GOLDEN CALVES

Recently in the night, I kept seeing men and women taking off earrings, bracelets, necklaces and other jewelry and putting it into a large crucible (melting pot) to be melted down to make a Golden Calf. This was being encouraged by some kind of religious ritual. I obviously thought of the Israelites confronting Aaron the high priest to produce a god that could help them since Moses had been gone 40 days meeting with the Lord on Mt. Sinai and they had given up on his leadership and his God.

Aaron accommodated the people by building an altar to sacrifice and have a feast to the Golden Calf. They all had much food and drinking and got ‘up to play’ (Exodus 32:1-6). So quickly from being delivered out slavery in Egypt, the people abandoned God, Moses and truth. They fell for the lies of the half-hearted high priest, Aaron. This is little different from the letter Paul wrote to the Galatian church, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth? Before your eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified. I want to learn only this from you: Did you receive the Spirit through the works of the law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:1-3)

God had strong words for Moses concerning the “foolish Israelites.” “Go, and get down, for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them.” They are now ‘your people’ and the Lord tells Moses to leave him alone so he “may destroy this people.’ (32:10-11) By the petition of Moses, the Lord relents on his threat. 

By the petition of Jesus (Romans 8:34), may the Lord spare us from our Golden Calves.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
Jesus