Can We Hurt God?

We begin by reading the first verse of Exodus 32: 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.” Right from the onset we can say that when there is sin, there is confusion for it is hard to understand what is happening here. What is clear is that Moses left, and the people decided to change gods.

However, God never left and there were so many signs around them indicating His presence. He manifested Himself by giving them their daily portion of manna and on Mount Sinai one could still see the fire and smoke at the top. So, when they complained to Aaron and demanded that they make a god that would go before them, assuming Moses’ long term absence, they did this in spite of God’s presence. Does that sound familiar? If we are sealed with the Spirit, why are we still sinning, why are we still anxious and why do we doubt? More than with the Israelites, God is now in us speaking to the depth of our souls.

What happened here is that instead of putting their faith in God, they put their faith in a man and when this man left, they fell. Moses’ departure confused them. This teaches us that our faith should first be vertical, that is, with God before we can trust it and exercise our faith with others.

God first and then we can bless our neighbors. They depended heavily on Moses, trusting in the strength of a man. No wonder the devil argued concerning the body of Moses but Michael the archangel prevented him from knowing where he was buried, as we read in Jude 9. To this day we don’t know where Moses is buried.

And because it is somehow a very embarrassing passage of the Bible, many have tried to lessen the impact and excuse the Israelites with all kinds of defenses. Some concluded that the Israelites did not know better so for them the Golden Calf represented God, and so they were really worshipping God. All they needed was something tangible that they could see. Others said that the Israelites saw the Lord riding on the calf just as other deities were riding on different animals. While these excuses might sound nice, God Himself gave us His personal assessment of the event when He said in Exodus 32:8, They have made for themselves a molten calf and have worshipped it. When we put something in between us and God, we are worshipping a Golden Calf. See how subtle idolatry can be?

We learn here that “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:24. These are the words of Yeshua to the Samaritan woman. She argued that “our fathers” worshipped on a mount in Samaria and concluded that this region was chosen over and above Jerusalem.  Jesus did not argue this point with her but brought out the importance of faith which is a shield against idolatry. We should not consider the prophet who brings the Word more important than the One who is the source of the Word. Religion can be good, but it can also detract us from our connection to God and replace Him with another entity.

So, what caused the creation of the Golden Calf? The people lost patience and hope. It is true that when Moses went up Mount Sinai, he did not tell them how long he would be gone. Scriptures are silent about whether Moses himself knew how long his sojourn would be.  In light of this, they lost patience even though they had already learned so much about God and there was much evidence of His presence.

Does this sound familiar? Just as Moses left without telling them when he was coming back, Jesus also left without telling us when He would be coming back. And so, restlessness, and anxiety settled in, and this is when we begin searching for replacements. Today, the response concerning Jesus’ delay (for these last 2000 years), has seen many try to fill the void by adding or altering the Word of God, in order to make the wait more acceptable or more humanly justifiable. And so, these days, one of the greatest Golden Calfs which developed is the teaching that we are in the Millennium, and that Satan is bound and that the church, that is man himself, will change the world.

This is what mainstream Christianity believes. The Catholics, the Orthodox, as well as most evangelical churches such as the Anglicans and the Methodists are taking their stance defending this doctrine. Included as well are the greater majority if not all the Chrisitan cults such as the Jehovah Witnesses and the Mormons.  More and more Baptists and charismatics are taking this position as well. This Golden Calf points to man’s efforts, and they believe that they, and not Jesus, will bring the entire world to know Christianity.  Unfortunately, 2000 years of failures does not seem to prove this unrealistic proposition, all this translating into a huge lack of faith in the written Word of God.

Yeshua however, is not late. He waits and waits, allowing for more time and for more people to come to faith in His messiahship. This delay is His token of love. So, let us not be impatient but arm ourselves with faith which is the antidote for the Golden Calf. In any event, no one lives forever, and so, at some point in our lives, He will come take us or we will go to Him, so let us not be impatient.

But let’s see how disturbed God was with this Golden Calf response from the people. This is when He tells Moses in Exodus 32:10, “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.” He said, “Let Me alone”. This literally means, Let Me rest.  The word alone, is nouah נוּחַ, meaning rest, so why would God need to rest? It is because sin disturbs God and so He needed to move away. And we further see how He describes the people. He says in vs.9, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people”. The word obstinate קָשֶׁה (qāšeh) means to be hard, difficult or cruel. It is the same word used to describe how the Egyptians mistreated Israel when they were under cruel bondage (Ex. 1:14, 6:9).  Now it is God who is being mistreated by them because they sinned.

This word obstinate, is used four times in Exodus 32 to 34 describing how the people hurt God. The question we ask ourselves when we read this account is: have we been obstinate lately?

Have we hurt God?

Click Here for the Teaching: Exodus Sermon 31: The Golden Calf