Today's passage marks the first in the ongoing struggle between the nation of Israel and the Lord. While God had selected this people to emerge from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as His very own, their hearts often strayed from God's intentions. Their negligence to follow the covenant God had set before them (most clearly through the Ten Commandments of Exodus 20) ultimately leads to their wandering in the desert for 40 years, leaving the generation who had departed from Egypt unable to enter the Promised Land.
Several highlights from today's packed reading include:
1) The people's quickness to pursue idolatrous behavior. We have a tendency to worship what we can see, trusting in it, instead of what is unseen. God's promises are all true in Christ, but we often struggle to grasp them, internalize them, and center our lives around them. Just after Moses had left to seek God on Mount Sinai, the people called to Aaron and sought a visible god to bring them comfort. Their fashioning of this god flew in the face of the first Commandment and stoked the righteous jealousy of the Living God. The Israelites' national inability to place God first in everything will play out over many centuries, leading them to great defeat and ultimately exile.
The Israelites' actions and attitudes have infiltrated culture for centuries. A. W. Tozer begins his _Knowledge of the Holy_ with the following words:
"What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.... The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God."
2) Aaron's poor leadership. While the burdens of any leadership are heavy, the burdens of spiritual leadership are palpably weighty. As priests and prophets, Moses and Aaron had the responsibility to guide the people away from their hearts' desires to seek after the Living God. Yet, in his moment of weakness in Exodus 32, Aaron gives into the clamoring people, offering to build them an idol from their gold jewelry. His actions indicated that he was more concerned about his position in front of the people and their short-term, sinful needs than in what God had declared. Later, with Moses, he did not speak truthfully about his involvement in the sin. Indeed, he sounds much like Adam did upon God's encountering him in the Garden. We must not choose to enable others in sin, as the consequences are so great.
3) Holy anger from God and Moses. Upon discovering the Israelites' sin, both God and Moses display holy or righteous anger. Typically, we become angry because of another person's inability to meet our needs; this anger may lead to bitterness or resentment and leads us away from God. If we become angry over injustice or the breaking of God's law, we do not sin and instead prevent others from sin. Sin is much more costly than we wish to acknowledge. As you may realize from a casual scan of the media, our culture laughs at sin.
Without recognition of the value and honor of God's presence, God and Moses's reactions may appear harsh. Yet, the Israelites had become bound under the covenant and had betrayed the God Who had given them life and brought them out of slavery. Only upon Moses's pleading on behalf of the people did God relent from his planned destruction. Still, Moses calls forth the Levites, who then kill those who had besmirched the covenant.
4) Renewing of the covenant. God initially threatened to remove His Presence from the Israelites, leaving them to their own devices to seek the Promised Land. Moses's seeking after God brought about a renewing of the covenant, which centered around God's Presence returning to the Israelites' camp. The Israelites could clearly see God's Presence with Moses in the "tent of meeting" and on the mountain, and Moses even entreated God to show him His glory. Moses spoke to God as a friend, yet he needed to veil his face in order to show the fleeting glory (2 Corinthians 3:13). Just like Moses, we may approach God as a friend: "Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."
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