Three months had passed since their miraculous deliverance put Egypt in the rearview mirror. They were still reeling with awe. Not just about the exodus. About a dry path through the Red Sea. About surprise quail for dinner, bread falling like dew, and water springing from a rock in the desert. About the amazing defeat of the Amalekites. It made the promise easy to make. Why wouldn’t it be? They were in a good place. Headed to the land God promised their ancestors, their heads swam with visions of perfection. Lush fields. Overflowing streams. Healthy herds. Growing families. Everything was working out for them. God was obviously protecting them. He was watching over their lives. He was guiding their steps. They couldn’t foresee a time when they would regret making the commitment, or a time when they would choose not to keep their side of the agreement. They were happy to enter into a covenant with God. Eager to promise obedience to every one of His commands. Thrilled to make a vow to God while basking in the afterglow of His wonder-working power. Of course they would do everything God said they should. He could consider their part of the covenant kept. They would do everything the Lord commanded. Always. Except they wouldn’t. (Exodus 19:3-8)
It wasn’t that they didn’t start out well. They did. After hearing the extensive list of rules, laws, and commandments that came from God’s lips to Moses’ ear, they truly attempted to live by them. No other gods. No idols. No murder. No adultery. No stealing. The list went on. Adhering to the initial ten didn’t seem so difficult. At first. But Moses had disappeared up the mountain with Joshua after delivering the laws. It wouldn’t have been a big deal, except they had never returned. Days turned into weeks. Then a month. No one could go up to investigate. No word came down to inform. God didn’t appear. There was no one to tell them what to do or where to go. If they should go. Their lives were effectively on hold, but the evil one wasn’t. (Exodus 24; Galatians 5:7)
While Moses was up on the mountain in sweet communion with God, the evil one was running amok throughout the camp below. Discontentment, discouragement and frustration began to simmer and boil over among them. The monotony of waiting started getting on their nerves. They were bored. They were impatient. They weren’t happy with the silence. They weren’t even certain Moses was coming back down that mountain. He wasn’t young anymore. Maybe the climb had been too much for him. Maybe Joshua was stuck up there nursing him through a medical episode. Maybe he’d gone on ahead without them. There was no proof he hadn’t just left there. Abandoned. Annoyed. Afraid. Angry. They needed something to keep them occupied until Moses returned. If he ever did.
The truth of the old saying that idle hands and minds are the devil’s workshop was vibrantly underscored. Feeding into the ideas he’d carefully planted, satan whispered words and ideas that said they were alone now. Moses had left them. God had abandoned them. They were alone in the wilderness with no direction, no protection. They had no leader. God wasn’t dropping instructions to anyone else. Not even Aaron. Maybe it was time to take a page from the Egyptians. Build a god. Any god. Something to believe in. Something to put their faith in. Something to supposedly lead them out of this wilderness. They didn’t want to stay there. They wanted to get going. They wanted to get to the promised land. Now. But without a god to lead them, without a leader to guide them, they were stuck.
Urgently approaching Aaron, they demanded a new god to follow. He was Moses’ second, surely he had at least a little authority. Maybe, but he clearly didn’t have much sense. He was as bored as the rest of them. There was only so much one could find to do in a makeshift camp. And the evil one had been just as busy with him as with the rest of them. It took literally zero effort to convince Aaron to build an idol. None. Like a house of cards, he capitulated at the very suggestion. “Bring all the jewelry to me,” he commanded. And they did. Without thought or concern, without remembering their fervently made promise to obey all the commands of God, they brought their jewelry to Aaron. Melting down the gold, he meticulously hand-tooled the image of a calf. Engraved it with careful markings. Set it before the people with a flourish. Only to hear the traitorous people, in flagrant violation of both the first and second commandments, claim it as god. Their god. The one who rescued them from and led them out of Egyptian bondage. And it didn’t end there.
Commandment two was about to take a hacking. Especially the extended part. You know the one. The words that say not to bow in worship or serve idols. Not the kind you can see. Not the kind you can’t. Simply. Clearly. Explicitly. No idols. None. No idol worship. Ever. It wasn’t to be done. Not even considered. Nothing, absolutely not one thing, was to ever take the place of honor and authority reserved for God alone. God didn’t stutter when He issued the commands. They were unarguably clear. The people of Israel didn’t stutter when they promised to keep them. Twice. Once before they were issued. Once after. And God didn’t talk about idols only once. He reiterated it. Once in the second commandment. Again in the beginning of the additional laws. It wasn’t even hidden. He literally said, “Don’t make golden gods for yourselves.” No hidden agenda. No confusing verbiage. No caveats. Just a straightforward command from God to His people. (Exodus 20:1-5; 23; 24:7)
God’s commandments are always that way. Straightforward. There is nothing ambiguous about them. He never sets out to confuse people. He doesn’t say things just once. Over and over throughout the Bible, the commands of God are repeated. They are not contradictory. God doesn’t change. He isn’t fickle or spineless, holding one command for some and another for others. We are never left to guess at what He wants, hoping to maybe get it right. His commands don’t come with caveats. They need no special interpretation. They don’t change with the times, society’s whims, or your own personal urges. There is no circumstance under which worshipping an idol (in any form) will ever be rubber-stamped. Not when you are disgruntled. Not when you are desperate. Not when you are bored out of your mind. There is no moment in which God will turn a blind eye to the worship of anything that isn’t Him. Not on earth. Not in heaven. Not in the sea. Nothing can take preeminence over God in your life and still leave you in a proper relationship with Him. The Israelites knew that. They knew God’s part of the covenant rested solely on their obedience. Yet still they chose to throw a party in celebration of their new god. Still, they chose to give the credit for their miraculous rescue to an impotent statue made by human hands. Still, they chose to take what was not god and make it a god, willingly violating their covenant with God. (Exodus 20:4-5; 22:20; Deuteronomy 4:2; Malachi 3:6; Isaiah 40:8; Hebrews 13:8)
Calling the congregation before him, Aaron announced there would be a festival the following day. He said it was to the Lord. It wasn’t. It would be to their new god. The one he had just created. The gorgeous, golden, hand-crafted one on display. The one that couldn’t hear. Couldn’t see. Couldn’t speak. Had absolutely no power. The one to which he personally built an altar. They would throw a feast. There would be drinking and dancing. There would be sacrifices to their new god. And no one would give a thought to the true God. The One whose strength and glory and holiness they had sung about just a few short weeks before. No one would be thinking of the true God while they were offering sacrifices before their fake god. They wouldn’t be thanking the omnipotent God of the universe while eating and drinking in front of that calf. Their minds would be far away from the commandments as they danced and partied the day away in the presence of their newly minted leader. No one would remember the promises they had so easily vowed yet so quickly broken. No one would remember to be promise keepers. No one would remember God. (Exodus 32:1-6)
From the comfort of our 21st-century homes, it is so easy to sit in judgment over Aaron and the ancient Israelites. We can read their account from start to finish. We know that if they had obeyed God as devotedly as they originally vowed, the account would read so much differently. We know that if they had passed down an unwavering heritage of godliness to their children and grandchildren, the landscape of the entire Old Testament would be changed. We also have the New Testament. We know the life of Jesus. We know God keeps His word to His people. We can read the exhortations of the apostles. We know that in the end of all things, God wins. We also know that we are exactly like the fickle people of Exodus.
In total transparency, each of us would be forced to admit that we have made promises to God. Glibly. Hastily. When things are going well. When the paycheck is constant. When the family is healthy. When the blessings are falling like rain. When everything is working in our favor it is easy to make vows to God and even keep them. The difficulty comes when times are hard. When bad things happen. When jobs are lost. When illness strikes. When homes are splintered by storms. In those moments, it is so difficult to look up to heaven and tell God you still trust Him, you will still follow Him just as closely as when things were good. In despair and discouragement, it is easy to turn aside. Look for a different way. Find another god to follow. It is easy to believe God has abandoned you. In that moment of defeat and disillusionment, it is easy to forget or alter God’s commands. In frustration and fear, it is often difficult to be a promise keeper.
At the end of this Old Testament account, we find Aaron and the people on the receiving end of great punishment for their failure to keep their promises. The death of three thousand men was a horrible loss, but the loss of the presence of Almighty God would have been greater. I know that. You know that. We also know that the only way to remain in Christ, to have His presence continually, is to keep His commandments. Steadfastly. Don’t turn to the right or the left. Don’t be disillusioned in God’s moments of silence. Don’t be drawn away by the lies of the evil one. Measure every thought, every feeling, every idea by the truth of God’s Word. Alone. Stand in that truth. Only. Refuse to be moved. The safest space for a promise keeper is firmly planted in unwavering obedience to the Word of God. It is there you are covered. It is there you are secure. It is there you are backed by the omnipotent power of the great God of the universe. So make a vow to God and keep it. Always. Be a promise keeper. Forever. Knowing this. The promises of God are always yes and amen to those who keep their promises to Him. (Proverbs 4:27; John 14:15; 15:1-10; Exodus 32:25-28; I Thessalonians 5:21; Numbers 30:2; II Corinthians 1:20; II Peter 1:4; Hebrews 10:23)