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Broken Devotion

Delivered October 23, 2005
by Pastor Werner De Jong

Text: Exodus 32:1-14

Main Idea: When we lose sight of God's presence the subsequent quest for security can lead us into idolatry, which has severe consequences.

Purpose: To challenge the listeners to maintain their devotion to the God who saved them, especially when God seems distant. To warn the listeners of the consequences of idolatry. To encourage the listeners that we, like Israel, have one who intercedes on our behalf when we sin.

Introduction: One of the important challenges of the Christian life is the ability to maintain faithfulness to God even when God seems distant. As we journey through life there will be times when God seems as close to us as the very air we breathe in. We sometimes call such moments "mountaintop" experiences. But there will also be times when we seem to lose sight of God's presence. And it is at those times that we need to be especially careful, for when God seems distant our insecurities will rise to the forefront, and we will be tempted to turn to something other than God for our security.

Today's Text: The Golden Calf: That is just what happened to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai. After God rescued them from Egypt they entered into a covenant with God, promising to worship and obey the God who had saved them. God had led them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and across the wilderness to Mount Sinai, where God gave them the gift of the law in order that they might know God's will. When Moses read the law to the people, which centred on the ten commandments, they replied, "We will do everything the Lord has said. We will obey" (Exodus 24:7). This was followed by a special sacrifice to ratify their acceptance of the covenant.

      But then Moses went back up the mountain to meet with God. He received the stones on which God engraved the commandments, and he received instructions regarding the building of the tabernacle. For Moses it was a tremendous experience. The glory of God settled on the mountain, and Moses was in the midst of it. That's where the phrase "mountaintop experience" comes from. But it was altogether different for the people waiting at the foot of the mountain. It seemed to them as if they had lost sight of God's presence. For Moses had been gone for a long time, for a period of forty days. And when the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down, they began to get nervous. After all, it was through Moses that God communicated to them. With Moses gone, it now seemed like God was gone. As day after day went by, they began to feel more and more insecure. Now who would meet their needs in this hostile wilderness? Where was Moses? Where was Yahweh? They grew restive and impatient, until finally they could no longer cope with this absence. They needed something to reassure them that everything was going to be okay.

      But their insecurity led them to make a terrible mistake. They took matters into their own hands, and confronted Aaron, Moses' brother, saying: "Look, make us some gods who can lead us. This man, Moses, who brought us here from Egypt, has disappeared. We don't know what has happened to him" (32:1). And Aaron acquiesced to their request. He asked for their golden earrings, which they gladly donated, and he melted them down and fashioned them into the shape of a calf. Then the people exclaimed, "O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of Egypt!" (32:4).

Idolatry: In this way Israel fell sharply from grace. In one fell swoop the people broke the first two commandments which they had promised to obey. They made an idol when God said, "Do not make idols of any kind," and they worshipped a god of their own making when God said, "Do not worship any other gods besides me."

      The Old Testament considers this to be an event of great importance. It was not great in the good sense, but in the bad sense. It marked the tragic fall of Israel. If the story of Adam and Eve speaks of the fall of humanity, the story of the golden calf speaks of the fall of God's special people, who were chosen to reveal God to the world. They were called to be a priestly nation among the nations, mediating God's presence to others. But no sooner had God made a covenant with his people than the people turned away from the very love and power that saved them. They even went so far as to attribute God's great deliverance to the lifeless, lustrous cow before them saying, "This golden calf is the one who delivered us from Egypt." The next day they offered sacrifices to it, and indulged themselves in merrymaking and carousing. It was a completely repugnant act, a terrible denial of the holy God who had guided them safely thus far, and whose loving, gracious hand had provided them with food and drink in the wilderness, even when they repeatedly complained. This idolatry angered God greatly, and he said to Moses: "Leave me alone so my anger can blaze against them and destroy them all" (v. 10). It is no trivial thing to forsake our holy God.

Blindness leads to Idolatry: For our purposes it is important to restate what led to this moment. It was rooted in the fear and insecurity which resulted from Moses' absence. Because Moses was absent, they perceived God to be absent. God, of course, had not actually deserted them. Moses knew this, for he was on the mountain meeting with God, and the irony is that he was receiving a blueprint for the tabernacle, the very tent God was going to dwell in, in the midst of the people. God wanted to live among his people. But the perspective from the bottom of the mountain looked terribly different.

      This brings us back to our opening point. In our Christian lives we need to be especially careful at those times when God seems distant. What causes us to lose sight of God? Many things. Our prayer lives may be weak or non-existent. We may be distracted by problems that loom large in our eyes. We may become gradually caught up in the things of this world so that we slowly lose sight of God's kingdom. And sometimes God even seems to withdraw his presence, as when he went up the mountain with Moses, in order to test us. Regardless, we need to be aware of this fact: when we lose sight of God, when God doesn't seem real to us, we like Israel will be sorely tempted to replace God by searching for life elsewhere. For we all want to feel secure. When we misperceive reality, and think God is distant and uncaring, if we begin to allow ourselves to believe that there is no God who loves us deeply and cherishes us, then our blindness to God's presence will tempt us to idolatry.

      We must not fool ourselves into believing that we could never bow down before the golden calf. The New Testament regards this account as very relevant to the life of the church. In his first letter to the Corinthians the apostle Paul actually quotes from the story, as well as from other infamous accounts from Israel's history, to warn the church against idolatry. And then he adds this thought: "All these events happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us....If you think you too are standing strong, be careful, for you, too, may fall into the same sin" (10:11-12). We need to be on guard for as Brevard Childs writes, "One does not ever reach a state of immunity from this basic temptation."

Idolatry Today: In our sophisticated age idolatry usually looks quite different. Today it is not so much the image of the calf we worship, but the gold from which it is forged. But at the same time, some things haven't changed. In ancient times a bull was seen as a symbol of fertility. The Egyptians and the Canaanites both had flourishing cults of bull worship. For fertile lands and fertile crops meant security. Therefore the images of bulls were ultimately worshipped out of a longing for security. Today we still crave security. Society may not worship a bull to obtain it, but we do worship money. Many people today are rightly saying that money is the god of our culture. The mall is our cathedral, and we prostrate ourselves before all of the things our money can buy. If we feel insecure, the answer is to gain more money. Or the answer is to spend our money, for that also helps us feel better.

      As Christians we need to be so careful in this area. If God feels distant to us, the chances are good that we will be tempted to look to money and material things as a substitute for life. Just like Israel did in the wilderness, surrounding Aaron and demanding: "make us gods who will go before us." They already had the true living God, who with compassion had rescued them, but they became blind to his presence. They wanted an instant solution to their problem. Like Israel in the wilderness we too find it difficult to wait patiently upon God. But when God seems distant, there is nothing we need to do more. When we feel too dry to pray we need to pay particular attention to our spiritual disciplines, for those are the times we need to pray the most. For the truth of the matter is that God is always with us. Our risen Lord has promised never to leave us. When we feel dry there is therefore no better advice than to continue digging our well deeper, by engaging in prayer and Bible study and loving service and meditation. As we do this our roots will go deep down and find again the life giving water Jesus offers.

      But the temptation is always to look for a shortcut. Why wait for Moses to come down the mountain when you can quickly relieve your anxiety by making a god of your own? The temptation to search for a quick substitute is particularly strong in our society, where we are scarcely used to having to wait for anything. And there is nothing like money and material things to produce an instant, tangible reward. But those who spread their roots in the shallow soil of materialism will never be deeply rooted. Money may provide us with temporary feelings of security, but it will not enable us to stand when strong storms blow in our lives. Nonetheless, because it promises instant satisfaction, millions of North Americans are seduced by its easy allure, and we in the church are not immune from the temptation to prostrate ourselves before it.

      This week I witnessed an extreme example of that as I changed the TV channel to Vision TV. There was a preacher talking in front of a very large congregation, and he was waving around a green handkerchief. And many in the congregation also had green handkerchiefs. He called it a "prosperity handkerchief," and he told his congregation: "If you take this handkerchief and place it on your wallet, God will bless your finances. If you place it on a part of your body where you are sick, God will heal you." And then he turned to the TV audience and placed the handkerchief right next to the camera lens and said: "I invite you to come now and to place your hand on your television screen and touch the green prosperity handkerchief, and God will bless you." It was a classic example of the prosperity gospel, a popular perversion of God's Word, which promises material blessings to a society already richer and healthier than any other in the world. This was a very blatant example of financial idolatry. It rightly turns many people off. But is it any different if we are more subtle in our approach? We may worship the god of money with exuberant excess, but if in our hearts we quietly look to our wealth for security and meaning, isn't that also false worship? Isn't it idolatry in either case?

A Strong Warning: Therefore we need to consider carefully the words the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy: "If we have enough food and clothing, let us be content. But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is at the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows" (1 Tim. 6:8-10). Today's text contains an even stronger warning for us, when God said to Moses, "Quick! Go down the mountain! The people you brought from Egypt have defiled themselves....They have made an idol, shaped like a calf, and they have worshipped and sacrificed to it....Now leave me alone so my anger can blaze against them and destroy them all." Idolatry is a deadly serious matter, whether we bow down to a golden calf or to gold itself. As Waldermar Janzen writes in his commentary, "It is a terrible thing, deserving the sentence of death, to betray the true Lord and worship idols" (Exodus, Herald Press Commentary).

      But who then can stand before God? Can any of us claim that our devotion to God has been flawless? In his commentary James Newsome wrote, "Everyone kneels before the golden calf, everyone who has received the saving love of God with less than the full devotion that it demands–and that includes us all" (Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV–Year A). If we like Israel have betrayed God by breaking the greatest commandment to love God with everything within us, how then can we stand?

God's Grace: Only by the grace of God. God's grace is written all over the story of the golden calf, for in the end, when Moses interceded on behalf of the people, God relented and held back his severe but just judgment. Moses stepped into the breach and prayed on behalf of his people and God spared them. A number of other Old Testament texts also recall how God restrained judgment because of the intercession of a just mediator. We should not interpret this to mean that God is indecisive. There is every reason to have a healthy fear of God. But God's relenting shows that God's justice is tempered with mercy.

      There is a profound paradox in God's response to Moses. At first blush it seems that Moses somehow had to coerce God to change his mind. A quick reading of the story suggests that after the act of idolatry God is now against Israel, while Moses is the people's only hope. But God himself deliberately left the door of hope open when he said to Moses, "leave me alone, so I can judge." That gave Moses the option–he could leave God alone to work out his proposed judgment, but how could he walk down the mountain without at least trying to save the people? Instead Moses took the hint and chose the only other option available, and interceded on behalf of the people. God could simply have shut the door, but God allowed himself to be persuaded. In God's mysterious ways God chooses to work through the prayers of his people, and God prompted Moses to pray when prayer was needed the most.

      This account clarifies several things: God's wrath against idolatry is real; intercession was therefore absolutely vital; and it was only God's grace which provided the intercessor and spared the people from the consequences of their own action.

Our Mediator: If we therefore ask "what hope is there for us when we fall?" the answer would seem to be, "we too need a mediator." For God is remains a righteous judge, and a righteous judge cannot simply look the other way when the law is broken. But Moses is dead. Who will mediate for us? Who cares enough about us to stand in the breach on our behalf? The book of Hebrews takes up that question in earnest. It celebrates the good news that there is a mediator for us who is far superior even than Moses. Who is this mediator? Listen to the words of Hebrews: "You have come to God, the judge of all men...(and) to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant" (12:6). And the apostle Paul, in his letter to Timothy, wrote this: "For there is only one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and people. He is the man Christ Jesus. He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone" (1 Tim. 2:5). And so in a surprising way Israel's fall from grace as the people prostituted themselves and worshipped the golden calf actually foreshadows the heart of the gospel. For the story ends with the loving God, who had led Israel this far, providing a mediator for Israel, even as God has provided a greater mediator for all fallen human beings, his very own Son. And as the gospel of John says, "whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life" (3:16).

      In this we see how much God loves us. For how did God reconcile both the divine need for justice and his own heart's desire to show mercy? He did it by dying in our place. When Jesus went to the cross, he carried all of our sins upon himself. God dealt with our sin there, so we can justly be forgiven, and now the mercy of God has, in a manner of speaking, won the day! "Therefore," writes the author of Hebrews, "he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them" (7:25).

Application and Conclusion: These are the precious truths we must keep sight of whenever God feels distant. Jesus loves us, and gave his life for us, and through his sacrifice we have been saved through faith from the just consequences of our sin. May we always discipline ourselves to remember how much God loves us. The people of Israel stumbled and fell precisely because they failed to remember the loving God who saved them. Therefore during those times when God doesn't seem present, when we find ourselves with Israel at the foot of the mountain, may we commit ourselves all the more to prayer and devotion, for that is when we need it the most. And may we resist the temptation to turn to idols of any kind for our security, because Christ is all-sufficient for us, and claims our exclusive allegiance. The Bible is very stern about the evil of practising idolatry, but it is equally as insistent that those who turn from idols to God will receive God's gracious forgiveness. I leave you with the words of 1 John: "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). Amen.

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