Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You have taken along the tabernacle of Molech and the star of your god Rephan, the idols you made to worship. -Acts 7:42
I was always under the impression that when God delivered His people out of Egypt that they made a clean break. He gave them such a mighty deliverance parting the Red Sea to bring them out of bondage into freedom. You would think that they would have separated themselves from the idolatry of Egypt as soon as they left that place. It’s what God wanted, but that is not what happened!
Their blatant idolatry is clear in this passage from Acts where God says, “Do you think you were worshipping me out there in the desert for 40 years? No, you were worshipping your idols!!!”
They were given dramatic deliverance by God and were witnesses of one of the most miraculous things that has ever taken place as God parted the Red Sea for them. And what did they do? They left Egypt with their idols in hand!
They witnessed the Pillar of Cloud, they saw the Pillar of Fire, they experienced a miraculous deliverance through the Red Sea as it was split open so that they could escape the Egyptians that were pursuing them, but they refused to let go of their idols!
They had never completely given themselves over to God, they were holding back in their hearts.
The pathway of idolatry
Why was it so easy for God’s people to fall into gross idolatry?
The reason the Israelites found it so easy to make and worship the golden calf was because they had gotten used to a lifestyle of compromise.
They could certainly appreciate the deliverance that Yahweh had given them, and yet to their way of thinking, it never hurt to have an idol in their back pocket! When Moses was a long time in returning they just went back to business as usual.
What I could never understand though was how Aaron, who was the High Priest of Yahweh, could so easily fall into the same thing? He got right in there and helped melt the jewelry and made the golden calf with his own hands! What in the world was Aaron thinking??
Well, here’s your answer!
Aaron was like so many leaders in the Church today who are living a compromised life with a compromised people and they’ve never really established the order that God wanted in their lives, so when the moment of temptation comes they just return to their idolatry instead of to God.
While Moses is up on the mountain having a holy moment with God the camp below has let the lust of their flesh take over. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back so to speak!
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten calf and have bowed down to it. -Exodus 32:7
Moses comes down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments in his hands, hears the sound of singing, and finds them having a great big party! It’s like a parent who leaves for the weekend and comes home early. As they drive into the driveway they hear loud music blasting from the house and kids running around with drinks in their hand! Cars are all over the place parked on the lawn and a keg out in the backyard! They go into the house and find a couple making out in their bedroom! Their beautiful clean house reeks of pot and smells of beer. They can’t even find their son because of all the confusion of kids running around.
And Moses saw the people, that they were running wild because Aaron had allowed them to run wild. -Exodus 32:25
Another translation puts it like this:
Moses saw that the people were running wild, for Aaron had let them get completely out of control.
Moses sees the golden calf, and throws the tablets of stone that he had received from God on the ground and breaks them! Then he takes the golden calf, grinds it down into powder, puts it in water and makes the people drink it!!!
Moses is furious!!!
God never rebukes him for breaking the tablets of stone. God never rebukes him for grinding the golden calf into a powder and making them drink it! God never rebukes him for calling them out on their compromise and idolatary because God totally hated it himself!
The Apostle Paul says later in the Book of Acts that God “put up with them” in the wilderness.
And for about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. -Acts 13:18
We ought to be grateful that God is longsuffering, but on the other hand it’s really stupid to take advantage of that. There will come a day of reckoning.
God never deserted His people while they were in the wilderness. God never left them even though they had their idols. The Pillar of Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire by night was the literal manifestation of His presence. God wanted them to know He was with them, BUT IT DIDN’T MEAN HE APPROVED OF THEIR IDOLATRY AND COMPROMISE.
JUDGMENT EVENTUALLY CAME.
God did not abandon them but discipline and correction came because God loved them too much to just let them go on in their wicked ways.
I’ve certainly experienced this in my own life!
You may persist in your sin for a very long time and think that judgment will never come, but you are absolutely wrong about that! If you are a child of God who is living in disobedience and rebellion, the day will come when you come face to face with God, and He will bring you into the fear of the Lord in no uncertain terms!
Do not let the delay of impending judgment and discipline lull you into thinking judgment will never come. It will come, believe me!
GOD CANNOT BE MOCKED, A MAN REAPS WHAT HE SOWS. AND GOD DISCIPLINES THOSE HE LOVES.
It’s His mercy to do so. He’s showing kindness when He corrects you. He loves you too much to hold back the rod of correction.
For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastises every son He receives. -Hebrews 12:6
Israel had a long history of idolatry and the record shows that the correction and judgment of God eventually showed up in their lives.
One other thing…
Before they left Egypt they were instructed to put THE BLOOD over their door posts and promised that as long as the blood was over the door post the destroying angel of death would PASS OVER THAT HOUSE and not take the first born. This is, of course, a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and his shed blood as the Passover Lamb.
As long as they were covered with the blood they were safe. BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN THEIR HEARTS WERE PURE! Many of them left Egypt carrying their idols with them into the desert and for 40 years they were not only worshiping Yahweh but they were worshiping these false gods, AND GOD WAS NOT AMUSED.
“I swore to them, to bring them out from the land of Egypt into a land that I had selected for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands. I said to them, ‘Cast away, each of you, the detestable things of his eyes, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am Yahweh your God.’ But they rebelled against Me and were not willing to listen to Me; each one did not cast away the detestable things of their eyes, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt.” -Ezekiel 20:5
God has not changed since the days when He brought His people out of Egypt. He hated their idolatry then and He hates our idolatry now! The New Testament is not silent about this.
Little children, keep yourselves from idols. -1 John 5:21