Moses told the story of the Golden Calf in Exodus 32 to show the ease with which sin may be entered into and the wrath of God that will ensue.
Ministers Scott Sheppard and Vaughny Taylor say the Israelites’ error in the story was their lack of faith.
“The first thing we have to remember about the Children of Israel was that they had spent 400-plus years in Egyptian captivity,” said Sheppard, minister of One Hope Church of Christ in Midland. “Generations had been born and died while there and the Egyptian culture had rubbed off.
“Oh they still believed in God, but they also believed in the gods of Egypt. Yes, they were thankful to leave Egypt and the tyranny of bondage, but when Moses was too long up on Mount Sinai the people became scared and distraught and told Aaron to build a god to go before them.”
Sheppard said Aaron, Moses’ younger brother and the high priest, had the people remove their ear jewelry for him to melt and form into a golden calf.
“Here are a people who had been chosen by God to be his people,” he said. “They had been liberated from Egypt and were on their way to a promised land that God was giving to them.
“He had gotten them through the Red Sea using an amazing miracle. He had fed them with manna and quail every day, in a desert no less. He had given them water, once from a rock, but yet where was their faith?
“Instead of trusting God they chose to take matters into their own hands and turn back to their Egyptian roots. Many gods in Egypt were fashioned after bulls, so the golden calf was a natural choice. If God through Moses was not going to respond, they would make themselves an idol to lead them on.”
Sheppard said the lesson for contemporary Christians is that people too often “run ahead of God” and seek their own solutions.
“We hate to wait, we grow impatient and we settle for a quick fix, all the while missing out of the blessings that God may have in store for us down the road,” he said. “As the old saying goes, we stop one shovel load short of hitting the gold.
“Anything or any person can become a golden calf, anything we allow to take the place in our lives and hearts that only God should hold. We must be careful that in our quest for life to its fullest we don’t allow golden calves to creep into our hearts.”
The Rev. Taylor, pastor of Central Baptist Church, said Moses interceded to persuade God not to destroy all the Israelites just as Jesus Christ intercedes now for repentant Christians when they sin.
“What we can learn from this story is that God wants to be our only god and we suffer his wrath when we choose other gods,” the Rev. Taylor said. “I think Aaron from the beginning was a somewhat unwilling partner because Moses had had to convince him to be his high priest. I never get the feeling that he was all in.”
Explaining that sin often results from taking the path of least resistance, Taylor said, “The crowd was clamoring and it was easy for Aaron give in.
“Elevating the Golden Calf to a godlike status and worshipping it was the supreme act of apostasy,” he said. “It was the rejection of a faith that they had at one time confessed. They were fortunate that Moses showed up when he did and that he convinced God to change his mind about wiping them out.”
Taylor said people today make idols of such things as money, cars, houses and public acclaim.
“It’s anything that takes our eyes off God,” he said. “If we’re not careful and we continue to do things that anger and frustrate him, we can find ourselves in the same situation in our lives and in our society today.”
