Day 29, or January the 29th. There's no substitute
for the living God. Our thoughts today are rooted
in Exodus chapter 32, verses 23 and 24. They
said to me, Make us gods who will go before us.
As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out
of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to
him. So I told them, Whoever has any gold jewellery,
take it off. Then they gave me the gold, and
I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.
Now the big picture surrounding these verses.
Moses had been away at Sinai for a long time,
and the people were beginning to wonder if he
was ever coming back. They get Aaron, his brother,
to make a golden calf for them, so that they
had a god to worship, even if it was just an
idol. As Moses descended Mount Sinai, he could
hear a loud noise that made him suspicious. He
got closer and then saw the golden calf. In a
blinding fury, he threw the Ten Commandments
to the ground, breaking both of the stone tablets.
Thoughts of anger, disappointment, murder, and
much more must have run through his mind as he
sought out his brother. God reassuringly tells
Moses that he can write the Ten Commandments
again if Moses prepares two tablets of stone
and takes them up the mountain. We can only imagine
the thoughts going through Moses' mind as he
struggled to the top of the mountain carrying
two freshly prepared stone tablets, and all because
of his brother's poor leadership rather than
any fault that could be laid at his own feet.
And now today's action step. Have you noticed
we don't have road accidents now, we have incidents
instead? No one's to blame for an accident, but
an incident is invariably someone else's fault,
and usually the other person's. Nothing's changed
since Aaron's time. It wasn't his fault either.
The golden calf just jumped out. Until we are
ready to accept that our sin is our fault and
confess it before our Father in heaven, we can
never be purified and cleansed from all unrighteousness,
as John reminds us in 1 John chapter 1 verse
9.