And Aaron said unto them, “Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.” And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.
Exodus 32:2-5
And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD.
The Setting
As we examined previously, while Moses was gone, the Hebrew people opted to abandon Moses and his God, Jehovah, replacing Jehovah with a god of their own making (Exodus 32:1). And they initiated the process (“got the ball rolling”) by asking Aaron, The Priest of Jehovah, to make idols for them.
The situation we live in today is quite similar to that time. People today have grown tired of the God of the Bible and yearn for a god of their own making. They don’t have a personal relationship with God, they don’t know Him like Moses did. And they would rather worship/relate to a god that will approve of their lifestyles, a god that shares/approves their values and is not bothered whether they share His. Accordingly, just as the Hebrews demanded of Aaron, our society have demanded that the church, its leaders, pastors, teachers, make gods that suit them.
I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
2 Timothy 4:1-4
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
Aaron’s response to the demands of the Hebrew nation would define his leadership and his legacy. And the response of the church in these times will do the same for us. Will we stay true to God’s Word, in The Bible? Or will we reject God, twisting and dismembering His Word to suit the demands of the people?
The Challenge
Should Aaron remain Priest of Jehovah? Or should he adapt to the peoples demands? If he remains faithful to Jehovah, then he will lose all relevance (and maybe even lose his life) in the nation. If he opposes the move to idolatry, he would no longer be the High Priest, the spiritual leader, the “Big K`ahuna”, of the Hebrew nation. Could he afford to be faithful to Jehovah?
Believers also face those same questions today. Are Believers, are church leaders, pastors and teachers willing to stand with God even if it means losing their congregation/following and all the privileges/profits that come with it? Is the church willing to preach/teach/share the unpopular truth? Would we lose our livelihoods, even become impoverished outcasts, for the sake of staying true to the Gospel?
Should we submit to the will of society, who demand that we make Jehovah more appealing, transforming Him into an idol of their imagination?
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
Galatians 1:6-10
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men?
For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
Should Jehovah become mother instead of Father to appease the feminists?
Should the Hebrews/Jews be substituted in Scripture to appease the nationalists?
Should suffering and sacrifice be overlooked to appease the materialists, those devils preaching the so-called prosperity gospel?
Should sin and its consequences be removed to appease those that want easy-believism: salvation without repentance, without sanctification, without obedience to Christ?
Should creation be dismissed to satisfy the evolutionists?
Should purity be set aside to satisfy the hedonists?
Should Scripture itself be withdrawn to keep the so-called seekers comfortable?
The Decision
As our text shows, Aaron decided to go along with the wishes of the people. He gathered together took the things they valued, their gold, their material wealth, and made it into an idol they approved of.
[They] changed the truth of God into a lie, and
Romans 1:25
worshipped and served the creature more than
The Creator, Who is blessed for ever. Amen.
Those who give up the Gospel to please the world, commit the sin of Aaron. They replace Jehovah with the desires/values of the people so that the people can worship their desires/values.
When creation is withdrawn from God’s Word, evolutionists don’t begin worshipping God, they continue worshipping evolution. When morality in God’s Word is ignored, people become more immoral, not less. When the Bible itself it removed/ignored, people know God even less, not more. Idols never draw us to God, they stop us ever more from being able to see Him and to recognize His sovereignty over us.
The Response
Upon seeing the idol, the people attribute ALL of God’s blessings to their new idol/s: completely supplanting/replacing Jehovah. It is stunning that the same people for whom God parted the red Sea to bring them to safety and destroy their enemies, those same people now attribute that miracle to an idol made from their earrings. But, how often do we attribute our successes to our selves, our efforts, our talents and skills, rather than to God’s mercy and goodness? Idolatry blinds us to God’s agency, God’s providence in our lives. For perspective, consider Jeremiah’s reflection:
This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is Thy faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:21-23
Without God’s mercy, the Hebrew nation wouldn’t have even survived long enough to make idols and forget about God. Likewise, without God’s mercy we would not even have the chance to strive, to excel. Indeed, we wouldn’t even have to chance to replace Him with the idols in our lives.
Aaron’s response is particularly heartbreaking. Upon seeing the people’s favorable response to the idol, he build’s an altar to worship it. In other words, He adopted a new gospel, a new theology, a new doctrine, that satisfied the desires of the people: he gave the people the god they wanted.
Then, with a final death blow to his legacy, Aaron calls the idol “LORD”. The Hebrew word used is YHWH which is God’s most sacred name: it is the name by which He reveals Himself to His people. It is the name He told Moses to use when He sent him to liberate His people, the Hebrews. It was the name only they knew and only they used. And Aaron knew.
God had performed many miracles through Aaron in Egypt. Aaron had seen and experienced God’s power for himself, first hand. Yet, to please the people, to keep them happy with him, Aaron called a piece of metal “LORD”. How low will you, how low will I, be willing to go to please the world? How low will you/I go to hold on to your/my status in society? Will we forego the approval of God to gain the approval of men?
Where the doctrines, teachings, principles of the Bible have been removed, God cannot be worshipped. If the god we worship is not The God of the Bible, then we are worshipping an idol of our own creation, an idol in our own image. If we do not know God as the Bible defines Him, we cannot worship Him. If the god we know is defined by false teachers or false doctrines, then we only know a false god.
In Scripture, unlike his brother, Moses, Aaron is never referred to as God’s servant; only as God’s choice (for the office of High Priest). Aaron is remembered as the progenitor of the priests, but not as a man of God, not as a man yielded to God. Interestingly, only Aaron’s (later) pathetic excuse is recorded in Scripture (Exodus 32:22-25): We are not told whether he ever repented, only that Moses prayed that God would not destroy him (Deuteronomy 9:20). All the people who Aaron led in idolatry (except for faithful Joshua and Caleb, Numbers 14:30, 26:63-65) died in the desert for their faithlessness and never made it into the Promised Land. That is the legacy of Aaron, the man who would not stand up for God.
Epilogue
“[Moses] To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt, Saying unto Aaron, “Make us gods to go before us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.”
Acts 7:39-42a
And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven…”
Those who replaced Jehovah with idols would never return to true worship of the true God, but were condemned to continue in idolatry until their death. We should choose carefully who we worship.
Reflections in The WORD 