In C.S. Lewis' book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the reader is introduced to a new character named Eustace Clarence Scrub. For those of you who are not familiar with the book, Eustace, to put it bluntly, is a spoiled brat. He's not somebody that you really want to hang around with. He's selfish. He's condescending. But he's magically pulled into the world of Narnia along with his cousins, Edward and Lucy, and they find themselves aboard Prince Caspian's royal ship, the Dawn Treader. Now, while Edward and Lucy are thrilled to be back in Narnia and excited to begin a new adventure aboard the ship, Eustace fails to share in their excitement. He demands to be put ashore as soon as possible so that he can lodge a complaint with the nearest British consulate. He refuses to accept the reality of his new circumstances and displays nothing but contempt for his fellow travel companions. Later in the story, they disembark the ship on an island where Eustace wanders away from the group and he stumbles upon a dragon's hoard that is full of treasure. Eustace begins to dream about the life he could fashion for himself apart from his traveling companions with this new treasure. He places a rather expensive-looking golden band around his arm and he drifts off to sleep. But unbeknownst to Eustace, while he slept, he turned into a dragon. Lewis wrote, it was part of the magic of that island that sleeping on a dragon's hoard with greedy dragonish thoughts in his heart turned Eustace into a dragon himself. Well, Eustace's transformation from boy to dragon teaches us an important spiritual lesson. we become what we worship. This is actually the title of a book by a New Testament scholar named G.K. Beale. Beale wrote in his book, you are either becoming like something in the world or you are becoming like God because God has created human beings as reflecting beings and we must reflect something. It is intrinsic to our created nature. It is one or the other. Well we're going to unpack this idea a little further this morning as we continue in the book of Exodus. We've come to chapter 32 which tells the story of the golden calf which is a pretty well known portion of scripture or perhaps notorious would be a better adjective. Moses leaves the people at the base of Mount Sinai while he goes up to receive instruction from God. He's gone for 40 days and while he's gone the people become anxious. and they become impatient and they forge for themselves a golden calf to worship, which is rather an audacious act considering all that the Lord has done for them. It's the ultimate betrayal. This is why throughout scripture Israel's sin of idolatry is often referred to as an adulterous affair. The Lord has just redeemed his bride from slavery in Egypt. He's entered into a covenant relationship with her. And while they're still on their honeymoon, Israel has cheated on her bridegroom. God's anger burns hot and rightfully so. In our passage today, we're going to look at three points. So really, I want to try to answer three questions. How did this happen? Why did this happen? And what was the result of this happening? My prayers through our study, we will learn from Israel's mistakes and keep our eyes fixed on Christ. So the first question we need to ask ourselves, how in the world did the Israelites fall into the sin of idolatry so quickly? I mean, who cheats on their spouse the day after their wedding? It's not like the Israelites were settling for some second-rate husband. It was through great signs and wonders that he delivered them out of Egypt. He judged the gods of Egypt through the 10 plagues. He delivered his people through the parting of the Red Sea and destroyed the armies of Pharaoh. He fed the manna in the wilderness when they were hungry. Water came forth from the rock of Horeb when they were thirsty. He gave them victory over the Amalekites at Rephidim. They saw his glory descend on Mount Sinai in fire and smoke and thunder. They felt the ground shake as they heard the voice of the Lord speak to them. God made it clear to the Israelites that he was above all gods, that his people were set apart and they were not to worship like the other nations. But the Israelites, they didn't take this lesson to heart. The moment Moses leaves, their faith fails and they turn to idolatry. Why? You know, I think sometimes maybe we're tempted to just dismiss them as a primitive people, you know, oh, they're just the stupid primitive people who worshipped idols. We would never make that mistake, right? But the Israelites weren't stupid. I think for one, they were terrified and rightfully so. In Exodus 20, when God's presence descended on Mount Sinai, and smoke, and thunder, and flashes of lightning, verse 18 says, when all the people saw the thunder, and the flashes of lightning, and the sound of the trumpet, and the mountains smoking, the people were afraid and trembled. And they stood far off and said to Moses, you speak to us, and we'll listen. But do not let God speak to us, lest we die. Now we fast forward to chapter 32. This Moses who had interceded for the people, he's been gone for 40 days and they don't know what to do. I mean, they're in the middle of the wilderness. They can't go back to Egypt. They don't dare go up on the mountain with all the smoke and thunder and flashes of lightning. So what do they do? We have to remember the religious historical context of the ancient Near East. We've talked about this a few weeks ago. Nations were represented by gods who were represented by idols. So they come up with this idea to create an idol. That's much safer. An idol they can see and touch and not die. An idol won't judge them for their sin. Yahweh is holy. An idol is not holy. This is one of the things that makes idol worship so appealing. I also think in their fear that maybe they were influenced by others who went up out of Egypt with them. So in Exodus 12, 38, it says, when the people of Israel journeyed from Ramses to Succoth, a mixed multitude also went up with them. So maybe there were some Egyptians who witnessed these signs and wonders in the plagues and thought, hey, this God of the Israelites seems pretty powerful. Maybe we'll throw our hat in with them. But they also brought with them their satanic practices of idol worship that influenced the people when their faith was failing them. Either way, the Israelites had been in Egypt for 400 years, and they were very familiar with the pagan worship of that day. I don't think it's a coincidence that they fashioned this idol in the form of a calf. The ancient Egyptians worshipped a live bull named Apis, who they considered to be the physical incarnation of the Egyptian god Ptah. Ptah was worshipped by the Egyptians as the creator of the universe. And get this, the bull was thought to be divine and acted as an intermediary between the people and Ptah. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the Egyptian belief was that Apis was the calf of a cow afterwards who would never be able to conceive again. And as legend goes, a light descended upon the cow from heaven, which caused her to conceive Apis. The calf would eventually grow into a bull and was worshipped as a god until it died. And the practice of the ancient Egyptians was that a new Apis calf would be chosen 40 days after the death of its predecessor. Now Moses was the intercessor between Yahweh, the true creator of the universe, and the Israelites. They had seen the flashes of lightning on Mount Sinai, and now Moses has been gone for 40 days. And then people began to wonder if he was dead. When you look at it in this context, you can begin to see what happened. The people didn't just pull this idea out of thin air. They interpreted these events through the pagan lens that they had adopted in Egypt. This is a pattern that we see with Israel when they're faced with trials in the wilderness. Whenever trials come and their faith is tested, they fall back on what was familiar and comfortable to them. We were better off in Egypt, they said at the Red Sea, when Pharaoh's army was bearing down on them, or when they grew tired of eating manna in the wilderness. Rather than clinging to God's promise that he had better things in store for them, they went back to what was familiar and comfortable. Now this certainly doesn't excuse what the Israelites have done. We will see as we continue through this chapter that their actions provoke God and Moses to anger and judgment falls upon them. But I think when we look at the story of the golden calf through this historical lens, we begin to understand how things went wrong. So rather than dismissing the Israelites as a primitive people and just moving on, we should stop and reflect for a moment. When the Israelites' faith was tested, they made compromises with God and went back to what was familiar and comfortable. And I'm sure they made up some great excuses to justify these compromises. You know, hey, we're still worshiping Yahweh. We just can't approach him or we'll die. The only one who could was Moses, and now he's gone. Yeah, technically God said don't make an image of silver or gold, but everybody else is doing it. Surely, Yahweh will understand, right? The golden calf, it's just a representation of Yahweh. I mean, look at what Aaron says to the people in verse five. Tomorrow shall be a feast to Yahweh. Now ask yourself, have you ever made compromises in your heart with God? You know, through much of my young adult life, I partied and drank alcohol and did all the stuff that went along with that lifestyle. And when I became a Christian, I knew drunkenness was a sin and that part of my life needed to change if I was going to be a follower of Jesus. But hey, Jesus turned the water into wine at Cana, right? We have freedom in Christ. I don't want to be too legalistic. Everyone else is doing it. I don't need to give it up completely. Just cut back a little bit. I mean, I'm not going to drink as much as those people. But what happened over time as I went to parties and social gatherings, I started slowly creeping towards that line between sobriety and drunkenness. It's how I relaxed. It's how I socialized. It's what was familiar and comfortable. I forgot that God had better things in store for me. And I found myself trying to get as close to that line as I could without crossing it. Well, inevitably, of course, I would. I would feel guilty. I'd ask God to forgive me. Surely God will understand, right? Looking back, I've come to realize I shouldn't be tiptoeing the line with sin, but sprinting away from it. Now, I'm not saying drinking alcohol is a sin by any means, but drunkenness is. And deep down in my heart, I was flirting with sin. And we do this with so many things. whether it's drinking, gossip, sexual purity, materialism, you name it. We feel like God is far off. We look to the world for comfort. Deep down, we know it's wrong, but it's comfortable and familiar, and we don't want to give it up, so we compromise. We look around at the world we are living in. We see that everyone else is doing it, and then we justify the compromises that we make in our hearts with God's commandments. But then we come to this story of the golden calf, and we say, how on earth could the Israelites have done this? What a horrible group of adulterous sinners. Yeah, sure, I mean, I make mistakes, but hey, they witnessed the parting of the Red Sea. They heard God's voice and felt the ground shake at the base of Mount Sinai. I mean, shame on them. But guys, let's not be fooled into thinking that we are less culpable because we haven't witnessed these miracles. I think hell is going to be full of sinners who never witnessed miracles. I would argue that perhaps we will have to give a greater account on the day of judgment because we've received more revelation than the Israelites. We have the full revelation of God's word. In John 14, 9, Jesus said, whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Israelites only had pictures pointing to the realities that have been made clear to us in the New Testament. Now you might be thinking, well I haven't seen Jesus with my own eyes, but we have the revelation of God's Word and the indwelling Holy Spirit. Hebrews 4.12 says, the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Guys, this book, it's just not a collection of stories or fables to pontificate over. It's just, it's not another book of self-help tips. I heard Votie Bauckham once speaking to a group of college students and told them how to answer their doubting professors when they asked them why they believed in the Bible. He told them the answer like this, the Bible is the collection of reliable historical documents written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses that document supernatural events that fulfilled ancient prophecies. It was written in three different languages over 1,500 years by approximately 40 different human authors who claim to be writing under divine inspiration, yet all tell one complete story. We have thousands of manuscripts dating back to just within decades of Christ's death and resurrection, which prove that the translations we have today have not been significantly altered or changed over the last 2,000 years. Compare this to any other work of antiquity and nothing comes close. So Christian, when your faith is failing, when you feel like God is far off, don't compromise. Don't suppress the Holy Spirit and make compromises in your hearts with God's word. Don't fall back into your old habits and patterns of sin. I don't know about you, but the more I read about Israel in the wilderness, the more it's like staring at myself in a mirror. Which brings us to our next question. Why did this happen? Well, not only did their faith fail them, but their leadership failed them as well. In Exodus 24, 14, when Moses and Joshua first went up the mountain of God, Moses instructed the elders to wait for them until they return. He said, behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them. Well, here we are a short time later. Moses and Joshua are gone. Moses went all the way up. Joshua stopped short. And he left the people and there's some group who hatched this plan to make an idol. But where in the heck was Aaron when all this was going on? Where was the council of judges that Moses established based upon his father-in-law Jethro's advice? Those guys are nowhere to be found. Or worse, maybe they were the ones who came up with this idea. We don't know. We do find out where Aaron was though. In verse one, they come to Aaron and say, up, make us gods who shall go before us. The first thing that jumped out at me about this verse was that word, up. It implies that while Moses was receiving God's instruction up on the mountain, Aaron was asleep in his tent. He was idle. He wasn't providing any leadership for the people. Was he reassuring the people as they fretted where Moses went? Was he encouraging them to fear not and stand firm as Moses did when they were at the Red Sea? Fears not. Up, they say. Make us gods who shall go before us. They command him. Seems like they've lost all respect for this man who was chosen by God to be the mouthpiece for Moses. And now they're just pushing him around and making demands. Now I don't want to beat up too much on Aaron here. To be perfectly honest, I can totally relate to him. I've been in leadership roles both within the church and in my professional life. And it's a difficult and daunting task that takes a lot of courage. And I certainly have not done it perfectly. You know, every time my work phone rings in the middle of the night, I still get a knot in my stomach. Part of me just doesn't want to answer the phone. But I want to speak to the men here this morning because in the family and within the church, men are called to lead. Adam failed to lead in the Garden of Eden when Eve was being tempted by the serpent. And ever since, I think it's the natural inclination of many men to be passive like Adam was. Maybe it's because we're afraid of failure. We make it about our glory instead of God's glory. Maybe we think so little of God, we don't really think he can actually work through us. Or maybe we're holding on to something too tightly that's holding us back. You know, our time, our comfort, our sin. And I want to encourage the men here today, if you feel God calling you to lead or serve his people, don't be afraid. Step up to the plate and swing away and trust in God. God's people need faithful leaders. Now let's take a look at Aaron's response. So Aaron said to them, take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters and bring them to me. So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. So they force him out of his passive stupor and he just immediately capitulates. He doesn't push back at all, doesn't question their motives, doesn't point out that it's in direct disobedience of God what they're asking. He doesn't make any suggestions. Like, hey guys, I know Moses has been gone for a while, but maybe we should pray first on this. He doesn't do any of this. Why? I don't know. Maybe he was afraid that the people would kill him. Although the text doesn't suggest that they threatened him, maybe he was afraid of offending them. He didn't want to appear unkind. I think too often Christian leaders mistake capitulation for kindness today. We're more worried about offending people than obeying God's word. In the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them. Now, that's okay. We don't want to be unkind. Just go ahead and use people's preferred pronouns. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. No, it's okay. We don't want to be too unkind. If you're invited to a same-sex marriage, just go ahead and attend. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. No, that's too unkind. Let's just go ahead and ordain women as pastors. I am the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody comes to the Father except through me." No, that's too exclusive. We don't want to be unkind. There's probably many, many paths to God. Guys, capitulation is never kindness when it's in direct disobedience to the Word of God. As we will see shortly, a terrible judgment falls upon the people because Aaron was afraid to say no and capitulated to their sinful demand. Now this doesn't mean he had to be a jerk about it. Perhaps if he had just stopped and prayed and sought God's guidance, he could have avoided this terrible judgment that would follow for his capitulation. Proverbs 3, 5 through 6 says, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. But Aaron doesn't do this. He failed and he fashioned the idol, then builds an altar and makes a proclamation in verse 5 that the next day they will hold a feast to Yahweh, who has now been reduced to the image of a calf. The holy, mighty, powerful Yahweh is reduced to the image of a calf. The next day they offered sacrifices And then in verse 6, it says, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. The people had a failed orientation. Instead of looking to God, they looked to a calf and they became what they worshiped. They started to act like animals. How so? You might be thinking. What's so bad about eating and drinking and playing? Well, my ESV study Bible has an interesting reference next to the word play in verse 6. It's Genesis 26, 8. Genesis 26, 8 says this, when he had been there a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out of a window and saw Isaac laughing with Rebekah, his wife. So if you're not familiar with the story, Isaac and Rebekah are living amongst the Philistines. Rebekah is a good looking woman and Isaac is afraid that the Philistines will kill him so that they can take her for themselves. So he pretends that she is his sister. But when Abimelech the king sees Isaac laughing with Rebekah, he realizes that she is his wife. All right, so what's the deal? I mean, brothers and sisters can laugh together. Why would Abimelech conclude that they're husband and wife? And what in the heck does this have to do with the way that the people were worshiping the calf in Exodus 32? Well, the Hebrew word that's used for laugh in Genesis 26, 8 is the same word that's used for play in Exodus 32, 6. The word is qal, Q-A-L, which can also mean to toy with or conjugal caresses. I think a better translation would probably be flirting and some heavy flirting at that. Its use here in Exodus 32 indicates it's being used as a euphemism for sexual immorality. So they were partying and hooking up. This feast to Yahweh has turned into a drunken frat party. While they were committing spiritual adultery with their hearts, they were committing actual adultery with their bodies. Now, we don't live in agrarian societies anymore, so some of the references might be lost on us, but most of you can probably imagine what a bull spends most of his day doing. He eats, he drinks, and if there's a cow around, he makes little calves. In fact, bulls are so driven by this instinct, at times they need to be isolated for the good of the herd and themselves. If not, they will break loose and wear out the herd and themselves. Bulls are wild animals and they cannot be tamed until they are castrated. In verse 25, when Moses comes down the mountain, it says, he saw that the people had broken loose for Aaron had let them break loose to the derision of their enemies. Their behavior would even draw the derision of their enemies. Now, those of you who are familiar with Canaanite worship would know that this kind of behavior would not have made the Canaanites blush. What it indicates is that the Israelites have completely given themselves over to this kind of behavior in an undisciplined, undignified, and reckless way. They were probably no centuries posted and no thought given to the overall good of the people. Each was acting accordance to their own selfish and base desires. Were the enemy to come upon them in that moment, the Israelites would have literally been caught with their pants down and could have been wiped out. So when God pronounces his judgment on the people to Moses in verse 9, he uses this same language of a wild beast to describe them. He calls them a stiff necked people. They're like a wild animal who refuses to be led to green pastures and quiet waters. And guys, this is why God gave us the second commandment. God's greatness, His holiness, His majesty, His power cannot be reduced into an image that we fashion with our hands. When we attempt to do this, we cheapen who God is. That image inevitably lies about the one that it's supposed to represent. And remember, God created humans to be his image bearers. That means that we are to reflect the character of the one who created us. But if we are reflecting or if we are worshiping a lie, we are reflecting the lie. We become like what we worship. So ask yourself, are you worshiping the one true God that is revealed in scripture? Or are you picking and choosing the verses that you like while maybe ignoring the ones that make you feel a little uncomfortable? If it's the latter, you're forging an idol. So if I only look at the passages in scripture that talk about God's love and mercy, I'll make light of sin and be quick to compromise. My love for Jesus will be shallow because I won't have a full appreciation of what he has saved me from, which is eternal hell for my sin. On the other hand, if I only look at the verses in scripture that speak of God's judgment and his wrath, I'll either turn into a self-righteous hypocrite because I think I'm keeping the law so much better than everybody else, or else I'll feel so overburdened by the law that I'll just give up and say, to heck with it. This is why we practice expositional preaching here at Three Rivers Grace Church. We don't skip around the Bible and focus on passages that we like or that make us feel righteous. We preach verse by verse, book by book, through the word of God so that we can worship the one true God and by his grace be conformed into his image. So what's the orientation of your heart? When you wake up in the morning, when you lie down at night, What is it that holds your thoughts captive? Social media? The news? Politics? Sports? Hobbies? Work? Did you know the average person spends four and a half to five and a half hours a day looking at their phone? Be careful, Christian. We become what we worship. But there's good news. Because if we have the proper orientation, we need not fear. Moses demonstrates this for us in our passage. While the people were turning into what they worshiped, Moses is being transformed into the one he worships. His orientation was not focused on an idol, but on God. In verse 10, when God pronounces his judgment on the people, he says to Moses, now, therefore, let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them in order that I may make a great nation of you. Now this would be a tempting offer. You know, Moses only had two sons and it wouldn't have been wrong if Moses took God up on this offer. But Moses has been up on the mountain worshiping God, not an image that represents God, but Yahweh himself. And Moses is becoming like the one he worships, which is why he turns the offer down and instead pleads for mercy on behalf of God's people. But we have to ask ourselves, well, why is this? If Moses is becoming like God and God's anger is roused against the people for their sin, well, shouldn't Moses then respond in kind? Well, let's think about that for a moment. In the next chapter, Exodus 33, verse 11 says, the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend. But then later in that same chapter in verse 20, God says to Moses, you cannot see my face for man cannot see me and live. So is the Bible contradicting itself here? What was going on up on Mount Sinai? Well, remember back in Exodus chapter three, verse two, it said the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the flame in the burning bush. Several weeks ago, we talked about how this angel of the Lord was the pre-incarnate Jesus who appeared to Old Testament saints in human form. He's presented in scripture as distinct from Yahweh, yet as Yahweh himself, which is consistent with Jesus's claim that he is one with the Father, yet distinct as the Son. This angel of the Lord was with Israel throughout their wilderness wandering. He was in the pillar of fire and the cloud that went before the Israelites. And I think we can conclude that he was with Moses on Mount Sinai. It's the only way Moses could speak to God face to face and not die. Now, there could have been other angels attending him at times. He certainly heard the voice of God the Father. But when he was speaking to God face to face, it had to be with Jesus because he lives. Stephen in the New Testament confirms this for us in Acts chapter 7 verse 38. He says, while Moses was in the congregation in the wilderness, it was the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai. And Moses is becoming like the one he worshipped, which is why Moses responds the way he does when God offers to blot the people out and to make a great nation of Moses. He pleads for mercy from God and appeals to God's glory and his faithfulness. Yes, the people deserve to die, but the Egyptians will say, with evil intent did he bring them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants to whom you swore by your own self and said to them, I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring and they shall inherit it forever. Moses has been with Jesus. He's not thinking of himself. He's filled with mercy for God's people and zeal for God's glory. And the next verse is interesting. After Moses makes his case to God, verse 14 says, So let me ask you, did Moses change God's mind? After listening to Moses, did God say, oh, you know what, Moses? You're right. Thanks for interceding there. I might have done something terribly rash. Well, no. God would have been perfectly within his right to destroy the Israelites for their sin, and God does not change his mind. God is never changing. So why then does he entertain this conversation with Moses? And what do we make of what appears to be this change of course? Well, here's my theory. Remember, in the book of Exodus, Moses is a messianic figure who points forward to the coming of one greater than himself, Jesus of Nazareth. But I think here he also points back to Jesus. This conversation between God and Moses gives us a peek into a divine conversation that occurred between God the Father and God the Son in eternity past with Moses playing the part of Jesus. God would create mankind knowing that we would turn from him, but Jesus would offer to give his life on the cross as an atonement for sin, putting on display God's mercy and justice for all the world to see. God wasn't caught off guard when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, and he wasn't caught off guard by this incident with the golden calf. God is all-knowing and never changing. It was always his plan to display his justice and his mercy through his son, Jesus Christ. In this conversation between Moses and God on Mount Sinai, we are given a picture of how Jesus interceded for us before the Father in eternity past. So while Moses played the part of Jesus when he was up on the mountain, he plays the part of God when he returns to camp. is becoming like the one he worships. God is merciful, but God is just. Verse 19 says, when Moses saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned hot, which is the exact same language used to describe God's reaction back in verse 10. He throws down the tablets with the Ten Commandments, breaking them, signifying how Israel broke their covenant with the Lord. And Moses confronts his brother Aaron, and has another conversation that echoes a conversation from the past. Moses asks Aaron, what have these people done to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them? Aaron replied, let not the anger of my Lord burn hot. You know the people, that they're set on evil, for they said to me, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him. So I said to them, let any who have gold take it off. So they gave it to me and I threw it into this fire and out came this calf. Kind of sounds a lot like what Adam said to the Lord in Genesis 3.12. This woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate." Adam was passive and he failed to lead his wife when she was being tempted by the serpent in the Garden of Eden. When God confronts him, he tries to immediately shift the blame to Eve. Aaron does the same thing here. We already talked about how he was passive. Now we see him shifting blame. It's not my fault. It's these wicked people. They came up with the idea for me to collect the gold. And then I threw it into the fire and out came the calf. It's almost infantile in his response. But he conveniently left out the part that he fashioned the gold with a graving tool to make the calf. I find it interesting how Moses was sure to include that detail in the written account. And just like in the Garden of Eden, what comes next is a curse mixed with a blessing. Moses stands in the gate of the camp and says, who is on the Lord's side, come to me. So he gives the people a chance to repent, to turn from this sin and turn back to the Lord. Now verse 26 says, all the sons of Levi gathered around him. I don't think that's to mean that only the sons of Levi gathered around him, but that the tribe of Levi uniquely felt the grievousness of this sin and repented. Maybe it was because Aaron was a Levite, so they took special ownership of this mistake. So Moses then commands them, thus says the Lord, God of Israel, put your sword on your side, each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate, throughout the camp and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor. And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about 3,000 men of the people fell." Guys, the Bible is clear, the wages of sin is death. Genesis 217, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Well, after the Levites carried out this bloodbath, Moses says to them, today you have been ordained for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day. What was the blessing? Well, The descendants of Aaron would become priests and the Levites would have a special role in the service of the tabernacle and later the temple. Talk about redemption. God is merciful for those who repent of their sins. He's quick to forgive and quick to bless. The sons of Levi would not be required to kill their brothers like this again. Instead, they would shed the blood of animals sacrificed on behalf of the people. So shortly after this incident, as an act of mercy, God would provide the sacrificial system to atone for the people's sin. Kind of like how he did after Adam and Eve sinned and he made skins to cover their nakedness in the Garden of Eden. In verse 30, we see Moses try to atone for the people's sin himself. He says to the people, you have sinned a great sin. Now I will go up to the Lord. Perhaps I can make an atonement for your sin. Moses then says to God, alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold, but now if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out of the book that you have written. What love is this that Moses has for these people that he would offer himself as a substitute for sinners. Moses has become like the one he worships. He's being formed into the image of Jesus Christ. But God would not accept Moses as a substitute for the people. Only the perfect son of God would be an acceptable offering to atone for the sins of man. So in a final act of judgment, God sends a plague on the people, but he spares the nation of Israel. So how did the notorious incident of the golden calf unfold? A failed faith, which led to compromise, failed leadership, which led to capitulation, and a failed orientation, which took their eyes off of God. Christian, we must be vigilant and not be led astray, but keep our eyes fixed on Christ because we become what we worship. You're either being conformed into the image of Christ or being conformed to the world. Does that sound legalistic to some of you? I mean, you might be thinking, Tim, I can't do that. It's too hard. My eyes are prone to constantly wander. I'm too weak. I know. So am I. But the good news of the gospel is this. While we are weak and prone to wander and become what we worship, the one worthy of all worship became like us. Jesus stepped down from his heavenly throne and took on flesh to become like us. He felt hunger, thirst, pain, and sorrow. He became like us. But with one big exception, he never sinned. Where we were weak, he was strong. He lived the perfect life that we failed to live. and died the death on the cross that we deserve for our sin. Now he gives his righteousness to all those who come to him in faith. Exodus 32, 20 says, in Moses's wrath, he took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and crushed it to powder. He then scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it. The prophet Isaiah said of God's suffering servant, he was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Jesus became a man so that he could take the punishment we deserved and he drank the full cup of God's wrath so that we wouldn't have to. Guys, God was gracious to his people Israel in the wilderness. He is gracious to sinners today. When you wander, Be like the Levites who came to Moses' side and received grace. Come to Jesus Christ and receive grace and let us fix our eyes on him. Bow your heads and pray with me, please. Father God, we give you thanks that you are a loving God who has loved us from eternity past. You knew, Lord, that we would wander, that we would stumble and fall, and you gave your son Jesus to take the punishment that we deserve for all who turn to him in faith. Lord, we pray you would help us to look to Christ. When our faith is failing us, help us look to Christ. Fill us with your Holy Spirit, Lord, and conform us into his image. We pray all these things in his holy name. Amen.