Exodus 32:31-32 And Moses returned to the LORD, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.… I. THE CHURCH CONTEMPLATIVE.. Consider the communion of Moses on the mountain with God. No wonder that Moses should delay to come down. When the sublime truths of the Godhead find a lodgment and settled home in our hearts, so that we can treat them as the familiar things of our faith, and not as passing imaginations, we have great confidence towards God. Selfishness is purged out from us, and with selfishness goes fear. The pure in heart see the Holy One; the unselfish see the Eternal Son. II. THE CHURCH MILITANT. The spiritual life is vast and varied; quietism alone cannot express it, even though it be the fellowship of God's own peace. The change which is wrought in Moses is immediate and startling. He who, alone with God, can venture on remonstrances with God, in the assurance that his pleadings will be accepted; when he sees the turbulent levity of the people, and hears their licentious singing, is transported with indignation. The degradation of idolatry is illustrated in Israel's transgression. 1. It is, first, a revelation of the profound unbelief of the people. Moses was unto them instead of God. "Speak thou with us, and we will hear," they had said, amid the lightnings of Sinai; "but let not God speak with us, lest we die." Here was their first declining, and from this point the descent was facile. Moses instead of God, and a calf instead of Moses. 2. Next, the fatuity of the people is exposed. Ignominious as is their worship, still more ignominious is Aaron's stupid account of it. 3. And then there is the people's permanent demoralization. They are unconvicted by the remonstrances of Moses, unmoved by his earnestness; fear and the darkness of night alone could quiet them. "Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting." How different is the sight of sin from our hearing of it: sin as it affects God seems so easily condoned; sin, when it affects ourselves, appears so heinous. III. THE CHURCH SACRIFICIAL. The next day displays a new composure in Moses. A graver, wiser man, his conflicting emotions steadied under the constraint of a solemn purpose. He goes to commune with the Lord. The words declare his sense of the wickedness of the people, his feeling that nothing can be said to abate the heinousness of their transgressions. Submission is the only offering which their intercessor can present, and out of the submission comes a trembling hope. There is here the utmost tenderness of a human heart; there is also an absolute resignation to the will of God. They are truly sacrificial words, sacrificial in the self-devotion they bespeak, sacrificial in the force of their appeal to heaven. Some sort of premonition that his sacrificial purpose would not be ratified by God appears in Moses' language. It does not mar the sincerity of his self-offering, but the words halt upon his lips in which a simple faith that he could be in the room of Israel would have been expressed. "If Thou wilt forgive their sins —; and if not"— what? Not, blot me, instead, out of Thy book which Thou hast written! — but, "blot me — that is blot me with my people — let me share their forfeiture; I ask no destiny but theirs." It seems to me that one of the hardest lessons which saintly souls have to learn to-day is that they cannot sacrifice themselves for the sins of the world. It is hard, because the sympathy which impels them is so pure and deep; it has so much of the spirit of Christ in it. To the sacrificial Church God is able to reveal the true atonement, to makes us preachers of Him, in whom, "according to the riches of His grace," the world may have "redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins." IV. THE MYSTERY OF THE DIVINE SACRIFICE. "He that is willing," says Christ, "to lose his life for My sake shall find it." Moses was accepted for the people in a deeper sense than he had thought of. He was reinstated in his post as leader, his passion of self-devotedness transformed into faith and patience. The qualified blessing of "an angel to go before him" was changed — as Moses, in his pleading for the people, revealed his undaunted confidence in God's fidelity, and his quenchless affection for the people — into a larger promise: "My presence shall go with thee; and I will give thee rest." And when, emboldened by all the love from God, he goes on to ask for more, there is more vouchsafed him. The Lord declared that He would make all His goodness pass before His servant; and intimated to him that beyond even this was a deep, unutterable secret, which none might rend, but of which, if we could but rend it, we should see the burden to be grace. To such surpassing heights of human efficiency do those attain who are willing to give themselves away. The reward of the Church sacrificial will be victory over the powers of evil. (A. Mackennal, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. |
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