LifeLink Devotions for Friday, October 18, 2024

Yesterday we left Moses in Exodus 19 telling the people of Israel about their incredible deliverance from Egypt and that it was God who bore them up on eagles’ wings and carried them to Himself. When they heard this, the people made a promise to Moses that they would obey everything God would tell them to do. So Moses went up on the mountain to find out the details of how God wanted the people to live in relationship with Him. The people all witnessed the awesome presence of God on the mountain and watched as Moses entered it. But would they persist in their faith while he was gone?

Thirteen chapters later in the book of Exodus we find our answer.

Exodus 32:1-4  “When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, 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.” Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.”  So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

Moses has been gone for forty days, and during that time the glory of God was visible on the mountain to all the people. But the thrill and excitement of the initial event had worn off. The people were tired of sitting still, and they needed tangible results to their faith. Because they weren’t moving forward and were seeing no supernatural activity of personal benefit, they decided to look elsewhere for leadership. Imagine that – in full view of God’s glorious presence that appeared to the people like a consuming fire on top of the mountain, they declared their distrust in the ability of God to lead them and instead declared that an inanimate image of a calf cast out of gold was their real God. Apis, the Egyptian bull-god, had kept them safe in Egypt, and maybe now this god would guide them to safety once again.

Why is it that we so quickly return to our sinful bondages? I see from the example of the Israelites a couple of reasons. Here’s the first one.

1. Their faith was still in the activity of God and not in the nature of God. They could see the evidence of His nature on the mountain, but because there was no activity they looked for another object of faith to generate action. This is a hard lesson for us all to learn. Even when the activity around us seems to be moving against us, God is still carrying us to Himself on the wings of eagles. Our circumstances do not determine the faithfulness of God. Our circumstances are there to show us the faithfulness of God if we will persist and be patient.

On Monday we will look at the other reason why we return to our fleshly bondages. For the rest of today and this weekend, spend some time processing this question. “Has my faith in God increased to a level that allows me to not seek options other than God when my present circumstances don’t work out the way I want them to?”

Pastor John