WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.679 So we continue our great story series. We are taking the storybook stories, the 00:00:06.679 --> 00:00:11.320 famous children's stories of the Bible that have made it into the children's 00:00:11.320 --> 00:00:17.760 storybooks and having an adult's look at them, looking at their theology. And when 00:00:17.760 --> 00:00:22.879 you do that, there is always more to see than what's the common conception of 00:00:22.879 --> 00:00:27.280 these stories at a popular level. And there's plenty in this passage. We could 00:00:27.280 --> 00:00:33.800 do a few sermons. We could do a sermon on the poor leadership in the 00:00:33.800 --> 00:00:39.880 congregation from Aaron, the nature of true worship, or what it means to say 00:00:39.880 --> 00:00:44.320 that the Lord changes his mind in this passage. And that's a big topic and we 00:00:44.320 --> 00:00:49.760 just can't do it today. This is a classic passage in the Old Testament 00:00:49.759 --> 00:00:57.359 about idolatry. Now yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the world's 00:00:57.359 --> 00:01:01.879 introduction to one of the great literary characters of our time, Gandalf. 00:01:01.879 --> 00:01:06.959 Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the publication of the Hobbit and in 00:01:06.959 --> 00:01:12.879 commemoration of that to quote Gandalf, which is always worth it. He says there 00:01:12.879 --> 00:01:18.680 is nothing like looking if you are looking to find something. You certainly 00:01:18.680 --> 00:01:24.200 usually find something if you go and look for it, but it's not always 00:01:24.200 --> 00:01:29.680 quite the something you are actually looking for. And that's true of the 00:01:29.680 --> 00:01:34.920 storybook stories of the Bible. When you go looking for exactly what they say and 00:01:34.920 --> 00:01:38.840 you look a first time, a second time, a third time, a fourth time, the theology in 00:01:38.840 --> 00:01:42.040 these passages actually builds something a little bit more than you might 00:01:42.040 --> 00:01:47.440 have thought. And that's true of the Golden Calf narrative. And so let's just 00:01:47.439 --> 00:01:50.920 get right into it. It's about idolatry. We're going to look at the nuance of 00:01:50.920 --> 00:01:56.120 idolatry and then the nature of idolatry. So first the nuance of idolatry. 00:01:56.120 --> 00:02:00.840 Moses is on the mountain when we open this passage. He has been on the mountain 00:02:00.840 --> 00:02:07.959 since chapter 19. He was on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights. Now it's likely 00:02:07.959 --> 00:02:12.360 and probable that he had come down from the mountain at least once during that 00:02:12.360 --> 00:02:15.919 time to give Israel the Ten Commandments because there's evidence that they already 00:02:15.919 --> 00:02:20.399 had heard the Ten Commandments at this point. But he was on the mountain and he 00:02:20.399 --> 00:02:25.279 had been up there for a while and the mountain is shrouded in the glory cloud 00:02:25.279 --> 00:02:31.879 of the God who had redeemed them, Yahweh, and they cannot see up it. And meanwhile, 00:02:31.879 --> 00:02:37.000 as we open the passage in verse 1, the people are impatient. They were tired of 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:45.840 waiting for him. And so in verse 1 they say to Aaron, this so-called Moses, 00:02:45.840 --> 00:02:50.800 whoever that guy is, he is up the mountain. We haven't seen him in a while. 00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:57.120 He's probably dead. Now that's the writer here, Moses. It's tragic comedy 00:02:57.120 --> 00:03:04.039 because this Moses, this so-called Moses, this is the guy who had redeemed 00:03:04.039 --> 00:03:08.039 them and the human being, the mediator, who had brought them out of the land of 00:03:08.039 --> 00:03:12.000 Egypt, who had administered the Ten Plagues, who had crossed the Red Sea with 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:16.159 them, who had prayed to God and brought manna down from the skies. And now just 00:03:16.159 --> 00:03:22.439 40 days has passed, six weeks about, and they say, you remember that guy? What's 00:03:22.439 --> 00:03:28.519 his name? Moses. He's probably dead. And so they say to Aaron, let's, will you make 00:03:28.519 --> 00:03:33.120 for us gods? It's as they rose up against Aaron. That's the language of physical 00:03:33.120 --> 00:03:37.400 violence. It was, what's happening here is actually a mob. You can picture, this is 00:03:37.400 --> 00:03:44.560 a mob mentality. Now in verse 1 when they say, make us gods, the word for God, 00:03:44.560 --> 00:03:50.960 God's there, is a Hebrew word Elohim. And in Hebrew it's plural, but it can also be 00:03:50.960 --> 00:03:55.560 translated in the singular. It can go either way. And the evidence throughout 00:03:55.560 --> 00:04:00.599 the passage, and this, this story is repeated in Psalm 106 and 1 Corinthians 7. 00:04:00.599 --> 00:04:07.280 And every time, the indication is that they only made one Elohim, one God, a 00:04:07.280 --> 00:04:12.120 singular golden calf. And it says that in just a couple verses later. And so you 00:04:12.120 --> 00:04:17.839 think of it, they're saying, make us, make us a God. Make us a God. And even the 00:04:17.839 --> 00:04:22.759 word God is a bit confusing in English. It's a little bit different from the 00:04:22.759 --> 00:04:27.639 original language, our term for, that we use kind of generically for God. The 00:04:27.639 --> 00:04:33.240 sense of what they're saying here is not just make us a God, but make us an image 00:04:33.240 --> 00:04:39.439 of God. Not just don't, they're not asking for them to create a whole new God, 00:04:39.439 --> 00:04:45.959 but make us an image of God. And the reason why they ask that, they say it in 00:04:45.959 --> 00:04:51.919 verse 1, who a God, an image of God, who can go before us. And that's a packed 00:04:51.919 --> 00:04:57.519 little phrase. A God who can go before us. What they're asking for, specifically 00:04:57.519 --> 00:05:05.039 is an image that they can put at the front of their camp to lead their army 00:05:05.039 --> 00:05:10.079 as they march away from the mountain. So what they're doing is saying, we don't 00:05:10.079 --> 00:05:13.399 want to be here anymore. We're impatient. Moses is up there on the mountain. He's 00:05:13.399 --> 00:05:18.439 probably dead. We need, we need a God that can sit before at the head of our 00:05:18.439 --> 00:05:22.680 army as we march away from the mountain and go get what God promised us, the 00:05:22.680 --> 00:05:27.039 promised land. And so what they want is something that they can follow, basically 00:05:27.040 --> 00:05:35.640 follow into battle, an image of God. And so what that means is that what's 00:05:35.640 --> 00:05:41.800 happening in this passage is they're not interested exactly in replacing God, 00:05:41.800 --> 00:05:46.920 which is probably the more common conception here. What they want to do is 00:05:46.920 --> 00:05:52.840 they want to replace the mediator, Moses. It's Moses that they're trying to 00:05:52.839 --> 00:05:57.239 replace. And what they want to do is they want to create a new mediator, an image 00:05:57.239 --> 00:06:02.560 of God, a mediator, a place, a thing that they can come and meet with God 00:06:02.560 --> 00:06:08.120 through. Moses used to be that for them. Moses used to be the one who would walk 00:06:08.120 --> 00:06:11.719 at the front, who would lead the army, but now they're looking for a new 00:06:11.719 --> 00:06:16.599 mediator. So they're not exactly replacing God. They're not saying, make for me a 00:06:16.599 --> 00:06:21.519 brand new God, some different spirit. What they're saying is, we want to, we want 00:06:21.519 --> 00:06:27.359 to have something by which we can get to God, the God who has redeemed us. And so 00:06:27.359 --> 00:06:31.680 this is idolatry, no doubt about it, sure, but what kind? And it's a little bit 00:06:31.680 --> 00:06:36.279 different than probably the common storybook conception of exactly what's 00:06:36.279 --> 00:06:42.479 going on here. They are not literally coming to worship the golden calf, but to 00:06:42.479 --> 00:06:47.319 worship Yahweh, the God who had redeemed them through the golden calf, through an 00:06:47.319 --> 00:06:53.879 image. And literally, actually, it's not a cow, it's a bull calf. And the text is 00:06:53.879 --> 00:06:57.079 pretty specific about that. It's literally a bull calf, and that's for a 00:06:57.079 --> 00:07:02.199 specific reason we'll come to in a minute. And so verse four, when Aaron makes 00:07:02.199 --> 00:07:09.279 this thing, it's actually better to say, Israel, this is the image of God, this 00:07:09.279 --> 00:07:15.360 golden bull calf, this is the image of God. And look, all the elements of 00:07:15.360 --> 00:07:21.759 tabernacle, temple, worship, are present in the passage. Aaron builds an altar in 00:07:21.759 --> 00:07:28.680 front of the calf, an altar to offer sacrifices to the Lord, it says to Yahweh, 00:07:28.680 --> 00:07:34.439 but through the mediation of the calf, the calf is like their high priest. And 00:07:34.439 --> 00:07:39.759 then he says, and we'll hold a feast day to the Lord, a feast day, not to the 00:07:39.759 --> 00:07:44.360 calf, but to the Lord, it says in the text. So what they think they're doing is 00:07:44.360 --> 00:07:49.120 they've basically built a temple, and at the center of this temple is the 00:07:49.120 --> 00:07:52.480 calf. This is like the Ark of the Covenant. This is the place where God 00:07:52.480 --> 00:07:56.280 will come and meet with them. This is the thing by which they can get God to do 00:07:56.280 --> 00:08:02.840 what they want God to do. And so in verse eight, when it says that God came down 00:08:02.840 --> 00:08:07.480 and he saw what they were doing, and God says they are worshiping the golden calf, 00:08:07.480 --> 00:08:14.879 the literal word there is they are making use of the golden calf. They're 00:08:14.879 --> 00:08:20.240 using it to worship me, and that's what angers, that is what is angering God. 00:08:20.240 --> 00:08:25.960 That's what's driving God to wrath in this passage. Now this is important, just 00:08:25.960 --> 00:08:29.960 historical point, for understanding idolatry when you read your Old Testament. 00:08:29.960 --> 00:08:35.399 Most of the time in the Old Testament, when you encounter explicit idolatry, 00:08:35.399 --> 00:08:39.399 you know, the kind of idolatry we think of when we think of idolatry, making a 00:08:39.399 --> 00:08:44.720 wooden image, casting something out of metal. The ancient peoples did not 00:08:44.720 --> 00:08:52.439 literally think that the wood, the stone, the cat, the dog, whatever they had made 00:08:52.439 --> 00:08:57.759 was actually a God. And even in Egypt, that's not what they thought. The reason 00:08:57.759 --> 00:09:02.559 that they cast these images is because they were looking for mediators to get 00:09:02.559 --> 00:09:07.000 to the gods. They believed that the gods were spirits, and so they used these 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:11.079 images, these things to get to the gods, and that's exactly what's happening here. 00:09:11.079 --> 00:09:15.519 They're not trying to replace the Lord who had redeemed them. They're trying to 00:09:15.519 --> 00:09:21.679 worship the God, worship God through a false mediator, a mediator that God did 00:09:21.679 --> 00:09:25.479 not choose. God had chosen Moses to be their mediator. They want a different 00:09:25.479 --> 00:09:29.319 mediator. Moses may be dead on the mountain. They want a new mediator, a new 00:09:29.320 --> 00:09:37.360 image to lead them out in battle, to lead them into the promised land. So the 00:09:37.360 --> 00:09:44.160 first sin in this passage, it's not worshiping God the way God had commanded. 00:09:44.160 --> 00:09:53.240 He be worshiped. But then there's a plunge, a descent. If the first sin is 00:09:53.240 --> 00:09:57.200 worshiping in a way that is a violation against God's commands, the second major 00:09:57.200 --> 00:10:02.520 sin in this passage is actually violating God's nature. It's doing something 00:10:02.520 --> 00:10:06.480 in worship that's totally against the very nature of God, and you see it in 00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:12.520 verse 6. It says in verse 6, the people sat down to eat and to drink, and they 00:10:12.520 --> 00:10:18.520 rose up to play. And that's the King James Version says it that way, and the 00:10:18.520 --> 00:10:23.840 ESV says it that way. The NIV says the people sat down to eat and drink, and 00:10:23.840 --> 00:10:32.840 they rose up and indulged in revelry. The word to play in this passage, it is a 00:10:32.840 --> 00:10:41.040 sexual verb, and it literally means to caress. And so what it's saying is that 00:10:41.040 --> 00:10:47.440 they held a feast day to the Lord, and during it a sexual worship rite broke 00:10:47.440 --> 00:10:54.640 out. Actually what is being mentioned here is it's an orgiastic worship 00:10:54.640 --> 00:11:00.240 rite, something that would have been practiced in Egypt probably. And Moses 00:11:00.240 --> 00:11:05.680 acknowledges it, we didn't read this, but in verse 19 Moses came down and he saw 00:11:05.680 --> 00:11:13.560 the people, it says dancing, which is a euphemism. There was more going on than 00:11:13.559 --> 00:11:22.319 dancing. The worship has descended, it's plummeted. And so the surface sin of 00:11:22.319 --> 00:11:27.039 idolatry here is pretty easy to recognize. It's a theological issue and an 00:11:27.039 --> 00:11:34.239 ethical issue. First, they're worshiping God in the wrong way. We said last week 00:11:34.239 --> 00:11:40.879 God defines reality at the burning bush. God defines who God is, and God also in 00:11:40.879 --> 00:11:44.919 this passage has defined just before this how it is that he's supposed to be 00:11:44.919 --> 00:11:49.559 approached, how it is that he's supposed to be worshiped. And if you have a God, 00:11:49.559 --> 00:11:54.480 a conception of a God, who you can define according to the way you want him to be, 00:11:54.480 --> 00:11:58.320 according to your own feelings, or if you have a God who you can approach any 00:11:58.320 --> 00:12:02.159 way you want to, to get to get God to do whatever you want, which is a God to what 00:12:02.159 --> 00:12:06.480 they think about God here, then you don't have a God who is greater than your 00:12:06.480 --> 00:12:10.720 heart, as 1 John chapter 3 puts it. You don't have a God that's greater than 00:12:10.720 --> 00:12:13.639 you. You don't have a God who's big and greater than your heart. And so you don't 00:12:13.639 --> 00:12:18.160 have a God at all. You have something that you can manipulate, a false God that 00:12:18.160 --> 00:12:21.200 you can work, and that's what they think about the God who has redeemed them. They 00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:25.960 don't understand his nature. And so here they've broken the second 00:12:25.960 --> 00:12:30.279 commandment that they had just heard from Moses. You shall not make a graven 00:12:30.279 --> 00:12:35.680 image. You should not make a metal or gold image or anything that and use it 00:12:35.680 --> 00:12:40.120 in worship. They broke the second man. Then they broke the seventh commandment. 00:12:40.120 --> 00:12:45.120 Which says, don't commit adultery. In other words, don't have a sexual 00:12:45.120 --> 00:12:49.639 relationship outside of marriage, and especially don't do it at church. And 00:12:49.639 --> 00:12:55.240 that's exactly what was happening here. They started practicing adultery in the 00:12:55.240 --> 00:12:59.679 middle of worship of the God who had just told them these commandments. Don't 00:12:59.679 --> 00:13:04.840 practice adultery. And they immediately are doing it in the worship ceremony. And 00:13:04.840 --> 00:13:12.800 so things have plummeted. And in the New Testament, God tells us how we are 00:13:12.800 --> 00:13:19.000 supposed to approach God in worship. And Jesus says it in Matthew 4 and John 4 00:13:19.000 --> 00:13:25.920 in spirit and in truth. Which means in truth, in the name of Jesus Christ. Paul 00:13:25.920 --> 00:13:30.720 puts it this way in 1 Timothy 2, a passage that people often call Paul's 00:13:30.720 --> 00:13:36.360 worship rules. Where he says there's only one mediator between God and man, the 00:13:36.360 --> 00:13:40.480 Lord Jesus Christ. And it's only in his name that you can get to God. It's only 00:13:40.480 --> 00:13:46.480 through Jesus that you can worship well, that you can worship rightly. And so the 00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:52.399 issue in this passage is choosing a false mediator. A mediator that God 00:13:52.399 --> 00:13:59.200 did not choose. That's the synod idolatry in this passage. Next month is 00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:06.600 the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. And I want to say just briefly, that's a 00:14:06.600 --> 00:14:13.360 preview to next month, just that the issue in here of choosing false mediators 00:14:13.360 --> 00:14:20.320 in worship is was fundamental to the reformers project of reforming worship. 00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:25.200 Of only coming to God through Jesus Christ and by nothing else. Not through a 00:14:25.200 --> 00:14:33.120 priest. Not through getting grace by the Eucharist, by the Communion. Not through 00:14:33.120 --> 00:14:38.640 a pope or any other thing under heaven except for Jesus Christ. And that was 00:14:38.640 --> 00:14:43.040 central to what we're celebrating in October and the 500th anniversary of 00:14:43.040 --> 00:14:47.800 the Reformation. And there are still good reasons to be a person of Protestant, if 00:14:47.800 --> 00:14:51.720 you will, committed to that project of seeing the Reformation of worship 00:14:51.720 --> 00:14:55.920 throughout the world in the church and lamenting the brokenness and 00:14:55.920 --> 00:15:01.840 disunity of the church until that Reformation happens. Now that's my 00:15:01.840 --> 00:15:08.600 Reformation shout out for this month and there will be a few more probably next 00:15:08.600 --> 00:15:14.480 month as we celebrate the Reformation in October. But the sin on the surface of 00:15:14.480 --> 00:15:19.240 this passage, it's not coming to God in the way that God has commanded. That's 00:15:19.240 --> 00:15:26.519 the idol issue in the passage. But secondly, that's the 00:15:26.519 --> 00:15:30.919 nuance of the idolatry in this passage but the nature of idolatry in this 00:15:30.919 --> 00:15:37.879 passage. It's easy to identify on the surface of the text the issues, the 00:15:37.879 --> 00:15:44.759 worship problems here in this passage, but the deep sin, the deeper 00:15:44.759 --> 00:15:52.600 sin, the deeper issue, the sin below all sin, the impatience that the 00:15:52.600 --> 00:15:58.519 Israelites have at the beginning of this passage is a symptom of a grave issue 00:15:58.519 --> 00:16:04.799 that's according to the Bible at the center of every single human heart. And 00:16:04.799 --> 00:16:12.039 Augustine called it having disordered loves, having disordered loves. The idea 00:16:12.039 --> 00:16:19.000 of disordered loves is easy enough to get if you should you love your career, 00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:25.199 should you love your job. Yes, of course you should. You should love your job, you 00:16:25.199 --> 00:16:31.039 should seek a job that you love. And should you love your family? Yes, of course, 00:16:31.039 --> 00:16:37.079 you should love your family. But if you love your career and your job more than 00:16:37.079 --> 00:16:40.679 your family in a different way, in a way that you should have loved your family, 00:16:40.679 --> 00:16:46.279 if you flip flop them, if you disordered the loves, then you will end up putting so 00:16:46.279 --> 00:16:52.359 much burden on your family that it will crush them and you will destroy your 00:16:52.359 --> 00:16:57.759 family life. And eventually your family will get, your children perhaps will have 00:16:57.759 --> 00:17:00.839 so much difficulty that it ends up actually hurting the career that you 00:17:00.839 --> 00:17:06.119 made an idol out of. And so if you have disordered loves, if you put one 00:17:06.119 --> 00:17:10.399 thing in the wrong spot, you can actually make it all crumble. And that was a 00:17:10.400 --> 00:17:14.600 Guston's notion of disordered loves. And that's what he said is that the heart of 00:17:14.600 --> 00:17:18.960 all idolatry, the deep sin, the sin beneath the surface sin, the sin beneath 00:17:18.960 --> 00:17:26.519 every single circumstance of sin is an issue of idolatry as disordered loves. 00:17:26.519 --> 00:17:32.360 And in this passage, this is the issue of disordered loves. In verse one they 00:17:32.360 --> 00:17:37.400 say, who will go before us? And that packed phrase, who will go before us, 00:17:37.400 --> 00:17:42.400 translates to this, who will lead us into the promised land to get the goods 00:17:42.400 --> 00:17:47.840 that God had promised us? We don't want to stay here at the mountain. We don't 00:17:47.840 --> 00:17:52.200 want to sit here and wait for the rules for the commandments of the Lord. We 00:17:52.200 --> 00:17:54.759 need something else that's going to go before us that's going to take us into 00:17:54.759 --> 00:17:58.400 the promised land that's going to give us the temporal blessings that God had 00:17:58.400 --> 00:18:05.280 promised. And so the sin beneath the sin, the deep desire here in Israel is 00:18:05.279 --> 00:18:12.079 security. What they really want, what provokes them to make this golden calf 00:18:12.079 --> 00:18:16.639 is that they want security. They want stability. They want to eat. They want to 00:18:16.639 --> 00:18:20.039 drink. They want to get to the promised land and get that milk and honey that 00:18:20.039 --> 00:18:22.879 they were promised. That's what they want. And that's what they're trying to get 00:18:22.879 --> 00:18:29.000 through disordered worship here. And so in verse one it says that they gather 00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:33.879 themselves. They rise up against. It's a mob mentality here. And the issue is that 00:18:33.880 --> 00:18:41.600 they feel vulnerable. And that makes sense. They were slaves in Egypt for 400 00:18:41.600 --> 00:18:47.880 years. And when you're a slave in a foreign country for 400 years, the 00:18:47.880 --> 00:18:53.440 biggest issue in your life is the practicals. How are you going to eat? How 00:18:53.440 --> 00:18:56.600 are you going to drink? How are you going to protect your family against the 00:18:56.600 --> 00:19:01.200 slavers? How are you going to provide? And that's the big issue. And it's 00:19:01.200 --> 00:19:05.720 carried over into this passage. It's the thing that they're still worried about. 00:19:05.720 --> 00:19:08.720 And so what they're doing is they're trying to make a golden calf that will 00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:12.840 get them out of there into the promised land that will basically manipulate 00:19:12.840 --> 00:19:17.160 Yahweh, the God who redeemed them, to help them get to what they want to get to 00:19:17.160 --> 00:19:26.880 as fast as possible. And so objectively they are God's people. They've been 00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:31.160 redeemed. They've been taken through the Red Sea. Objectively they are God's 00:19:31.160 --> 00:19:38.480 people. But subjectively they don't desire God. They don't want God. Objectively 00:19:38.480 --> 00:19:41.680 they are the redeemed people of God. But subjectively they don't know who they 00:19:41.680 --> 00:19:47.640 are. They don't want the God who redeemed them. And that is why probably they 00:19:47.640 --> 00:19:53.120 pick a bull calf to be their representation. Because the bull calf in 00:19:53.120 --> 00:19:58.840 ancient Egypt was a symbol of power over your enemy. It was a 00:19:58.839 --> 00:20:04.919 mediator who would bring you fertility, economic goods, wealth, prosperity. And so 00:20:04.919 --> 00:20:07.919 that's what they want. That's what they're trying to get out of Yahweh as fast as 00:20:07.919 --> 00:20:14.599 they possibly can. One pastor puts it this way, the temptation here is that 00:20:14.599 --> 00:20:20.039 they want redemption without any dedication. They want redemption without 00:20:20.039 --> 00:20:24.519 dedication. Their first love here is not the God who redeemed them. It's not so 00:20:24.519 --> 00:20:27.319 they're not willing to be patient to look for him, to wait for his command, to 00:20:27.319 --> 00:20:31.159 listen to his instruction. They want to get what they can get as fast as they can. 00:20:31.159 --> 00:20:40.519 Now in 1 Corinthians 7 Paul says, Paul quotes from Exodus 32 and he says, 00:20:40.519 --> 00:20:47.439 this event was recorded as an example for us. Meaning all Christians, anybody 00:20:47.439 --> 00:20:51.619 who's in the church in the New Testament era, this is an example for us. And he 00:20:51.619 --> 00:20:59.959 says, so that you would take care lest you fall into the same idolatry, into the 00:20:59.959 --> 00:21:09.359 deep sin. Some theologians have called it deep idolatry and you can define it 00:21:09.359 --> 00:21:17.559 like this. It's loving something more than God. But it's not necessarily loving 00:21:17.559 --> 00:21:26.200 bad things. It's loving good things so much that you make them bad. It's an 00:21:26.200 --> 00:21:30.319 issue of disordered love. It's loving something before God so much that you 00:21:30.319 --> 00:21:35.119 actually turn a good thing into a bad thing. It's taking the goods of comfort, 00:21:35.119 --> 00:21:40.599 of power, of security, of entertainment, of romance, of a spouse, the hope of a 00:21:40.599 --> 00:21:50.919 spouse, a girlfriend or a boyfriend, your children, your body, fitness, beauty, a 00:21:50.919 --> 00:21:56.959 successful career, sports, and making those things into something that if you 00:21:56.959 --> 00:22:02.359 lost them, if they failed you, if they got out of your grip, that it would that 00:22:02.359 --> 00:22:09.279 it would crush you, that it would take away your meaning in life. And Israel 00:22:09.279 --> 00:22:12.039 loves security more than they love the God who redeemed them. They weren't 00:22:12.039 --> 00:22:18.960 interested in getting to know him. Their first love was milk and honey. But the 00:22:18.960 --> 00:22:26.279 Bible says that every single human being was created for God and that it's 00:22:26.279 --> 00:22:30.720 only in dwelling with the God who created you that you can actually have 00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:35.200 the hope, the meaning in life, the identity that won't crush you, that won't 00:22:35.200 --> 00:22:42.080 disappoint you, that can't be taken away. The most devastating thing actually with 00:22:42.080 --> 00:22:46.759 deep idolatry is that as human beings we chase and we chase after these things, 00:22:46.759 --> 00:22:51.799 but the most devastating thing is if you actually get it, if you actually get 00:22:51.799 --> 00:22:55.559 the idol that you want, and then you find out you wake up the next morning and 00:22:55.559 --> 00:23:00.759 everything's still the same, life is still mediocre. The worst thing that can 00:23:00.759 --> 00:23:05.720 possibly happen is you actually get the idol that you're chasing after. Tim 00:23:05.720 --> 00:23:12.440 Keller in his book about this, Counterfeit Gods, he cites a woman, a 00:23:12.440 --> 00:23:17.640 journalist named Cynthia Hymal. This is a woman who lived in Manhattan. She knew, 00:23:17.640 --> 00:23:22.759 she knew celebrities before they were cool. She knew celebrities when they were 00:23:22.759 --> 00:23:28.119 waitresses and baristas and you know the normal people stuff. And this is what 00:23:28.119 --> 00:23:34.199 she writes about them in one article, I pity celebrities. No, I really do. They 00:23:34.199 --> 00:23:40.000 were once perfectly pleasant human beings, but now their wrath is awful. They 00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.239 were, they pushed and the morning after each of them became famous, they wanted 00:23:44.239 --> 00:23:50.199 to take an overdose. Because that giant thing that they were striving for, that 00:23:50.199 --> 00:23:54.519 thing that was going to make everything okay in life, that was going to make their 00:23:54.519 --> 00:23:57.479 lives bearable, that was going to provide for them personal fulfillment and 00:23:57.480 --> 00:24:05.240 happiness, it had happened and they were still them the next morning. I think, and 00:24:05.240 --> 00:24:09.319 she says, and this is not true, but this is precisely her point, I think when God 00:24:09.319 --> 00:24:13.559 wants to play a really rotten practical joke on you, he grants you your deepest 00:24:13.559 --> 00:24:19.559 wish. In other words, if you actually get what you want in life, if you get what 00:24:19.559 --> 00:24:23.120 you want, if you make it an idol, it almost always disappoints you. David 00:24:23.119 --> 00:24:28.439 Foster Wallace, he's a very, he was a very famous American novelist that many of 00:24:28.439 --> 00:24:33.359 you have heard of. He gave an address at Kenyon College in 2005, a commencement 00:24:33.359 --> 00:24:37.559 speech that became very famous pretty quickly. This is, he's not a 00:24:37.559 --> 00:24:43.039 Christian, he's not religious at all, and this is what he says and he nails it. 00:24:43.039 --> 00:24:48.639 In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as 00:24:48.640 --> 00:24:54.720 atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships, the only 00:24:54.720 --> 00:24:59.680 choice we get is what to worship, and the compelling reason for maybe choosing 00:24:59.680 --> 00:25:03.600 some sort of God, a spiritual type thing to worship like Jesus Christ as 00:25:03.600 --> 00:25:08.240 Christians do, is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you 00:25:08.240 --> 00:25:17.000 alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in 00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:22.599 your life, then you will never have enough. You will, you will never feel like 00:25:22.599 --> 00:25:28.079 you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure 00:25:28.079 --> 00:25:34.319 and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age starts showing, you will die 00:25:34.319 --> 00:25:39.359 a million deaths before they finally grieve you. Worship power and you will 00:25:39.359 --> 00:25:43.039 end up feeling weak and afraid and you will need ever more power over others 00:25:43.039 --> 00:25:50.079 to numb you to your own fears. Worship your intellect being seen as smart by 00:25:50.079 --> 00:25:55.879 others and you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of 00:25:55.879 --> 00:26:00.359 being found out. But the worst thing about it all, about all these forms of 00:26:00.359 --> 00:26:06.839 worship, is that they're unconscious. They are default settings for every 00:26:06.839 --> 00:26:11.159 human being and they're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into 00:26:11.160 --> 00:26:17.200 day after day. Now David Foster Wallace, he committed suicide not long after 00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:21.360 this and a lot of people speculate that he committed suicide perhaps over one 00:26:21.360 --> 00:26:25.960 of these idols that failed him on this list in life and threw him into the pits 00:26:25.960 --> 00:26:32.080 of depression. But this is amazing insight and this is all of us. The golden 00:26:32.080 --> 00:26:37.440 calf is pretty obscure. It's pretty ancient sounding. But Calvin nailed it in 00:26:37.440 --> 00:26:42.960 the most famous quote, perhaps the most cliche Calvin quote, that the human 00:26:42.960 --> 00:26:48.519 heart is an idol factory, always looking to worship something more than God. But 00:26:48.519 --> 00:26:52.080 even more than Calvin, more important than Calvin. John in the book of First 00:26:52.080 --> 00:26:55.720 John, one of the great books that pronounces the gospel that God loves us 00:26:55.720 --> 00:26:59.960 at the very end, the last verse of the book of First John, he says, little 00:26:59.960 --> 00:27:05.000 children, little children, keep yourselves from idolatry. He's talking to the 00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.119 church, little children, it's such an honest statement, little children, keep 00:27:09.119 --> 00:27:15.119 yourselves from idolatry. He knew the truth about us. And so they're just as we 00:27:15.119 --> 00:27:20.440 come to start to close, there's two key questions to ask yourself about your 00:27:20.440 --> 00:27:27.599 idols. And the first is this, what is the most fundamental object in your life 00:27:27.599 --> 00:27:32.079 that gives you basic meaning, that gives you self-worth, that gives you a reason 00:27:32.079 --> 00:27:37.639 to get out of bed? But because David Foster Wallace was right, that most of our 00:27:37.639 --> 00:27:41.799 idols are unconscious to us, it's just our default setting. Actually, we all 00:27:41.799 --> 00:27:46.480 know this, other people can see it better than we can. And you know that you can 00:27:46.480 --> 00:27:50.799 see the idol in your friend and your spouse better than they can. You can see 00:27:50.799 --> 00:27:56.359 it, but oftentimes we can't see it. And so here's a more revealing question. What 00:27:56.359 --> 00:28:01.199 is it in your life that if you lost it, you would feel like you had lost all 00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:07.319 meaning, that you had lost a reason to live, that you had lost hope, that you 00:28:07.319 --> 00:28:13.519 had lost purpose. In other words, what are your nightmares about? What do you 00:28:13.519 --> 00:28:21.039 fear the most? And look, this is what creaturely idols do. They say to you, 00:28:21.039 --> 00:28:26.160 chase after me, chase after me, perform for me, dance for me, dance before me like 00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:29.519 the golden calf, and I will give you happiness, I will give you security, I 00:28:29.519 --> 00:28:34.799 will give you hope. And then when you get them, they break your heart, they always 00:28:34.799 --> 00:28:40.359 slip out of your hand, and they have to because no created thing can bear the 00:28:40.359 --> 00:28:44.920 weight of the meaning of a human being's entire life. No created thing can bear 00:28:44.920 --> 00:28:50.319 the weight of true meaning, true hope, true happiness, because God created 00:28:50.319 --> 00:28:54.200 every single human being to only find true hope and happiness in him. And you 00:28:54.200 --> 00:28:57.839 can't put that on a creature. You can't put that on your spouse, you can't put 00:28:57.839 --> 00:29:01.119 that on your children, you can't put that on your career, you can't put that into 00:29:01.119 --> 00:29:04.879 sports, you can't put that into any success in this life. None of the things 00:29:04.879 --> 00:29:08.639 can bear it. They will leave you, they will slip out of your hand, and it will 00:29:08.639 --> 00:29:15.079 crush you. It will force a million deaths, as David Foster Wallace says, as they 00:29:15.079 --> 00:29:25.839 fade away. And so, in Psalm 106, which quotes from this passage, in Romans 1, 00:29:25.839 --> 00:29:32.079 which quotes from this passage, in 1 Corinthians 7, which quotes from this 00:29:32.079 --> 00:29:36.599 passage, and in Exodus 32, every single instance, they all say the same exact 00:29:36.599 --> 00:29:44.039 thing, that idolatry deserves judgment. That idolatry deserves the judgment of 00:29:44.039 --> 00:29:48.679 God. We read about it in the passage. It's front and center that God came down in 00:29:48.679 --> 00:29:53.879 wrath and judgment against the people. And as modern people, it's difficult for us 00:29:53.880 --> 00:29:59.400 to swallow that, but it's actually quite reasonable, if you think about it. If God 00:29:59.400 --> 00:30:03.160 is truly the creator of the world, if God is truly absolute, if God is the creator 00:30:03.160 --> 00:30:08.680 of all that is good, of all that is right, and if idolatry is truly a sin, a 00:30:08.680 --> 00:30:13.120 disordered love against his person, then it makes sense that the God who is just, 00:30:13.120 --> 00:30:18.760 the God who demands justice, requires justice in the face of idolatry. We 00:30:18.759 --> 00:30:24.279 wouldn't expect anything less of any reasonable society, but keeping the 00:30:24.279 --> 00:30:29.279 laws of justice. It's foundational to any life, and we can't expect anything 00:30:29.279 --> 00:30:36.359 less from God. God is just, and idolatry is cosmic crime. It demands justice. It 00:30:36.359 --> 00:30:39.920 demands justice throughout the whole Torah, throughout the first five books of 00:30:39.920 --> 00:30:44.599 the Bible, and every single person knows that in their 00:30:44.599 --> 00:30:47.799 conscious, because of guilt consciousness, that they need to be 00:30:47.799 --> 00:30:51.639 perfect, that they should be perfect before the absolute God who created the 00:30:51.639 --> 00:30:59.159 universe, and that they aren't, that they're idolaters. And the only hope in 00:30:59.159 --> 00:31:07.359 this passage is not going after a false mediator, but clinging to the true one, 00:31:07.359 --> 00:31:13.240 the mediator that God had actually chosen. Now if you look down at Exodus 32, 00:31:13.240 --> 00:31:20.279 32, this is the last thing we'll say, and we'll close. After the people had sinned, 00:31:20.279 --> 00:31:24.839 Moses recognizes that this is a great sin, and so he comes to God in verse, in 00:31:24.839 --> 00:31:36.880 chapter 32 verse 32, and says, Lord, if you will forgive them, forgive them. But if 00:31:36.880 --> 00:31:43.000 you were just, if you cannot just forgive them, blot me out of the book of life. 00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:54.559 Instead of them. That's true mediation. That's true love. That's substitution. 00:31:54.559 --> 00:32:01.519 Moses comes to God and says, they deserve death. Take me. Blot me out of 00:32:01.519 --> 00:32:05.920 the book of your people. Instead of them, I'll take what they deserve. Put it on me. 00:32:05.920 --> 00:32:13.519 That's called substitution. Keller also, and this is truly the thing we're 00:32:13.519 --> 00:32:19.039 going to close on, I promise. I've said that twice now. Keller, in this book, 00:32:19.039 --> 00:32:24.480 Counterfeit Gods, he tells the story of a woman who he ministered to in Manhattan, 00:32:24.480 --> 00:32:33.160 and he writes that she was cursed by the great curse of extreme beauty. She was 00:32:33.160 --> 00:32:39.240 unbelievably beautiful. He says in a way that was just, was just different. And 00:32:39.240 --> 00:32:42.519 because of that, her whole life, she had been surrounded by men, as you would 00:32:42.519 --> 00:32:47.400 expect. And men had always chased after her, and it became something in her life 00:32:47.400 --> 00:32:51.880 that became a deep idol for her, is getting male affection, and always having 00:32:51.880 --> 00:32:57.320 a man no matter who it might be at her side. And a lot of men of power in New 00:32:57.320 --> 00:33:02.600 York chased after her because of her beauty. And for that reason, she put down 00:33:02.599 --> 00:33:08.559 her barriers. She wasn't selective in who she was willing to date and to be with, 00:33:08.559 --> 00:33:15.000 and that resulted in violence. And she was abused on multiple occasions. It 00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:20.599 created a life of extreme issues, drug abuse, psychological problems, and 00:33:20.599 --> 00:33:26.240 finally prison for her. And it all broke down in the end, and she became a 00:33:26.240 --> 00:33:33.079 Christian. And after that, she went to a therapist. She was seeing a therapist, and 00:33:33.079 --> 00:33:38.359 she told Tim about this therapy as her pastor. And so she went to the therapist, 00:33:38.359 --> 00:33:43.640 and the therapist said to her, you, your whole life, have based your self-image, 00:33:43.640 --> 00:33:47.640 your self-worth, on male affection, on needing a man by your side to give you 00:33:47.640 --> 00:33:51.960 meaning. And she said, yeah, that's right. Totally, I have. And he said, and because 00:33:51.960 --> 00:33:56.079 of that, you've not been able to find any sense of dignity. You've not been able 00:33:56.079 --> 00:33:59.319 to find a sense of worth of meaning. You're hopeless because all these men in 00:33:59.319 --> 00:34:04.240 your life have failed you. They have not been good saviors, if you will. And she 00:34:04.240 --> 00:34:09.519 said, of course, yeah, that's exactly what happened to me. And he said, so here's 00:34:09.519 --> 00:34:14.079 what I want you to do. You need to cast that idol away, and you need to go get 00:34:14.079 --> 00:34:19.759 yourself a career. You need to go get a successful career, become a career 00:34:19.759 --> 00:34:24.440 woman. And only then, when you're standing on your own two feet, not dependent 00:34:24.440 --> 00:34:28.760 on anybody else, will you finally find meaning in life, will you finally find 00:34:28.760 --> 00:34:32.119 your purpose and your self-esteem. You need a career. That's the only thing that's 00:34:32.119 --> 00:34:37.240 going to save you. And this is what she said. Look, I appreciate all that you've 00:34:37.240 --> 00:34:41.159 done for me as a therapist, but what you're telling me is you want me to trade 00:34:41.159 --> 00:34:45.400 one typical idol, the idol of male affection, for another typical idol, the 00:34:45.400 --> 00:34:52.880 idol of career success. And she said, what if instead, instead of getting 00:34:52.880 --> 00:34:55.880 self-esteem from a man's love, instead of getting self-esteem, myself worth my 00:34:55.880 --> 00:35:01.280 meaning in life from a career, what if I don't want an addiction, any addiction, 00:35:01.280 --> 00:35:06.320 to drive my meaning and purpose in life? What if I want an identity that's not 00:35:06.320 --> 00:35:13.519 based on my performance? And then she read, he says, Colossians chapter 3, in 00:35:13.519 --> 00:35:18.240 Christ your life has been hidden with God, and she came to realize something 00:35:18.239 --> 00:35:23.559 that every time that men came into her life, they said, you for me, you 00:35:23.559 --> 00:35:27.879 sacrificed your life for me so that you can give me power. And she had never 00:35:27.879 --> 00:35:34.399 read before about a man, a true mediator, an object worthy of worship, a savior 00:35:34.399 --> 00:35:39.359 that came in and said, not you for me, but I'll come in and say me for you. I'll 00:35:39.359 --> 00:35:43.279 sacrifice myself for you so that you can have meaning, so that you can have an 00:35:43.280 --> 00:35:49.519 identity, a true identity. And in Exodus 32, the true mediator, the mediator that 00:35:49.519 --> 00:35:56.160 God had chosen comes and says, blot me out, you take me instead of them. That's 00:35:56.160 --> 00:36:06.960 love. He was only a shadow. He was only a shadow. I know a better mediator, the Lord 00:36:06.960 --> 00:36:15.039 Jesus Christ, who said you for me. Who said me for you. Me for you. Get that 00:36:15.039 --> 00:36:21.240 right. That's important. There is only one mediator under heaven, only one 00:36:21.240 --> 00:36:27.760 mediator in all the universe that can give you meaning, and it's only in faith, 00:36:27.760 --> 00:36:32.400 repentance, rest, and dedication to God in Christ that you can find a God, a 00:36:32.400 --> 00:36:39.720 mediator that will not crush you and disappoint you and leave you. Okay, it's 00:36:39.720 --> 00:36:43.559 only in Jesus Christ that you can stand underneath the dark mountain, the uncertain 00:36:43.559 --> 00:36:47.160 mountain, the mountain where you do not know what's gonna happen to you in life 00:36:47.160 --> 00:36:53.519 and find some certainty. Let's pray. Father, we thank you, O God, for Jesus Christ, 00:36:53.519 --> 00:36:59.840 the mediator, and we thank you for the example set before us in Exodus 32. Keep 00:36:59.840 --> 00:37:05.440 us from idols, O Lord, and turn our hearts to the only hope that can keep us 00:37:05.440 --> 00:37:30.920 before the dark mountain in patience. We pray for this in Christ's name. Amen.