Bible Study Seattle

“Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about 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 do not know what has become of him.”  Exodus 32:1

Since Moses was so long before coming back… Jesus has also been a long time before coming back.  So the people made an idol.  A similar thing happened with Christians.  Since Jesus was so delayed coming back, they made elaborate church organizations, complete with popes who declared themselves the vicar of Christ.  This apostasy reached its height in the twelfth or thirteenth centuries.  The corruption got so bad that eventually reformers called attention to it.

“It came about, as soon as Moses came near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses’ anger burned, and he threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain.  He took the calf which they had made and burned it with fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it over the surface of the water and made the sons of Israel drink it.”  Exodus 32:19-20

At the height of the commotion, Moses asked who would be willing to put down the insurrection.  The Levites rallied to the cause:

“Now when Moses saw that the people were out of control—for Aaron had let them get out of control to be a derision among their enemies— then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me!” And all the sons of Levi gathered together to him.  He said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Every man of you put his sword upon his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate in the camp, and kill every man his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his neighbor.’”  So the sons of Levi did as Moses instructed, and about three thousand men of the people fell that day.  Then Moses said, “Dedicate yourselves today to the Lord—for every man has been against his son and against his brother—in order that He may bestow a blessing upon you today.”  Exodus 32:25-29

Will God call on Christians to kill in an insurrection?  Will this be the case when the Lord comes,

“See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”  Jude 1:14-15

““Come, gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and the mighty, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, great and small.”  Revelation 19:17-18