel, a man, a calf, a fish. But are all graven images idols? I don't think so.

Because God, first of all, God did instruct in the tabernacle, and later in the temple, he did instruct that images of cherubim be made, right? You had the brazen serpent in the wilderness. So you had a 3D image of a serpent that God told Moses to make.

So I do not believe that all graven images are idols. If you take this prohibition too far, you basically would have to ban all artwork, or most artwork. And we don't hold to that position. There are some Christian groups out there that they will not put any pictures of men, paintings of men, photographs of people, or of animals.

They will not hang that on their wall. This has been a pretty controversial issue throughout church history, because there are some churches that have pictures, and people show obedience to this picture of Jesus.

I'm just gonna speak my own opinion here. I know that a lot of people have pictures of Jesus on their wall. I've been in churches that have pictures of Jesus, and he always has the long brown hair, and we know the image, right?

The thing that bothers me about that, not because I think it's an idol. I mean, if you were bowing down to the picture, I think you're on thin ice. But see, I know that's not Jesus in the picture. Jesus didn't look like that.

I don't know what he looked like, but I know that's not him. That's an artist's concept.

But if you place, and I also like to look and see if they have anything hanging from the rear view mirror on the interior of the car, and sometimes you can see where they actually have pictures, little pictures, and they hang, and there's pictures of Mary or pictures of Jesus, and that, to me, is idol worship.

A lot of times they do it, I think, because if I have that picture of Mary or Jesus, I'm protected.

Well, those would be good luck charms that people have. So here's what I think. Based on this, based on everything I know about this in scripture, here's what I'm sure of is an idol. If it's three-dimensional, number one, it's of a living being that's three-dimensional, and it's made for religious purposes, and people are bowing to it, that much would be an idol.

And obviously, if they go a step beyond that, and they not only bow, but they pray to the thing. So if you have a 3D image of a man, angel, a saint, a fish, it doesn't matter what it is. If you're bowing down to that statue, that is idolatry.

If that's not idolatry, the word has no meaning, because that's what they're doing. It's a 3D image, they're worshiping it, they're bowing to it, that's what bowing is. You bow to worship. Remember when the people tried to bow to the disciples?

Get up, why? Because that's an act of worship. Now, idolaters try to get around this in all sorts of different ways. They might say, well, we're not actually worshiping the graven image, it's just a representation of God.

That doesn't make it any better. That's what they were doing with the golden calf. Again, presumably, the people knew this wasn't actually God. Like, they weren't, people back then, they were not dumb.

They knew that this thing was not God. So it was a representation of God. Or people will say, well, I'm not worshiping the thing, it just kind of helps me visualize, or helps me get in the worshiping mood, whatever the case.

If it represents God, or you're bowing down to it, it's idolatry. So in this attempt here in Exodus 32, or what Aaron is attempting, he's trying to blend together the true worship of God with paganism.

The people wanted an idol. Aaron probably didn't want to do it, but he caved in. And what does he declare? All right, well, if we're gonna have the idol, then I'm declaring a feast day to the Lord tomorrow.

So what you had was the true worship of the Lord mixed with idolatry, and the two get blended together. Yes, Larry.

I know they've been here at the base of this mountain for quite some time, but wasn't God still directing them when they were moving? A pillar, a cloud, by day, and fire by night? Yep. I mean, except here that he's on a mountain.

Yep. And thunderings and lightnings and smoke and cloud? Yes, yeah. When was it that he, wasn't it until after they entered the promised land that he stopped?

Right, so the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud would have ceased once they were in the land. I mean, it might have ended at some point before that. I know the manna ended once they entered into the land the same day.

So anything else, or is that? No. Okay. All right, so imagine what you have. Worshiping an idol, you have pagan religion, idolatry, mixed together with the true worship of Jehovah God. Now, the application to the modern church should be painfully obvious, because this type of thing, blending together paganism, idolatry with Christianity, this type of thing, or this same thing, happens every week in nearly every town or county all over the world, blending the biblical faith with pagan idolatry.

If you look at Revelation chapters 17 and 18, it actually seems to speak directly to this, or it's called Mystery Babylon. So the false religion or the false church, according to Revelation 17, nine, is located on seven mountains.

And what city historically has been the city of Seven Hills? Seven Hills. Rome. Well, it's Rome. Rome, historically, there are other countries or other cities, but I believe that's a reference to Rome.

And it says that that city cooperates with the kings of the earth. So historically, what religion has been in bed with or cooperating with the kings of the earth? We know, we know what it is. So this is the Roman religion.

And the thing is, today, it's just kind of become normal. Like we all know it's happening. It happens all the time. And it's kind of like, yeah, yeah, that's just the way it is. And I'm sure with some of the Israelites, this probably seemed normal to have people worshiping a golden calf.

Others may have not participated in it, but did they do anything to stop it? Did they speak out against it? Did they do anything? There's no evidence that they did. So I often say that there's nothing new under the sun.

And that's true. Again, it was happening here in Exodus 32. It's happening today. It's happening in our own land. And again, God views this as so serious, and this should make us pause and think. God viewed this as so serious, even though not all the Israelites were involved, he viewed it in such a way that he was ready to wipe the whole nation out because of this.

Exodus 32, if you go back to Exodus, if you're not there already, Exodus 32, verse seven says, "'And the Lord said to Moses, "'Go, get down, for your people, "'whom you brought out of the land of Egypt "'have corrupted themselves.'".

I laughed when I read this. Why? You pick up on this? Your people. Your people, right. All throughout the book of Exodus, the Lord has been referring to the Hebrews and the Israelites as my people. Up until this point, whenever he talked about your people, he was talking about Pharaoh and the Egyptians.

But now it's Moses, they're yours. It's kind of like the parent who is, you know, they're proud of their child, they're proud of their son. That's my boy, you know. But when the child does something wrong, one spouse will say to the other, you see what your son did?

Well, that's what's happening here. Maybe that's where it came from. So Moses, they're yours. And in verse nine, the Lord said to Moses, "'I have seen this people, "'and indeed, it is a stiff-necked people.'".

What does that mean? Stiff-necked. What? Stubborn? Yeah, they have a mind of their own. They just will not, they won't listen. There's nothing you can do with them. They're gonna do what they're gonna do.

They're stubborn, they don't receive correction. So we still have a ways to go in the chapter, so I think we're gonna have to end here. So we'll pick up with part two next time, but let's take away a few things.

So what are the takeaways from this chapter, these 10 verses? Number one, the modern church needs strong leadership. We need men more like Moses than we do Aaron. So we don't need any Aarons, we need men like Moses.

Number one. Number two, we need to avoid all forms of idolatry. And number three, if somebody comes and tries to get us to compromise, we can't buckle under the pressure. And maybe you're not a national leader or a leader of a large group of people like Moses or Aaron, or maybe you're not a pastor, but you may be the spiritual leader in your home.

Guess what? Your kids might try to get you to compromise. Your spouse might try to get you to compromise, or you're somewhere else. There's always going to be somebody trying to get you. If you are trying to uphold the faith, mark it down, there's going to be somebody who pressures you and tries to get you to compromise.

I mean, I could give stories, I'm not going to do that. I don't think it would be appropriate, but I know so many people who have received pressure, cultural pressures, kind of what I was talking about earlier and yeah, they buckled.

I don't think they wanted to. I don't think they would have if they wouldn't have gone along with these things normally, but that's what we need. We need strong leaders. Don't cave in to the pressure.

Avoid all forms of idolatry. And the final thing I would say is when we see idolatry, we need to point it out. If God takes idolatry this serious, and he does, we need to warn people because again, not all the Israelites were actually worshiping the golden calf, but because that was allowed, God was prepared to destroy the entire nation because of it.

But thankfully Moses, who's acting as a type of Christ, steps in, intercedes on behalf of the people, and that's what we'll look at next time.