Exodus 32 “So all the people took off the ring of gold that are in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the lands of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to YHWH.” And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.”
This is how our lives work. We think God takes too long, “When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain.” They weren’t waiting on Moses, they were waiting on what Moses was bringing, God’s law. His Word. They were waiting on God to speak to them. But He was taking too long.
So we make our own gods, and in full participation, as “all the people took off their rings of gold.” The truth in these times is that we create gods of our liking, gods who will please us, gods who will represent what we want them to represent, gods who do what we do, gods who say what we say, gods who permit what we permit.
And we know what we are doing, because we say, whether with our words or actions, “these are our gods.” This is wrong, though, and we know that these things aren’t the true God, so then someone like Aaron decides that it will be ok if we just call the idol Yahweh. That’s exactly what happens when he says “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.”
Perhaps Aaron’s intentions in all of this are to turn a situation that he knows is very bad into something that can be good and godly. And for the moment we convince ourselves that our intentions are good, and that good intentions make everything ok. But they don’t. Good intentions on the wrong path don’t last long and the direction you are headed will bear its true nature.
We may be able to start by calling these idols the True God. We may even be able to offer “burnt offerings” and “peace offerings” in a godly manner, but because this is about us, and not about God (even though we pretend it is, trying to fool ourselves, others, and even God) before you know it we are “rising up to play.”
And this isn’t baseball. or football. or poker. Well, maybe strip poker. We try to mix immorality with spirituality and righteousness. That’s what this play is. It’s fun. Sin can be fun. But it’s mockery too. We are having fun at the cost of making a mockery of God and his holiness. God calls this corrupt, and tells it like it really is: “They are not worshipping me, they have ‘worshipped it’ and ‘sacrificed to it’ (verse 8).
Whatever it is. It could be anything. It starts with impatience with God. Perhaps impatience with what he is doing, or frustration with who He is. Misunderstanding God is part of the natural life. God is big and awesome and beyond our fullest comprehension. That doesn’t mean we can’t know God. It means that sometimes we have to sit and wait for that Word. Understanding. As a friend of mine said recently, “waiting on God isn’t doing nothing.”
So next time you find yourself waiting on God, keep your earrings on and avoid making a golden calf. You might just avoid having to drink a gold milkshake (verse 20). Gross.