THE GOLDEN CALF     Exodus 32:1-6   
Chapter 19 to 31 becomes the backdrop for this event.
We observe Moses shuttling between God and Israelites many times.            
Israelites watched him, heard him and  obeyed his instructions.
They also saw literally the divine glory of God on the mountain for all those days.
The important fact is that people knew that Moses was with God and God was on the mountain like a consuming fire.
The puzzling question is how did he stoop down to that level of making an idol for worship?
From the story we can see that he did not worship the golden calf.
But he was instrumental to provide an alternate object of worship.
4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. 
Then they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt."
How can the people of Israel stoop down to worship an idol in the site of Mount Sinai?
It is unthinkable and unimaginable yet that’s what they did.
Chapter 20:20:“Moses said to the people, do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.”
“FEAR OF GOD WILL BE WITH YOU TO KEEP YOU FROM SINNING”
They physically experienced awesome presence of the Almighty God.
But some Israelites committed a terrible sin of idol worship.
The fear of God was reduced to mere words without any meaning.
Having known our God thru Jesus Christ we still dare to drift away from Him and create our own little golden calf in our lives.
Many things can become our golden calf replacing the living God.
THE PRESENCE OF HOLY GOD
Fear of God provides us the point of contact with a Holy God
Worship is a sign of spiritual being which separates us from animals.
Our only point of contact with a Holy God is the fear of God in our hearts.
It keeps us from sinning and keeps away from Satan also.
When we lose the fear of God in our hearts that is when Satan grabs that moment.
He provides us with dead things of the world as the object of our worship.
So a constant point of contact with the Living God is very important in a Christian’s life.
Sunday worship provides us that point of contact with the LORD in our corporate experience and expression.
Our personal time with the Lord reinforces and refocuses what we experienced on Sunday.
Sunday worship and personal time go together.
The Christian gets a glimpse of the Holy God in a corporate worship.
Sunday worship always revives and renews the point of contact with our God
No fear of God in us we begin to give God the least priority in life.
When we lose this reality the relationship with God becomes dry and distant.
The consequence of this reality is creation of our own golden calf.
PRESSURE OF THE CROWD
We need to understand that a crowd is a powerful force even the best people can be influenced by the crowd.
For a moment Aaron lost sight of the Creator and fell to the pressures of the crowd.
We saw that the crowd consumed Aaron in its desires.
The will of the crowd moved Aaron to do what he would not have normally done.
He Chose the Will of the People over the Will of God
What is right and what is popular is not always the right thing.
He compromised his faith instead of standing on his commitment to the Lord.
CONCLUSION
When we lose our way in the crowd we will surely begin to create a golden calf approach to our faith.
We may be saved people but we can easily be persuaded by the pressure of the crowd as Aaron got carried away by the crowd.
We are always exposed to the effects of a sinful world we live in.
Remember we are always surrounded by the crowds and their pressures.
The crowds could be our families, our friends, our foes.
Compromise with our beliefs may be an easy way out to please our crowds.
We are reminded that “fear of the LORD” keeps us from getting lost in the crowd.
We are also reminded that our God is a consuming fire.
The fear of the Lord compels us not to lose the sight of a Holy God.
The Lord is cautioning every one of us to deal with those golden calves in our lives which are demanding our time, talent, and treasures.
Let us deal with them with the Holy Spirit’s guidance and help.
Never lose the fear of God in our life because that keeps us from sinning.


 

Malachi 3:6  “I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.”
Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
We will never understand the Triune nature of God.
Many tried to explain that phenomenon but never came close to grasp the mystery.
That Triune God never changes in His nature, Character, love and mercy for humanity.
God never had a beginning and will never have an ending. 
God transcends all time, all space, all knowledge, and every other dimension human can ever think of.
He causes the universe to change but HE never changes.
God of the Bible always remains as the great “I AM”.
GOD NEVER CHANGED HIS DEALING WITH HUMAN
God loved the first man Adam before Adam sinned and never stopped loving after he sinned.
We have to be thankful and grateful that God never changed the way HE feels about us.
No human can ever change God’s love for him/her no matter what he/she does.
Not only that we cannot make HIM love or loves less.
God is the same unchanging God in His dealings with us.
GOD NEVER CHANGED HIS DEALING WITH SIN
God does not change how He feels about sin. 
When Adam sinned in the garden, God was offended and grieved for him.
God has a purpose for creating a human is to have relationship with him/her
God created the human to glorify HIM.
But sin came in between man and God and destroyed the very purpose of God.
Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.
God dealt with sin issue by sending Lord Jesus to the earth to redeem us from sin.
GOD NEVER CHANGED HIS PLAN OF SALVATION
1 Peter 1:19-20 “but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect
He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.
Long before they Christ was crucified on the hill He had already purposed to die.
God's plan of salvation for human sin was based upon the cross.
This plan of salvation was before the beginning of HIS creation.
Salvation is by “believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.”
That plan of salvation never changed even today.
God never begs humankind to accept His love and salvation thru Lord Jesus.
Today each person is free to either accept or reject the salvation as it was before.
The unchanging characteristics of God give us the reason to praise the Lord today
Always the Holy Three have been "ONE" in essence, love and purpose.
The offer of redemption comes from all three persons of the Holy Trinity.
We may not understand the Triune nature of God but we understand one thing that our God does not change. 
He is the same yesterday today and tomorrow

James 4:13-17
Making plans, doing the right thing, and visiting close friends/families are all important in one’s life.
Apostle James raises three important question in a Christian (believer) life.
I. Are We Planning Without GOD?
13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make
money.”
The business men knew what they wanted to make profit and to make money. 
They had a plan how to get there and knew what they needed to do. 
But God was left out in making their plans.
The Bible tells us that God needs to be in the center of our plans. 
Proverbs 16:3 says: “Commit your works to the LORD, and your plans will be established.” 
 II. Are We Taking‘The Tomorrow’ for Granted?
14 (a) why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. 
Nobody knows what is going to happen tomorrow because it is unpredictable. 
We don’t know what is in our tomorrows because only God know about them.
14 (b) you are a mist (vapor) that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
Someone said, “The older you get the faster it goes.”
The Greek word for “vapor” is “atmos” from which comes the word “atmosphere”. 
We see fog in the morning by noon it is gone.
No one knows how long we will live or how many days we have on this earth.
“Never boast about tomorrow. You don’t know what will happen between now and then.” Proverbs 27:1
Life is short so never take for granted of our tomorrows.
V-15 Instead, You ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
Since God is in control of our life HE wanted to be included in our life decisions.
Since God is in control of our life He knows about our tomorrows.
Though we are like a mist, God has design and purpose for each of us.
16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.
This verse reminds us that God does not like boasting of our plans without HIM.
III. Are We Delaying Doing GOOD?
17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
Apostle James is talking about procrastination.
It is putting off till tomorrow what we should be doing today. 
Some sins like murder, cheating, adultery, lying and stealing people have to actively participate in them.
A person has to go out to commit those sins.
They are called ‘sins of commission.’
James talking about in verse 17 is the ‘sin of omission.’
If we know that something is good but we don’t do it is a sin of omission.
God is telling us this morning that we should never delay doing the right thing or a good thing right now.
Never to walk away from doing a good thing in life
We may never get another opportunity in life to do that again.
Our future is in HIS hands because HE controls our future.
Remember that in all our plans we have to include GOD.
Since GOD knows our tomorrows we will never take for granted of our tomorrows but humbly say “if God will”.