Sabbath School lessons are part of a global study initiative undertaken by members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. As we enter the third quarter of 2025, we will explore the theme “Exodus” This week’s lesson, titled “Apostasy and Intercession” covers the period from September 06 - September 12. Join Pastor Mark Finley for a brief preview of what to expect in this week’s study.

<p>Sabbath School lessons are part of a global study initiative undertaken by members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. As we enter the third quarter of 2025, we will explore the theme “Exodus” This week’s lesson, titled “Apostasy and Intercession” covers the period from September 06 - September 12. Join Pastor Mark Finley for a brief preview of what to expect in this week’s study.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

HopeLives365

Sabbath School 3rd Quarter 2025: Exodus

Mark Finley

01 Oppression: The Background and the Birth of Moses

02 The Burning Bush

03 Rough Start

04 The Plagues

05 Passover

07 The Bread and Water of Life

08 Covenant at Sinai

09 Living the Law

10 The Covenant and the Blueprint

11 Apostasy and Intercession


Our Sabbath School lesson for this week contains powerful lessons for Christian living. Powerful lessons for you, for me, a people on the verge of the kingdom of God. The title of Lesson 11 is apostasy and intercession. Apostasy, what is it? Drifting from God's will.

Falling away from God's ideal. Going from God's purpose. Apostasy, but intercession. Israel drifts and Moses intercedes. Moses earnestly prays for the people that have worshiped around the golden calf.

This is an incredible lesson with principles for us today. So let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity to share our lesson today. What amazing truths are found in this lesson. So guide us as we study together in Jesus name, amen.

Our memory text for this week is a powerful text. Exodus chapter 32, verse 31 and 32. Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, oh, these people have committed a great sin and have made for themselves a God of gold. Yet now if you will forgive their sin, but if not, I pray blot me out of your book which you have written." What an attitude that Moses has. You know, many people would have seen Israel worshipping around the golden calf, apostatizing, drifting away, and they would have publicized Israel's sins to the world.

They would have sent it out on internet. They would have published it in digital media. They would put it in print form, they would have done everything they would have could possibly do to demean Israel. They would have said, look at the apostasy of Israel. But yet, Moses on his knees pleads for Israel.

When you see apostasy in your local church, are you more critical or are you an intercessor like Moses? Now there comes a time for rebuke, which Moses gave, obviously. But before rebuke, there is earnest prayer. And isn't Moses attitude absolutely amazing? He would rather have been blotted out of God's book than to lose his people.

That is loving concern. And when people know that you love them, they're willing to make changes in their life. So let's jump right into this important lesson. The first paragraph kind of intrigues me. It says, Moses had been absent from the camp of Israel for only 40 days and what happened?

God's people had turned away from him and worshipped a human made idol, a golden calf. After so many mighty signs, experiences, miracles, how could they have done that? 2 things about this that come to my mind. First, leaders must be present. If you're a leader in your family, the father of your family, you must be present.

If you're a leader in the church as an elder, you must be present. If you're a pastor, you must be present. In other words, when leaders are absent, the devil moves in powerfully to lead the individuals whom the leader is leading to compromise. Leaders presence makes a difference. The second thing that I've noticed is this.

I was fascinated by this sentence, after so many signs, experiences, miracles, how could they have done that? We so often forget. We forget what God has done in the past. You remember that marvelous statement by Ellen White, we have nothing to fear for the future, lest we forget God's leading in our past history and his teachings. So when you're tempted, grasp on to the answers to prayer that you have had by faith.

In Sunday's lesson, titled, Failed Leadership, we see Aaron yielding to the insistent pleading of the majority. We read about that in Exodus 32, verse 1 to 6. And we'll just pick up a couple verses there. It says, when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him, Come, make us gods that shall go before us. For as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.

And Aaron said to them, break off the golden earrings which are in your ears of your wives, your sons, your daughters, and bring them to me." In other words, they had already began to compromise in their dress. So all the people broke off the golden earrings, which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with an engraved tool and made a molded calf. Then they said, this is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. Now you remember, they make this golden calf.

It looks like Apis the bull. It looks like the gods of Egypt. And they make a god similar to the ones they had in Egypt and they worship around it. We have been led as God's end time people from Egypt and we're on our way to the promised land, Canaan. But Satan always wants to pull us back to Egypt, pull us back to worship the gods of Egypt, the fashions of Egypt, the amusement of Egypt, the pleasures of Egypt, the diet of Egypt.

That is Satan's great plan. The crisis demanded a leader who had the moral courage to face Israel and that crisis remains today. I love Ellen White's statement, Patriarchs and Prophets, page 316 and 317, Sunday's lesson last paragraph. Such a crisis demanded a man of firmness, decision, and unflinching courage. 1 who held the honor of God above popular favor, personal safety, or life itself.

But the present leader of Israel was not of this character. Aaron feebly remonstrated with the people, but his wavering and timidly at the critical moment only renewed them in more determined fashion. The tumult increased. A blind, unreasoning frenzy seemed to take possession of the multitude. There were some who remained true to the covenant with God, but the greater part of the people joined in the apostasy." Now, listen to this last sentence.

It speaks to you and me in leadership today. Aaron feared for his own safety, and instead of nobly standing up for the honor of God, he yielded to the demands of the multitude. He yielded to the demands of the multitude. When we listen to the multitude more than we listen to the master, we are in danger of compromising. If we learn anything from this lesson, from Sunday's lesson, it is that leaders must stand firmly for the truth and righteously for the plan of God.

In Monday's lesson, we read about idolatry and evil. You know, compromise always leads you downward. It never leads you upward. Compromise always takes 1 step. You take 1 step, then you take the next step, then you take the next step.

It's not the path to eternal life up the mountain toward heaven. It is the path downward toward perdition and destruction and eternal loss. In Exodus 32, verse 6, we read, "'Then they rose early on the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings.' Who'd they bring the burnt offerings to the idol? Who did they bring the peace offerings to the idol? And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up the play.

So they have this great feast in the presence of this idol. First, They clamor and complain. Moses is gone for 40 days. They begin to lack faith that God is leading them. That lack of faith leads them to clamor for an idol, an idol to be built like Apis the bull of Egypt.

That leads them then to worship around that idol. That leads them to a feast of debauchery as they feast around the idol. Here, in our lesson it points out the golden calf represented the Egyptian bull called Apis, we've mentioned that, or the cow god called Hathor. This was a blatant transgression of the first and the second commandments. Now, look at this situation.

Here the creation order is reversed. Instead of worshipping the creator, they worship an object of his creation. Instead of understanding that they had been created in God's image, they now make a God, not even in their own image, that had been bad enough, but in the image of an animal. This was the God whom they wanted to serve. And this was a great sin against the God of heaven.

When you come to the New Testament in the book of Romans chapter 1, we find in verses 22 to 29 a very similar expression. Romans chapter 1, verse 22 to 29. Here, the apostle Paul speaks of people in his day, and it says, "'Professing to be wise, they became fools.' Certainly that applied to ancient Israel and people in Paul's day. They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the image made like corruptible man, and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to the uncleanness and the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves who exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who's blessed forever.

They worshiped the creature rather than the creator. Idolatry denies the theological understanding that God is God and man is man. Idolatry erases the gap between God and man and breaks the connection with him. Whether it's blatant and opens or opens something concealed in the heart, idolatry quickly ruptures our relationship with our Lord and leads in the downward moral spiral. Humanity is exalted above God in its attempt to worship an object that is not made by the hands of God, but the hands of man.

So they corrupt themselves. Moses comes back to the camp. Tuesday's lesson, Exodus 32, verse 7 and 8. Moses returns to the camp. And you'll notice what happens as Moses comes back to that camp.

Exodus 32, verse 7, verse 8. As Moses returns to the camp, the scripture says, and the Lord said to Moses, go get down. So there's a crisis and God must send his man to solve the problem of that crisis. And the Lord said to Moses, go down for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. That expression is a very remarkable expression, they corrupted themselves.

Temptation does not corrupt us. Satan even doesn't necessarily corrupt us. Satan tempts us. And as we make choices to yield to Satan's temptation, we do what? We corrupt ourselves.

It's not your genes or your genetics. It's not your heredity or your environment. It's not the people around you. When we compromise our integrity, we do what? We corrupt ourselves.

And then verse 8 says, they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molted calf and worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, this is your God, who is real, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. What foolishness. No idol brought them out of the land of Egypt. It was the God of heaven that worked those miracles for them.

Moses was to come and execute God's judgment. What are the judgments of God? God's judgment is his wrath against sin. God appeals in graciousness. God appeals in mercy.

God appeals in tender tones of love. But if we reject His love, turn our backs on His mercy, God's judgments must fall upon sin. First paragraph under Tuesday's lesson, by turning to an idol, the Israelites were in the process of divorcing themselves from the true God, the 1 who had delivered them from Egypt. The Lord squarely placed the blame on them, saying that they had corrupted themselves, even crediting this statue with having delivered them from Egypt. What a direct contradiction of what God said to them.

This denial of God's presence in mighty acts was a serious matter. Their thinking and feelings were distorted." Now you say, well, they made an idol in that day, but we don't have those idols today. Do we have idols today? What is an idol? An idol is something that replaces God.

Even though it's not right, we still worship it, often repeatedly. You see, if God is not the center of our lives, other gods will fill the place of the true God. These other gods, for example, could be fashion that becomes our idol. Could be ornamentation that 1 doesn't want to give up that becomes an idol. It could be an article of diet that becomes an idol.

It can become something that's very unhealthful, some habit that we have that becomes an idol. It can become sports that become an idol, and we become enamored with them, can't live without certain things. That we put more attention in entertainment, that becomes an idol. Spend hours a day on the internet or hours a day with Netflix or some other programs. And we are downloading and they become our idols and our mind becomes callous to the things of God.

It can become power, prestige, money can become an idol. Our position can become an idol. So our idols may not be golden calves, but the last paragraph I think puts it well. It said, What we substitute for Christ, second to last paragraph, Tuesday's lesson, what we substitute for Christ may have different appearances, pride, self-centeredness, money, power, sex, food, TV, drugs, alcohol, impure thoughts, pornography, pleasures, work, sports, family, video games, film, shopping, ideas, politics, music, position, titles, grades, and so forth. The list is no end.

We're very creative and inventive in this regard. We can turn anything that is good, beautiful, and meaningful into an idol. Idolatry is extremely dangerous. Why? Because it transforms our personality, our way of thinking, our affections, and our social life.

It changes our identity and replaces genuine personal relationships with hollow and untimely meaningless interactions that in the end cannot save us. Is there any idol that you have in your life? Something that you've placed before your relationship with Jesus. Remember what Jesus said in Colossians 3, verse 1 and 2, "'Set your affections on things above, not on things on earth, because our life is hid with Christ in God. Where are your affections?

Well, let's jump into Wednesday's lesson. God's righteous wrath. You read that in Exodus 32. What is God's righteous wrath? God's righteous wrath is wrath or judgment against sin.

God's anger is not some emotional vitriolism against us. God's anger is his condemnation of sin because he knows that sin is self-destructive, that sin will destroy us. And a loving God who cares for us so much, who cares for us so intimately, certainly does not want us to destroy ourselves. So Moses is on Mount Sinai. God says he'll destroy the rebels.

And what happens? Exodus chapter 32. And we're going to look there at the fact of Moses coming down off the mountain, Exodus 32, 15. And Moses turned and went down from the mountain, and the 2 tables of the testimony were in his hand. The tables were written on both sides, on the 1 side and on the other side they were written.

Now the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets. And when Joshua heard the noise of the people, as they shouted, he said to Moses, there's noise of war in the camp. But he said, it's not the voice of those who shout in victory, nor is it the voice of those who cry defeat, but the voice of those who sing that I hear. But it was so as they came near the camp, verse 19, that he saw the calf and the dancing. So Moses' anger became hot and he cast the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.

Then he took the calf which they had made and burned it in the fire and ground it to powder. He scattered it on the water and made the children of Israel drink of it." What a scene that must have been. Just think of the fear that came through Israel when they recognized their sin and the rebellion against God. So Moses speaks. And so Moses says to Aaron first, what did this people do to you that you have brought so great a sin upon them?

Now listen to Aaron's excuses. I mean, it's really a feeble excuse. Verse 22, so Aaron said, Do not let the anger of my Lord become hot. You know the people that they are set on evil. For they said to me, Make us gods that shall go before us.

As for this Moses man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what came of him. And I said to them, whoever has any gold, let him break it off. So they gave it to me and I cast it into the fire and this calf came out." In other words, Moses, it's not my fault. You know, I just took their earrings, Moses, and I was a good leader. I just cast it onto the fire.

Boom, this calf came out. What a feeble excuse. But isn't that what happens sometimes in our lives? We make feeble excuses for the sins that we commit, but God sees through those feeble excuses. And God, and Moses says to the camp, makes an appeal to them in verse 26 where he says whoever's on the Lord's side let him come to me and all the sons will leave I gather themselves who is on the Lord's side it's time for decision Moses said apostasy is going on long enough it's time for decision We live in a time of earth's history right now where compromise is all around us.

If this lesson teaches us anything, it teaches us this. It is time for a decision for Christ. This is no time for fooling around with religion. This is no time for playing games with Christ. This is a time to be done with compromise, to be done with the idolatry of this world, the idolatry of pagan Egypt that's all around us.

This is a time for the make eternal decisions for Christ. Thursday's lesson. God speaks. There's a tremendous slaughter in Israel. And Moses appeals to God.

He says, God, cut, don't cut my people off. And look at Moses' prayer. We read it earlier, but he says, verse 32, now, if you will forgive their sin, But if not, I pray, blot me out of your book. The Lord says to Moses, whoever has sinned against me, I'll blot out. Now therefore go to lead this people to the place which I have spoken to you.

Behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit for punishment, I will visit punishment upon them for their sin. So the Lord plagued the people because of what they did with the calf which Aaron made." So God's justice must fall, but God would still lead his people. He would still send the angel to lead them, to guide them, to direct them. He would not forsake his people.

Those who had sinned and deeply repented for their sin would be forgiven. So today, For those who have compromised, there is forgiveness. There is grace. The angel still will lead them to the promised land. But my friend, it is a dangerous thing to trifle with the judgments of God.

It's a dangerous thing to compromise our integrity. God appeals to you today, to me, to make a full commitment to him. Let's pray. Father in heaven, from this lesson that we learned that compromise only leads us downward, It never leads us upward. Father, help us learn lessons from the golden calf to live lives of faithful obedience to the God that loves us and the God that saved us.

In Jesus' name, amen. This media was brought to you by AudioVerse, a website dedicated to spreading God's word through free sermon audio and much more. If you would like to know more about AudioVerse, or if you

Back to Menu

Series

Sabbath School 3rd Quarter 2025: Exodus

11 Apostasy and Intercession

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Other Teachings in Series

01 Oppression: The Background and the Birth of Moses

22m

02 The Burning Bush

22m

03 Rough Start

24m

04 The Plagues

25m

05 Passover

25m

07 The Bread and Water of Life

22m

08 Covenant at Sinai

27m

09 Living the Law

26m

10 The Covenant and the Blueprint

27m

11 Apostasy and Intercession

23m

Sound Doctrine