IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME...

The 20th century brought us many remarkable technologies, including the automobile, the space shuttle, and, for better or worse, the Internet. But there were other inventions that were just plain stupid. Maybe that's unkind. Let's just say that they seemed like a good idea at the time. Consider, for example, in 1953, the Curved Barrel Machine Gun was introduced with a bang. This was an M3 sub machine gun with a curved barrel for shooting around corners. It's the perfect weapon if you're into blasting away without looking at what -- or whom -- you might hit. And then there are the Illuminated Tires, introduced by Goodyear for automobiles in 1961. They were made from a single piece of synthetic rubber and were brightly lit by bulbs mounted inside the wheel rim. They're just what you need if you prefer to study your road map while kneeling on the ground outside of your car at night.

James Bonsack invented the cigarette-making machine in 1881 that cigarette smoking became widespread. Since then cigarettes seem to have inspired several inventions. In 1955, someone came up with a holder that allows you to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes all at once. That same year, someone else designed a two-person holder so that you and your sweetie could both smoke the same cigarette. The year previously, Robert L. Stern, president of Zeus Corp., invented what he called the Rainy Day Cigarette Holder. It had an arm that suspended a tiny umbrella over the lit end of the cigarette to keep the raindrops from putting it out. Of course, now we know that cigarettes themselves were a bad invention. Speaking of things that seemed like good ideas at the time, what about the golden calf? Was it a bad invention or a good invention? In order to find out the answer let’s read (Exodus 32:1-14)

I. THE GOLDEN CALF INVENTION: (Exodus 32:1-14)

God had commissioned Moses to lead the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. God's presence with them was amply confirmed by a pillar of cloud that led them by day and a pillar of fire that led them by night. But did the Israelites think that was enough? No. The first time Moses was out of the camp for several days to meet with God on a mountain, the people turned to Moses' brother Aaron and said, "Come make gods for us." The Hebrew word for the deity can be translated either "god" or "gods," depending on the context, and some translations render it singular and others plural. But the word that should have caught our attention here is one about which there's no question: “make.”

That tells us that the Israelites were looking for an invented god. What even more puzzling was that their leader Aaron didn’t rebuke them for their outlandish idea instead he gave into their unreasonable request. Talk about dumb inventions. Isn’t one of leadership’s responsibilities to point people in the right direction when they are going astray? All it takes one leader either to lead people in the right or wrong direction. Aaron gave into the pressure, asked them to bring him the golden ornaments, and then fashioned them into the shape of a calf. Then the people said, “These are your gods, O Israel who brought you up out of Egypt?

What a sad day it was, the day when people turned their backs on God who brought them out of Egypt? How could they even think of making a god for themselves, haven’t they seen many mighty wonders of the Living God.? How could they be so stupid and ungrateful? Are we being too harsh on the Israelites? Alan Kimber, Senior Minister at the United Methodist Church in Lodi, California, says that we should not fail "to take into account their need to fit into a new culture outside that of Egyptian slavery. Moreover, they are a people who are trying to discover who they are now that they are no longer slaves. At the turn of the last century in the United States with the influx of thousands of immigrants from many parts of Europe, the immigrants, to assimilate and adapt, focused on learning English and playing baseball. The need to belong is the mother of invention." Admittedly, we all have an inbuilt need to belong. What have we invented lately to meet that need to belong?

II. WHAT HAVE WE INVENTED?

The first of the Ten Commandments reads, “I am the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other. You shall not make for yourself and idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them.” (Exodus 20:1)

Emphatically, God wanted the Israelites to know that it was He who had delivered them from their slavery and no other god. Therefore He wanted them to worship him alone. If we violate this commandment it doesn’t take long before we violate the rest of the commandments. Israelites wanted to invent a man made god. The invention of the Golden calf seemed like a good idea then but little did they realize that their very own invention caused God to become furiously angry with them. To an extent he wanted to wipe them from the face of the earth. This innocent invention however became a nightmare and haunted them throughout their lives.

Similarly, what have we invented that replaces God from the center of our lives? What are our modern day “golden calves” We may not have graven images in our homes however, We are burdened by household gods, no longer made of clay, but all promising to fulfill us. Our computer, our television, I-phone, our job, our wealth, our social status, along with the brands we wear and the cars we drive, the sports we play promise us contentment in the form of identity.

We worship these golden calves and we bow down to them. However innocent these household gods may look initially, in the end they make us forget the true and living God who has set us free from sin and saved us from eternal damnation.

III. HAVE WE FORGOTTEN WHO GOD IS? (Vs 7-10)

The Israelites may have forgotten who God is but God has not forgotten who his people were. He told Moses to head down from the mountain to deal with it. The language God uses suggests that God is disowning his chosen ones, for he says to Moses, "Your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an Idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, “these are your gods O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” And God then says his wrath is so hot that he is going to "consume them" and start over, making a new nation from Moses' line (v.10).

The idea of making a new nation from his family line may have sounded tempting to Moses. But in the end Moses was more concerned about the name of God than making a name for himself. So he sought the favor of God by reminding him of the implications of his decision of destroying his people. Moses literally stood in the Gap between a corrupt generation and a righteous God who was bent on destroying them.

That is the position of an intercessor who is not concerned over his own reputation. If it was not for the intercession of my grand mother I wouldn’t be here today. Thank God for many intercessors who are faithfully standing in the gap for our nation so that the wrath of God might be turned away from us otherwise we would have been consumed long ago for turning our backs on God and crafting our own golden calves.

Have we forgotten who God is? After experiencing his power of deliverance have we quickly turned away from knowing and worshipping the true and living God? Are we turning to our golden calves to satisfy our needs or are we pressing on to know God is?

IV. THE QUEST TO KNOW GOD:

Well, how does that exchange between Moses and God help us in our quest to know God? On one level, it seems to present God as one who is as anger-driven and as changeable as we are. Perhaps what we are reading is simply how Moses characterized his meeting with God. But whatever the case, Moses is one who met with God on a level that few others have ever done, and what he recounts is that God, whose first inclination was to punish, ends up not sending his wrath down on Israel. Here we see God's grace got the best of God's justifiable anger. We are no different than the Israelites; we too are just as stiff necked and become corrupt just as they were. If it was not for the grace of God we all would have been consumed by now.

V. ENTER THE GRACE OF GOD

Grace is rightly defined as unmerited favor. It is the startling act of God working on behalf of the very ones who have violated his covenant and substituted gods of their own making for him. Grace can be understood by contrasting it to mercy, which is another divine attribute. Mercy is God's withholding punishment we deserve; grace is God's giving us blessings we don't deserve. In spite of all the modern day idols we have made for ourselves God continues to be patient and gracious towards us. When we have failed to live up to our promises to him, God still lives up to his promises to us. Yes, there's judgment. Yes, there's accountability. But there's also grace, however let’s not take his grace for granted. What are the golden calves you need to destroy today so that you might experience the full measure of Gods grace? Amen