Why is Exodus 32 still applicable to us today?
Exodus 32 remains applicable because Israel's failure recorded there serves as a divinely given example and object lesson for later believers. The same unchanging God who judged idolatry and evil then still hates those things today, and His admonitions remain for our good, since human circumstances and spiritual dangers have not changed.
Les teaches that Exodus 32 is just as applicable for us today as it was for Corinth in Paul's day and as when it originally happened. In I Corinthians 10, Paul points to Israel's experience—coming out of Egypt, the Passover, the Red Sea, and Mount Sinai—and says many were overthrown in the wilderness because God was not well pleased. These things happened as examples and object lessons for our learning, so we should not lust after evil things or be idolaters. Les stresses that although we are not under law but under grace, the God of the Old Testament and the Mosaic law is the same God we deal with today, and He has not changed. What God hated back in Genesis, He hates today; what He admonished Israel not to do for their own good, He admonishes us not to do for our own good. The circumstances of the world have not changed, and the things that damaged health in Israel's early days are no different today. Then Les returns to Exodus 32, where Moses had been up in the mountain almost 40 days dealing with Jehovah God, the Ten Commandments had been written on tables of stone, and Moses and Joshua were on their way down from the mountaintop.