May 24, 2016 SnyderTalk: The Children of Israel Instruct Aaron to Make a Golden Calf

1--Intro Covering Israel and ME

“Therefore behold, I am going to make them know—this time I will make them know My power and My might; and they shall know that My Name is Yahweh.” (Jeremiah 16: 21)

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Katie and I are traveling in Israel and gathering information for SnyderTalk.  While we are there, I am posting excerpts from His Name is Yahweh in SnyderTalk.

The message in the book is important.  Please take the time to read it.

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The Children of Israel Instruct Aaron to Make a Golden Calf

After God spoke the Ten Commandments, Moses went back up on the mountain to receive additional instruction.  He was with God for forty days and forty nights.  When several days had passed, the people became concerned that Moses might never return, and they told Aaron to build a golden calf for them to worship.

It is preposterous to think that they believed the golden calf was Yahweh.  They had witnessed God’s mighty acts on their behalf, and they had heard Yahweh declare the Ten Commandments with their own ears.  In all likelihood, they wanted Aaron to fashion an intermediary for them that could stand between them and God the way Moses had done.  They probably asked Aaron to make a golden calf because they were familiar with the worship of cattle from their experience in Egypt.  But the reason they asked Aaron to do it and the reason Aaron did it are unimportant.  The fact is that within days of receiving the Ten Commandments, the whole congregation, including Aaron, had violated the first two commandments.

Yahweh was furious.  The Children of Israel had not been able to keep His commandments for even a few days, and He was literally right there with them.  His Shekinah was just a few hundred yards away from them on top of the mountain.  God told Moses to stand aside so He could annihilate all of them and build a great nation through Moses’ descendants.

Moses urged Yahweh to change His mind, to remember the covenant He made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to have mercy on the people.  In truth, Yahweh could have fulfilled every promise He made to the patriarchs by raising up a nation through Moses’ seed, but Moses pleaded with God anyway.  Then Moses presented an argument that demonstrated how much he loved God and how much he cared about protecting His holy Name:

“Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth?’”[i]

In essence, Moses was reminding Yahweh that the ten plagues He inflicted on Egypt were a powerful message to Pharaoh and to the people of Egypt that Yahweh God is sovereign over everything in existence.  If the Sovereign God and Creator of the universe were incapable of saving His people after He brought them out of Egypt, then the Egyptians (and people in other nations as well) would say about Him that He must not be a great God after all.  They would also say about Him that He was not powerful enough to save them so He killed them instead, thus bringing dishonor to His Name.

God changed His mind partly because of Moses’ plea and partly because He understood that no one can keep all of His commandments without fail.  It is quite likely (in fact, it is almost certain) that He was simply testing Moses to see if he was up to the challenge of leading the Israelites.  As their leader, he would have to stand in the gap between them and God many times.  If Moses had failed to do it on this occasion, then he would not have been ready to lead God’s people.

Those of us who have placed our faith in Yahweh are just like the Children of Israel.  We want to go our own way and do our own thing.  We would rather do what seems right to us than what we know God tells us to do.  God calls this rebellion and disobedience—sin.  Yahweh is holy, so His people must be holy and treat Him as holy.  He set us apart for Himself, and He expects us to be distinct in the world—a people dedicated or consecrated to Him and recognizable because we are different. Yahweh expects us to be holy because He is holy, and when we behave in an unholy manner we profane His holy Name.

Yahweh actually told Ezekiel why He did not destroy the Children of Israel at the bottom of Mount Sinai:

“I acted for the sake of My Name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they lived, in whose sight I made Myself known to them by bringing them out of the land of Egypt.”[ii]

God does not destroy us for the same reason—so that His Name will not be profaned in the sight of the nations.  Yahweh is our only hope.  He forgave us and He redeemed us because He loves us and because He wants to glorify His holy Name.

The Omnipotence of Yahweh on Display

The entire Exodus experience reveals the omnipotence of Yahweh.  I can only speculate about many of the things He did for the Children of Israel as He led them out of Egypt and as He dwelt with them for 40 years in the wilderness, but a little speculation can be very helpful:

  • While they traveled, the Children of Israel, who were at least 2 or 3 million strong, would have needed 1500 tons of food each day at a minimum. To bring them that much food, two freight trains each at least a mile long would have been required.
  • They would have needed firewood for cooking and heating—or about 4000 tons of wood per day.
  • If they only drank water, watered their animals, and washed a few dishes, they would have needed at least 11,000,000 gallons of water per day.
  • If the Children of Israel had crossed the Red Sea in double file, it would have taken 35 days and nights to complete the crossing. For all of them to cross in one night, the land bridge had to be wide enough for them to walk across about 5000 abreast.
  • When they camped, they needed an area about 750 square miles in size to handle all the people and the animals they had with them.[iii]

Of course, these are just estimates, but they are reasonable given what we know.  Neither Moses nor anyone else besides Yahweh could have provided everything the Children of Israel needed to survive in the wilderness for 40 years.  That is why the Exodus remains such an important event in the history world to this day.  It demonstrates that we serve the Omnipotent God who can, and will, take care of all our needs.  The One who made water flow like a river from a rock in the desert will have absolutely no difficulty dealing with anything we encounter.  We can have faith in Yahweh because nothing is impossible for Him.

The Wilderness Journey Comes to an End

When Yahweh led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, He could have taken them to the Promised Land in less than two weeks.  Instead, the trip took 40 years.  When they left Egypt, the Children of Israel were full of hope and anticipation about meeting Yahweh and entering the Promised Land.  But only two Israelites (Joshua and Caleb) who were over the age of 20 when they started out got to their final destination.  Why?  The answer is sin.

The Israelites rebelled against Yahweh and broke His Laws again and again, but even more important than their willful disobedience was their lack of faith in Him.  They simply would not trust Yahweh, and faith is the foundation of our relationship with Him.[iv]

God allowed His people to die in the wilderness rather than permitting them to further pollute the Holy Land with their sinful ways.  The people Yahweh drove out of the Promised Land to make room for the Israelites had polluted it already, and that is why they were being removed.[v]  They had contaminated it with their “disgusting practices”[vi] which had “filled it with filth from end to end.”[vii]

Joshua and Caleb were allowed to enter the Promised Land because they demonstrated faith in Yahweh, and that is what He requires.  Since a single unfaithful act, no matter how insignificant it may seem, makes us guilty before Him and deserving of death, in the end the Bible teaches us that we need a redeemer and a savior.

Above all, Yahweh is holy.  If we want to have an intimate relationship with Him, then we must be holy as well.  To make us holy, Yahweh became a Man, suffered and died for us, and atoned for our sins by covering them with His own precious blood.  He is our One and only Redeemer and Savior and our only hope.

His Name is Yahweh: It explains why God’s Name is so important.  It’s available in eBook format and in paperback.  It’s also available for free in PDF format.

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3--HNIY the Website

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His Name is Yahweh, the website, is a companion of the book His Name is Yahweh.

To see videos that explain the importance of God’s Name, click here.

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15--Concentric Circles 5

“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17: 22-24)

See “His Name is Yahweh”.

[i] Exodus 32: 12.

[ii] Ezekiel 20: 9.

[iii] This information was included in an email from Melanie Snyder dated June 3, 2002.

[iv] Habakkuk 2: 4 and Hebrews 11: 6.

[v] Leviticus 18: 24-25.

[vi] Ezra 9: 11 from The New Jerusalem Bible.

[vii] Ezra 9: 11 from The New Jerusalem Bible.

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