Deuteronomy 9:12-29
12 “Then the LORD said to me, ‘Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly; they have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molded image.’
13 “Furthermore the LORD spoke to me, saying, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed they are a stiff-necked people. 14 Let Me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’
15 “So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire; and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16 And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the LORD your God—had made for yourselves a molded calf! You had turned aside quickly from the way which the LORD had commanded you. 17 Then I took the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. 18 And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger. 19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the LORD was angry with you, to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me at that time also. 20 And the LORD was very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him; so I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. 21 Then I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it and ground it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I threw its dust into the brook that descended from the mountain.
22 “Also at Taberah and Massah and Kibroth Hattaavah you provoked the LORD to wrath. 23 Likewise, when the LORD sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, ‘Go up and possess the land which I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God, and you did not believe Him nor obey His voice. 24 You have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you.
25 “Thus I prostrated myself before the LORD; forty days and forty nights I kept prostrating myself, because the LORD had said He would destroy you. 26 Therefore I prayed to the LORD, and said: ‘O Lord GOD, do not destroy Your people and Your inheritance whom You have redeemed through Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27 Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not look on the stubbornness of this people, or on their wickedness or their sin, 28 lest the land from which You brought us should say, “Because the LORD was not able to bring them to the land which He promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.” 29 Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your mighty power and by Your outstretched arm.’
Sin deals quickly with us if someone does not quickly intervene and cast the word of God before them to bring them to repentance and renewed obedience to His word. This act of Moses as God directed to stop the idolatry and spiritual immorality is akin to biblical church discipline today. We are to let sinners face their idolatry of selfish desires (James 1:14-15) and immorality in body and soul in desecration of (1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 6:19, 2 Corinthians 6:15-16) these temples of our bodies where the Spirit of God lives now. May we see and tear down any golden calves of our own making that misdirect our worship away from the Lord and any immoral desires that cause us to misuse the body and soul with that which is contrary to His design of intimacy in marriage alone between man and woman. Who would bring a prostitute into a worship service or a statue of Buddha? Would not the Lord tell us to correct such a one in tough love to cause them to repent, to turn away from such idolatry and immorality and to restore true focused worship of God alone? May we break down such idols by illuminating them with the scriptures to show what they are and the true damage they cause that the ones caught in such acts may understand and give God alone the glory and keep from sexual immorality of all sorts for the same reason. Too often leaders do not address sexual relations outside of marriage, and that only between a man and woman in a covenant relationship and commitment to one another only. Society has denounced God’s word and allowed all kinds of sexual perversions to be the norm and this reasoning has poisoned the minds of some of His children as well. May it not be so, brothers and sisters! May we pray for those caught up in these sins and lead them out of that temporary darkness into the restorative light of God’s grace and mercy according to (Matthew 18:15, 16-17, Galatians 6:1, 2 Corinthians 2:6-8) His instructions to us. We must remind them and ourselves how the Lord led us all out of bondage to sin as Israel was brought out of Egypt’s symbolic enslavement to the same. This is to keep us humble and not self righteous (Isaiah 64:5, Luke 18:9, 13-14, Romans 14:12) as we are too easily prone to be. When God brings His word down from His mountain in heaven to write it on our hearts, we are expected to read what is inscribed on our hearts (2 Corinthians 3:3, Hebrews 8:10) and look to the scriptures and follow His Spirit’s leading (Isaiah 30:21, John 6:45) to change our course towards Him and away from such idolatry and immorality of the body and soul, loving Him with all our being (Mark 12:30-31) and one another in respect of God’s design and calling of holiness in conformity to (2 Corinthians 3:18) Christ. We do this by dealing quickly with temptation before it turns to sin (James 1:14-15) and after sin takes hold to restoration through repentance, either by self reflection or guided church discipline. Deal quickly with the golden calf of sin or it will deal quickly with you!
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