A golden calf image

 Golden Calves become God

1 Kings 12:26-30 Our base scripture for this study

  

26 And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David:

27 If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah.

28 Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

29 And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan.

30 And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.

 

The Golden calves become what God is and looks like in their eyes and not the God from the Holy Mount.

 

*Lets’ look at the Golden and graven calves in the scriptures

 

Judges 18:29-31

 Turn and read how peoples turn to Graven or molded images. They do not like the God they have now.

29.   And they called the name of the city Dan, after the name of Dan their father, who was born unto Israel: howbeit the name of the city was Laish at the first.

30.  And the children of Dan set up the graven image: and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land.

31.  And they set them up Micah's graven image, which he made, all the time that the

 house of God was in Shiloh.

 

From Aaron to Dan…..the image never went away from Exodus. The Golden calves had been established and passes on to generations

 

Sadly, Not everybody today knows that Israel made those golden calf images for the purpose of representing Yahweh, the true God.   

People today have been taught to believe that Israel made the golden calves so they could worship a different god than Yahweh.

They wanted “what God looked like to be in their midst”. They had to have a God that looked like something they wanted Him to look like.

 

The church needs to know that Israel made the golden calves to represent God. 

The Bible shows that the people made these images to remind them of Yahweh-God who had saved them from slavery in Egypt. 

I think it is clear in scripture that the people who made and set up these images, and the circumstances in which the images were erected, clearly show that the golden calves were made to symbolize God, and the images were not intentionally made to lead people away from God. But sadly the results were that they did take people from God then and are now in our day taking people from God.

 

This image desire is handed down time after time…. until their image of God becomes what people desire instead of the true God that has no Image. 

Jehovah is an imageless God, but men will create an image of “who God is” until it is common place…Acceptable….Americanized and “ Gentileized.” Generations only knew God as the image of what man wanted, taught by priests and teacher alike.

A God image totally acceptable to them regardless of who God really is.

 

This calf image soon leads to the formation of doctrines that bear little resemblance to Biblical commandments, making its own description of sin and Holiness regardless of what the Bible teaches. Denominational teachings trump the Bible teachings.,

 

This church has  turned the Jewish Jesus into the gentile and Americanized Jesus,

Jesus evolved from the God of the Old Covenant, to our buddy and life’s co-pilot and a sugar daddy. 

 

The definition of sin becomes blurred and personally tailored to suit each individual and each denomination, and all by the church that bans the Holy Laws of God by teaching they were all crucified on Calvary and are no longer valid by their image.

 

The concept of once-saved-always-saved became popularized backed by their image God. 

It seems that the Lord’s main purpose was reduced to helping us realize our personal dreams and goals.

All can come to Jesus now and not even get out of their sinful lifestyles and ways, by their images.

 

Worship services today are tending to de-emphasize holiness and reverence, and instead emphasized casualness, familiarity and social connection with the hashtags to show it all modern. 

 

All calf images are totally of our own making. It has never been ordained by God.

 

These systems have made an Image of Jesus in our modern church, which is a whole study of its own.

 

Settling for Golden calves                                                                                                        Israel tried several times to make images to represent God. The classic example at the beginning  is the golden calf made by Aaron, the High Priest. Likewise, the pair of golden calves made by Israel’s King Jeroboam are prime examples.                                                                                                                      The people made those images to represent God, say the Scripture accounts 

Aaron-Exodus 32: 3-6 (Turn and read)                                                                                           3. And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.                                                                                                                                       4.  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.                                                                                                                                5.   And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.                                                                                                                             6.  And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.                           

This people of Israel believed Aaron could make for them an image of God.
Come, make us (Elohim-God) which shall go before us. As for this fellow Moses, who brought us out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” (Ex. 32:1)

Moses knew God and God knew Him. Exodus 33: 9-18 Go and read this.

9.  And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended, and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses.

10.  And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door: and all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in his tent door.

11.   And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.

12.  And Moses said unto the Lord, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight.

13.  Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people.

14.  And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.

15.  And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.

16.  For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.

17.  And the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name.

18.  And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.

 These children of Israel did not know God like Moses did. They did not even want to talk to Him on the Mount. But with Moses gone, they quickly wanted an Image of the God they wanted to follow. They wanted to see this God that sat in the tent with Moses. They wanted the God that was in the pillar that Moses saw and experienced.

These people certainly must have remembered that God delivered them from slavery only a few weeks before, and they clearly implied that they wanted to follow God. They wanted God to go before them: they wanted to follow to the promised land the God who delivered them from Egypt.

They said they were worshiping the LORD (Yahweh) when they were worshiping before the image. They thought the form of a calf could symbolize God. The people were eager to worship Yahweh “Elohim-God” in their erroneous, misdirected and self directed worship. They rose up early in the morning to worship. They sang, they danced, they celebrated. They thought they were honoring Yahweh. They had an image to make God seem real and tangible. It seemed so good.

 

Nobody spoke of departing from God in all of this—neither Aaron nor the people who came to him. 

What the scriptures teach and we often yield to error and denominational teaching is that Aaron and the people of Israel really did plan to continue to worship (with the aid of that God image) the God that delivered them from Egypt. 

It wasn’t the image itself that they wanted as their Elohim-God, it was the Elohim-God who delivered them from Egypt that they wanted. They wanted a God they could see. Not what God had revealed of who He was on the mountain.

How do we know for sure that it was God they wanted, not just the image?

 

 Aaron dedicated the image to Yahweh. When Aaron saw the God that he had made, he built an altar before it. Then he proclaimed that tomorrow, before this image and this altar, a feast unto the LORD (Yahweh-God) would be celebrated. 

... he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, ‘Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.

And the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. (Ex. 32:5-6)

 

They said they were worshiping the LORD (Yahweh) when they were worshiping before the image. 

They thought the form of a calf could symbolize God. The people were eager to worship Yahweh-God in their erroneous, misdirected worship. 

They rose early in the morning to worship. They sang, they danced, they celebrated. They thought they were honoring Yahweh-God. They had an image to make God seem real and tangible. A God they could see (Like Baal image)

It seemed so good.

But the consequences of making the God-image soon appeared. 

The image worship soon meant another Gospel. 

Their festivities soon led soon to sexual sin: “they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge” (Ex. 32:6). The burning in their worship ignited fleshly passion. Some indulged in “sexual sin”

God reacted to their worship with wrath; he threatened to destroy the entire nation of Israel and start over again with Moses. God did not accept it as honor or remembrance when the people tried to fellowship with him through an image.

‘I have seen these people,’ the LORD said to Moses, ‘and they are a stiffnecked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation. (Ex. 32:9-10)

Moses interceded for the people until “the LORD relented” (Ex. 32:14).

 

 

But the consequences of making the God-image soon appeared. God will not accept this image!

 

 

Jeroboam1 Kings 12:28-33 Turn and read the scriptures

 

Israel quit going to Jerusalem and worshiped at Dan and Bethel. They worshiped “the God who had delivered them from Egypt,” bowing before images that made God seem close and real to them. 

 

I hope you are seeing 2021 and the modern day church that has conformed God into their desired images. Same as Golden calves in all of this study. The images are reflected in the denominational creeds and teachings, thousands of different denominations.....all images and not the true God.

 

Jeroboam’s images became their sin. The people worshiped before the images (though it does not say they actually worshiped the images): “And this thing became a sin; for the people went to worship before the one (margin: “Or, ‘each of them’), even unto Dan. (1 Kings 12:30)

 

So Jeroboam “devised of his own heart” (1 Kings 12:33) services of worship. His statement, “Behold thy gods O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt,” is the very same statement that deceived the people into worshipping Aaron’s golden calf at an earlier date.

 

Once that happened, they found themselves worshipping a figment of their imaginings and something of their own creation, and not the God of the Bible.

 

 

They were worshipping a false god even though they didn’t think so

 

 

What they showed their children

This is what Israel did with their calf images. As the children saw their parents worship God before those images, the children understood that the images represented God. The images became the children’s concept of God. The images became imprinted in the minds of the children. In their thinking and minds, surely their priests and their parents would not lead them in a false way of worship…..but it did as it was a false worship and God would not accept it

The images answered the question, “What is Israel’s God like?” a question in the minds of all the Gentile nations surrounding Israel. The image was the answer: the medium was the message.

Sounds good….but God had already set the principle forth, He is spirit…..and that is the only way He will accept worship….not as an image…Look to the woman at the well.

 

John 4: 20-24 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.  But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.  

God will not accept our image of Him today. He will show how He feels about it very soon. Are you looking to God or an image?