Moses is reminding the congregation of the time they fashioned the golden calf while he was on the mountain with the Lord. In the first segment of Deuteronomy 9 he told the Israelites that it's not because they have been righteous that the Lord is giving them the promised land. The purpose for him telling them this is because pride leads a person into sin, as King Solomon will later point out: "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." (Proverbs 16:18)
Pride causes us to think we are strong enough not to fall into sin. Confidence in our own ability to resist temptation causes us not to be on guard or pray for strength against temptation. The next thing you know, we've sinned, perhaps shockingly. Moses reminds the people of a time when they sinned shockingly so they will never forget that everything they have is by the Lord's mercy and grace, not because they've earned it through perfect living. Likewise, everything you and I have is because of the Lord's grace and mercy. We have all sinned and fallen short of perfection. (Romans 3:23) We can't claim we've earned any of the Lord's goodness toward us. The Lord is good to us because He is good.
Moses speaks of the way the people engaged in an idolatrous practice while he was on the mountain. "At the end of the forty days and forty nights, the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. Then the Lord told me, 'Go down from here at once, because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have become corrupt. They have turned away quickly from what I commanded them and have made an idol for themselves.'" (Deuteronomy 9:11-12)
It's surprising how quickly we can fall into sin, isn't it? We think we are going to stand firm and resist it, but the truth is we often don't resist it for very long, especially not when we're allowing the idea to take up space in our thoughts. Moses was only away from camp for a little over a month but in that time the people fashioned an idol and held a pagan-style festival around it. I don't know about you, but I've given in to some pretty big sins in less time than it took the Israelites to make the golden calf, which is why we must pray daily for the Lord's help. I think it's important to note that when Jesus taught the disciples to pray (in the prayer known as the Lord's Prayer) He told them their prayer should include asking God to help them avoid temptation. I believe Jesus intended us to ask this every day, for in the same prayer we are to ask for our daily needs to be met and I feel this indicates it is a prayer to be prayed each day. It's a bad sign when we stop asking the Lord (or don't ask Him in the first place) to help us resist a particular temptation we're being confronted with because that means we may already be in the process of deciding to give in.
Fear is a form of temptation although we may not be in the habit of thinking of it as such. But I believe fear is what led the Israelites to make an idolatrous image. They were afraid Moses had died on the mountain. They had placed much of their focus on Moses because he was the Lord's spokesperson. Without Moses standing in front of them, they became anxious and I believe their anxiety grew every day he was gone. I can't say for certain whether they neglected prayer during those days while they focused on their intense desire for Moses to return, but it's quite possible. Or even if they didn't neglect prayer, perhaps they didn't pray nearly as often as usual or perhaps their prayers consisted of appealing for Moses' return instead of asking the Lord to keep them strong while Moses was gone. Either way, I don't believe the Israelites would have fashioned a golden calf if they had not given in to their anxiety. It was something they did as an attempt to soothe their great fear and to have something on which to focus their minds. If you and I don't stay "prayed up", as the saying goes, we too can fall into sin while we are in the throes of anxiety. We might fall prey to substance abuse or we might give in to some type of temptation to distract us from our fear or we might behave in ways not becoming to a child of God such as giving in to angry outbursts or not setting an example of faith for those around us.
Fear tempts us not to trust God. Fear tells us that everything is out of control, when in truth nothing is outside the control of the One who created all things and who sustains all things by His powerful word. (Hebrews 1:3) Fear tells us that we are on our own and that it's up to us or to some other person or some other thing to fix our situation, when what we ought to be doing is seeking the Lord's will about how to proceed. Fear will tell us the Lord doesn't care. Fear will even try to tell us the Lord doesn't exist at all. And what happens when we don't believe there is a God or when we don't believe He loves us and is in control of everything that happens? We put someone or something in the place of God. Or we make ourselves the lord of our lives. That's idolatry and that's why I think the fear that overtook the Israelites during Moses' absence is what compelled them to fashion an idol. As someone who has struggled with anxiety and panic disorder since the age of twelve (and I'm fifty-one now so that's a lot of years) I know how powerful a force fear can be. It can affect our reasoning and our decision making. It produces a rush of adrenaline and shifts our bodies into a "flight or fight" mode rather than helping us remain in the "be still and know that I am God" mode. (Psalm 46:10) Time and time again throughout the Bible the Lord tells us not to be afraid because He knows it's scary for us to live in mortal bodies in a fallen world. He knows that, because we can't see Him with our physical eyes, we can give in to fear if we don't keep our spiritual gaze fixed upon Him, just as the Israelites gave in to fear when they couldn't see Moses---the Lord's representative---with their physical eyes.
An awesome way to fight fear is by fixing our thoughts on Him. He is bigger than anything we'll ever face. He is more powerful than anyone or anything that will ever oppose us. There's no way we can "be still" and feel peaceful during the storm unless we settle it in our minds that He is God and that He is everything that a god should be: He is all knowing, all powerful, and all good.
I feel the best way to settle this in our minds is to study the Scriptures daily to learn what the Lord says about Himself. We have to fill our minds with truth so we don't fall for the lies our anxious minds tell us or for the lies Satan tells us. If we don't know what the Bible says about the Lord, how will we recognize a lie? How will we keep from putting our trust in someone or something other than the Lord? We can't be still and know that He is God if our faith in Him isn't based on what the Scriptures actually say about Him. Will there still be times when an unexpected event catches us off guard and we feel that stab of panic in our hearts? Will there still be times when we receive upsetting news and we feel scared? Of course there will, but King David sets an example for us as someone who had learned to meditate on the Scriptures so much and keep in such close daily fellowship with the Lord that he could say, "I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With Him at my right hand, I will not be shaken." (Psalm 16:8)
David couldn't gaze upon the Lord with his physical eyes but he kept his spiritual gaze upon the Lord. He kept his heart and mind focused on the Lord. He meditated upon the truth of God's word. He communed with the Lord in prayer. Was David ever distressed? Of course he was, and many of his psalms prove it, but his psalms also prove that when he was distressed he looked immediately to the Lord for help and kept his gaze fixed upon the Lord expectantly. That's why even though things sometimes shook David up, nothing ever shook David away from his trust in the Lord. David didn't live in a perpetual state of fear. He didn't live his life based on what his anxious thoughts told him but instead lived his life based on who he knew the Lord was. And how did he know who the Lord was? By studying what the Lord said about Himself and by building a personal relationship with the Lord. This was David's recipe for spiritual success and it can be our recipe for success too. We will be shaken up at times. But we don't have to be shaken away from our trust in the Lord. The prophet Isaiah followed the same recipe for spiritual success that David followed and he learned how to be peaceful in spirit even when faced with adversity. Because this recipe was tried and true, Isaiah could testify that the Lord keeps in perfect peace the one whose thoughts are fixed on Him. (Isaiah 26:3)
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