The Golden god

Again, some context for these stories:

I absolutely love the Jesus Storybook Bible. I have read it to my kids and have used it countless times in a class that I teach with Cru. I love its focus and its style and its simplicity and at the same time its depth.  

But the one thing I don't love about it is that there isn't enough of it.

So, I have begun writing stories that Sally Lloyd-Jones doesn't cover in the JSB for my 7 year old son. Because of how much my kids have loved the JSB, I have attempted to capture the tone and focus and style of Sally's writing (including some of her great phrases). Not sure if I have succeeded or not, but they have provided rich times of reading when I tuck my son in bed at night.

I wanted to begin to occasionally share these in case you wanted to share them with your kids (or enjoy them for yourself).

The Golden god

Exodus 32

Now that God had given His people the 10 rules, the people would now know exactly what God wanted them to do...and of course, would do them.  Right?  Well, not exactly.

Moses went back up the mountain to meet with God for the next 40 days.  And when you are in the desert, 40 days feels like forever.  It was hot...and sticky...and more hot...and more sticky...and even really really stinky (just think of all of those sheep and goats and cows that they had).  

And have you ever been excited about getting to the beach or to an amusement park and it seemed like your parents were taking forever to get ready.  Or, that feeling leading up to your birthday or Christmas.  The waiting is awful.

Well, that’s exactly what God’s people began to feel when they were waiting and waiting and waiting for Moses.  They didn’t want to be in the hot and stinky desert any longer than they needed to.  They were going to a new home in a new land and couldn’t wait to get there.  

But where was Moses?  They thought, “Surely he got bit by a snake or attacked by a bear.  He’s never coming back down...who needs him anyway?”  Others said, “That Moses has been nothing but trouble.  We were fine in Egypt (their old home).  We had everything we wanted and life was good there.” (Which wasn’t true at all.  Life was hard and scary and downright terrible for them in Egypt).  

And so they decided to find a new leader...and a new god.  They turned to Aaron, Moses’ brother, and Aaron came up with a brilliantly awful plan.  “Bring me all of your earrings.”  Now Aaron couldn’t possibly want to wear all of those earrings, could he?  Of course not.  But, his brilliantly awful idea was to take all of that jewelry and heat it up and up and up until it melted and then he formed it into a gold cow.  

And you know how they treated this gold cow?  They treated it like a replacement god.  They would worship the cow and bow down to it and give it their best gifts and they would follow it, trusting that it would lead them out of this hot and stinky desert to their new home.  

It sounds unbelievable.  But people in Egypt (where they used to live) did this all the time.  

So, the next day, you wouldn’t believe how happy all the people were with their new god.  They sang and celebrated and danced all around their new god.  But what they didn’t know was that a poison had entered into their hearts.  It didn’t feel like poison.  But it was a poison that would lead to death.

While the people were celebrating, God wasn’t happy.  In fact, He was furious.  It wasn’t because he didn’t want them to be happy.  It was because he knew a poison had entered into their hearts that would keep them from having hearts that truly loved Him...and being truly happy.

He also knew that this poison would kill them.  So, Moses came up with a brilliant idea.  He suggested to God to let the poison kill him instead of them.    

But while that seemed like a wonderful idea, it wouldn't and couldn’t work.  

Why?  Because even though Moses didn’t worship the golden cow, he did have his own sin that had already poisoned his heart.  He couldn’t drink their poison, his own poison was killing him.   

But, a new leader would one day come.  A leader better than Moses.  Like the people of God, this leader would go in the desert 40 days and even though he was tempted to sin, never did.  And because he never sinned, he didn’t have any poison in his heart killing him.  But, he could drink the poison of everyone who had sinned - the whole world.  And that’s exactly what he did.