Read Exodus 35:1-29

Many hands make light work, or so the saying goes. Mind you, too many cooks spoil the broth! Still, it is true that we all have gifts and talents from God for not only our benefit but others’ too, and that is equally true of Kingdom Work as it is of just about any task we need to complete.

In Exodus 35, the narrative shifts from Moses receiving instructions from God on how to live in a way that pleases God (especially after the disastrous Golden Calf incident), to constructing God’s dwelling place with his people – the tabernacle. In our passage, we see that this task was one that all of Israel played a hand in. But not before a reminder that resting in God came before working for his glory.

While it seems repetitious to us with our advanced editing techniques, there is significant repetition of content in Exodus 35 to 39 from earlier in the book. However, the focus shifts from God’s instructions to the People’s constructions.

Just as previous parts of Exodus contained reminders about the Sabbath’s importance, so too does this section. In verses one to three, Moses reminds Israel of the importance of resting from work on the Sabbath, even to the extent of not lighting cooking fires (v.3). Apparently some cultures claimed this was “pre-work”, and it is not hard for a lawyer to argue from the hearth to the metal furnace. God’s command to rest in him was absolute.

So while Israel could not construct on the Sabbath, they could participate in the construction on the other six days of the week. Therefore, Moses commands Israel to begin the construction process.

Moses asked for donations of “gold, silver, and bronze; blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen; goats’ hair, tanned rams’ skins, and goatskins; acacia wood, oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, and onyx stones and stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece” (vv.6-9). 

Not exactly cash, but they were all important materials needed for building the various parts of the tabernacle. They were also, for their day (and even today), expensive items. God could have made it appear with a snap of his proverbial fingers, but instead asked God’s people to give back from what he’d given to make his home with them. Not just from what they had lying around, but from their best.

Secondly, Moses asked for “every skillful craftsman among you [to] come and make all that the Lord has commanded” (v.11). The various things needed required abilities ranging from wood and metalwork to sewing and cabinetry (vv.12-19). While not everyone had those abilities, plenty did. And those that had those abilities were those called to the work.

God’s People, chastened by their sin and relieved by the pardon which God had granted them through Moses’ intercession, leapt into (Sabbath-compliant) action. “Everyone whose heart stirred him, and everyone whose spirit moved him” contributed what God asked to build the tabernacle (vv.20-9).

Two groups receive special attention in the list of contributors. Firstly, skillful women “spun in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen” and “spun the goats’ hair” (vv.25-6). God’s work was not men only; women had an important (and noted) role to play beyond keeping the home fires burning and providing lunch for the hungry labourers.

Secondly, the leaders of Israel, who likely had greater means than those under their lead, made costly contributions of items like the gemstones, spices, and incense for the construction (vv.28-9). To whom much was given, more was required. And the leaders, like all of Israel (v.29), responded by pitching in to the work.

We do not worship at a tabernacle today, but we still have God’s invitation to participate in God’s Kingdom Work. We all have different gifts and abilities which contribute to the Church and its life.

Whether that is a gift for prayer, for service, for teaching and preaching, or encouragement, we all have gifts God has given us. Kingdom Work belongs to all of us, not just the Pastor, not just the Elders and Deacons. All of us.

Secondly, it does not matter whether we are men or women, we have a part to play in the Church. There are a wide range of activities we all can participate in, male or female, that are not limited to kitchen duty and childcare (though if you enjoy that, go for it!). Most of us will not be Elders or Deacons, but that doesn’t limit our contribution.

Thirdly, we can all contribute by giving out of what we have been given financially. For some of us that is more than others, but that is okay! God has given us what we have to steward, and that includes giving back to him.

However, all this work is not done to earn God’s favour, but because we rest in God’s favour. Jesus, the greatest gift, is the great Sabbath rest that enables us to work for God’s glory.

Read Exodus 34:29-35

We sometimes talk about how someone bathes in the reflected glory of another person. For instance, sometimes people associate themselves with someone or something famous so that person’s success reflects their own. “Our sports team won!” “Aren’t we wonderful!” “Oh no, they lost!”

When Moses came back down the mountain, he reflected the glory of another, but in a good way! Moses’ shining face reflected God’s glory to all of God’s People. But his glory caused fear for Israel when they gazed on Moses’ face. Thankfully, now that Christ has come we are able to look with unveiled face at God’s glory, and like Moses, reflect God’s glory to the world.

After being supernaturally sustained and seeing God’s glory on Mount Sinai for forty days, Moses again descended back to the Israelite camp. He carried with him the new copies of the covenant made between God and Israel at Sinai, which had been destroyed when Israel turned from God to worshiping idols (v.29). This time, he would descend to a happier scene.

But there was an issue. “Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God” (v.29). Literally, the Hebrew states that Moses’ face had horns, because in their language and idioms horns were associated with power (eg, the horns of a rhino).

In other words, Moses’ face shone with God’s glory, because he had been exposed to the glory of God on the mountain. The glory of God not only affected his life and his attitude, but his physical appearance too!

Moses’ appearance, put simply, freaked out God’s People. “Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, … and they were afraid to come near him” (v.30). Even Aaron, his brother, was reluctant to come to him.

Why? Probably because the reflected glory of God was still God’s glory, which pierces and searches our hearts and our consciences, revealing our sinfulness to us. Like looking at a reflection of the sun in a mirror is as painful as the sun itself, so too looking at the reflection of God’s glory from Moses’ face would have hurt.

Moses, not quite sure of what was happening, and perhaps concerned that Israel were worried about bad news, “called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them” (v.31).

After this, all of Israel were summoned to hear Moses speak, where “he commanded them all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai” (v.32). Moses, as the covenant mediator, was responsible for authoritatively communicating to them everything God had commanded on the mountain.

As mediator, Moses would speak to God regularly and so the glory reflected in his face would not be a one-off occurrence. As a result, Moses veiled his face to hide the reflected glory of God from Israel (v.33).

But when Moses went to speak to God, he would remove the veil (v.34). There was no need to hide God’s glory from God himself. And when Moses left the tent of meeting to speak again to Israel about what God required from them, he would leave the veil off his face (v.35). 

The radiance of his face authenticated his messages from God. It made it clear it was God speaking, not Moses’ reckons. But placing the veil back over his face afterwards also made clear that Israel’s sins kept them from the same closeness with God that Moses had come to enjoy.

A picture of this radiance is seen in the account of the Transfiguration, when Jesus was transformed to unveil the glory of God that was his as the Divine Son, dwelling with his people in human flesh. The chosen disciples who saw the actions were similarly awe-struck as they gazed upon Christ as God’s true chosen mediator and saviour (Mark 9:2-8).

Paul also picks up this passage in 2 Corinthians 3 where he draws a parallel between the glory of the covenant at Sinai with the New Covenant which dawned with Christ. If the imperfect covenant of Sinai resulted in Moses’ face shining in glory, then how much more glorious is the gospel of Jesus?

While the glory of God reflected in Moses’ face revealed sin and caused God’s People to shrink away, the glory of God reflected in Jesus reveals our sin, yes, but also reconciles us to God and takes away the sins which make God’s glory “burn.” Because it does that, we can look at God with an unveiled face and see God’s glory expressed to us and the world through his Son, Jesus.

As we look on Christ and see God’s glory, that glory reflects itself in our lives, transforming us into Christ’s image. While we may not have glowing faces (yet, anyway), we reflect the glory of God to the world as we serve and honour God, doing his will.

One day, we will see God fully and reflect his glory fully. Until then, we reflect God’s glory to the world around us.

Read Exodus 34:10-28

From the ecstasy of the Exodus to the Agony of the Golden Calf episode, the relationship between God and Israel had been a rocky ride. Israel’s sin had spoiled the relationship between God and them, and Moses had interceded to spare them from destruction and then to seek a repair of the breach.

Now it was time for a relationship reset. After seeing God’s glory, Moses was able to renew the covenant relationship with God. In this second chance, God makes quite clear yet again the standard he requires. They are clearly told not to worship idols, and instead to structure their lives around the worship of God; including both in feasts and the Sabbath.

Moses’ reaction to the shadow of God’s glory was worship and prayer that God would both dwell with his people and forgive them of their sins (v.9). God was willing to do both, but what was needed was a renewal of the covenant relationship with the people in which this could happen (v.10). 

But it was not because of anything about Israel, or Moses’ masterful prayers. God intended to do marvels, to bring glory to his name (v.10).

If God was going to do that amongst the people, then there were clearly some things they ought not to do. The Golden Calf incident revealed a dangerous weakness in Israel’s corporate life for idolatry, and the immorality that comes with it.

God was going to drive out the evil Canaanite nations as punishment for their sins (v.11). The Israelites were not to “make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land” which would lead them into strife (v.12). Like a spouse, God was jealous for an exclusive relationship.

Not only were they not to enter into polygamous covenant relationships with them, they were to destroy their worship sites (vv.13-14), because otherwise they would fall into the temptation of idolatry by worshiping the Canaanite gods (v.15) and the immorality that went with it (v.16). Eventually, they would make their own idols (v.17) and destroy their relationship with God.

Instead, they were to structure their lives around the worship of God. 

The first way they could do this in their day was through observance of the religious feasts God instituted. God specifically commanded them to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which reminded them of God’s loving rescue of them from Egypt (v.18). 

This feast, together with the Feast of Weeks (or Firstfruits) and the Feast of Ingathering (or Tabernacles; vv.22-3), reinforced God’s love, provision, and protection (v.24) for them throughout the year and set up a kind of religious calendar.

Connected to this, God reminded them of their need of redemption from sin by requiring them to offer their firstborn animals (or in the case of a ritually unclean donkey, a lamb) to God as a sacrifice, and redeem firstborn sons as well (vv.19-20). This pointed back to their redemption at the Passover, and pointed forward to their redemption through Jesus.

Secondly, they could not only structure their years around worshiping God, but their weeks too. God again commands them to keep the Sabbath, even during plowing and harvest when the temptation of favourable weather and lots of work might have drawn them away (v.21). God demands wholehearted obedience, especially when deadlines intrude on worshiping him.

Thirdly, they should offer God their best. They were not to offer sacrifices with leaven (representing corruption), or the wrong sacrifice at a festival (v.25). They were to offer the best of what God gave them back, and not mix in disgusting Pagan fertility ceremonies (v.26). God wanted what was right, best, and (at least in human terms) pure.

With these commands, Moses was instructed to write them down, and to renew the covenant by once again making fresh copies of the Ten Commandments, summarising the whole of the covenant agreement (vv.27-8). The relationship was certainly reset, but the terms of the relationship had not changed.

None of the commands, either positive or negative, were specifically new as such in this passage. They were all reminders of what God had previously commanded, although repeated given the specific context of the sin of the Golden Calf.

Why did they need to be repeated? Because of Israel’s sin. Why does so much of the Bible seem to repeat the same messages of God’s holy requirements, our failings, and God’s gracious provision for us through Jesus? Because of our sin.

We need reminding, just as Israel did, because we are sinners and by our fallen human nature too quick to fall into sinful idolatry and immorality in our lives. I see it in my life. I’m sure it happens to you too.

Instead of sin, God wants a faithful, exclusive relationship. God wants our best. He wants us to pattern our whole lives around him, our years around worshiping him, our weeks around resting in him. And God wants it on his terms, not ours. 

So as members of God’s covenant people today, let’s worship only him.

Read Exodus 34:1-9

Moses had boldly asked to see God in all his glory. While God could not grant this request – the created cannot comprehend the uncreated God – he did promise to allow Moses an encounter with a “shadow” of his glory.

In the first nine verses of chapter 34, Moses encounters God’s glory in a way he never had before. We see the preparations for the encounter, read of the encounter itself, and Moses’ reaction. While we can only understand it second-hand, the encounter with God and his attributes is one we all experience every day in Christ.

Moses’ intercession on behalf of God’s People had worked, and God had committed to accompanying them in a special way to the Promised Land. Since the relationship would be restored despite the terrible sin of the Golden Calf, the visible signs of God’s behaviour expectations needed to be remade.

The first set of stone tablets were destroyed at the foot of Mount Sinai, a visual act of the destruction of the relationship which Israel’s idolatry caused. So God instructed Moses to “cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke” (v.1).

Unlike the first set of tablets, these were hewn by Moses, although God himself wrote the terms of the covenant of both sets (one for God, one for the people). The importance of the tablets did not lie in who prepared them for writing, but who provided the message: God.

Moses needed to be ready for the encounter, which would happen the next morning at the top of Mount Sinai (v.2). To protect all other living beings, animal or human, Moses was to make sure that none of them even touched the foot of the mountain (v.3). God’s holiness was not something to play with.

Moses eagerly prepared for the encounter, which occurred the next day when Moses obediently went up the mountain with tablets in hand (v.4).

God’s majesty is immediately apparent in the fact that while Moses ascended high up a mountain, God had to descend to initiate the encounter (v.5, cf. Gen. 11). God descended in a glorious cloud and “and stood with him there” (v.5).

What followed was less of a visual inspection than a sermon describing God’s nature and being in terms of his attributes. There on the mountain, God “proclaimed the name of the LORD” (v.5). If we want to know what God looks like it is not through a painting in the Sistine Chapel, but by his perfect qualities.

God proceeded to reveal his perfect glory to Moses in the encounter on the mountain. Firstly he proclaimed his true covenant name: “The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD’” (v.6). Moses was encountering the God of Creation, but also the God who relates to his Creation and especially his People by a covenant relationship.

Next God declared he is “merciful and gracious” (v.6), that is compassionate and giving favourably even when undeserved.

God is also “slow to anger” or patient, allowing time for repentance before acting to judge sin, not like a human losing his temper.

God is also “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands” (vv.6-7). God showers his loving-kindness on his people, lovingly and faithfully. And not just a few, but a great many, far and wide!

God is also generous in “forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (v.7), referring to different categories of disobedience. Turning aside (sometimes out of ignorance or misguidedness), rebellion (transgression), and any kind of moral failure (sin). All of these God will forgive.

But God is also just. He will not “clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (v.7). God will put things right and ensure the guilty (and all those tainted by it) receive their reward, even if they escape it in this life.

Confronted with God’s many perfections and glories, how did Moses respond? First, he “quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped” (v.8). Like we should too, when presented with the reality of God’s glory.

Secondly, Moses pleaded once again for his sinful people, asking that God would remain with them, forgive them, and take them for his own always (v.9).

How incredible the whole scene must have been! I struggle to grapple with what it must have been like.

Thankfully, while we cannot experience the same vision as Moses, we do experience in a sense God’s perfections every day in Christ. Jesus, in whom God’s mercy and justice combined at the Cross, is the means through which we experience God’s forgiveness, his compassion, his graciousness, his faithful love, and his patience towards us.

In Jesus, we are able to enjoy a relationship with the Creator God who is also the God who redeems us for his own. Like Moses, we should quickly bow our heads and worship!

Read Exodus 33:12-23

God’s declaration that he would not go to the Promised Land with his people, because their sinful nature might result in their destruction, led to repentance from Israel. But this had not yet led to a restoration of God’s presence with them. Were they still really God’s people? So Moses entered the Tent of Meeting to make three requests of God concerning his presence. Moses asked for guidance from God, the presence of God, and a vision of God’s glory.

The first request was made for Moses’ benefit as the leader and mediator of God’s People. God had commissioned Moses to lead Israel and supported him in the role, because Moses was unable to do it by himself. Now, Moses was unsure if God himself would come with them or not (v.12). 

Playing on the ambiguity God expressed regarding “an angel” going with Israel (v.2), Moses used his status as God’s friend to ask God to “show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight” (v.13). Moses wanted to know God and continue in communion with him so that he would know the thinking and reasons behind God’s plans.

This knowledge would help Moses learn and anticipate the right way to act to please God. There would be benefits for Israel too: “consider too that this nation is your people” and so if Moses led well, with more understanding than just the marching orders (so to speak), it would be beneficial for Israel as a whole.

God responds positively to this request, saying that “my presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (v.14). God agreed that he would continue to guide Moses in person, and that he would soothe Moses’ anxieties over leading the people by himself.

Notably, however, God’s agreement in verse fourteen is in the singular, not the plural. The personal presence and rest was for Moses alone, not for all of Israel. So Moses made a second request, this time for the people – that God would go with all of them.

Moses identified himself as the mediator with Israel and proclaims “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here” (v.15; some translations read “with us” because otherwise it sounds like Moses is contradicting God’s immediately made promise rather than identifying himself with Israel). 

He sweetens the argument by pointing out how God’s presence with Israel would set them demonstrably apart from the other nations surrounding, thus advancing God’s plan (v.16).

God agreed again to Moses’ prayer, because “you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name” (v.17). In other words, God agreed to accompany Israel because of Moses, their mediator. Israel had not changed enough for God to reconsider, but Moses’ acts were enough for God to reconsider.

With God’s presence with Moses and Israel secured, Moses made one further request for himself: that God would reveal his glory to him (v.18). While Moses has already seen glimpses of God’s glory in the burning bush, in the glory cloud, and in viewing God’s “feet”  in the covenant ratification meal at Sinai, now Moses has asked for a direct perception of God’s being! Don’t ask, don’t get…

God’s answer was a “yes and no” response. God would reveal his goodness, proclaim his covenant name, and reveal his sovereign and compassionate nature, but a direct revelation of God’s divine nature is too far beyond creaturely comprehension and would result in death (vv.19-20).

To enable even this to happen, God would hide Moses in the cleft of a rock, and shield him from the full radiance of his glory, allowing Moses to gaze on the after-effects (God’s “back” as opposed to his “front”) so that Moses would not perish as a finite person trying to comprehend the infinite God (vv.21-23).

The question of how we as finite beings can truly know and understand the infinite God did not end with Moses, and plenty of people have sought or claimed to have an unmediated interaction with God. But the answer to the question of how we can truly comprehend God’s goodness, covenant love, and his sovereign and compassionate nature is in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the very image of the invisible God, and “in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:15,19). God has shown us “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6), the glory which Moses sought to see.

Just as God agreed to be present with his people because of Moses’ merit, so too God is pleased to dwell with us as his people because of our mediator’s merit. It is not our own deeds or repentance that ultimately paves the way for God’s presence with us, but the merit of Christ’s perfect work and his sacrifice on the Cross in our place.

In Christ’s mediation, we enjoy communion with God and the rest he gives.

Read Exodus 33:1-11

Recently I saw a cartoon where a dog acting as a hotel manager asked a man whether his stay in the kennel would be overnight or longer, as an angry wife watched from the lounge window. In every relationship, there are times where things said or done result in displeasure and distance. I’m sure many parents have looked forward to disobedient children going to bed!

The Golden Calf incident resulted in a confrontation between God and the people over their grievous sin. It resulted in consequences for Israel. In this passage, we see it also resulted in God’s displeasure with Israel, as he commanded them to leave Sinai without his presence with them. Yet despite this, we see that God still desired fellowship with Moses.

At the end of chapter 32, we read that God commanded Moses to lead the people towards the Promised Land. In verse one, further details are given of this command.

Moses was to “depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give it.’” God did not wipe out Israel but still intended to fulfill his promises to the Patriarchs. 

But instead of referring to Israel as his people, he refers to them as those that Moses brought up out of Egypt. God distanced himself from Israel, like a parent saying to their spouse “that son of yours…”

This distance carries a hint of a less than complete divine blessing, as it is not “my angel” (20:23) but “an angel” which God would send before them to drive out the inhabitants who sat under God’s judgement for their sins (v.2).

God still commanded Israel to go to a place of blessing: “a land flowing with milk and honey”, but God was not going with them in a special divine presence “lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people” (v.3). He would bless from a distance.

God’s displeasure at their sin meant God did not want close fellowship with them as they were, and especially as their obstinacy, likened to a farm animal refusing to bear a yoke to help with plowing, could lead to their timely deaths from yet further sins.

What came next was a test of their obedience to God. The people, hearing God’s “disastrous words”, mourned and took off their jewelry (vv.4-6). While odd to us, jewelry was associated with pagan religion and had already contributed to the Golden Calf, so removing them showed repentance and set them apart from other cultures around.

While God did not want to dwell in the midst of Israel, he was still willing to meet with Moses. In verse seven we learn that Moses’ practice from Egypt to now had been to erect a temporary tent where he would commune with God, which because of Israel’s sin he began to erect outside the camp. Given that Israel was in the “dog box” they were very aware that God’s displeasure at their mediator spelt disaster, so used to watch to see him safely arrive at the tent and the glory cloud descend (vv.8-9).

While before they had rebelled as Moses and God communed on Mount Sinai, their repentance showed in their worship of God as he fellowshipped with Moses (v.10).

As Israel looked on outside and worshipped, God “used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (v.11). Moses enjoyed God’s confidence and personal communication in a way not experienced by later prophets or Israel. 

Only Joshua, who had remained on the mountain (and not participated in the sin of the calf) could come near, as he stood guard outside the tent and to summon Moses back from the camp to another audience with the Divine King (v.11).

This passage reveals to us another consequence of our sins, one which as personal beings should not surprise us: it affects our relationship with God. Sin drives a wedge between us and God. God is displeased by our sin, it grieves the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30-31).

We should seek first of all to avoid sin, so as to avoid God’s displeasure. But when we do sin, we should seek to repair that relationship by repenting of our sins, and taking off those things which are associated with our sinful acts.

But the coming of Christ also fills us with hope, because in every Christian dwells the Holy Spirit who brings us close fellowship and communion with God, every day, even when we sin. We do not have to go to a tent to meet God, but instead God has met us by dwelling in us.

And we do not have to fear the withdrawal of God to a distance from us, because God is always with us. As we walk towards the Eternal Promised Land, God is guiding us, until one day we will speak to him face to face.

Read Exodus 32:25-35

Back when I watched enough television to run into advertisements, I noticed how a lot of the ones advertising sugar-free foods played on the idea of enjoying the sweet sweet taste of cake without suffering the consequences on the waistline. It works because for those of us who keep watch on our weight, we want to balance taste and waist.

Unfortunately often in life, and especially when it comes to sin, we cannot escape or trade off the consequences. Sin is rebellion against God, and it brings consequences. Like Israel, we must leave sin behind, take sides with God, put sin to death, and acknowledge that sin has consequences. Thankfully, God has placed the worst of those consequences on Christ, not on us.

While the golden calf had been burnt, smashed, ground up, and dumped into the water supply, the consequences had not yet become clear. The first thing needed was for Israel to take sides, preferably with God.

Unfortunately, the camp was still in a state of carnage. “Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies)” (v.25). God’s people were indulging in the sinful immorality which came with pagan worship. It was a chaotic scene of disorder and unrestrained behaviour.

Their behaviour, while freely participating in themselves, was the result of Aaron’s lack of godly leadership. Aaron had failed to lead them in paths of righteousness, but instead had indulged and led them into sins.

This was not the vision God had for Israel as his people in the surrounding nations. They were to be set apart, holy, and live according to his laws and morals as a witness to the nations around them. Engaging in the same acts while claiming to be something better made them look like hypocrites, and a laughing-stock to the nations around.

Moses needed to take action to reassert control and order, so he did. He called out “Who is on the LORD’s side? Come to me” and the Levites (his own tribe) left behind their participation in the sinful idolatry and joined Moses (v.26). He called out to Israel asking them to take a side, and one way or another, everyone did.

To those who had rallied to Moses, he called on them to put sin to death. Partly, in answering his call, they had done this by repenting of their rebellion and joining Moses. But they also needed to demonstrate their renewed allegiance to God.

They would do this by taking up swords, to go “throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor” which led to about 3,000 dieing (vv.27-8). They literally put sin to death and restored order by killing their own people, even if they were relatives.

While it is likely that those killed were in some way many of the ringleaders or more enthusiastic participants, this does shock us today. Even though only about 0.5% of Israel were killed, it shows how we must choose God even over anyone or anything else in life.

The Levites who did this showed their dedication to God, and God blessed them as set apart for his service (v.29).

Yet Israel still needed to acknowledge the consequences of their sin. Moses warned Israel of their great sinfulness, and attempted to make atonement for their people (vv.30-31). He confessed the people’s sins, and even offered his own damnation as a substitute for the people (v.32).

God did not accept Moses’ offer. God promised to lead the people to the Promised Land, but those who sinned still had to suffer the consequences of idolatry and immorality (vv.33-4). God sent a plague on the people, because they could not transfer their sins to Moses as a substitute (v.35).

The reason that God could not accept Moses as a substitute for his people is simple: Moses was not Jesus. Moses was not sinless, but was himself a sinner and as a descendant of Adam also held Original Sin.

But Moses did understand that sin results in a penalty – in consequences including death and damnation (being blotted out of God’s book). Moses also understood that if we as sinners are to avoid that penalty, then we must atone for those sins to turn aside God’s wrath. And if we are to avoid that penalty personally, it must be paid by a substitute.

Christ bore the consequences for us in his death on the Cross. As a substitute for us, Jesus paid the penalty for our sins and turned aside God’s wrath so our relationship with God could be restored. And because Jesus was our substitute, we can carry on walking to the Promised Land of our eternal home with God.

Since Jesus has already taken the consequences for us, what better way to give thanks but to take God’s side and put sin to death in our lives? Because while we will still suffer sin’s consequences, we will never be blotted out of God’s book of life.

Read Exodus 32:15-24

In my childhood church’s library was a late-80s-early-90s book with “cool” kids looking like they walked off the set of Fresh Prince of Bel Air called “If the Devil Made You Do It, You Blew It”. While I never read the book, it actually covered dealing with various temptations rather than simply falling back on the lie that “the devil made me do it.” Someone should have given Aaron a copy.

So far in Exodus 32 we have seen the Israelites create and worship and idol, and Moses intercede on their behalf before God up on Mount Sinai. In verses 15 to 24, Moses descends the mountain to confront Israel, and specifically Aaron, on their sinful idolatry. In this passage, we see a reminder to confront the sins in our own lives, and rest in Christ who is the only true and completely faithful priest of God.

After interceding before God for the Israelites, Moses descended from the mountain to the Israelite camp below (v.15). Moses carried two copies of The Testimony on stone tablets, which in paintings we associate with the Ten Commandments (though it may have been the entire covenant agreement, or the key requirements rather than just the Commandments). Exodus pains to tell us that these stone tablets were hewn by God, to show their great value and importance (vv.15-16).

Unlike Moses, Joshua did not have the knowledge of what had gone on below. Joshua believed that the noises suggested the Israelites were under attack, perhaps again by the Amalekites (v.17). 

However, Moses knew that this was not the case, and that the noises were not the shouts of warfare but of festivities (v.18); the wild and immoral worship of the golden calf at the foot of the mount (cf. v.6).

Once Moses reached the Israelite camp, he furiously judged the sinning Israelites in the camp. We read that as he saw the golden calf and the pagan revelry, “Moses’ anger burned hot” (v.19) just as God’s anger at their sin is described in verse 10. Moses was righteously indignant at what he saw.

The Israelites, who a little over a month previously had sworn to keep the covenant with God, had already broken the agreement. To show just how disastrous this was, Moses “threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain” (v.19). The broken covenant was symbolically pointed at by the broken tablets.

Next Moses took the golden calf, burned it with fire into ashes, ground it down to powder, threw it in the communal water, and made the Israelites drink it (v.20). The Israelites were forced to taste the bitterness of their sin and acknowledge the consequences which may come.

After dealing with the people as a whole, Moses confronted Aaron on his role and leadership of the idolatrous masses. The people ultimately had looked in some way to Aaron for leadership in Moses’ absence, and he had led them into “a great sin” (v.21).

Aaron attempted to deflect the blame away from himself. While submissively acknowledging Moses as his leader, he effectively tells Moses to calm down (v.22). Then, Aaron indicated that the people forced him to act, mirroring the account of verse one but ignoring Aaron’s failure to assert leadership (v.23).

Finally, and most absurdly of all, Aaron suggested a miraculous origin for the idol. “I threw [the golden jewelry] into the fire, and out came this calf” (v.24). Magic!

By blaming, deflecting, and minimising his role in the affair, Aaron not only showed how any sinful human excuses their own sins, but the inability of any sinful human to perfectly represent humanity in offering sacrifices to God.

Moses confronted Aaron and the Israelites with their sinfulness in engaging in idolatry. They had no acceptable excuse, and they were all to varying extents culpable in the sinful acts of that day. They needed to accept the consequences that were to come.

We act in exactly the same way. We deflect and minimise our sins, or our part in them. Someone else is to blame, and we were just carried along or powerless to stop them. “The Devil made me do it”. It wasn’t that big a sin – calm down!

The reality is that when we break one of God’s commands, we break the lot (James 2:10). No sin is just a little sin. All sins are rebellion against the King of Kings.

Like Aaron and Israel, we need to confront the reality of our sins and what it means for our relationship with God. Until we acknowledge our sins, we offend God and grieve the Holy Spirit. We must destroy our idols. That may mean, like Israel, having to drink the ground powder of our sins and accept the bitterness of the consequences it has on our lives.

Thankfully, while Aaron failed as a priest for God’s People, Jesus succeeded as a sinless priest, reconciling us to God. If we acknowledge ourselves as sinners and seek God’s mercy, he will pardon us.

Read Exodus 32:7-14

Something was rotten at Mount Sinai. After forty days of waiting for Moses to reappear, the hard hearts of Israel had led them into sin, denying the God who had brought them out of Egypt and fashioning their own golden calf as an idol. A deity of their own making and their own tastes, who asked nothing and did nothing as the sinful “good times” rolled.

As the People partied below, Moses and God communed above. But God saw the idolatry and immorality of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai, and his righteousness demanded a response. While judgement was the just punishment, God established the circumstances for Moses to intercede for Israel on the basis of God’s nature and his covenant love. In the same way, Jesus intercedes for us despite our sinfulness, so we can enjoy forgiveness and fellowship with God.

In the first six verses of chapter 32, God’s People made a golden calf to worship in the place of the true and living God. Without the leadership of Moses among them, they were left to their own sinful devices and embraced sin.

God, who unlike the golden calf can see all things, told Moses in verse seven to “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.” What God saw was so offensive that he does not want to identify himself with Israel in their current state; the people now become Moses’, who Moses brought up from Egypt.

God’s disgust and distancing is because of Israel’s corruption. This shows the seriousness of sin. It is not a minor dislike or an inconvenience, but a corruption of both what is good and our very being. The people disobeyed God and worshiped a golden calf (v.8), corrupting themselves.

But while God is distancing himself from God’s People’s current sinfulness, he does associate Moses with them. God could have sent fire from heaven to consume Israel then and there, but instead he sent down Moses to intervene.

This is clear because in verse nine, God describes Israel as “a stiff-necked people.” This is a reference to animals who refused to accept a farmer’s yoke and discipline, and resisted the farmer’s will. God sees Israel as refusing his command and discipline.

Since God’s People will not listen to God, perhaps it is time to start again. God reveals his anger at sin and the punishment it requires by suggesting Moses leaves him alone so that “my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you” (v.10). At least Moses has developed enough from his earlier distrust and disobedience of God as the ingredients for a new batch of God’s People.

At this point Moses takes the opening provided by God to intervene on behalf of his people, and intercede for the sinful Israelites below. He does so by making three arguments why God should not destroy the Israelites.

Firstly, Moses reminded God that he had chosen the Israelites and “brought [them] out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand” (v.11). God had chosen to love them as a father loves an adopted child, and acted to save them.

Secondly, Moses reminded God that he saved Israel to glorify his name. If he destroyed Israel, Egypt and the nations might question God’s motives for saving Israel from slavery (v.12), which would affect his reputation.

Thirdly, Moses reminded God of his covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to number their offspring like the stars of the heaven (v.13). God’s promises to the Patriarchs could not be abandoned by God, because God always keeps his promises.

Because of Moses’ interceding, God “relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people” (v.14). God heard Moses intercede for his people, and in his grace and covenant love did not destroy them, just as intended.

So if God never intended to destroy Israel, why set up the scene for Moses to intercede? Because this situation taught them and us of our need for a mediator to intercede on our behalf with God for our sins.

Our sin corrupts us and separates us from God. God cannot associate himself with or approve of sin. Someone must stand in the place of sinners and intercede on their behalf, asking God to remember his election, his glory, and his promises.

While Moses interceded effectively in this situation at Sinai, he could not perfectly intercede for all sinners, because he is a sinner too. But Jesus can intercede perfectly, because he is both God and Man, and was sinlessly obedient unto death.

Jesus interceding for us, both in his High Priestly Prayer (John 17) and now at the Father’s Side, effectively reminds God of his election of many to salvation, the glory that comes to God for his salvation, and the covenant promises made and fulfilled in Christ.

Thank God for our glorious mediator, Jesus, who intercedes so effectively for us!

Read Exodus 32:1-6

Earlier this week the children rose from bed before I did and went down to the lounge. As I did not appear and the pangs of hunger were striking, the boys enterprisingly took a pair of scissors to a packet of chocolate biscuits and helped themselves, despite our clear teaching that biscuits are a gift given by adults, not presumed by hungry boys! I heard the activity and intervened, but not before two biscuits were partly eaten.

I tell this not to embarrass my kids but to illustrate a point. In our lives, when it seems like things are not going as we would like, we often take matters into our own hands, usually sinfully. The Golden Calf incident demonstrates exactly this. Left alone for nearly a month, God’s People grew frustrated and restless at Moses’ absence, and created a deity they could worship. The result was sinful idolatry.

From Exodus 24:18 to 31:18, forty days and nights have passed. While Moses has remained busy communing with God and learning of the necessary plans for building God’s dwelling place with his people, the Israelites have been waiting at the foot of Mount Sinai, waiting. And waiting.

With Moses, God’s rightful appointed leader, gone there is a vacuum of leadership in the camp. Waiting for things to happen, getting sick of the view and the sand, the people became restless. Yet still, “the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain” (v.1).

Reflecting their sinful hearts, the people grew impatient with a lack of action by God. He had brought them out of Egypt, but where were the promised blessings? 

Action was needed, so “the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, ‘Up, make us gods who shall go before us. 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.’” (v.1). The picture painted here is one of an impatient, restless crowd confronting Aaron (Moses’ second-in-command) and presenting him with a demand.

Since the God who had rescued them was not working to their timeframe, they ask Aaron to make them an idol. Impatience turns to distrust, disobedience, and idolatry. Even the role of God and his instrument, Moses, is downplayed in their hearts and speech as they casually turn away from God to idols.

Instead, the pure worship of God of which they have already received basic instructions (to be fleshed out later when Moses descended back to them) is distorted and corrupted.

Rather than the only true God who is spirit and has no body like us, the Israelites have Aaron create a golden bull calf (vv.2-4), made from their jewelry. Others would soon follow, given time: the Israelites asked for multiple gods, not just one.

Instead of the only true and all powerful God, the people wanted multiple, ultimately impotent gods to worship, made from their own things. Gods that could not demand anything of them other than what they were willing to give.

And this is exactly what we see happen next. Aaron’s calf-making complete, he declares “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”, makes an altar, and declares a feast the next day (vv.4-5). Whether intended as a face saving gesture or just plain old syncretism, Aaron declares that the golden calf is actually God himself! (v.5).

The next day, the people eagerly gather to complete their sin. They offer corrupt worship. Offerings to an idol, a feast in front of the idol, and then to cap it off “rose up to play” (v.6). Except the play was not a game of cricket, but the immoral worship of the pagan nations – debauchery and immorality (especially the sexual kind).

Does any of this sound familiar? Perhaps not the specific circumstances with golden calves, but the pattern of sin in their lives. Frustration and impatience at progress towards something good (or perceived as good). Taking matters into our own hands. Then distrust of God to deliver, disobedience of his commands, and corruption of the good things God gives into sin.

Sin is impatience, disobedience, distrust, and corruption of the good. And we all do it. We might laugh at the absurdity of a people who literally saw God descend on Mount Sinai in fire and majesty and awe, then made a golden calf. But are we really any different, when we have seen God revealed to us through his Word, through Christ preached, and by the Holy Spirit working in our lives?

Lord save us from our unbelief and sin!

Let us give thanks that while Israel failed their forty days of waiting, and we fail in our times too, Jesus did not fail. Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness did not end in impatience, disobedience, and idolatry, but in reliance upon God (Matthew 4:1-11). In all things, Christ was obedient unto death on the Cross for our sins (Philippians 2:4-11). 

So our sins could be forgiven.