When the Cats Away the Mice will Play – The Golden Calf Part 1.
(Exodus 32: 1-14)
The meaning is rather simple: when the one in authority is absent, the subordinates can do as they please. To say the same thing another way, without supervision, people will do what they want to do, especially when it comes to breaking the rules. Parents leave the house, and teenagers throw an unsupervised party. When the teacher leaves the room for just a few minutes, the students nearly wreck the place. And when the boss leaves the premises, the employees stop working. When the cat is away, the mice really do come out and play.
I’m sure that saying has a true principle at heart and that principle, is illustrated in a story in the Old Testament. So, I want to talk about the cat and the mouse. Let's play a cat and mouse today and try to figure out which one you are. Are you the cat or are you the mouse?
To find out, let's turn to Exodus chapter 32. I'm going to begin reading with verse one.
“Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for 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.”
(Exodus 32: 1)
Alright, this is the seed plot for the rest of the chapter. If you've been with me as we've been going through the book of Exodus, you know that just prior to this chapter, Moses had ascended up to the top of Mount Sinai and had received a number of instructions from the Lord. He has not yet come back. The other thing you need to know is that he had been up there for 40 days and nights, just over a month, and the people had gotten a little impatient. As a matter of fact, they probably concluded that maybe he has died. Remember, there was fire on that mountain, and some Bible teachers suggest that maybe they concluded he had been destroyed by the fire. At any rate, they got really impatient, and they decided to something. It's not immediately obvious in the verses that I read, but as we read the story, it becomes very obvious that they wanted to do two things. Number one, they wanted to replace Moses. Moses, in this story, is the cat, and he is away, so first they want another cat. And so, the text says very clearly in verse one, that decided, "We're going to make Aaron the leader, and the implication is he's going to replace Moses. The second thing they did is they wanted to build, this passage says, a god they could see. Now, the Lord is spirit, and they hadn't seen him. They had seen a pillar of cloud and fire that led them to some extent, but they wanted a god they could see. Now, this gets a little tricky because are they creating another god entirely, or are they creating a representation of the Lord? And at this point, it's not clear. But as you read the passage, I think it becomes very clear that they are not wanting to replace the Lord as their God. They simply want to make a golden calf that represents him.
If you go in your mind, go all the way back to Exodus chapter 20, you will remember we studied the Ten Commandments the First commandment was you shall hve no other Gods before me and the second was, "You shall not make any graven images." I think most of my life, I thought the second commandment was against idolatry, but that's not true. It later becomes that, but primarily, the second commandment is saying, "Don't make any graven images, not even of the Lord." The first commandment eliminates other gods, including all idolatry. The second commandment is, in essence, saying, "Don't misrepresent me." And that is precisely what they're doing. They want to make a golden calf. They want to see a god they can see.
So, they have two things in mind: we're going to replace Moses, and we're going to make a golden calf to represent the Lord. And they go to Aaron, who is the replacement of Moses in their mind, and say, "Let's make the golden calf." Let's pause for a second. You know who Aaron is. I mean, he's one of the leaders of Israel, right? You'd think he would know better. You'd think he would put a stop to this on the spot.
"And Aaron said to them, 'Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.'" So the people broke off the golden earrings, which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hands, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool and made a Golden calf.
(Exodus 32: 2-4)
Now, let's pause for just a second. Do you see what it says he did? He makes the golden calf, that's very important. And Aaron made it and said, "This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt."
Remember I said just a minute ago that it's a golden calf, but that it represents the Lord and this is part of the proof of that. He says to them, "This is the same god that brought you out of the land of Egypt." So, I suspect that Aaron might have rationalized, "Well, it's the same thing, and they want a god they can see. So let me pacify the people and give them a god they can see." That's what's probably going on.I don't think there's any doubt that Aaron thought this represented the true god. He says, "That is the god that brought you out of the land of Egypt." I tend to think that this was meant to be a representation of God. So, the request was, "Make us a golden calf," and Aaron did it, of all the people Moses’ brother Aaron did it.
“So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD.”
By the way, in my Bible, "Lord" is capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. Is that true in your Bible? Are you aware that when the Bible prints capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, that's the personal name of God? We don't know how to pronounce that word today, because the Jews would never pronounce it. For years, people said it was Jehovah ,but then the Hebrew scholars came along and said, "No, it's pronounced Yahweh." When you see the word capital L, little o, little r, little d in the Old Testament, underneath that is the Hebrew word Spelt YHWH, most likely pronounced Yahweh. Translated as the Greek word "Adonai," which means "Lord." So, what happened is when they came to the personal name of God, Yahweh, they wouldn't pronounce it. And instead, they would say "Adonai," and that's how we today get the word "Lord." "Lord means the same thing. By the way, when we call Jesus the Lord Jesus Christ, as that is the way we recognise that he is God. At any rate, Aaron says, "We're going to have a feast to the Lord," another indication that this is meant to be for the God who brought them out of Egypt.We're going to have a feast to his name." With the result that, according to verse six,
"Then they arose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play."
(Exodus 32: 6)
Oh, this gets interesting. They sacrificed, which they had learned to do. They ate, they drank. That's a feast day. That's what you do on feast days. And yet they came out to play. It is helpful to know that the Hebrew word translated "play" means to laugh, to mock, to play, to jest. They came out to have a party. That is what this passage is saying. Many commentators says that the word "play" suggests sexual play. It is the same Hebrew word that is used in Genesis 26:8 and light of the drinking and probable nakedness, so this scene likely descends into drunken sex. Aaron built an altar for the purpose of a covenant affirmation, followed by a ceremony. This is precisely what Moses had done when the children of Israel committed to obeying his covenant. But Aaron is mimicking that and mocking God because His proclamation concerning a festival and its implications on the following day were again identical to the celebration that attended the mutual acceptance of the covenant under Moses. Aaron has stepped in, taken Moses' place, and mimicked what he did, which was very contrary to the will of God. The calf represented the Lord on their terms. 'We're going to do this our way.' Previously, Moses had received a revelation from the Lord. Moses told them what to do, and they committed to doing it God's way. They say, well, 'Moses isn't here, the cat's away. Let's go out and play. We're going to serve the Lord, but we are going to do it our way.'
What is amazing to me is that God had repeatedly manifested His power and His compassion, but soon they forgot. Repeatedly in the book of Exodus, the Israelites reacted with insensitivity and downright rebellion against God. How long did it take them to absolutely depart from the Lord? How long was Moses up on the mountain? Forty days. It doesn't take long. If you aren't mindful of the will of God, it doesn't take long to get out of the will of God.
In Acts, the apostle Paul went to the province of Galatia, which is modern-day Turkey, established churches in that province, and left. He wasn't gone very long before some false teachers came in and said, in essence, 'Now it's fine that you believe in Jesus, but you need to keep the law of Moses also.'When Paul got wind of that, he wrote the little book we called Galatians. And in it, he says in chapter one, 'I marvel that you are so soon removed from the grace of God.' I marvel. It didn't take very long. I hadn't been gone long at all. You listen to somebody else, and apart from the grace of God, well, let me tell you, that's a spiritual principle you need to remember. If you don't remember the Lord, you forget the Lord. It won't take long for you to quickly depart from the will of God and the grace of God.
That's what happened in this passage. Very simply, the cat is away, and the mice came out to play. Spiritually, this is very bad news in deed. Hats the end of scene 1, now to scene 2, beginning In Exodus 32: 7. Where Mosses is made aware of what happened. Look at verse seven.
'And the Lord said to Moses, "Go, get down! Listen to this very carefully: For your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, Have done what? They have corrupted themselves."
What a verse. The Lord says to Moses, 'You've got a problem. Your people, the ones you brought out of Egypt, they've corrupted themselves.' In other words, He refused to claim them as His own. He even does not acknowledge that He delivered them from Egypt. He is a little disgusted, to say the least. They repudiated the covenant of God, and God iss no longer their God. I'm not suggesting they lost their salvation. That is simply not true. But they did lose their walk with the Lord. They're not doing the will of God. As a matter of fact, the word that's used here is, 'They have corrupted themselves.' The Hebrew word translated 'corrupted' means to fall into ruin, to decay. So, their spiritual life has just been destroyed. They still are God's people, but they have destroyed their spiritual walk with Him. So, God says to Moses, 'There, your people, not mine.' Wow, that's pretty dramatic. Alright, but verse eight adds,
8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a moulded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!’ ”
(Exodus 32: 8)
They sacrificed before it, they worshiped it. By the way, just as an aside in this passage, the worshipping is the sacrifice. We have narrowed the word 'worship' today to singing. We have a worship service in which we sing praises to the Lord. Now, that is one form of worship. But if you study the word 'worship' throughout the Bible, it's a much bigger word than that. Our whole lives should be an act of honouring the Lord, which is the idea behind worship. At any rate, in this passage, the worship was them giving a sacrifice.
And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people!
(Exodus 32: 9)
Now we're getting to the heart of their problem. The word translated 'stiff-necked' means hard, stubborn. This does not mean much to us because we don't live in a rural setting, but in those days, they had oxen. And they put a yoke on the oxen, and apparently, the ox would sometimes stiffen its neck so as not to take the yoke. So 'stiff-necked' really comes from this thing of a horse or an ox being stubborn and refusing to be harnessed. And the idea is they are resisting doing the will of God. They're unresponsive to the will of God.
Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.”
Now we're really getting at the heart of what's going on in the story. They have been stubborn, they have been hard-hearted, they aren't receptive, and the Lord is angry. So, He says to Moses, 'Move out of the way, I'll destroy them. I'm going to start all over, and I'll make you a great nation.' Who did He originally promise to make a nation? Abraham. And if He wiped them all out, they wouldn't have one Israelite left. So, the Lord says, 'I'm so angry, I'll wipe them out. I'll start, I'll keep My promise. I'll just do it with you, not the rest of these descendants of Abraham. Just you. So, I'll make you a great nation.' Here's Moses' response. He says in verse 11.
Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God, and said: “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?
By the way, do you pray? How do you pray? Do you simply make a request of the Lord? 'Lord, this is what I want.' Did you ever argue with the Lord? I don't mean be argumentative, I mean like a lawyer. Present your arguments for why the Lord should do things. 'Lord, this is what I'm asking, and this is why. This is why You need to do this.' That's what Moses is doing here. He is making a request, and he's arguing. 'Lord, this is why You should do it.' He presents three arguments proving why it's best. He says, Remember, these are Your people, and You brought them out of Egypt. You chose these people, not many people. Your people. So, it's Your choice. You should do this because You chose to bring them out.'
The second argument is, 'And if You don't do this, what do You think the Egyptians are going to say? Your reputation is at stake. If You bring them out here and destroy them, the Egyptians are going to say, "See that God of those Israelites? He just did that to destroy them." So, Your reputation's at stake, Lord. You need to do this.'
So, I just want to encourage you: when you pray, don't hesitate to tell the Lord, based on His word, why He should do this. You know, if you want to see another case of this, you can go and read Nehemiah chapter one. Nehemiah does the same thing. In essence, he's arguing, 'Lord, this is what you said, so I'm just asking you to do what you said.' And that's what Moses is doing here. He said, 'You said you were going to multiply the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So, I'm just telling you, you can't wipe them out because of your promise.' It's a very interesting study on prayer.
Verse 14 says, 'The Lord said, "Okay, Moses, you're right. I won't."' That's my paraphrase. So, the Lord relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people. The Lord changed his mind.
Does that bother you? Does it bother you that God changes His mind? That gives a lot of people a lot of problems because the Bible clearly teaches that the Lord changes not. The theologians have a big fancy word for that. They call it the immutability of God, meaning God doesn't change. But here He changed. How do you explain that? The theological explanation of that is something called the immutability of God. In that within the plan of God, there is enough flexibility that there are options available to Him. In other words, God has said there are certain things He's going to do, and He does them. But in the broad outline of things, there are little details that He could go one way or the other, depending upon the freewill and the prayers of His people.
It like if you wife calls you and say on your way home can you pick up milk. When this you might take a different route than you would have normally, but I end up at home nonetheless.' Perhaps this is similar to our praying affecting God as He carries out His will. He's going to go to get us to our destination or rather his destination for us but our prayers may make Him take a little different route to bring it about.
This happens again and again in the Bible, and things that have changed His mind in other passages are things like intercession, which is what happened here. Or people repenting because he always says, 'If you repent, I'll bless you. If you don't, I'm going to punish you.' Well, that's a case of God changing His mind. And then there are occasions where the Lord is just plain compassionate, and compassion motivates Him change His mind, so to speak.
Alright, scene one: they have an idol.
Scene two: Moses intercedes.
Now in scene three, and this really gets interesting.
But we will look at that tomorrow.