The Inevitable Impatience in Idolatry

So today, I read Exodus 32 & 33. I've often wondered how dense you have to be to believe that a golden calf created in the desert was responsible for the miraculous events the Israelites had experienced. If anyone should believe in a God who intervenes and delivers and provides it should be these Israelites! They had seen God's power in the plagues, His provision in the manna, His protection at the Red Sea, and so much more and yet somehow this people are so impatient with God speaking to Moses that they forget this God who they are gazing at with wonder on the mountain and believe the gold on their ears turned calf in the fire is responsible for their deliverance! It was their impatience with Moses that lead to their idolatry and their idolatry that led them to drink the consequences (literally!); consequences that when all is said and done left 3000 of them killed and the people with a plague of their own. In Exodus 20:19, the people begged God to stop speaking to them and only speak to Moses and have Moses speak to them. I wonder how much of their idolatry could have been avoided if they had only listened to God instead of waiting for Moses to speak to them.

Here's what I learned from Exodus 32&33:

Highlight:

'Aaron replied to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the gold rings that were on their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took the gold from them, fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made it into an image of a calf. Then they said, “Israel, these are your gods, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!” Exodus 32:2-4

'Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel — you swore to them by yourself and declared, ‘I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and will give your offspring all this land that I have promised, and they will inherit it forever.’” So the Lord relented concerning the disaster he had said he would bring on his people. ' Exodus 32:13-14

'He took the calf they had made, burned it up, and ground it to powder. He scattered the powder over the surface of the water and forced the Israelites to drink the water. ' Exodus 32:20

'Moses said to the Lord , “Look, you have told me, ‘Lead this people up,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor with me.’ Now if I have indeed found favor with you, please teach me your ways, and I will know you, so that I may find favor with you. Now consider that this nation is your people.” And he replied, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” ' Exodus 33:12-14

Explain:

There is so much in these chapters to consider. The first thing that jumps out to me the people’s impatience. Their impatience with the real God who delivered them triggered them to make their own plans. They used the resources God alone had given them to craft their own gods rather than to use them according to God’s specifications to build the dwelling for Him. Remember these jewels were given to them as spoils of Egypt for the purpose of overlaying all the items in the tabernacle with gold. But instead they used the resources that God had given them to fashion a god made with their own hands rather than to give them toward the dwelling place of the real God in their midst.

Then they fashioned God in their own image, and then called it god. It was as if this calf that they had created with their own hands had delivered them out of Egypt. They thought they had done it themselves?! They were utterly powerless to do the things that God had done in their lives through the plagues and the manna and the water and the Red Sea. All of that was clearly done by God and yet they are attributing it to the idol they had made with their own hands! What they are essentially saying is, “we did this ourselves?”

This leads to God’s anger and He is quite ready to wipe them out altogether. This is completely justified given their rebellion and idolatry. They had already violated the first and second commandment before they had even been given! Moses does something very important here, He appeals to God on the basis of His own promises on the basis of His own plans, and specifically on His own glory. He muses, “what will the other nations say when You wipe these people out? That God delivered them to kill them?! That makes no sense. Moses wanted God to be revered for who He was, the God who keeps His promises and finishes what He starts.

The other thing that jumps out to me is that there are always consequences to our idolatry. When you build idols you’ll have to drink the consequences. The bitterness of that drink also included the death of about 3000 men not to mention the plague that God sent upon them.

After Moses returns to the mountain to intercede for the people, He finds a God who will go before them but not with them. That is He will make a way, but He won’t be with them. Moses again appeals to the glory of God. He begs God to go with them so that all the nations of the earth will know that God is with them. Moses longs to learn God’s ways that can only be taught by going together and walking and talking with God. God’s response to this humble and sincere prayer is that He will indeed go with them and give Moses rest.

Apply:

How often are impatient with God when He doesn’t speak to us and we are guilty of running ahead of Him with our own plans, even attributing our success to our own machinations. This is pure idolatry and it is exactly what the Israelites we’re doing. It can feel agonizing at times waiting on God. Moses experienced this agony as well. These people are done waiting, they want God to move now they are tired of camping at Sinai and they won’t let God finish speaking. Remember they told God to only speak to Moses and let Moses speak to them. In Exodus 20:19, they asked Moses to speak to God and then have Moses speak to them. But now they don’t even want to wait on Moses. I wonder how much of this could have been avoided if they had listened to God directly instead of through Moses as God originally intended. Sometimes in our lives, we rush ahead of God because we’d rather listen to God’s man speak than God Himself in His word. We have to stay in the Word for ourselves for then we won’t grow impatient with God and do our own thing. We struggle to be still and listen to God speak.

We often use the very resources that God has given us to build up His dwelling on the idols that we create for ourselves when God has given us those resources to give back to Him. We’d rather build our house physically than His house spiritually. This funds the idolatry in our heart against God. This is why giving God the first fruits of our resources guards us from that temptation. Giving monetarily to God’s work first guards us from spending our resources that God has given us to fund our idolatry. When we do that we have to ask ourselves. But think about it, do you want a god that you can create or One that can create you? A god you create only has as much power as you do, but if you serve a God who is greater than you and created you, then He can intervene when life gets bigger than you.

When we repent of our sin and return to the Lord we need to appeal to His mercy based on His own promises and plans for us. This is why knowing God’s word is critically important. God works in our lives according to His purposes and we better learn to pray according to those purposes as well and they better be informed by God’s promises. The only way to understand those and pray according to those is to know them through careful study and time spent in God’s word. There will come a moment in time where you will need desperately to get a hold of God and the fastest way to get a hold of God is through praying His promises back to Him, those promises have to in that moment already be stored in our lives.

When we pray this way we have confidence that God will go with us and before us. We know this because He is the One leading and we are the ones following when we pray according to His will. When we pray according to God’s purposes and rooted in His promises, we have confidence, as Moses did, that He will go with us and that He will go before us.

Respond:

Jesus thank You that You go before us and You go with us. This is the marker of a people who follow Your leadership. You did not just deliver us from the bondage to sin to make a way for us to go to the land You’ve prepared, You also promised to go before us and protect our steps and go with us to guide us and teach us Your ways. Guard us from the inevitable idolatry that comes from impatience. Help us to listen to You for ourselves so that we don’t get caught in that trap and help us know Your Word.