The Great Test (Ex. 32:7-14)

8/5/2008 8:11 AM

My Worship Time           Focus:  The great test

Bible Reading & Meditation               Reference:  Exodus 32:7-14

            Message of the verses:  “7 ¶  Then the LORD spoke to Moses, "Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.  8  "They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!’"  9  The LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people.  10  "Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation."

11  Then Moses entreated the LORD his God, and said, "O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?  12  "Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people.  13  "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’"  14  So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.”

            In this section of Scripture there is a very misunderstood verse that will need to be explained in order to make the meaning of it clear.  But first I want to look at the differences from what God first said to Moses and then what Moses replied to God and by doing this I hope to also make verse ten make sense. 

            God began this section by saying that Israel belonged to Moses and that he was the one who brought them out of the land of Egypt. He then goes on in verse ten to tell Moses that He was going to destroy the people and make a new nation from Moses.  If God did this then He would be changing His mind and it must be remembered that God had made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that He would make a great nation out of Israel and that they would be as the stars of the sky and the sand on the seashore.  God was testing Moses and He knew that Moses would not take Him up on making a nation from Him because Moses cared more about the character of God and His reputation than he did about himself. 

            “In writing this account, Moses used human terms to describe divine actions, which is why he wrote in verse fourteen that God ‘repented.’  (KJV) The Hebrew word means ‘to grieve, to be sorry (Genesis 6:6; 1 Samuel 15:29) and describes God’s change of approach in dealing with His people (Jer. 18:1-12; 19; 26) God’s character doesn’t change, but God does respond to the prayers and confessions of His people.”  (From Warren Wiersbe’s book “Be Delivered”)

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  One of the things that bothered me so much when Gary and Andrew were being put in jail and then the Church of the Open Door was being sued was that all of the news from this was bringing down the name of the Lord because His people were acting foolishly.  I would suppose all of us were to some degree or another acting foolishly because of how we all were handling our money that God had entrusted us with, but this was something that should have been handled within the framework of the Church and not allowed to be brought out into the public arena where people do not understand the truth about God.  I do not want to ever be a part of bringing down the name of my God.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1. Put on the whole armor of God so that I can be protected against the wiles of the wicked one.
2. Trust the Lord to guide my paths today.
3. Trust the Lord to teach me contentment through the trials and good times of life.
4. Trust the Lord to give me wisdom in order to show my wife a good time on this vacation.

Memory verses for the week:                      Exodus 20:1-5

1. Then God spoke all these words, saying,
2. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3. You shall have no other gods before Me.
4. You shall not make for yourself and idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
5. You shall not worship or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children on the third and forth generations of those who hate me.

8/5/2008 9:01 AM