Golden God

Golden God

Bible:Exodus 20:18-26

The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was (V.21).

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God hadn’t let the Israelites leave Egypt emptyhanded. They had asked their former masters for silver, gold and clothing, and they got them. “The Lord had made the Egyptians favourably disposed towards the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians” (EXODUS 12:36). It wasn’t long, however, until God’s people used their gold to make a golden calf. On Moses’ longest trip up the mountain, he was gone for forty days (24:18). While he was gone, the people came to Moses’ brother Aaron, the priest, and said, “Make us gods 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” (32:1). Aaron did what they said, and they bowed down to their golden ‘god’ while Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the law from the real God (32:1-4). This story gives us a hard truth to face up to. There is so much around us to distract us from God—even the things we own (which God has given us). God gave the Israelites the Egyptians gold as a gift, and they used it to make a new god. What about the things God has given you? Do you use them to please Him, or to replace Him? Are you all about the stuff you can get here and now, or are you a “foreigner and stranger on earth” (HEBREWS 11:13), looking forward to being in heaven? Let’s be like Moses who “regarded disgrace for the sake of

Christ as of greater value than

I AM THE Lord YOUR GOD . . . YOU SHALL
HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME. EXODUS 20:1-2

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