By Faith

Deu 4:23 Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the LORD thy God hath forbidden thee.
Deu 4:24 For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.


Why? Why did God not want us to make graven images and likenesses of things in heaven and on earth and below the earth? Why? Because these graven images were intended for WORSHIP, not for minor aesthetic pleasure. These idols were worshipped in place of God. It was thought by the worshippers that these idols had power.


Exo 32:1 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

They wanted gods MADE for themselves. They believed Moses their deliverer was gone for good and so instead of entreated the God they'd just made a covenant with, they turned to Moses' brother and asked him to MAKE THEM GODS! Make them idols, make them a graven image, make them a lifeless object that they could place before them who would guide them. They were so used to Egyptian gods they believed that a lifeless god, a lifeless idol could truly guide them. Hey the Egyptians had many idols and they prospered so their gods had to be good gods, they had to be powerful gods. The people of God wanted a powerful god object to worship, to give their allegiance to. They weren't asking Aaron to make them a pretty statue so they could enjoy the beauty of it harmlessly. They wanted a GOD made. They wanted to make their OWN GOD! They wanted to CREATE their own God, as if that were EVER possible.

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Exo 32:2 And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.
Exo 32:3 And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.
Exo 32:4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

A golden calf.
These be thy gods.
It was THIS golden calf which delivered us.
How horrific is this, seriously! They KNEW, they ALL KNEW it was NO golden calf, No earthly object that had delivered them. They KNEW the power of GOD, they'd trembled at it, but they chose to forget quickly all about that- perhaps it was all a fluke generated by Moses himself and with Moses gone so was Moses God. They believed themselves God-less because they no longer had the EVIDENCE before their eyes. Yet such a short while before, a little over a month before they were making a covenant with God. Obviously they lacked faith in God, obviously they equated Moses with God, not God using Moses, but Moses the bringer of God to them. It's like being in a room with a police officer, you check yourself, you are more aware of the laws of the land when a law enforcer is right there in your presence, not that you're guilty of anything at all it's just that your senses towards what the law enforcer represents is right before you. But after that police officer leaves gradually that heighten sense diminishes. You don't forget any laws, they just are being represented visually to you by an enforcer. You have NO right to break the law just because the law enforcer is out of sight, do you? No. There is a GREAT message, an IMPORTANT message being given to us here, to all of us. These people of God were quick to give up on God altogether in favor of worshipping idols all because they no longer had the law enforcer in their presence. They were choosing to live WITHOUT FAITH! They wanted to see and touch their god rather than live by faith.

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Exo 32:5 And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD.
Exo 32:6 And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.

Aaron made a proclamation. After he'd made the idol he proclaimed a day of feasting to that idol, to the golden calf he'd fashioned- and called God. He called that THING God, as if his hands could truly fashion an object God could live in.

Exo 32:7 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves:
Exo 32:8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

They corrupted themselves.
They turned aside quickly out of the way.
They made an idol.
They worshipped that idol.
They made that idol their god.

Exo 32:9 And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:
Exo 32:10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.
Exo 32:11 And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?
Exo 32:12 Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.
Exo 32:13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.
Exo 32:14 And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.


Idol worshipping. Worshipping ANYTHING in place of God. Living not by faith but by sight. This is a serious commandment here, in fact aren't they all- every single commandment? Not one commandment is greater than the other, all are built on loving God and loving our fellow man. There isn't a single commandment given by God of those ten He etched in stone by His own finger that could ever be accounted worthless, not ONE. God set up His laws so that they could be easily distinguishable one from another- ceremonial, dietary, civil, His great laws written by His own finger.

Exo 31:18 And when He finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, He gave to Moses the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written by the finger of God.

Deu 5:5 I stood between Jehovah and you at that time to declare to you the Word of Jehovah; for you were afraid from the face of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain, when He spoke, saying:
Deu 5:6 I am Jehovah your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
1st Commandment Deu 5:7 You shall have no other gods before Me.
2nd Commandment Deu 5:8 You shall not make a graven image for you, any likeness of anything in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, and in the waters from under the earth.
Deu 5:9 You shall not bow yourself to them nor serve them, for I, Jehovah your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of fathers on sons, and on the third, and on the fourth generation of those that hate Me,
Deu 5:10 and doing kindness to thousands of those who love Me and keep My commandments.
3rd Commandment Deu 5:11 You shall not take the name of Jehovah your God in vain; for Jehovah will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
4th Commandment Deu 5:12 Observe the sabbath day, to keep it holy, as Jehovah your God has commanded you.
Deu 5:13 Six days you shall labor, and shall do all your work,
Deu 5:14 and the seventh day shall be a sabbath to Jehovah your God. You shall not do any work, you nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male slave, nor your female slave, nor your ox, nor your ass, nor any of your livestock, nor your stranger that is within your gates; so that your male slave and your female slave may rest like yourself.
Deu 5:15 And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Jehovah your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm. On account of this Jehovah your God has commanded you to keep the sabbath day.
5th Commandment Deu 5:16 Honor your father and your mother, as Jehovah your God has commanded you, so that your days may be prolonged, and so that it may be well with you in the land which Jehovah your God is giving to you.
6th Commandment Deu 5:17 You shall not commit murder.
7th Commandment Deu 5:18 And you shall not commit adultery.
8th Commandment Deu 5:19 And you shall not steal.
9th Commandment Deu 5:20 And you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10th Commandment Deu 5:21 You shall not lust after your neighbor's wife; nor shall you covet your neighbor's house, his field, nor his male slave, nor his female slave, his ox, nor his ass, nor anything which is your neighbor's.
Deu 5:22 Jehovah spoke these Words to all your assembly on the Mount, out of the midst of the fire of the cloud and out of the thick darkness with a great voice. And He added no more; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone, and gave them to me.

To NOT make the distinction is to deceive ourselves and endanger ourselves into believing that when the New Covenant was created that these laws along with the ceremonial were all done away with. People love to believe that because it frees them up to do as they please, believing they have no accountability at all towards God to keep the Ten Commandments.

Heb 10:16 This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them

Jer 31:32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:
Jer 31:33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Jer 31:34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

The law is NEVER done away with, NEVER. The law is love in action, it is love lived. Jesus kept all the law, not breaking any of the law. Jesus did not come to do away with the law but to live it as it was meant to be lived.

Deu 4:23 Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the LORD thy God hath forbidden thee.
Deu 4:24 For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
Deu 4:25 When thou shalt beget children, and children's children, and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger:
Deu 4:26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.
Deu 4:27 And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you.
Deu 4:28 And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
Deu 4:29 But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.

Deu 4:30 When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the LORD thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice;
Deu 4:31 (For the LORD thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.
Deu 4:32 For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it?
Deu 4:33 Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live?
Deu 4:34 Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
Deu 4:35 Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him.
Deu 4:36 Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee: and upon earth he shewed thee his great fire; and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire.
Deu 4:37 And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt;
Deu 4:38 To drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.
Deu 4:39 Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else.
Deu 4:40 Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes, and his commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the LORD thy God giveth thee, for ever.

The SAME God who spoke with Moses and the people led out of Egypt is alive today- He is from everlasting to everlasting. He was, is, and ever will be. We live in a time like the children of promise toiling under the hand of the Egyptians who knew they were promised so much more. They longed for a Deliverer, WE long for a Deliverer, we live under the wicked hand of Satan all around us enslaving us to this world which is so incredibly far from the world God intended it to be. We are enslaved and we need to be delivered and we WILL be delivered, our Great Deliverer Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior is going to deliver us from this wicked world, and we must believe this by faith in God. We must believe in this time when there is no clear prophet to lead as there was in the days of Moses, as there was in the days that Jesus walked the earth. We MUST live by faith as Abraham lived by faith, as Moses lived by faith, as Noah lived by faith, as Enoch lived by faith, as the Apostles lived by faith. We must live without evidence, we must hope and put all our hope in our Savior. As people more and more claim to desire evidence, to desire proof, to call belief a foolish pastime for foolish people, we have to have faith and have our faith grow in Jesus Christ. Wicked, wicked times are coming, more wicked than we can truly imagine or want to imagine and we must live by faith in our Savior and faith alone.


By His love!

Amen.