Part 4 of Moses Story
SCRIPTURE
Exodus 20 Old Testament
Safely on the eastern side of the Red Sea with no Egyptians behind them, the Israelites journeyed in the Sinai Peninsula Peninsula until they were at the base of Mount Sinai. All that region is Egypt today. Once there, Moses climbed several time up and down the mountain, the whole time God was speaking to him Moses received ten commands, which God wrote on two stone tablets. Moses was gone a very long time, and the Israelites below waited impatiently and became very angry. They partied, got drunk, danced, and even worshipped a golden calf idol Aaron made! When Moses saw this, it infuriated him greatly, and rightly so, that he threw the tablets on the ground and they smashed into bits. Up the mountain Moses went again and God wrote the commands a second time. God also gave Moses detailed instructions on making an ark to carry the tablets in, a portable tabernacle to worship in, and other things that they carried along in the desert. God also had a new name, the name of Jehovah or Yahweh, which means, "I am who I am." God punished the idol worshippers though. He delayed their entrance into the promised land forty years. In these years they just keep wandering around and around in the desert.
LESSON
Do not worship idols! But what are idols today? They are not golden calves. It could be money, celebrities, power, popularity, material possessions, anything a person loves first before God. This is the first command, "Do not have any graven image..."Any number 2 is to love your neighbor as yourself.