When Moses returned from Mt. Sinai with the tablets, he came upon a nation that lost faith in what God had done based on their current circumstances. The Israelites were worshiping idols and offering burnt sacrifices to a Golden Calf, a man made god. Even after God parted the Red Sea, saved the Hebrews from the Egyptians, performed several unexplainable miracles, the people still had little faith. They tried to live life their own way. In Exodus 32: 9-10, God says to Moses “I have seen these people, and they are stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation."
Stiff-Necked people? What does this mean? Well, think about it terms of human anatomy. When your neck is stiff, it makes it difficult to move, turn your head from side to side, and even affects your posture. If you cannot freely move, you are held in bondage by something. If you cannot turn your head from side to side, you have tunnel vision and cannot accurately evaluate your environment. And if you don't have good posture, then you are hunched over and not "standing" up straight. The point is, God is trying to describe how stiff-necked people are focused on living life their own way, despite what God has already done to show them his glory. This angers him, when people try to rely on their own human strength and stubbornness in this life.
The solution is being free from the bondage of a "stiff-neck," moving your head from side to side so you can see the magnitude of everything around you, and standing up-right in the ways of the Lord. We keep ourselves in the stubborn, stiff-necked ways of thinking when we do not allow God to freely move, shape, and impact us. Think about those words: MOVE, SHAPE, IMPACT. Those are not stiff words, they represent change of some sort. Therefore, why would God ever want us to stay focused on our stiff-necked ways?
So because these people are stubborn, God says "leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation." God doesn't say you change this person or you will make them into a great nation....but he says LEAVE ME ALONE to make the change. God does this by himself. Nobody has the power to change someone else, only God can do the changing. People can be used as vessels to spark change, but God is the one who shapes the heart. To do that, he must first destroy what is not good. He will take your stiff neck to the chiropractor. He will break, kill, and eliminate all that is not pleasing to him. But then, out of that death, there will be deliverance. He will make us into a "great nation."
The premise behind all this is that God is the one who gets the credit. He will move us, change us, destroy us, and bring new life to us. Would you like to wake up every morning with a stiff neck? Ouch. The longer we stay stiff-necked, the more painful the process. God will never disappoint. We may get to the point where death is the only option...the death of bad habits, bad relationships, bad thoughts....but in this there will be new life. God's love is not a pampering love, it's a perfecting love. Isn't this awesome?
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