Exodus 32:19–26
19 As soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. 20 He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.
21 And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” 22 And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. 23 For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ 24 So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”
25 And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies), 26 then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him.
“Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me.”
In these words, we have one of the great challenges of the Bible. In a world which is becoming more confused and darker with each passing day, we need to decide whether we are going to stand on the side of truth and light, or of lies and darkness.
The setting of this question asked by Moses to the Israelite nation was during one of their lowest moments. Moses had been called by God to Mount Sinai where he was given the Law, but having grown tired of waiting for Moses to return, the people made and worshipped a golden calf. When Moses returned and saw what they were doing, he issued his challenge to them – who is on the Lord’s side?
And that same call has been echoed down through history, and remains just as valid today. Our world is so different from the time of Moses, yet in so many ways, nothing has changed. We are still surrounded by ignorance, superstition and paganism.
Before we respond to the challenge of standing on the Lord’s side, there a few things we need to be absolutely clear on. We have to understand just what it means to take a stand for truth, because there is a cost. If we are going to be serious about embracing truth and resisting the lies of the world, we need to know what it will take, and how to get there.
Not only that, but once we make the choice of choosing the Lord’s side, by His grace and in His strength, we need to stay on His side. We can’t keep chopping and changing, relying on our circumstances and spiritual health or lack thereof to decide where we want to be on any particular day.
So just what does it mean to be on the Lord’s side?
Firstly, it means to reject the world’s side. When we give in to the pressures of the world, we are on the world’s side. When worldly things consume our thoughts, desires and passions, we are caught up in the darkness of the world. The Israelites in Moses’ time wanted a god they could see, so they made a golden calf. Again, not much has changed all these years later. We simply have to learn to see life and the things of this life from an eternal perspective. Once we learn to do that, we will find it easier to let go of worldly things for the cause of Christ.
Secondly, being on the Lord’s side means dying to self. God looked at His people and told Moses He saw them as “a stiff-necked people.” This means they were hard-hearted, obstinate, going their own way and self-reliant. Has anything changed today? Not really. We are still a stiff-necked people. Surrendering to God and His will for our lives is regarded as a sign of weakness, but Jesus says we are to take up our cross and follow Him instead.
This statement of His has created much confusion, so what exactly, did He mean?
Let’s begin with what Jesus didn’t mean. Many people interpret a cross in this context as some kind of burden they must carry in their lives: a strained relationship, a thankless job, or a physical illness. With self-pitying pride, they say, “Well, that’s the cross I have to bear.” But this is not what Jesus meant when He said, “Take up your cross and follow me.”
When Jesus carried His cross up Golgotha to be crucified, no one was thinking of the cross as symbolic of a burden to carry. To a person in the first century, the cross meant one thing and one thing only: death by the most painful and humiliating means possible.
Two thousand years later, Christians view the cross as a cherished symbol of atonement, forgiveness, grace, and love. But in Jesus’ day, the cross represented nothing but torturous death. Because the Romans forced convicted criminals to carry their own crosses to the place of crucifixion, bearing a cross meant carrying their own execution device while facing ridicule along the way to death.
So, “Take up your cross and follow me” means being willing to die in order to follow Jesus. This is called “dying to self.” It’s a call to absolute surrender.
And thirdly, we need to understand just how pervasive and destructive sin is.
Three times in Exodus 32, after the tragedy of the golden calf, Moses says to the people that they had committed a great sin.
Today we don’t like to hear that word.
God asked Adam and Eve a profound question in Genesis 3:13. “What is this you have done?” He wanted them to see what their sin had done to them, and how it had destroyed their lives. We’re always annoyed and upset by the sins of others, but generally speaking we’re not really that bothered by our own sin, because we’ve become so used to it.
To truly be on the Lord’s side means to turn away from our sin – that’s the definition of repentance – and to turn towards God instead. We need to reject our self-reliance, the things of the world, and as Hebrews 12:1 puts it, we must “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.”
But that is really just the beginning, because we need to be aware of some of the costs of being on the Lord’s side.
In verse 26, after Moses asked who is on the Lord’s side, it says, “all the sons of Levi gathered around him.”
This is the ancient equivalent of taking one pace forward like volunteers in an army. When soldiers step forward in response to a call for volunteers, everyone sees them. The Levites, when they responded to Moses’ call, became conspicuous as they stepped over the line, confessing that they were willing to be on the Lord’s side.
Being on the Lord’s side means siding with the minority. The people of God in the Bible were always fewer than those who opposed Him. He has always worked through minorities. And we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that we are, or ever have lived in a “Christian country.” Christian disciples, those who really are on the Lord’s side, have always been in the minority.
This means that we should be willing to stand alone if need be, yet not alone, but rather, with Him!
And then we need to become engaged in the battle for truth. Christianity is not a passive religion. It is an active, and interactive life of love, truth, faith and witness. We are to be the church.
The church is God’s chosen and called vessel to take the message of hope into the world. The hope that the hopeless need is the hope that their golden calves cannot offer them. There is so much emptiness and false hope out there, but we have the answers to all of those questions and so much more.
So, in keeping with our military analogy, just how do we volunteer and enlist on the Lord’s side?
Firstly, we need to accept the invitation given to us. Moses said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me.” In those days, Moses fulfilled the role of the priest. He represented the people to God, and God to the people. Today, we have Jesus, our great high priest, who makes the same call. Jesus asks each of us today, “Who is on the Lord’s side?”
As Moses was God’s representative, so now Jesus is God’s representative. We have to accept the invitation through Jesus.
Secondly, we need to answer the invitation and challenge to be on the Lord’s side.
Look carefully at how Moses asks the question, and his very next statement: “Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come to me.”
It was a general question, posed to the entire Israelite nation, but the response was to be personal, and nothing has changed since then. The choice to take a stand for Jesus has always been a personal one.
And the third crucial step in deciding to take the Lord’s side is to receive the Saviour. Moses was the Old Testament saviour or deliverer of God’s people from the bondage to slavery in Egypt. He was a picture of what was to come in Christ. In verse 30, after the episode of the golden calf, Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”
Jesus made the atonement between sinful man and a holy God when He died on Calvary’s cross. 1 Peter 3:18 says, “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”
When you are in Christ, and Christ is in you by His Spirit, you are standing on the side of truth.
Before we close, I’d like to ask a rhetorical question: Have you chosen to be on the Lord’s side, but instead of stepping out in faith into the battle you’ve found yourself cowering in the trenches looking for cover, or have even deserted your post? Remember that the God we love and serve is a God of grace and mercy. He died for our sin, and included in that are the empty promises we make to Him, but it is never too late to re-enlist, so to speak. Peter denied three times even knowing Jesus. He lied. But Peter received grace and mercy, and did great things for God in the days of the early church.
God understands our weakness and our struggles. He understands them far better than we do. Come to the Table this morning, and choose once more to be on the Lord’s side. It is only in and through Jesus that your life will have any real meaning and purpose.
19 As soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. 20 He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.
21 And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” 22 And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. 23 For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ 24 So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”
25 And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies), 26 then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him.
“Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me.”
In these words, we have one of the great challenges of the Bible. In a world which is becoming more confused and darker with each passing day, we need to decide whether we are going to stand on the side of truth and light, or of lies and darkness.
The setting of this question asked by Moses to the Israelite nation was during one of their lowest moments. Moses had been called by God to Mount Sinai where he was given the Law, but having grown tired of waiting for Moses to return, the people made and worshipped a golden calf. When Moses returned and saw what they were doing, he issued his challenge to them – who is on the Lord’s side?
And that same call has been echoed down through history, and remains just as valid today. Our world is so different from the time of Moses, yet in so many ways, nothing has changed. We are still surrounded by ignorance, superstition and paganism.
Before we respond to the challenge of standing on the Lord’s side, there a few things we need to be absolutely clear on. We have to understand just what it means to take a stand for truth, because there is a cost. If we are going to be serious about embracing truth and resisting the lies of the world, we need to know what it will take, and how to get there.
Not only that, but once we make the choice of choosing the Lord’s side, by His grace and in His strength, we need to stay on His side. We can’t keep chopping and changing, relying on our circumstances and spiritual health or lack thereof to decide where we want to be on any particular day.
So just what does it mean to be on the Lord’s side?
Firstly, it means to reject the world’s side. When we give in to the pressures of the world, we are on the world’s side. When worldly things consume our thoughts, desires and passions, we are caught up in the darkness of the world. The Israelites in Moses’ time wanted a god they could see, so they made a golden calf. Again, not much has changed all these years later. We simply have to learn to see life and the things of this life from an eternal perspective. Once we learn to do that, we will find it easier to let go of worldly things for the cause of Christ.
Secondly, being on the Lord’s side means dying to self. God looked at His people and told Moses He saw them as “a stiff-necked people.” This means they were hard-hearted, obstinate, going their own way and self-reliant. Has anything changed today? Not really. We are still a stiff-necked people. Surrendering to God and His will for our lives is regarded as a sign of weakness, but Jesus says we are to take up our cross and follow Him instead.
This statement of His has created much confusion, so what exactly, did He mean?
Let’s begin with what Jesus didn’t mean. Many people interpret a cross in this context as some kind of burden they must carry in their lives: a strained relationship, a thankless job, or a physical illness. With self-pitying pride, they say, “Well, that’s the cross I have to bear.” But this is not what Jesus meant when He said, “Take up your cross and follow me.”
When Jesus carried His cross up Golgotha to be crucified, no one was thinking of the cross as symbolic of a burden to carry. To a person in the first century, the cross meant one thing and one thing only: death by the most painful and humiliating means possible.
Two thousand years later, Christians view the cross as a cherished symbol of atonement, forgiveness, grace, and love. But in Jesus’ day, the cross represented nothing but torturous death. Because the Romans forced convicted criminals to carry their own crosses to the place of crucifixion, bearing a cross meant carrying their own execution device while facing ridicule along the way to death.
So, “Take up your cross and follow me” means being willing to die in order to follow Jesus. This is called “dying to self.” It’s a call to absolute surrender.
And thirdly, we need to understand just how pervasive and destructive sin is.
Three times in Exodus 32, after the tragedy of the golden calf, Moses says to the people that they had committed a great sin.
Today we don’t like to hear that word.
God asked Adam and Eve a profound question in Genesis 3:13. “What is this you have done?” He wanted them to see what their sin had done to them, and how it had destroyed their lives. We’re always annoyed and upset by the sins of others, but generally speaking we’re not really that bothered by our own sin, because we’ve become so used to it.
To truly be on the Lord’s side means to turn away from our sin – that’s the definition of repentance – and to turn towards God instead. We need to reject our self-reliance, the things of the world, and as Hebrews 12:1 puts it, we must “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.”
But that is really just the beginning, because we need to be aware of some of the costs of being on the Lord’s side.
In verse 26, after Moses asked who is on the Lord’s side, it says, “all the sons of Levi gathered around him.”
This is the ancient equivalent of taking one pace forward like volunteers in an army. When soldiers step forward in response to a call for volunteers, everyone sees them. The Levites, when they responded to Moses’ call, became conspicuous as they stepped over the line, confessing that they were willing to be on the Lord’s side.
Being on the Lord’s side means siding with the minority. The people of God in the Bible were always fewer than those who opposed Him. He has always worked through minorities. And we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that we are, or ever have lived in a “Christian country.” Christian disciples, those who really are on the Lord’s side, have always been in the minority.
This means that we should be willing to stand alone if need be, yet not alone, but rather, with Him!
And then we need to become engaged in the battle for truth. Christianity is not a passive religion. It is an active, and interactive life of love, truth, faith and witness. We are to be the church.
The church is God’s chosen and called vessel to take the message of hope into the world. The hope that the hopeless need is the hope that their golden calves cannot offer them. There is so much emptiness and false hope out there, but we have the answers to all of those questions and so much more.
So, in keeping with our military analogy, just how do we volunteer and enlist on the Lord’s side?
Firstly, we need to accept the invitation given to us. Moses said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Come to me.” In those days, Moses fulfilled the role of the priest. He represented the people to God, and God to the people. Today, we have Jesus, our great high priest, who makes the same call. Jesus asks each of us today, “Who is on the Lord’s side?”
As Moses was God’s representative, so now Jesus is God’s representative. We have to accept the invitation through Jesus.
Secondly, we need to answer the invitation and challenge to be on the Lord’s side.
Look carefully at how Moses asks the question, and his very next statement: “Who is on the Lord’s side? Let him come to me.”
It was a general question, posed to the entire Israelite nation, but the response was to be personal, and nothing has changed since then. The choice to take a stand for Jesus has always been a personal one.
And the third crucial step in deciding to take the Lord’s side is to receive the Saviour. Moses was the Old Testament saviour or deliverer of God’s people from the bondage to slavery in Egypt. He was a picture of what was to come in Christ. In verse 30, after the episode of the golden calf, Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”
Jesus made the atonement between sinful man and a holy God when He died on Calvary’s cross. 1 Peter 3:18 says, “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”
When you are in Christ, and Christ is in you by His Spirit, you are standing on the side of truth.
Before we close, I’d like to ask a rhetorical question: Have you chosen to be on the Lord’s side, but instead of stepping out in faith into the battle you’ve found yourself cowering in the trenches looking for cover, or have even deserted your post? Remember that the God we love and serve is a God of grace and mercy. He died for our sin, and included in that are the empty promises we make to Him, but it is never too late to re-enlist, so to speak. Peter denied three times even knowing Jesus. He lied. But Peter received grace and mercy, and did great things for God in the days of the early church.
God understands our weakness and our struggles. He understands them far better than we do. Come to the Table this morning, and choose once more to be on the Lord’s side. It is only in and through Jesus that your life will have any real meaning and purpose.