Exodus (Lesson 60)

Welcome to the Preaching the Cross Radio Podcast, featuring the radio ministry of Pastor James W.

Knox of the Bible Baptist Church of Delante, Florida.

Our prayer is that these half-hour Bible study programs will bring the lost to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and enable the saved to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Savior.

Now here's your host, Pastor James W.

Knox.

Thank you for coming along to join us today for the Preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast.

I'm Brother James, and I greet you as I always do in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.

We want you to listen just as carefully as you can today.

I'm going to try and teach just as carefully as I can today as we make our way through a vital chapter in God's holy word.

We started last time on Exodus chapter number 32 and didn't get past verse number one.

This is the account, the historical record, of the children of Israel making a golden calf to worship that as their God.

This happened while Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the tables of stone with God's law written upon them.

And this is a people who have seen more miracles than any people who've ever lived, apart from those who lived in the Holy Land during the three and a half years of Jesus' earthly ministry.

And what uh what just uh arrests our attention about this chapter is how rapidly men may turn from the true and living God if they do not have a genuine heart relationship to that God.

Somebody else's faith won't stand the test of time.

Not for you, not for you.

Somebody else's confidence in God will not get you through the trials and temptations of your life.

You can't just observe God's handiwork, and you can't just be blessed by God's great grace.

You have to be a believer, and you have to walk by faith, not by sight, or sooner or later something, something is going to rise up and cause you to fall.

And that's what happened here.

Let's read, starting at verse number one, Exodus 32.

And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us.

For as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we want not what is become of him.

We spent all of that broadcast on that verse.

I wish I could just say everything once again that I said last time, because no doubt some did not hear it, some who heard it didn't hear it.

Verse 2, and Aaron said unto them, No, that'd be the right answer.

Aaron said unto them, impossible.

That would be the right answer.

Aaron said unto them, God forbid, that would be the right answer.

But sadly, sadly, Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings which are in your ears, or in the ears of your wives and your sons and your daughters, and bring them unto me.

He goes along with this blasphemous scheme.

He goes along with this testimony to unbelief.

He goes along with this outrageous demand without a single word raised in objection.

There's no resistance on the part of Aaron.

There's no attempt to reason on the part of Aaron.

There is no humble calling on God for help on the part of Aaron.

He aims to please.

He's the perfect modern minister.

He may well be the first of millions to follow, millions of assistant pastors, who, for their own self-interest, have failed to uphold the principles and truths taught by and the example set by the pastor.

As soon as that pastor's back is turned, as soon as he's away, here comes the number two man, courting the favor of the people by encouraging them in their carnality, encouraging them in their lack of desire to live in a way that's pleasing to the Lord.

Aaron said to them, Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives and of your sons and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.

Notice these people readily gave to the servants of their false gods what they obviously had never thought of giving to the Lord.

And all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them unto Aaron.

And he received them at their hand.

What a tragedy, what a tragedy.

Why are you receiving such a thing?

Why are you taking possession of such an offering?

And he received them at their hand and fashioned it the gold, the gold that they gave him.

He fashioned it with a graving tool after he had made it a molten calf.

So he heats the gold, melts down that gold, forms that gold into a calf, and then finishes up a little handiwork, little uh decoration, puts some eyes on it, a mouth on it, and uh draws some little uh hooves and so forth in that gold, that molten calf, and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

What unbelievable madness, what ridiculous, shameful, in it's just incredible.

It it boggles the mind.

There couldn't be a single person in that entire camp of Israel who thought that something Aaron just made with their hands had prior to its formation in the hands of a man been present in Egypt to bring them out.

There couldn't have been one single person there over the age of four that believed what they just said.

These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

It's just an utter slap in the face of a holy God.

It is a complete denial and rejection of the true God who really did the work.

Now listen to me.

When you say you're going to heaven because you belong to a church, you're not just giving undue honor and glory to that church, you are dishonoring God.

When you say you are good enough to have eternal life because you've been uh baptized with some water, you are not only giving place to that water that it does not deserve, you are putting down God Himself.

When you mouth off about your belief in evolution and your belief in many ways to heaven and put your little uh coexist sign up and claim that all religion, listen, you are not just expressing an alternate view.

You are not just taking a different position.

You are speaking out, you are striking out against God Almighty.

These be thy gods, O Israel.

They are claiming, they are testifying, they are expressing their belief, their faith, their trust, their confidence in something Aaron just made with his hands.

It's amazing.

Verse 5, when Aaron saw it, the golden calf, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made proclamation and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.

He's now giving worship to something he just made with his hands.

He is now directing that the people worship something he just made with his hands.

They are now planning to enjoy the celebration of something they just made with their hands.

These are the people that sang with Miriam as they sang praises to God for bringing them through the Red Sea.

These are the same people.

Listen, listen, the morning, the morning, they they came to Aaron and said, We need another God.

They had eaten manna that fell from heaven that very morning.

On the evening that they made ready to have the festival of the golden calf, they gathered manna, ate manna that fell down from heaven.

It's it's it's just beyond belief.

Until you walk into a liberal modern church where they still say the Lord and they still say Jesus and they still say God, but what they worship is money and pleasure and sin and lust and prosperity and wealth and humanism and psychology and self-esteem and anything but the God of the Bible.

It's unbelievable until you look around, until you walk into a mainline uh church, Protestant or Papist, and see women in the pulpits, and homosexuals serving on the board, and adulterers and adulteresses singing in the choir, and every sin under the sun sitting in the pews, and everybody waving their hands and smiling and singing about how much I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.

They just never get around to saying who it is they love, and even if they did, they'd be att they'd be giving the name of a holy God to a God who's not holy.

It's the it's the same business.

Verse 6, and they rose up early on the morrow and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

And so there it is.

There it is.

It's a worship service where lies, false doctrine, and sin prevail.

It's a worship service where the people give, but the focus is, listen, there's nothing in verse six, nothing in verse six about sanctification, righteousness, purity, truth, doctrine.

What are the people what come on, look at the order?

They eat, they drink, they play.

They eat, they drink, they play.

You know whose churches are going fastest in America?

The ones with the most playtime.

You know what churches the most popular in America?

The ones with the most playtime.

You know what churches people who used to believe the Bible are leaving Bible preaching churches to go to?

The churches with the most playtime.

You know where mothers and fathers are taking their teenagers to the churches with the most playtime.

You know where parents are taking the boys and girls to the churches with the most playtime.

You do you know who occupies the spots on religious television?

The people with the most playtime.

That's that's where we are, ladies and gentlemen.

That's where we are.

And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down for thy people.

How about that?

God doesn't want them.

For thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt.

How about that?

They said, 7-1, they said, we don't believe in God.

That's what they said, 32-1, 32-1.

We don't believe in God.

Verse 1, we don't believe in God.

They said, Moses brought us out of Egypt, and we're gonna make a golden calf to be our God.

You can't make those statements if you believe in God.

And so so God says, He hears that, he says, okay, fine, that's the way you want it.

That's the way it'll be.

Moses, the people you brought out of Egypt, you need to go down to the people you brought out of Egypt.

I'm through with them, I'm done with them.

They have corrupted themselves.

They have corrupted themselves.

Okay, so first of all, they were not foreordained to make a golden calf.

It was not predetermined by God that they would make a golden calf.

They were not elected to make a golden calf.

They were not forced by some irresistible decree to make a golden calf.

God said they did that themselves.

I had nothing to do with it.

I am not responsible for their actions.

You need to get that.

You need to get that.

Secondly, God said they are worship, they are worshiping, they have an altar, they're keeping a feast, they're bringing sacrifices, they're bringing offerings, and everything they are doing is corrupt.

And those of you who think, as long as you're sincere, that's all that matters, as long as you in your heart, you as long as you are deeply feel, as long as you're true, no, no, no, no, no.

If you are not worshiping the one true God, in the way that one true God told you to worship, your worship is corrupt, your altar is corrupt, your sacrifices are corrupt, your offerings are corrupt, your feasts are corrupt, your congregating is corrupt, your assembly is corrupt.

That's what God said.

Don't get mad at me.

All I'm doing is reading the Bible to you.

That's what God said.

They have corrupted themselves.

Verse 8, they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them.

Are you listening, sir?

It doesn't take long.

Are you listening, sister?

It doesn't take long.

It didn't take them years to turn aside.

It didn't take them months to turn aside.

Moses has been gone no more than forty days.

One month and ten days, five and a half weeks.

That's it.

That's it.

That's it.

Under six weeks has Moses been gone.

And the people, look, look how quickly they have turned aside and how far they have turned aside.

God says, from the way, the way which I commanded them, they have made them a molten calf and have worshipped it.

You say, but it's just an aid to worship.

That's what not what God says.

Well, it just helps us when we pray.

That's not what God says.

Well, it just reminds us of that's not what God says.

God said, when you make that graven image and you put an altar before that graven image, and you bow and pray before that graven image, and you offer your sacrifices and your offerings before that graven image, God said, You are indeed worshiping that thing that you made with your hands.

They worshiped it.

They have sacrificed thereunto and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

Now I'm going to tell you something.

As we read farther down in this chapter, you know what we're going to find out?

Moses didn't believe it.

He wasn't sure about it.

Joshua's going to come down off that mountain with him.

He doesn't get it.

How could you, how could you comprehend that?

After all that had happened, after all that had been done for these people by God, how could you take in that report?

If God said to Moses, right there on that mountain, the people are are they they're worshiping an idol, a calf made out of gold, and they're calling it their God.

How do you grasp that?

How do you take that in if you're Moses up there on that holy mount?

In the very presence of God, the thunderings, the lightnings, the fire, the smoke, the people got used to seeing that.

You remember when we when we first read that?

That fear, that dread, that awe-inspiring presence of God, those clouds upon that mountain, the shaking of that mountain, the fire burning.

Burning on that mountain.

They got used to it.

They got used to it.

You know that great hymn singing in that church?

You you got used to it, didn't you?

That fiery preaching used to thrill your soul.

You you got used to it, didn't you?

Being part of the family of God?

You got used to it, didn't you?

The thought that you could pray and God would hear you.

The thought that you had God's words in the Holy Bible to read for yourself, you uh you you got you got used to all that, didn't you?

Got used to it.

It lost its wow.

It lost its power to motivate and to direct.

You know the idol they made was the same as the chief Egyptian god.

Down there in Egypt, they worshiped a a young bull called Apis, A P I S.

It was worshipped at Memphis, near the land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived.

Now we learn from Joshua 24, 14 that Israel worshiped idols in Egypt.

We learn from Ezekiel 20, verse 8, that Israel worshiped idols in Egypt.

Ezekiel 20:8

We learn from Ezekiel 23 verses 3 through 8 that Israel worshiped idols in Egypt.

Ezekiel 23:3–8

Now think with me.

If you don't believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and for generations in Egypt you are praying to idols, and you are brought out of Egyptian bondage, and you never, in your heart, you never convert, you never put your faith and your trust in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

How long will it take you to revert back to what you were in Egypt?

An idolater.

And could you not convince yourself that that idol to whom you prayed did indeed bring you out of Egypt?

Listen to this.

This is Ezekiel 20, verse 5.

Ezekiel 20:5

Say unto them, thus saith the Lord God, in the day when I chose Israel and lifted up mine hand unto the seed of the house of Jacob, and made myself known unto them in the land of Egypt, when I lifted up mine hand unto them, saying, I am the Lord your God.

In the day that I lifted up mine hand unto them to bring them forth of the land of Egypt, into a land that I had espied for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands.

Then said I unto them, Cast ye away every man, the abominations of his eyes, and defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt.

I am the Lord your God.

So they had them.

God said, Get rid of them.

Verse 8, but they rebelled against me, and would not hearken unto me.

They did not, every man, cast away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt.

Then I said, I will pour out my fury upon them to accomplish my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.

Look, this is this is not after they left Egypt, and they they came up with this uh crazy idea to make this golden calf and worship it.

Oh no, oh no.

They are reverting back to the sinful idolatry they practiced while they were in the land of bondage.

Why is that so important?

Hear me, hear me, please hear me.

They were saved out of Egyptian bondage by the grace of God when they did one thing right in their entire lives.

They put the blood of the Lamb on the doorpost of their houses.

They were not doing right before that.

It has been evident they were not doing right after that, but they were redeemed by God's grace from the bondage in Egypt by the blood of the Lamb when they one time in their lives did the right thing and put their faith in the blood of the Lamb.

But because they never gave their hearts, souls, strength, and minds to the Lord who redeemed them, it was not long before they reverted back to the sinful, idolatrous practices of the life they lived before they were redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

Are you with me?

Are you following me?

Please, please, listen carefully, please.

Before you got saved, you weren't good enough to be saved.

Your life was a life of sin, of violating God's word, long years, habitual years, ongoing years of sin.

Then, then, by God's grace, when after all those years of sinning, you did one thing right, you put your faith in the blood of God's Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ.

When you did that, God saved you by His grace through the blood of the Lamb.

Hallelujah.

My friend, now that you have been saved by the blood of the Lamb, if you do not love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, how long do you think it will be before you revert back to the sins, the lifelong sins that for so many years held sway over your being?

How long will it be before you go back to your idolatry if you don't surrender your all to God your Savior?

You've got to think about these things.

You can't just chalk this up as one more radio broadcast.

You've got to ponder these things in your heart.

The idols that you left behind still have an appeal to your flesh.

If you don't maintain a right relationship with God, you will once again find yourself bowing down to those idols.

That's the truth.

I've got to stop right there.

I've got to stop.

If you'd like a copy of today's program or this entire study of the book of Exodus, it's available in our catalog.

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Until then, I'm Brother James.

May the Lord richly bless you, and good day.

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Until next time and throughout eternity, may Jesus Christ be praised.