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"INSATIABLE
IMPATIENCE"
TEXT:
Ex. 32:1-8, 21-35; Num. 21:4-9
INTRO:
Most of the time we
focus on sin as an event and don't really look at sin as a process.
While there are many sins, there are actually only a few qualities in
our life that left unchecked lead to these multiple sins. We would do
better as Christians in our fight against sin if we would conquer these
few qualities, for this would short circuit the process that leads to
sin.
One of these qualities
is IMPATIENCE. There are a number of sins that can result from
impatience. Instead of always dealing with the end result of impatience
we could learn to develop patience and avoid many sins and their costs
altogether.
ILLUS:
Annual cost of running red
lights (in medical bills, car repairs, etc.): $7 billion Average amount
of time saved by running a red light: 50 seconds
-- U.S. Department of
Transportation, cited in Hope Health Letter (2/96). "To Verify,"
Leadership.
Impatience is the
hallmark of our culture and society today. The whole idea of "shortcuts"
is a mainstay of our lives and culture. We find "quick" ways to do
everything from instant soup, instant credit, instant win, instant cash,
etc. As a culture we talk about "quality" and then invent ways to make
everything happen quickly to avoid the time it takes for quality!
ILLUS:
"It's Monty Williams. He
wants to know if he can audit your discipleship class on 'Total
Commitment.' " --
Cartoonist Rob Suggs in Leadership, Vol. 12, no. 3.
Like Israel, so many
of our sins stem from impatience. We are born into the world with our
fallen nature screaming "feed me NOW!", "pick me up NOW", etc. If
we don't conquer impatience as we grow older it will lead to sins that
can alter our lives negatively.
PROP. SENT:
The Bible teaches us that the road of impatience usually leads to a
disaster spiritually. We must learn to"wait
upon the Lord if we want to renew our strength … to walk and not be
wearing, to run and not faint"
Isa. 40:31 Just as there are great costs to impatience, there are
great rewards for faithful waiting and trust in the Lord.
I.
COMPROMISE Ex. 32:1-8
A.
Impatience 32:1-5
1. Moses was up in
the mountain receiving God's commandments for Israel, a process that
took many days.
a. God's work is NOT
always fast!
b. He had been gone
for some time.
c. Israel was getting
restless in the desert with nothing to do, they were bored!
2. Boredom spawns
more sins in a culture of "I have to have something to do"!
3. Israel wanted to
get going without Moses, they were tired of waiting to hear from God,
and they wanted their God NOW!
a. They put pressure
on Aaron to give them gods right away!
b. Unfortunately,
Aaron gives in to their pressure and gives them what they wanted, this
is always a sad commentary in leadership when that path is followed.
4. Tragically,
impatience made them create a god that would give them what they wanted
when they wanted it!
a. Notice that the
god of "NOW" cost them all their gold and wealth!! (It still will today
too!)
b. God had given them
all that Egyptian gold, and now they are prepared to spend it all in one
moment on the god of "NOW".
c. This will not only
bankrupt them spiritually, it will also bankrupt them materially! (it is
ground up and thrown away later!)
5. It wasn't that
they didn't want God, it is just that they wanted a god of "NOW"!
a. So many Christians
have fallen prey to theologies that promise them prosperity and easy
living - a false Gospel!
b. They invent a god
that was modeled after their own image - the god of "NOW".
6. Though their
desire for worship was commendable, the shortcuts they were about to
take would make their worship valueless!
ILLUS:
Several years ago, the
London Transit
Authority had a problem. Buses were going right past passengers who were
waiting at designated places to be picked up. They were at the bus
stops, and the buses were sailing right past them. The London Transit
Authority released a statement to explain their actions. The statement
said it was impossible for them to maintain schedules if they always had
to stop and pick up passengers.
-- Dave Stone, "Keep the
Dust Off the Highchair," Preaching Today, Tape No. 143.
7. In truth, the
reason more people DON'T become Christians is because God does NOT
accommodate our need to have everything NOW!
a. When Jesus fed the
5,000 they wanted to make Jesus "KING" - but when He no longer
miraculously fed their immediate needs they crucified Him!
b. Paul said
"Demas, because he loved this world, has
deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica."
2 Tim 4:10 - Demas couldn't take the
difficulties of living for God against the backdrop of all the world had
to offer him NOW.
B.
Idolatry Ex. 32:6-8
1. Note in
32:4 it says that Aaron shaped the
image into a calf using his own tools to carve it.
a. They made God into
the image they wanted - one of pleasure and fun, with few demands! Their
worship turned into sexual debauchery.
b. The bull was used
to represent many gods in the Ancient Near East, particularly Amon-Re in
Egypt and El and Baal in Canaan - Israel was attempting to cast God as a
golden calf in the desert - to represent what they wanted God to be.
2. The desire for
shortcuts can be costly!
ILLUS:
In The New Yorker, (5/15/95)
Sara Mosle recounts that on March 18, 1937, a spark ignited a cloud of
natural gas that had accumulated in the basement of the
London,
Texas,
school. The blast killed 293 people, most of them children. The
explosion happened because the local school board wanted to cut heating
costs. Natural gas, the by-product of petroleum extraction, was siphoned
from a neighboring oil company's pipeline to fuel the building's furnace
free of charge.
London never
recovered from the blast that turned the phrase "boom town" into a
bitter joke. The one positive effect of this disastrous event was
government regulation requiring companies to add an odorant to natural
gas. The distinctive aroma is now so familiar that we often forget
natural gas is naturally odorless. There is a tendency these days to
classify all feelings of guilt as hazardous to our self-esteem. In
reality, guilt can be valuable, an "odorant" that warns us of danger.
-- Leadership, Vol. 17, no. 1.
3. It was Israel's
impatience that drove their sinful desires. When we are in a hurry we
will often do things that are sinful.
II.
COSTLY Ex. 32:21-35
A.
Inexcusable Ex. 32:21-25
1. Moses asks Aaron
how he could have gone along with such a wicked scheme?
a. Aaron says the
people pressured him because Moses had been gone so long - i.e. "it
was partly your fault Moses, and their fault too"!
b. Aaron then says
that they gave him the gold and he simply
"threw it into the fire and out came this calf!"
32:24 - WHAT?
(1. Aaron tries to
make it sound like a "miracle" - that he had little to do with the image
- yet in 32:4 it clearly said he used
his own tools to shape it!
(2. By making it
appear supernatural Aaron wouldn't be at fault!
c. Aaron too became
impatient - his fear gave in to the crowd's demand!
2. Aaron failed to
heed all the warnings .. and the result was tragic.
ILLUS:
The Winter 1991 issue of the
University of Pacific
Review offers a chilling description of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear
disaster: There were two electrical engineers in the control room that
night, and the best thing that could be said for what they were doing is
they were "playing around" with the machine. They were performing what
the Soviets later described as an unauthorized experiment. They were
trying to see how long a turbine would "free wheel" when they took the
power off it. Now, taking the power off that kind of a nuclear reactor
is a difficult, dangerous thing to do, because these reactors are very
unstable in their lower ranges. In order to get the reactor down to that
kind of power, where they could perform the test they were interested in
performing, they had to override manually six separate computer-driven
alarm systems. One by one the computers would come up and say, "Stop!
Dangerous! Go no further!" And one by one, rather than shutting off the
experiment, they shut off the alarms and kept going. You know the
results: nuclear fallout that was recorded all around the world, from
the largest industrial accident ever to occur in the world. The
instructions and warnings in Scripture are just as clear. We ignore them
at our own peril, and tragically, at the peril of innocent others.
-- Tom Tripp in
Fresh Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching (Baker), from the editors
of Leadership.
B.
Inescapable! Ex. 32:26-35
1. Consequences for
impatience would now come, and a decision had to be made as to which
side they would take, God's side or the side of impatience symbolized by
the golden calf.
a. The entire tribe
of Levi (which included Aaron and Moses - they both were from this
tribe) came alongside of God.
b. Their task was to
administer God's judgment - the fact that only 3,000 died at their hands
however indicates that this was not a slaughter by God, but was meant to
be warning … probably those near the golden calf were the ones killed,
those whose allegiance to idolatry made them a real threat to the future
of Israel.
2. This was meant to
be a teaching tool for Israel lest they become impatient again - which
they do!
ILLUS:
Second only to suffering,
waiting may be the greatest teacher and trainer in godliness, maturity,
and genuine spirituality most of us ever encounter.
-- Richard Hendrix, Leadership, Vol. 7, no. 3.
III.
CALLOUS Num. 21:4-9
A.
Impatience! Num. 21:4
1. As hard as it is
to believe, Israel becomes impatient again!
a. Never happens to
us of course!!! (Right!)
b. Later in their
travels (in fact this occurs after Aaron's death on Mount Hor) they fall
to the temptation of impatience again!
2. It is not enough
to conquer this once in our lives, we must guard our hearts against
impatience all the time.
3. They are thinking
again only of their immediate needs, and each time they do this they
forget about the price tag of impatience.
a. Too often
impatience ignores the future!
ILLUS:
Is it not foolish to be
living in this world without a thought of what you will do at the end of
it? A man goes into an inn, and as soon as he sits down he begins to
order his wine, his dinner, his bed; there is no delicacy in season that
he forgets to order. He stays at the inn for some time. By and by, the
bill comes due, and it takes him by surprise. "I never thought of
that--I never thought of that!" "Why," says the landlord, "here is a man
who is either a born fool or else a knave. What! Never thought of
reckoning--never thought of settling with me!" After this fashion too
many live. They eat, and drink, and sin, but they forget the inevitable
hereafter, when for all the deeds done in the body, the Lord will bring
us into judgment. --
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Quotable Spurgeon, (Wheaton: Harold Shaw
Publishers, Inc, 1990)
b. Impatience breeds
ingratitude which leads to a whole group of other sins!
4. Again their
thoughts about having needs met "NOW" got them into trouble.
5. The tragic element
here is how often they slipped into this way of thinking, of being so
impatient with God at various stages of their journey.
a. We too often have
stages of impatience in our journey of life.
b. We must fight to
trust God in each stage, and be grateful for what He has done, is doing,
and will do.
B.
Ingratitude! Num. 21:5-9
1. The twin theme of
impatience is usually ingratitude!
a. Israel complained
about the desert journey, the water, the food, their entire miserable
lives!
b. Nothing was seen
positive once their impatience grew to the point of ingratitude.
2. This is a good
example of how one sin contributes to our committing many others.
3. The bitter spirit
that expresses itself sees nothing good in all that God does - this is
the way ingratitude shapes our vision of reality!
ILLUS:
When our granddaughter was
4, she came to the table one day in a disgruntled mood. She complained
loudly about every dish on the table. Hoping to change the mood, her
mother suggested that she give the blessing. After a sullen pause, she
prayed, "OK, God, I forgive you for this food."
-- Arden Taylor, Goldwaite,
Tex. "Lite Fare," Christian Reader.
4. God's punishment
of the snakes brought them around again, but once again, not without a
price tag. Many died!
a. God however heard
their repentance and offered them healing.
b. He instructs Moses
to put a snake on a pole and all those who looked upon it with faith in
God would be healed.
c. The symbol may
have been a snake impaled on a pole, showing God's victory over the
serpent - truly an important message for healing prophetically as well.
5. If only Israel
would have learned patience in their journey, there was the constant
danger of losing patience and thus living out many sins - this is true
in our journey of faith too.
6. Trust Him in all
circumstances of life, and don't rush ahead of God!
CONCLUSION: Many of the great sins start off with
impatience. Adam and Eve wanted quickly to be like God, Abraham and
Sarah tried quickly to come up with the promised son, the Devil even
tried to tempt Jesus to quickly turn stones to bread in the desert so He
could satisfy immediately his hunger. We need to learn to conquer
impatience too - "they that wait upon the
Lord shall renew their strength…!"
Isa. 40:31 |
