Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to Hope for Today, a weekly Bible teaching program that will bring you hope for every day.
It is good to be here with you today. Thank you for listening. Not last week, but the week before. Our lesson was True worship, and today's title is Improper Worship. That lesson was from chapter 30, which was part of God's long explanation to Moses about how to construct the tabernacle and its furnishings.
This lesson is from Exodus 32. And while Moses was receiving this information from God, the Israelites went to Aaron and asked him to make us gods.
Imagine they had crossed the Red Sea on dry ground. They saw the Egyptians destroyed. When the waters came together, then God miraculously led and fed them in the desert. They came to Mount Sinai and met God. The mountain shook. They saw lightning, and the sound of the trumpet was very loud. The Israelites experienced God like few people have ever experienced Him.
And here they are, just a short time later, worshiping a golden calf as if that is what brought them out of Egypt.
We look back and wonder how the Israelites could be so foolish.
We can understand why God was furious.
Here they are giving his honor and glory to a calf. How ridiculous. Worshiping an idol of their own making as if it was their Savior.
Improper worship today is just as foolish and infuriates God just as much. We must be careful because the human heart has not changed since then. We have those same tendencies. In order for God to get our worship, we must be intentional and work hard to give God our devotion and our worship.
Now let's go with Bible teacher J. Mark to Exodus 32 and hear what he has to say about improper worship.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: In the heart of every human being, there's a desire to worship something or someone.
It's just part of the way God created us.
And this desire to worship displays itself in various ways.
The reason we want to worship God or something else is because whether we acknowledge it or not, we have a connection with God.
Why? Because God created us. And he created us with the desire to worship. He created us with the desire to make connection with Him.
And so people have this desire, this drive, you might call it, for worship. They want to connect with God, but they don't know how.
And many of them don't know where to go to learn how.
What happens then is they often go the wrong way or they look in the wrong places.
By looking in the wrong places, they get farther and farther away from God instead of getting closer to Him. And, you know, that's sad because it isn't necessary.
God has revealed Himself to us. In the pages of the Holy Scripture. And he will show Himself to us when we come to him through them, through His Word.
I'm so thankful that God's Word shows us how to worship him properly.
Now, the wrong way to worship is described for us in Exodus, chapter 32 and verses 1 to 6. And so, as we continue our study in the book of Exodus, we'll see the elements of this experience in Israel's history and what they can teach us even today about improper worship.
Listen, as I read that text, Exodus, chapter 32, beginning with verse one.
And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mountain, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron. And they said to him upon make us gods which shall go before us.
For as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.
And Aaron said to them, break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them to me.
And all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and they brought them to Aaron.
And he received them from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool after he had made it a molten calf. And they said, these are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made proclamation and said, tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.
And they rose up early on the morrow and and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and to drink, and they rose up to play.
From these verses that describe Israel's experience, we discover the conditions which led to improper worship, and that will help us to avoid improper conditions in our worship.
The first condition was an unsettled people.
The problem began with the people complaining about Moses. He had been on Mount Sinai with God for several weeks, and they said, he's delayed up there on the mountain. We don't know why. We don't know what has become of him.
So they made a hasty and wrong conclusion.
They didn't realize that he was up there for their sake. He was receiving from God the revelation of himself so that they would know more about him and be able to serve him and worship him better.
So they complained about Moses being absent. And then they commanded Aaron to do something.
They said, make us gods.
Now that's a very strange command. Did they actually think that a man could make gods?
Think about how absurd that is.
These unsettled people commanded Aaron their leader to make gods for them. It's almost unthinkable.
Their demand to Aaron to make them gods followed their hasty conclusion. They said, we don't know what happened to this Moses, this man who brought us out of the land of Egypt. And they didn't seem to care much about him either.
They didn't take time to think through their situation.
In their unsettled condition, they became impatient.
Now, impatience is a common human problem. I'm sure you've experienced it.
We want what we want and we want it now.
So these unsettled people created a condition which led to improper worship.
You know, many people today are unsettled. They complain about conditions they don't fully understand.
Instead of thinking carefully about the outcome of their choices, they just want something, anything to happen.
That's the way it was in Israel's day, and often that's the way it is today.
But then there was a second condition that led to improper worship. I've called it an unsafe pastor.
You know, when the people came to Aaron with their demand, he cooperated with their wishes.
He should have warned them, but he didn't do that. He didn't warn them that what they were doing wasn't wise.
No, he just told them to give him their golden earrings.
Now, it may have been a wise thing to get rid of the golden earrings, but hardly in the way that Aaron did it.
All he did was cooperate with their wishes instead of leading. And he didn't give any warning about improper worship. He didn't say, let's take some time to think this through.
Instead he said, I'll cooperate. I'll do what you ask. Just give me the golden earrings.
And then to get the shape of this so called God, he cast the calf out of molten gold. And then he finished the details with an engraving tool. And I can imagine that the calf was quite beautiful.
You know, in a way, it's not surprising because the children of Israel would have seen this kind of worship in their former home in ancient Egypt. The Egyptians worshiped a certain kind of bull.
And so there is yet today the tomb of the bulls that is covered with the desert sand where the Sahara meets the Nile Valley.
So what was happening here at Mount Sinai was that the children of Israel were going back to pagan idol worship, and their pastor Aaron did nothing to warn them.
And then the multitude cried out and said, here are your gods.
I wonder, did anyone really believe that?
Most likely they were standing around there watching as Aaron melted down the gold and fashioned it like a calf and then set it up.
And so they said, these are your gods.
That's ridiculous.
Only a brief time before that, they had seen the glory of God on the top of the mountain like a devouring fire.
And now they're saying this golden calf which Aaron fashioned for them was their God.
This unsaved pastor satisfied the people's desire by making the golden calf.
But that led them into improper worship.
It's unfortunate, but many pastors today only satisfy and feed their people's desires.
Hardly a warning ripple crosses the unsettled congregation.
Instead, they tell the people what they want to hear.
That is an unsafe pastor. And. And that was the condition that led to improper worship in this experience of Israel.
And then there's a third condition.
I've called it an unsuited procedure.
Let's watch closely. What happened after that golden calf was fashioned. When Aaron saw it, he built an altar.
Why did he do that?
Well, apparently he built an altar before this calf.
He made an altar before this calf that he had forged and fashioned out of gold.
It doesn't seem possible, but that's what the scriptures record. And then he made this proclamation. He said, tomorrow is a feast unto the Lord by the way of this calf. He didn't say that, but that's what was implied.
Now we know that cannot be right or pleasing to God.
No, it was improper worship. It was unsuited procedure to build an altar, to sacrifice to the calf, and then to make a proclamation and say, we're going to have a feast to the Lord Jehovah.
Today we call that syncretism. That is the mixing of practices from two different religions.
So what did the people do the very next morning? They got up early and they offered sacrifices and peace offerings before that calf.
What an unsuited procedure. What confusion. What an insult to Jehovah God.
And so Aaron, this unsaved pastor, dealing with this unsettled people, made an unsuited proclamation for unsuited procedure.
Such mixture can never come out well.
And so this unsuited procedure mixed things up which cannot be mixed, and it led to improper worship.
Unfortunately, there are unsafe pastors today who lead people into similar situations. When they try to mix God's ways with man's ways, they try to worship God on their own terms.
So not all worship is proper worship. Some of it is improper, as in Israel. So in every group of people, these conditions will only lead to improper worship.
The conditions which led the people of Israel into improper worship are easily discovered here.
The unsettled people complaining about Moses, the unsafe pastor who gave no warning to the people about what they were going to do and the unsuited procedure with mixing things which cannot and should not ever be mixed.
You know God wants your love and devotion, but he wants it free from such confusion as was found in Israel. In our text today, I'm glad to tell you that the Bible presents the proper way of worship.
Do you know how to worship God? Have you offered your prayer to Him?
He is right there near you, just as close as a prayer.
Make sure you learn how to worship him properly.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: Thanks J. Mark for these thoughts on worship. This subject is very important and it's important because we are worshipers. It is in every human to worship something. It is our desire that you would worship only Him. He alone is worthy of our worship. Don't be deceived and give your worship to anything else. Allow your heart to be captured by the power and the beauty of our great God.
If you have any questions or if you would like a copy of today's teaching, here is how you can contact us. The best way is email. Our email address is hopefully heraldsofhope.org and if you don't have email, not a problem, you can write to us. Our address is HopeFor Today, Box 3, Breezewood, PA 15533 or you can connect with us on our website.
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So please look around while you're there.
If you go to the Connect tab on the top of the page, you can message us directly. Again, the website is heraldsofhope.org thank you so much for being with us and we hope you will join us again next week for encouragement to stay true in your worship of God. Look at the awesome scenes of worship at the end of Revelation 4 and 5.
This is what we were created for, and we long to be worshiping our great King around His throne.
