SO YOU WANT TO GO BACK TO EGYPT
Exodus 32: 1 – 7
1 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. 2 And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. 3 And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. 4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. 5 And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD. 6 And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
7 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 Exodus 32:1-7
In our walk with God, we sometimes forget that we need to wait on Him to give us the correct steps in our lives. Truth is we go out and map out our own course.
I would like to take a few minutes and look at the men, women and children of the Hebrew children of Abraham that had been in bondage in Egypt under pharaoh’s command.
These people were tired of waiting on Moses, he had went up into the Mountains to receive the tablets of Gods law, written with the very fingers of God.
As I studied for this message I noticed 4 things that had happened to them and how it affected their way of thinking.
1- The first thing I noticed was their unfaithfulness
In the first verse they had lost their faith in Moses. Here they came to Aaron an said to him, “let us make Gods for “this” Moses… yes, the very man that God had chosen to lead them out of Egypt, we do not even know where he is.
Noticed how they said, “this Moses”.
First, they had lost respect and trust in him.
A good example would be as I have heard and I am sure you have too. Children calling their mom and dad, old man or old woman. Is that a way to show respect to your parents? I never could bring myself to ever call or say that about them. They were the ones that brought me into this world, cared and protected me.
I owe them that respect.
Today church, I believe we have about a 40 minutes faith limit. When a preacher has preached over 30 minutes the congregation start thinking, when is this ever going to end? I have to go home and cook, or we need to get to the restaurant before the other church people do. I just wish he would hurry up and finish.
40 minutes and we are ready to get up and go home.
Are we just like those Hebrews out there waiting forty days? They just can’t wait on God to finish what needs to be done.
Here their unfaithfulness brought them to a point of forgetting the miracles and events that had happened to them to get them to this point.
Here their faith waned to the point of changing their God. Forgetting how God had used Moses to deliver them from bondage back in Egypt.
#2- The second point I want to make, not only were they Unfaithful but Uncertain.
These people were unclear, unsure of where Moses was. They did not want to wait any longer, they had seen enough to start making up their own mind on how to do things.
A good example would be, how many times have we prayed and seek God to move on our behalf? If it did not happen as quickly as we had wanted or as we thought it would, we start to be uncertain as to Gods ability to do as we had prayed for.
We start putting things in our own hands and begin relying on us to go ahead and move on.
Listen church, God hears every one of our prayers. I do believe God answers our prayers in three ways. A) Yes. B) No. C) Not Yet
God in His forethought might answer that prayer but not in our time frame. God may not answer it the way we thought He would. God might answer it with a no, and I am very thankful God has answered some of my prayers with a No!
But I assure you the answer God does give you, is the correct answer and in the correct time frame.
So here the men, women and children were uncertain as to what to do. They gather around and start coming up with their own ideas or answers.
I repeat Moses was only gone 39 days, is that too long to wait on God? Is that too long to wait on God to shape our lives for ages to come?
If anything, when we are uncertain, we need to get on our knees and go before God and allow Him to help understand His will and purpose and not our own.
Notice the bible never mentions that they went before God and ask Him what to do, or ask God why or where Moses was?
Even when they went to Aaron for some type of leadership Aaron could have stopped this mess and went before God for the proper steps but everyone was uncertain about what to do.
#3 – The third thing I noticed is, not only were they Unfaithful, Uncertain, they were Unaware.
They were unaware of what they were doing.
Here they decide to go to Aaron and start making their own Gods to worship.
I think they were unaware of just how they were becoming just like their past owners, the Egyptians. The very ones that had them in bondage as slaves.
They were willing to serve a golden image and just leave God out of it all together.
I think they were unaware or caught off guard by their lack of faith and how God had delivered them out from Egypt.
Notice also, that they would take their personal items of gold and deliver them up for a golden image.
They were willing to take from themselves to bring forth their own God. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!
If we had been in a slave or bondage situation for thousands of years and had seen the Almighty power of God deliver us from this, I had seen the plagues that God had sent upon the people of Egypt, then to see God split the Red Sea where they could cross over and walk on dry land, then provide us with food and water in the desert. …I think by now I would have realized I am serving a God bigger than any melted earrings can do.
They were unaware of His greatness. Also, they were unaware of his presence to see the sins they were taking part in.
#4- The fourth thing I noticed was, not only were they Unfaithful, Uncertain, Unaware but they were Unhappy.
They were depressed, sad and miserable waiting on the movement of God. They still thought to themselves, why we are wasting ourselves out here in the desert. We should be in a better place…. Yea, I guess like, back in Egypt!
Now our leader is gone, he has been gone for a while and we do not even know if he is coming back. Maybe he forgot us?
You know we should be in a better situation than this.
Yea, you know we should have better housing than this too.
We also should have better food than we have been eating.
I have noticed when people get unhappy they will complain about everything and try and have as many people as possible to come join their “pity party”
They all start complaining to one another and in no time they start dragging one another further and further down. It’s sad to say sometimes to the point of no return.
These people were unhappy with the events going on.
So, in turn they turn their back on Moses and God and went to looking for something to make them happy.
I can hear it now…Hey guys, let’s make a golden calf, that would be a good God plus it won’t run away, it will stand right here and look like a fat glob of gold. I’m all for it, how about you?
Mind you, these people are unhappy, so something silly will be enough for them to think that this is a great idea. What they have done also is lower their standards, their values.
So they all decide this is what we need to do to make ourselves happy and have the things we want in life.
Hey guys after we make the golden calf let’s have a party and celebrate, who with me?
This is what unhappy people do. Look at how a drunkard in this world party, by getting drunk.
Look at how the drug addicts party. They get high on cocaine smoke some pot, shoot some heroin, all they are doing is digging in a little bit deeper in their own sin. They find taking more drugs make them happy …for the short time anyways.
Unhappy people also have no patience, they do not think clearly all they think about is themselves.
Today’s world is full of unhappy people, why? Because God is missing in their lives. There is an uncertain future, they become numb and unaware of Satan’s deceitful ways and spiral faster into Hell.
Their unfaithfulness will coverup the glory that God has planned for you and me.
God’s plan is perfect, his timing is perfect, his goals are perfect and the rewards for our loyalty and our patience will be set into motion by God at just the right time.
These Hebrews wanted things to happen at their time, they could not wait on Moses to come down from the mountain to bring them God’s law. Their goals was to make themselves happy and right now.
Church, as I stand before you today and assure you without a shadow of doubt, you will fail in your attempt to go about things without God.
Maybe not today or tomorrow or even the next year. But in the end God will not have no other God’s before Him.
I can also say, with your faithfulness and your awareness to keep God first in your life. With your prayers and holding forth the Word of God that God will reward you with every need that you need to succeed in His promise to keep us from turning back and heading to Egypt again.
As I close
I want you to notice God spoke to Moses and said, “That His people have corrupted themselves”
I ask you to let God be the God of your life. Do not trade it away for a few shackles of silver and gold. Do not start going forward with God and then turn away and find that you want to go back to Egypt and be under the rule of another so-called claimed God.
Seek God out, wait until he is ready for you to move ahead. Pray that God can and will show you that he will give you the answers that you will need to serve him.
Ask yourself today,
Am I willing to wait until God says go or am I just going to turn around and serve my golden calf and had on back to Egypt.
Let God give you that answer today. Give God the control where you can say, God! I will wait until you say move, I will wait 40 days, 40 weeks, whatever time that it takes But I know you are my God, and I am sticking with you.
You will never have to wonder when God will be back and direct me. He said he will never leave us and that one day when we see our loving Lord in Heaven and he says, “Enter” all things will be made perfect.
18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. John 14:18
5 Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee Hebrews 13:5
Let’s make up our mind today is it God or is it going back to where we once were in Egypt?
