Exodus 31:18

The Bible says in Exodus 31:18, “And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” The fact that God Himself wrote the words of the Ten Commandments demonstrates how important the Ten Commandments were. God expects all human beings to live according to the Ten Commandments. There can be no righteous or just laws that are not based upon the Ten Commandments. From a practical standpoint the only way that human beings can successfully live on this earth is by following the Ten Commandments. Those who break the Ten Commandments not only sin against God, but they sin against others and themselves and what they could have been. The Ten Commandments stand as a unique witness to the fact that God is holy, but we are sinful. That is because the Ten Commandments are part of the law, and we who believe in Jesus are not under law but under grace. We could never be justified by the law because we failed to keep it. The Ten Commandments now play another role for us: They become our schoolmaster. They teach us that we need a Savior because they teach us how sinful we are.

Moses had been up in the mountain communing with God for forty days and forty nights. Exodus chapter thirty-two tells us what took place among the people while Moses was away. Many of the people became involved in very sinful activities. The spiritual lesson is this: if you do not spend enough time communing with God and your Savior Jesus Christ, then you will spend too much time involved in the world and you will be tempted to partake of the world’s activities which will take you away from God and into sinful activities. The Bible says in Exodus 32:1-6, “And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, 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 wot not what is become of him. And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD. And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.”

It appears that Aaron was perhaps both attempting to appease the people and direct them to continue worshipping the Lord. Aaron did take gold from the people and made a molten calf. Aaron said to the people in Exodus 32:5, “To morrow is a feast to the LORD.” But once people are determined to go away from God, you cannot appease them or satisfy them. If people are determined to go away from God, then they will do so. God gives us all a free choice. No one is going to accept Christ and serve Him just because you want them to do so, not even your children. Everyone will choose for himself or for herself whether they will accept Christ as their savior or not. These Israelites made a very bad choice. Instead of doing what Aaron said and making a feast to the Lord, the Bible says in Exodus 32:6 that the people “sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.”

It says in Exodus 32:7-9, “And the LORD said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people.” There are three things said about these people that can be said about the whole human race: they corrupted themselves, they turned aside quickly out of the way which God commanded, and they were a stiff-necked people.

The first thing that God said about these people is that they “have corrupted themselves.” Yes, they had bad influences: they learned idolatry from the Egyptians. But the Israelites were still responsible for their own actions, and once they did wrong it was because they chose to do wrong. The same is true of every human being on this earth. We all have some kind of bad influences somewhere and somehow. For example, when we are children, none of us had perfect parents; and the devil tried to bring in as many bad influences as soon as he could. And the devil does that throughout our lives. But for every person who becomes corrupt, the same can honestly be said about them as was said about the Israelites: “they have corrupted themselves.” That is because God has given to each of us the power of choice, and each will be held responsible for the choices they have made. This spiritual principle is very clearly seen in salvation through faith in Christ. Every person makes a choice sometime in their life to either receive Christ or reject Him. Jesus wants to save everyone, but God gives a free choice to each person on this earth.

The second thing said about the Israelites is that they turned aside quickly out of the way which God commanded. This demonstrates how easy it is for any person to fall away from serving the Lord. Jesus said in Matthew 7:14, “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” Because Jesus defined the gate as “strait” and the way as “narrow,” that means that it is very easy to get off or fall off the way. If we describe “the way” as serving the Lord in this life by faith, one moment you can be on the way, and the very next moment off the way. The Bible also says to Christians in First Corinthians 10:12, “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” It is very important that you always do the right thing, but if you fail it’s important that you always confess your sins to get back in line with Jesus. Do not forget how weak you are, and how quickly you might fall away just like the Israelites.

The third thing said about the Israelites is found in Exodus 32:9 where God said, “it is a stiffnecked people.” This refers to the stubborn will of these people. We can only serve Jesus if we have a submissive and surrendered will towards Him. We live in a world of very selfish people because human nature is selfish by definition. The “now” generation says, “I want what I want, and I want it now.” As one preacher described his own nature: “Gimme, gimme, gimme, my name is Jimmy.” That is one of our great problems. Often our biggest enemy is our own selfish will. That is why Jesus was such an important example to us when He bowed before the Father and prayed as it says in Luke 22:42, “Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” And Jesus taught us to pray in what we call the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6:10, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” When you want something very badly, look out. That is a perfect setup for you to resist God’s will. There is nothing more sinful than a human being living according to his or her own will, or making a choice according to his or her own will. God has given each of us a very strong will, but we can only serve Him when we surrender our will to Jesus.

The Bible says in Exodus 32:10-14, “Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever. And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.” Because their sin and rebellion was so great, God was thinking about destroying the children of Israel, and starting over with a new nation with Moses as the patriarch of the new nation. But of course, God could not do that for the very reason that Moses stated: God had made promises to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob concerning the nation of Israel; and God always keeps His promises. This is the very spiritual principle that the doctrine of eternal security is based upon. God promises to save those who believe in Jesus. Once a person becomes a true believer in Jesus, that person falls under the great promise of salvation, and that is why salvation can never be lost: God always keeps His promises; and the promises concerning salvation are unconditional promises. Paul wrote in Romans 1:2-6, “(Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name: Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ.” It says in Titus 1:2, “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.” It says in James 2:5, “Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?” And it also says in First John 2:25, “And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.” God would be justified to punish us with eternal damnation for the sins that we committed since we first accepted Christ, but He is not going to do it. He is going to love us all the way to the end, and He is going to keep His promise and take us to heaven where we will be with Jesus forever.

The Bible says in Exodus 32:15-28, “And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written. And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables. And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp. And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear. And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it. And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them? And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief. For they said unto me, 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 wot not what is become of him. And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf. And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:) Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the LORD's side? let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.” Yes, God will keep His promises about eternal security for those who have faith in Christ the Savior, but that does not mean that there are no consequences when a Christian sins. There can be severe consequences, just as there were for these Israelites. Life is a gift and a great opportunity, but some people’s lives are shortened because of how much they sinned. It says in First John 5:16, “If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.” There can also be a loss of rewards. It says in First Corinthians 3:14-15, “If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”

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