HAVE WE MADE OURSELVES GODS?
HAVE WE MADE OURSELVES GODS?
Exodus Chapter 32
King James Version (KJV)
“And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.
2 And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.
3 And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.
4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
5 And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the Lord.
6 And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.”
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In Genesis chapter 16, the Lord delayed in His promise of a son to Abram and Sarai. But instead of waiting and trusting the Lord, they went ahead to fulfill God’s promise their way, and it has caused much trouble for the human race ever since, as it created a race of people who have been against God’s people ever since.
In our reading above, Moses delayed in coming down, and the people were impatient. So they took the situation in their own hands, also.
Now, we shouldn’t be too quick to judge, for we do the same today. Humans are impatient with God’s patience. We expect miracles right now, and we forget that God’s time isn’t our time, and His blessings aren’t necessarily our idea of blessing, and, we are notoriously quick to forget our blessings.
The Israelites had just recently been miraculously freed from slavery, and, not only were all the circumstances of their departure miraculous, but the Lord had told them to take riches from their neighbors when they left, so they were fantastically rich in worldly things from Egypt. (Remember, Egypt is a type of the world, and worldly thinking all the way through the Bible)
Exodus 3:21 and 22, when God called Moses as he tended sheep in Midian……giving him his mission…..
“And I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians: and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty.
22 But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians.”
And….the fulfillment of this as they left Egypt
Exodus 12:36
36” “And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required. And they spoiled the Egyptians.”
After they had traveled, and God had provided for them, God called Moses to the mountain to give him the laws, but he was long in returning.
As humans are, they became impatient. Impatience makes us forget blessings. They had a different attitude now that they had overcome the Egyptians. They were rich in material blessings, which, in reading the verses above, we know, came directly and miraculously, from God, but they forgot that, apparently.
Verse 3 shows us that Aaron was not forced by the people, as he told Moses later. He voluntarily asked for their gifts. Does this sound familiar? The “prosperity gospel” preachers….”if you give us gifts, we will return God’s blessings”….Is that not what Aaron promised?
He took (and the people voluntarily gave) the gifts that God gave them out of the world (Egypt being the symbol of the world in the Bible). The gifts they were to use to make the temple to worship Him, and they made an Egyptian god……in other words, a material god. ….. a god of the things of this world, for selfish gain, not sacrificial and submissive worship of the One True God.
In verse 3, they took them off their children’s ears, where God had told them to put them, stealing the blessings of true worship of God from future generations, and plunging them into material worship of money and pleasure…..and deception and blindness.
Verse 4 is what really stuns me! “they” said….now, it isn’t clear if “they” means Aaron and his helpers, or the people themselves, but …they said that THESE ARE THE GODS THAT BROUGHT YOU OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT!!!!!
They’re forgetting all about the Lord, and all He did, while the demonic gods of Egypt were trying to keep them bondage, and now they say that those VERY SAME gods who kept them in bondage, freed them????!!!!! Horrendous blindness and treachery against God!!!
But, lets fast forward, that prosperity/happiness preacher tells you the same thing. He (she) says that material things (gods of Egypt) will make you happy. They are blessings from God. They tell you that carnal feelings of happiness (different from the joy of the Lord) and bodily health, and emotional comforts that come from pride in ourselves, are all our RIGHTFUL blessings from God, ….that He wants us all rich, comfortable, beautiful, and giddily happy, or else, there is something wrong with our relationship with Him. We don’t have enough faith, we’re told.
In Verses 4 and 5 above, we see how confused the people were. They say in verse 4 that the gods of Egypt freed them, but after Aaron made the calf, he proclaimed a feast the next day to THE LORD!!!! Do you see the confusion? They make the material, worldly things, including themselves and their comfort, into gods, then tell the people that they are worshiping God!!!!.
God was in the process of giving Moses those very same laws…..”Thou shalt not have false gods before me” …..and they were giving their blessings away to make another false god!!!!! “thou shalt not bear false witness”…and they were. No wonder Moses broke the tablets!!!!
False preachers, and followers of them, today do the same. They decide what God’s blessings will be, and they are always from a carnal point of view, and, after they take your blessings, they claim they’re worshiping God, when they are worshiping themselves on an alter of pride and selfishness, and teaching their followers to build their own alters dedicated to themselves.
These teachings have caused God’s people to be blinded to the true blessings from Our Lord, and blinded to seeing Who He really is. God is eager to bless us. We don’t need to be demanding, expecting our ‘rights”, holding out our hands. He wants to bless us more than we could ever know, but we need to be completely submitted to Him. Trusting and believing are the same as submitting. He knows what we REALLY need, and it may be different than what we think. It may not be comfortable in this world, but He will replace those things with Himself and that is so much better!!!!
Live in the Light of Our Lord 