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Youth Worship 10th August 2024 : This is your god

Text: Exodus 32:1-24
10 August 2024

Youth Worship 10/8/24
Mark Tan

Title : “This is your god”
Text : Exodus 32:1-24

Introduction

1. Moses had been up on the mountain with God

a) He had given him wonderful plans
b) He had given two tablets of the Testimony

2. He had been with God for 40 days and 40 nights Exodus 24:18

a) The people saw it as Moses delaying in coming down Exodus 32:1
b) They gathered together to Aaron

Susceptibility to sin

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.

Exodus 32:1-4a

1. The past sins of Israel

a) Complain Exodus 16:2
b) Contention Exodus 17:2
c) Tempted the LORD Exodus 17:2

2. The sinful request of the people

a) An unthinkable request
i) The people requested Aaron to make gods
ii) Even though God had brought them out of Egypt
b) The reaction of the people

i) Showed impatience

ii) Showed contempt

iii) Expressed doubt

3. The complicit response of Aaron

a) The building of the golden calf
i) Aaron asked for gold to be brought to him
ii) He went ahead to make the golden calf
b) Aaron was a weak leader

The sin of idolatry and more

4 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.

Exodus 32:4b-6

1. The sinful practice of idolatry

a) The people declared the golden calf as their god
b) Acknowledged that this idol represented God

2. Further sins

a) Further part of Aaron
i) Built an altar to worship
ii) Proclaimed a feast
b) The offering of sacrifices to idols
c) Eat and drink
d) “Rose to play”… immoral act

The seriousness/severity of the sins of Israel

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 worshipped 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!

Exodus 32:7-9

1. Corruption

2. Turned aside from God’s way… from His commandments

3. Stiff-necked people

4. Changed the glory of God to an image Psalm 106:19-20

They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molded image.
Thus they changed their glory into the image of an ox that eats grass.

5. Forgot God Psalm 106:21

They forgot God their Saviour,
Who had done great things in Egypt.

Sensitivity to the seriousness of sin and the wrath of God

1. Understanding the wrath of God

“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.”

Exodus 32:10

a) God’s wrath was justified
b) He knew precisely the severity of the sins of the people
c) He could have destroyed Israel and created another nation

2. The response of Moses to the wrath of God

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.”

Exodus 32:11-14

a) The pleas of Moses
i) A plea for God to remember how He had brought Israel out of Egypt
ii) A plea for God to consider what the Egyptians would say if He had destroyed them
iii) A plea for God to remember His covenant and promise to give them an inheritance
b) God mercifully and graciously relented based on Moses’ prayers

3. The anger of Moses

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?”

Exodus 32:15-21

a) Moses went down carrying the Ten Commandments
b) Hearing the noise of the people
i) Joshua thought it was the noise of war
ii) Moses suggested that it was the sound of singing
c) The unbridled anger of Moses
i) Seeing the golden calf and the dancing of the people
ii) The unrestrained display of Moses’ great anger
– Hot anger
– Casting of the two tablets at the foot of the mountain
– Burning the calf
– Forced the people to drink the powder of the calf
iii) Rebuked Aaron for allowing the people to fall into this great sin

4. Aaron’s response

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.”

Exodus 32:22-24

a) Told Moses not to be overly angry
b) Blamed the people
c) Caved in to their demands to make gods

Lessons to be learned

1. Awareness of our susceptibility to sin

2. The seriousness/severity of the sins we commit

3. Sensitivity to the seriousness of sin and the wrath of God

4. Sorrow for our sins

5. Stand against the influence of sin