I would be as bold as to say that I bet my life that everyone who gets this email either has a family member, a friend or an acquaintance that is lost & doesn’t know Christ. I read a verse today & it really touched my spirit. This is in Exodus 32. Moses had tracked up the mountain to get his face time with the Almighty. While the Israelites were waiting for their leader to return, they got impatient and went to Aaron and asked him to make them a god. Aaron obviously consented because he was asking everyone for their gold earrings & such.

Once he received everything, he made it into a molten calf & Aaron gave the people what they wanted. They were bowing down to a cow of gold which they actually seen their own hands construct. That would be like me bowing down to the car in the drive-way. And I’ve never understood why they chose a dumb ‘ol cow to worship in the first place. Aaron went as far as building an altar before the calf. They feasted all day which means to me, they got drunk, ate & had orgies all day in front of this ridiculous idol. I think they justified their sin by convincing themselves that Moses had died so Aaron was now their leader. Some leader, huh?

Once again, these hard-head Israelites had crossed their arms in absolute rebellion & said they were going to do it their way. It wasn’t enough that God freed them from bondage after sending 10 plagues on Egypt, including killing every first born animal & human without the Lamb of the blood on the door. It was not enough that He walked them through a wall of water on both sides as they walked on dry land. It wasn’t enough that the Egyptians gave the Israelites many riches when they left. It wasn’t enough that they didn’t have to hunt for their food, go miles to get water & never had to mend clothes or shoes. God had even shown Himself to them: As the people anxiously waited in clean clothes at the mountain, there came a tremendous voice of the trumpet from heaven, accompanied by thunders and lightnings. The top of Sinai was ablaze with fire and smoke. God descended upon it in fire, and great earthquakes which rocked the mountain. God spoke, calling Moses to climb to Sinai while the people waited, for a while anyways.

God informs Moses, while he was still on the mountain, that the people had gone & done it again. God says YOUR people have corrupted themselves, the people you brought out of Egypt! Here, the responsibility of the people was with Moses as God considered them Moses’ people, his stiff-necked people, which is a figure of speech meaning a horse or ox that refuses to be turned by the reins. God told Moses they have turned aside quickly out of the way which He had commanded them.  God then told Moses, "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.”

Moses was still promised to become a great nation but without this group. God was going to destroy this generation & then grow up another generation. Returning to the camp and viewing the obvious idolatry, Moses angrily cast the tables out of his hands, the tablets written by the very finger of God, and broke them. The calf was burned, ground to powder like pepper, sprinkled in the water, and drunk by the Israelites, as though internalizing the greatness of their sin.

After seeing this, I'm sure Aaron’s fear must have been great when Moses questioned him as to his part in the sin, since he had been placed in charge with Hur. He lied by claiming he had simply cast the gold into the fire, and there came out this calf as if by magic or something. Then Moses asks the crowd, "Who is on the LORD’s side?" The Levites, whose head was Aaron, now rallied to Moses’ side, then brought judgment to the sinning people. About three thousand men died that day. However, Moses’ love for these people far exceeded anything that could have been promised to him. He didn't care they made golden idols, he didn't care they got drunk, he didn’t care they didn’t obey the Lord, his only concern was for his people to return to the Lord. So Moses pleaded with the Lord his God for this generation. He 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? Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to 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 descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.”  Here, Moses is reminding God that these are His chosen people & asked Him not to turn His backs on them. So the Lord relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.  Then he told them to Consecrate themselves today to the Lord, that He may bestow on them a blessing that day.

The next day, Moses said he was going up & was going to talk with the Lord & try to make an atonement for their sin. Moses returned to the Lord & said “Oh, these people have committed a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold! Yet now, if You will forgive their sin-but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.

What this spoke to me was this: How far are you willing to go to see a lost loved one come to the knowledge of Christ? Are there any lines you would not cross for the sake of your own child’s soul? Here, Moses was willing to give HIS VERY SOUL & to have his name marked out of the book of life and give up his position in heaven for the sake of all of the stiff-necked, hard-headed rebellious Israelites, who could have given a hill a beans about Moses. Most of us would have probably turned our backs on them a long time ago & said I’m tired of fooling with these folks, take ‘em. That’ll teach ‘em. Not Moses. So, again, I ask, “What are your limits to seeing a soul turn to Christ?" 

Yours In Christ

--Tammy