Deuteronomy 9:15 – 21 “So I went back down the mountain while it was blazing with fire, with the two tablets of the covenant in my hands. And I saw how you had sinned against the LORD your God; you had made for yourselves a molten calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the LORD had commanded you. So I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands, shattering them before your eyes.
Then I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. I did not eat bread or drink water because of all the sin you had committed in doing what was evil in the LORD’s sight and provoking Him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and wrath that the LORD had directed against you, enough to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me this time as well.
The LORD was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, but at that time I also prayed for Aaron. And I took that sinful thing, the calf you had made, and burned it in the fire. Then I crushed it and ground it to powder as fine as dust, and I cast it into the stream that came down from the mountain.”
Poor Moses! He’s already spent forty days and nights on Mount Sinai without eating or drinking and has received two stone tablets on which God Himself has written the Ten Commandments. Now God has ordered him to get down off the mountain quickly because the Israelites have ignored God, forced Aaron to mold a golden calf, and are throwing an orgy. The gold that went into that idol was part of the gold God intended for creating a holy place of worship; now it has been perverted to the demonic.
Moses rushes down the mountain, takes one look at the idol, listens to the drunken cries of the crowd, and throws the sacred tablets to the ground, shattering them! Moses is devastated! Everything he has worked for is in ruins. At this point, Moses isn’t sure that God isn’t going to simply wipe out all the Israelites, including Aaron, right on the spot.
Why doesn’t God punish Moses for having smashed the tablets? Because Moses is not acting in rebellion but in righteous anger. God knows Moses’ heart; He knows that Moses has acted out of grief and despair. (Later on, Moses does act in rebellion and loses his chance to enter the Promised Land as a result, but God does NOT punish him for smashing the tablets.)
Moses completely destroys the idol and casts it into the stream flowing from Mount Sinai. Throwing the gold dust into running water ensures that there will be nothing left for any of the Israelites to collect. Having destroyed the idol, Moses trudges back up Mount Sinai and spends forty more days and nights in prayer and fasting, begging God to spare the Israelites. (Yes, I know the passage speaks about Moses’s intercession first; however, if you were Moses, would YOU go back up that mountain, leaving that idol so your people could throw another orgy?)
One of the most notable things is that Moses specifically mentions that God was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him but relented when Moses prayed. Aaron was Moses’ older brother and evidently a polished public speaker. Unfortunately, when things got tough, Aaron would cave in if Moses wasn’t around to support him.
APPLICATION: Have you ever felt like Moses? You have done everything correctly. You have given a situation your best effort, expended all your energy, made sacrifices, only to have the people on whom you were counting fail you miserably. There’s a meme that says, “If you want to be popular, sell ice cream!” Unfortunately, taking a stand for righteousness may earn you nothing but grief and even abuse and persecution.
The key question in such situations is this: whom are you working to please? Are you working to please people or are you working to please God? Moses as a leader had a very difficult calling. For the Israelites, slavery was grueling, but it was familiar. As slaves, the Israelites were assured of a minimum allowance of food and clothing because the Egyptians wouldn’t get any work out of them by starving them. Most of the Egyptians lived in the well – watered part of the land, and the Israelites had settled in Goshen where there was good grazing for their animals. Now it was up to Moses to convince the Israelites to endure the desert, wearing the same shoes and clothing years after year. Instead of a familiar routine, the Israelites had to depend on watching God’s pillar of cloud or fire to see whether they were going to stay in a place or move.
The lessons we can learn from the story of Moses are endless, but today’s lesson is this: When people betray you, pray for them. If your family members betray you, pray harder! You never know; your prayers might be the only thing protecting those people from disaster and destruction.
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Thank You that You always hear our prayers, no matter how short or simple. Lord, help us to pray for those who use and abuse and betray us. Help us not to give up or to get weary when we don’t see quick answers to our prayers. Thank You that Your timing is perfect. In the mighty and precious Name of Jesus. Amen.
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