Did You Break the Stone?

There is an account in the book of Exodus that most of us are familiar with.

Moses went up to the mount to meet with God. After a while, the people got impatient and decided to make idols and worship them. Why? Because Moses had delayed from coming down from the mount.

​What is interesting about this account is that, the Lord had told Moses what the people were doing before he came down to the camp. The Lord told Moses to get down quickly for the people have turned out of the way. Moses then prayed for the people before leaving the mount with Joshua.

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As Moses was approaching the camp he heard the noise of singing. When he saw what was going, Moses got annoyed and broke the stone at the foot of the mount.

Lets look at this in scripture:

Exodus 32; 7- 19
 And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves:
8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
9 And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:
10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.
11 And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?
13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.
14 And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
15 And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written.
16 And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.
17 And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said unto Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp.
18 And he said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery, neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome: but the noise of them that sing do I hear.
19 And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.

Now let’s remind ourselves of what Moses broke again.

“And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.

The tables were Gods work and the writing was the writing of God and Moses broke it.

Moses  knew what the people were doing before he left the mount as the Lord had told him. Yet Moses still broke the work and writing of God.

One would have thought. Wow that is it. He was warned before he left the Mount. But our Lord is merciful!.

 Let us also remember that Moses spend 40 days in the mount to bring down the tables that he just broke.

Moses broke Gods work and what did the Lord do?

Moses had no right to do what he did because he was already told.

Now we see the Lord mercy.

Moses returned back to the mount and asked the Lord to forgive the people again. It was after this that the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend (Exodus 33; 11).

The Lord then told Moses to heap up two tables like the first one and bring them up to the mount.

Exodus 34: 1 And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.
Exodus 34; 4 And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone.

The first table was the Lord’s work while the second one God told Moses to make them himself.

The Lord wrote on the stones (Deu 10; 1 - 4), so Moses received back what he had broken. The message that the Lord wanted to get over to the people was fully restored.

Have you broken something?

Have you broken in pieces what the Lord initially had given you?

We need to stop beating ourselves up. Once we have repented and asked the Lord to forgive us according to 1 John 1; 9; the Lord is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all (all) not some but all unrighteousness. We must receive the  forgiveness from the Lord and we must forgive ourselves.

The Lord told Moses this time to hew up two tables and bring them up the mount.

The Lord will give us direction on how He wants to restore us back to what He originally intended.
What even makes this account more interesting is that Moses had a greater encounter with the Lord on this occasion.

This shows that the Lord did not hold anything against Moses.

It was after this encounter when Moses went up to get another copy of what he broke that his face shone and the children of Israel could not look at his face (Exodus 34; 29- 30). We have no account that this happened the first time Moses went up the mount.

What a merciful God we serve!

If you have made a mistake, the Lord is more than able to fully restore you just as the Lord restored the writing on the stone that Moses broke. Moses did not lament on the broken pieces and try to patch them up. It was impossible anyway. We must forget the past and learn from it.

While we are waiting for this to manifest, let us spend time with the Lord and as the evidence of extra time spent with the Lord was evident on Moses, so shall it be with us, as we wait and spend time in His presence.

 ©Bisi Oladipupo 6th July 2020

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