One Man Can Make All the Difference, Week 5 Day3, Exodus 32

One Man Can Make All the Difference, Week 5 Day3, Exodus 32

Exodus 32 has long one of my favorite passages.

Three months after being led out of Egypt the Israelites find themselves at Mount Sinai.  The people prepare themselves as Moses goes up the mountain to have a chat with God.  And he’s gone a long time.  And patient is not the Israelites strong suit.  Remembering what God has done in leading them out of Egypt is not the Israelites strong suit.  Remembering the fear of God is not the Israelites strong suit.

Moses is on the mountain having an extended conversation with God.  God is giving Moses the Ten Commandments including “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven about or on the earth beneath or in the water below.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God…”  While God is giving that Commandment to the people are breaking it by building an idol, a golden calf.

With Moses gone too long and the people fearing him dead, the people press Aaron to make an idol, an image of something from nature, a golden calf.  And not only do they make it but Aaron declares that the golden calf is their gods who brought them out of Egypt.  And they worship the idol.  They sacrifice burnt offerings, fellowship offerings to their idol and have a drunken party.

And God is ANGRY.  God tells Moses, “I have seen these people and they are a stiff-necked people.  Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them.  Then I will make you (Moses) into a great nation.”  God is ready to wipe the slate clean, destroy them all except Moses.  Yeah, God is mad.

I think what happens next is one of the biggest miracles of the whole Old Testament.  Moses, the runaway murder, Moses, the slow of speech and tongue, Moses, the one who can’t convince Pharaoh without God’s magic, without God’s plagues, that same Moses goes one on one in a debate with the Lord Burning Bush Plagues and Parting the Red Sea Giver of Mana and Quail and Creator of Heaven and Earth Almighty God.  And he wins.  He wins.

He tells God, “Why should Your anger burn against Your people, whom You brought out of Egypt with great power and a Mighty hand?  Why should Egypt 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.  Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom You sore 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.”  Not a bad speech for someone who is slow of speech and tongue.

And then the most amazing thing happens.  “Then the Lord relented and did not bring on the people the disaster He had threatened.”  The New American Standard says, “So the Lord changed His mind.”  The English Standard Version says, “And the Lord relented.”  And the Revised Standard says, “And the Lord repented.”

One man pleads for nation to the Lord God Almighty and God hears his plea and God changes His mind.  God changes His mind.  Think about that for a moment.  God changes His mind.

One man stands before God and pleads for a nation.  And one man saves them all.  And Moses is smart.  He may be slow of speech but he sure isn’t slow of mind or heart.  And he sure isn’t slow of faith.  He doesn’t plead based on the merits of the people.  They’ve sinned, sinned real good.  Moses doesn’t plead based on his own position, qualities or character.  He pleads to God based on God’s character, based on God’s promises, based on what God has already done for His people Israel.  And the nation is saved by a terribly flawed human whose argument basically boils down to, “God, You promised.”  But then I guess that’s the best argument there ever will be, the character and the promises of God.   And it’s the only argument that works. 

And Moses, who knew nothing of Christ and God’s plan of redemption, Moses who knew nothing about the Cross or the Resurrection, Moses who only knew the nature and character of the God, calls on God Himself to save the nation.  And only God can.  Only God can.

God, I can’t stand before you on my own merit.  God, I’m certainly not qualified to save myself or anyone else.  But God, I can come before You because of Your forgiveness and Your grace.  God, I can pray for others based on that same forgiveness and grace.  I’m not so smart myself.  I’m not that great a speaker either.  But apparently that doesn’t matter.   I can stand before You not because of who I am but because of who You are.  Amen

Leonard