Well, we're studying down through John chapter four, which is all about that well-known evangelistic conversation that Jesus had with a Samaritan woman by a well. And from living water, that conversation has now turned to the subject of worship. And if you've been here over the past few weeks, you know that our study of John chapter 4 and verse 22 has launched us into a little topical study on the contrasting themes of acceptable and unacceptable worship. And because I want to get right back to that study this morning, I'm going to go ahead and forego any further review of John chapter 4 right now until we finish this topical study. And by the way, just so you know, this topical study is going to take us far enough along to know where it's going to end. I'm going to need two more weeks after today. And then I promise you, we're going back to John chapter four and verse 23. And on the day we go back there, that's the day then that I will spend a little bit of extra time reviewing and trying to bring you back up to speed on the flow and the context of that chapter and that wonderful conversation. that Jesus is having with a Samaritan woman. And you know, I think even then you will still remember it all pretty well because we've spent quite a bit of time there over the past weeks. Well, let's take a minute right now and ask God for help as we study today. And then we're going to get back to work. Father, we know that one of the Holy Spirit's ministries to us is that of teaching us. He's the one who enables us to comprehend spiritual truth as we study your word. He's the one who illuminates our minds, And so with your word open before us now, father, we ask for that divine help that we know we always need. Father, we ask today that you would clear away the distractions right now. And we pray father that you would clear away any demonic interference right now, that you would give all of our minds the ability to focus, to block out the cares and the thoughts of the week and give us the ability, Father, to focus and then teach us more truth today, Father, about this very most important subject of worship. We commit our time and your word now to you, praying all of these things in Jesus' wonderful name. Amen. Well, here's where we are. On our first day in this topical study, we looked at seven key scriptures that all defined and illustrated in one way or another what the Bible has to say about acceptable worship. And then for the past few weeks now, we've been on the other side of that line, Jesus drew in the sand in John 4.22, looking at what the Bible has to say about unacceptable worship, finding there to be really quite a bit. that the Bible has to say about that subject of unacceptable worship. The Bible has so much to say about unacceptable worship, in fact, that trying to organize all of this material for the sake of our study became kind of a daunting task for me. Trying to get my arms around it. I finally, I finally boiled this unacceptable worship down into three general categories that I think will serve us pretty well as we continue on with this study. Let me lay them out for you. The first major category of unacceptable worship that we've been talking about, I guess, for three weeks now is that of worshiping false gods or what the Bible very commonly refers to as idolatry. That's really what we've been talking about. We then broke that major category of unacceptable worship down again into four of its most common forms or expressions. Let me just list them for you today. We spent one entire Lord's Day morning talking about the worship of self. That's a big one, isn't it? Insofar as idolatry is concerned. And what are we talking about now? We're talking about those folks who who would say, I am, well, they probably wouldn't say it, but it's reality. I am my own God. That is a very common form or expression of idolatry that you will see in the world today. And tragically one that you will see even in the church sometimes today. From there, we moved on to the worship of astronomical things or what we would more commonly refer to as astrology. The third form or expression of idolatry that we talked about was the worship of supernatural things. Now this now is the occult and everything that fits within that category and lots of things fit in that category, right? Some of you kept reminding me of more and more things that I didn't mention, and I don't think we have them all on that list yet. There are many things that fit in that occult category. And then last week, if you were here, we finished our study of idolatry with what is perhaps the most blatant form of it. And what most people, by the way, usually think of first when the subject of idolatry comes up, and that is the worship of man-made things. That's the guy that bows down to a statue, made out of wood or bows down to a rock. And one of the, one of the, I think, profound things we learned from the word of God about that last week is that when you reject the true God and decide that you want to worship a rock, As part of the judgment from God on that, he will actually bring your mind all the way down to the level of that rock. You will lose your ability to think straight. And we saw that over and over again in the scriptures. Well, that's review. I have two more categories now of unacceptable worship that I want to talk with you about before we get back to John chapter four. And mark this, both of these now, are focused on the true God. Both of these are going to be focused on the right God. Now we did talk about some convicting things for you and me with regard to that first category of unacceptable worship, didn't we? There are some subtle ways that idolatry can creep into the true believer's life. and hinder his or her worship or even render it unacceptable. But let me say now that these last two categories of unacceptable worship that focus on the true God, these categories of unacceptable worship now that focus on the right God are probably going to get even closer to home for you and me than that first one did. As I said at the very end of our time last week, according to this worship manual that we have, that is by the way, the word of God, Even when you get the God right, you can still get the worship wrong. And so would you think with me this morning about a second major category of unacceptable worship. And here it is. Please understand that reducing, which God are we talking about? Not false gods anymore. We're on a whole different category. Now we're talking about the true God. We're talking about the right God. And please understand now this morning that reducing the true God to an image is unacceptable worship. That will be our subject for today. And let me tell you now where that comes from. For the past three weeks now, as we've studied what the Bible says about that first form of unacceptable worship, the worship of false gods, we've been talking about a violation of what? We've been talking about a violation of the first commandment. Now the Ten Commandments are listed for us in Exodus 20. The first one comes in verse three, and it is very clear. God said through Moses, you shall have no other gods before me. Can't get that wrong, can you? We can't misinterpret that. You shall have no other gods before me. We all know exactly what that means. Because there is only one God, because there is only one true and living God, any other God then would have to be what kind of a God? Not to be a false God, right? And so we have the first of the 10 commandments, the number one commandment from God that strictly forbids you and me or anyone else from worshiping false gods. And as I said, I think we've pretty well covered that subject over the past three weeks. This morning now, As we continue to study this subject of unacceptable worship, we are going to move on from the worship of other gods, which would all be false gods, to the worship of the one true God. And we're going to make another move now as well. As we do that, as we move from the false gods to the one true God, we're also then going to move on from that very serious violation of the first commandment to another very serious violation of the second commandment. which is stated for us in Exodus chapter 20 and verse 4. The first commandment's in verse 3, the next one's in verse 4, and let me read it for you. You shall not make for yourself an idol, it says, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. Now, somewhere in the past on this, I think I pointed out to you once before something about that verse, but since we're here now, I need to point it out to you again. The Hebrew word in verse four that gets translated idle in the NASB is a word that more literally means graven image or carved image. And it's a word now that in and of itself can apply, can rightly apply to both the first and the second commandments. Now last week, as you recall, We went over to 1 Samuel 5. We went to a lot of places, but that's one of the places we went. We went to 1 Samuel 5 and we read there an interesting and even kind of a humorous account. about a false God, the Philistines worshiped by the name of Dagon. Remember that? And they had actually, they had actually made a little statue of that ugly half man, half fish, false deity. They had made what? They had made a graven image, a carved image to represent that false God. An image or a statue that we would call an idol. And that's how we would use this Hebrew word. in Exodus 24, if we were using it with reference to the first commandment. But mark this very important distinction now between the first and the second commandments. As we come to the second commandment, we are no longer talking about false gods like Dagon. We are talking about the true God, the one true God. And so to keep that distinction clear, I actually prefer the King James rendering of graven image in Exodus 20 and verse 4 over the NASB rendering of idol. Now I do know that technically the Hebrew word here can refer to the representation of any God, the true God or false gods. And I know that it can be rightly translated as either idol or graven image, and so I'm not going to try to split any hairs with anyone over that. But, for the sake of clarity, in my little mind, I like to think of an idol as being the representation of a false god that's being prohibited in the first commandment, and a graven image, then, as being the reduction of the true God that's being prohibited in the second commandment. That just is helpful for me. All right. You shall have no other gods before me, God said. All false gods, all idols are strictly forbidden. That's commandment number one in verse three, nor shall you make for yourself any graven images of me, God went on to say in verse four, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water underneath the earth. God went on to say in verse four, and that is commandment number two. And so there you have now our subject out on the table for this morning. And it's our subject for this morning is all about this second commandment now. Reducing the true God to an image is unacceptable worship and a violation of the second commandment. Now, as you can see by your notes, we're talking about the second commandment today. As you can see by your notes, I want to take you in three directions on this subject today. And here they are. I want to talk a little bit first about the reason why God issued this second commandment. From there, I want to take you to Exodus 32, and show you how Israel very blatantly and very outwardly violated the second commandment very soon now after it was issued. And so we'll spend the bulk of our time this morning in Exodus 32. And then we're going to finish up for today by adding one more thing. I want to finish today by talking a little bit about how you and I can very easily become violators of this second commandment in a more subtle and inward kind of way. And so those are the directions we're going to go in now. And let's go back to that first one. Go back with me now. Let's talk a little bit about the reason why God issued this command. Here now is the question. Why do we have the second commandment that prohibits us from reducing God to an image? Why, in other words, why is this commandment even necessary? Well, go in lots of different directions to answer that question. But it seems to me that a good place to begin answering that question might be right there in our text of John chapter four in verse 24. I know you're not there, but if you are there, glance at John chapter four, verse 24, and you will notice that it says there that God is what? God is spirit. What does that mean? What do we know about God? God has no body, does he? God has no visible form. And so the idea here behind the second commandment is simply this. He doesn't want any man trying to give him an image or a form, right? He has no form and he doesn't want any help from that on any of us, you or me. In his first letter to Timothy chapter one and verse 17, Paul referred to the only God As the king, eternal, immortal, what's the next word? Invisible, right? What do we know about God? God is invisible. Whatever you cannot see him with your eyes. And so let me answer this question for you now. Why do we have the second commandment in two parts? Number one, Number one, God issued this second commandment because there is no image, people. There is no statue. There is no picture. There is no form that a man could ever come up with. that would even come close to adequately representing God. Impossibility. We are not to reduce the invisible God to an image, commandment number two, because the invisible God cannot be reduced to an image. God is completely unlike anything in his creation. And as I thought about that one day, something came to mind from our heaven study a long time ago. God is completely unlike anything in his creation. And if you don't believe me, just ask Ezekiel. In Ezekiel chapter 1, Ezekiel saw visions of God, it says in verse 1. And throughout the rest of that chapter, Ezekiel went on to describe, have you ever read Ezekiel 1? I know we did together. In the rest of that chapter, Ezekiel went on to describe a whole bunch of incredibly confusing combinations of blazing lights, flashing fires and turning wheels. And you remember the turning wheels had wheels within the wheels. And, and you know what, we walked down through that chapter one time. I remember during our heaven study, we were trying to, you know, we were looking at all the places where, where the Bible gives us little glimpses into heaven. And that was one of them. And so we went there, we read down through that chapter. Some of you may recall, and by the time we got done, You might recall something else, but at the time we got done with that chapter, our heads were all spinning faster than those wheels were spinning. And you know what? Let me tell you something else. The implication of that chapter was to say people that Ezekiel's head was spinning right along with ours. And why was his head spinning right along with ours? Because he was trying to explain the unexplainable. That's why. You see, that's part of the message of that chapter. The overwhelming complexity of that chapter, people, communicates to us this morning the reason why our great and awesome God cannot be reduced to an image that any man could ever come up with. God issued this second commandment because any form, any image, any picture, any statue that a man would ever come up with to represent the invisible God is always going to fall grievously short of what Paul referred to in Ephesians 3.19 as the fullness of God. Any form, any image, any picture, or any statue that a man would ever come up with to represent the invisible God is always going to devalue God, the person of God. That's why we have this second commandment. As the prophet Isaiah was expounding upon the greatness of God in Isaiah chapter 40, He asked two rhetorical questions in verse 18 that I think might be helpful for us right here. To whom then will you liken God, he asked, or what likeness will you compare with him? What are the understood answers to those questions? The understood answers to those questions are no one and nothing, right? There is no one with whom you can liken God, and there is nothing that you can compare God with. And so understand that now as the basis for this second commandment. One commentator I read, I'm, as you know, I'm not a real big guy on illustrations because most of them I find are kind of corny and senseless. I'm not a real big illustration guy, but one commentator I read explained the reason for this second commandment with an illustration that I actually thought was good enough to share with you. And so I'm going to take a minute to do that. He used to live in California, he said. And I don't even know this guy's name, by the way. I don't remember his name. He used to live in California, he said. And when visitors would come out there to see him, he would often take them to see one of the most impressive scenes in all of nature. He would take them to the Redwood National Forest, National Park, to see the awesome beauty of the Redwood Forest. I've never experienced that, I've never been there, but maybe some of you have. And I would have to actually take them there, he went on to say, because The majestic beauty of that place and the enormous size of those trees are things that just cannot be described with words. They have to be experienced. They can only be experienced. And then it went on to say this. Suppose now when we got back to my place, brought my guests back to my place from that day's outing at the Redwood National Park, Suppose when we got back to my place, I gave my visitors a box of toothpicks and a bottle of glue and said, OK, now what I'd like you to do is make a model of the redwood forest that you just saw today so that when you get back home, you will have something by which you can explain its majesty and its beauty to your friends and your relatives. Makes the point, doesn't it? the impossibility of that likeness being adequately captured. The tremendous insufficiency of that toothpick model to even begin to describe the majesty of the Redwood forest people is just one tiny, itsy bitsy, puny little illustration of what we're talking about today. God prohibits us from reducing him to some manmade image because He cannot be even remotely reduced to anything a man would ever come up with to represent him. But now having said that, listen to me carefully. That doesn't mean, and this is so beautiful, that doesn't mean that there isn't a valid representation of him, does it? No, it doesn't. That doesn't mean that there isn't a valid representation of him anywhere to be found because there is, listen, The only valid representation of God, the only valid way for God, for almighty God to reveal himself to men is for him to do his own revealing. You and I can't do it. And we are forbidden from even trying to do it. Only God can reveal God. And aren't you thankful that he has done that for us? He has done that for us. And you know where and how he has done that. Let me remind you, God has revealed himself to us people through his word. God has revealed himself to us through his word. And as I think you all know by now, there are two dimensions to that word, aren't there? It's beautiful. God has revealed himself to us, first of all, through his written word, right? When we want to know about God, When we want to learn about God, when we want to know about the attributes and the characteristics of God, what do we do? We don't look to some man-made image, right? Like Dagon or something like that. We don't do that. What do we do? We read and we study his eternal written word. But then secondly, all right, secondly, and you know where I'm going, don't you? Secondly, when we talk about God revealing himself through his word, we have to add this dimension. Secondly, God has revealed himself to us through the Living Word. The Living Word with a capital W, right? And who is the Living Word? The Living Word, John 1, 1 in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God, right? Secondly, God has revealed himself to us through the Living Word, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so as you think about this second commandment now, Please understand that only God can adequately reveal and explain God. And you remember what it said now in John 1.14 about that living word. Verse one said, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. What does verse 14 say about that word? And the word people became, what did we just celebrate around the Lord's table? The word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the father full of grace and truth. Isn't that awesome? That's why I'm saved. And that's why you're saved. God became a man. He had no obligation to us other than to wipe us off, pour his wrath out on us and wipe us all off into hell forever. But God, out of his love for us, because there was no other way, God became a man. and the person of Jesus Christ. Why? According to verse 14, he did that to reveal his glory to men. And then there's a follow-up thought on that in John 1.18. We've been there a while ago. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the father, he has explained him. That's kind of interesting. You know what that word explained means? That word explained means people that Jesus Christ is the exposition. What do we do here every Lord's day morning? We open the text. We open a couple of verses of scripture and we do an exposition, right? We explained the text, right? What it means by what it says in its context. What does this mean? It means that Jesus Christ is the exposition of God. That's what that means. And since we're talking about images this morning, since we're talking about forms this morning, let me give you a couple of verses. Colossians 1.15 says that Jesus Christ is what? Here it is. Is there no image of God? Yeah, there's an image of God. Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God. Isn't that great? Jesus Christ. makes the invisible God visible. And in Colossians 2.19, it goes on to say that in Him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. Listen, when Paul prayed in Ephesians 3.19, He prayed a number of things, but he summed that prayer up by saying this, he prayed that you and I would be filled up to all the fullness of God. I remember stumbling over that when we studied that. What in the world does it mean to be filled up to all the fullness of God? Well, here's what it means. What he meant by that is that we would be filled all the way up to the fullness of Jesus Christ. And to put that into terms of Romans 1.29, that we would be conformed to, there's our word again, conformed to what? To the image of Jesus Christ. And so here's where we are this morning. You and I can't come up with an image that adequately represents God. And that's why the second commandment strictly forbids us from even trying to do that. But listen, God himself can do that. And God himself did do that. God became a man and the person of Jesus Christ. And so if you want to know about God, Here are your options. You can read and study his written word where he has revealed himself. And then you can also read and study in that same written word, all about the person of Jesus Christ, who is the living word of God. And by the way, Let me just throw this out there as a kind of a side note this morning while we're talking about the second commandment. There were, of course, a whole bunch of believers who were here when Jesus Christ was here. There were a whole bunch of believers who actually saw Jesus Christ in his physical body. Some even saw him after his resurrection in his resurrection body. But interestingly, and probably probably because they were applying the second commandment to him. Cause he is who, who is Jesus Christ? He is God, right? He is deity. Interestingly, and probably because those people were applying the second commandment to him, they didn't leave us with any physical descriptions of Jesus Christ that we could then use to draw pictures and make statues. Isn't that interesting? Just an interesting side note here while we're talking about this second commandment. Now I told you a couple of minutes ago, that I was going to answer this question, why did God issue the second commandment in two parts? And so let me go ahead now and give you the second part of the answer. The first part of the answer is to say that he cannot be adequately represented by anything a man would ever come up with. And let me give you the second part of the answer. Now, second part of that answer has to do with what God knows about us. God issued this second commandment prohibiting us from reducing him to an image because he knows that there's something in the human heart that will always want to do that. We are just prone to that. He knows that men are always going to want to shrink him down to something a little bit more manageable. And that's why perhaps you've heard people say this before. Have you ever heard somebody say, well, my God, my God would never send someone to hell, or my God would never do this, or my God would never do that. Have you ever heard that? People say that all the time. My God would never do this or that or the other thing when the Bible clearly says that God will do all of those things, right? What have those people done? They have created their own God and their own mind according to their own likeness, they've made God how they wanted him to be, and they've got an image of God in their mind that is the God that they like better than the God who has revealed himself in his word. You see, men don't want, we're prone to that, we're prone to want to violate the second commandment. That's the other reason why we have it. Men don't want a majestic God, people, who is great and vast beyond their comprehension. They want a God that they can wrap their arms around. They want a God that they can define on their own terms so that they can then predict him better, manipulate him and even control him. We have the second commandment because God knows that the men and women that he created will always be prone to this violation. They will always want to do this thing that cannot be done. And so there you have, there you have the reasons why we have this second commandment. And let's move on to the second thing now. Let me show you now the classic example of this. Let me show you the very first gross violation of this second commandment. And it was committed now by the very people, the very firsthand people whom he issued that command to, and the violation came less than 40 days after he had issued it to them. We're going to be moving toward Exodus 32. And so you could begin moving in that direction, but I want you to stop in verse 24 or chapter 24. First, we're going to be moving toward Exodus 32, where I want you to see how the children of Israel violated the second commandment that we're talking about today. But let me set you up for that a little bit by having you stop just for a second in Exodus chapter 24. And when you get to Exodus 24, I want you to look with me at verse 3 in Exodus 24. The children of Israel had heartily agreed to obey all the laws that God had given to Moses, which of course included the 10 commandments. And look at what it says in verse 3, Exodus 24.3. And then we'll quickly get on over to Exodus 32, but here's what it says in Exodus 24.3. Then Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances, it says in Exodus 24.3. And then look what it says at the end of that verse. And all the people answered with one voice and said, all the words, which the Lord has spoken, we will do. They didn't really do too well with that promise, did they? But that's what they said. All the words, which the Lord has spoken, we will do. Well, as you move toward the end of Exodus 24, then God called Moses up onto the mountain, right? They're not going to see Moses for a while after Exodus 24. He's going up on the mountain so that God can give him the stone tablets. And Moses was up on that mountain, it says, for 40 days and 40 nights. Seven long chapters go by. God gives Moses all the instructions for the tabernacle, how to build it, how to worship in it, and all of it. the priest, their attire, all of it, detailed instructions for seven chapters. But they're not going to see Moses now for 40 days. But you know what happens? Moses is on the mountain, the children of Israel, Aaron's in charge down below. The children of Israel are down at the base of the mountain. And before those 40 days are up, people, Before those 40 days were up, they just said they would obey all of the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, including the 10 commandments. But before Moses could even get back down to the people after his 40 days on the mountain with the stone tablets from God, they had already grossly violated this second commandment. And that whole pathetic ordeal now is what we're going to look at this morning in Exodus 32. This is where we'll spend the bulk of our time. There is a lot of text here. There are 35 verses here in Exodus 32. And I want you to know right up front that I'm going to walk you down through every single one of them. I couldn't think of any other way to do this without sacrificing really what the inspired text, the inspired word of God has to say about this horrific event. And so that's what we're going to do. Know ahead of time, of course, that there are lots of things in this chapter that are very much worthy of exploring and talking about that we won't be able to explore and talk about, but I'm going to selectively talk about a few things and hopefully the few things that we do talk about will be enough to make the picture for you very, very clear. As you would think about worship and as you would think this morning about the seriousness of violating this second commandment. And so here we go now, let's jump in. Go over to Exodus 32, if you're not there already, and I want you to pick up with me in verse one. And I'm just going to read down through this. And in various places along the way, I'm going to stop to make a comment or two, maybe three, maybe four. All right. And so we're going to work down through this chapter. I want you to see. what it says in the word of God here in Exodus 32, the first violation of this second commandment. Now, when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, come make us a God who will go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. Well, first thing that I want you to note here is the fact that Moses wasn't really delayed at all. Like the people here just said he was. Moses wasn't delayed. It was in the plan for him to be up there for how long? 40 days and 40 nights. So understand right away here that the problem wasn't a tardy Moses. The problem was an impatient people. You see, Moses was their connection to God. And he had been ever since he delivered them from Egypt, right? Moses was their connection with God. And with Moses now gone, even for a few weeks, with Moses now out of sight, what did the people want? people very quickly wanted some new connection with God. They wanted a visible representation of God. And so that kind of goes back to what I said a minute ago, the Israelites immediately had that desire that we just talked about a few minutes ago. They wanted to reduce God down to some visible and manageable image. And so good old Aaron, Moses' brother, he's the one who was now in charge while Moses was up on the mountain. Aaron, sinfully accommodated them. It says in verse two, and pick up with me there now. Aaron said to them, oh my, this is just so, it's just, it's horrific. It's terrible. It's depressing actually. Aaron said to them, tear off the gold rings, which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. Then all the people tore off the gold rings, which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And here it is now in verse four. He took this from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf. And they said, this is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Would you note two things with me here in verse four, number one, the Bible says that Aaron fashioned this gold into a molten calf, or more literally, that means that he fashioned it into a young bull. Where did that come from? That was a carryover from Egypt. The Egyptians viewed this particular animal as the vehicle on which a god rode in power. And as such, they identified the young bull itself as being divine. Aaron and all the people, that was all fresh in their minds from the idolatry and the false worship in Egypt. Aaron and all the people would have been very familiar with this calf or this young bull from their time there in slavery in Egypt. And so that's the form that Aaron chose as he crafted this graven image in Exodus 32. And then the second very important thing to note here in verse four, and don't miss this one. The second very important thing to note here in verse four is the God this young bull was fashioned to represent. Okay. This is important. This is why we're here today. This young bull people was not fashioned to represent a false God. After Aaron made the young bull, he said to the people, and by the way, I'm not sure if you carry the NASB, I'm not sure why it says they said the word they is really not there in the Hebrew text. It was Aaron who then said to the people, This is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. And the reason why we're here today in Exodus 32, and the reason why we didn't come here to Exodus 32 last week, is because this grievous sin was a violation, people, not of the first commandment, but of the second commandment. I want you to note and mark this now. This young bull was fashioned to represent the true God. And would you notice that Aaron even used the exact same language that God had used himself to describe the 10 commandments, just when he was introducing the 10 commandments in Exodus 20, it says this, I am the Lord, your God. It says in Exodus 20 in verse two, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. That's exactly what Aaron said. Now, after fashioning a young bull out of a bunch of gold jewelry, he said this, this is your God. Oh, Israel, what God? The God who brought you up from the land of Egypt. This is the true God now. This calf was fashioned to represent not a false God, but the true God. The golden calf is there now. And in verse five, the sinful worship begins. Now, when Aaron saw this, verse five, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. So the next day they rose early and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose up to play. Once again, there are a couple of things I want to stop in. point out to you here. Number one, the fact that Aaron built an altar and proclaimed a feast here indicates to us that he was initiating an alternate system of worship for the people that interestingly copied the very things that Moses had done in chapter 24 before going up on the mountain. What did Moses do back there? He built an altar and proclaimed a feast. What is Aaron doing here? He built an altar and proclaimed a feast. And then the other thing I would point out to you here quickly, uh, has to do with what it says at the very end of verse six, when it says that the people rose up to play. All right. I didn't mean they went out and swung on the swing set. You know, no, no, no, no, no. When it says they rose up to play, the meaning of that word has to do with revelry, drunkenness, and gross sexual immorality, orgies, and those types of things. Yet more things these people would have learned from the Egyptian ways of worship. This was terrible, terrible stuff. Well, as we go on to verse seven now, the scene shifts from down below to back up on the mountain where Moses was with God, and look what it says. The Lord, of course, who is everywhere all at once, he's omnipresent, right? He knew what was going on. Then the Lord spoke to Moses. Go down at once for your people whom you brought up from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten cap and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, this is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. The Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people and behold, they are an obstinate people. And so we have now an angry God speaking to Moses on the mountain. And this now, I understand this now becomes a test for Moses as Israel's mediator. And it's a test, by the way, that he will pass by fervently interceding for them. And watch now, all right, this is going to get interesting now. Watch now what God says to Moses in verse 10. He's just relayed to Moses what they're doing. He's relayed to Moses his anger over the whole thing and watch now what God says to Moses in verse 10. Now then let me alone that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them and I will make of you a great nation. In other words, Moses, get out of my way. I'm going to wipe them out. And when I'm done wiping them out, I'm going to make a great nation of you instead of out of them. That's what God said to Moses. And I need to stop right there because this gets into difficult stuff. I need to stop right there at least for a minute or two in order to set you up for what is perhaps the most theologically perplexing statement in this whole chapter that is coming right up when we get to verse 14. And let me begin to set you up for that now by reminding you of what we know about God. What do we know about God? We know lots of things about God. He's revealed himself in his word, right? I just said a little while ago, we know that God is holy, right? We know that God is just, right? And that because he is holy and just, he absolutely must punish all sin, right? We know that. The only way, in fact, that holiness can possibly react to sinfulness is with wrath. There is no other way. And so understand now that what God just said to Moses in verse 10, get out of my way, Moses, I'm going to wipe them out. Right? What God just said to Moses in verse 10 is a perfect representation of who God is. Perfect representation of how God has revealed himself to be a holy and just God in his word. My wrath, Moses, is going to destroy them. And then when I'm done, I'm going to make a great nation out of you instead of out of them. That's exactly how we would expect God to react to this grievous, horrible thing that just happened at the base of the mountain. Right? But isn't it interesting, isn't it interesting that God prefaced all of that by saying to Moses at the beginning of verse 10 there, let me alone so that I can do all of this against them. Kind of an interesting statement, right? And before we go any further now, I want to remind you of a couple other things we know about God, right? We know that he's holy. We know that he's just and that he must punish all sin because of that. But what else do we know about God? Well, let me list a couple other things out of the many things we know. We also know that God is sovereign, right? And we also know that God is omniscient, right? That means he knows everything. Absolutely nothing he does not know. He is sovereignly in control of the universe and he is omniscient, right? And so with that reminder now, let me ask you a question. Did God not know that Moses would faithfully stand in the gap for these people? Of course, God knew that Moses would faithfully intercede for these people. He, in fact, is the one who had called Moses to be their mediator. And then let me ask you another question. Did God not already know right here in verse 10, when he asked Moses to let me alone, leave me alone. Did he not know right there in verse 10, that Moses would not let him alone and that he would then through Moses prayer, not completely destroy Israel and not make a new nation out of Moses. Did he not already know all of that? Right when he said, leave me alone in verse 10, of course he knew all of that. He's sovereign and he's omniscient. And so you say, well, I'm confused. Why then did he say to Moses, let me alone, right? Well, he said that as a way of bridging the huge gap of comprehension there is between an infinite God and finite men. There's a name for the theologians have a name for this. It's what theologians refer to as anthropomorphism. I think we've talked about that before. It's anthropomorphism. Let me give you an example of what I mean by that. There are many times when the Bible attributes human characteristics or behavior to God for the sake of accommodating our very puny, limited, finite, little pea brain things we have here between our ears, right? When the Bible speaks of God's hand forever, does that mean that God literally has a hand? No, no. And when the Bible speaks of God's arm or God's nostrils, does that mean that God really has a nose? No, no, no, no, no. Those are just accommodations for our understanding of what's being said. And so, all right, you got that back there? Remember that now. You're going to need that in a minute. Okay. Remember that now as we approach verse 14, and before we get to verse 14, we've got to go to verse 11. And as we move on to verse 11 now, I want you to notice that Moses did exactly what God already knew he would do, right? Let me alone, Moses. He knew Moses wasn't going to let him alone because Moses was a faithful intercessor, right? He knew Moses wasn't going to do that, and Moses didn't do that. Moses now, verse 11, faithfully interceded for the people he had been called to serve. And in verses 11, 12, and 13 now, I can't take a long time on this. But if you want to go back and look at this, verses 11, 12, and 13 is an incredible and wonderful model of intercessory prayers. You would intercede for other people. Moses makes his appeal to God here on the basis of three important things. Let me at least point them out to you. He makes his appeal on the basis, number one, of God's previous work for Israel in verse 11, on the basis of God's glory and reputation in verse 12, and on the basis of God's word verse 13. Note those things now as I read those three verses. We can spend more time on this, like I said, but we can't. Then Moses entreated the Lord, his God, verse 11, and said, Oh Lord, why does your anger burn against your people whom you have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? You understand Moses, the basis for Moses plea there. He's saying, why would you destroy this people? God, when you've already done all these wonderful things for them, you brought them, you delivered about from the land of Egypt. Why, why are you now going to destroy them? Right? That doesn't make any sense. God, why would you do that? But then there's your reputation, God, that's at stake. That's in verse 12. Look at this. Why should the Egyptian speak saying with evil intent, he brought them out here to kill them in the mountains. and to destroy them from the face of the earth, right? The Egyptians are going to laugh at you, God, if you do this, right? Because they know why you brought them out here. Turn from your burning anger and change your mind about doing harm to your people. And then finally, God, there are your promises. There's your word. God, there's your word. That comes in verse 13. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by yourself and said to them, I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens. In all this land of which I have spoken, I will give to your descendants and they shall inherit it forever." God, you've made promises. God, because of who you are, God, because of your reputation, God, because of your promises, you simply cannot destroy these people. And here's Moses pleading with God on the basis of those three things. And here we go now, watch what it says in verse 14. Here we go now with that difficult theological statement that I tried to set you up for and told you was coming. Here it is. So the Lord What does it say? The Lord, it's hard to even say that, isn't it? So the Lord changed his mind about the harm, which he said he would do to his people. God changed his mind, it says. And if you think that's rough while you're beginning to try to process that concept in your mind, how about if I go ahead and tell you what it says in the King James Bible in verse 14. In the King James Bible, you know what it says in the King James Bible? In the King James Bible, it says that God repented, right? It actually says that God repented. That's what it says. I'm fully aware that that's what it says. But would you please understand this morning that, that the Lord, it's going to sound like I'm contradicting the word of God this morning, but would you please understand that God does not and cannot possibly change his mind? Would you please understand this morning that God does not repent? And we know that for sure. from what it says in Numbers 23.19, God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should repent. What would God ever have to repent of, right? Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? And I'll give you one more. Malachi 3.6, the Lord said through Malachi in chapter 3, verse 6, For I, the Lord, do not change. Immutable. I do not change. Please understand. Then in spite of what I know, it just said in Exodus 32, 14, God does not change his mind. And by the way, you ought to be very thankful this morning that God doesn't change his mind or your justification would be on very shaky ground and so would mine be. God didn't change his mind here in verse 14. because I tried to set you up for this the best I could. God didn't change his mind here in verse 14, because he already knew back in verse 10, how this whole deal was going to unfold. And so the question for you and me again is why then does it say that he changed his mind? Well, what we have here in verse 14 is simply more of that anthropomorphism that we talked about a couple minutes ago. That's the way people, the Bible is accommodating something incredibly beautiful. That's the way the Bible is accommodating all of what just happened in this chapter to our human level of understanding. You see, when Moses prayed, all right, let's understand it from our perspective. When Moses prayed, and because Moses prayed, God changed his mind. That's the human way of understanding what just happened in this chapter. And so that's the way the Bible explains it to us. But let me tell you now what really happened. What really just happened in this chapter is that God, Almighty God, accomplished what had been his sovereign purpose all along through Moses' prayer. Isn't that awesome? God doesn't, you know, we talk about this often and it boggles my mind every time I think about it. God doesn't need us. God doesn't need you. God doesn't need me to do anything. He doesn't need us to do anything that's in his sovereign plan. But what does he do? Because he loves us, he allows us, he wants that fellowship and communion, but he allows us that, I always call it the blessed privilege of participation. And what he's doing That's a marvelous thing, people, that I'll never get over. You see, God heard Moses' prayer. God accomplished his sovereign purposes through Moses' prayer, through the faithful prayer of his servant. And now coming back on the other side of it, we can look back and say, he knew God knew exactly how the whole thing was going to unfold, not just before it happened, but he knew that all the way from before the foundation of the world. You see, this is the God that we know, love and serve, right? He is a sovereign God. He knew all of that. And, uh, now that that's clear as mud, can we go on? All right. Hopefully that makes, hopefully that makes at least a little bit of sense. All right, let's go on. Verse 15, then Moses turned, right? Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony, his hand tablets, which were written on both sides. They were written on one side and the other, the tablets were God's work. And the writing was God's writing engraved on the tablets. Now, when Joshua heard the sound, Joshua was with him by the way, special man of God. Joshua is going to take over when Moses dies, right? Moses wasn't allowed to go into the promised land because of his sin, but Joshua was going to go in and lead the people, right? Joshua was with, he was the privileged man to be with Moses on the mountain. Now, when Joshua heard the sound of the people, as they shouted, he said to Moses, there's a sound of war in the camp. But he said, no, it's not the sound of the cry of triumph, nor is it the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing I hear. It came about as soon as Moses came near the camp that he saw the calf and the dancing. And Moses anger burned and he threw the tablets from his hand and shattered them at the foot of the mountain. You say, what's that all about? Well, Moses broke the tablets there, symbolizing the fact that Israel had broken her covenant with Yahweh. That's why that happened. He's going to get another pair later on, but he broke the tablets. Verse 20, he took the calf. Moses' anger is burning right now. He took the calf, which they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it all over the surface of the water and made the sons of Israel drink it. Lots of commentators have lots of ideas about why he did that. Made them drink the powdered calf that was burned and ground up. I think the idea here is probably just that this image that they had worshiped as God would now become the product of their own human waste, right? The very epitome of worthlessness and impurity. That's probably why in verse 21, then let's go on. In verse 21, Moses finally now gets around. Not that he's dealt with what had to be dealt with first. Now he finally gets around to confronting Moses or confronting Aaron rather. And this is really quite pathetic. Verse 21, then Moses said to Aaron, What did this people do to you that you've brought such great sin upon them? Aaron said, do not let the anger of my Lord burn. You know, the people yourself, that they are prone to evil. What's Aaron's first lame excuse? Blame the people, right? It's their fault, right? You know, this people they're obstinate. They're, they're, they're, they're disobedient. They're, they're unruly. You know, these people, right? But look at his second excuse. Now, his second excuse, It's really kind of funny. It's really, it's, it's, it's, it's actually lamer than his first one. For they said to me, verse 23, make a God for us who will go before us for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt. We do not know what has become of him. I said to them, whoever has any gold, let them tear it off. So they gave it to me and I threw it into the fire and out came this calf. Isn't that funny? I mean, that's almost ridiculous. It's like I just threw the gold in there and this calf jumped. I mean, all I could think of, that's just a little bit of a spin on what really happened, don't you think? Just a little bit? All I could think about when I read that and thought about that one day is that kid who tells his teacher that the dog ate his paper, right? Same kind of level, same kind of category. I threw the gold into the fire, Aaron said to Moses, and out jumped this calf. Well, we already know that's a flat-out lie, don't we? Don't we? We already read verse 4, didn't we? What did it say in verse 4? It says in verse 4 that Aaron fashioned that calf with a graving tool. Doesn't sound to me like the calf just jumped out at all. Well, we need to pick up the speed here now and read down through the rest of this. And as I do, I want you to understand now, you understand what happened. You know what they did. You know what commandment is violating. Now, as I read the rest of this chapter, I want you to understand Again, we'll leave out a lot of details, but I want you to understand the seriousness of violating the second commandment. How? By the seriousness of the punishment, the judgment that it resulted in. And this now, this now, by the way, is even after Moses' prayer and even after God's supposed change of mind. Verse 25. Now, when Moses saw that the people were out of control for Aaron had let them get out of control to be a derision among their enemies, then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, good question. Whoever is for the Lord, come to me. Whoever is for the Lord, come to me." Right? People had committed this heinous, horrible sin. And Moses says, okay, whoever is for the Lord, take three steps forward. Come to me. And all the sons of Levi gathered to him. He said to them, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, every man of you put his sword upon his thigh and go back and forth from gate to gate in the camp and kill every man, his brother and every man, his friend and every man, his neighbor. Let me just think about that. Talking about family members. So the sons of Levi did as Moses instructed and about 3000 men of the people fell that day. You say that's pretty bad. Yeah, that's pretty bad. But there were about 600,000 of them there. And so, In the grace and mercy of God, it was only 3,000 men who died as a result of this horrific sin. Still a pretty sizable and tragic number of people. Then Moses said, dedicate yourselves today to the Lord, for every man has been against his son and against his brother in order that he may bestow a blessing upon you today. On the next day, Moses said to the people, you yourselves have committed a great sin, and now I am going up to the Lord. Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, alas, this people has committed a great sin and they have made a God of gold for themselves. But now if you will forgive their sin, and if not, please blot me out from your book, which you have written. Now, a lot of controversy over that statement. This is probably not, my conclusion is after reading miles and miles of stuff, this is probably not the book of life that you're thinking of that is recorded or mentioned in Revelation 3.5. This is probably just a book that recorded all the people who were physically alive at that time. And so what Moses is expressing here is his willingness to take the physical death that these people rightly deserved. Verse 33, the Lord said to Moses, no, not you. You're not going to die, but whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book, but go now lead the people where I told you, what is, what is God saying to Moses? Are you saying Moses, right? We're past this ordeal it's over with, right? I'm going to deal with it. You're not going to die. What I want you to do is to carry on with your assignment. You have been called by me to lead this people from Egypt to the promised land. Here you are out in the middle of somewhere. I want you to take this people on, to the promised land, Moses. Behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day, watch this now. Nevertheless, and here's again why I think that's not the book of life that you're thinking of. Nevertheless, in the day when I punish, I will punish them for their sin. Then the Lord smote the people, it says in verse 35, because of what they did with the calf, which Aaron had made. Okay. What's that all about? Well, verse 35 now is pointing a little further ahead to Kadesh Barnea. Remember what happened? Right up to the edge of the promised land. What happened when they finally got there? You know what happened, right? They sent in the 12 spies, right? And the people believed, the people believed the 10 spies and not the two spies, right? They didn't believe Joshua and Caleb. They believed the 10, the 10 spy says, Oh, we look like grasshoppers in their sight, right? Remember that? And so the people just got all terrified and they wouldn't go in. They wouldn't go in and take the, God had promised them the land, but they wouldn't step out in faith and take the land that God had promised. And so what happened? His judgment for that, God sent them back through the wilderness again in a great big circle for 40 years. And what happened during that 40 years? Everyone in that generation died, right? And here in the last verse of Exodus 32 now, We understand why they all died in that great big circle. They didn't believe the spies. Yes, that was one problem, but the problem can be traced even further back than that. They died in the wilderness where they went back around that big circle again. Why? Because of what it says here in Exodus 32, 35, they died because of what they did with the calf, which Aaron had made. And there you have now the very first serious violation of the second commandment by the children of Israel, along with its very, very serious consequences. You got the message. Reducing the true God to an image is unacceptable worship. And let's finish our study now this morning by talking just a little bit, and then we'll quit, about how you and I can very easily violate the second commandment today. And on this one, I want you to turn with me to one more scripture for today. It's not quite as long as that one. I want you to turn to Deuteronomy chapter 4, Deuteronomy chapter 4, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, 5th book in chapter 4. And when you get there, I want you to pick up with me in verse 10 and I just want to share one thought with you here. What we have here, we've seen it all along in this study, those warnings that are given to the people as they approach the promised land. God warns them over and over again through the writers, through Moses, about the idolatry that is rampant in the land that he's leading them to. And this warning now points them, is kind of one that points them back. The reason why this one's significant today, because it points them back to this whole ugly narrative that we just read about in Exodus 32. And even further back than that, to Exodus 24, where we started this morning, that's before Moses went up onto the mountain. In Exodus 24, is where Israel had entered into that covenant with God and promised to obey his law. I read that for you earlier. And here comes the warning now in Deuteronomy 4.10. Remember, that's an important word, by the way, you see that in scripture, you see that in the, in the letters to the seven churches, right? What's the first, what's the first step in getting yourself back on the track when you've gotten off the track? Remember, right? Remember, repent and return. I think it says in Revelation 3, Remember, think back, Moses says to the people. Think back and remember the day. Remember what? Remember the day you stood before the Lord, your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, assemble the people to me that I may let them hear my word so that they may learn to fear me all the days of their, that they live on the earth and that they may teach their children. You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain and the mountain burned with fire to the very heart of the heavens, darkness, cloud, and thick gloom. And watch this now in verse 12. Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire. Notice what it says. You heard the sound of words, but you saw no form, only a voice. That's a very significant statement. You heard the sound of words, but you saw no form. You saw absolutely nothing. So he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform. That is the 10 commandments. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone. The Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments. that you might perform them in the land where you were going over to possess it. And here it is again, now in verse 15, know what it says. So watch yourselves carefully since you did not see any form on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, so that you do not act corruptly and make a graven image for yourself in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth. And so there you have, in a primary sense, just a reiteration of the second commandment that we've already understood today, right? Don't make a graven image. Since you didn't see any form, don't you just go ahead and take the liberty of coming up with one. Don't make some physical thing and then worship it. as a representation of me, God says. Again, that's the outward violation of the second commandment that we've already pretty well understood today. But here's now where I want you to go as we close, as we begin to wrap this up for today. As we begin to wrap this up now for today, I want to leave you with a more subtle way. I want to leave you with an inward way that we can violate this second commandment that will just as surely result in unacceptable worship as a golden calf will. You and I, people, can very easily violate this second commandment within the confines of our own minds by seeing some image of God there. Since you did not see any form on the day God spoke to you at Horeb, God said to the people, don't make a visible image out of some material substance. And I want to suggest to you now that this also means by implication Don't even allow there to be one of those images in your mind. And so here's a good question for you to take home with you today. As you think about this second commandment, when you think of God, Or maybe when you're praying to God, is there some image of God that shows up in your mind? The point here is to say that there shouldn't be. Lots of people think of God or see God in their minds as an old man with a long white beard sitting on a throne, right? Lots of people have that image. And other people probably see other various images of him that I couldn't even begin to. imagine what they might be. But as our closing thought for today, I really think this is a valid application of the second commandment. As our closing thought for this morning, let's understand this second commandment and let's get rid of all the mental images of God. That's yet one more thing we need to understand about what it means to worship God acceptably. Worshiping false gods is unacceptable worship and reducing the true God to an image is unacceptable worship. And next Lord's Day, now I'm going to need two more weeks to finish this. Next Lord's Day, we're going to move on to one more thing that fits within this category of unacceptable worship. And there's lots and lots of examples. That's why it's going to take us two weeks. I thought I could do it in one, but I just absolutely cannot. There are too many really important examples of this. And here's what that third category is. Worshipping the true God in wrong ways is unacceptable worship. And so we'll begin, like I said, we'll need two weeks to finish that up. And then we're going to get back to John chapter four in verse 23. Bow with me in prayer. Father, as we're learning how to worship you and how not to worship you, we're also learning at the same time, more and more about you as you have revealed yourself to us on the pages of your word. You are the invisible God who has strictly forbidden us from reducing you to an image. a physical image, God, or even a mental image. Thank you, Father, for teaching us all about that second commandment today. We commit it all to you now, and we ask that you would accomplish your sovereign purposes with it in each heart and life as you see fit and for your glory, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.