Challenge to Commitment

Exodus 32

Introduction

At the start of a new year, a new century and a new millennium, the text today is very appropriate: “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me” (Exodus 32:26). These words were spoken by Moses because the people of God had suffered a lapse. After great blessing, they had failed. We see the same pattern in many Bible characters, e.g. Elijah after Mount Carmel; Peter after confessing Christ. And we see it time and time again among all believers, as many can testify. One minute we are on a mountain peak, and the next minute we fall into the dark dismal valley below.

We are going to look at how the Children of Israel fell, Moses’ reaction, and face the challenge of Moses to the people of God.

Lapse and fall of God’s people

The people fell away from the Lord to worship idols. The people grew restless while Moses was away on the mountain meeting with God. They gave up on him, wanted their own religion and their own religious practices. They could not wait for God’s servant. Moses’ brother Aaron lacked the moral backbone needed to control the people, and he was pressurized to act. Frightened, he yielded to their demands. He did not stand firm. He did not want to be unpopular.

With the gold supplied by the people he made them a “god”, an image of a calf. The people bowed down and worshipped the golden calf, as the god who had brought them out of Egypt. They feasted and brought offerings. The whole thing was a violation of the second commandment, forbidding the making of idols. It was a gross insult to God and an appalling misrepresentation of Him.

Then one thing led to another. Sin soon multiplies. It never stops with just one thing. A slip soon becomes a slide. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry (Exodus 32:6). This was a wild party followed by sexual immorality. The people of God, so blessed and redeemed by God, who had received God’s law and promised in the covenant to be God’s people – what short memories they had. The human heart is so fickle. What ingratitude they showed. Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears (Hosea 6:4).

Even after the most solemn dealings with God, we can quickly act and live as though He does not exist and has never spoken to us. Lapse and falling away can so easily be our experience. This is a solemn lesson to us all. If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! (1 Corinthians 10:12).

And what was the cause of the lapse? They put an idol in place of God. In the case of the children of Israel, it was a visible idol. But in our case it could be a spiritual idol, something false that assumes supreme place in our lives – a habit, ambition, sin, person we think much of. God gets neglected and moved to second place, and from that moment the collapse begins. We are only safe if God is on the throne, in His rightful place.

The reaction of Moses

The first response of Moses was intense anger at the behaviour of the rebellious and ungrateful people. God had done so much for them, and they had repaid Him with ingratitude and disobedience. He expressed his anger in a violent and unmistakeable way. The tablets of stone on which God had written the law were thrown out of his hands and they broke. He burned the calf, put the fragments of gold into the drinking water, made them drink it, and it killed 3000. The next day the camp was filled with sorrow.

Moses’ fierce honesty and earnestness was a strong contrast to the weak compliance and feeble excuses of Aaron. There is a place for righteous anger and indignation. Usually our anger is bad-tempered passion because of personal wrongs or not being able to get our own way. It is rarely righteous anger, a reaction to wrong because it is wrong. The Lord’s righteous anger with the moneychangers in the Temple was because they had defiled the house of God with their greed and dishonesty.

Great reformers achieved what they did because they were angry at wrong and sin. Dr Barnardo was angry because children of 9 were being turned out by their parents, or taught to steal, or sold to organ grinders. He was angry when he saw homeless children, friendless, hungry, in rags, vermin-ridden. He was angry at crimes against innocent and helpless children. His anger stirred him to the depths of his heart, and for their sake he boldly defied judges and magistrates, saying he would rather go to prison than obey unjust laws which permitted horrible suffering and misery among abandoned juveniles.

Side by side with his anger, Moses reacted with concern for the people. He wanted to spare them God’s punishment. He pleaded with God on the grounds of the covenant He had made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He was willing to offer himself as atonement for their sins. He was prepared to be punished himself that they might live: But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written (Exodus 32:32).

He had tremendous love for the people despite their sins. He hated their sins, but had intense grief for them. He was willing to accept heaven’s punishment in their place. There is a need for men like that – who will face honestly and acknowledge and condemn the sins in God’s people, but who are filled with compassion and longing for their salvation, at the cost of their own life. I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race (Romans 9:2,3). For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ (Philippians 3:18). How easy to criticize, condemn, denounce, but all without compassion and tears. Do we know anything of the kind of love that would welcome our own destruction as long as others were blessed?

The challenge of Moses

It was not enough to condemn the people and be angry at their sins. It was not even enough to plead for forgiveness. But there was something more – they needed to be recalled to God. “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me” (Exodus 32:26). They were at a fork in the road, and they must choose either to be for the Lord or against the Lord. One thing or the other. They had to make a decision on this vital matter.

There is obviously an application here for those halting between two opinions about salvation. They must choose between God and the Devil, right and wrong, holiness and sin, God’s way and self’s way, heaven and hell. They either want to hear the Lord say Come you, blessed by my Father, or Depart from me (Matthew 25:34). This issue deserves the weightiest thought and the most earnest consideration. It is a decision which should be made early in life, for delay can be dangerous. Every hour that passes makes it more likely that we shall make a foolish decision. This fundamental decision will influence every other decision – career, marriage, home, conduct, the way we live, whether we follow the world’s standards with the many, or God’s standards, with the few.

There is every reason to decide for God. We owe Him everything here and in eternity. Our very existence was made possible by the Creator. Christ died on the Cross for us. We will face judgement after death, and the reality of eternity. We simply cannot afford to be on the other side from the Best of friends. Action is required. Come to me. Actively submit to Christ, come out of the world, declare yourself to be the Lord’s, identify yourself with Him and His people.

But there is another application here. These words were spoken to people who claimed to be God’s people. God’s people halt between two opinions sometimes. They look to the world, with whom they do not want to lose favour. Popularity and the standards of the world are allowed to influence us. Yet God’s claim still has influence and weight. We are born again, saved, and love the Lord to an extent. There is a tug of war going on within many Christian lives. When there is minimal prayer life and lack of spiritual power, all is not well. Many have enough religion to make them miserable but not enough to make them happy. They are on the Lord’s side – but only just.

Absolute surrender to God is what is required in our churches today. Put God on the throne in every part of your life, whatever the cost. Wesley, in a New Year service for the early Methodists, said, “I am no longer my own but Thine…. I freely and heartily yield all things to Thy pleasure and disposal.” The Scottish Covenanters’ Prayer includes the words, “I consent Lord Jesus to Thy coming in and taking possession of my soul and the casting out of everything there that stands in opposition to Thee. I desire to take Thee for my all, to be ruled and governed by Thee, acquiescing to whatsoever shall be Thy ways of dealing with me. Give me Thyself. Only this shall be my desire.”