Powerpoint Pictures: People swapping stickers; GameBoy; iPad Mini; Nike Lebrons; ASDA Trainers; Plain Hoodie; Jack Wills Hoodie; Ferrari Enzo; Vauxhall Nova

When might you hear the words: “Got, Got, Got, God, Need!”? [When two people are swapping cards or stickers]

Do you thin the following are good swaps or bad swaps? [GameBoy for iPad Mini; Nike Lebrons for ASDA Trainers; Plain Hoodie for Jack Wills Hoodie; Ferrari Enzo for Vauxhall Nova]

In the next part of the Big Bible Adventure we see the people of Israel make a terrible swap.

God has just given the Israelites the 10 Commandments, commands about love God and loving one another, and the people responded by saying: “Everything the LORD has said we will do.” (Exodus 24:3)

However Moses remained up Mount Sinai for what seemed to be a lifetime (it was only 40 days) and at the bottom of the mountain the people of Israel became impatient. They asked Aaron to make an idol to worship (breaking both the 1st and 2nd Commandments). Out of the gold jewellery they gave him, Aaron made a golden calf that they could worship.

Do you see what they had done? They had done a bad swap!

They had swapped the real God who rescued them from Egypt and provided for them in the desert, for a pretend god that could do nothing.

God was angry at them for what they had done and told Moses that He was going to destroy them. But Moses prayed and pleaded with God not to wipe out the people by reminding God of His promise.

“Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them.” (Exodus 32:13)

Moses said to God, you’ve been keeping your promise about a great people, but what about your promise of a land for them to live in?

“Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.” (Exodus 32:14)

God is a merciful God who does do not give His people what they deserved and He is also a faithful God as He continues to keep the promises He made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

But the question still remains: “Will they ever get to the land God had promised them?”