August 30, 2026
"A False Feast to a False Lord" (Exodus 32:1-10)
Series: Heidelberg Catechism Scripture: Exodus 32:1–10
Hear now the word of the Lord from Exodus 32:1 10. When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, up. Make us gods. Who shall go before us? 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.
So Aaron said to them, take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters, and bring them to me. So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it.
And Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early 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. And the Lord said to Moses, go down for your people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them.
They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it, and said, these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff necked people. Now therefore, let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them in order that I may make a great nation of you. This is the word of the Lord.
Please be seated.
And as you're taking your seats, let's join our hearts together tonight in prayer. Gracious Father, as we come to this text where we read of this great breach in your covenant perpetrated by your covenant people. And we see the great sin and crafting and making an idol to worship as though you were represented by that idol. And as we think about all of the things that we take comfort in because we can see, see them, we pray, Father, that you would indeed give us hearts to understand and eyes to see and ears to hear all that is contained in the good news of your gospel. But we pray for this sight and this insight by the power of your spirit working in us faith.
We pray that you would keep us from idols, and we pray that we would be drawn to Jesus Christ, whom we have not seen and yet that you would cause us to love him all the more. Even today, we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
On February 14, Valentine's Day, the year was 2016. I was in the first few months of serving at my previous church at harvest, and I was preaching through the book of Joshua and came to Joshua 7. And as I was preaching on that passage, I discovered that the story of when Achan stole the devoted things and when he was destroyed for his sin, that there were a lot of similarities between that story and the story of the original sin of Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter three. And in looking at that, I thought about it more and more. And it has been something of a fascination, or if I'm honest, an obsession of mine for the last 10 years.
If you have talked with me much, if you have met with me for private counseling, I have probably talked with you about this because I think this is one of the most tremendous things that is in the Bible, because it's not just these two stories, what we have in Joshua 7 and we have in Genesis 3. It's also this story here in Exodus 32, it's the story of David and Bathsheba in 2nd Samuel 11, it's the story that leads up to the flood in Genesis 6. There are lots of stories that share some of these similarities. And I'm just obsessed. I won't take too much time talking about this, but as I've studied this more and more, what I've.
What I want to argue, and I won't go into all of this tonight, is that all of these stories God has put in the Bible, that we can look at them together and sort of hold them together and compare and contrast each of them. And where the comparisons show similarities, that shows us that we're meant to read these together. And where the contrast show airplaces of differentiation, that allows us to look at each story and each element in each story with an eye that is evaluating and comparing the differences. And the more we look at all of these stories together and comparing and contrasting each of these together, it's almost like biblically we have something of a kaleidoscope, that the more we turn it and the more we look at these things, we see more and more aspects that help us to understand the nature of sin and the nature of faith. Now, of all of the aspects of comparison and contrast, there are different differences in each of these stories that bring out pieces that we are meant to understand the nature of each of those sins, even while we see that they're Sort of all part of a pattern.
Now, in this particular passage, the theme that is brought out is sight is what is visible and whether we really can trust an invisible God. And so our theme tonight as we study Exodus 32 is this. It's from 2nd Corinthians 5, 7. Walk by faith, not by sight. Walk by faith, not by sight.
So we'll look at this story in three sections, and as we do this, we'll consider the second commandment, which is looming just in the background. Remember, they're still on Mount Sinai. This is Exodus 32. In Exodus 20, they had received the second commandment, you shall not make graven images. And here, just probably days later, here they are making this graven image, transgressing the covenant that God had given to them.
And so the three parts to this sermon are going to be, first, the invisible God, second, the visible God. And if you do have a sermon worksheet, you'll see that God is lowercase G, the visible God. And then three, a stiff necked people. A stiff necked people. So start with verse one, the invisible God.
1. The Invisible God (Exodus 32:1)
Now, in verse one, the opening of this phrase or the opening of this passage is somewhat innocuous or innocent sounding. When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain. Now, one of the points of similarity that happen in all of these passages is someone is always seeing the object of temptation, whatever it is, where the sin is. They're always seeing something. So Genesis 3, verse 6, when the woman saw that the tree was good, then she went and ate it.
Genesis 6, verse 2. When the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were. It says, beautiful, but the word there is also good. Joshua 7:21. This is that first passage I preached.
Achan telling what he had done and stealing the devoted things said, when I saw among the spoil a not a beautiful cloak, a good cloak from Shinar. Then he coveted it and took it. And then 2 Samuel 11:2, it happened late one afternoon when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing. And the woman was literally good. Very beautiful.
In all of those stories, we have someone seeing something that they judge or evaluate as good. Now that's important. We're told in the Scriptures, woe to those who call evil good. But that's how all sin starts, right? We start with seeing something that God has forbidden.
And we say, you know what? I actually think that's good. A lot of reasons for that. Why we misclassify Things, but it always starts there. What's very interesting about this story is that in Exodus 32, it doesn't begin.
It begins with seeing, but it doesn't begin with seeing that something is good. It begins with seeing something that the people judge as bad. And this is the only time in all of these stories where this happens exactly like this. The people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain. Now they judge this to be bad.
They do not know where their leader has gone.
The reason this is important, and where this then moves into the ultimate solution that they have of creating a visible golden calf to worship is the problem they are addressing is their leader is suddenly just as invisible as their God is. And indeed, Moses is with God up on the top of Mount Sinai. Both of them are shielded behind the cloud, just as Jesus right now has gone up into the clouds until he returns on the clouds in glory. But he there is invisible and they can't see him. And that for them, is a problem.
They want to see Moses just like they want to see their God. So what's their solution? They gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, up. Make us gods. Who shall go before us?
Now, in all these passages, there's a little hint of the internal motivation, the deliberation. Why does someone convince themselves that sin is really good and that you should actually do the sin that you see as an opportunity? It's a question not only from the Bible, but it's a question for our own hearts, right? Why did I do that? Again, you have to think about your internal motivations a little bit.
Well, what are their internal motivations? Make us gods. Who shall go before us. Now, this phrase, who will go before us? This is a phrase of God's action of protecting and defending and being a warrior for his people.
And they want, Interestingly, they don't see that their leader is gone. So they say, we better elect a new leader. They say our leader is gone, therefore we need a visible God to protect us. They're feeling unsafe. They're feeling insecure, unsecure.
What they've said is, the problem is that Moses is invisible. But the real and unstated issue is that God is invisible. And despite all that God has done for them as an invisible God, they just feel a whole lot better if they could have something that they could see, if they could have a God whose image they could just know was just there comforting them, their little security blankets so they could get through all the battles they're going to face. And why was that? Well, it's because the nations had visible gods.
This morning we read as our call to worship Psalm 115. It's very similar to our call to worship tonight. 135. We're going to sing then Psalm 115 as our song of response after this. But in Psalm 115, verse 2, the question is, why should the nation say, where is their God?
Well, why are the nations saying that? Because those nations who worship visible gods, who have eyes but can't see, and ears but can't see or hear, nose but can't smell, these gods who are dead, at least they are visible. But when you look to Israel, Israel has no God. That is, they have no image of their God who can go before them into battle. You've heard the old phrase, don't bring a knife to a gunfight.
Well, they know they're about to go into a lot of gun fights, and they're not even supposed to bring a knife, apparently. How restrictive is that? They just want a security blanket, an image of the God to go before this. Now, what happens next? And this is fascinating, the next thing they say, the next thing that comes out of their mouth tells us that they have already, not only with their eyes in their heads, but also with their eyes of faith, they have already lost sight of what the invisible God has done for them.
Because they say up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, now that's kind of true. Moses was indeed their leader. But again, if you go back to just two verses before the second commandment happens in Exodus, chapter 20, verse 2, the way the Lord identifies himself as the covenant God of Israel is this way. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
And it was on that basis that the Lord gave The Israelites these 10 words, these 10 commandments. It started off with grace. God didn't say, you must do all of these commandments, and then I will accept you, and then you will be loved. This was the sermon last week. Rather, God started with grace.
He started with his covenant mercies. He brought his people out of the land of Egypt. God did that while he was invisible in the midst of a nation filled with idolatries in Egypt. And he put all of their idols to shame, all of their false gods to shame. But now they're worried about Moses being gone.
Because Moses, as they are thinking, is the one who really was the one who brought them up out of the land of Egypt. This is why they skip from Moses is invisible to let us make a visible God. Because at least with Moses, Moses was able to get some things done. But if he's not there now, he's not visible. Now God is not visible.
The only solution in their twisted logic is that they need to make a visible golden calf. Now, the key question in this is, are the Israelites by this calf worshipping a different God? That would be a first commandment violation. Or do they want this golden calf as a visual representation of the Lord of Yahweh, Jehovah, of the true God who brought them up out of the land of Egypt? Well, that's the question that brings us up into the second section of this passage.
2. The Visible god (Exodus 32:2-6)
The visible lowercase G God in verses two through six. Again, the first commandment says, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not worship anyone else. It's about whom we worship. But the second commandment deals with how we worship.
We only do so as he has commanded, and we never do so with images. So the question is, what are they doing here? He's doing. Is this a first commandment issue or is this a second commandment issue? John Sailhammer in his commentary, he says there are really four reasons for understanding this.
Not as a first commandment violation that they are worshiping different gods, but as a second commandment violation. They are trying to worship the true God, but they are worshiping this God in ways that he has not commanded and in fact in ways that he has forbidden. And so as we read this passage, let me walk you through these. After Aaron makes everything in verse four, and after he fashions it with a graving tool into a golden calf, they said, these are your gods, O Israel. Now, the word gods, there plural is the word Elohim.
Now you might be familiar with that word or you might not be, but that's the Hebrew word that is always used. Also the same exact word that is always used to when, whenever you read the word God in the Bible, God is Elohim. But that im at the end, that's like when we put an S at the end of a word, it makes it plural. So im is like s. So Ellos has. If we want to put it in English, that doesn't sound good.
Just Elohim, we'll skip, stick with that. But this Elohim, these are gods. And yet there's sort of a people, people speculate on why maybe there's a plural of majesty. Maybe. You ever heard the Queen of England Talking, we are not amused.
That kind of a thing, you know, that she's talking about herself. But that kind of we language let us make man in our image. The Lord God says, well, this word Elohim can be plural gods, but it's also the standard word for God. And sometimes the verb helps. Sometimes, if it's a singular verb versus a plural verb, you can help.
But here it's a plural verb. These gods, they have brought you up. But in Nehemiah 9:18, Nehemiah quotes back to this passage and uses the singular verb. Nehemiah 9:18 says, Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, this is your God who he brought you up out of Egypt, and they had committed great blasphemy. And on and on and on.
So the idea here is, these gods, they're talking about their God, their singular God, they're talking about God, the Lord Yahweh. The second reason is that the Hebrew expression other gods is a synonym for idols and statutes and typically not for different gods. Speaking of other gods, these are idols, these are images, not necessarily different deities to worship. The third reason is in verse four. These are your gods who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
Again, they're thinking about the God who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, the Lord. But if that weren't clear enough, look at verse five. Aaron looks at all of this and he says, tomorrow shall be a feast of the Lord. They're going to continue worshiping this golden calf with a feast. And they're going to say, now we are worshiping Yahweh.
This is a false feast to a false God. And so John Sailhamer concludes in the present passage, the term seems to be understood as an attempt to represent the God of the covenant with a physical image. Unquote. Now, that's one commentator, but that's a fairly well understood aspect of this passage, that this is indeed a second commandment violation, not a first commandment violation, because as our Heidelberg Catechism 97 says, God cannot and may not be visibly portrayed in any way. Although creatures may be portrayed, yet God forbids making or having such images in order to worship them or serve God through them.
That's what the Israelites are doing here. They're trying to serve God through this golden calf. Now, I want to give maybe an illustration to help this, because, understand, get in the mindset. This seems totally bizarre to us. This is the last thing we would think to do.
But let's get in their mindset a Little bit. Understand, in the ancient near east, this was actually a very flattering image. First of all, don't forget the fact that this was made of the most precious material they had. They gave up their gold and it was that gold that became this molten calf. But the second thing, this was an image of a calf.
Cows were images of wealth and cows were also symbols of strength. And this was not just a cow, it was a calf. So it was a young cow. So there was. This is not an old dying cow.
This is a symbol of youthful energy and vigor and strength. In fact, in the ancient Near Eastern mind, there is nothing more flattering of an image that you could make for a God than and this golden calf. This is top shelf idolatry. But here's the illustration I want to give Imagine. So imagine a man.
Imagine a man who maybe is at the grocery store and grabs one of those fashion magazines that are always there at the checkout aisle, buys it and takes it home and starts looking through it because he's trying to find the most beautiful woman in those pages that he can. Then he finds this is the most beautiful woman in this magazine and he cuts it out. And then he goes around showing people this image saying, this is my wife, assuming this man is also married to an actual woman. And his wife protests and says, what are you thinking? And he says, honey, this should be flattering.
Look at her, she's beautiful. Now I did run this by my wife and she said she would not be flattered by that. She also said she would not be flattered if I depicted her as a cow. So either way, this is lose, lose. None of this is flattering to the person.
Why? Because you are using a false image to portray someone else. This is where we start to get into those images of Jesus that are in our children's Bible sometimes or in the Jesus film or in the Chosen where an actor is portraying Jesus. Whenever you see this, first of all, that person, that image is not Jesus. You have drawn a totally random made up image that is just the imagination of the author to depict your Lord and Savior.
There's a disconnect there. But go a little bit further. Everything that actor does or whatever you read in that book and the ways you see that actor, actor or that image, acting, that's going to teach you to feed you something about what you believe about Jesus and it's going to therefore then filter up and affect your worship so that you are not any longer worshiping, or at least you are departing in some ways from worshiping the God of the Scriptures. But there's a real danger there where you are going to be worshiping maybe a flattering attempt at a flattering image of Jesus, but ultimately a golden calf image of Jesus as these actors and these images shape the way you think rather than God's holy, inerrant, infallible, inspired word. Let me say something specifically about the chosen.
Maybe you think that you're not totally ready to sort of follow me on what the Reformed tradition, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Westminster Catechism, even the early church rejected the use of images of Jesus. Maybe you're not ready to go there. I understand that that can be a big jump that's so prevalent even in Christian culture. It's, it's something to think about. But, but let me just press this about the chosen specifically.
I know the chosen. A lot of people watch it. I want to warn you, even if you watch things like the Jesus film, I want to plead with you, don't watch the chosen. Of all the things to watch, don't watch the chosen. Why?
Because this is produced by Mormons. This is produced by people who do not believe in the Jesus that we believe. This is. This is a production that actually puts in the actor's mouth who's supposed to represent Jesus. Words not from this book, but from the Book of Mormon.
There's one episode where Jesus declares, I am the law of Moses. Now that sounds biblical, but it's not. It sounds biblical because Jesus is constantly saying, I am this, I am that, I am the light of the world, I am the bread of life. But he never says he's the law except in third Nephi 15, verse 9 in the book of Mormon where Jesus says, behold, I am the law. So when you're watching the chosen, that actor is portraying to you not the scriptural Jesus, but he's portraying to you a golden calf Jesus, a Mormon Jesus.
That's dangerous. As your pastor, I plead with you. Whatever you think about the rest of my sermon, let me plead with you, don't watch the chosen. It will inhibit your relationship to the true and living Jesus.
3. A Stiff-Necked People (Exodus 32:7-10)
Well, again, this isn't a command that we think much about, but apparently neither did the Israelites. And so let's go on to this third section. A stiff necked people. What's the Lord's response to this? Now I mentioned all these different temptation scenes that form sort of a kaleidoscope where we see different angles of connections and points of connection and comparison.
I could talk to you far longer about this than you'd like me to. But I'll restrict what I'm going to say. One of the things that always happens in these stories is there's always something that's jeopardized, something is put in danger. Two things, usually something that God makes the Lord threatens to destroy. And second, we also see jeopardized God's presence with his people in Genesis 3.
Remember, let us make man in our image. What was going to happen when they sinned? Those who were made in the image of God were going to die. From the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. And then by the end of Genesis 3, the Lord expels them out of his direct presence in the Garden of Eden.
Genesis 6, we read, the Lord regretted that he had made man. And we read also in Genesis 6, verse 3, that he withdraws his spirit. My spirit shall not abide in man forever. So the Lord's presence is threatened. In Joshua 7, verse 12, the Lord says that the people of Israel have become devoted for destruction.
God's going to destroy the whole nation unless they get rid of the devoted thing. And then in Joshua 7:13, he says explicitly, I will be with you no more unless you destroy the the devoted things from among you. Now in Second Samuel, it was back in chapter seven that the Lord promised to make David a house. But then in 2nd Samuel 12, when Nathan is talking to David about his sin, he prophesies that the sword will never depart from David's house. Many of his children would be cut off.
His house would survive, but it would be jeopardized, but barely. And then in terms of the presence of the Lord, we can't forget Psalm 51:11, where David is praying about this sin and says, cast me not away from your presence, and take not your holy Spirit from me.
Now here in verse 10, the Lord says, now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against the them, and I may consume them in order that I may make a great nation of you. If you remember back In Genesis chapter 12, verse 2, God had said that he would make a great nation out of Abraham. But here God is promising to destroy his nation that he had made for Abraham in order to make a new nation for Moses out of Moses. But the second thing that happens, and here I'd encourage you to flip just over to chapter 33, verse 3. The Lord actually, verse 2, the Lord promises, I will send an angel before you after he forgives them.
And he relents from his judgment, I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out The Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. That question of security, of having a God to go before them. Well, an angel will now go before them. Same phrase here. But he says in verse three, go up to a land flowing with milk and honey.
In other words, all your problems are going to be solved. You're going to be safe and secure. But I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way. For you are a stiff necked people. The Lord calls Israel a stiff necked people four times.
In this wider context, it's always related to the judgment either of their destruction or or of the Lord's withdrawn presence to Him. Why does he use this term? Well, he's saying stiff necked. The stiff necked is the language of a cow. It's the language of the strong neck that you can put a yoke on a cow.
This is GK Beale in one of his books. We become what we worship and some of the things that we've been reading about today. Psalm 115, Psalm 135, those who worship them become like them. If you worship a calf, you become like that calf. You have the stiff neck of a calf, where you're not pliable and easily led by the Lord, where He would lead you.
You haven't taken the yoke of Jesus, you have the harsh yoke of a calf.
But the promise, alternatively, is that if, if you turn to the Lord, if you turn to the Lord, if you worship the Lord, you will become like Him. That's what we're called to do. That's what we're called to be. But here the Lord says, you cannot worship this idol as though you are worshiping me, because then you will become like this idol. Dead and deaf and blind and mute and dumb.
But if you worship me, you will will inhabit the image and likeness of God in which you were originally created to bear. Now look at all of this together. Oh, by the way, in chapter 33, verse 4, the people recognize when the Lord said that he would take care of all your problems. But I'm not going to be with you. Would you take that deal if God said, I will wipe away all of your problems?
Don't worry, you will never face any more problems. You'll live in a land of milk and honey. I though, will not be with you. I will admit you into heaven and it's going to be the grand carnival of your life. But I will not be with you.
Would you take that Deal?
Heaven is no heaven if God is not in it. And verse four, when the people heard this disastrous or this evil word, they mourned and no one put on his ornaments. Everyone realizes the time of mourning. Now let's recap this. They made and they worshiped a visible God.
Why? Because they wanted better security. They wanted a God to go before them. They wanted someone, something to visibly be there as their security blanket. They didn't want to come empty handed to the gunfight they were about to enter into.
And they didn't trust a God they couldn't see. And now they didn't have a leader that they could see. And so they wanted some security. But in the process, they incurred the wrath of God and were put to death.
And for those who survived, they were promising that they would have security, but they would lose the invisible God's presence. They said, it's not good enough to have the invisible God's presence if we can't see Him. But now God says, fine, you will be protected, but I will not be with you invisibly or not any longer. And they realized, well, that's not a good solution either. They craved a false visible presence of God, but they mourned losing God's true invisible presence.
Why? Because they were a stiff necked people. Let us not be a stiff necked people. Let us instead walk by faith and not by sight.
Heidelberg Catechism 98 may not images as books for the unlearned be permitted in churches? No. We should not try to be wiser than God. He wants the Christian community instructed by the living preaching of His Word, not by idols that cannot even talk. In Galatians, Paul says, you foolish Galatians, it was in your midst that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.
Now Galatia is nowhere near Jerusalem. So in what sense was Jesus publicly portrayed as crucified in Galatia? By the lively preaching of the Word. In Galatia, when Paul preached Christ and him crucified, can we see Jesus? No.
There's no image there for us to look at. He's not up there for us to think about as we are worshipping here today. As you would find on a Roman Catholic crucifix, the cross is empty. Why? Because what we preach can only come from God's Word.
This is the only reliable source of truth. This is the only reliable tool that should be shaping our affections to love the Lord, to shape what we think about Him.
And we are called to be shaped by the lively preaching of God's Word and not by Dumb idols that cannot even talk. We are to be people who live and walk by faith and not by sight.
And as the author of Hebrews writes in Hebrews 11:1, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Now, I want to give a brief application of this particular sin story.
I want you to think about how this all began. It all began with people seeing something. And then they started drawing conclusions and realized they couldn't see what they wanted to see. They couldn't see Moses. And so therefore they wanted this visible, seeable God.
But I want you to ask, when you look around at your life, what do you see? Because this will shape how you might walk by sight, if you were to walk by sight. So do you see big problems in your life? Do you see the metaphorical gunfight that you are going to be entering into, maybe even this week? If you see those problems as insurmountable, if that's where your eyes are, then you're probably going to try to find some security blanket.
It likely won't be a golden calf, but you will find something, something to depend upon other than depending upon the invisible God and his image who is out of our sight in the heaven of heavens until he is manifested at his return. Or maybe this week you look around and you see success in your life. Your life is going well. You're getting what you want. You're getting everything that you want to see in your life.
If your eyes are fixed on the successes of your life, you might be tempted to sort of bear down on those things. Those things might become your golden calendar. Have they May be the thing your bank account, or the promotion or the house or the car, or the possession or whatever it is that leads you to be tempted to believe that you are in control, that you're powerful and that you're worthy. Or this week you may see that opportunity to sin. You may see that forbidden fruit, that forbidden person, that forbidden idol in your life.
And when you see that there's going to be some way that the devil is always trying to get us to think that even though the Lord has forbidden these things, that in fact they are good. We never do anything without thinking that things are good. Good. But we can be very deceived in what we judge and evaluate as good to believe that we should succumb to it. And if we walk by sight and let our big problems, or our successes or the temptations to guide how we should walk, if we walk by sight, then we will be in this exact boat.
Then we are a stiff necked people. And we threaten and jeopardize what the Lord has made in our lives. And we threaten and jeopardize the presence of the Lord in our lives. And so I want to ask you to really search your life, search your heart, search where your eyes are. The eyes not only of your head, but also of your mind and your heart.
Are you walking by sight or are you walking by faith in Christ, whom you have not seen, but you love him? Because the good news is that Jesus Christ is portrayed among you, is crucified today, that Jesus Christ suffered in your place as a sacrifice for sinners, that Jesus Christ looked on the idolatry of this people here, he looked on your idolatry, my idolatry, and he died as an idolater, though he was the only innocent, righteous person. And he did that so that your sins could be forgiven and blotted out. He did that so that you could be raised up to newness of life with him. As you look to him in faith, are you looking to him by faith?
Are you walking by faith or are you walking by sight? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that as we study your word, that you would help us to hear, hear, to see by faith, but to do so by what we hear from your word. And we pray that your word would convict us of sin and that your word would lead us to Jesus Christ, where he is seated at your right hand, to trust him by faith for salvation. We pray this in Christ's name.
Amen.
other sermons in this series
Sep 6
2026
"Third Commandment: Be Careful, Little Tongue, What You Say" (James 5:12)
Preacher: Luis Muñoz Scripture: James 5:12 Series: Heidelberg Catechism
Aug 23
2026
"I Am the Lord Your God" (James 1:19-24)
Preacher: Wybren Oord Scripture: James 1:19–24 Series: Heidelberg Catechism
Aug 16
2026
"A Change of Clothing" (Colossians 3:5-17)
Preacher: Rev. Jacob Gerber Scripture: Colossians 3:5–17 Series: Heidelberg Catechism