Exodus 32: 1-61 When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, "Come, make us gods [a] who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him." 2 Aaron answered them, "Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me." 3 So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, "These are your gods, [b] O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt." 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, "Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD." 6 So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. [c] Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
As we read in the passage above we can see that Aaron who came under the pressure of the people of Israel made them a calf out of gold and declared that it was the God who brought them out of Egypt. He then built an altar for worship and declared to the people that “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD.” And we can see that the people they all rose up early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings.
Even though we can find a declaration of a festival to the LORD and a worship happening in the above passages, Yet we can find two things that has happened.
1. The true God being replaced by other Gods- We can find this situation in our churches these days. People coming to worship, the setting of the church is same but God is missing. HE has been replaced by Idolatry like the Israelites did.
2. Worship being replaced by a play- We can see that after offering sacrifices and eating and drinking they rose to play (vs 6) not to worship. The word play means to act the part or character of in real life: to play the fool; to play God. a dramatic performance, as on the stage. It was a dramatic performance of a worship that they offered it was not the real worship. They offered all the offering as God commanded to mosses but it was not to Jehova God but it was for and idol.
3. Preparation - When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, "Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD." For every worship or a play there is a preparation required. If you are church goers and you come each Sunday to church and expect worship to happen it wont happen like that, you have to understand that there is a preparation or a consecration needed in order for the worship. And it is the same principle that applies for a play or a drama. You can never worship God beyond your frame of mind for example if you are hurt or disturbed and you preplan in your mind that you are not going to worship then you will be unable to worship because of the lack of proper reconciliations.
Keeping these few points in mind let us worship The Lord in truth and in spirit expecting greater power and presence of God. Let us choose to reconcile before approaching God so that we can worship in truth and spirit.
By ss