-hello everyone, it’s been a while.
-anyway, for today, I’m going to do something I did a little of at the end of the school year. I’m going to tell a story. Now, I won’t be doing this again for a while, so enjoy.
-and today’s story is one you’ve probably heard a lot, but not all the way though. It’s one of those stories we’ve taken out all the bad stuff (or good stuff, depending how you look at it) so it’s safe to tell for children. But not today. No, you’re going to hear it all today!
-so our story starts in the desert near a small group of mountains. One of them is called Sinai. If you know your Egyptian geography, it’s this little piece of land that juts down between two big long tributaries from the Red Sea.
-anyway, it has been about two months since the Israelites have been saved from the Egyptians. If you remember the story, Moses comes along and there are ten plagues that God brings on the people; water to blood, frogs, gnats, flies, livestock dying, boils, hail, locusts, darkness and the death of the firstborn, otherwise known as the Passover.
-from that day Moses leads the people into the desert towards the Red Sea. Pharaoh chases them but God protects them by turning into fire and placing Himself between the people of Israel and the Egyptians. Then God parts the Red Sea and the Israelites pass through on dry ground. The Egyptians pursue, waves crash down, all die but Pharaoh. From then on God leads the people by being a pillar of cloud in the day and a pillar of fire at night.
-pretty nice, right. I guess not enough. Three days later walking through the desert the people are complaining they don’t have water. So they find this place with bitter water, God tells Moses to put a stick in the water and it suddenly becomes sweet. Everyone can drink.
-a month later the people complain they don’t have any food. They even say to Moses, “If only God had let us die in Egypt”. Really? So God sends food every single day, but only enough for one day, bread called manna on the ground and quail for meat. But if you take too much it spoils overnight, except for the Sabbath, since no one can work and gather it on the Sabbath the food lasts two days then.
-a few days later, they want water again, and again they blame Moses, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to die in the desert?” So Moses talks with God, God says to hit a rock with his staff, the walking stick he used when the water parted just a few weeks ago, and water comes out of the rock.
- a little while later they come to Mt. Sinai, God’s mountain. God is literally on the mountain. He lives on it, there is always lightening and thunder coming from the top. And every once in a while the cloud comes down, so Moses goes up and he and God talk. It’s here Moses gets instruction for the people on how to live, like the Ten Commandments.
-and this is really where our story starts. Back to what I said before, it’s been about two months. And Moses is going to talk to God. So Moses and Joshua go up the mountain and talk to Him.
-now this takes forty days. That’s a long time, a little over a month. And the people, they saw Moses go up, but he hasn’t come down, neither has Joshua. So they start to jump to conclusions.
-eventually the people go to Aaron, Moses’ brother, and say basically, “Hey, we don’t know what happened to Moses, make us some gods for us to follow.” Aaron tells them to get all the gold they can, to take off their gold earrings and bring them to him.
-the people brought all sorts of gold and Aaron melts it down turning the gold into a huge calf. The people see it and cry out, “Israel, look! It’s the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt!”
-Aaron’s a little excited they like it, so he says he will build an altar to it and tomorrow they will have a festival to this calf. So the next day the people come out and they have a party for the new god, the calf. They celebrate by eating, by drinking, and by having sex. They didn’t tell you that in Sunday School, did they?
-so out of the big ten rules of living, they are currently breaking three, no other gods, no idols, no adultery. Up on the mountain God tells Moses everything that’s going on and he has to quickly get back down there. And God tells Moses on his way down that He will destroy the entire nation, all of them, and start over with Moses.
-but Moses pleads for their forgiveness, asking God to remember His promise to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and how the other nations will think God is weak since He could save them from Egypt only to let them die. So God relents and lets Moses go down and deal with the situation.
-so Moses starts heading down holding the two big stone tables with instruction written from the hand of God on them, followed by his helper Joshua. They’re almost down and Josh hears the celebrating and thinks the camp is being attacked, Mo hasn’t let him in on the story yet. But Moses lets him know they’re celebrating, but not for long.
-so Moses shows up and he is pissed. He takes the tablets and smashes them on the ground, the handwriting of God he smashes. He goes to the golden calf and burns it in the fire. He then grinds it into a powder and throws it in the water, forcing the people to drink it.
-he then finds Aaron and asks what the people did to him to make him do something so terrible and cause the people to sin. Aaron, he’s in a corner now, so he tells Moses not to be angry, the people asked for gods and gave him the gold, so he threw it in the fire and out popped this calf!
-to which Moses said, “Really?! You threw the gold in and out popped a cow. Really?! You think? That’s how it happened? Want to try again big boy?”
So Moses seeing that Aaron had let the people go nuts and he was of no help, he went to the entrance to the camp and asked “All of you who are on the Lord’s side, come join me”. And only the Levites joined him.
-so Moses says, “Good. Take out your swords and start swinging. I don’t care who you hit, friends, neighbors, family, go back and forth through the camp killing everyone.” And the Levites killed about 3000 people. (That wasn’t in Sunday School either).
-so Moses tells the Levites that they have redeemed themselves, they are now ordained for the Lord’s service and the Levites will continue to be the tribe that works for God. That today, they are blessed for following God even though it was hard.
-the next day (that must have been an awkward night), Moses says he will go back on the mountain and talk to God to see if they can be forgiven. And although it’s not in the Bible I’m pretty sure he added, “This time don’t be stupid!”
-Moses heads up and is honest with God, they’re stupid, they sinned and it’s a terrible sin. They made idols out of gold, but if you’re going to wipe them out, wipe me out too. But God says He will deal with them later. Now, they are to go to the land God promised them, His angel will lead them there. Then God sends a plague on the people, so I’m sure travelling was fun.
-and that’s the real story of the golden calf. The people go to the land, they spy it out, they woose out and God calls them out saying not one of them that didn’t believe will enter the Promised Land, only Joshua and his buddy Caleb make it.
-way more fun than Sunday School, right?
-but the reason I wanted to do this story is to give you something to think about. A good chunk of you have just come off the missions trip, for the rest of you you’re obviously here for some reason, something God has done in your life. And for some reason, it’s in our nature to forget.
-remember that list before the story of all God had done, that was all less than two months before. Imagine since school let out God freeing you from slavery. Maybe that’s what it felt like. But just that long ago, God freeing you, performing all those miracles, seeing water stand up beside you as you walk across the sea, having food literally rain from heaven every single day (except Sunday) for you. Watching God move ahead of you as a cloud or as a huge fireball. And then, a few weeks later, you just forget it all.
-part of the reason it is Jewish Law to celebrate the Passover, the story of God’s great work in freeing His people is it forces them to retell the story and to remember it. Every year they have to have it right in their face, in their lives, in their holiday, this is what God did for us.
-so we want you to break up into groups now, but what I want is you to be thinking about what God has done in your life, and what you can do to remember those things so you don’t forget them.
