Creator, Father, King #89

All honor and glory to God forever and ever! He is the eternal King, the unseen one who never dies; he alone is God.

FOR AN OLD GUY, Moses could still bring the noise when needed!

When the Israelites worshiped the golden calf, God was prepared to destroy his rebellious and idolatrous people. But Moses interceded for them, and the Lord mercifully relented from his righteous anger.

But when Moses personally witnessed the people’s wickedness, he smashed the Ten Commandments in a rage, burned the golden calf, ground it into powder, and forced the people to drink it. Then he instructed the Levites to kill everyone who remained stubbornly unrepentant toward the Lord—about three thousand people.

Wow! Pretty fiery for an eighty-year-old!

But Moses had every right to be angry. The Israelites had been exceedingly wicked and unfaithful toward God. They had broken both the first and second of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:3-4):

1. You must not have any other god but me.
2. You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea.

What’s It Mean?

God is different, far greater, and far more glorious than anything else in his creation. Nothing in the universe can come close to adequately representing God, so in the second commandment, he forbids us to even try.

Idolatry was a constant snare to the ancient Israelites. God is “the eternal King, the unseen one” (today’s verse), but they wanted a god they could see and touch. It’s partially why they built the golden calf and struggled with idolatry throughout much of their pre-exile history.

Don’t think you’re above this. You might not be tempted to worship false gods of metal, wood, or stone, but every human heart is prone to be deceived and lose faith when our eyes don’t see empirical evidence of the supernatural.

You’ve certainly heard the popular phrase, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” But God calls us to adopt a different mentality. We are to believe even when we don’t “see it.” In other words, we are to have faith in God even though we don’t see him.

God is alive today! He is ruling the universe and ruling in human hearts. Even though you can’t see him, will you allow him to rule in your heart?

Now What?

Read the account of the golden calf in Exodus 32.

Did You Know?

More than one billion people in the world today still worship man-made idols. Pray for their salvation.