Stiff-Neckedness

The LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once to your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, for they have become depraved. They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them, making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it, sacrificing to it and crying out, ‘This is your God, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!’ The LORD said to Moses, “I see how stiff-necked this people is. Let me alone, then, that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them. Then I will make of you a great nation.”

But Moses implored the LORD, his God, saying, “Why, O LORD, should your wrath blaze up against your own people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and with so strong a hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent he brought them out, that he might kill them in the mountains and exterminate them from the face of the earth’? Let your blazing wrath die down; relent in punishing your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, and how you swore to them by your own self, saying, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky; and all this land that I promised, I will give your descendants as their perpetual heritage.’“ So the LORD relented in the punishment he had threatened to inflict on his people. (Exodus 32:7-14)

Yes, we are a stiff-necked, stubborn people with most of us failing to recognize that our Earth is warming, and there will be consequences.   Some already have been witnessed such as melting glaciers and sea level rise – modest for now, but significant in the not-to-distant future.   Much of the Great Barrier Reef off Australia is bleached due to warming waters, and that is a catastrophe of epic proportions (my opinion).  

Yes, we “worship” molten calves – those with fame and fortune – instead of those serving the poor and healing the sick, for example.  Our values are topsy-turvy, and one wonders if the LORD’s wrath is blazing up against us to eventually consume us.

Perhaps part of our problem is the world population being as “numerous as the stars in the sky.” A recent tally has the population at 8 billion people.  During the 20th century alone, the population in the world grew from 1.65 billion to 6 billion.  One estimate has the population at 10 billion by 2100.   Today’s world population suffers from the coronavirus.  One wonders what biological threats await tomorrow’s dramatically escalating population.

We won’t be exterminated from the face of the Earth, but our stiff-neckedness and refusal to deal with global warming to many will seem like a punishment self-inflicted on God’s people.

Deacon David Pierce