Ready for Merciful Leadership

Ready for Merciful Leadership

Exodus 32: ⁷ And the Lord said to Moses, “Go, get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. ⁸ They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!’ ” ⁹ And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! ¹⁰ Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.”

 

¹¹ Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God, and said: “Lord, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? ¹² Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to Your people. ¹³ Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” ¹⁴ So the Lord relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.

 

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GOD told Moses that the people made a molded calf and worshiped it and sacrificed to it. Moses replied by quoting GOD’s heart.

 

My Observations:

• GOD could have simply wiped out the people, but told Moses what happened.
• GOD also told Moses that HE saw this coming.
• Moses replied with the grace and mercy GOD wants a leader to have.

 

Quoting to GOD what HE says to us while trying to save someone shows alignment. Moses did not convince GOD to have mercy. GOD had already decided to make Abraham a great nation which included JESUS as the Savior. HE knew JESUS needed to be born as a human to die for the sins of mankind.

 

This strange interchange seems to be for Moses. Abraham had a similar episode when he tried to convince GOD to spare Sodom and Gomorrah. Moses pleaded for a group of people who easily turned away from GOD. His conviction to save the people finally came through. Moses had grown up to question GOD with GOD’s words and HIS heart by asking “How would it look it you killed everyone? And what about YOUR promise?” GOD relented as HE knew HE would.

 

But GOD shows us HE does not tolerate when we make something an idol that we think can give us direction while believing GOD can’t.

 

Challenge

• Why does GOD remind Moses about the people making an idol and what Moses said to HIM?
• Has GOD given you a mission that seems to be going in a bad direction?
• What promise has GOD made to you that you can quote back to HIM, asking HIM ‘Is this what YOU said?’