June 6 - Exodus 32:1

When the people saw that Moses was

so long in coming down from the mountain,

they gathered around Aaron and said,

"Come, make us gods who will go before us.

for this fellow Moses

who brought us up out of Egypt,

we don't know what has happened to him."

Exodus 32:1

No wonder Hollywood likes telling and retelling the first 20 chapters of the Book of Exodus. It was a real life sound and light show.

Ten mighty plagues. The parting of the Red Sea. Water from rocks. Pillars of cloud by day and pillars of fire by night. And then the people stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, and “As the blast of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses would speak and God would answer him in thunder” (Ex 19:19).

Wow!

Moses went up on the mountain for forty days, and even after God’s repeated rescue and displays of power, the people somehow ceased believing in the God’s … what? … presence? care? provision? existence?!! They asked Aaron to “make … gods” for them. What?!!! And Aaron complied??!

The presence of God showed up a few moments later. There was a little more fire as judgment because of the golden calf that they had chosen to worship instead.

Yesterday we told the story of Jeroboam. God wanted to establish through him an everlasting kingdom. Indeed, God said, “If you do whatever I command you

and … keep my … commands, I will be with you, building you a dynasty.”

Jeroboam decide to go it alone. To do it his way. (That was mistake number 1, but we do that all the time, don’t we?!)

But listen to the way in which Jeroboam tried to set up his own legacy – he constructed two golden calves and asked his people to worship them.

He thumbed his nose at God! He was saying essentially, “I’ve seen your power. I’ve known your provision. But now that I have power, I’ll be my own king, thank you very much.” (Usually not to that extreme, but don’t we do that too? We accept the gifts that God has given us – our talents, for example – and we say, “I’ll be my own king, my own arbiter of right and wrong, the master of my own destiny, thank you very much.)

Our focus this week is on listening to God. Do you see a listening to God message in these stories? I do. We can’t hear the true King, unless and until we stop playing king.

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who tries to be peasant,

a humble, thankful servant

to a gentle, forgiving king