Expository Sermon on Exodus 32 – 34
by Maylan Schurch
Bellevue Seventh-day Adventist Church 2/15/2025
©2025 by Maylan Schurch
(To watch this entire worship service, click the link just below:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1c2XP-qxUU
Please open your Bibles to Exodus chapter 32.
While you’re turning there, just a quick reminder about our Bible reading plan. If you’re following our chronological Bible reading plan, this week’s reading passages were from the middle of Exodus through Leviticus 7. As I’ve mentioned before, each Sabbath I preach I will most likely use one of the chapters or passages from that week’s reading plan, and that’s what I’ve done again this week.
One thing I’ve discovered that works best for me – especially since I always need to get an early start on deciding what to preach on – is to do all the week’s reading at once. So sometime Sunday, I will settle down with a Bible and just read through the entire week’s reading. I’ve really enjoyed doing that, and probably would do it that way even if I didn’t have to think up a sermon.
Anyway, on the announcement page of your bulletin, where it says “Join the Plan,” you will see not only the passages for the upcoming week, but where to go on our church website to find the entire plan.
You and I need this immersion in our Bibles. Because if we don’t do this, we might be tempted to believe half-truths or flat-out errors which other people with powerful and persuasive voices tell us the Bible says.
I’ll give you an example of this. Just the other day I was reading aloud to Shelley from a Christian book we had just purchased. It wasn’t written by an Adventist author – if it had been, the author wouldn’t have fallen into the fallacy I found– but it’s written by an otherwise wonderful Christian author. But he seems to be strongly signaling that since Jesus died on the cross, God’s law is no longer that important.
But real Bible print tells me the subject is more nuanced than that. Just because this Christian author believes this, and tells it to us, just because most of the people in his denomination may believe it, this does not mean it is true.
So join me in reading your Bible in some fashion, large portions of it, this year. Read it off a paper Bible. Or read it on your phone, as I recently did with the book of Job. Or listen to the passages in an audio version. Because bringing the Bible into your mind and heart is the only dependable way of really getting to know who God is and what He genuinely thinks about us.
Today is one day after Valentine’s Day. It must’ve been right around Valentines Day in 1977 that a young woman named Karen Spruill wrote a letter to a young church school teacher in a logging camp in Alaska.
Karen was the assistant editor of a young people’s magazine named Insight. The teacher’s name was Shelley Walther. She and Karen continued corresponding, with Karen persuading Shelley to submit a few poems and articles for the magazine.
The reason Karen was writing Shelley in late February 1977 was to alert Shelley to the possibility that she might receive a letter from another Insight author, who taught English at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska. That was me. Karen had already written to a teacher who liked to write.
I didn’t know Shelley at all, but I did like to write letters, so I typed one out and sent it to her. The address was Pouch O, Ketchikan, Alaska, a town many miles from her logging camp island. Mail was delivered by float plane, but not on a regular schedule.
This story is a whole lot more fun when Shelley tells it, but my short version is that she got my letter about two weeks after she got Karen’s. I wrote mine on March 15, 1977. And Shelley wrote back. We wrote a lot of words – probably about 50,000 words between us — over the next few months. And when we finally met face-to-face in July, we not only were friends, but we were in love. We had already declared our love to each other. And we got married the following May, of 1978.
So don’t try to persuade me that written words aren’t that important. You can get acquainted with someone if you write a lot of words back-and-forth. The Bible has about 735,000 words – and it clearly shows us what God is like, if we read it. Reading His Word can lead us to love Him, even before we meet Him face to face!
And even in the Bible’s most stressful stories, we can clearly see a God we can love and trust. Amazingly, it happened during the golden-calf experience in Exodus. When I first started working on this week’s sermon, I thought maybe I would focus on God’s own proclamation of his character to Moses, and preach on that. But the more I read the story, the more I realize that it was actually mostly Moses who was declaring God’s love to the people of Israel. The way Moses behaved was what you could call “love declared.”
Let’s look at some ways this happened, ways in which Moses declared God’s love.
As Exodus 32 begins, a truly horrifying series of events happens. The nation is still at the foot of the very mountain where they heard the very voice of God declaring, among other things, not to make carved images and worship them as gods. But during the delay when Moses was still up on the mountain, some of the nation’s leaders go to Moses’ brother Aaron and say, “We don’t know whatever happened to Moses, so we need you to make us some gods who can lead us from here on out.”
And Aaron, who has also heard the voice of God speaking the “graven image” command, asks everybody to contribute gold to the project, and he carves a golden calf.
And then the people started to party, and during that party they probably break most of the rest of the commandments in some way or another. And Moses comes down the mountain, sees what they’ve done, and smashes the stone slabs which have God’s handwriting on them.
And then come several verses of very traumatic events. Punishment is dealt out to about 3000 partiers who seem to have been the most guilty of thumbing their noses at God. There’s a lot in this story we don’t have time to go into, but when you remember that nations all around are starting to hear about how God miraculously brought His people out of captivity, it is very important for them to understand how God feels when His freed children callously turn their backs on Him and start to worship images – and what’s more, do it in the same orgiastic, unrestrained way that worshippers of other gods do.
But the next day, when things have settled down a bit and common sense is creeping back in, Moses starts declaring God’s love. Here’s the first way he does it.
Exodus 32:30 [NKJV]: Now it came to pass on the next day that Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin . . .
If you’re taking down sermon points, here comes what you might call Sermon Point One. What is the first way I believe Moses declares God’s love? What does he say about God?
God is revolted by sin.
And He is, of course, but how is this a declaration of God’s love? Well, when you come to think of it, God has seen sin at its most horrible – in heaven. Because in a perfect heaven, among perfect beings, sin arose. Lucifer seduced other angels into distrusting God. And his deception was so powerful that one out of three of the angels, all of whom God had created and loved – joined in the rebellion. When angels turn their backs on their Creator, and decided that they can’t trust Him, heaven and the universe are jolted to their foundations.
So God hates sin. Proverbs 6, verses 16 through 19 tell us just a few of the things God hates. I’m going to read through these, and as I do so, think of how Lucifer and his followers have acted out these behaviors. “These six things the LORD hates, Yes, seven are an abomination to Him: A proud look, A lying tongue, Hands that shed innocent blood, A heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that are swift in running to evil, A false witness who speaks lies, And one who sows discord among brethren.”
Isn’t that something like what Lucifer did in heaven? You can’t, of course, shed innocent blood in heaven – but you can on earth. And Lucifer has done that. He also engineered Jesus’ murder.
But that gleaming golden calf – why was that such a dreadful sin?
First, it was a direct disobedience to something God has spoken and then written in stone – don’t carve images and worship them.
Second, that golden calf standing there on its pedestal probably triggered the people back into the orgiastic parties they’d seen the Egyptians indulge in when they worshipped their gods. Remember, some of the multitudes were Egyptians, and they probably led the orgy.
But I think that the most horrific tragedy of the golden calf is this. When you localize your god, your small-g god, you limit that god. You have frozen that god into an unmoving image. And no matter what you do or say, the expression on that god’s face doesn’t change.
But God is real, not a carving. Some people say, “Well, that golden calf was simply representing the true God.” But God specifically said – and immortalized in His own handwriting – “Don’t do that. Don’t try to represent Me with an image or picture.”
Okay, but what does this have to do with us? I have never personally bowed down to a statue or image of any kind.
But have I? Haven’t I once in a while fastened my attention on the hero, or a mentor, or an author I admire, or an actor, or a singer? Have I found myself repeating that mentor’s ideas? Wanting to be like him? Songs can be seductive. “I did it my way . . .” “Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try . . .”
I think one thing I should do is to behave in an opposite way from God’s Proverbs 6 “hates.” God hates a proud look, but loves humility. God hates a lying tongue, so I need to tell the truth. God hates hands which shed innocent blood, so I need to never murder someone even in my heart. I need to devise not wicked plans, but righteous ones. I need to not run swiftly to do evil, but run swiftly to do good. I need to not sow discord among brethren, but promote caring and unity. (Proverbs 6:16 – 19)
So far, one way Moses has declared God’s love is to tell us that God is revolted by sin. And we find the next thing he declares in the last half of Exodus 32:30:
Exodus 32:30: Now it came to pass on the next day that Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. So now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”
Notice how cautious Moses is. He says “perhaps.” He was right up there close to God when God told him about what was going on at the base of the mountain. Moses felt the heat of God’s righteous wrath. Moses knows that God is emotionally involved.
And maybe Moses was just being careful not to make it seem that God could just offhandedly ignore the people’s sins. Over the years I’ve had quite a bit to do with doctors – and I always appreciate it when a doctor takes my symptoms seriously, and worries about what is worrisome, worries hard enough to come up with solutions for me.
But still, Moses must have had tremendous faith in God’s willingness to forgive. After all, God had just given him detailed plans – down to the materials and the cubit-length measurements – of a portable tent temple where confessed sins could be forgiven.
So here comes Sermon Point 2. How else does Moses declare God’s love?
God is revolted by sin, Moses says, but God is a generous forgiver.
Why is God’s generous forgiveness a sign of His love? Because, as I say, He had already put in place a plan to redeem humanity from its sins. The sacrifices which were to be offered on that sanctuary’s altar all pointed to the final Sacrifice, Jesus the Son of God.
So very carefully, Moses gets to work:
Verses 31 – 35: Then Moses returned to the LORD and said, “Oh, these people have committed a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold! Yet now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.” And the LORD said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book. Now therefore, go, lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to you. Behold, My Angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit for punishment, I will visit punishment upon them for their sin.” So the LORD plagued the people because of what they did with the calf which Aaron made.
This would be a good place to put down a third sermon point. How else does Moses declare God’s love? What does he say, by his words and actions?
God is revolted by sin, Moses says, but God is a generous forgiver. So I will intercede with Him.
I’ll never forget a very kindly intercessory act which was done for me back when I was a college student. The college I attended was 40 miles from my home, and since there were always one or two other students traveling from my hometown to the college, I was always was able to carpool.
One January, just after the Christmas break had ended, registration was happening at the college. At this point I needed to make sure I got exactly the classes I wanted, in the right order, so I wouldn’t have to take an extra semester or two.
The problem was that, on the morning of the registration, there was a heavy ground-blizzard. I took my big heavy 1960 Chevy out on the highway, and headed north. I hadn’t gone more than a mile or two when I suddenly realized I could not see where I was going. I could stick my head out of the window and look straight up, and see blue sky. But the ground blizzard was so fierce that I could not see any more than 3 feet in front of my hood.
So I realized it would be silly to keep going. I turned around and crept back to the farmhouse, and got on the phone to try to get in touch with someone at the college.
There were probably 2000 students in that college at that time, and registration was happening in a large gymnasium on campus. I told the woman on the other end of the line my predicament, how I needed certain classes before they were filled up, and how I couldn’t be there because of the blizzard.
The lady on the phone said she would do what she could, and put me on hold. So I stood there holding the phone, imagining all my precious required classes being snapped up by other students who were actually there in the gym.
After a wait of several minutes, the woman came back on the line. “You are all set up,” she said. “Dr. Proctor went around and collected all your class cards for you.”
My jaw fell. Dr. John Proctor was my major professor, who headed up my Masters degree program. He had taken it upon himself to help this marooned farm kid, personally making sure my classes were secure. I had always been impressed by his knowledge, and his ability to make English literature dazzlingly fun, but now I realized he was also a very caring person, willing to intercede in my hour of need.
Now let’s move ahead and watch just how Moses interceded for the people. Let’s go to Exodus chapter 33.
Exodus 33:7 – 9: Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of meeting. And it came to pass that everyone who sought the LORD went out to the tabernacle of meeting which was outside the camp. So it was, whenever Moses went out to the tabernacle, that all the people rose, and each man stood at his tent door and watched Moses until he had gone into the tabernacle. And it came to pass, when Moses entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the LORD talked with Moses.
Notice how different this worship experience was than the one which had surrounded the golden calf? That was debauchery, this was devotion.
I’m going to mention just one more declaration of God’s love before we’re done. Let’s go to the next chapter, Exodus 34.
Exodus 34:1 – 7: And the LORD said to Moses, “Cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke. So be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself to Me there on the top of the mountain. And no man shall come up with you, and let no man be seen throughout all the mountain; let neither flocks nor herds feed before that mountain.” So he cut two tablets of stone like the first ones. Then Moses rose early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him; and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone. Now the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”
That last part, the visiting of the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, is hard to understand. But maybe it’s God’s way of saying that future generations will just naturally feel the effect of the earlier generation’s sins.
I would imagine that when Moses told these words of God to the people, they were sobering ones. Moms and dads need to think carefully about their own actions and words – not only to mentor their children but to be righteous to others in their lives, so that their good influence can live on after them.
In fact, let’s mention our final sermon point. How else did Moses declare God’s love?
God is revolted by sin, Moses said, but God is a generous forgiver. So I will intercede with Him . . . because He has told me who He really is.”
I believe that God’s description of His own character should be the filter we use as we read through the Bible, however we do it, this year. Sometimes, world events are confusing and unsettling. But I need to read my Bible, watching how God uses His qualities, and how He will finally win through to victory.
And then I need to remember that these same qualities need to be mine as well. In Matthew 5, starting with verse 43, Jesus says:
Matthew 5:43 – 48: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
That sounds like a tall order, but we need to remember whose words those are. They are the words of the Son of God. So we have His promises that we can be changed and become more like Him.