# 23 2025 Dev. Ex 32: “Intercession!” Read all of chapter thirty-two first. We invite you into God’s space, to read His Word, to think on and interact with. This is God’s Story. Do you believe that this may also be part of our story, in our time? All passages are taken from the NIV.
Exodus 32:9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, ‘and they are a stiff-neckedpeople.’”
Ex.32 The people became impatient and said to Aaron, “Come, make us gods who will go beforeus. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” They said make us a god to go before us. Aaron listened to them and made a golden calf and built an alter and said, “tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.”
Vs.1-6 The people gave Aaron gold and Aaron made a calf, the people were familiar with that idol as a god worshiped in Egypt and also in Canaan I Kn. 12. People sacrificed on the alter Aaron had built, burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. “Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.”
Vs.7-10 “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt… Now leave me aloneso that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
Vs.11-14 “But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God…. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the starsin the sky and I will give your descendants all this landI promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever. Then the Lord relentedand did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.”
Vs.15-20 “Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant lawin his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back.” When Moses saw the calf, he smashed the two stone tablets on the ground, he burned the calf, ground it up and spread the grindings on the water and made the people drink it.
Vs.21-29 “Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstockto their enemies… and said, whoever is for the Lord, come to me. And all the Levites rallied to him.” He ordered them to strap on their swords, go and kill your brother and friend and neighbor. On “that day about three thousand of the people died.” This was punishment all around, to the executioners, killing brothers and friends and to the executed, this was a corporate punishment. Yet in acting for God, though painful, they are blessed by God. Aaron as the leader had brought this on the people by not opposing this apostacy, as many church leaders today do not oppose the apostasy of our time.
Vs.30-35 “The next day Moses said to the people, (and to Aaron) ‘you have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord, perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.’” Moses acknowledges to God what a great sin was committed. “But please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.” Here Moses becomes a type of Christ, willing to sacrifice himself for the people, If only we had leaders of that caliber today! God answers, “whoever has sinned against me I will blot out.” It is up to Christ to atone alone, yet, those like Moses, Aaron and a host of others, all those who believed in the promises of God, pointing to Jesus, are all written in the Book of Life. Praise be to God!
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Heavenhigh 