LIFE SCRIPTS

15 Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. 16 The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. 17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war in the camp.” 18 Moses replied: “It is not the sound of victory, it is not the sound of defeat; it is the sound of singing that I hear.” 19 When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. 20 And he took the calf the people 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. 21 He said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?” 22 “Do not be angry, my Lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil. 23 They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’ 24 So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”
Exodus 32:15‭-‬24 NIV

https://bible.com/bible/111/exo.32.15-24.NIV.

Joshua, Moses’s protégé tarried with him on top of the mountain though a distance from where he was communing with God. Something amazing about Joshua was his patience…his ability to tarry in God’s presence. So as the two descended from the mountain, they could hear sounds of reveling. Though Joshua thought that it was the sound of war, Moses informed him that it was the sound of celebration. Joshua used his common sense but Moses had spiritual intelligence because he had been communing with God all along. God reveals things that are out of the ordinary for the common man. But this happens when we walk close to Him. At the sight of the people, scripture says that Moses burnt up with anger and threw down the tablets inscribed by the hand of God. When anger enters the picture, we literally lose it all…even God’s instructions over our lives. Moses seemed to have lost it but understandably so because the people were worshipping an idol…a golden calf. So he personally destroyed the idol, crushed it into powder and mixed it in water which the people drunk…a lesson to them. But the man who was supposed to be in charge seemed not to take responsibility. Aaron pointed an accusing finger to the people…people he should have shown the way. ‘…they gave me the gold… I threw it in the fire…and out came the golden calf…’ really? Evidently, this was not the case. Aaron succumbed to pressure, threw faith out of the window and did as the people wanted. He in fact was part of the problem and in many ways depicts us when cornered by others to sin. Just as Aaron, we’ve been appointed priests…a Royal priesthood as Peter says it. Our work is to represent God to people even as we intercede for them before God…a task that will put us at odds with people who want to push us to do the wrong thing. But the choice is ours. To do the right thing and worship Jehovah or succumb to deception and run after idols all around us especially in this information age.