#213 Moses Intercessor

32 When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods[a] who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”

2 Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods,[b] Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” 6 So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings.Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.

7 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. 8 They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’

9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

11 But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” 14 Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.

15 Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back.16 The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.

17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war in the camp.”

18 Moses replied:

“It is not the sound of victory,

it is not the sound of defeat;

it is the sound of singing that I hear.” Exodus 32:1-18 NIV

Where is your God? Where is Moses? So the Lord's patience is delinquency, an absentee parent always. The cloud of God is still visible upon the mount and not far off. It has been within in a month that they have received and agreed to the laws of God, and yet again, their minds wander. They have witnessed miracles, and have been given the words of God. I refuse to laugh at them though, for I am reminded of my own fickle nature and that of the churches in my nation. "Well sure, God said that, but that was back then. God just wants you to be happy. Judge not lest ye be judged. Society has deemed these things ok, and so you are falling behind; you're archaic in your thinking." So we yield against the wave of emotion, to the "sincere" cries of the self righteous and ever growing mob.  They don't like this God; He does not cater to their wants, their "needs", and He does not show up on command. Let us make them an image, an image that will represent this God Who has done all these things, but let it be a toned down, modern version. Make a God that we can all get behind. 

…26"And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: 27they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28"It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building;…Luke 17:26-28

They have broken the second commandment. They are oblivious to it; it was only their word that they gave after all. They fell apart quickly and acted as those, who worship creation over the creator, always do. God's wrath is kindled against them and rightly so. The punishment for this is the unleashing of God's wrath, death, yet Moses steps in to the role of intercessor and pleads for their lives, referring to them as God's people. 

When they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left. 34But Jesus was saying, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves.35And the people stood by, looking on. And even the rulers were sneering at Him, saying, "He saved others; let Him save Himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One."…Luke 23:33-35