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Exodus 32:1-29
Skip Heitzig

Exodus 32 (NKJV™)
1 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."
2 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."
3 "So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron.
4 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!"
5 So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, "Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD."
6 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.
7 And the LORD said to Moses, "Go, get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.
8 "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!'"
9 And the LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people!
10 "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."
11 Then Moses pleaded with the LORD his God, and said: "LORD, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
12 "Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, 'He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth'? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to Your people.
13 "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'"
14 So the LORD relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.
15 And Moses turned and went down from the mountain, and the two tablets of the Testimony were in his hand. The tablets were written on both sides; on the one side and on the other they were written.
16 Now the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets.
17 And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, "There is a noise of war in the camp."
18 But he said: "It is not the noise of the shout of victory, Nor the noise of the cry of defeat, But the sound of singing I hear."
19 So it was, as soon as he came near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing. So Moses' anger became hot, and he cast the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.
20 Then he took the calf which they had made, burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder; and he scattered it on the water and made the children of Israel drink it.
21 And Moses said to Aaron, "What did this people do to you that you have brought so great a sin upon them?"
22 So Aaron said, "Do not let the anger of my lord become hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil.
23 "For they said to me, 'Make us gods that shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.'
24 "And I said to them, 'Whoever has any gold, let them break it off.' So they gave it to me, and I cast it into the fire, and this calf came out."
25 Now when Moses saw that the people were unrestrained (for Aaron had not restrained them, to their shame among their enemies),
26 then Moses stood in the entrance of the camp, and said, "Whoever is on the LORD'S side--come to me." And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him.
27 And he said to them, "Thus says the LORD God of Israel: 'Let every man put his sword on his side, and go in and out from entrance to entrance throughout the camp, and let every man kill his brother, every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.'"
28 So the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And about three thousand men of the people fell that day.
29 Then Moses said, "Consecrate yourselves today to the LORD, that He may bestow on you a blessing this day, for every man has opposed his son and his brother."

New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved.

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02 Exodus - 2011

The Lord revealed His tender care and awesome power to the children of Israel--yet in just forty days they became disconnected from Him. As Moses communed intimately with God on the mountaintop at Sinai, the people attempted to worship Him in the wrong manner on the valley floor. As we examine Exodus 32, let's consider their sin and how it was dealt with.

Beginning in the brickyards of Egypt and ending in the tabernacle filled with God's presence, the book of Exodus chronicles the deliverance of God's people from Egypt and records the end of their oppression under Pharaoh. It also provides an account of the beginning of a prophecy fulfilled: God promised Abraham descendants beyond number, and on the pages of Exodus we see Israel become a great nation.

In this verse-by-verse study, Pastor Skip Heitzig presents an in-depth look at Moses, the ten plagues, the ten commandments, the desert wanderings, the construction of the tabernacle, and more. As we study, we'll see the grace of God, witness the glory of the Lord, and a catch a glimpse of Israel's coming Savior.

Visit expoundabq.org for more information on this series.

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Detailed Notes

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  1. Introduction
    1. Many people have a mental picture of what God is like
      1. I picture God as...
      2. "Metal Images are the consequence of mental images."—J. I. Packer
      3. People want a visual reminder of God
    2. Exodus: So far, so good
      1. God delivered the people out of Egypt
      2. They crossed the Red Sea
      3. Pillar of cloud and pillar of fire for navigation
      4. Moses received the 10 commandments and gave them to the people
      5. Blueprints for the tabernacle
      6. Instructions for the priesthood
    3. "Romans 7 of the Old Testament": the law exacerbates sinful behavior and sinful mind
    4. Two sources of information about God
      1. Revelation: the Bible
      2. Imagination: make it up as you go along
    5. Scene shifts from the mountaintop with Moses to the valley with the children of Israel
      1. Problem with mountaintop experience: you come back down the mountain
      2. Transfiguration:  came down and met a demon possessed man
      3. Moses comes down and finds God's people engaged in idolatry and sinful revelry (it's been 1 month and 10 days)
    6. Idolatry
    7. Idol, idols,  idolatry mentioned 111 times in the Old Testament
    8. Anything in your life that takes the place of God
  2. The people sin
    1. Hard to have a personal relationship when you can't see the Person
      1. The Invisible Man, by H. G. Wells
      2. Israel struggling with the idea of a God they can't see
      3. Moses:  "Please, show me Your glory." (Exodus 33:18)
      4. "Truly You are God, who hide Yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior!" (Isaiah 45:15)
      5. We look forward to the second coming: "Looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ," (Titus 2:13)
      6. We walk by faith, not by sight
    2. Hard for God's people to wait for Him
      1. "But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength;" (Isaiah 40:31)
      2. We want instant gratification
      3. As we wait, our entire belief system can be shaken
      4. They had seen thundering, lightning, and what looked like fire
      5. Waiting nearly six weeks, thought perhaps Moses had died
      6. They are not switching gods; they want a physical, visible representation of the God they have a covenant with
        1. LORD: Yahweh (v. 5)
        2. Knew God, but not worshiping him in the way He want to be worshiped
          1. Forbidden to worship  a false god (See Exodus 20:2-3)
          2. Forbidden to worship the right God in the wrong manner (See Exodus 20:4-6)
    3. The false worship
      1. Bizarre syncretism
        1. Idol
        2. Altar
        3. Feast to Yahweh
      2. The people indulge in pagan revelry
        1. "To play" – illicit sexual activity
        2. Worship practice of the Canaanites
        3. "They sat down to feast and drink at a wild party, followed by sexual immorality." (v. 6 –The Living Bible)
      3. The gold calf
        1. Egyptian god Apis
          1. strength power and virility
          2. Osiris' strength depicted as he rode Apis
        2. They wanted an image that represented Yahweh as strong, powerful, virile
    4. Problems
      1. Peer pressure
        1. Surrounded by pagan worship
          1. In Egypt
          2. Will be in Canaan
          3. Mixed multitude
        2. Images are more than the icon itself
          1. Belief that the god dwells and relates through the icon
          2. Ritualistic bathing and dressing of gods
          3. Food offerings
      2. Personal loss
        1. Those who live in intimate communion with God need no reminder
        2. This blot on Israel's record is remembered nearly as much as the Exodus
          1. "The people made a calf at Mount Sinai; they bowed before an image made of gold. They traded their glorious God for a statue of a grass-eating ox! They forgot God, their savior, who had done such great things in Egypt -- such wonderful things in that land, such awesome deeds at the Red Sea. So he declared he would destroy them. But Moses, his chosen one, stepped between the LORD and the people. He begged him to turn from his anger and not destroy them." (Psalm 106:19-23)
          2. Ezekiel
          3. Stephen (See Acts 7:41)
    5. God does not allow a visual representation of Himself
      1. Any image of God obscures His glory
        1. God is spirit: unlimited and boundless in nature
        2. An image denies the basic nature of God
        3. "To whom, then, can we compare God? What image might we find to resemble him?" (Isaiah 40:18)
        4. Egyptian belief
          1. Apis the bull was born of a flash of light from heaven
          2. Flashes on the mountain reminded Israel of the myth
        5. The calf says nothing of God's moral characteristics: love, grace goodness, mercy
      2. Images mislead people
        1. Their worship was in agreement with the image: strong and frenzied
        2. People bloody selves, painful worship because of an image of Jesus suffering
    6. I will make of You a great nation
      1. God offered Moses what he had offered Abraham (See Genesis 12)
      2. Your people/My people (note contrast between v. 7 and 11)
      3. God drew Moses to intercede
        1. Moses pleaded with God for His glory
        2. Moses reminds God of His covenant
    7. God relented
      1. "Repented" KJV
      2. "God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent." (Numbers 23:19)
      3. Anthropomorphism: a divine response explained in human language
        1. "For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth," (2 Chronicles 16:9)
        2. "Hand of the Lord my God was upon me;" (Ezra 7:28)
        3. "Shadow of Your wings" (Psalm 17:8)
      4. God never does anything out of the boundaries of His character
        1. He did not change His mind
        2. He threatened judgment; He did not make a decree
  3. Moses comes down from the mountain
    1. The writing was the writing of God
    2. Joshua was Moses' assistant
      1. Joshua is a soldier
      2. The noise of war in the camp
      3. Moses heard singing
    3. Moses broke the tablets
      1. He was angry
      2. Symbolic of the people breaking God's laws
    4. The gold calf
      1. Burned it (wood covered with gold)
      2. Ground it and made them drink it
        1. Wants their sin to make them sick
        2. Would become their waste (what God thought of their idol)
    5. Jews grow to become strongly against images
      1. Struggle throughout their history
      2. In part led to crucifixion of Christ: Pontius Pilate
        1. Offended the Jews: images of Caesar on ensign
          1. Pilate threatened to behead those who objected
          2. Jews were willing to die
          3. Removed the ensign: Caesar not happy – strike one
        2. Images of Tiberius on shield
          1. Jews went to Caesar
          2. He rebuked Pilate - strike two
        3. Another uprising could end his career: "If you let this Man go, you are not Caesar's friend. Whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar." (John 19:12)
    6. The excuse
      1. It just walked out
      2. When you sin, you come up with an excuse
        1. People
        2. Circumstances
    7. Those who persisted in idolatry were struck down
      1. A small percentage of the people 1/1000
      2. First day of the covenant 3000 killed
      3. First day of the new covenant, day of Pentecost, 3000 saved
      4. Sometimes radical surgery is necessary
    8. Depravity so soon
      1. Ananias and Sapphira
      2. Corinthian church
      3. Nature of fallen man: spiritual entropy
      4. "But exhort one another daily, while it is called 'Today,' lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." (Hebrews 3:13)
      5. Man at his best is still man

Figures Referenced: Friedrich Nietzsche
Publications Referenced: The Invisible Man, by H. G. Wells
Cross References: Genesis 12; Exodus 20:2-3; Exodus 20:4-6; Exodus 33:18; 2 Chronicles 16:9; Ezra 7:28; Psalm 17:8; Psalm 106:19-23; Isaiah 40:18; Isaiah 40:31; Isaiah 45:15; John 19:12; Acts 7:41; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 3:13

Transcript

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Turn in your bibles tonight to the 32nd Chapter of the Book of Exodus, Exodus Chapter 32.  Oh as I figure we'll get through one chapter because this is one of those great chapters.  We don't really want to miss anything.  Moses comes down off the mountain back down to the camp in this chapter.

Exodus Chapter 32, just a reminder if you made the wrong turn that's what you're thinking perhaps, you ended up here tonight.  We really didn't' know how you kind of gotten the wrong direction.  You find yourself seated here and you go-- we'll know what's going to happen?  Well, let me tell you what's going to happen.

We're going to a bible study until 8:00 o'clock, is that right, 8:30?  Yeah, pretty bad when the guy up here doesn't know what time it is.  So for just under the next hour were going to be in this chapter of the bible.  If that's too much for you, if that's too big of a commitment to make, we would simply ask and we will honor your choice.  We won't get down on you.  We will just simply ask that is we bow our heads and pray ones more for God to reveal himself in his word that you would find a seat right next to an exit or on the other side in the family room or somewhere in the foyer so that if you decide to leave in the middle of this service, no one will notice you and you can go on your merry way and you wouldn't be a destruction to the word as its being spoken.  Let's pray.

Lord we do as Paul said, "Place ourselves before you and surrender ourselves before you as living sacrifices and we do that."  Our bodies are yours you gave life to us and here we are devoting this next almost hour of our time to think through with our minds and to apply in our lives the history, the principles, the truths were spoken through Moses, to your people thousands of years ago.  The lessons still live the word of God is alive, it's powerful.  Now we pray that it would powerfully work in everyone who has come.  In Jesus Name, Amen.

In your mind complete this sentence, I picture God as -- I picture God as -- because everyday people are feeling in the blank and answering that question or completing that sentence.  I picture God as a smiling, tolerant, grandfather in the sky.  I picture God as a mystical forest or essence surrounding all of the universe or I picture God as a distant, aloof, detached, being who wound the universe and walked away.  Or I picture God not as a Him but as a Her.  The great goddess, why a male, why not a female?

People have and carry around in their minds some picture, not everyone that many people, a picture, an idea of what God is like.  Now what is that important?  Well J.I. Packer tells us why?  J.I. Packer was some of you know the professor of Theology, up and region college in Vancouver.  He put it this way.  Metal images are the consequence of mental images.  People make out or wood or metal they fashion an image based upon how they think God is.  Metal images, are the consequence of mental image.  So with that introduction, we come now to Chapter 32 of the Book of Exodus where the people had something in their mind about God that really wasn't working out so far with Moses up on that mountain for a month and ten days.

And they want to make things a little bit different.  They want a visual reminder of God.  And they will cast a metal image based upon a mental image.  Chapter 32, I'm going to call it the "Oh, oh" Chapter of the Book of Exodus.  God delivers the people of Israel out of Egypt.  So far so good.  They cross the Red Sea, so far so good.  A pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire at night helps them navigate, so far so good.  Moses goes up on the mountain gets the Ten Commandments, and gives to the people, so far so good.

Goes back up again, gets the blueprints for the tabernacle.  The priesthood is separate, so far so good.  Now we come to the Chapter 32 in its "oh, oh", this isn't good.  What happens here is -- well it's sort of like the Romans 7 of the Old Testament.  You're going through the book of Romans then suddenly Paul has this confessional chapter of "Oh wretched men that I am who will deliver me from the body of this death."  And he speaks about how the law exacerbates his own sinful behavior and sinful heart and sinful mind and how cries out for deliverance and for redemption.

That's sort of what we have here in the Book of Exodus.  The scene shifts, if this were a film and I were the camera man, the camera that has been on Moses on the mountain quickly pans down to the valley where we look at the people.  So we go from the mountaintop above with Moses to the valley floor beneath with the children of Israel.

On the mountain there has been revelation.  In the valley there is now imagination.  Actually there are only two sources of information that you can get about God.  And one is Revelation, "God will reveal himself."  He will disclose who he is and he has done that through the bible.  He has revealed his character, his nature, his wishes, what he loves, what he hates.  His plan for your life all in the principles of the word of God.  That's Revelation.

If you push Revelation aside, as we will see happens here, you are only left with making it up as you go along, imagination.  So either through God's revelation or man's imagination, people have a concept of who God is.  So, Moses has been on the mountain Chapter 32, he goes down.  See that is, that is always the problem with the mountain top experience.  In every mountaintop experience, you got to got come down the mountain.  You know what it's like.  You go to a retreat, up and Glorietta, up in the mountains, the air is cool, the worship is great, the fellowship is perfect.  Everything is good, your challenged, you're comforted.  It's been a wonderful mountaintop experience at the retreat and then you go back to life as normal.  Go back down the mountain and we find this principle through scripture even in the New Testament.

Jesus went up on a high mountain, took his disciples with him especially Peter, James and John.  They saw this huge vision of Moses and Elijah transfigured with Jesus Christ and their talking about the coming kingdom, wow!  But then they came down the mountain and what was meeting them a demon possessed man.  Moses comes down the mountain and what does he find?  A people, His people, God's people engaged in idolatry and sinful revelry already.  It only took a month and ten days.

Idolatry is rampant in the camp.  If you were to look up the word idol or idols or idolatry, you would find that it appears 111 times in the Old Testament alone.  Significantly last in the New Testament but a 111 times in the Old Testament.  What is an idol?  An idol is anything in your life that takes the place of God, anything that you let divert attention away from the primary objective and that is to know and to worship God.

Things that aren't idols can become idols but back to our story in Chapter 32.  It says 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 God's that shall go before us.  Stop right there.  It's hard to have a relationship when the person you're having a relationship with, you can't see.  When the person you're having a relationship with you can't see.  Invisible, back in 1897, the author H. G. Wells wrote a fun little idea book called, "The Invisible Man."  The idea of the invisible man is through modern Chemistry, as modern as it could be back then.

This man could make himself invisible so that he could be in a room, you would notice in a room he could choose to reveal himself or not and you couldn't see him unless he did something, wore something, put paint on or some kind of manifesting mechanism for people to see him.

And what he discovered is that it wasn't a good idea to be invisible.  The people started not trusting somebody they couldn't see.  And nobody liked the idea if somebody being in the room, hearing them or watching them if they didn't have the benefit of knowing he was in the room.

The children of Israel after one month and ten days are struggling with this idea of the invisibility of God.  Even Moses, we'll read about it in the next chapter.  In Chapter 33, even though Moses has seen incredible, physical, visible, manifestations of God, he cries to God in Chapter 33, "Oh God, show me your glory."  He wants to see God, basically we're a people who are visual, we want to see, we can relate to what Isaiah said, In Isaiah Chapter 45 when Isaiah said verily, "Your are a God who hides themselves, and like the little boy who said to his mommy, "You sure God is up there?"  "Oh yes sweetheart.  He's up there" and then he said, "Mommy don't you wish you just poke his head through once in a while, so we could see him?"  He's not the only one.

Moses desired that the people of Israel desired it and that is what is so appealing to us about the coming of Jesus Christ.  As it says in the New Testament, looking for that blessed hope and that glorious appearing of our great God and savior Jesus Christ.  We want to see him, we want to have the completion of our life when we can lay our eyes and behold Him.  And we will, one day.  Until that day, you and I are in a position of walking by faith and not by sight.  After a month and ten days, the people of Israel got tired of that.

So, they approached Aaron and they said, "Come let us make God that shall go before us."  As for this man Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.  It seems that it's always hard for God's people to wait for God.  We hate to wait.  We sing.  I must wait, wait, wait, wait on the Lord but I hate, hate, hate doing it.  But the bible says those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength, yes they will.  But at first though loose their patience.  It takes a while to gain their strength because we hate the idea of waiting on the Lord, we want instant gratification.

And if God doesn't come through when we think he ought to come through, our whole belief system can tremble sometimes.  I think we're seeing that with these people.  Now, from their vantage point in the valley looking up on Mount Sinai, if you remember the description the bible tells us that there were thunderings, there was lightning, there was this tremendous sounds and it looked like the appearance of fire on the mountain.

So, they've been waiting a week, two weeks, five weeks, six weeks almost, and so they get a little bit antsy and they figured, he probably died in that explosion that fire whatever was going on up out there.  He probably died in it.  He's not coming back down.  So, they're going to do something about it.  Now let me just set the record straight so your mind didn't go on the wrong direction.

They're not switching Gods here.  They're going to do something that feels and looks a lot like something they would have seen in Egypt with pagan idolaters but they're not switching God's here.  What is happening here is they want a physical, visible manifestation or representation of the God that they're called to have a covenant with.

Then I say that because by the time we get down to Verse 5, they're going to have a festival to Yahweh, they're going to make a golden calf but have a festival to the Lord and that's in capital letters in Verse 5.  And that always signifies in the Old Testament the covenant name with Yahweh.  They new the God, they were called to worship and serve.  But they're not worshipping God the way God wants to be worshipped Verse 2.  And Aaron said to them, "Break up the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, your sons interesting, 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.

Now with that gold, they're going to make an idol, a representation, an image, an icon.  If you remember in your mind back to Exodus Chapter 20 the first two commandments, the first being, "I am the Lord your God, you will have no other Gods besides me or before me."  And the second is "You won't make an image to represent me."  In terms of using that image to worship.  So the first commandment was forbidding them to worship the wrong God or a false God.

The second commandment was forbidding them to worship the right God in the wrong manner.  That's just as important to God.  Not only are to worship the right God but you're to worship the right God in the right manner.  And part of that is you will have known images before me.  Verse 4, "And he received the gold from their hand and he," that is Aaron now, "is the first high priest."  This is Moses' bro, he was the co-leader before Pharaoh.  He fashioned it with an engraving tool and he made them molded calf.  Then the, the people of Israel said, "This is your God, O Israel that brought you out of the land of Egypt."  And I can hear them chanting that over and over again.

When Aaron's saw it, now I've read this true several times and when I was doing a fresh read this week, I always anticipate reading something like this and when Aaron saw it he came to his senses and was appalled and said, "Oops, we made a mistake."  Unfortunately, we don't read that.  When Aaron saw it he built in alter before it.  And Aaron made a proclamation and said tomorrow is the Feast to Yahweh or Feast to the Lord.

So, what bizarre syncretism this is or a mish mash of worship ideas.  You've got an idol, you've got an alter and you've got Feast to Yahweh.  Since they're making it up as they go along.  Verse 6, "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 if you have a new international version that says, "To indulge in pagan revelry.

The idea of the verb to play, means to get involved in illicit immoral sexual behavior, the kind of worship practices that the Canaanites often practiced.  I told you before about how they use to worship Bael, the chief God in nature.  And that's the idea is to rise up and play.  In fact listen to that verse in the living bible, it renders it this way.  "They sat down to feast, drink at a wild party, followed by sexual immorality."  Now, what's the deal with this golden calf?  Where do they come from?  What country had they been in?  Egypt.  In Egypt one of the representations in the pantheon of the Gods that were worshipped was a bull by the name of APIS.  He was the symbol of strength, power, virility.  It seems that they wanted an image that represented Yahweh, this covenant God as a strong God.  A powerful God, a virile God.  So what we have is God's people patterning their style of worship after what they had seen in the pagan land of Egypt.

Just a little heads up on this idea of worshipping the bull.  The Chief God in Egypt and there's a heart that really ascertain what that was and what dynasty but Osiris was often depicted as writing upon APIS the bull.  Using APIS as the platform to show off Osiris.  The strength of Osiris was seen by the strength of APIS that's how it was depicted in the mythology of the Egyptians.

So we have some problems going on here.  As to why they did it.  I'm going to suggest a couple.  Number one is peer pressure.  It's good to have peers and peer pressure can be good if it's good for your pressure.

But this is bad peer pressure.  The people of Israel lived in Egypt and were surrounded by a pagan style of worship.  They're on their way to Canaan.  Again, they will be surrounded by pagan worship and in the camp of Israel, is a group called the Mixed Multitude.  Many of them are Egyptians word gets out, "Hey, you know this whole Yahweh thing isn't working out for out guys, is it?  This Moses, this mediator he's not coming back, is he?"  We always had visible representations of our Gods, we could be reminded of how strong and powerful that God is when we have icons.

I don't know what channels these idea went through, but the gold was cast and they had their pagan idol.  You ought to know something about images in ancient times.  It was more than just a depiction.  The belief of the ancient worshippers was that the spirit of the God would reside in the icon itself.  So that whatever happened around the icon or to the icon, the God, wherever that God would be, would sense and feel those things and be able to relate to people through the icon.  So in ancient Egypt and in ancient Mesopotamia, they would often have ritualistic practices of bathing the Gods, cleaning them up which made the Gods really happy.  And then, they would put clothes, little fashion statements on their Gods, which again would make the Gods really happy, you dressed your God up today.

And then they would bring food offerings like milk and meat, and place it before the idol, and their belief was that the God itself was deriving strength from the human food placed in front of the icon.  Oh excuse me, but I don't want to worship any god that I have to dress, been there, done that, they're called children.  I don't want to have to worship any god that I have to feed all the time.  But that was the belief system and that seems to be the idea that has permeated the camp of Israel, peer pressure.

So many people around them were worshipping God a completely different way, the singular way.  They just didn't get into it.  God was invisible, they need a visual representation.

Here's another problem and I believe this really at the heart of idolatry in general.  That is the problem of personal laws, if I say, "Well, I need a statue to remind me of God."  That indicates something about myself, that my relationship with God is so weak, that I need a reminder.  People that have an intimate close, ongoing, abiding relationship with Christ, they don't need a reminder.  Friedrich Nietzsche once said, "God is dead."  I beg to differ.  I just spoke to him this morning.  He's alive and well, and every thing's under his control.  But when a person makes an idol, it's making a statement about the person that he has lost intimacy with God and he is trying desperately to gain back that intimacy by carving a reminder to "on cue," remind him of the God that he lost.

Now, let me throw you something else at you.  Did you know that the incident here in chapter 32 and this way I'm slowing down on this chapter.  This will become as important almost in the history, in the annals of Israel, as the Exodus itself.  What I mean by that is, as the story of the Exodus will be told and retold and retold throughout Jewish history, what happens in this chapter becomes a blot on their historical record and they're reminded of this, time and time again.  And I'm just going to give you once scripture.  There are several but I'm just wanted to trim it down and this is out of Psalm 106:19, "They made a calf in Horeb and worshipped the molded image.  Thus they changed their glory into an image of an ox that eats grass.  They forgot God, their savior, who had done great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the Land of Ham, awesome things by the red sea, therefore he said that he would destroy them, had not Moses, his chosen one, stood before him in the breach to turn away his wrath lest he destroy them."  So, this failure becomes the blot that will never go away will be woven in to Jewish history and retold throughout generations by the Psalmist, by the prophet Ezekiel, by Steven in the book of Acts chapter 7, as he recalls the history of Israel before the Sanhedrin

Verse 7, "The Lord said to Moses, "Go, get down"", he didn't mean this in a rhythmic sense, like "Dude, get down Moses".  But literally, physically descend, get down for your people whom you brought out of the Land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.  Interesting, did you notice how God put that.  See, up to this point, God has always called them, "My people".  He has, He's called them "My people, these are my people that I'm bringing out".  Now, he says "Moses, your people whom you brought out of Egypt", does that sort of sound like a husband and wife, when the son or daughter misbehaves?  "I'm so proud of my boy until he misbehaves."  "Your son, you wouldn't believe what he did today."  Well, understand though, please don't place God in that position, there's a deeper reason for that, I'll get to in a moment.

Verse 8, "They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them.  They have made themselves a molded calf and then worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, 'This is your God, oh Israel that brought you out of the Land of Egypt.'".  Now, it could be that if you're not familiar with this text or you're sort of new to bible study.  You might be thinking at this point, "Okay, so what's the big deal?"  For God to not allow a visual idea or representation, a form of him on the earth.  What's the big deal?  If the people of Israel are weak in their faith and they need a visual, why wouldn't God let them have a visual.  I'm glad you asked that.  Why I'm glad I asked that for you?

Number one, any image made of God obscures the glory of God and this image of Apis, the Bull or God Yahweh as the strong, commanding type with a gold calf, obscured the glory of God.  Here's why, God is spirit.  God is unlimited in his essence and his nature.  God is boundless.  If He's limitless, He's boundless because He is spiritual.  The moment you make a physical image of God, I don't care what representation it is, you are now limiting God by casting him as an image.  You're denying some of the very basic nature of God and that God is unlimited and boundless.  So, it obscures the glory of God.

The prophet Isaiah said, "To whom, were you likened God or what likeness will you compare to God?"  What representation could possibly be made by the world's best artist that would capture all of God's glory, answer is none.  God transcends any depiction of him.  Thus, to limit God by a depiction according to God is wrong.  And here's the belief in Egypt, go back to Egypt for a moment.  The belief was that a flash of light happened over a cow in Egypt at some point in their history.  Like a lightning bolt or this brilliant flash of light that hovered over a cow and the result was that, the calf that was born was this deity, Apis, the Bull.  Apis, the Bull was born by a flash of light that came from heaven.  What did the people see as they looked on that mountain, flashes of light.  It reminded them of the myths of the Egyptians that they have been raised with for years.  And so, they made this representation.  Okay, I get it, God is strong, that's what we're trying to say by the golden calf.  But the golden calf says nothing about God's moral characteristics, his love, his grace, his goodness, his mercy, none of that is represented by the strength and virility of a golden calf.

Number two, not only do images obscure the glory of God, images mislead people.  It's not just what statement you're making by the image, it is what is the last out, this sort of dovetail points one and two, but it's what the image doesn't reveal about God.  It is psychological fact that if you focused on an image of the one that you're praying too, you come to picture the one you're praying as the image it represents.

So, they're picturing a strong commanding, virile God in Apis the Bull.  What is their worship like, strong, frenzied worship, their worship is commiserate with the depiction they have made of God and the golden calf.  So, they're worshipping in a strong, frenzied, kind of a fashion because that's the depiction, that's what they're focusing on.  If I pray to a depiction of Jesus Christ hanging on a cross, the greatest work he ever did upon the earth, he sacrifice for me, he bloodied himself he paid for my sins as we sang tonight.  As wonderful as that act is, I'm looking at that image, I can fixate upon that image and my worship can, I'm not saying always will, but can become a morbid kind of worship.  And there are groups of people that crawl on their knees to shrines, bloody themselves up, beat themselves with whips.  Because of that image, that icon, that picture of Jesus suffering for them, their worship is filled with pain and suffering.  Because of this very, very fact obscures the glory of God and it can mislead people in the totality of the revelation of God.

Verse 9, "And the Lord said to Moses, "I have seen these people and indeed it is a stiff-necked people, now therefore, let me alone that wrath may burn hot against them that I may consume them and I will make of you, Moses, a great nation.""  Did you hear what he's saying here?  Do you understand that, God by that last couple of sentences is basically offering Moses, the deal that he made to Abraham?  Back in Genesis chapter 12, God said to Abraham, "I'm going to make out of you a great nation, out of your family, I'm going to start with you, I brought you out of (32:16) and it's through you and your progeny that I'm going to make a great nation"".  So, there was Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and the sons of Jacob, and they multiplied in Egypt and God is saying, "You know what, I'm willing to start from scratch to get rid of all them and do what I did with Abraham again through you Moses".  Now, I wonder if I were in Moses' shoes, what I would do.  If that offer were made me, I don't know how much you know about the wilderness wanderings, or what Moses had to put up with, and how much he bore the complaints and the angst and the anger and the threats for years of the people of Israel.

But, if God made this offer especially a little bit later on in Moses' experience, I'd be tempted to take the offer.  But, Moses pleaded with the Lord.  Verse 11, "He pleaded with the Lord, his God, and he said, "Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people whom you have brought out of the Land of Egypt, with great power and a mighty hand.""  I'm doing that on purpose, I want you to compare those two verses, in fact, go back to verse 7, "The Lord said to Moses, "Get down for your people whom you brought out of the Land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.""  Verse 11, "Moses pleaded with the Lord his God, "Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people whom you brought out of the Land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand.""  And let me tell you, that I believe that the reason God phrased it to Moses as he did in verse 11, was to draw something out of Moses and that was intercession.  God had a plan, God had a purpose, he wasn't like vacillating and fluctuating.  He makes a threat but not a decree.  I'll get back to that in a moment.

But what he's doing is saying this, he wants Moses to hear it.  It sort of shocks him and Moses starts praying, and what's interesting is he prays not as much for the people as for the glory and honor of God, the reputation that God's going to get around the world.  If he were to kill these people and start all over again, it would be bad rap on God's character.  So he reminds God that they're his people that it was a covenant that he made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, God's been faithful to that, reminding God of the promise not because god forgotten but he is standing upon the word, the promise that God has made.

God is trying to draw out for Moses' intercession.  He wants Moses involved in praying for his people and he does.  Moses continues in verse 12, "Why should the Egyptians speak and say he, Yahweh, brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth.  Turn from your fears' wrath and relent from this harm to your people.  Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants to whom you swore by your own self and said to them, "I multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and all these land that I have spoken of, I would give to your descendants and they shall inherit it forever.""  So, the Lord relented from the harm which he said he would to his people.

This verse bothers lots of folks.  The idea of God relenting or as the old King James put it, repenting, when the Bible and the Old Covenant in the Old Testament, God says, "I am not a man", God is not man that he should lie or the son of man that he should repent.  So, why is the word used here by Moses, the author of this book saying, "So the Lord relented."  We call this, you will call this an anthropomorphism you may want to write that down, you'll impress people if you say it tomorrow.  Anthropomorphism, an anthropomorphism is expressing in human language a divine response, a divine action, a divine activity expressed in human language is an anthropomorphism.  It's simply because God is invisible.  God is outside our time and space continuum.  God is transcendent and the only way humans are going to figure God out at all or understand God is to have them somewhat expressed in human terms.  The eyes of the Lord go to and fro throughout the earth, that's anthropomorphism.  The hand of God was upon me, said Ezra, that's anthropomorphism.  God didn't have eyes necessarily or two hands.  Any more than as David said, "I hide under the shadow of the Lord's wings."  God isn't a chicken.

These are depictions that humans get to describe the divine action or divine response.  This is how I see it, God never does anything outside of the boundaries of his own nature and character.  God is not changing His mind.  He knew exactly what he was going to do.  He makes a threat not a decree to destroy them and it was the threat that perked Moses up and got him on his knees to pray for His people.  A good reminder, we see things happening in our country and we go, "Man, going could this be it, could this be the judgment, I'm going to pray for our country."  Good.  It's good to be perked up to be a woken up by these reminders.

Verse 15, "Moses turned and he went down from the mountain, the two tablets of the testimony were in his hand."  Can you picture that old guy walking, walking with the two stone tablets.  The tablets were written on both sides on one side and on the other side, they were written.  Now, the tablets were the work of God and the writing was the writing of God engraved on tablets.  That's just fascinates me.  I wonder what God's penmanship was like, what those letters look like?  As Moses could read them and was about, he thought, to show them to the people of Israel.  He won't get that privilege he would be the only ones to he got down to the valley floor.  And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted he said, to Moses, "There's the noise of war in the camp".  Okay, so what's going on, Moses coming down, he meets Moses before he gets down.  Probably Moses was somewhere in the vicinity because the Bible tells us, he was the servant of Moses.  He was the assistant.  He was there to care for any needs that Moses might have.  So, as his assistant mediator or assistant pastor or what have you, he meets Moses.  He has heard the noise of the people.  Now, Moses will become the general, he's a man of war.  So he hears the noise and he thinks, "There's fighting going on."  It's the first thing that comes to Joshua's mind, he's a soldier.  So that's the noise of war in the camp, but Moses said, "It is not the noise of the shout of victory nor the noise of the cry of defeat, but it's the sound of singing that I hear.  These people are worshipping."  So, it was as soon he came near the camp that he saw the calf and the dancing.

So Moses' anger became hot.  A few verses ago Moses was trying to -- it seemed, tamed God down a little bit.  "God, why is your anger so hot against these people, I can't believe it."  Just a few steps down the mountain it says, "Moses anger became hot and he cast the tablets out of his hands and he broke them at the foot of the mountain."  Why did you he break them?  It was symbolic in breaking literally the stone tablets that the people of Israel, God's people this nation had broken God's laws.

And then he took the calf, which they had made, burned it in the fire.  I imagine it was made out of wood overlaid with gold as many of the images were.  Burned it in the fire and he ground it to powder.  So now you've got powdered dust gold calf.  And he scattered it on and the water and he made the children of Israel drink it.  That's hardcore.  I'm going to take your God grind it up and you're all going to drink it.  It sort of like Alka-Seltzer in reverse, instead of taking away an upset stomach, I imagined drinking powdered golden calf and mixed with water that that would give you an upset stomach.  And maybe that's exactly what Moses wanted them to have, an upset stomach.  "I want you to be sick of your sin."

Something else and I'm not trying to press the analogy.  Forgive me if it seems that way but it was brought up in a couple of different commentaries.  In drinking that it would eventually become their waste.  And that's what God thought of their idol.  It was a very, very poignant moment.  He ground it up, he them drink it.  So I'd like a golden calf latte.  Actually the calf was gone it would be a decaf latte, wouldn't it?  Sorry, sorry it just came to my mind.  There is calf anymore.  Okay, that ranks, that's as going to rank up there in the top three bad ones right?  How do you recover and get serious and spiritual after such nonsense.  Well I'll try

We can see as we go through this little text, why the people of Israel will become very adamant about not having idols.  Okay, they're going to go back and forth between idolatry their whole history but when they do come to those periods of coming to their senses, they're really, really adamant about not having idols.  Let me tell you a story about -- and this sort of fits in with it and we're going to fast forward to the New Testament because the second commandment about not including images in worship was so potent to the Jews that in part it led to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

When Pontius Pilate in the New Testament, the governor of Judea, he'd only reigned for five years, he was young, he was inexperienced.  His posture in dealing with the Jewish population especially in Jerusalem was so flawed that his career was at stake because he made two bad mistakes.  Mistake number one, Pontius Pilate has these ensigns made.  These depictions made on the banners or on the poles of Roman soldiers and the front of the ensign was an image of Caesar in Rome.  He did it to honor Caesar.  The soldiers marched through the City of Jerusalem with these image-laden ensigns and when the Jews saw an image going through the holy city of Jerusalem they sent a delegation to Ceasarea where Pontius Pilate had his main headquarters in the country.

They went to Ceasarea and they demanded that Pontius Pilate remove the ensigns from the City of Jerusalem.  Pontius Pilate thought, "Who are this Jews ordering me around."  He had the soldiers take their swords out and say "We're going to cut your heads off."  What happened next, Pilate didn't expect, the Jews who were threatened fell to the ground, ripped their collar down, bared their necks and say, "Please cut them off now.  We're not going to back down.  Go ahead and cut our heads off, another delegation will come, we're not backing off this."

This so bewildered Pontius Pilate that he indeed had the ensigns removed from Jerusalem.  Caesar heard about that and there was a strike against Pilate.  A few years later, Pilate did it again.  This time he took shields and a put a depiction of Tiberius Caesar on the front of the shield and gave them to the soldiers who manned the fortress in Jerusalem, the Antonia Fortress.  The main bulwark of Roman authority there in Jerusalem.  And so those, those shields were placed in his palace and in the Antonia Fortress.  The Jews at this point forgot about going to Pilate they sent a letter and protested to Caesar himself, this time Caesar Tiberius, demanding that the shields be removed. Caesar wrote a letter rebuking Pontius Pilate and he ordered the shields removed.  So now there are two strikes.

The next infraction could be seen as insurrection against Rome and it could cost Pilate his job.  So when Jesus is brought before Pontius Pilate.  And Pilate says, "I see nothing in him that deserves death.  I see no fault in this man.  I washed my hands off this man.  I'm going to let him go free."  The Jewish people said, "If you let him go free, you are no friend of Caesar's."  That was a threat.  In other words we know that's two strikes against you, he's going to hear about this.  His job was at stake and when he said, "You're no friend of Caesar's" that's when Pilate turned, demanded that Jesus be flawed and committed him to be crucified.

So this law has a very potent foothold in the history of the Jews through out.  Verse 21, I better hurry up.  Moses said to Aaron, "What did these people do to you that you have brought so great of sin upon them?"  So Aaron said, "Do not let the anger of my Lord become hot."  It sounds like Moses is talking to God a few verses ago.  "You know the people that they are set on evil.  For they said to me, make us God's that shall go before us.  As for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him."  And I said, "Whoever has any gold let them break it up."  So they gave it to me and now watch, I cast it into the fire and this calf came out.

This is Aaron.  I thought Aaron was brighter than that but you know what?  When you sin, you'll come up with any lame excuse.  You know, what a lame excuse is, right?  The reason I am the way I am is because of you.  The reason I loose my keys, I always put them down here and you move them.  Whatever it might be it seems that we always want to blame either people for furnaces.  Either people or circumstances, it's never my fault. I'm always the victim it's their fault or it's the circumstance, the furnaces fault.  I just put the gold inside the fire and out walked a golden calf.  Dude it was so awesome, you should have been here.

Actually if you want to hear about clever excuses, talk to a police officer.  They hear them all the time.  I heard one, a policeman pulled over a guy he had run two red lights ran right through them.  When the police pulled him over and said "What's the deal?  You ran two red lights."  The man in the car said, "This is a V8, you try stopping it."  As if he had no control of at all.  It sounds a lot like this.  So Moses saw that the people were unrestrained.  It means they'd given up all moral restraint and then Moses stood in the entrance of the camp and said "Who ever is on the Lord side come to me."

And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves to him and he said "Thus says the Lord God of Israel let everyman put on his sword on his side.  And go in from the entrance to -- "  And remember there's at least two to three million people in the camp of Israel to go from one and to the other.  Through out the camp and everyman kill his brother, everyman his companion, everyman his neighbor and so the sons of Levi did according to the world of Moses and about 3000 men of the people fell that day.  Now apparently it would seem that this 3000 men that were struck down were the ones that persisted in idolatry, they wouldn't give it up.

They were bent on it.  They were unrestrained, they wouldn't relent, they wouldn't change, 3000 out of about three million. That's about what 1/1000th of the people refuse to change.  So 3000 is a lot of people but in comparison, it's a minority.  This is what I want to you to compare, this is day one of Moses coming down from mount with the new covenant or the old covenant the Mosaic Covenant, right.  The Covenant of Moses, now get this, on the first day that the covenant of the law opens up, 3000 people die.  Fast forward to the New Testament the first day the new covenant opens up on the day of Pentecost 3000 people are saved.  Compare law and grace and there is a graphic example of just what happened on the first day.  Why kill the people?

Any doctor knows the reason why sometimes radical surgery has to be done.  When the doctor says in our family we know what this is like when the doctor said to my wife a few years ago, "There is a tumor, we're going to operate on it in a couple of days."  Now, I could say "Why would you cut into my wife that's going to hurt, that's so mean to cut out a part of her body.  Why would you dare cut something out and make her hurt.  It's to save her life."  Cutting out this tumor, this 3000 people that I believe had they persisted they could have stopped the children of Israel from entering into the promised land.  This cancer could spread so quickly and so 3000 died that day.

How could such a thing happen so quickly?  How could it be and think about they had heard, they had seen lighting and thunder.  They had said just 40 days before this, "Moses, Moses go find out what God wants and tell us what God wants.  Whatever God wants we'll do it all."  How could they go from that in 40 days to this?  Well, how could Ananias and Sapphira in the New Testament shortly after the resurrection of Jesus Christ lie to the Holy Spirit?  How could the Church at Corinth established on good godly principles become so immoral so quick?  It's the nature of man.  It's the nature of fallen humanity.  I'm going to call it spiritual entropy.  That's a term from the law of thermodynamics, spiritual entropy is, as heat energy has gotten lost and is irrecoverable there's this spiritual entropy that sets in.

And we have to against it, that's why the bible says that we should gather together frequently and encourage one another daily.  Encourage one another daily as that day approaches.  Man at its best, is that best still man.  And they are falling back to their old pattern of behavior and then Moses said "Consecrate yourselves today to the Lord that he may bestow on you a blessing to this day, for every man as opposed to son and his brother and it come to pass on the next day that Moses said to the people "You have committed a great sin, so now I will go up to the Lord.  Perhaps I can atonement for your sin or provide a covering for it."  Moses, returned to the Lord and said "All this people have committed a sin, they have made for themselves a God of gold, yet now if you will forgive their sin but if not I pray blot me out of your book, which you have written."  Blot me out of your book which you have written, is it possible?  To be blotted out of Gods book?  We're going to have wait until next week to find that out.  Let's pray. 

Lord, what happened that day was an act of judgment but an act of mercy.  You were sparing a nation that hadn't even gotten a foothold in a land they were so far away from but you were committed to them.  Even though their commitment to you had waned, they had forsaken a commandment that they knew and Aaron certainly knew it already.

But again we see and we understand from personal experience that "Man at its best is at best still man".  Lord I pray that as the day approaches as we find troubling times that we live in.  As we get shaken by reports, we might even get shaken by economic instability or just the barrage of bad news about our country, its politicians, the economy etcetera, etcetera and we would encourage one another.  We would be banded together as brothers and sisters, reminding our selves of your truths, your word, your promises. 

And Lord we will say as you wanted Moses to say "We are your people", these are your people they are not my people, they are no human leader's people, they are your people.  And we trust that you're going to take care of every single one of them.  Lord I pray that if there's any excuses we're hiding behind, even the excuse for not coming to Jesus Christ.  Whatever lame excuse we would have it is lame because you are a God of Love, willing to forgive, willing to eradicate our past, willing to write our name in your book of life which can never be eradicated.  So Father, settle our hearts cause worship Lord to well in us not just at the end of a service or at the beginning but as the response of our heart daily.  Thank you for your people.  Thank you for this time in Jesus name, Amen.

Additional Messages in this Series

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1/12/2011
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Exodus 1
Exodus 1
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The Lord has the pages of history and the plans for our lives in His sovereign control. Through blessings and hardships, His Word is true and His promises sure. Join us as we launch the interactive expound Bible study, with a look at Exodus chapter one, where we'll examine the people, their prosperity, and the pharaoh's problem.
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1/19/2011
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Exodus 2
Exodus 2
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What legacy will you leave when you pass into eternity? How will your faith influence those who come after you? As we consider the life of Moses from his birth to his banishment, we witness the providential hand of God and the impact of his parents' wholehearted faith.
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1/26/2011
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Exodus 3-4
Exodus 3-4
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When God calls you, how do you respond? Do you make excuses--running in the opposite direction? In this study from the book of Exodus, we see the Lord present Moses' calling on a silver platter. As we examine his encounter at the burning bush, let's explore five common excuses for disobeying God's will.
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2/2/2011
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Exodus 5-6
Exodus 5-6
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After presenting his list of excuses before the Lord, Moses finally asks Pharaoh to let Israel go. But when Moses submits himself to the Lord things get harder for Israel. We'll learn some important principles about spiritual warfare and the sovereignty of God as we dive into Exodus 5-6, where "The Great Confrontation" between Moses and Pharaoh begins.
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2/9/2011
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Exodus 7
Exodus 7
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After 400 years in bondage, the LORD is about to deliver His people out of Egypt. In dramatic fashion, He targets the false gods of Egypt and reveals Who is boss. As we examine the first plague, we'll see the water of the Nile turned into blood: a sign of judgment to the Egyptians--a sign of deliverance to Israel.
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2/16/2011
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Exodus 8
Exodus 8
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Frogs, lice, and flies--Egypt endures further hardship as Pharaoh refuses to heed the Lord's command to let His people go. We'll discover how each of these plagues brings a false Egyptian deity into the scope of God's judgment, and examine the condition of our own hearts to God's Word.
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2/23/2011
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Exodus 9
Exodus 9
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Through a series of ten plagues, the LORD reveals to Egypt both His person and His power. As we examine the plagues of diseased livestock, boils, and hail, we see the LORD specifically target the lifestyle of Egypt as He again takes aim at the gods in their pantheon. Join us in our study of Exodus 9, where God hardens Pharaoh's heart for the first time--and we weigh the conditions of our own hearts as well.
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3/2/2011
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Exodus 10-11
Exodus 10-11
Skip Heitzig
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As we study the ten plagues on Egypt, we see not only a preview of future judgment in the tribulation, but also a picture of the believer's standing before God. Let's examine the plagues of locusts and darkness and hear God's warning of the ultimate plague--the death of the firstborn. We'll learn how the Lord targets the false worship systems of this world, and sets His children apart from condemnation.
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3/9/2011
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Exodus 12
Exodus 12
Skip Heitzig
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After nine previous plagues, the LORD ensured the deliverance of His people in the plague of the death of the firstborn. Before the Angel of the LORD visited Egypt, God provided a way of escape for His people, and the Passover was instituted. Let's take a careful look at this commemoration of Israel's deliverance and learn how Passover predicted our own deliverance as well.
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3/16/2011
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Exodus 13-14
Exodus 13-14
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Emancipation -- to free from bondage, oppression or restraint; to liberate. In Exodus 13-14, a portrait of deliverance is painted; as God's people were set free from bondage in Egypt, so we are redeemed in Jesus Christ. Let's look closely to gain a greater understanding of our freedom from sin and our new life in Him.
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3/23/2011
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Exodus 15
Exodus 15
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When the children of Israel were delivered from bondage in Egypt and their enemies were destroyed, they responded with songs of praise. As we review Exodus 15, we'll consider the songs of Moses and Miriam and learn some important characteristics of true worship.
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4/6/2011
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Exodus 16
Exodus 16
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At first, the children of Israel celebrated their deliverance--but then they looked back to Egypt. In the midst of their grumbling, the Lord showered them with grace and rained manna from heaven. As we examine Exodus 16, we learn more about God's faithfulness and discover some interesting parallels between that bread from heaven and the true Bread from heaven: Jesus Christ.
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4/13/2011
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Exodus 17-18
Exodus 17-18
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The children of Israel were on a 40-year road trip, but in spite of God's gracious provision and protection, they were never satisfied! In Exodus 17-18, they encounter two road hazards: confrontation and disorganization. As we travel life's path, bumps in the road are inevitable; this passage reminds us that when there is no way, God can make a way.
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4/27/2011
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Exodus 19:1-20:7
Exodus 19:1-20:7
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In Exodus 19-20, the children of Israel prepared themselves for a new conditional relationship with God and the Mosaic covenant was introduced. When we examine their preparations, we gain a greater understanding of the purpose of the Law and the function of the Ten Commandments in the lives of Christians.
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5/4/2011
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Exodus 20:8-21:36
Exodus 20:8-21:36
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In this study from Exodus 20, we take a look at the Ten Commandments and the precepts of the Law. We'll learn to apply these teachings to our daily living and gain a greater understanding of its role in pointing us to salvation through Jesus Christ.
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5/11/2011
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Will the Real Exodus Pharaoh Please Stand Up?
Dr. Steven Collins
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In this message, Dr. Collins explains that the Bible is trustworthy, even in matters of history. Using logic, historical analysis, and a firm belief in the historical reliability of the biblical narrative, he demonstrates why he believes Tuthmosis IV was the Pharaoh at the time of Israel's deliverance from bondage in Egypt.
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5/18/2011
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A Legal Defense of the Biblical Gospel in an Age of Secularism
Craig Parton
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In this message from Craig Parton, we consider the topic of apologetics. We'll explore the history and value of lawyers' defense of Christianity, dealing with objections to the faith, what apologetics is and is not, and why and how all believers are called to defend the faith.
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5/25/2011
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Exodus 21
Exodus 21
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As we turn our attention to the precepts of God's Law, we remember that it serves as a tutor leading us to Christ. Let's consider how God's Law applies to our lives, remembering we cannot have a relationship with the Lord based upon the Law--only upon redemption through Jesus Christ.
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6/1/2011
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Exodus 22:1-23:14
Exodus 22:1-23:14
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While God's Law can never make us righteous, it does reveal God's standard, providing a gauge of just how bad we are and pointing us to the Savior. Let's take a look at more particulars of the Law in this study of Exodus 22-23. We'll consider both God's great care for us and the choice He provides: to obey or to disobey.
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6/8/2011
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Exodus 23:14-24:18
Exodus 23:14-24:18
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In this study from Exodus 23-24, we discover some interesting parallels between Israel and the church. We'll consider three Jewish feasts, the Promised Land, and the covenant relationship between God and his people through a mediator.
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6/15/2011
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Exodus 25
Exodus 25
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The book of Hebrews calls the tabernacle "a copy and shadow of the heavenly things" (Hebrews 8:5). As we look carefully at each article included in the tabernacle and consider the detail of God's instruction, we discover a beautiful picture of Christ.
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6/22/2011
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Exodus 26-27
Exodus 26-27
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Jesus is our great High Priest, who makes a way for those who follow Him to have fellowship with the Father. As we examine the details of the tabernacle recorded in Exodus 26-27, we'll see shadows of heaven and of Christ Himself, and come to appreciate Jesus even more.
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6/29/2011
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Exodus 28-29
Exodus 28-29
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In Exodus 28-29, we learn about the calling, ordination, and consecration of the Old Testament priests. As we study the preparations and details, we consider our calling as a royal priesthood, and remember our freedom in the Lord must be balanced with submission to Him.
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7/6/2011
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Exodus 30-31
Exodus 30-31
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It is easier for us to grasp and remember what we see and experience. For example, if you watch a chef on television prepare a cake, or better yet if you actually get out the ingredients, bake it yourself, and eat it, you have a greater appreciation for the food than if you just read a recipe. The tabernacle is God's picture of Christ, His ministry, and our home in heaven. Let's continue our careful study of Exodus, beginning in chapter 30, and uncover the significant truths revealed in the furnishings of the tabernacle.
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7/20/2011
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Exodus 32:30-33:23
Exodus 32:30-33:23
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As Moses stood on Mt. Sinai receiving a revelation from God, the people in the valley engaged in revelry and pagan worship. In the aftermath of their sin, we peek into Moses' prayer life: his intercession for the people and his hunger for the Lord.
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7/27/2011
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Exodus 34
Exodus 34
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In Exodus 34, God's covenant with Israel is reestablished. Moses returned to the top of Mount Sinai, again received the Ten Commandments, and God's choice, presence, greatness, and power are confirmed.
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8/3/2011
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Exodus 35-37
Exodus 35-37
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In these chapters, we see God's people walking in obedience to what the Lord had commanded them--the people used their resources and talents to honor Him. A free will offering is collected, the construction of the Tabernacle begins, and the vessels, oil, and incense are made. Let's learn from their example how we too can be joyful givers and obedient followers.
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8/10/2011
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Exodus 38-40
Exodus 38-40
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In Exodus 38-40, the construction of the tabernacle is completed by the craftsmen, presented to Moses, set up, and dedicated to the LORD. Israel had been delivered from bondage in Egypt, and God had become the center of their lives.
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There are 28 additional messages in this series.
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