Title: The Golden Calf
Reference: Exodus 32:1-35
Speaker: Paul Brandes, PaulB@cckc.church

– Common human response: Try to seize control.

[Slide - Quote, Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods]“An idol is something that we look to for things that only God can give.”

An idolatrous attachment can lead you to break any promise, rationalize any indiscretion, or betray any other allegiance, in order to hold onto it. It may drive you to violate all good and proper boundaries. To practice idolatry is to be a slave. ~ Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods

– Uncommon response from God: Holding forth both holiness and compassion.

When the Bible says, “the LORD relented,” this does not imply that God changed his mind. [In fact] God gives clear indications that he was planning to show mercy all along. This is why he got Moses involved in the first place. It was so his people could be forgiven. In the words of the psalmist: “So he said he would destroy them — had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him to keep his wrath from destroying them” (Ps. 106:23). So Moses was not changing God’s plans; he was carrying them out! ~ Philip Ryken

When darkness veils His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace; In every high and stormy gale, My anchor holds within the veil. His oath his covenant his blood, Support me in the whelming flood, When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay. ~ A mid-1800s hymn, My Hope Is Built

An idol is something that we look to for things that only God can give. ~ Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods