EXODUS 32 lesson # 26
PRAYING FOR BETRAYERS
I. Greetings.
II. Introduction:
Q Why are people religious?
Q Do you know people who make up their own religion? How do they do this?
Q Do you know someone very close to you that has walked away from God? Are they still religious?
Q What should you do for them?
An = This is what we are going to discuss today. What does a leader do when those he leads make up their own religion and effectively jettison God from their lives.
III. Israel’s Sin. Exodus 32:1-6.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 32:1.
Q According to Exodus 32:1 how grateful are the people to Moses for all that he has done for them?
An = Not very grateful at all. They speak of him in very disparaging ways: “as for this Moses”. He has not been gone very long, and there does not seem to be very much patience.
Q What caused their agitation according to 32:1?
An = He delayed coming down in their opinion. The key to much spiritual failure is people’s impatience, their inability to wait.
Note: Something that is not as apparent in English as it is in Hebrew is that the phrase in 32:1 decribing the people’s approach to Aaron. In Hebrew it is clearer that the people were “against” Aaron, the confrontation was a hostile one (see also Numbers 16:3). They put pressure on Aaron in their impatience.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 32:2-6
Q How does Aaron react to pressure?
An = He asks for their gold and produces a golden calf and proclaims it as the God who brought them out of Egypt.
Q Which of the Ten Commandments does this violate?
An = The second command: make no graven images.
Q Do you know of leaders who have forsaken the clear teaching of Scripture because of the pressure of the people? Aaron is a seemingly weak leader and will later be confronted as not being able to control the people. He did not lead them, but gave into their impatience.
Q What are the people told will happen the next day in verse 5?
An = the next day there will be feast and the words used to describe the feast in 32:6 indicate it was to be an orgy.
Q Are the Israelites still religious?
Q Does being religious necessarily have anything to do with pleasing God?
IV. Intercession For Betrayers: Moses’ First Prayer. Exodus 32:7-14.
A. The Lord Informs Moses of the Situation. Exodus 32:7-10.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 32:7-10.
Q According to 32:7 “to whom” do the people belong? Whose people are they? What does this mean?
An = The Lord calls them “your people” a sign of disavowal. The people have very quickly “corrupted themselves” or turned aside from the “way of the Lord”. They have turned to idol worship. In 32:9 the Lord calls them “obstinate” (NASB) or “stiff-necked” (NIV & KJ)
Q Do we have evidence that the people are obstinate before this incident?
An = Yes, the Lord has accused them accurately. Remember the complaining that took place even while they were in Egypt in chapter 5:21 and before the parting of the Red or Reed Sea in Exodus 14:11-12 and they complained every time there was a crisis on the way to Mount Sinai in Exodus 15:24, 16:2 and 17:3. God has been trying for a long time and on many occasions to make them faithful people, people who will trust Him, but He has not succeeded.
Q Can you think of times when Christians have repeatedly refused to trust Him? Can you give examples that you know of?
Q Are you willing to share a time when you would not trust Him for daily bread or help in a crisis such as finding a mate, a job, or keeping a friend?
An = Let me give an example from my life first. (This could be the most important time if your group will be honest, your sharing first will help.)
>>>> Have someone re-read Exodus 32:10.
Q Why does God tell Moses to stand aside? What does it matter that Moses does one thing or the other. Can Moses stop God?
An = Moses is curiously asked to approve of God’s intended destruction of the nation. Q How is God planning to continue the promise to Abraham?
An = Moses is given a promise that the building of a promised people will go forward but it will come exclusively from Moses’ descendants. God will start all over again.
B. Moses’ Response to Threatened Destruction: Intercession. Exodus 32:14.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 32:11-13.
Q Does Moses agree with God?
>>>> You re-read Exodus 32:12
Q Who does Moses say the Israelites belong to? “Whose” people are they according to Moses?
>>>> Have someone re-read Exodus 32:12-13
Q Moses tries to persuade God to change His mind, how does he argue? What are Moses’ main points?
An = Moses presents two arguments. In 32:12 Moses mentions that God’s reputation and honor would suffer in the sight of the Egyptians and in 32:13 he appeals to the promise of the Fathers (i.e. the promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob).
Q Does Moses ever contest the guilt of Israel? Does He appeal to Israel’s innocence?
An = No. Moses does not argue on Israel’s merit but appeals to God’s honor and God’s promise. Moses knows the only hope is in the character of God. True prayer for mercy is always based on this premise: God’s character, not our worthiness.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 32:14.
Q What does God do?
An = It says the Lord relented, repented, or in other words, changed His mind. He did not do the threatened disaster.
Q Does this bother you that God will change His mind or does it give you hope?
An = The Bible does not seem to think that such stories compromise God’s sovereignty. God seems to be more secure than we ever imagined Him to be. God really loves human beings and wants to bring them into conformity to His son. George Mac Donald once said a very biblical thing when he said: “change of plan because of change of fact”. God seems to have a new factor in the equation. It is Moses’ intercessory prayer, and that changes His plan. This may upset some of our theology, but this is a very consistent thing in the Bible. God seems to wait at times until we pray. Blaise Pascal, the great French philosopher and mathematician, once said of this aspect of God: He “lends us the dignity of causation”.
Q Who let Moses know that the Israelites were in trouble?
An = God did. He wants us to be involved with those who fail. He wants us to love like His son loves, so that we can “be sons of the living God” to “be perfect as He is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
Q Were the Israelites good to Moses? Why did God set it up so Moses was to pray for these people?
An = These are two fairly frequent themes in Old Testament stories about intercession. 1) God is the one who often lets the intercessor know of the problem so they can pray. Remember it was God who let Moses know the Israelites where rebellious. Then God seemed to pause, giving Moses time to pray. 2) The second issue is also very frequent. God usually asked an individual to pray, to be an intercessor, for those who have betrayed them. We learned that Israel had “dismissed Moses” from their thinking in 32:1.
Q Is there someone who has offended or betrayed you? According to this story what is your role to be?
An = Often we are called to pray for others we love but a great leader, a great man or woman of God is called to pray for their detractors as well.
>>>> Have someone read Luke 6:28.
Q Can you think of other examples in the Bible of leaders who prayed for people who betrayed or slighted them?
An = Other examples are Abraham praying for Lot even those Lot took the best land. God told Lot of His plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and then even though Lot had “betrayed” his uncle, when Abraham heard of his plight he went to work in behalf of his nephew. Jeremiah prays for the rebellious Israel, even though they rejected him as a prophet. Of course, this attitude goes on into the New Testament with Jesus praying for His persecutors on the cross and Paul praying for the nation of Israel even though they rejected him, beat him, tried to stone him, etc.
Note: However things are more complicated than they first appear. It is one thing to hear about “betrayal” and another thing to see it first hand. Watch the reaction of Moses when he sees the rebellion first hand.
V. Down In The Valley: Moses and Israel. Exodus 32:15-29.
A. Moses discovers things for himself. Exodus 32:15-20
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 32:15-20.
Q Is Moses very happy?
An = No, he almost seems to go crazy with anger once he sees the junk they have done first hand. He personally breaks the tablets, symbols of the covenant, and in affect tells them the covenant is broken. He is hot as he disposes of their “calf”.
Q Can an angry man be said to love those he is angry with?
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 32:21-24.
Q Does Moses confront Aaron?
Q What do you think of Aaron’s response?
An = Aaron gives a rather flimsy excuse.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 32:25-29
Q What is Moses doing?
Q Is this the action of a good leader?
An = Moses brings about order in the camp with harsh measures by killing three thousand of the Israelites. Moses is not a sentimental, sweet man. He brought order to chaos (32:25) and if you ever been in such situations you would know the need for such action. It is what happens next that is so amazing.
VI. Back On The Mountain: Moses and God. Exodus 32:30-35.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 32:30.
Q Does Moses realize in 32:30 just how vulnerable the people are to God’s wrath?
An = He does and good leaders are concerned about their people, not their own leadership.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 32:31-32
Q How bad does Moses want their sins to be forgiven?
An = He is willing to lose his name in God’s book if God will not grant Israel forgiveness. Notice, this is the same man who angrily disposed of their calf, broke the tablets and brutally brought order to the camp.
Q Who does Moses remind you of?
An = Jesus Christ. Notice though how God is going to answer Moses. God wants to teach us to love others at great cost to ourselves and so grow into His likeness but He is still sovereign, still just, still fair. Watch how He handles Moses’ great plea.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 32:33-35.
Q Does God agree to bring Israel to the promised land according to 32:34?
Q Does God accept Moses’ offer to be stricken from the book of life?
An = God does not accept Moses’ offer to be stricken from the book of life in 32:33 and He reminds Moses that forgiveness will be granted but not without some justice as well in 32:34. Then in 32:35, we see some of the results of their rebellion. God will be fair.
Q Is this a complex view of God?
An = Yes, it mirrors the New Testament. God is both just and merciful.
Q Would it be just to have God just forgive Israel?
An = No.
Q Would it be loving for God to just forgive Israel?
An = No, just as when people are not held responsible for their actions they turn into animals and go out of control. These people never repented, never took responsibility for their actions. If God does not judge, then we are left in our animal stage. He is both willing to listen to the pleas of His servants for mercy, and then when He responds He does even more than Moses knew how to pray for. He kept the people alive and tried to do even more than forgive them, but tried to bring about their rehabilitation through punishment.
Q If you pray for those who have hurt you, will God hears? Will He do even more than you can imagine?