The second thing that led to the Israelites monumental failure was (2) a lack of Truth: you must worship the “right” God., the “right” way. Aaron fashioned the gold with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And the Israelites said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” They were referring to the gods of Egypt, not the One True God who saved them from Egypt.
When Aaron saw this blasphemy, he built an altar before the golden calf and made a proclamation saying, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord [Yahweh]. Aaron was trying to steer the Israelites back to the “right” God, but went about doing it the “wrong” way, so the Israelites worship the “wrong god” and worshipped the One true God the “wrong” way because they had a lack of truth. Just prior to this incident, God affirmed saying: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” and gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments, including (1) “You shall have no other gods before Me. (2) “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them - Exodus 20:1-5a. The truth is very clear. There is nothing on earth that can possibly represent God, who is spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and truth – John 4:24.
The moment that we determine an earthly thing to represent God, we limit God because nothing can attempt to portray our eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent Creator properly. When anyone misrepresents God and worships the misrepresentation, then they are worshipping a false God. Know God, know what is an idol and have no idols. There are many world religions and belief systems today that completely misrepresent Jesus Christ, including some so-called Christian churches. None of them are true representation, and if you worship that misrepresentation of Jesus Christ, you are not worshipping the “right” Jesus, then you are worshipping a false God.
It’s the same as someone describing attributes and features about you or someone you know, but they are completely wrong on the details. They either don’t know you or want you to actually be and act like someone else. You cannot pick and choose the attributes you like of someone and disregard the rest of who they actually are. Yet, so many people who claim to be Christians do this exact same thing to God. They say, “I love what God says about forgiveness of sin, but I don’t like what He says about homosexuality, fornication (sex outside of the context of marriage) and adultery, so I’m going to leave that part out”. Or, “I love what God says about unconditional love, mercy and grace, but I don’t like what He says about getting drunk, Mind-altering drug use for pleasure or escaping reality. I really like what God says about freedom, but I don’t like what He says about abortion being murder of an unborn child - the taking a life, using foul language or about racism, so I’ll leave those out also.” That is picking and choosing the attributes of God that you like and misrepresenting Him and create your own false god to worship that is more favorable to what you desire. In that case, your god doesn’t exist. You have an idol and Idolatry always leads to your destruction.
As individual Christians (Children of God, Citizens of the kingdom of Heaven and Disciples of Jesus Christ) and the Christian church (the body of Christ) united, we need to be the ones that model what it is like to live a sacred, moral, virtuous, holy life and represent who God truly is. Sadly, some Christians may think that they know Jesus Christ, but in fact have created a misrepresentation of who Jesus really is or have been misinformed by other who have created a misrepresentation of who Jesus really is. The scary thing of believing in and worshipping that misrepresentation is following a false idol. Beliefs, like the “prosperity gospel”, mistakenly worship the blessing rather than worshipping the Blessor or that everyone is going to Heaven. The most devastating thing would be when you pass from this life into eternity and believe that you are going to Heaven with Jesus, then at the Great White Throne judgment hear Jesus say, “I do not know you or where you came from. Depart from Me all you evildoers” – Luke 13:27.
You have to know and obey the “right” God in the “right” way, and that is by knowing truth. Know who Jesus says He is and what He did as Gospel truth. That is why you need to read and study the Bible (the inspired Word of God) and interpret Holy Scripture correctly, identifying who God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) truly is, and not picking and choosing the things that you like and leaving out the rest. God reveals Himself clearly in Scripture, so take Him for what He says. Worship the right” God, the “right” way, right now by sincerely seeking and knowing truth in righteousness. For it is written that you will seek God and find God, when you seek Him with all your heart - Jeremiah 29:13.
Exodus 32:7-25 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 10 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.” But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians 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’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. 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.’” And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people. Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” But he said, “It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.” And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it. And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are 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 become of 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 the fire, and out came this calf.” And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies).
Let's continue Pastor Obie's message on "Idolatry" in the next post.
In Chrtist, Brian
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