MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Exodus 32:7-15
INTERCESSION
Consider—
I. The sin and peril of Israel. Their sin was the more grievous because it came after such wonderful manifestations of God’s power and love. “Thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves,” Exodus 32:7. Here was the sting. After they had seen all the wonders that God had showed them.
2. Their sin was the darker because it was committed so early. “They have turned aside quickly out of the way,” Exodus 32:8. So little patience and faith had they.
3. Their sin was in itself a capital offence. “They have made a molten calf,” &c., Exodus 32:8. We reckon a lack of belief in God as a mere speculative error; we reckon a godless life as far more innocent than a life of passion; but to lose sight of God—to cease to love Him—is regarded in the Word of God as the cardinal, all-comprehending sin. And this sin on the part of Israel provoked the anger of God. “God’s wrath waxed hot against them,” Exodus 32:11. In these modern days a certain school chose to represent God as looking down coldly and calmly on sin, and dealing with it in quite an unimpassioned manner, but Revelation does not thus reveal God. He hates sin; He waxes hot against sinners; He is grieved at His heart. Is not this whole picture of the apostasy of Israel suggestive of our own age and nation? God has not dealt with any nation as He has with us, and yet the spirit and philosophy of our day is strangely godless. The golden calf is in the marketplace and in the schools.
II. The intercession by which the impending calamity was averted. Moses entirely forgets himself in the welfare of the people, Exodus 32:10. His own glory and the glory of his house are ignored.
1. He pleads with God for Israel on the ground of God’s past mercies, Exodus 32:11. Thou hast been good and gracious—be gracious still.
2. He pleads with God on the grounds of sympathy with the divine glory, Exodus 32:12. He was jealous for God’s character in the eyes of the world.
3. He pleads with God on the ground of the divine promise, Exodus 32:13.
Thus let us plead with God when we behold the unrighteousness of the age. Men often plead with God for man’s sake—for the sake of human sufferings, &c.—let us plead for God’s sake. Let us plead for man out of sympathy with God. And if we thus plead, God will hear and bless, Exodus 32:14.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WILLIAM ADAMSON
Idol-Idiosyncrasy. Exodus 32:1-35.
(1.) Material idolatry has passed away among civilised nations in its literal import. As Macmillan says, the old worship of stocks and stones is now impossible among a professedly Christian people. But although the outward mode has passed away, the essence of the temptation remains the same. Human society is changed, but human nature is unchanged. The impulse which led Israel to seek the golden calf is as strong as ever, and images are set up and worshipped now as fantastic as any pagan fetish or joss. For what is idolatry! Is it not in its essence the lowering of the idea of God and of God’s nature, and the exaltation of a dead image above a man’s own living spirit! Is not an idol whatever is loved more than God, whatever is depended upon for happiness and help independent of God?
(2.) Sooner or later, as Moses pounded the calf and gave the Israelites the dust to drink in punishment of their idolatry, will all such moral idolaters have to drink the dust of their idols. Our sin will become our punishment, our idols our scourges. God is a jealous God, and every soul that turns aside from His love to the lying vanities of the world must drink the bitter water of jealousy, filled with the dust of the bruised and mutilated idols of spiritual idolatry: “This shall ye have at My hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow.”
“Thou art the man within whose heart’s deep cell
All evil sleeping lies;
Lust, in a dark hour waking, breaks the spell,
And straightway there arise
Monsters of evil thoughts and base desire.”
—Greok.
Divine Omniscience! Exodus 32:7-8. Israel lost sight of the fact that though Moses could not see, God could. Creeping down stairs at night towards the orchard, the little boy forgot that while his father’s eyes were locked in slumbers deep, yet there was One whose eye neither slumbers nor sleeps. But when he stood beneath the favourite apple-tree—when he stretched forth his hand to the branch—when he lifted up his eye to the tempting, coveted, rosy-cheeked fruit; lo! a star twinkled its ray upon him, and seemed to say, “God sees.” And the little fellow shrank back—retreated from the garden—betook himself upstairs, repeating to himself the Scripture words “Thou God seest.” Ah! had Israel only remembered this, the sin had not been committed, and the dire mischief had not been wrought.
“Though all the doors are sure, and all our servants
As sure bound with their sleeps, yet there is ONE
That wakes above, whose eye no sleep can blind;
He sees through doors, and darkness, and our thoughts.”
—Chapman.
Idol Illustrations! Exodus 32:8. It was a curious feature of the ancient Egyptian worship that each large city bad its own triad or assemblage of three gods, whom it more particularly adored. The triad of Memphis were Ptah, Buhastis, Apis. The ruins of the temple at Memphis sacred to calf-worship were discovered in 1850. Close at hand stood the Apeum, or sanctuary of the sacred bull, where he was carefully tended, as well as the cow from which he had sprung. As each bull died his mummy was stored away in one of the corridors extending underground for a considerable distance, and known as the “Mummy-pita of Apis.” No fewer than 1200 of these tombstone-tablets have been traced, and the most important of them were removed to the Louvre at Paris.
“Ideal images in sculptured forms,
Thoughts hewn in columns, or in caverned hill,
In honour of their deities and their dead.”
—Montgomery.
Sin-Steps! Exodus 32:8.
(1.) Facilis decensus Averni. The first step in the primæval world was to worship God under natural symbols. The second step was to worship the creature along with or beside Jehovah. The third step was to worship the objects of nature more than the Being who made them. The fourth step was to worship these works of nature to the exclusion of God. Lower was the surging sea of all ungodliness, whose end is DEATH.
(2.) Goulburn well says that idolatry—i.e., the surrounding the creature with the attributes of the Creator—is the original, fundamental sin of man, the point of departure from which man started on the downward course, until he reached the lowest depths of wickedness.
“Polluted most, yet wallowing in the mire;
Most mad, yet drinking frenzy’s giddy cup;
Depth ever deepening, darkness darkening still.”
—Pollck.
Wrath and Mercy! Exodus 32:10-14.
(1.) If we look with the naked eye, says Macmillan, at the star Rigel, which forms the right foot of the constellation of Orion, we observe a star of first beauty and brightness. But the telescope shows us that it is a double star. This is a binary arrangement which prevails to a great extent throughout the heavens. These binary stars revolve round each other, or round a common centre. They thus exhibit the extraordinary spectacle, not of planet revolving round sun, but of sun moving round sun. Their lights blend before they reach us, so that they present to the naked eye the appearance of one star.
(2.) Kurtz says that wrath and mercy were both united in the eternal counsel of salvation, which was the combined product of the two; for in that counsel wrath was appeased by mercy, and mercy sanctified by wrath. Wrath and mercy were made one in the counsel of salvation, but they were not extinguished. Their lights blended together in this incident on Horeb—Jehovah saying, “Let Me alone;” Moses, prompted by the Spirit, saying, “Spare Thy people, O Lord.”
“Had not the milder hand of Mercy broke
The furious violence of that fatal stroke
Offended Justice struck, we had been quite
Lost in the shadows of eternal night.”
—Quarles.
Mosaic Meditation! Exodus 32:12. We find the law of intervention in every department of human life—each and all of its phases serving to indicate more or less clearly the spiritual law. As Ragg remarks, is not that man a mediator who, in the hour of danger, interposes with his strong arm for the protection of the weak? Is not that woman a mediator who, with noiseless step, paces the sick room where the once stalwart man is laid prostrate, anticipating his every want and desire as she stands between him and the fell disease with which he is grappling? Is not that mother a mediator who, with simple and eloquent words, and tears more eloquent, pleads with the father for the child whose wrongdoing has incurred parental censure and rebuke? Is not that nobleman a mediator who, with earnest words, undertakes to induce his sovereign to pardon the rebel-peer, and restore him to his confiscated title and possessions? Is not the Jewish maiden a mediator who, with consciousness of the great risk she runs, ventures into the royal presence to implore the revocation of the imperial decree dooming a whole exiled race to death?
“Praying for His children
In that blessed place,
Calling them to glory,
Sending them His grace;
His bright home preparing,
Faithful ones, for you;
Jesus ever liveth,
Ever prayeth too.”
—Havergal.
Retribution! Exodus 32:2-8.
(1.) Yes, they were rebels taken red-handed in revolt against their king. Not only had they taken up arms against their liege lord, and entered into negotiations with his relentless foe, but they had endeavoured to induce many of their fellow-countrymen to join them in their rebellious and lawless course. To spare them from punishment would be to leave them opportunity of bringing wider ruin upon all and sundry. For the sake of the people, and especially the weak, it was necessary that retribution should overtake these red-handed communistic leaders.
(2.) Daniel Defoe, in his far-famed “Life of Robinson Crusoe,” and John Bunyan, in his widely-known allegory of the Holy War, have shown how this apparently severe treatment was in reality true charity and compassion. And is it not from the same cause that the lost angels and men are to be “for ever” shut up in darkness, and precluded from entering amongst the redeemed? It is often the greatest mercy to exercise strictest justice. Severity to one may save the many from temptation, nay, from ultimate destruction. Pity!
“I share it most of all when I share justice,
For then I pity those I do not know,
Which a dismiss’d offence would after gall?
And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,
Lives not to act another.”
—Shakespeare.