First Mennonite Church
March 8, 2026
An Intercessory Prayer
Text: Exodus 32:1-14
Today, I would like for us to briefly consider what led to the creation of the golden calf and spend time on Moses’ intercessory prayer on behalf of a disloyal and idolatrous people.
In Exodus 20, God spoke his Ten Words to the children of Israel. In chapter 24, God summoned Moses to come up the mountain where He (Yahweh) would give Moses the commandments written on stone tablets. Before Moses went up to the mountain, God instructed him to bring along Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel that they may come to worship God. And there was something amazing that happened on that expedition. In verses 9-11, we are told that Moses and everyone who went with him got to see God. Thus, we read:
9 Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up 10 and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli (sapphire), as bright blue as the sky. 11 But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.
What is interesting about this unique incident is that regardless of what they saw in terms of the form or substance of God, no description is given in regards to the appearance of God but only something about the pedestal upon which God’s throne was.
After the entire group had seen God and ate and drank before Him, Moses was told to go up the mountain top to meet with God, alone. The others stayed at some distance from where God and Moses would meet.
After waiting for six days, the Lord finally came to meet with Moses. And there the Lord gave him various instructions to give to the Israelites. For forty days and forty nights Moses was up on the Mountain with God. On the last day, God gave Moses the two tablets with the commandments written by God’s very own fingers. This reminds us that even when God had given his Ten Words to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai (19-20), it was until this encounter that God actually gave his commandments inscribed on the two tablets of stone.
The creation of the golden calf came as a result of Israel’s fear, impatience, and uncertainty about their future without their top leader–Moses. Israel was there in the middle of the desert as a result of Moses’ claim that God had asked to lead Israel there. As for the people, they were there in the middle of nowhere at the command of a God they had not known but until recently and whose form or face, they have never seen. After spending more than four hundred years living in Egypt, they had known that the gods have visible forms. For instance, the Israelites knew the Egyptians had a god named Apis in the likeness of a bullock. So, they wanted to have something palpable, visible, and in line with what the other nations had about their gods.
We should also take note of here: it seems that even Aaron and the others who had accompanied Moses to the mountain had come back, while Moses was still up there with God. It’s very likely that Aaron and all those other leaders who went up with Moses had recounted to the people that they got to see the God of Israel. But as for the people, they had only heard about this God and only got to hear God’s thunderous voice when he gave his commandments, but have never gotten a glimpse of him.
Therefore, after forty days with Moses having gone, the Israelites came to Aaron with a request: “Come, 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.” The very way they spoke about Moses to Aaron sounds disowning, indifferent, and skeptical. The people seemed to have lost confidence in Moses’ commitment to lead them. They wanted a god to lead them and not someone who oftentimes had disappeared especially this long.
As for Aaron, I am not sure what happened to him. He just witnessed the presence of Yahweh on the mountain. Yet, here he gave into the demand of the people. He ordered that everyone took off their jewelry of gold and to bring them to him. The very gold the Israelites had extracted from the Egyptians, the very riches they had as tokens of their slavery, would then be converted into their god. What an irony, but it is an irony typical of the human heart. People turn their gold into their gods. And out of the gold pieces with his tools Aaron created an image of a calf and said to the people, “Israel, here are your gods that brought you out of Egypt.” Aaron even created an altar to set before the golden calf.
Still yet, what Aaron further told the people is just confusing. He said to the people: “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” Was he trying to smoothen the huge problem he had facilitated? Did he want to mix Yahwehism with idolatry, thus committing syncretism by mixing two distinct religions together? Whatever it was that Aaron led the people to do, the people seemed to have enjoyed it greatly by eating and drinking and have a great time before their newly created god.
The omniscience of God is revealed in this passage. Yahweh knew what was happening in the Israelite camp; thus he said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it . . . Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
God’s anger was burning against the disloyal and idolatrous people. God wanted nothing more to do with them. God distanced himself from the people and refers to the Israelites as Moses’ people—”your people” and the “people you brought up out of Egypt.” God refused to identify the Israelites as his people, the people he had freed from oppression and chosen as his special treasure. God’s anger hit a boiling point and wanted to bring his wrath upon the idolatrous people.
So, God ordered Moses to go away; God sort of ran Moses off from his presence as if because God knew what Moses would do next. You see, God had raised and shaped Moses to be the selfless man for God’s service on behalf of Israel. God knew Moses would not easily give up and allow the Israelites be blotted off the face of the earth. God knew Moses was going to intercede on behalf of the rebellious people. Moses knew the sovereignty and steadfast love and mercy of God. Thus, God was asking Moses to step away from God’s presence.
Moses was a man raised and fashioned by God to be a man who would stand on the gap between God and his people. Thus, Moses said to Yahweh: “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 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.’”
Moses was bold before God. He asked God two self-critical questions: why should your anger burn against your people. Israel was the very people Yahweh rescued with a strong arm from the Egyptian grip. God had proven his power and judgement for the sake of a people he remembered. So why would he now be so angry against them?
The second question Moses asked God was, “Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’?
Here, Moses seems to tell God, “If you wipe the Israelites off the face of the earth, the Egyptians will have the last laugh. The Egyptians will be certain that you could not fulfill on your promise to them. Instead of having them come out to the desert to worship you, you killed them all. Is that what you want?”
Then Moses pleaded with God, “Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.” Moses pleaded with God to remember something he had promised. 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.’” In other words, Moses was also asking God, “Are you a promise keeper or not?”
And the Lord relented from the disaster he threatened.
What a prayer of intercession! So, the question for us is, does prayer sway God even from carrying his declared will? If so, where does that leave God and his sovereignty?
Prayers of intercession are by nature prayers offered to God on behalf of others. In 1Timothy 2, Paul wrote:
I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior.
The NT text for this morning in James 5, reminds us that the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.
Intercession. On behalf of who do you intercede before the Lord? Intercession is that relentless, desperate, and passionate plead on behalf of others. It is a prayer that requires a deep sense of concern and urgency for those we intercede. Admittedly, it could be payer we almost do not practice.
Why is that so.
Moses’ prayer can help us understand and encourage how to offer prayers of intercession.
Here are two important things we must have in order to offer intercessory prayers.
I. Moses identified himself with the people he pleaded for.
This is very important. If we don’t care for someone’s plight, troubles, pain, and suffering we will not feel the need to lift them up before God in prayer. However, in the case of Moses, he identified with them. When he prayed asking God to forgive them, he said, if you do not forgive them and continue with them, “blot me out of the book you have written.”
As we know, Moses did not commit the transgression. Moses did not participate in the idol worship. Moses had nothing to do with the problem that put Israel under God’s wrath.
Two Sundays ago, at our Sunday school lesson about lamenting before God, we were reminded that the pains of others, which are beyond our abilities to fix or help should lead us to lament before God. The issue about the immigrants came up. Most people would say and even Christians “that was their problem. They brought it up upon themselves.” However, if we cannot sympathize with them in their pain and fear, because if they had done everything correct, they would not be in the troubles they are, then we are reserving sympathy to only those who are like us. Sympathy is to feel with the other from the grounds of our shared humanity. They don’t have to be like us in order for us to feel their pain and fear. We feel with them from our share sense of being humans, with dreams and failures, with struggles and hope.
Thus, Moses, although he did not participate in the idolatry, he identified himself with the people before God.
He felt for them. He feared the wrath of God with them, even when they could not understand it. He shared with the Israelites a common sense of peoplehood, thus Moses stood before God on their behalf in prayer.
II. The second key element in Moses intercessory prayer was that he knew God is a merciful and faithful God.
Moses knew God. Moses knew that God forgives, that God is compassionate and great in steadfast love.
Our perception of God determines the confidence or lack of it when it comes to prayer. Here Moses had learned that God keeps his promises, no matter how long ago he promised them. Moses asked God, as if God could not remember, to remember the promise God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Intercession requires us to know the promises of God. That he cares for the one in his/her deathbed. That he champions the case of the orphan and the widows. That he cares for the little birds. That just as a father has compassion for his child, so the Lord is compassionate to those in need. We need to be convinced that it is to this compassionate and loving God we are approaching when we intercede on behalf of others.
But if we thing that God is that strict and rigid big man upstairs, as people say, we will not bother asking on behalf of others. We will say, “Well, let life run its course.” Or, “It’s their problem, let them suffer the consequence.” Or “That is exactly what God said he will do to those who violate the rule.”
Moses knew that Israel had violated the supreme command, Moses knew that God had determined to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, but Moses pleaded with God because he identified with the idolaters and he knew that God is full of mercy and compassion.
Thus, Moses interceded for the people and the Lord relented and forgave their grave sin.
May the Lord help us identify with those in need of his grace. May we strive to know the heart of God and that he desires that no one should perish but have eternal life. Amen!
Pastor Romero