The corrupted church

“Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt” (Exodus 32:7).

                Recently, I heard a pastor saying about the Korean churches atmosphere as ‘I’m bored.  Let's change.”  I didn't know what that meant so I asked him.  According to the pastor, the words ‘I’ m bored.  Let’s change’ means since people are bored in the church, they are changing their pastors.  And when I heard that it actually happened to the pastor's neighboring church, I was really absurd.  Although I was wondering how that could happen, I was not that surprised.  Maybe the reason is because I am used to such things as I hear and see these corruptions in the church.

                The background story of Exodus 32:7 tells the story of the Israelites making a golden calf and committing the sin of idolatry.  When their leader Moses went up to Mount Sinai and were receiving the Ten Commandments from God, the Israelites saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “"Come, make us gods who will go before us” (v. 1).  So Aaron told them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me” (v. 2).  “So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron.  He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool” (vv. 3-4).  Then the Israelites said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt” (v. 4).  “When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, ‘Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD’” (v. 5).  “So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry” (v. 6).  After seeing and knowing this, God commanded Moses to go down from the mountain and told him that the Israelites had become corrupt (v. 7).

                How could the Israelites say that the golden calf was their gods who brought them up out of Egypt?  How could they sacrifice burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to the golden calf (v. 6) and sit, eat, drink, and dance (v. 19)?  Isn't this like when a leader like Aaron proclaimed that Sunday is the Lord's Day and all the saints should come up to the Lord's house and thus they come up and have something like “golden calf” in their hearts and  they eat, drink, dance, and enjoy?  Here, what is a golden calf like in a modern church?  As Jesus said, I think it is money (Mt. 6:24).  It seems that the desire for money is widespread now even though the Bible clearly says that covetousness is idolatry (Col. 3:5).  This is an age where materialism is rampant.  As we live in this age, we, self-proclaimed Christians, are polluted by materialistic thinking and cry out to the Lord in worship on Sunday to receive the material blessings.  How corrupt would the church be to do such thing?  But how should we view this reality of the church in which our conscience is not stricken?  I think what God said to Moses about the Israelites was also to our Christians: “they are a stiff-necked people” (v. 9).

                The stiff-necked Israelites were quick to turn away from what God had commanded them (v. 8).  And they made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf and bowed down to it and sacrificed to it (v. 8).  In the end, we, the stiff-necked Christians, quickly have left the narrow path of the cross that Jesus walked and have chosen a wide path for ourselves.  And we are committing many sins because we love and idolize money.  We are no longer living God-centered and inward life of faith but me-centered outward religious life.  Now we have the good form of godliness, which is a life of incompetent faith that denies the power of godliness.  Therefore, we are now guilty of sinning against God over and over again, being led by sinful nature, rather than being led by the Word of God.  As a result, we have now reached a spiritual state where we are accustomed to sin and  sin is not considered as sin anymore.  So now we are guilty of sin but not ashamed.  This is because our consciences have been seared as with a hot iron (1 Tim. 4:2) and we have face that is hotter than steel.  What do you think the Lord's heart is when He looks at us?

God said to Moses, “Now leave me alone” (v. 10) when the stiff-necked Israelites  were quick to turn away from what God had commanded them  and made the golden calf and were guilty of idolatry.  In the wrath, God wanted to destroy the Israelites and make Moses into a great nation (v. 10).  Moses then asked God (v. 11).  He pleaded with God to “Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people” (v. 12).  In particular, Moses pleaded with God, saying, “Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: 'I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever” (v. 13).  “Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened” (v. 14).  But when Moses came down from the mountain (v. 15) and came near the camp where the Israelites were staying, he saw the golden calf and the Israelites dancing (v. 19).  His anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain (v. 19).  “And he took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it” (v. 20).  When “Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies” (v. 25), he rebuked his older brother  who led the Israelites into such great sin (vv. 21ff.).  Then all the Levites who were for the Lord (v. 26) strapped swords to their side and went back and forth through the camp from one end to the other and killed their own brothers and friends and neighbors (v. 27).  And that day about 3,000 of the people died (v. 28).  The next day Moses went back to the Lord and confessed their sins in sorrow and asked Him for forgiveness (vv. 30-32).  He asked the Lord to forgive the sins of the Israelites even his name would be blot out of the book He had written (v. 32).

What the corrupt church has to do is to confess and repent of the great sins we have committed against God.  We must be grieved to see ourselves as guilty of the great sins, as well as the anger toward the great sins toward our holy God.  And we must cry and repent.  We must face the reality of our sins that we have turned away from the Lord quickly and we must repent and turn to God and walk in His way.  We must no longer stiff our necks.  We must no longer be out of control and selflessly serve other gods than God for ourselves.  We should serve only our Lord God.  He delivered us from the kingdom of Satan and led us to the kingdom of God.  He alone is our true Savior.  He is also guiding us to eternal rest.  Therefore, we must move toward that Heavenly dwelling place even today as the Lord leads us.