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#988 - Exodus 32 – The Golden Calf · The Bible Study Podcast

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  Speaker 1: Life Audio. The Bible Study Podcast, Episode 988. Today, the
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  Speaker 1: Bible Study Podcast continues the study of the book of
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  Speaker 1: Exodus with Chapter 32. Welcome to the Bible Study Podcast.
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  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Chris Christensen. We're going to continue on
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  Speaker 1: with Chapter 32 with a very significant episode about the
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  Speaker 1: golden calf, but first a word from this sponsor. So
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  Speaker 1: to set the stage for this, remember that for the
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  Speaker 1: last month, or 40 days even, Moses has been up
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  Speaker 1: on the mountain and he's been getting a lot of
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  Speaker 1: instructions how to build the tabernacle, what the high priest
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  Speaker 1: is going to wear, how to build all the different altars,
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  Speaker 1: and the people have started to decide that Moses wasn't
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  Speaker 1: coming back, and this is what happened. The golden calf,
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  Speaker 1: Exodus 32. When the people saw that Moses was so
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  Speaker 1: long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around
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  Speaker 1: Aaron and said, come make us gods who will go
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  Speaker 1: before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us
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  Speaker 1: up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened
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  Speaker 1: to him. Aaron answered them, take off the gold earrings
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  Speaker 1: that your wives, your sons, and your daughters are wearing
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  Speaker 1: and bring them to me. So all the people took
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  Speaker 1: off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took
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  Speaker 1: what they handed him and made it into an idol
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  Speaker 1: cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with
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  Speaker 1: a tool. Then they said, These are your gods, Israel,
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  Speaker 1: who brought you out of Egypt. When Aaron saw this,
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  Speaker 1: he built an offer in front of the calf and announced,
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  Speaker 1: Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord. So
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  Speaker 1: the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt
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  Speaker 1: offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward, they sat down to
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  Speaker 1: eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
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  Speaker 1: Then the Lord said to Moses, go down because your
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  Speaker 1: people whom you brought out of Egypt have become corrupt.
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  Speaker 1: They have been quick to turn away from what I
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  Speaker 1: commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in
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  Speaker 1: the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to
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  Speaker 1: it and sacrificed to it and have said, these are
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  Speaker 1: your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.
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  Speaker 1: I have seen these people, the Lord said to Moses,
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  Speaker 1: and they are a stiff necked people. Now leave me alone.
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  Speaker 1: So that my anger may burn against them and that
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  Speaker 1: I may destroy them. Then I will make you into
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  Speaker 1: a great nation. But Moses sought the favor of the
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  Speaker 1: Lord his God. Lord, he said, why should your anger
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  Speaker 1: burn against your people whom you brought out of Egypt
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  Speaker 1: with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the
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  Speaker 1: Egyptians say it was with evil intent that he brought
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  Speaker 1: them out to kill them in the mountains and to
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  Speaker 1: wipe them off the face of the earth? Turn from
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  Speaker 1: your fierce anger, relent, and do not bring disaster on
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  Speaker 1: your people. Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to
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  Speaker 1: whom you swore by your own self, I will make
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  Speaker 1: your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky,
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  Speaker 1: and I will give your descendants all this land I
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  Speaker 1: promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever. Then
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  Speaker 1: the Lord relented and did not bring on his people
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  Speaker 1: the disaster he had threatened. Moses turned and went down
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  Speaker 1: the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law
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  Speaker 1: in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front
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  Speaker 1: and back. The tablets were the work of God. The
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  Speaker 1: writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets.
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  Speaker 1: When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he
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  Speaker 1: said to Moses, There is the sound of war in
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  Speaker 1: the camp. Moses replied, It is not the sound of victory.
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  Speaker 1: It is not the sound of defeat. It is the
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  Speaker 1: sound of singing that I hear. When Moses approached the
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  Speaker 1: camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger
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  Speaker 1: burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands,
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  Speaker 1: breaking them into pieces at the foot of the mountain.
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  Speaker 1: Then he took the calf the people had made and
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  Speaker 1: burned it in the fire. Then he ground it to powder,
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  Speaker 1: scattering it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.
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  Speaker 1: Then he said to Aaron, what did these people do
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  Speaker 1: to you that you led them into such great sin?
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  Speaker 1: Do not be angry, my Lord. Aaron answered, you know
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  Speaker 1: how prone these people are to evil. They said to me,
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  Speaker 1: make us gods who will go before us. As for
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  Speaker 1: this fellow Moses who brought us out of Egypt, we
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  Speaker 1: don't know what has happened to him. So I told them,
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  Speaker 1: whoever has any jewelry, take it off. They gave me
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  Speaker 1: the gold and I threw it in the fire and
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  Speaker 1: out came this calf. Moses saw the people running wild
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  Speaker 1: and Aaron had let them get out of control and
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  Speaker 1: so become a laughingstock to their enemies. So he stood
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  Speaker 1: at the entrance to the camp and said, whoever is
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  Speaker 1: for the Lord, come to me. And all the Levites
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  Speaker 1: rallied to him. Then he said to them, this is
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  Speaker 1: what the Lord, the God of Israel says. Each man
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  Speaker 1: strap a sword to his side, go back and forth.
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  Speaker 1: So Moses went back to the Lord and said, Oh,
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  Speaker 1: what a great sin these people have committed. They have
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  Speaker 1: made themselves gods of gold, but now please forgive their sin.
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  Speaker 1: But if not, then blot me out of the book
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  Speaker 1: you have written. The Lord replied to Moses, Whoever has
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  Speaker 1: sinned against me, I will blot out from my book.
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  Speaker 1: Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of,
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  Speaker 1: and my angel will go before you. However, when the
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  Speaker 1: time comes for me to punish, I will punish them
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  Speaker 1: for their sin. And the Lord struck the people with
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  Speaker 1: a plague because of what they did with the calf
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  Speaker 1: Aaron had made. So this is a well-known story here,
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  Speaker 1: and there's some interesting things about it. And one of
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  Speaker 1: the things that I find very interesting in it is pronouns,
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  Speaker 1: because we have all sorts of pronouns that people are
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  Speaker 1: choosing very specifically. So the people say, hey, Moses is
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  Speaker 1: up on the mountain. We don't know if he's coming back.
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  Speaker 1: They go to Aaron and they say, make us gods. Aaron,
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  Speaker 1: it does not say here, has any complaint about this.
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  Speaker 1: It doesn't show Aaron pushing back at all. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: he says, give me your gold, and he made it
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  Speaker 1: into the idol in the shape of a calf. Now,
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  Speaker 1: notice that verse, verse 4, he made it into an
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  Speaker 1: idol in the shape of a calf. Not, as he
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  Speaker 1: later says to Moses, I threw it into the fire
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  Speaker 1: and a calf jumped out. No, that's a lie. And also,
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  Speaker 1: these are your gods who brought you up out of Egypt.
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  Speaker 1: That was also a lie. But of course, the people
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  Speaker 1: were told 40 days ago, sure. But 40 days ago,
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  Speaker 1: they were told there's one rule that's more important than
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  Speaker 1: any other rules. What's that rule? Oh yeah, you will
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  Speaker 1: have no other gods before me. That was the number
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  Speaker 1: one rule, and it took them 40 days to break it.
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  Speaker 1: Because they lost faith. They lost faith that Moses was
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  Speaker 1: coming back. Now, there is Remember, smoke and fire, it said,
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  Speaker 1: on the top of the mountain. So it's a scary place.
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  Speaker 1: And so they just weren't sure that Moses was coming back.
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  Speaker 1: But I mean, the presence of God is still there.
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  Speaker 1: They can still see the presence of God. And they
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  Speaker 1: didn't have the presence of mind not to do something
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  Speaker 1: so stupid. Now, we can easily pick on them, but
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  Speaker 1: we lose faith from time to time. We are disobedient.
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  Speaker 1: from time to time. Hopefully not to this extent, but
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  Speaker 1: in small ways, in big ways, we're still not 100%
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  Speaker 1: faithful as they were not. Hopefully we can make it
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  Speaker 1: more than 40 days, but who knows? And then the
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  Speaker 1: next interesting pronoun for me is verse 7. Go down because,
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  Speaker 1: what does God say to Moses? Your people, whom you
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  Speaker 1: brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. Now, I
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  Speaker 1: thought that was very interesting because Moses didn't want to
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  Speaker 1: go and bring these people out of Egypt. Moses was
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  Speaker 1: happy being a shepherd. He was just curious about a
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  Speaker 1: burning bush. He made all sorts of complaints about why
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  Speaker 1: he was not the guy. These were not his people.
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  Speaker 1: These were God's people. This is like two parents. You
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  Speaker 1: get home and you hear, your son, do you know
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  Speaker 1: what your son did today? Well, you know it's not
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  Speaker 1: going to be something good at that point. If it's
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  Speaker 1: something good, it would be, do you know what my
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  Speaker 1: son did today? And so The Lord is talking to Moses.
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  Speaker 1: He's pissed. And because of your people who you brought
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  Speaker 1: out of Egypt have become corrupt. Not because the people
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  Speaker 1: I brought out of Egypt have become corrupt. He's mad.
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  Speaker 1: And he tells Moses what happened. And he says to Moses,
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  Speaker 1: you know, let's just be done with them. Let's just
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  Speaker 1: be done with these sons of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
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  Speaker 1: They're just a stiff-necked people. Let's just worry about the
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  Speaker 1: children of Moses. And let's start again. And Moses says, well,
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  Speaker 1: what are the Egyptians going to say? What are all
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  Speaker 1: the other people who have heard what you did going
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  Speaker 1: to say if you wipe them out here in the desert?
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  Speaker 1: So for your name, not for their name and not
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  Speaker 1: because they deserve it, but for your name, don't do that.
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  Speaker 1: And I always have trouble with these verses as do
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  Speaker 1: a lot of other Christians and a lot of other Jews.
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  Speaker 1: And is God really changing his mind? Is God testing Moses?
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. It's certainly written from the point of
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  Speaker 1: view that God changes his mind. Does God change his
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  Speaker 1: mind if God is omniscient and can see what's going
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  Speaker 1: to happen? and knew this was going to happen? I'm
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  Speaker 1: not really sure. But from Moses' point of view, it
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  Speaker 1: sure looked like God changed his mind. And that's really
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  Speaker 1: the point of view which this book is written from.
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  Speaker 1: So he comes, he takes the covenant law, It's quite
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  Speaker 1: about both sides. I thought that was interesting. I didn't
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  Speaker 1: remember that. We always see the pictures of Moses holding
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  Speaker 1: tablets that are written on just the front, but apparently
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  Speaker 1: there's written on front and back. And he brings these
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  Speaker 1: back and Joshua says, we hear the war. Joshua, remember,
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  Speaker 1: followed Moses up the mountain. Joshua was the aid to Moses.
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  Speaker 1: So Joshua is not in the camp. Joshua is not
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  Speaker 1: taking part in this. And if you read the book
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  Speaker 1: of Joshua, you wouldn't be surprised to find that Joshua
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  Speaker 1: was a very faithful man, and so he probably wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: have had any of this if anybody had listened to him.
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  Speaker 1: He's still a young man at this point. So it's
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  Speaker 1: the sound of singing that I heard, and he comes,
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  Speaker 1: he sees the singing and dancing, he takes the tablets,
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  Speaker 1: he throws them down, he takes the calf and destroys it,
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  Speaker 1: burns it, grounds it into power, and makes the people
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  Speaker 1: drink it. Probably going to make them sick, but they
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  Speaker 1: brought this on themselves. And then he goes to Aaron
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  Speaker 1: and says, what did you do? I don't know. I'm
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  Speaker 1: just throwing earrings into fires and calves are coming out.
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  Speaker 1: It's not me. Don't be angry with me. They're the
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  Speaker 1: ones who told me to do it and I didn't
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  Speaker 1: do anything, which is a lie. It is easy to
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  Speaker 1: try and cover up for what we did. And quite
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  Speaker 1: often the cover up is worse than the crimes. And
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  Speaker 1: it is easy for us not to want to take
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  Speaker 1: the blame. It is a very natural response. We don't
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  Speaker 1: have to be a priest like Aaron. We don't have
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  Speaker 1: to be a leader like Moses. We don't have to
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  Speaker 1: be a politician. We don't have to be an older
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  Speaker 1: brother or younger brother or younger sister or older sister.
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  Speaker 1: It is easy for us to want to not take
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  Speaker 1: the blame. And Aaron doesn't want to. But he is
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  Speaker 1: at fault. He is certainly at fault. not the one
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  Speaker 1: who started this, but he went along with it. And
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  Speaker 1: then he says, he calls the people to him and
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  Speaker 1: the Levites come and they strap on their swords and
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  Speaker 1: they are a vengeful army here who are killing people
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  Speaker 1: for this terrible sin that they have committed. And God
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  Speaker 1: is also going to send a plague for this terrible
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  Speaker 1: sin that they have committed. So there are consequences to
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  Speaker 1: our actions. And sometimes, just think, how much longer would
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  Speaker 1: they have had to wait? Was Moses going to be
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  Speaker 1: up there much longer? Was it just wrapping up and
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  Speaker 1: they decided to do this? I get that impression that
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  Speaker 1: they were close to being finished, but I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: Could they have waited just one more day? If they'd
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  Speaker 1: waited just one more day, could we have not had
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  Speaker 1: a golden calf? I wonder how many times we could
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  Speaker 1: have waited just one more day, one more hour, for
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  Speaker 1: God to be faithful, to be faithful before God. With that,
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  Speaker 1: we're going to end this episode of the Bible Study Podcast.
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  Speaker 1: If you have any questions, send an email to chris2x
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  Speaker 1: at gmail.com or better yet, leave a comment on this
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  Speaker 1: episode at thebiblestudypodcast.com. And as always, thanks so much for listening.
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  Speaker 1: I want to take just a second to thank the
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  Speaker 1: team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on
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  Speaker 1: this podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens
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