Quiet this evening, just me, sleeping cats and dog and AllClassical radio.

Exodus 32:21-24 And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them?

²² And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief.

²³ For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

²⁴ And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.

2 Timothy 4:2-4 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.

³ 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;

⁴ And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

Aaron felt he needed to give the people what they wanted, instead of giving them what they needed.  He lead from behind; which isn’t, of course, leading at all.

Instead of reminding them that God was their Savior and had led them out of Egypt, he made a calf of gold, as they wanted, placed an altar before it and declared “To morrow is a feast to the Lord.”  Vs 32:5

That is what the people wanted, so that is what he gave them.  Sound familiar?

Paul reminds us that people will go where they want to listen to what pleases them, even if it is not the truth.  They don’t want to hear what pleases or angers God, they want to hear what they want to make them ‘feel’ better about themselves.

If we are told we are sinners; that we must be redeemed by the blood of Jesus – and then live for Him – we become responsible to God.  We must listen to Him and some of the ‘fun’ things that we can partake of in this world is an abomination to Him.

So, the world denies Him; denies His Word and forms its own set of rules which is more to their liking.

They choose those that will water down the Gospel of Christ; that will ignore the duties of being a Christian for the more appealing pleasure seeking.

They base their defense of what they are teaching on the fact that people don’t want to listen to the truth of the Word. 

So, we must give them what they want.

Not much has changed from Aaron to the early Christians to the current prosperity and tolerate everything the world preaches today.

It was an interesting response Aaron gave to Moses when asked what he had done - So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.

Not my fault, Moses, the people demanded this and I had no choice.  I just threw gold that they had given me into the fire and when it all melted together, out came the calf.

That, of course, was a lie.  He fashioned the calf himself.

And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: vs 32:4

God is not a fool.  He knew exactly what happened, and Moses saw through the lies and weakness of Aaron.

Instead of standing for God against those that would deny Him, he caved in and legitimized their desires by going along with them.

We must be extremely careful in our spiritual lives.  While we have ministers and teachers and other church leaders who present the Gospel and help us understand what God wants of us, ultimately we are responsible for our own salvation and our walk through life with Christ.

God is not going to accept excuses.  He is not going to allow us to get by with lies or someone made me do it. 

We have been dully warned, many times in both the Old and New Testament that there are those that undermine God’s Word, that make it sound like God is not all that concerned about us – that we can become Holy by our own will and conduct. 

We must weigh the words of those who would teach us the Word, against the Word itself.  We cannot afford to accept someone else’s interpretation without verifying it. 

Satan is well aware of our human propensities and he subtly uses those to compromise our relationship with God.

It started with Eve –

Genesis 3:2-4  And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

³ But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

⁴ And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

God said nothing about touching the fruit; Eve added that on her own.  So she added to the God’s Word and satan used the fact that she couldn’t even quote what God had said, as a base for tempting her.  Then he lied. 

And because the fruit looked so good, Eve ate it.  Even still if that had been the end of the violation of God’s Word and Adam had rebuked her, we probably would be in a constant state of Grace. 

However, Adam didn’t, and instead of rebuking her, he allowed her to convince him to also partake of the fruit.

Satan lied to Eve and used her to tempt Adam.  He is still using these kinds of tactics today.

He gets someone who may have a great personality or is able to project wisdom and knowledge, to preach his anti-God message and make it seem like man is in charge.

He is a great manipulator.  He feeds the world lies and they may seem harmless and makes life easier, but it only leads to the eternal death of our soul.

Proverbs 14:12-13 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

¹³ Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful; and the end of that mirth is heaviness.

Without submission to the Holy Spirit and obeying His Word we get into trouble.  It is just too easy to be led astray, or to take off on our own in the wrong direction.

It is imperative that we learn to listen with a jaundiced ear when we are trying to be taught something that just doesn’t match up with our knowledge of God’s Word – then search the scriptures and ask of trusted elders to understand if what we are being taught is correct or not.

God is not going to accept, ‘everybody was doing it so I had to also,’ and He is not going to accept that ‘all I did was throw it out there; I am not responsible for how it came out.’

Aaron already tried that, it didn’t work for him, he was rebuked.  It won’t work for us; we may be in danger of losing our very soul.

Later, Art :-)