Friday

Related Verses
1 Cor. 10:5-7
5 But with most of them God was not well pleased, for they were strewn along in the wilderness.
6 Now these things occurred as examples to us, that we should not be ones who lust after evil things, even as they also lusted.
7 Neither become idolaters, as some of them did; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play.”

1 John 5:21
21 Little children, guard yourselves from idols.

Num. 12:6-8
6 He said, Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, Jehovah, will make Myself known to him in a vision, I will speak with him in a dream.
7 My servant Moses is not so; He is faithful in all My house.
8 With him I speak face to face, even openly, and not in riddles; And he beholds the form of Jehovah. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant, against Moses?

Exo. 32:6, 18-19
6 And they rose up early on the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
18 But Moses said, It is not the sound of the cry of triumph, Neither is it the sound of the cry of defeat; But it is the sound of singing that I hear.
19 And as soon as he drew near to the camp, he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses’ anger burned, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain.

Psa. 36:8-9
8 They are saturated with the fatness of Your house, And You cause them to drink of the river of Your pleasures.
9 For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light.

Related Reading
Exodus 32:4 says that Aaron took the gold and “fashioned it with an engraving tool and made it into a molten calf.”…The basic principle of an idol is self-beautification. If an idol is not beautified, who would worship it? The point here is that it takes skill to fashion gold into a calf. Some may have the gold, but not have the skill to fashion it into a calf. But every maker of idols, like Aaron, is skillful, capable, gifted, and talented. Who knows how many skillful idol-makers there are among Christians today? These craftsmen are knowledgeable, cultured, capable, and skillful. Whereas others are not able to make idols because they do not have the skill, these ones have the ability to fashion gold into idols…Sometimes I ask myself, “What are you doing here? Are you making an idol? Are you beautifying your own work for others to worship?” I am fearful lest I make some kind of idol. (Life-study of Exodus, p. 1842) 

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In Exodus 32 the gold rings were taken from the ears of the wives, the sons, and the daughters and used to make the idol, the golden calf. 

Today’s culture promotes self-beautification. Men and women spend a great deal of money on items used to beautify themselves…Self-beautification leads to idolatry. 

Before the children of Israel made the idol of the golden calf, idols were already present among them in a different form, in the form of self-beautification. The wives, the sons, and the daughters of the children of Israel wore gold rings in their ears for the purpose of self-beautification…In the sight of God, self-beautification is an idol. This was the reason the Lord commanded the people in 33:5-6 not to have any ornaments…Before the people had the idol of the golden calf, they already had the preliminary idols hanging from their ears. 

Another principle related to idolatry is that idolatry is Satan’s usurping of what God has given us in order to make it a waste.  In Exodus 32 the children of Israel wasted much of the gold that had been given to them by God. Before the children of Israel left Egypt, God caused the Egyptians to give the children of Israel gold and other precious things. This gold was to be used for building up the tabernacle. The tabernacle required a large quantity of gold to overlay the standing boards. God defeated the Egyptians, and they gave gold to the people of Israel. But before this gold was used for the building up of God’s dwelling place, Satan came in to usurp the gold and use it to make an idol. Actually, before the calf was made, Satan had already usurped the gold so that it might be used to make earrings. If the children of Israel had loved the Lord to the uttermost, they would never have wasted the gold by using it for earrings. Instead, they would have kept it for the Lord’s use. 

Another principle related to idols is that here there is mixture in worship…Many Christians worship a calf, but they think that they are worshipping the Lord Jesus or the true God. Actually what they are worshipping is their enjoyment. Much of today’s Christian worship is a matter of sitting down to eat and drink and rising up to sport, sing, and dance around a certain kind of enjoyment, around a golden calf. Some of the Brethren teachers pointed this out in a very thorough way. They said that the worship of the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai was a mixture, for a calf was worshipped as if it were God with the proper offerings and in the proper way. The offerings were right and the way was right, but the object of worship was wrong. This is what we mean by mixture. However, we should not mainly consider the way others worship. We need to inquire about our own worship. Is our worship pure, or is it a mixture? (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 1837-1839, 1841) 

Further Reading: Life-study of Exodus, msgs. 173—178