Exodus 32:4 “And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a grav-ing 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.”
Living on Your Own
I am no grammarian, but I could not help but notice the number of pronouns used in Exodus chapter 32. You know the story of the golden calf, don’t you? Moses had gone up onto Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments from the Lord. While he was gone, the children of Israel, with Aaron in charge, made a golden calf and worshipped it. God said to Moses, “Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt. . . .”
What was Moses’ reply? “LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt. . . .” It is as if no one wanted to claim ownership of these people!
When Moses confronted Aaron about the golden calf, Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief . . . So they gave it [gold] me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.”
God almost seemed to disown His people when they disowned Him. The children of Israel did not disown God by totally rejecting Him; they disowned God by owning their own version of Him. The truth is, you live on your own when you make a god of your own.
Despite the current push to make God “fashionable,” “hip,” and “cool,” God is not fashionable because He is not fashioned. He is not created; He is the Creator. The moment you create a god of your own liking, you are on your own! There is no virtue in being stodgy, frumpy, or out-of-sync, but you are not helping God by creating your own version of Him.
God is who He has revealed Himself to be. Don’t make Him into a form of your creation. Let God be God and humbly submit as the creation to the Creator.