Tables Of Stone

TEXT: Exodus 20:1-21; 32:1-24; 34:1-5

MOSES was God’s special helper. He was the man who was helping the Israelites or Children of Israel to go to the place God said they could have for a home.

One day God told Moses to leave all the people and come to the top of a certain mountain. Here God and Moses could be alone and talk together. God said He would come down to the mountain, but only Moses could come up to talk to Him. God did not want the people even to touch the mountain.

On that day when Moses and God were to talk together, the mountain began to shake and move. Thunder boomed and lightning made flashes in the sky. Smoke rolled up from the mountain, too.

When the people saw the lightning and smoke and heard the thunder they knew God was on top of the mountain. They were afraid. They had never been so close to God before. Moses told the people not to be afraid.

God talked from the top of the mountain. All the people and boys and girls could hear Him. He told them that He was their true God who had helped them get away from the mean king who made them work so hard. He was the same God who had taken such good care of them all the time. God wanted all the people to know that they should always love Him.

Moses was up there with God. He stayed a long time. God gave Moses some pieces of rock called the Tables of Stone. God had written down some things He wanted the people to be sure and learn, things they must know so they could live as God wanted them to live; things we must know, too.

He said we should love God more than anybody else.

We must not worship idols. That means we should not think more of something else than we do of God.

We must not say Jesus’ or God’s name to be silly, or in any way, except to love Him. We should never say bad words, either.

We must honor the Sabbath as God’s day.

We must mind our mother and father.

We must not kill anyone.

We must never take anything that does not belong to us.

We must tell the truth and not lie.

We must not want something that belongs to someone else.

All these things God wrote on the Tables of Stone.

Moses was still up on the mountain. He was gone such a long time the people thought he was not coming back, so they decided to get another leader. They even wanted to make some idols to pray to.

Think of that! Those people did not yet know how to believe God. They asked Moses’ brother, Aaron, to make them something to pray to.

They wanted an old idol, something that is just make believe. So Aaron did make them an idol. He made a golden calf.

God knows just what is going on down here on earth. He saw what those people were doing. He told Moses to go down the mountain and see what those people were doing. God was going to get after them.

Moses came down the mountain. When he saw the people dancing around that golden calf, Moses took the Tables of Stone that God had written on, and threw them on the ground. They broke all to pieces. Then Moses took the idol calf and threw it into the fire.

Moses did not want the people to ever, ever forget God again. When the idol calf was all ground up as powder Moses put it into the water and made the people drink it, so they would not forget God ever again.

God was not going to help them anymore, either, but Moses asked God to help them one time more. The people were really sorry about what they had done so God said He would help them.

God told Moses to make two new big Tables of Stone and bring them up to Him on the mountain and He would write on them what He had written before.

The things that God wrote that day are in the Bible and God wants us to do what He said on them.