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In Hebrews 10:35, we are told that we have need of patience. The penman of the book of Hebrews is giving this Heaven-sent reminder after having given the directive to these Hebrew Christians that they were to “hold fast the profession of…” their “…faith without wavering…” They could do so with confidence because “…he [God] is faithful that promised;….” The Christian life requires you and me to exercise patience.

 

The Lord always operates according to His timetable. And it is clear from the testimony of the Bible that God is accomplishing His great work of redemption. In fact, dealing with this matter patience, Peter pens these words, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come…” (2 Peter 3:9-10)

 

There is great danger in our not exercising patience. This is demonstrated in many places in the Old Testament, but one particularly pointed passage is found in Exodus 32. The Bible tells us in the 1st verse of the 32nd chapter, “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.”

 

When we read this verse, we might say it this way: their patience ran out. When they became tired of waiting for Moses and God, they decided to take matters into their own hands. The result is catastrophic. And so, it is for you and me when we operate without patience toward the Lord.

 

I want us to consider several dangers of a lack of patience.

 

  1. We make unwise, rash decisions.

It is difficult for us to imagine how these people could immediately run headlong into idolatry, but they did. The Lord says of these people, “I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:” (Exodus 32:9). This simply means that they resisted change in their lives. We are reminded that these same people lived in the idolatrous capital of the world, Egypt, for 430 years prior to God’s redemption. Centuries of idolatry had affected the lives of these people. No doubt there were many among the people who had lived a separated life from the manner of the Egyptians, but they were influenced by the culture nonetheless.


When we lack patience, we often go back to our limited “experience” in life. Instead of allowing God to conform us to the image of Christ, we turn back to our old ways to try to get us through. This idea of making a calf was not some random experience in the minds of the Israelites. I am told that the ox was an image of Osiris, a false Egyptian god. We, too, enter into eternal life with a past, and must guard against returning to the ways of the Egyptians.

 

  1. We forget about God’s past provisions and future promises.

We can certainly understand, to some extent, the people’s impatience. In our culture and day, we are often guilty of being impatient when something does not go our way on the same day, if not the same hour. These people had waited for Moses for forty days and forty nights. (Deuteronomy 9:9-12) They had forgotten all that the Lord had done to bring them out of Egypt, and had forgotten the promise to bring them into the promised land. God had further promised them to be blessed with food, water, and to take away sickness. (Exodus 23:23-26) In this moment of impatience, the people had forgotten about God’s provisions and promises.

 

  1. We begin to go with the ‘crowd.’

This passage opens by telling us that “the people saw that Moses delayed…” Then we read, “the people gathered themselves together…” The people then gave Aaron their earrings from their wives, sons, and daughters to make an idolatrous golden calf. We are told in the 28th verse that three thousand men were slain because of this sinful activity. The fact is that the people agreed to this wicked act and departed from the LORD. Oftentimes, when we become impatient, instead of using the Word of God as our rule, we tend to run with the crowd. We do not read in this account of any courageous ones who stood up to the crowd.

 

  1. We endanger all those around us.

Impatience leads to rash decisions. Impatience leads to forgetting God’s provisions and promises, and impatience may cause us to run with the crowd. Because of these things, we risk endangering everyone around us.

 

In the 10th verse, the LORD says to Moses these sobering words, “Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.” (Exodus 32:10) We are reminded of John the Baptist’s words when dealing with the religious crowd of his day when he preached to them, “And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” The truth is that God could have made of Moses a great nation if He had chosen to consume the nation in the 32nd chapter of Exodus. Just the same, the Lord could raise up children unto Abraham from stones if He had chosen to do so. But what we see here is that the crowd’s impatience endangered the entire nation. Our sins never happen in a vacuum, either. We endanger the people around us.

 

The truth is, we have a great need for patience! Let us rest in the Lord, that tribulation worketh patience. And patience gives us the right biblical experience. And experience has a cumulative effect of hope in our lives (Romans 5:3-5). Let us look therefore look to the examples given to us in the Scriptures and desire to grow in this area of patience.