In Exodus 32 we read a very disturbing story. Moses leaves the people and goes up into the mountain to be with God. It was not long at all before the people come to Aaron, his brother, a priest, the religious head, and demand from him an idol to worship because Moses was seemingly gone and would not return. Aaron, rather than stand his ground, placate the people and gives them what they want. He gathers from them gold and from that gold he makes a calf, the very god that was worshiped in Egypt, and the people fall down and worship this calf as they give this false god credit for taking them out of Egypt.

We are living in a day when the Lord’s presence has all but departed from our gatherings, our meetings, our churches. The people have come to the religious leaders and demanded that they ignore divorce. They have demanded that they recognize gay marriage. They have demanded that they recognize trans-genders. Every form of sin one can imagine the people have demanded the religious leaders legitimize. And once they got it the people have risen up and played the harlot with other gods while the King of Kings is relegated to a mere afterthought and a slogan.

Now, when Moses returns and confronts Aaron, listen to what Aaron says to Moses. 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 (Exo 32:24) Aaron has not only completely ignored his role in the whole affair by blaming the people, he lies through his teeth. He says that he throws all the gold that was gathered, into a fire, and out pops, as if by magic, a golden calf. Yet we know from the previous verses that this of course was not so.

And all the people break off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. 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.(Exo 32:3-4)

You see? He fashioned the idol with a graving tool. He, very particularly created the very god that they had been delivered from, the god that was worshiped by the Egyptians and under whose name they had been enslaved and treated cruelly for hundreds of years. They had fallen back into slavery. When Moses found them they were naked, they had been involved in every kind of sexual sin as they had thrown of all the restraints of a Holy God.

Now, the religious leaders of many of today’s denominations have thrown of all restraints. All over the world we see denominations embrace sexually sinful lifestyles for the same reason that Aaron did. Aaron feared the people. He was not a leader at all, Moses was. He feared that the people would reject him or kill him so he not only gave them what they wanted, he himself crafted the very gods that the people were bowing down to and rising up to play in the name of.

We see that the punishment was severe. Three thousand were killed by the hands of the Levites. Now we know that God could have slain them, He had slain others before who had been involved in rebellion. Yet here, the Levites must decide whom they serve. Undoubtedly they were called to slay those whom they knew, family members, friends and the like. Today, we must decide whom we shall serve. We are certainly not called to kill anyone but we are called to discern with whom we shall fellowship with.

Brothers and sisters do you dwell within an organization that is run by religious leaders who have capitulated to the noisiest and basest of people? Will you partake of their sin? We know from our reading of Scripture that not all the people indulged in this rebellion. In verse 26 Moses calls to the people “Who is on the Lord’s side?” The question for Christendom today is as relevant “Who is on the Lord’s side?” Will you be found standing upon the Lord and His Word or will you be found fallen and naked before the golden calf? The rebellion that we see in the Christian camp today all over the world is as serious if not more serious than what we read in the scriptural account here in Exodus. There comes a time when you must make a stand, you must decide if you will follow the people and what seems right in their eyes or will you follow the Lord and His Word even if it means that you will be despised and rejected by the world. As Moses learned a long time before  it is better to ” suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” (Heb 11:26)