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Cedar Lake SDA Church

Admonitions for the Last Days

Mark Howard

1. Admonitions for the Last Days

2. New Theology & Half-Hearted Christians

3. That Quaint Little Restaurant in Cairo

4. Look and Live

5. Itching Ears

6. A Little Leaven

Now, if you look in the bulletin, it tells us that we're in the series, Admonitions for Last Days, Part 2.

You may remember that I started this quite a while ago.

I really wasn't sure when we started it, and I actually just looked back on my phone, it was in February.

It was in February, and we took a little segue, and I just want to give a little refresher very briefly from our scripture reading this morning, 1 Corinthians 10, where I'm drawing this out of.

1 Corinthians 10 And verse 1, the Bible says, Moreover brethren, I do not want you to be what?

Ignorant or unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ.

But with most of them God was not well pleased for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

Our examples that we should not and then he goes on and recounts some experiences which I'll touch on in a moment and then in verse 11 he repeats again now all these things happened to them as examples and they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

And thus the title of admonition is for the last days.

The Apostle Paul is telling us and in fact he gives us the reasoning.

He basically tells us that of all, and notice his language there in the first few verses, all of our fathers did this, all of our fathers did this, all of our fathers, all of our fathers, all of our fathers, all of our fathers, except with most of them God was not well pleased.

They all had the same spiritual experience, they went to the same church, they ate at the same fellowship meal, they did the same outreach projects.

And so what the Apostle Paul is saying is, I'm warning you not to repeat the example of ancient Israel.

Just because you all go to the same church and church school and whatever else things that you do is not going to be the thing that makes the difference.

And so he gives us an admonition and he specially speaks to those who are living in the last days.

In the course of chapter 10, he recounts 5 different experiences from the history of Israel And I think that Paul's intent is that all of those experiences are for our admonition.

And in this series we're going to look through 5.

And we're going to go through them chronologically rather than the order he brings them up in.

The 5 experiences, just so you know right now, are the experience of the golden calf found in Exodus 32, the experience where Israel was clamoring for the food of Egypt in Numbers 11, Korah's rebellion in Numbers 16, the serpent on a pole in Numbers 21, and the incident at Baal Peor in Numbers 25.

And all of these things as we go through this series, you're going to find are almost strikingly and surprisingly applicable to our day.

Today we're going to look at the golden calf.

The story of the golden calf written as the Apostle Paul says for our admonition.

In other words, those of us living at the end of time should be able to look at this story and draw things out that will speak specifically and especially to us today.

And So I want you to put your thinking caps on with me as we draw out of this story what it's trying to communicate to those living at the end of time.

I want to just give you a little run in to where we are.

We're going to Exodus 32, that's where we find the story of the golden calf.

Now God has gathered his people together.

Of course he's brought them out of the land of Egypt in Exodus chapter 12.

He's gathered them together at Mount Sinai, proclaimed to them his 10 commandments, followed by his statutes and judgments, and all the people entered into covenant with God.

We call that the old covenant in Exodus 19-23.

Then God invited Moses and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu and 70 of the elders of Israel into his presence to eat the sacrificial feast of the covenant they had just made.

And then the Lord called Moses up even further into the mountain to actually give him the tables of stone and the instruction for the tabernacle and its services.

Now it's while Moses is up in the mountain with God, He went up there and he told the others who had come up part way with him, the Adab, Abihu, the 70 elders, etc., Aaron, that I'm going up and I'll be back.

Well, God didn't give him a time frame and the Bible says he was there 40 days and nights.

So after some period of time, they figured, we're not going to wait for him up here, we're going to go down among the people.

And it was while they were down among the people, this is where we pick up in Exodus 32.

We're going to read through the whole chapter of Exodus 32.

The Bible says, Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain.

When Moses was delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him, Come, Make us gods that shall go before us, for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.

And Aaron said to them, Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.

Now a lot of commentators say that the reason Aaron did this was he was thinking in most cases that people would never have been willing to part with their ornaments.

And so he thought, well I'll ask them for this and they'll say, well no way, I'm not taking my jewelry off and he'll say, ah good, I'm out of that 1.

Only this time they were all too willing to part with their ornaments.

The Bible says, verse 3, so all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron and he received the gold from their hand and he fashioned it with the engraving tool or an engraving tool and made a molded calf.

Then they said, this is your God, I'm sorry, yeah, then they said, this is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt.

So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it.

And Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.

A couple of things I want to draw your attention to.

When he saw that it met the approval of the people, then he said, hey, let's run with this thing.

And it says that he proclaimed a feast to who?

Now that's just so you know in case you didn't, that's what translators do with what theologians call the Tetragrammaton.

That is when Hebrews wrote the name of God, they wouldn't write the vowels.

And some people have added vowels and come away with the word Yahweh from that.

Some have assumed that the vowels added in, the Y makes a just sound and the W makes a V sound, they've come with Jehovah from that, but that's where they get it from.

And when you find L-O-R-D capital in your Bible, it is the proper name of the God of heaven.

It's important that you know that when they did this feast and they built the calf, Aaron did not proclaim a feast, this was not to Apis, the bull guide in Egypt.

Everything that we're doing here, it may be different from what we're accustomed to, but we're doing it to the Lord.

Verse 6, Then they rose early on the next day, offered bird offerings, and brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

You can do a little research on the word play there, but it doesn't mean tag.

And the Lord said to Moses, Go, get down, for your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.

They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them.

They have made themselves a molded calf and worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, this is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt.

And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, indeed it is a stiff-necked people.

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." Now I have to interject.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this today, So I have to interject here.

Some people read this and they say, man why is God God is just so wanting to destroy them all.

Did God need to ask Moses to get out of the way?

Because God was testing Moses to see if Moses would intercede for the people.

God could have just destroyed him if he wanted to destroy them.

When he said get out of the way and let me do this, It was an appeal to Moses.

It let Moses know that if I don't get out of the way, I can do something about this.

Verse 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?

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Series

Admonitions for the Last Days

2. New Theology & Half-Hearted Christians

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

As it Was in the Days of Noah

45m

Hindsight is Perfect

32m

Going the Distance

8. Finishing Strong

50m

The Almost Overmastering Delusion

54m

Meeting the Master Gardener

The Sower & the Seed

55m

Revelation Made Simple

15. Revelation Describes the US in Prophecy

1h 10m

The Sanctuary

09 The Sanctuary: Power, Grace and Judgment

54m

Just a Drink of Water

43m

The Sower

Present Truth of the Wheat and Tare

47m

The Final Hours

1. They Wouldn’t Listen

43m

The Parables

The Rich Man and Lazarus

43m

Creation- Genesis as the Foundation

53m

Sound Doctrine