Acts 7:39-45 To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt,… And who would ever have supposed it I when we remember how God had poured contempt on idols and idolaters; how they had been delivered, and how the visible symbol of the Divine presence was with them. I. THE PECULIARITIES OF THIS SIN. Men abuse everything, even the divinest things. Idolatry is the corruption of religion — the substitution of the material for the spiritual, of the lie for the truth. It had irresistible attractions for the multitude; it appealed to their senses and was a system of solemn and splendid licentiousness. The Hebrews had become tainted with it in Egypt, and manifested a proneness to it on many occasions. This golden calf was the Apis of the mythology of Egypt, who was a representative god, not worshipped on its own account, but as a symbol of the chief and supreme divinity. This throws light on the conduct of the Israelites. Moses was the mediator of that economy. He had gone up to commune with God; but forty days and nights had passed away. The people were becoming uneasy and unbelieving; they felt that they were alone in the wilderness. They wanted some symbol of God; they would not have wanted this if they had had Moses; but having lost him, they made a calf. They did not renounce God — they introduced the unhallowed ideas and practices of Egyptian idolatry into the worship of Jehovah. Thus "they changed their glory" — that is, the invisible God — "into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass." The result was most debasing — "They sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play." They practised their lascivious rites at the very base of Sinai. The idolater will be like his god, he can never rise beyond his standard of perfection, and when men become worshippers of an animal, they become animal themselves. Idolatry is the substitution of the human for the Divine — the symbol for the reality. There may be no image, and yet idolatry. In after times men trusted in the temple, and not in God. Men now may trust in churches; in the forms of religion, and not in God or the gospel. Men may put baptism in the place of regeneration, and the Lord's Supper in the place of salvation by Christ, and thus overlook all the great verities and realities of a spiritual religion. II. THE PALLIATIVES OF SIN. Aaron professed simply to have cast the gold into the fire, and the unexpected result was this calf. Men have always excuses or subterfuges. They charge their sins on the devil, or hereditary taint, or constitutional peculiarity, or the force of circumstances. We admit all this; but you can defy all in God's name and strength. There had been preparation and design, and great care in fashioning the mould for the idol. So it is, by a long, painful process, we form habits; but these determine character. Your character has been fashioned and graven by a sharp instrument, and all your feelings, thoughts, and deeds, like fused metal, are poured into this mould, and come out bearing its form. Many a worldly man has said, "I never thought I should be what I am." III. THE PARTNERSHIP IN SIN. It was Aaron's making, but their instigation. They made the calf that Aaron made. When legislators, to gratify the people, enact laws that are opposed to the will of God — when a teacher of truth comes down from his high position and panders to the tastes and prejudices of his hearers — when fathers and mothers listen to the caprice and self-will of their children — in all these instances there is partnership. It is a fearful thing this. You may have moulded some character. Other men's sins may be yours. You originated them — helped them to the birth. When they were born, they grew into fearful forms without you. They are yours, however, you are partakers of other men's sins. IV. THE REPRODUCTIVENESS OF SIN. Ages have rolled by. The people have entered the goodly land. There has been the reign of David, the golden age of Solomon. Once more the cry of the wilderness is heard, the echoes of which have slept for centuries — "These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." There had been the division of the kingdom, and it was a master-stroke of policy on the part of Jeroboam to prevent the ten tribes going up to Jerusalem to worship. He felt that unity of worship would lead to unity of feeling. The people, however, must have a religion, and so he falls back on the calf worship. The people are taught that that worship cannot be wrong which had been devised and framed by the high priest in the wilderness. And so the sin lives again, and is reproduced. Sin is like some fearful taint which has been latent for generations, but suddenly manifests itself with new power. Conclusion: We are leaving far behind the forms of an old idolatry; getting beyond the worship of the laws and powers of nature, but the creature worship lives, and comes between Christianity and the world. 1. Men may make an idol of self. There is no form of idolatry more debasing and deadly. 2. Men may make an idol of their physical nature. How much time do many of you spend in dressing up life as if it were a god. And there are others who say, "What shall we eat, and what shall we drink," as well as "wherewithal shall we be clothed." All their attention is concentrated on the physical. I have read of vines in Italy that cling to some strong tree and clasp it for support, but they suppress all its manifestations of life by the growth of their own. So the very strength and wondrous energy of our spiritual natures may give intense power to physical sins. 3. What is the idol men worship in this country? Is it not a golden one? "Keep yourselves from idols." (H. J. Bevis.) Parallel Verses KJV: To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt, |
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