In this sermon, Jonathan Cahn discusses the story of the golden calf from the book of Exodus. He emphasizes how the Israelites, despite being called out and chosen by God, fell into the ways of the nations by creating and worshiping a golden calf. Cahn highlights the importance of remaining separate and peculiar as God's chosen people. He warns against getting used to and accepting evil, urging listeners to keep their focus on God and not be drawn away by worldly distractions. Cahn concludes by reminding believers of their commission to be strong on earth and to follow the word of God.

Welcome to From the Pulpit in Classic Sermons. Each week we bring you a different message from some of history's greatest speakers in the Christian faith. And powerful sermons from modern preachers too. This week we have Jonathan Cahn with his message, Days of the Golden Calf. Everybody open up to the book of Exodus. Exodus chapter 32. Exodus 32 and verse 1. Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled around 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 don't know what became of him. Alright. This is the scene. Actually we were in this scene about two weeks ago when we spoke about entering God's presence, the portable mountaintop. But this is now the next part. This is where it kind of goes downhill with God's people. But God's purposes don't change. But this is what happens. He's up there, forty days. And there's thunder and there's lightning and there's smoke going on on the Mount Sinai. All the people who have come out of Egypt are now, have been watching that mountain. Moses goes up. He receives the Torah, the law. Meanwhile, the people see that Moses is not coming down. It's been over a month. A month and ten days. They said when they saw when Moses was delayed, or delayed to come down. But really Moses wasn't quite delayed. It was God's will on the mountain receiving the law, what would be marked at 613 commandments. We think there are delays, but in God's plan there's no delay. God is always working in the heavenlies with His will. God is working. God's will will happen when you think not. When you think there's a delay. As long as you're in God's will, there's no delay. Even though there are things that might not be happening in our time. You know, we get into a traffic jam and we get all bent out of shape. As if we're delayed. As if we should be somewhere else. Well, maybe you messed up. Maybe you were late. But now you're in, you got to be in God's will. You're not delayed. You have to be in, if you are with God in that car, you're not delayed. When we were in the, we were in our building. And we were running out of room in our first little building. The size of I don't know what. Just a very small portion of this room. Very, very small. The very first building, not the one in Garfield. We were in Lodot. We were running out of room. We were growing and we had this place. We found this place and we were sure it was it. And we went up to the town. And they, waiting for months, they voted it down. And it turned out that it was the day after they voted it down. Or after we got the news. The day after we went out and we found the building that would be our building. That was ten times our first size. It was nothing compared to the one we thought. And it was always there. It was there for two years. And it only, it took us losing a building three times the size of our first building. To get the one that was ten times the size. And so God was waiting. It wasn't the building that wasn't ready. It was our faith that wasn't ready. So God was not delaying something. He was working on our faith. We had to get so desperate that we would accept something that was beyond our belief first. Messiah's first coming, when he came, the timing, it was the timing that God had. It wasn't the timing of Israel. It wasn't the way they wanted it. In our lives, God is working out his will in his time. As long as we are in his will, you are not on hold. You are never on hold in God's will. There's always something to do to glorify him. Here though, they think he is delayed. And so it says, they come up to Aram and they say, Make us gods to go out before us that we may move on. This Moses is not coming down, it looks like. We don't know what happened to him. We don't know what's going on. This Moses. It's kind of like the prodigal son. Remember when he says, this, this son of yours. He speaks about his brother, but he says, this son of yours. Doesn't say my brother. This son. Well here they say, this Moses. The man who brought us out of Egypt. We don't know what happened to him. This man who brought us out of Egypt and they're going to abandon him. That ought to tell you something. This is the guy who brought down judgment. God did it through him. Open up the sea. God was with him and they're going to abandon him. He's with God. He's on the mountain. He didn't leave the mountain. He couldn't have gotten down. He's still on there. The smoke is there. They might have figured that he's dead. That he got killed up there because they're not going to go up. But all of them saw him go up. They didn't see him go down. So how could they do this? Well, people are flaky. That's a rule. Think of all that they saw. And how could they say, all that they saw. Well, think of all we've seen. And when you doubt, after all, you wrote down all the prayers God answered. The times when he just spoke to you. Remember all you have seen. And let that keep you when you're going through a tough time. When you don't see what God is doing. Remember what he did. The one who took you out of Egypt. Yeshua, Messiah, Jesus. Remember who took you out of Egypt. Remember what your life was like back then. Remember that. All the other issues are nothing. You know, ministers worrying about their ministries, financial problems, or wait a minute. Forget all that. Remember who took you out of Egypt. You know, you're worried about all that. It means nothing in the end. He's your Savior. Remember Calvary. Remember Messiah. When he asked his disciples and he said, will you leave me too? And Peter answered, well, who else? We can't leave you. Nobody else has the words of eternal life. That's the way we have to be. Here's the beginning of the Torah. The law. The Old Covenant. And already they're falling. Reveals that the law could not save. From the very beginning. The law was added, Paul said, to reveal sin. So this will be from the beginning. It shows you how it's not going to be in the Old Covenant. That's going to save anybody. Note the delay. There's a delay, and there's a fall to sin. Be very careful when you think there's a delay in your life. Be very careful when you think you're not getting what you need. What, what you need is delayed. Like for instance, I've known women who were waiting in the Lord, or, or wanted to get married so much that when it didn't happen the way they thought, they went off with the wrong person. They went off even out of the Lord. When you don't get that thing you wanted, beware. When the Israelites lost, they lost the war, they couldn't wait, they said, OK, we're going to jump ahead now. We're going to fight the next battle on our own. And they got destroyed. It's the lesson of the Master being away as well. They believe Moses is gone. We can do our own thing now. We don't have Moses. We don't have Moshe. We don't have Mo to tell us what to do now. We can do our own thing. We're going to take matters into our own hands. Beware of taking matters into your own hands. Adam and Eve, same thing. They didn't see God right there. God seemed to be away. They did their thing. The parable that Messiah gives, the Master left the servants, and the servants did as they pleased. They took over. They partied. They beat up each other. They went crazy, as if He was never coming back. So here, Moses is gone, it looks like. It looks like God is gone, which is crazy, because we don't realize He's there all the time. He's watching all the time. You're never alone. Those people were slaves in Egypt. They saw the judgment, saw the plague, saw the Red Sea, and now look at what they're doing. How can they do that? The same way we are flaky when we seek so much from God. They say to Aaron, Make us gods. Make us idols. Actually, in English, you see a double truth. Make us gods. When you make idols, you're making yourself a god. Why? You become the creator of the thing you're worshiping. So you're saying, really, it's about you. Moses failed. So we need a new leader, they think. They can't see Moses. They never could see God. They saw the signs of it. But an interesting word in Hebrew, they say, make us. The word in Hebrew is Elohim. You should all know that word. Say it. You can translate Elohim two ways. You can translate it as God, and you can translate it as gods, plural, because it's a plural word. There's only one God, but this is the awesomeness. This is where they see the triunity of God from the very beginning of the Scripture. In the beginning, God, but it's more, He's bigger than what you think, but it's one. But it's also, that same word is translated in the Bible in different contexts of gods. When it speaks of the gods, Elohim. So it's either going to be, it means God in His majesty, or it means God's idols. So you've got to always have a choice. It's either God in His majesty, or gods and idols. It looks very similar, so be careful. Are you looking at Elohim God, or have you started looking at Elohim idols in your life? Whatever you serve, that's your God. Whatever you most delight in, that's your God, or your idol. Whatever is your real motive, that's your God. Your real focus, God. Your real ultimate thing, that's it. What are you really living for, that's your God. What is your God? Your Elohim, the one or many things in your life. Here they make it to Sinai by God, and they're saying, but we're going to continue on our own. Who has seen such a thing, God says, when He looks at this? He says, who has even heard of this, where a nation exchanges its gods? No nation exchanged gods. They came up with their own, pretty much. They came up with their own gods, so they didn't, but God was real, Israel, so Israel actually is exchanging its God. Verse 2, And Aaron said to them, What, are you crazy? How could you be doing this? No, he didn't. That's what he should have said. He said, tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, they wore rings too, and your daughters, and bring them to me. Aaron, how could you? Aaron, who saw everything, how could he do that? Then all the people tore off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. They willingly give up their treasures and their jewelry for their new God. Verse 4, And he took this from their hand and fashioned it with a carving tool and made it into a molten calf. The golden calf. Israel is descending to the ways of the nations. Here they're given the covenant, they're called out, Be peculiar, I've called you separate, different from all the nations of the world. A holy royal priesthood who brought you out of Egypt. How could they do it? Verse 5, He built an altar before the calf. And Aaron made a proclamation, a proclamation. Tomorrow shall be a festival, a feast to the Lord. A proclamation. Verse 6, So the next day, they rose early and offered burnt offerings and brought shalom, peace offerings. The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. They rose early. That's a word for, it denotes zeal for sin. So picture this scene here. Imagine being there and seeing it. Imagine you are in the camp. Imagine you are one of the Israelites taken out of Egypt and you watch this happening. I want you to remember this scene. Because we are now going to open up an entirely different realm. A prophetic realm. The key here, the tablets, the law. Moses will look down and see this happening. And as he sees it happening, he will take those tablets of the law and smash them. And we see two pictures going on here. One on the top of the mountain, the other on the bottom. On the bottom of the mountain, we see apostasy. We see a people falling away from their God. We see a people in gross, gross debauchery. And on the top of the mountain, we see holiness. We see God's presence. And we see the law. And we see Moses then smashing those tablets. We have the tablets on one hand. We have the golden calf on the other. The one is the opposite of the other. The golden calf is built in the absence of God and His law. And the tablets are smashed because of the golden calf. They cannot go together. They go against, they war against each other. And we are going to see in this a prophetic revelation. Amazing. Of what's happening right now before our eyes. Western civilization was founded, birthed, not only in Greece as you hear, Rome as you're taught, but most centrally in spirit in Israel. It was all crystallized and born, adopted from Israel. The idea of a chosen people, a covenant people. Western civilization has this built into it. It's DNA. America was born within that. And even more so. Americans, the founders of this nation, the pilgrims, the Puritans, they saw this new civilization as a new Israel. Coming out of bondage from the old world. The old world was like Egypt to them. John Winthrop, one of the founders called the grandfather of America, coming on the ship, the Arbella, coming to New England with a Puritan called the Exodus of the Puritans. He wrote that America would be a city on a hill. The nations of the world would look to it. And he quoted from Deuteronomy. He quoted from Moses the same words that Moses gave Israel as they were about to enter the promised land. He based his message to the first, the founders of America, on Moses' word to Israel. The first proposed seal of the United States drafted by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson was an image of the Exodus. America as crossing the Red Sea and leaving the old behind. America was parallel to Israel. Its ethics, its morality, its system of law largely founded on the laws of Moses. There were even laws of the colonies of some of the states that mentioned the law, but one said the law of Moses will be our law. As with Israel, the founders of this civilization, they saw America as in covenant with God. The difference was, the one who was their redeemer was not Moses, but was Messiah. Moses was a foreshadow of him anyway. John Winthrop gave a warning to America. He said, if America followed God, it would be the most blessed nation on earth. If it turned away from God, it would become the most cursed nation on earth. We're going to see from this scene from the mountain of Sinai, a prophetic revelation that's going to explain what is happening in Western civilization today, global civilization, and America in particular. Let's go back now. Let's look at just those first verses here and see what it uncovers. We're going to do more in the future. This is an opening. Very important here. Verse 1. When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled around Aaron and said, come make us a God who will go out before us as for this Moses, this man who brought us out of Egypt, we don't know what happened to him. When they saw, there was a delay. George Washington, on his inauguration, gave warning, told the nation this. He said, no people are bound to acknowledge the hand of God more than America. He has been with us in everything that happened. And he said, and I paraphrase, if the nation rejects the ways of God, God will withdraw his favor from the land. Moses went up, left his people. 2,000 years ago, Messiah went up. He ascended. Israel was told to be holy and wait for the return of Moses. Messiah told his disciples, I'm coming back. I will come back. Be ready. From this came Western civilization and so all of Western civilization was based originally on Messiah and that he's coming back. It was called a Christian civilization. That was certainly the foundation. In Exodus, it seemed like Messiah was delayed in his coming down. The people of Israel, in that delay, turned to apostasy. So, what we are watching now in the world, this whole Western civilization, Europe and all that, the delay of Messiah, what seems to be the delay of his coming, and it's even spoken about. People say, where is the promise of his coming? Has led to a turning away and apostasy that we are watching throughout the world. A rise of secularism. It's the 20th century that saw things that would never happen before. It's because it was 20 centuries where Messiah had not yet returned. You saw the rise of atheism. The rise of communism. The rise of fascism. The rise of Nazism. The rise of all these things. The longer the delay, the greater the potential for apostasy among those who stop waiting. And we've seen the horrors of it as man declares himself God. We see that in the Holocaust. Verse... Actually, we can start right... America was born, founded, everything on God. The school system was founded to teach the Bible. The government was founded to carry out the gospel originally. All seen as a covenant with God. But we have watched a progressive turning away. There have been revivals. There are revivals. God's spirit is alive and well among his people. But the mainstream culture has turned progressively away from God. One of the turning points was the 1960s. Prayer was removed from school. The Bible was removed from school. That's a nation removing prayer and the Bible from its future and we are reaping the fruits of it now. It's not just that one act. It's that that was symbolic. That was an epitome. The nation began removing God from its public life. 1963. Right after these two things were removed, we watched the assassination of a president. Years of unrest, violence. America lost its first war. A moral slide. Something called a sexual revolution. New morality. Things we are reaping now. A decline in virtually all factors of well-being for about three decades or so. A decline in America's power relative to the world. Actually, I'm not going to get into it today, but you know the last eight years, America's relative economic power has declined drastically with regard to the rest of the world. America was in a sense founded on the moral foundation of the Bible, Ten Commandments. Even up to the 1960s was still deeply affected by it. America was founded on the same law given to Israel. In fact, the images of the Ten Commandments, this scene here, or the Ten Commandments or Moses giving them are actually engraved or painted or sculpted in the halls of Congress or in Washington in several buildings. The law, the Bible, was seen as the foundation. But as here in this scene the people turn away from that, so America also. In 1980, something happened. There's a case that came to the Supreme Court involving the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments was put on trial. Can you imagine? The case was called, interesting enough, Stone v. Graham. Imagine the Ten Commandments on trial. The Supreme Court. Supreme Court ruled that to post the Ten Commandments now in the school system, in a classroom, anywhere in a classroom or so was unconstitutional. Not to mention the fact that it's posted in government. But even this opened up a door where the Ten Commandments was removed from or images of it were removed from public places beyond the school as well. It was struck down and listen to what the reason was. The reason was students may be induced to venerate and possibly even obey the Ten Commandments. God forbid. Students might actually be induced to obey the commandments that say don't steal, don't lie, don't covet, don't commit adultery, don't murder. God forbid. The students should be so affected by this. And so what have they replaced it with? So American civilization took a turn, crossed a critical juncture, began removing the Ten Commandments from its public square, public life, school system and thus from its future. And even that has produced the harvest we are reaping now. I mean that's all part of it. The warning, actually this was actually at Sinai we see a war against the Ten Commandments. Began at Sinai with a calf versus the tablets or the way of God. And it started here in America the case of Stone versus Graham. America was doing the same thing. And it's going to give us a prophetic revelation of what's happening. See Moses was delayed it says but we know not really but that's how it was to them. Therefore make us gods. So in the delay of the Lord's coming or what seems to be a delay but not really America has turned increasingly away. The obliteration of the Ten Commandments is always linked to a golden calf. Let me say that again. When the Ten Commandments are put away it is always linked to a golden calf. What does that mean for America? What does that mean to America? It's an amazing thing. The Constitution itself they said it's unconstitutional. The Constitutional I've reminded you says on it in the year of our Lord. That's even more than the Declaration of Independence because it's saying it's not only saying the Lord it's saying He's our Lord. Who? Buddha? No. Muhammad? No. Who is our Lord? It's saying Jesus, Yeshua is the Lord of America. That's what the Constitution says. But increasingly moving away notice what they said. They said this Moses not Moses not our Moses but this Moses. You know what that means? That's putting a distance. This Moses. That's what it's doing. That's exactly what is happening in America. It used to be I said the year of our Lord. Our Lord. Then it becomes the Lord. Then it becomes this Lord. It was A.D. You know what they're trying to do? They're trying to move it to C.E. which means before the common era or C.E. the common era. Common era of what? There's nothing. What are you doing? You're still dating it to his birth. But trying to get him out of it. Just like you do at Christmas. Try to get him out of his own birth. When Newsweek or Time Magazine speak of him they do articles of him and they do it about twice a year. They actually increase their circulation when they do it usually. They write of him as not Jesus anymore but as this Jesus. I'm not saying they use the word. That's the way they talk about him. This thing. When they talk about Christians it's not about this is what we are. It's the Christians. This group. When you look at the New York Times from 1940s I looked it over. I found they had special pages where on Sunday or Monday they would reproduce the sermons preached in the city. New York Times had a whole page of summing up all the sermons that they could in the city. Can you imagine that today? I mean if a newspaper did it today you'd say well that's a Christian newspaper. But that was the New York Times. The whole nation was like that. Now it's this. It used to simply be our faith, the faith, faith. Now it's this faith as opposed to other faiths. Same way it's happening this principle, this Moses principle is happening. It's happening to marriage. It used to simply be marriage. Now it's heterosexual marriage. It's this kind of marriage. It's no longer marriage. It is this particular kind of that. You see what's happening? This Moses. This Jesus. Before it was unquestioned. It was simply Moses, simply Jesus. This was the pillar. You didn't never question that. They're falling away from their identity. So is America. And what happens when those commandments or the way of God is pushed out? When you replace Moses replacing God's presence with an idol. When God goes out, when Moses goes out, when the way of God goes out, you can be sure the golden calf comes in. As America rules out Messiah. Rules out God from its public life. Rules out His name. It creates a vacuum. A spiritual vacuum which must be filled in. With what? With idols. Things you can touch. Things you can see. It's no accident. This principle is so crucial. No accident. As America rules out God, it's no accident that it is ruling in idolatry. What does that mean? It means the culture becomes increasingly carnal. It becomes increasingly materialistic. It becomes increasingly a sensory overload. It's got to fill in that spiritual emptiness with bombardment of images, of sounds, of sensory, multiplicity of media. More pervasive than ever. Houses, children are being bombarded by things never to that degree before. Not just television, iPods, internet, computers, a million things. And I'm not saying that they're wrong. But what I am saying is what is happening is America's becoming addicted to the sensual. That's exactly what this reveals. Some people might hear, might be text messaging right now. When you should be in communion with God. Replacing time of prayer with a carnal, the worship of money, greed. More time spent pursuing money, pursuing entertainment, than going after God. You know how, you know, someone wrote to, you know how often you could have read the Bible through and through. You know, some of you, if you stopped, you cut down on the television, how much you could have done the Bible, how much you could have been on the mountaintop with God. How much God could have blessed your life. Israel forgot where it came from. America has forgotten where it came from. The rejection of Moses, the rejection of God in America, the rejection of Jesus, Yeshua and God. There's no neutrality. It's a, you can watch it in western civilization. When Russia turned away from God, it entered into a period of such darkness. Marxism, Leninism, in Europe, fascism, never neutral. It never will be. It should be, but it's not, because there's a spiritual thing going on. So when you turn away from God, it always leads to something else, not nothing. It always leads to some other form of worship, even though people don't realize they're worshiping. And it leads to evil. The rejection of Messiah's presence, out of everything, out of Christmas, out of everything, out of trying to take him out of his own thing, has brought in gods, gods of the media, gods of greed, gods of sensuality, gods of selfism, gods of addiction, of gain, of comfort, of status. Sunday was once a day you had laws throughout America that you did not buy or sell on Sunday. Now I'm not saying that's the answer. And Sunday's not the Sabbath. It's the Lord's Day, but it said something. They said, listen, we don't want to be interrupted, we don't want our worship to be interrupted by anything like this, by buying and selling. And there's a reason why that's been undone, because America's saying, you know what, forget that, the buying and selling is more important to us. We're even believers, and I'm not saying you're in sin for buying or selling, I'm not saying that, but even believers are being continuously torn by the world, where at one point the world wasn't even. From Elohim, big E, Elohim, to Elohim, little gods, the worship of one's own hand, an idol, a culture turned away from God's presence, increasingly to idols at the bottom, the base things, the base of the mountain, base things, instead of the high things. More and more away from the invisible to what you see, the worship of celebrities, the worship of self, the legal system saying, you know what, we're above God. The Supreme Court saying, we're supreme, above God, we can strike down His laws, we are above. The state saying, we are above God, we can legislate God out of existence if we deem. We, the state saying, we have charged, or even the children, more and more a move, even the United Nations as well, a move for states and governments to say the children belong to us, not to the barons. The carnal greed. America has led the world now into an economic collapse. What do you think was behind it? A God was behind it. What God? A God of greed. Wall Street, each one trying to make more money, cutting corners, doing things that were questionable and unethical. This Ponzi scheme thing, billions and billions of dollars. You know, this guy had people give him billions of dollars. But they also wanted as much money as they could get. I'm not saying that's always wrong, it depends on what you're why and what you're doing, but this was just a pursuit of money after money without morality, money. Turns out they just discovered the last few days, for the last 15 years or so, he didn't even invest it in anything. He just took the money. What do you do with 50 billion dollars? Where is it? They're not sure. He misplaced it. Maybe it's in the mattress. 50 billion dollars! You'd think he'd be content. That's more than nations make. You'd think he'd be content with one billion, that's enough, that's a thousand millions. Called the Ponzi scheme. Everything's based on something that, money keep coming in to fuel the light. Well, it almost seems like the whole financial system in the last few years was as a Ponzi scheme. Now is the day of reckoning. God said, you want to worship the almighty dollar? We'll see how almighty it is. Entertainment, the work of man's hands becoming more infused with idolatry, with profanity. The glory of God is removed. And as the word of God is spurned, everything becomes relative. Right and wrong means nothing. Man makes up his own values, man changes, redefines anything he wants because man becomes the ultimate God. We're going to see more in the future days. We'll explain what's happening right now. We're watching because, but you've got to understand this. There's a direct connection between the removing of the Ten Commandments as a sign and the morphing, the transforming of America from a, quote, Christian civilization to a, quote, post-Christian pagan civilization. We're going to see that in every commandment its removal is linked to triggering a wave of changes in America. It's no accident. If those who founded this civilization on the word of God would come back today, they would be, they would be shocked. They would be nauseous. They just see the civilization that they put on the Ten Commandments, or God's way, the gospel, becoming increasingly a civilization of a golden calf, worshipping a golden calf. And it makes sense. If you had a house, a family, and they always had the Ten Commandments on their door, on their door, and one day they suddenly, they decide to take it down, you'd say, what's going on here? Why would they remove it? Why would they remove thou shalt not commit adultery? Well, maybe there's adultery going on. Because it doesn't line up anymore. Because it's morphing, it's changing. It doesn't line up with the standard. Because now it's going to commit adultery. That's what's happening in America. You see, if you're not lining up with the standard, instead of saying, you know, we've got to repent, instead, let's take down the standard. So it's removing the standard that convicts it, because why would it remove thou shalt not covet? Because it's going to start coveting more than ever now. Why remove thou shalt have no other gods? Because we're going to have other gods now. We're going to have idols. That is exactly what we're watching. The mountain, the deliverer, is spurned. And the camp at the bottom of the mountain dances and increasingly debases itself and goes lower and lower. It's exchanged the living God for an American idol. In future days, we're going to explore this more, but I want to bring this to you now. I want to bring this to us. Because we're here. And we want you to be prepared always in the last days. This is a dynamic that's happening. We shouldn't be shocked, because the Bible says it. But let's take it home. We are end-time believers. How can we live in such days and overcome? Days of, which is this called, the days of the golden calf, based on the rejection of God's Word. Well, this in the same way is going to give us a glimpse of how to overcome. When a culture turns away from His Word, it turns to idols. But those who stood against it back then, see, not everybody was running around with a golden calf. Not everybody was doing this. There were people who stayed, and they were faithful. They were faithful to God, and they were faithful to wait until He returned, until Moses came down that mountain. They kept the faith. They held on. They had to say, you know what? I'm not changing. I'm not changing what is God's for what's going around me. I don't care if the majority does it. I don't care if they make it a law at the bottom of the mountain. I don't care if they set up their own government and say, now you've got to worship the golden calf. I don't care. Do what you want. I'm holding to what I know. They kept the faith. They kept the hope, and they kept the Word. They reminded themselves, Moses who went up is coming down again. And when he comes down, I want to be faithful at his return. You in the last days, you're going to prevail by being, staying vigilant in God. Reminding ourselves, our Messiah has gone up, just as surely He will come down, and we want to be faithful on that day. The Master is away, the Master will return, and you must keep His way. If the rest of the world goes off, it doesn't matter. Don't question it. Don't start questioning just because the majority, you know, I'm seeing some believers, I mean, I don't know what they are, but people who all of a sudden, they're questioning, well, I don't know, maybe it's not wrong. What is that? What would you do if you were living under Hitler? You'd do the same thing. Well, the Nazis forget that. Be strong. Be made of something that's going to hold up. If you're going to stand, you've got to hold on to what you know. Hold on to the Word that God has given you. Hold on to the salvation that God has put in your life. Hold on to what you know of your God who has been faithful to you. Hold fast and do not change the unchangeable things. If the world turns away from the Word, you must all the more turn to the Word and away from the world. If the Word says, all the more, we're going to go farther away, you must do all the more and say, Lord, help me to keep your Word. If the system of this world and culture spurns these things, you're going to be those who say, Lord, I want to even more obey this Word than I have before. I want to walk it more than I have before. I want to meditate on it. I want to be strong, Lord. Because I'm not getting it from this world. The world is doing the opposite. I have to be stronger in you. You've got the idol on one side, you've got the Word on the other. The Word wars against the idol. The idol wars against the Word. You spend all your time watching the world, watching television, getting involved in it, you're going to be drawn from the Word. But if you spend time, you're in the Word, you're living the Word, following the Word, you're not going to be bowing down to idols. Don't get used to it. I don't care if the golden calf is there. You know, after a while, the golden calf was there. You can get used to it. Don't get used to what is evil. Don't, don't, don't accept it just because it's there. Don't accept it just because everybody does. Don't condone it. Don't become jaded by it. Don't become obsessed with it or focused on it. Keep your eyes lifted up to the mountain, to the heavenlies, where our Redeemer is. You've got to be strong on earth. He gave a commission to us when He left this world. He gave a commission. And we need to do that. It's not just stay strong. It's do His will. Move ahead. Advance. When you see these things, though, lift up your eyes. Your redemption draws near. Don't get discouraged by the world. But stay unbowed. You know, we are to bow to God, but we are to be the most unbowed people when it comes to any idol. That's, you know, what defines a believer? You bow to God. But what defines a believer equally is you do not bow down to Haman. You don't bow down to the idol in Babylon, like Daniel. You will not bow down to that. I will not follow this thing. Let everybody follow it. I will not. Though the world, though none go with me, still I will follow. Stay rooted, grounded. The Bible says, I pray you be rooted, grounded with God. I've got a higher authority. They have that commercial, you know, some of you remember it, Hebrew National, have Uncle Sam with a hot dog saying, but we have to answer to a higher authority. Well, we have to answer to a higher authority. You are accountable to a higher authority. That's a good thing. Remember, the only thing that matters is you making Him smile. Your Redeemer is coming back. Woe to those, you know, when Moses came down that mountain. Woe to those who were found worshipping that golden calf. I mean, I don't even know how Aaron got out of that. I don't know. But woe to those who are worshipping that golden calf. Woe to those who are found that day having been not faithful. Woe to those who are found worshipping God, as the Lord can come at any moment, and you know, even if He doesn't come at the moment, you think, you know, your life can stop at any moment, and you want to be found faithful on that day. But blessed are they who remain faithful. Blessed are you who remains faithful to your Master. You, to be the good and faithful servant that He says, well done, my good and faithful servant. You held out. You held strong when you didn't see. You trusted Me when you didn't see. And you did My will, and you would not bow to Baal, but you stood for Me. Blessed are those, you who do His Word, who believe His Word, who keep His ways, who serve His will, who bear His witness, who glorify His name. For you will be found that you have stood strong in the last days, in the days of the golden calf. Great will be your reward when your Master returns. Amen. Let's close our eyes for a moment. Let's just stay where we are. Let's just close our eyes for a moment. Father, we praise You. Bless You. I ask You, seal this Word right now on our hearts. Seal this Word. Father, we ask that You would, Lord, make us strong. You know, Lord, what we are dealing with. This Word is a Word for the end-time believer. And Lord, You know what we are dealing with. You know each one here. You know the temptations. You know, Lord, what we each are confronted with. You know, Lord, what we are, Lord, weakened and where we're strong. And Lord, we ask right now that You would make us stronger. We want to be stronger. Lord, we do not want to succumb to the ways of the world. We do not want to dance to a tune that is not You. We do not want to bow to an idol of gold. We want to be strong in You all the more. More than before. More than before. Lord, we want to be faithful. Lord, make us strong. And Lord, this day, we commit, Lord, to be, Lord, more rooted and grounded in You. Father, help us, each one of us, to be more faithful and true than we have been. And whatever, there's something in our life we've been flirting with. Something we've given ground to. Lord, we rebuke it. We cast it out. We rebuke even the hint of it. Even the trace of it. Lord, anything. Lord, whatever that is, an indulgence, says even a trace of sexual immorality. We rebuke it. Lord, of carnality, we rebuke it. Of a habit that wastes our time, that drains us instead of drawing us closer to You. Lord, we want to be up the mountain. We want to be on the mountain. We want to be unpolluted. We want to be with You on the top. Lord, each of us, when we go home, we want to be on the mountain. When we're here in worshipping, we want to do so with all our hearts on the mountain. We want to be filled up with Your Word and Your Spirit so that we do not seek to be filled by anything of this earth. Lord, make us strong that we can make a difference. That we can make a difference in this day. And we praise You and bless You and love You and lift You up. Ah, Lord, we just give You glory. Lord, have Your way with us, and whatever needs to be, make it so. While our eyes are closed. If you don't know right now 100% where you're spending eternity, you need to know. If you're not sure, the Bible says you must be born again. If you're not sure you are, you need to be. There's only one way of salvation. It doesn't matter if you're Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, whatever you are. The only thing that matters is that you're saved. And the only way to be saved, Jesus Himself said, you must be born again or you're not. There's only two roads you can go on. One road leads to eternal life. The other road leads to eternal death, destruction, judgment forever. That's what hell is. That's separation from God forever. That's the judgment of sin. And if you're not born again, that's the road you're on. But God loves you. His will is to give everything. He gave everything for you that you'd be saved from that. But the only way to be saved is that door. You must be born again in His holy presence, His love that's reaching down to you right now. If you're not 100% sure that right now you're born again, if you're not 100% sure, this is for your sake, for your life, for your eternity. You got a heartbeat that can stop tomorrow, that can stop this moment. And once it stops, that's eternity. So with our eyes closed, if you're not sure right now, if you're right with God, if you're not sure you're going to be with Him forever, a thousand years from now, you're going to be somewhere. If you're not sure it's with Him, pray with me right now. If you're not sure you're right with God, maybe you've prayed before. Maybe you've known God, but you've been out of His will. You're in danger of succumbing to what's on the bottom. And God is calling you up. Or maybe God is just calling you to a deeper thing now. You love God, but He's calling you to be stronger now, to a higher level, higher plane. If that's any of you, whoever you are, whichever one it is, pray with me now. The Bible says, if you confess with your mouth, believe in your heart, you shall be saved. So whatever, just however you need to pray, pray with me right now. God is calling you. Just repeat the words in a whisper, mean it in your heart right now. Say, Yes, Lord. You're saying, Yes, Lord. Have your way in my life, and I'm following you. So let's pray together. Just repeat, just with our eyes closed, just whisper in a whisper, just say the words and repeat after me. Mean it in your heart. The Bible says, confess with your mouth, believe in your heart. So let's pray together. God is calling you, and He will not reject you if you come, but don't let salvation pass you by, or don't let God's calling you to a higher ground pass you by. Let's pray right now. Just repeat after me in a whisper. Lord God, I come to you now. I open my heart. I want to be strong. I want to be holy. I want to be the person you made me to be. And I am willing to follow you with all my heart. I turn away from the past. I put away everything of darkness. Lord, I thank you for loving me, giving your life for me, conquering death so I could be saved. And I truly make you the Lord of every part of my life, my heart. I will follow you from this moment on, truly with all my heart, as your disciple. Lead me on from this moment. Wash me, cleanse me, forgive me, fill me with your spirit and your grace. I praise you. I receive, Lord, of you into my heart. And thank you, Lord, that you receive me. And I can say, you are my God. I'm yours. You are mine. You are my Lord, and I'm your disciple. I make you Lord of every part of my life. Thank you, Lord. By your word, your promise, I can say, I am born again. I am saved. I'm received. I'm forgiven. I have eternal life, and I'll be with you always. Lead me to victory, a life and walk of victory that I might be faithful. And you might say, well done, my good and faithful servant. I thank you, Lord, in the name above every name, the name of my Redeemer, Jesus. In his name I pray. Lead me on as I follow you from this moment as your disciple in all the days of my life. In his holy name I pray. And I say, amen and amen. You've been listening to the From the Pulpit in Classic Sermons series. This week you heard Jonathan Cahn with his message, Days of the Golden Calf. Tune in next week to hear Reinhard Vonke talk about the blood of Jesus on From the Pulpit in Classic Sermons.