Sermon Tone Analysis

*Sermon: Butler Pennsylvania October 12, 2008*

Text: Exodus 32:1-14

Lightning and thunder are roaring at the top of the mountain.

Smoke is billowing all around as if the whole mountain side were on fire!

Moses was meeting with God there.

The people dare not go to where Moses was for fear that God himself would break out against them!

It was an amazing sight to see! Moses has just heard God give what later came to be known as the Commandments.

/Exodus 20:2-17/

/2//           “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

/

/3//           “You shall have no other gods before‌a‌ me.

/

/4//           “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

/

/7//           “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

/

/8//           “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.

On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.

11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

/

/12//          “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

/

/13//          “You shall not murder.

/

/14//          “You shall not commit adultery.

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/15//          “You shall not steal.

/

/16//          “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

/

/17//          “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.

You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

*[1]*/

/18 //When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear.

They stayed at a distance 19 and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen.

But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”

/

/20 //Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid.

God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.” /

/21 //The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.

/

/ /

The people remained at a distance, interesting isn’t?

God himself was in their midst and his Holy, awesome presence was so overwhelming the Israelites say “Do not have God speak to us or we will die!

They believe this is God!

They are sure of it in fact they have seen signs of HIM all along this journey… Blood, Frogs, Gnats, Flies, Livestock, Boils, Hail, Locust, Darkness, and the plague of the first born…the parting of the Red Sea, The manna, the quail….Yes these people believed that Moses indeed was working with God to raise up a Holy people.

They were the people God had chosen!

How did they feel about this?

What was their reaction?

We read the words clearly here in Exodus 20:21 The people remained at a distance.

Yyyyyyooooouuuu go ahead Moses… We’ll be right here when you get back and we will learn from you but keep God! WWWWWOOOO Keep him there with you.

Don’t you bring him down that mountain!

If you bring him down that mountain things will not be as they are now things will change!

Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid.

God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”

I can imagine the conversation.

OK Moses we believe you!

But like we said IF you bring him down that mountain things will not be as they are now things will change!

The Israelites Required God to be…

Painless …and God is Piercing.

The Israelites were given the opportunity of a lifetime here.

“Do not be afraid.

God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”

This is not only an opportunity to submit to 10 rules by this YAHWEH God… This is an opportunity to live life to its fullest.

This is an invitation to peace.

All their lives they have lived in turmoil, all their lives they were being held back from true freedom and YAHWEH was offering them lasting peace.

You see these 10 “Rules” would order their lives around God’s purposes, these 10 rules led them to begin to feel the weight of sin removed from their lives, these 10 “rules” SET THESE PEOPLE apart from all others because they LOVED GOD AND EACH OTHER MORE THAN THEY LOVED THEMSELVES!

The Israelites required God to be painless so up on the mountain he stayed.

His presence remained away from were they lived their lives.

Instead the Israelites settled for Moses as a go between.

These standards God had laid out were new, they were tough, yes even painful.

All change is painful.

God pierced their hearts.

Stay up on that mountain God!

Exodus 24:3 says “Everything the LORD has said we will do”

Here we begin with the text for this week…

/32     When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods‌a‌ who will go before us.

As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”

/

/2 //Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool.

Then they said, “These are your gods,‌b‌ O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

/

/5 //When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” 6 So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings.‌c‌

Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.

/

/7 //Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt.

8 They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf.

They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’ 9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people.

10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them.

Then I will make you into a great nation.”

/

/ /

/11 //But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God.

“O Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’?

Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.

13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’

” 14 Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.

/

So much for “Everything the LORD has said we will do”

*The Israelites Required God to be…*

*Painless …God was Piercing *

*The Israelites Required God to be…*

*Prompt …God was unhurried *

Exodus 24:18 Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain.

And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

“Forty days and forty nights,” is the standard phrase for a long period of time.

Many scholars think Moses could have been gone much much longer!

So long infact that…we read chapter 32 verse 1 “When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods‌a‌ who will go before us.

As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”

It is a verse of frightened impatience.

Any absence of their leader, the one person who has been their representative to Yahweh from the moment of his return to them in Egypt, would have been unsettling.

His absence in such a place, with so much yet to be done by way of provision and guidance, would have been problematic if even only a few days were involved.

With the passage of a long period of time, the people are represented as nearly in a frenzy, some perhaps assuming Moses had deserted them, others more charitably fearing some tragedy had befallen their leader.

The Israelites may be asking for “gods” because their neighbors had gods, and because their one God seemed gone with the absence of Moses.

This isn’t what the Isrealites were brought out into the desert fro was it?

To be brought out of the grip of Pharaoh and seen how awesome God was on the mountain when they were closer to Moses maybe God simply needed a bit of help.

Yeah we don’t want to wait so lets do this then God will show up!