The Bible Study Podcast - #988 - Exodus 32 – The Golden Calf

0:00What happens when faith and mental health meet for real? What's up? I'm Grace Graber. Welcome to Breaking Through with Grace Graber, a podcast for honest conversations about anxiety, trauma, healing, hope, and the God who never backs away when life gets heavy. We are going to talk about everything mental health. No pretending, no perfect answers, just real stories, real faith, and a reminder that you're not alone. Get ready. You're going to be absolutely obsessed. Breaking through with Grace Graber, available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Life Audio. The Bible Study Podcast Episode 988. Today, the Bible Study Podcast continues the study of the Book of Exodus with chapter 32. Welcome to the Bible Study Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen. We're going to continue on with chapter 32 with a very significant

1:00episode about the Golden Calf, but first a word from this sponsor. For a short devotional, we would love to introduce you to the Salvation Army's One Minute Podcast, Heartbeat. New episodes drop every Tuesday and Thursday. One of the biggest questions we carry as human beings is what happens next? What will Heaven be like? The Bible gives us incredible promises about eternity. We know that through Jesus, death isn't the end. We know there will be no more pain, no more suffering, and that we will be with God. But it's interesting that the Bible doesn't give us every detail about Heaven. And maybe that's intentional. Maybe God didn't reveal everything because He doesn't want us spending our lives only looking forward to the next one. He wants us to live this one. Jesus said, I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly. We don't have to fear the future because God holds eternity. But we also don't have to miss the beauty of the life He has given us right now. Live fully, love deeply. Trust God with what comes next.

2:01For more episodes of Heartbeat, visit SalvationArmyRadio.org. What if everything you love about your faith got deeper? Richard, more rooted, more alive. L. Shadai Ministries exists to take Torah to the nations or storing the biblical and historical foundations of the connection between Christians and the Jewish roots of Scripture. Pastor Mark Biltz has taught in 25 nations on five continents. And now he's teaching you. Listen free at oneplace.com. Just search L. Shadai Ministries at oneplace.com. So to set the stage for this, remember that for the last month or 40 days even, Moses has been up on the mountain and he's been getting a lot of instructions how to build the tabernacle, what the high priest is going to wear, how to build all the different altars, and the people started to decide that Moses wasn't coming back. And this is what happened.

3:02The golden calf Exodus 32. When the people saw that Moses was so long and coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, come make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him. Aaron answered them, take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons, and your daughters are wearing and bring them to me. So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, these are your gods Israel who brought you out of Egypt. When Aaron saw this, he built an offer in front of the calf and announced tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord. So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward, they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry. Then the Lord said to Moses, go down because your people whom you brought out of Egypt

4:02have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, these are your gods Israel who brought you up out of Egypt. I have seen these people, the Lord said to Moses, and they are a stiff necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation. But Moses sought the favor of the Lord, his God. Lord, he said, why should your anger burn against your people whom you brought out of Egypt with great power in a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say it was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth? Turn from your fierce anger, relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel to whom you swore by your own self, I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky

5:03and I will give your descendants all this land, I promise them and it will be their inheritance forever. Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened. Moses turned to went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. The tablets were the work of God. The writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets. When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, there is the sound of war in the camp. Moses replied, it is not the sound of victory, it is not the sound of defeat, it is the sound of singing that I hear. When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them into pieces at the foot of the mountain. Then he took the calf the people had made and burned it in the fire. Then he grounded to powder, scattering it on the water and made the Israelites drink it. Then he said to Aaron, what did these people do to you that you led them into such great sin?

6:05Do not be angry, my Lord. Aaron answered, you know how prone these people are to evil. They said to me, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him. So I told them, whoever has any jewelry take it off, they gave me the gold, I'd die through it in the fire and out came this calf. Moses saw the people running wild and Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughing stock to their enemies. So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, whoever is for the Lord come to me and all the Levites rallied to him. Then he said to them, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says, each man's trap, a sword to his side, go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, killing his brother and friend and neighbor. The Levites did as Moses committed and that day about 3,000 of the people died. Then Moses said, you have been set apart to the Lord today for you are against your own sons and brothers and he has blessed you this day. The next day Moses said to the people you have committed a great sin, but now I will go up to the Lord

7:07perhaps I can make a tonement for your sin. So Moses went back to the Lord and said, oh, what a great sin these people have committed. They have made themselves gods of gold, but now please forgive their sin. But if not, then block me out of the book you have written. The Lord replied to Moses, whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out from my book. Now go, leave the people to the place I spoke of and my angel will go before you. However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin. And the Lord struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made. So this is a well-known story here and there's some interesting things about it. And one of the things that I find very interesting and it is pronouns because we have all sorts of pronouns that people are choosing very specifically. So the people say, hey, Moses up on the mountain, we don't know if he's coming back.

8:08They go to Aaron and they say, make us gods. Aaron, it does not say here has any complaint about this. It doesn't show Aaron pushing back at all. In fact, he says, give me your gold and he made it into the idol of the shape of a calf. Now notice that verse, first four, he made it into an idol in the shape of a calf. Not as he later says to Moses, I threw it into the fire and a calf jumped out. No, that's a lie. And also, these are the gods who brought you up out of Egypt. That was also a lie. But of course the people were told 40 days ago, sure, but 40 days ago they were told there's one rule that's more important than any other rules. What's that rule? Oh yeah, you will have no other gods before me. That was the number one rule and it took them 40 days to break it.

9:08Because they lost faith, they lost faith that Moses was coming back. Now there is, remember smoke and fire it said on the top of the mountain. So it's a scary place. And so they just weren't sure that Moses was coming back. But I mean, the presence of God is still there. They can still see the presence of God and they didn't have the presence of mind not to do something so stupid. Now we can easily pick on them, but we lose faith from time to time. We are disobedient from time to time. Hopefully not to this extent, but in small ways, in big ways, we're still not 100% faithful as they were not. Hopefully we can make it more than 40 days, but who knows? And then the next interesting pronoun for me is verse seven. Go down because what does God say to Moses, your people whom you brought up out of Egypt

10:08have become corrupt. Now I thought that was very interesting because Moses didn't want to go and bring these people out of Egypt. Moses was happy being a shepherd. He was just curious about a burning bush. He made all sorts of complaints about why he was not the guy. These were not his people, these were God's people. This is like two parents. You know, you get home and you hear your son, did you hear what your son did today? Well, you know it's not gonna be something good at that point. If it's something good, it would be, do you know what my son did today? And so the Lord is talking to Moses, he's pissed. And because of your people whom you brought up out of Egypt have become corrupt. Not because the people I brought out of Egypt have become corrupt. He's mad. And he tells Moses what happened. And he says to Moses, you know, let's just be done with them. Let's just be done with these sons of Abraham

11:10and Isaac and Jacob. They're just a stiff-knocked people. Let's just worry about the children of Moses. And let's start again. And Moses says, well, you know, what are the Egyptians gonna say? What are the, all the other people who have heard what you did gonna say if you wipe them out here in the desert? So for your name, not for their name, but not because they deserve it, but for your name, don't do that. Now I always have trouble with these verses. I do a lot of other Christians, that a lot of other Jews. And is God really changing his mind? Is God testing Moses? I don't know. It's certainly written from the point of view that God changes his mind. God's God changes his mind. If God is omniscient and can see what's going to happen and knew this was going to happen, I'm not really sure. But from Moses' point of view, it sure looked like God changed his mind. And that's really the point of view

12:12which this book is written from. So he comes, he takes the covenant law. It's quite about both sides. I thought that was interesting. I didn't remember that. We always see the pictures of Moses holding tablets that are written on just the front, but apparently there's written on front and back. And he brings these back and Joshua says, we hear the war. Joshua remember followed Moses up the mountain. Joshua was the aid to Moses. So Joshua is not in the camp. Joshua is not taking part in this. And if you read the book of Joshua, you wouldn't be surprised to find that Joshua is a very faithful man. And so he probably wouldn't have had any of this. If anybody had listened to him, he's still a young man at this point. So it's the sound of singing that I heard. And he comes, he sees the singing and dancing. He takes the tablets, he throws them down. He takes the calf and destroys it. Birds it, grounds it in a power, makes the people drink it.

13:13Probably gonna make them sick, but they brought this on themselves. And then he goes to Aaron and says, what did you do? He's like, I don't know, I'm just throwing, I'm throwing earrings into fires and calves are coming out. It's not me. Don't be angry with me. They're the ones who told me to do it. And I didn't do anything, which is a lie. It is easy to try and cover up for what we did. And quite often the cover up is worse than the crime. And it is easy for us not to wanna take the blame. It is a very natural response. We don't have to be a priest like Aaron. We don't have to be a leader like Moses. We don't have to be a politician. We don't have to be an older brother or younger brother or younger sister or older sister. It is easy for us to want to not take the blame. And Aaron doesn't want to, but he is at fault.

14:16He is certainly not the one who started this, but he went along with it. And then he says he calls the people to him and the Levites come and they strap on their swords and they are a vengeful army here who are killing people for this terrible sin that they have committed. And God is also going to send a plague for this terrible sin that they have committed. So there are consequences to our actions. And sometimes just think how much longer would they have had to wait? Was Moses gonna be up there much longer? Was it just wrapping up and they decided to do this? I get that impression that they were close to being finished, but I don't know. Could they have waited just one more day? If they'd waited just one more day, could we have not had a golden calf? I wonder how many times we could have waited just one more day,

15:16one more hour for God to be faithful, to be faithful before God. With that, we're gonna end this episode of the Bible Study Podcast. If you have any questions, send an email to chris2xagmail.com or better yet. Leave a comment on this episode at thebiblestudypodcast.com and as always, thanks so much for listening. I wanna take just a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on this podcast. If you go to LifeAudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. God's word will change our life, but sometimes it's hard to know where to start. Well, that's where I come in. I'm Jody Niznik, host of so much more

16:17creating space for God, a scripture meditation podcast, and each week I guide you through a scripture giving you space to listen to this spirit and pray about what's on your heart. Then we have a thoughtful conversation with guests to help us go deeper. Listen and subscribe at LifeAudio.com. I'm Mark Vinet, host of the Historical Jesus Podcast, which presents the new series Miracles, focusing on biblical miracles from the old and new testament. Join me on the Historical Jesus Podcast as I explore the interesting, compelling, intriguing, and wonderful miracle stories of the Bible and the many great miraculous events inspired by the words and deeds of Jesus Christ.