Forty days. Think about that as we read Exodus chapters 30-32 today.
How feeble is our faith?
We are reading about people who knew what God had done to bring them out of bondage. They had been following this pillar of fire and cloud and had walked through a parted sea. He had provided them with food and water.
They celebrated at the base of Mt. Sinai as Moses ascended and they trembled as the smoke and fire came upon the mountain. But, now, just forty days have passed, and they have lost all faith.
They will give up their gold to have an idol made so that they may worship it.
I would mock them more if I had not seen people lose faith much faster than this myself.
We often see people come to church during a crisis. They learn to pray and walk and aisle and ask Jesus to save them.
Their life changes, and their focus on problems, not the Lord, prevents them from perceiving the connection.
Joy returned to their life, so they stopped going to church and went back to their old ways, unaffected by their recent experience.
Even our leaders
What I find most disturbing about this story is the actions of Aaron.
Aaron was the one who had been speaking to Pharaoh. Next to his brother Moses, he stood while the plagues were poured out. The congregation listened intently as he led them.
But, if the people will give him their gold, he will make an idol and worship it with them.
It is said that all men have a price. What is your price?
How firm would you stand if the enemy tempted you?
Later this year, we will read how temptations tested Jesus in every way, but he remained sinless. But none of us can say the same. We all fall to temptations.
Where was his support?
The Levites will go through the camp and kill three thousand people (see Ex 32:28), but where were they when Aaron was making this idol?
Why were they not standing with him and counseling him to resist the crowd?
All preachers need the support of the congregation. Yet, it can be a lonely pursuit.
We read at least six times in these chapters the words “Then the Lord said to Moses…”. Moses had gone before God to seek His will for the people.
When I am preparing a sermon, writing this blog, or working on my next book, I present myself before the Lord and pray for His guidance. He gives me knowledge and words to write that I had not perceived.
My goal is to help others know about the love of Jesus.
Still, the first weekend I did book signings, I had sat at a market for six hours and only signed three books. As I offered people a free bookmark, they looked at me with contempt.
I was dejected and discouraged until the Lord reminded me that the world would hate me because it hated Him.
Then I realized I would have more to worry about if the world had embraced me. This would have been a sign that I was catering to the flesh, not the Spirit.
My book was not for me, it was for the glory of God. I humbled myself and realized that I had spoken to over a dozen people about Jesus during that time and, by any measure, that is a good day.
Much like Moses, and I am not trying to compare myself, I then will look at how people I have spoken to and preached to are living, and I see that most have returned to living as they were before I had met them.
This is not unique to preaching, however, as I see the same thing happen at work when I teach classes to sales agents and then listen to their calls and realize that they applied nothing of what I taught.
We need to work together
The problem is that none of us can do this alone.
Moses should have been able to count of Aaron not caving in. Aaron should have had the support of the Levites standing against the crowds. The people should have taken some personal ownership and remained steadfast for the Lord who had been leading them.
Instead, we place people into leadership roles and then expect them to make us follow. A leader can only lead. It is our responsibility to put our feet into motion and go after them.
God knew people were not getting it. So He came down to earth as Jesus to give us an example we could follow on how to withstand temptation.
But we still have to pursue the path Jesus has laid out for us.
Most of us stand there doing nothing. Waiting for God to make something happen.
Long before forty days pass and we are not seeing significant evidence that something has changed, we look around for something else to do because we all have limited attention spans.
The mountain, still covered and surrounded by lightning and thunder, was there for the people at its base to see. They should have said to themselves, that is where God is working, that is where I will be.
Instead, they sought other gods.
Today, we need to all look around. Where is God at work? How are you going to join in that effort?
