Then the Lord told Moses, "Quick! Go on down, for your people that you brought from Egypt have defiled themselves, and have quickly abandoned all my laws. They have molded themselves a calf, and worshiped it, and sacrificed to it, and said, 'This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of Egypt.' Then the Lord said, 'I have seen what a stubborn, rebellious lot these people are'" (Exodus 32:7-9).
What an outright act of rebellion against God. How easily did the Israelites forget what God had done for them. God chose Moses to go down to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let his people go. Moses was a fugitive living in the wilderness at the time he met the Lord at the burning bush. Moses was no stranger to Egypt, because he was raised up in the land. He had enjoyed the trappings of the land. One day he visited his fellow Hebrews and saw the terrible conditions they were under. During his visit he saw an Egyptian knock a Hebrew to the ground. Moses looked this way and that way to be sure no one was watching, then he killed the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand. This act caused Moses to be listed among the most wanted, in the land of Egypt. Therefore, he had to run for his life. Moses ran into the land of Midian.
Moses settled in the land, married Zipporah and had a son, Gershom. One day while keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, "the Angel of the Lord appeared to him as a flame of fire in a bush" (Exodus 3:1-2). The Lord commissioned him to go to Egypt and confront Pharaoh. God had seen the deep sorrows of the people and He had heard their cries for freedom, and remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Moses tried to get out of going to Egypt, but he went, and God used him to miraculously lead the children out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and along the desert. The Israelites were now camped between the desert and the sea. When word had reached Pharaoh that the Israelis were not planning to return to Egypt after three days, Pharaoh and his entire calvary pursued the people of Israel, for they had taken much of the wealth of Egypt with them.
As the Egyptian army approached the Israelites, they saw them from afar, coming toward them, they were very frightened, and cried out to the Lord for help. Then they turned against Moses saying, "Have you brought us out here to die in the desert because there were not enough graves for us in Egypt? Why did you make us leave Egypt? Isn't this what we told you, while we were slaves, to leave us alone? We said it would be better to be slaves to the Egyptians than dead in the wilderness" (Exodus 14:11-12).
Well, this was the beginning of their ingratitude, "how easily did they forget" from whence they had come. Moses realized that though the people cried to be free, they didn't really want freedom. Many felt they would have been better off under the iron rod of Pharaoh. But God continued to lead Moses the way he should go. The Lord parted the water of the Red Sea and they walked through on dry ground. The Angel of God led the people, moved the cloud around behind them, and stood between the people of Israel and the Egyptians. And that night, the cloud changed to a pillar of fire, it gave darkness to the Egyptians, but light to the people of Israel. So the Egyptians couldn't find the Israelis. The Egyptians followed them between the walls of water, but when all the Israelites were on the other side, Moses returned the sea to normal and the Lord drowned them in the sea.
The Israelites were moved from the Red Sea into the wilderness. They arrived at the base of Mt. Sinai three months after the night of their departure from Egypt and they set up camp there. Mount Sinai is God's holy mountain. Moses gave the people all the laws and regulations that God had given him. The Lord told Moses to, "Come up to me into the mountain, and remain until I give you the laws and commandments I have written on tablets of stone, so that you can teach the people from them" (Exodus Exodus 24:12).
In obedience, Moses made his way up the mountain to meet the Lord. When Moses didn't come back down the mountain right away, the people went to Aaron and asked him to make them a god to lead them, since Moses had disappeared. Aaron asked them for their gold earrings, then he melted the gold and molded the gold into the form of a calf. When Aaron saw how happy the people were about it, he built an altar before the calf and announced, "Tomorrow there will be a feast to Jehovah" (Exodus 32:5b).
The next morning they began their burnt offerings and peace offerings to the calf. They had their feast, where they drank and had a wild party, and also committed sexual immorality. Then the Lord told Moses, "Quick! Go on down, for your people that you brought from Egypt have defiled themselves, and have quickly abandoned all my laws. They have molded themselves a calf, and worshiped it, and sacrificed to it, and said, 'This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of Egypt.'" "How easily they forgot," that it was God, not Moses who heard their cries in Egypt. It was God who took them through the Red Sea on dry land. It was God who was their cloud by day and fire by night that led them. It was God who was their eyes and ears against the enemy. It was God who supplied them food and water. It was God who protected them against the elements. "How easily they forgot!"
God became so angry that he told Moses, "I have seen what a stubborn, rebellious lot these people are." God called them, "stiff-necked people." The Lord told Moses, "Now let me alone and my anger shall blaze out against them and destroy them all; and I will make you Moses, into a great nation instead of them" (Exodus 32:10). It was Moses who pleaded to God not to consume them with his anger.
How could they so easily forget about the all-powerful God who heard their cries and pitied their groans? They so easily forgot. When the tough times came knocking on their doors, they regress to the familiar. They left Egypt, but Egypt didn't leave them. They wanted what they were use to, paganism and idol gods were in their hearts. They held onto the culture and the ways of Egypt.
They easily forgot, because they failed to walk with God, by faith. God has always required faith: "But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him" (Hebrews 11:6). James says, "... it isn't enough just to have faith. You must also do good to prove that you have it" (James 2:17).
They easily forgot, because they failed to accept the miracles that had already been performed by God to save them. God delivered them from Egypt on eagle's wings. Their delivery was miraculous, because only God could do it. Only God could have parted the Red Sea, and this parting could only be accepted, by faith. Only God could put a cloud around them by day and a pillar of fire around them, all night long. Scripture says that when the Egyptians followed them between the walls of water, and before they were drowned, "...Jehovah looked down from the cloud of fire upon the array of Egyptians, and began to harass them. Their chariots wheels began coming off, so that their chariots scraped along the dry ground" (Exodus 14:24-25).
They easily forgot, because they failed to trust God for their future. God had already proven that He was God Almighty, and that nothing was impossible for Him. God was able to be their Protector and Provider, but that was not enough for them. Through disobedience, they were willing to forfeit their future blessings and inheritance. God had told Moses, after they made the golden calf, "I will make you, Moses, into a great nation instead of them."
They easily forgot, because they failed to see God's love for them. They broke one of the ten commandments, when they made the golden calf, then worshiped and brought offerings to it, and declared it to be their God. They committed a grave sin. They couldn't say that they didn't know, because when they camped at the base of Mt. Sinai, God had Moses to gather the people together and had Moses to read the Ten Commandments, as well as instructions for building a Tabernacle as a center of worship, "Remember, you must not make or worship idols made of silver or gold or of anything else" (Exodus 20:23).
Jesus came and died that we may have life and have life more abundantly. In order that we may have eternal life, we must denounce the trappings of this old world. But how easily we, not just them, forget that we once was sinking in sin, deeply stained within, but praise our precious Savior, because He loves us so, gave His life so that we will not be eternally lost.
How easily we, not just them forget that it is God's amazing grace that keeps us everyday of our lives. How easily we forget, that we were once lost and now have been found, blind, but now we can see, all because of Jesus. How easily we forget what the Lord has done for us and what the Lord can do for us.