Monday, May 24, 2021

Deuteronomy. Day 36, Remembering The Golden Calf, Part One

I apologize for not making any blog posts on Saturday and Sunday. I was sick over the weekend and couldn't concentrate on the study or on much of anything else but I'm thankful to be feeling much better now. 

We are still in Deuteronomy 9 and Moses has told the Israelites not to think the Lord is giving them the promised land because they have been righteous. While it's true they believe on the Lord, they had a very close call with idolatry not long after leaving Egypt. The Lord is removing the tribes of Canaan because of idolatry, but lest Israel become prideful when the Lord gives her the land, He reminds her that the potential exists for anyone to fall into idolatry, as proven by the incident with the golden calf.

Moses says, "Remember this and never forget how you aroused the anger of the Lord your God in the wilderness. From the day you left Egypt until you arrived here, you have been rebellious against the Lord. At Horeb you aroused the Lord's wrath so that He was angry enough to destroy you. When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord had made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water. The Lord gave me two stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God. On them were all the commandments the Lord proclaimed to you on the mountain out of the fire, on the day of the assembly." (Deuteronomy 9:7-10) 

While Moses was on the mountain with the Lord, the people feared he had died up there and was never coming back. I think perhaps this demonstrates that their trust was in Moses more than it was in the Lord, for even if Moses had perished on the mountain, the Lord who brought them out of Egypt and through the Red Sea was more than able to lead them on to the promised land---with or without a man like Moses to stand in front of them. Difficult as it may be for us in modern times to understand why the people said to Aaron, "Make us gods who will go before us," (Exodus 32:1) after witnessing so many miracles of the Lord, I think we have to keep in mind how recently they had come from the most idolatrous nation on earth. The Egyptians of those days likely had a larger pantheon of false gods than any other people in the world and they displayed statues and images of their gods everywhere. I feel that beholding these images every day had caused the Israelites to want to have an image they could always see that would represent their God. I am not sure the golden calf was intended to replace God; instead I think it was intended to represent God. Prior to Moses going up on the mountain he was the representative they looked to, but he was gone so long they didn't think he was coming back, and in an effort to bolster their faith by human efforts they demanded an image to which to direct their worship. 

But the Lord had already said from within the fire on the mountain in Exodus 20 that they must never make an object of worship like this. He spoke the commandments out loud to them on that day. It was not the case that they had not heard this commandment until Moses returned with the two stone tablets; they had already heard the very voice of God instructing them, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." (Exodus 20:1-4) This is why it was a sin to create the golden calf---because they knew better. And that's why Moses is saying, "Don't be prideful when the Lord removes the heathen idolaters from Canaan to plant you in their place. Don't start thinking you earned the promised land. The promised land is the gift of God to you and all the gratitude and praise for your good fortune should be directed to Him alone. You can't pat yourselves on the back as if you've never sinned. You mustn't have confidence in yourselves that you could never fall into idolatry. Look how close you already came to it!" 

Any human being has the potential to put someone or something else in place of God. This is why the Apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 10:12, warned the members of the Christian church not to be lifted up in pride or start thinking they are strong enough to withstand temptation on their own. Paul spoke of the people written about in the Scriptures who committed sins and errors and said to take these things to heart, for no one is capable of living a righteous life in their own human strength. No one is to read the Scriptures and think to himself, "I would never have committed the sin this person committed." Instead Paul says believers must read these stories and recognize in themselves the propensity to sin. He warns, "If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!" In other words, don't think you are stronger than you really are. Don't think you are stronger than your ancestors were. Don't think you are stronger than your next door neighbor. The ancient Israelites probably didn't imagine themselves creating a golden calf but under a particular set of circumstances this option began to appear reasonable to them. We don't know what circumstances we'll face in this life and we can't imagine how tempted we might feel in those circumstances to look to someone or something other than the Lord for help. We can't afford to begin thinking we're too strong to give in to sin. We can't afford to trust in ourselves. 

You might have been taught the little children's song, "Jesus Loves Me", when you were a kid. A line in that song reminds us that we are weak and the Lord is strong. We can't live a perfect life in these mortal bodies in this fallen world but we can avoid falling into many major pits of sin and into many forms of idolatry if we keep reminding ourselves we are weak and unable to live honorable lives without the Lord's help. If I needed an example of the weakness of the flesh, the past few days have shown me just how quickly a person can be sidelined by a sudden and unexpected physical ailment. Last week I had made a list of things I wanted to accomplish over the weekend and I wasn't able to begin a single one of these tasks. They're all still undone because I live in a body that is subject to the forces of this world. If we can't, in our own strength, fully protect ourselves at all times from injuries or ailments, how can we possibly protect our minds and hearts, in our own strength, from contemplating sin? How can we keep ourselves from carrying sin out? We cannot, not on our own. This is why Moses tells the Israelites to always remember how far they fell into sin on the day they made the golden calf, for this will help them to remember they are weak. If they begin thinking they are strong on their own they will fall into sin again. But if they look to the Lord for help, and if they keep their eyes only on Him, and if they keep their minds fixed on Him, and if they keep their hearts set on Him, they can avoid the idolatry for which the Lord is purging the promised land of its pagan tribes. 

We can't trust ourselves because we are weak. But we can trust the Lord for He is strong.


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