"Behold your god"

It has been said that the book of Exodus can be divided into two sections: Getting Israel Out of Egypt (Ex. 1-18) and Getting Egypt Out of Israel (Ex. 19-40). Having existed in a culture saturated with pagan idolatry, Israel quickly reverted to their idolatrous ways in Exodus 32:

Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, "Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." Aaron said to them, "Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me." Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, "This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt." Now 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." So the next day they rose early and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.

Man has been attempting to refashion God to his liking throughout history. Pause for a moment and survey the cultural landscape. Even today, we see once faithful evangelical leaders and organizations, like Aaron, caving to the call of the masses and refashioning Christ to reflect society's vacillating preferences.

Steven Cole's commentary below should send fear through the heart of every evangelical leader and elicit repentance in those who have succumbed:

Exodus 32?is one of the scariest chapters in the Bible. It ranks up there with?2 Samuel 11, where David, the man after God’s heart, fell into adultery and murder; and with the Gospel accounts of the apostle Peter’s denials of Christ. It’s scary because prior to?Exodus 32, Aaron had some spiritual experiences that far exceed anything that any of us have ever had. He had seen God bring the ten plagues on Egypt. He watched God part the Red Sea for Israel and then bring it back over the pursuing Egyptian army. He saw the pillar of fire and the cloud that God provided for Israel’s protection in the wilderness. He had eaten the daily manna and had drunk water from the rock. At God’s invitation, Aaron, along with his sons and the elders of Israel had gone up on the mountain to see the God of Israel and to eat and drink in His presence (Exodus 24:9-11). But then, after all of these displays of God’s glory and power, while Moses was on the mountain meeting with God, Aaron quickly yielded to the people’s request and fashioned the golden calf for Israel to worship.

The late Scottish minister Horatius Bonar famously spoke a scathing rebuke to a worldly church, stating, “Go on in your worldliness; fling yourselves headlong into the torrent of earth's vanities; but know that the end of these things is death!”

?The Church must be in the world, but the world must never be in the Church (John 15:18-19; James 4:4).

References:

Avoiding spiritual compromise (Exodus 32:1-35) | Bible.org. (n.d.). https://bible.org/seriespage/17-avoiding-spiritual-compromise-exodus-321-35

The Risen Christ and the things above. (n.d.).? https://www.gracegems.org/Bonar/risen_christ.htm

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