We are called to live by faith; we can see nothing with the eye of sense. Jesus is gone up on high, and we are told to wait patiently for His appearing. God's word, carried home to the heart in the energy of the Holy Ghost, is the ground of confidence in all things--temporal and spiritual, present and future. He tells us of Christ's completed sacrifice; we, by grace, believe, and commit our souls to the efficacy thereof, and know we shall never be confounded. He tells us of a great High-Priest, passed into the heavens--Jesus, the Son of God, whose intercession is all-prevailing; we, by grace, believe, and confidingly lean upon His ability, and know we shall be saved to the uttermost. He tells us of the living Head to whom we are linked, in the power of resurrection life, and from whom we can never be severed by any influence, angelic, human, or diabolical; we, by grace, believe, and cling to that blessed Head in simple faith, and know we shall never perish. He tells us of the glorious appearing of the Son from heaven; we, through grace, believe, and seek to prove the purifying and elevating power of "that blessed hope," and know we shall not be disappointed. He tells us of "an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us, who are kept by the power of God," for entrance thereinto in due time; we, through grace, believe, and know we shall never be confounded. He tells us the hairs of our head are all numbered, and that we shall never want any good thing; we, through grace, believe, and enjoy a sweetly tranquilized heart.
Thus it is, or, at least, thus our God would have it. But then the enemy is ever active in seeking to make us cast away these divine realities, take up the "graving tool" of unbelief, and "make gods" for ourselves. Let us watch against him, pray against him, believe against him, testify against him, act against him: thus he shall be confounded, God glorified, and we ourselves abundantly blessed.
As to Israel, in the chapter before us, their rejection of God was most complete. "And Aaron said unto them, 'Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.'... And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf; and they said, '_These be thy gods_, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.' And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, 'To-morrow is _a feast unto the Lord_.'" This was entirely setting aside God, and putting a calf in His stead. When they could say that a calf had brought them up out of Egypt, they had evidently abandoned all idea of the presence and character of the true God. How "_quickly_" they must "have turned aside out of the way," to have made such a gross and terrible mistake! And Aaron, the brother and yoke-fellow of Moses, led them on in this; and, with a calf before him, he could say, "To-morrow is a feast unto Jehovah"! How sad! How deeply humbling! God was displaced by an idol. A thing "graven by art and man's device" was set in the place of "the Lord of all the earth."