Exodus 32:1-14 New Revised Standard Version
32 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; 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.” 2 Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.” 6 They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.
7 The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; 8 they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” 9 The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 10 Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”
11 But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with 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 consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14 And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
Recently Netflix released a documentary/drama called The Social Dilemma, the movie talks about in their words, "the dangerous human impact of social networking.” In the movie they interviewed technology experts and former executives of all the social media companies. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, and so on, and so on. What they say is that the algorithm, the mathematical equation used to track and predict your behavior on social media, has had some negative consequences. The goal of the algorithm is to keep the device in your hand as long as possible. The negative consequence is that people get addicted to the like, the comments, the tags, the shares, the notifications. Social media did not start with the intention of getting people addicted but as the algorithms progressed, these things evolved into something addictive. The goal of every social media platform is to keep your face in front of that device, continuously scrolling, the social media companies have figured out how to keep on longer is by showing you only what you want to see, regardless of if it is true or not, and then the companies sold that time to advertisers. What has happened because of this is that people have become more divided, more prone to argue, and not even see the other side as human. People get caught up in their own little echo chambers and don’t believe anything outside of it. Everything that doesn’t fit your view of life is wrong and now you have people who don’t know each other, and certainly wouldn’t talk like that to each other’s faces cussing each other out over the internet across multiple apps. The algorithm has created echo chambers where people only hear what makes them feel good, and the wrong people have taken advantage of it. In The Social Dilemma all these tech experts and former executives talk about the dangers of these social echo chambers that are created, where people only hear what they want to hear.
The people of God experienced some negative consequences of an echo chamber in Exodus. Moses had gone up the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights to talk to God. That left the people down at the bottom of the mountain on their own to do what they wanted. The text in verse 6 they rose up to revel, the people had their fill, they self-indulged, some translations say they rose up to play. They did what they felt like doing.The people wanted a god to thank for getting them out of Egypt and because Moses took too long talking to God for their tastes, they went to Aaron and asked him to make a God, and Aaron did it. Was he trying to play both sides? Was he jealous of Moses? The people started talking among each other and got riled up, and no one was there to stop them, or if they were, the people were not paying attention. A lot going on there but once the golden calf was made, everybody said that this golden calf, and not Yaweh was the one who brought them out of Egypt. The Israelites were caught in their own echo chamber with miss-information, it caused them to make some horrible mistakes. The people of God had violated the first and second commandments, I and the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, you shall have no other gods before be, and the second about not making carved images to worship. The people of God violated the first and second commandments and threw a party to do it. The people of God had built an echo chamber without Moses and started spreading the fake news that the golden calf brought them out of Egypt. They did it so much that even Aaron was spreading the fake news too. God saw this going on and got mad, God said he was about to destroy them all and start over, God was going to give the promise he gave Abraham, over to Moses. It was not looking good for the people all because they started to believe what they wanted to believe and nothing else. It is amazing to watch people get caught up in that kind of behavior.
The President tweeted, posted on his own twitter account that he was going to hold off on stimulus package negotiations until after the election. One of my friends quoted the President’s tweet on Facebook and one of her friends, I use the term loosely there immediately commented, in all caps, “this is Demon Democrats lies and propaganda” people have been in their echo chambers for so long that anything they don’t like has to be fake news. I have posted articles, and people have come on my page questioning the validity of the article because of what news source I posted. I have heard people say if it didn’t come from Fox News I don’t believe it. I would encourage people to look for a memo titled a plan for putting the GOP on the news. It is a memo written in the 70s to President Nixon about how to get a news source out there that reported what the GOP the Republican Party wanted the people to hear. Fox News followed this plan and started reporting what certain people wanted to hear and doubled down on that. Other news stations like CNN and others doubled down on what their people wanted to hear, so now everyone only trusts the news that comes from their favorite source and everything else is a lie, even when all the news sources report the same thing. People still believe their source tells the truth and everyone else is lying.
People have created their own echo chambers and had their fill of what they want and what they like and began to believe it. Some websites and advertisers have doubled down on this and intentionally spread miss-information because the miss-information brings more people to see what they are talking about, brings more advertising, brings more engagement. Fake news spreads 6 times faster than the truth. Being influenced by fake news is why someone would believe that Comet Ping Pong, a Pizzeria in Washington D. C. was a front for a pedophile ring and go bust into it with semi-automatic rifles. Thank God that man was arrested before anyone was seriously hurt. Being influenced by fake news and your own little echo chamber is how some people in Michigan could decide they have had enough of the Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s protocols for COVID-19 and try to by weapons and explosive looking to kidnap and kill the Governor. Thank God that the FBI stopped the plan before they could complete it. Allowing something to influence you to the point that it takes over your life is dangerous. I understand the irony of coming onto a social media app to talk about the dangers of social media. But I believe this is a tool, a tool that can help me spread the word of God faster and farther than I ever could physically by myself. But tools are neither good nor bad, it is how you use it that matters, and where you place your value. Value...The people of God had gold, how did they get it?
Exodus 12:35-36 New King James Version
35 Now the children of Israel had done according to the word of Moses, and they had asked from the Egyptians articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing. 36 And the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they granted them what they requested. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.
It was the favor of the Lord who got them this Gold, the same Lord that brought them out of Egypt and now they are saying God did’t do it. Money can’t open red seas And have them walk on dry land, God can. We have to know where our help really comes from if we don’t want to get caught up in the echo chamber being influenced by the wrong stuff. Moses realized that when he was talking to God. You see a good leader thinks about the welfare of the people they have to lead and not just themselves. God had just offered Moses a pretty big promise in giving him the promise that he gave Abraham but Moses focused on the people. Moses didn’t say sucks for you down there, I am about to come up, Moses pleaded for the welfare of his people.
First off Moses reminded God of what God said, when you are talking to God it is a good idea to bring up what God said. When you pray it is a good idea to get some scripture in that prayer if you can. I know sometimes all you can get out might be a Lord have mercy, or a help me Jesus, but in your other prayer time it might be helpful to be like Moses and say what God says instead of saying what you want. The prophet Isaiah learned that in Isaiah 55:11 when God said that his word does not return void. Joshua understood in Joshua 1:8 when God told him to keep the Book of Law on his lips and meditate on it day and night. Timothy had something to say about it in 2nd Timothy 3:16 when he said that all scripture is inspired by God and full of truth. What is in scripture, what is in the Word of God will come to pass. Moses used God’s word to keep God from wiping out the people.
Secondly Moses pointed out that the Egyptians were still watching. Moses brought up that the Egyptians would have said the Israelite God brought them out of Egypt just so he could kill them himself. I say this time and time again, as believers we are the only Bible some people will ever read, and the only sermon some people will ever hear. You have to watch how you treat people, as a believer you are someone’s definition of a Christian. The Egyptians were watching then, the whole world is watching now. Do you think they want to know more about your God based on your behavior? Do you think they want to know about Jesus Christ and the pardoning of their sins based on how you act as a Christian?
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