When God Says Not Yet: Preparation in the Pause

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the podcast. So a few weeks ago, I started a series talking about the fundamentals of the faith life. And I had full intentions of taking that teaching on for several weeks.

But in the midst of that, the Lord gave me a message that seems to have taken priority over that series right now. And that doesn't mean we won't come back to it at another time, but early on in the podcast, I taught a message about how to know what the Lord's leading you to do. And one of the ways that you recognize what God's calling you to is by following peace in your spirit.

And the thing was, every time I would start to prepare or try to get ready to teach some more on the fundamentals of faith, it was like almost a red light or a stop sign. There wasn't peace there. But then when the Lord started showing me this message, this teaching, it was a green light, it was a go.

And we have to trust that and follow that. And it may be that one person hears this teaching or needs to hear this teaching, and the Lord knows that you're gonna listen to it. And so it's instrumental, it's vital that you hear it now.

And so we want to obey the leading of the Holy Spirit, the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and act on that. And so that's what we're gonna do today. We're gonna kind of divert from that series on the fundamentals of faith and maybe come back to it later as the Lord allows.

But for today, we're gonna step into something new. And I want to give you a breakdown of the message before we even start. And the reason I feel led to do that is if we all can hook faith together, and we kind of know what the expectation is, we know which direction we're moving, I think it can help us all move in that same direction more easily.

And so I wanna talk to you about a couple of things. I wanna give you the title of the teaching. Before we start, I want to talk to you about who the target audience is.

We're gonna talk about what the Lord wants us to know from this teaching. We're gonna talk about that before we start. And then we're gonna talk about what text we're gonna be using, what scripture we're gonna be using, what would the Lord have us read to teach us the things that he would have us to know.

And then we're gonna talk about what is the desired result from the teaching. What would the Lord have us be? What would he have us do or have us know after hearing this word today?

So let's backtrack. Let's talk first of all about the title. The title of the teaching today is wait upon the Lord.

Wait upon the Lord. Man, if you're anything like me, that can be a challenge sometimes. That's been one of my struggles as a believer.

And one of the things that the Lord's really had to train me on is to wait and to be patient. You know, the word tells us through faith and patience, you inherit the promises of God. It's not just faith, it's faith and patience.

And to wait upon the Lord can be a challenge. If you're a doer, a go getter, you want to get things done, it can be challenging to wait. But we know from the word of God, we're taught over and over again that that's the best way to inherit God's promises, is to wait upon Him and let Him lead us.

And there's many verses that talk about that. Let me give you one. Psalms the 27th chapter, in the 14th verse, tells us to wait upon the Lord, but it also tells us to be brave and courageous as you're waiting.

You know, you don't want to wait like a sissy. You want to wait in a spirit of expectation. You want to wait in a spirit of bravery and courage.

But it's good to wait upon the Lord and not get out ahead of him. We don't want to fall too far back behind him. We want to be led step by step.

And so again, the title of the message is Wait Upon the Lord. Now, who is the targeted audience? Well, first and foremost, I believe the Lord wants to talk to believers through this message.

People who they've put their faith, you've put your faith in Christ. You believe there's a God. You believe that Jesus died for you.

You believe in the leading of the Holy Spirit. And I believe that first and foremost, this word is geared towards encouraging you as a believer. But this word is also a plea from the Lord to the unsaved.

This is a plea from God, from the Holy Spirit to the unsaved. So both the believers and the unbelievers can benefit from this. The titles wait upon the Lord.

Who is the targeted audience? First and foremost, I believe it's believers, but then it's also gonna minister to those who haven't made that choice yet. You know, and the thing is, all of us were there.

If you're listening to this and you haven't made that decision to put your faith in Christ, there was a point in time, all of us were sitting in that seat and had to make that decision. So the Lord will call you through the preached word. Now, what does the Lord want us to know from this teaching?

This is something I've never really talked about, and honestly don't think that much about until the Lord started dealing with me on this topic. But what I believe the Lord wants us to know is that He is coming again. He is coming again.

I believe the Lord wants to remind us that He's promised us that He will return. He's promised us that. And this isn't something to be afraid of or to be dreading.

In fact, this is something that we should be looking forward to, and we should be excited about. Praise God. In fact, the Word tells us that.

In 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 12, it says that we should be looking forward to that day. We should be looking forward to the day that Christ returns, and that we should be doing all we can to hurry that along. And he goes on to tell us that we should be looking forward to the new heavens and the new earth that God's promised us.

To be separated from sin and death, and to be in the glory of God. It's going to be a wonderful thing. And this isn't some doom and gloom message.

You know, I remember hearing some of those as a kid growing up, and they would freak me out. Talking about the return of Christ, and you know, I just wanted to get my driver's license, and graduate high school, and get married, and have a family. And you know, this guy up here hollering about doom and gloom, you know, God's coming back to destroy everything, that freaked me out.

And that's not what this message is about. It's not a doom and gloom message. This is a message to encourage you, and to build up your faith.

Okay, so, the titles wait upon the Lord. Our targeted audience is first and foremost believers, but also unbelievers, the unsaved. The Lord wants us to know he's coming again.

Now, what text are we going to be reading to teach us the lessons that the Holy Spirit would have us learn today? What Bible verses are we going to be looking at? Well, we're going to land in Exodus, the 32nd chapter.

So if you've got your Bible and you want to read along, you can go ahead and turn there. We're going to land there here in a few minutes. But Exodus 32 is the scripture that the Lord's going to use to teach us the points that he wants us to know.

And that's probably not a typical text that you would use to teach about the return of Christ. But I believe the Lord has shown us some stuff. He's put some stuff in my heart that we'll see it all come together here in a few minutes.

And then finally, what's the desired result from this teaching? What would the Lord have you be after hearing this? What would he have you do or have you know after hearing this word today?

Well, for the believers, the Lord would have you be encouraged to keep fighting the good fight of faith, to hold on and to understand that eternity in the kingdom of heaven is in your future. It's coming sooner than we think. One way or another, whether you run your full race and you die, your physical body dies on this earth and you're in eternity or the return of Christ comes before you physically die.

One way or another, it's right around the corner for all of us. And so we want to stir up our faith for the return of our Lord and Savior as believers, and we want to refocus. Now for the unbelievers, what would the Lord, what's his desire for you after hearing this?

Well, for the unbeliever, it would be for you to come into a covenant with God today, into a saving relationship with God through faith in Christ, and that you would receive his Holy Spirit to help guide you and help you on the rest of your journey through this life. If you've been trying to do life without him, it's hard, isn't it? It's hard.

It's not an easy road to walk for any of us. You know, we all deal with challenges and difficulties, but it's especially hard for those who are trying to do it without God's help, and I can tell you it's hard because I did it for years and years. I tried it that way, and it was terrible.

It was terrible. And so I pray that if you're here today, if you're listening today, and you haven't made a choice to express yourself, to experience all that God has for you, that as you hear this teaching, that you would be sensitive and you would recognize God's calling you to Him. You will sense the Holy Spirit drawing you to the Father, and that before you click off of this message today, that you will respond and you'll make a choice to believe and to turn your life over to the care of the Father.

And what a beautiful decision that will be for you. That will be a wonderful choice. Amen.

Okay, so before we get into our text, hopefully that kind of gives us an overview of what direction we're moving in for this teaching. So you can hook faith with us, and we can all start taking steps in the same direction here. But before we get into Exodus 32, let me take just a second to establish a couple different things because this is so important to you getting everything that God would have you get out of this teaching.

The first thing we need to establish is that many of the recorded accounts in the Old Testament, they are types and shadows of things that were to come in the New Covenant, in the New Testament. So, you know, you've got the Old Testament and the Bible. That's the Old Covenant that God's people were in with him.

And in the New Testament, the New Covenant is the covenant that you and I, as new covenant believers, are in with the Father through the blood of Christ. A lot of the things that were taught in the Old Testament, a lot of the things that were recorded and written down, were types and shadows of things to come for us in the New Testament. Now, what is a type and shadow?

A type and shadow is when a person's life or their experiences or maybe an event in history, is recorded and it's a prelude of a truth that's to come in the future. It's a preview or a prelude of things to come. There's more to the story than meets the eyes, another way to say it.

It goes way deeper than just what you're reading. And many of the events that we read in the Old Testament, were recorded in the words so that you and I could learn from them. They were a shadow, a type and shadow of things that were to come, and they were recorded so that we could learn from what happened to the people walking it out in the Old Covenant.

In fact, verse Corinthians chapter 10, let's turn there real quick. You can stay in Exodus 32, but first Corinthians chapter 10, verse 11, listen to this. It's talking about the Israelites in the Old Covenant.

It says, These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age. That's us.

That's me and you. And so a lot of this stuff was recorded so that we could learn from the successes that they had, so that we could learn from the mistakes that they made as well. And today, we're going to kind of get into some of that.

So that's the first thing we need to understand before we start reading Exodus 32, is that a lot of this stuff is types and shadows of things to come, and I believe that this is one of those examples. And then the second thing, real quick, we need to establish is that Jesus is indeed coming again to set up his eternal kingdom and to rule and reign over all the heavens and the earth forever. That's going to happen, and we need to establish that in Scripture.

You know, Satan's going to be removed. He's going to be dealt with once and for all, and you and I, as believers, as covenant New Testament children of God, we are going to live in a heavenly paradise for all eternity in the very presence of God. Amen.

Praise God. That's going to be a good thing. Now, to establish that Jesus is coming again with the Word, turn with me to Acts chapter 1.

Let me flip over there real quick. Acts chapter 1. In verse 6, we find that Jesus, he had been crucified.

He had been hung on the cross. He had been in the tomb and was raised from the dead. And then after that, he appeared to many people, including his disciples, who he was now sending out.

They were going to be the apostles of the church. And he had met with them and dined with them, fellowshiped with them, taught them. But then here in Acts chapter 1, verse 6, we see one of the things that they kept asking him.

In verse 6, the apostles would ask Jesus, they kept asking him, Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom? And in verse 7, he said, look, the father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they're not for you to know, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses telling people about me everywhere, in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Thank God for that, because that message getting out to the United States and wherever you're listening from, it's because of that that you and I were able to respond to the gospel.

Praise God. But then listen to this, verse 9, after saying this, Jesus was taken up into a cloud while they were watching. Now, remember this, because we're going to see this again here in a minute in Exodus 32.

We're going to talk about this. But after talking to them about their kingdom being established, he was taken up into a cloud while they were standing there watching, and they could no longer see him. As they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them.

Men of Galilee, they said, why are you standing here staring up into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go. We're establishing that Jesus is coming again, and right here the angels from heaven told them, told the disciples, the apostles, they said, look, you saw him go, but he's coming back.

And then in Revelation, the 22nd chapter, there's a bunch of references, among other places, but the last chapter of the Bible in the New Testament, Revelation 22, if you just look for the words in red, they were written in red, that's Jesus talking. And in verse 7, he says, look, I'm coming soon. Blessed are those who obey the words of prophecy written in this book.

He says, I am coming. Verse 12, he says, look, I'm coming soon, bringing my reward with me to repay all people, that's including you, according to their deeds. I'm the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

And then in verse 20, one of the last verses of the Bible, he says, he who is a faithful witness to all these things says, yes, I am coming soon. Praise God. Jesus is coming.

And it's something that, you know, when I was a kid, like I said, we used to hear a lot of teaching about, but it seems to have kind of gotten put on the back burner. And I believe the Lord wants to bring it back to our attention that he is indeed going to return. Okay, let's turn to Exodus 32.

You may still be there. Verse 1, now here in Exodus 32, we find ourselves joining the Israelites, God's chosen people, and a couple of leaders named Moses and Aaron. Now, I'm sure most of you have heard this story, but God's chosen people in the Old Covenant were the Israelites, and they had been taken captive by the Egyptians.

And at that time, that was, I'm sure, the most powerful kingdom on the planet. And they had great infrastructure, great military. I mean, it was a thriving place, and the Israelites had become their slaves.

And we find in the early chapters of Exodus that God heard their prayers, their cry for deliverance, and He called a man named Moses to go in and bring them out. And Moses' older brother as well, Aaron. And they were to go into Pharaoh and lead God's people out of this Egyptian bondage.

And they did it. They were able to do it. And once they got them out, remember they crossed the Red Sea, and I'm sure you've heard those accounts.

They get out into the wilderness, and they find themselves at the base of a place called Mount Sinai. Now, what's interesting about this is when God called Moses to go in there and lead the Israelites out of Egypt, that call came from Mount Sinai. Remember the burning bush account when Moses heard God's voice calling from the burning bush?

That burning bush was on Mount Sinai because God told Moses, Moses had to be convinced to go in there and do this because this was a big call to go into this kingdom and lead those people out of there. And Moses kind of argued with God about it. You ever done that?

Moses told God, he said, you know, who am I to go in there and try to tell Pharaoh to let all of God's people, your people go? One of the things that God told him, he said, here's a sign for you that I'm going to do what I told you I'm going to do. When you get the Israelites out of Egypt and you bring them out of there, you are going to worship me at the base of this very mountain.

You'll come back here and you'll worship me here. And sure enough, here we are at the base of this mountain, just like the Lord said they would be. When they were at the base of Mount Sinai, God called Moses up onto the mountain so that he could give him instructions on how to lead God's chosen people into the promised land that he had prepared for them.

And so when Moses was called up into this mountain, he was lifted up into a high place, and the glory of God, the cloud of God, covered him, and the people could no longer see him. It's like Jesus, whenever the disciples were standing there looking up in the sky, waiting for Jesus, and he ascended up, and the angel stood beside him and said, why do you keep looking up there? Remember that?

We read that here in Acts chapter 1 a while ago, and I said, we'll look at this again in a minute. Well, there's a lot of types and shadows in this chapter, and one of the types and shadows is Moses is a type of Christ for us. Moses is an example of a leader to come who was Christ.

Moses led out the Israelites from Egypt. Christ led us out from bondage, from the enemy's strongholds. And so Moses is a type and shadow of Christ, and so we see that Moses has been raised up into this mountain, and the people can't see him.

They've been waiting on him to come back down, to return. And we find ourselves, let's go back to chapter 32 verse 1, and now let's pick up there. When the people saw how long it was taking Moses to come back down that mountain, they gathered around Aaron, who was the spokesman for God.

He was like the priest, he was Moses' older brother. And they said, come on, come on, Aaron, make us some gods who can lead us. We don't know what happened to this fellow Moses who brought us out here from the land of Egypt.

Well, you can almost hear just like a sense of disrespect there. You know, this fellow Moses, we don't know what happened to him. Man, Moses had just went to war to help get these people out.

And there's a sense of disrespect, and we see that nowadays, you know, where Christ is concerned. There's no, there's very little reverence amongst most people about the name of Christ and what he's done to lead us out. But here they are, they said, we don't know what happened to this fellow.

Make us a god who can lead us. Verse 2, Aaron said, take the gold rings from the ears of your wives and your sons and your daughters and bring them to me. Now, this is so crazy to me because when God's people were in Egypt and Moses was bringing them out of Egypt, one of the last things that happened was the Egyptians gave their gold and jewels to the Israelites as they were leaving town.

And so now Aaron, the priest, tells these Israelites, these men, they said, hey, go over to your wives and your kids and remember all that gold that the Egyptians just gave you? Go get it. Take it out of their ears and bring it to me.

Verse 3, all the people took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. Then Aaron took the gold and he melted it down and he molded it into the shape of a calf. When the people saw it, they exclaimed, oh, Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

This is crazy to me, but these men, these leaders of these families, they get the gold from their wives and their kids and they throw it into the fire. And then Aaron makes a cow out of it, a calf, and these men go around and say, these are the gods that brought us out of Egypt. That seems absolutely crazy to me how that could happen.

But you know, even today, we do the same thing. We take things that God has given us, gifts that God's given us, things that he's blessed us with, and we put them ahead of him. You know, God may have blessed you with a great job.

He may have blessed you with gifts and talents and abilities. If we're not careful, we can put them in the position in the place of him. And so that's what happened here.

They formed this golden calf, and they say, this is what led us out. Verse 5, Aaron saw how excited the people were. I mean, the people, they were freaking out.

They got so excited that they had a god that they could worship now. So he built an altar in front of that calf. And then he announced, tomorrow will be a festival to the Lord.

The people got up early the next morning. Well, you know, you don't get up early if you're not excited. They were excited.

They got up early the next morning to sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings. And after this, they celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry. Verse seven, the Lord told Moses, now Moses is up there on that mountain in the very presence of God.

He's getting instruction from God about how to lead these people all the way to the promised land that he had prepared for them. And in verse seven, the Lord told Moses, he said, quick, go down the mountain. Your people whom you brought from the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.

How quickly they've turned away from the way I commanded them to live. They've melted down gold and made a calf, and they bowed down to sacrifice it. They are saying, these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

Then the Lord said, he said, I've seen how stubborn and rebellious these people are. Now leave me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them and I'll destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation.

Now listen to this. Moses is a type and shadow of Christ for us. Listen to what Moses says.

He intercedes for the people. But Moses tried to pacify the Lord his God in verse 11. O Lord, he said, why are you so angry with your own people whom you've brought from the land of Egypt with such great power and such a strong hand?

Why let the Egyptians say their God rescued them, all right, with the evil intention of slaughtering them in the mountains and wiping them from the face of the earth? Turn away from your fierce anger, Lord. Change your mind about this terrible disaster you've threatened against your people.

Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You bound yourself with an oath to them, saying, I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in heaven, and I will give them all this land that I've promised to your descendants, and they will possess it forever. So the Lord changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had threatened to bring on his people.

You know, the blood of Jesus intercedes for us on the mercy seat of heaven. Jesus made the sacrifice, just like Moses stepped in here and sacrificed for the Israelites in the Old Testament. Remember, there's a lot of types and shadows in the Old Testament.

This is a type and shadow of what Jesus did for us. He stands in the gap when you do something totally stupid, like we all have. The Lord will stand in the gap if you will repent, and he will help turn the Lord's anger.

In fact, the scriptures tell us he doesn't see it. He sees us through the righteous blood of Jesus. Thank God for that.

Again, verse 14 says, So the Lord changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had threatened to bring on his people. Then verse 15, Moses turned and went down the mountain. He held in his hands the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant.

They were inscribed on both sides, front and back, and these tablets were God's work. The words of them were written by God himself on these stone tablets. When Joshua, now, Joshua was Moses's, let me say that again, Joshua was Moses's, Moses's, Moses's assistant.

And he had been up there waiting on Moses. He had been up the mountain there as well. And when Joshua, in verse 17, he heard the boisterous noise of the people shouting below them, he turned to Moses and he said, Moses, it sounds like there's war in the camp.

But Moses said, no, it's not a shout of victory, and it's not the willing of defeat. I hear the sound of celebration. When they came near the camp, Moses saw the calf and the dancing, and he was angry.

He burned with anger. He threw the stone tablets to the ground, smashing them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf they had made and he burned it.

Now, this is kind of gangster right here. He took that calf that Aaron had made and he melted it down and ground it into powder, and he threw it into the water and forced the people to drink it. Verse 21, finally, he turned to Aaron, his brother, his older brother, and he said, What did these people do to you to make you bring such terrible sin upon them?

Don't get so upset, my lord, Aaron replied. You know yourself how evil these people are. They said to me, make us gods who will lead us.

We don't know what happened to this fellow Moses who brought us here from the land of Egypt. So I told them, whoever has gold jewelry, take it off. And when they brought it to me, I just simply threw it in the fire, and out came this cow.

Man, now that's a lie, isn't it? We'll talk about that in a minute. But that's not true.

That's not what happened. Moses saw that Aaron had let the people get completely out of control, much to the amusement of their enemies. I mean, if you can put yourself in that story, that's crazy.

That is crazy, isn't it? I mean, these people had seen the hand of God deliver them with their own eyes. Remember all those accounts of what happened in Egypt?

I mean, there was... Remember when the darkness came over the land of Egypt and their camp still had sunlight? They saw the locusts, the frogs, the death of the firstborn of the Egyptians.

I mean, the passing through the Red Sea, they had seen all this amazing stuff happen, and yet they decided they needed a golden calf to lead them. And you know, this is something that they struggled with all the way through their wilderness journey, didn't they? Let's talk about how this happened, because I believe we can learn a lot from this, because this kind of stuff is still happening today.

It may look a little bit different. We may not be making actual golden calves, but we put a lot of things in the place of God, and if we're not careful, we can do the same thing. Let me give you a couple of things that I think we can learn here.

Well, number one, they grew impatient. They grew impatient. Remember, Moses was taken up there into the glory of God, up to a high place where they couldn't see him anymore, and they got tired of waiting.

And when they got tired of waiting, when he didn't come back down that mountain as quick as they thought he should, they lost focus. Well, friends, like I said, Jesus was lifted up into a high place where we can't physically see him now. And I believe the enemy would love for the body of Christ to get impatient.

You know, we've been hearing about the return of Christ for a long time, and I think the scriptures even talk about, in the end times, people will say, you know, what happened to this Jesus that you're talking about, who's been promising to come back? It's no different than the Israelites said to Aaron. They're like, hey, where is this Moses fella that you told us was coming back?

Where is he at? And so it started with losing focus and getting impatient. Again, through faith and patience, you inherit the promises of God.

So we must be patient. God is so merciful. He's giving us time.

He's giving you time to repent and come into covenant with him before his return. So the first thing we see is they grew impatient. The second thing we can learn here is they wanted to be led by something they could see with their own eyes.

And like I said, this is something that they struggled with throughout their journey. Remember whenever they asked for a king later on down the road, they want to see a king lead them. And God tells them, well Samuel tells them, the man of God says, you don't need a king like everybody else has.

God is your leader. He's your provider. He's the one who will go to war for you.

And they said, yeah, but you know, all these other kingdoms, they have a king that sets on a throne, and they can go talk to him and see him, and we want that. And Samuel told them, man, that will come at a great cost. And God said, well, give them what they want.

Give them a king, but they're not rejecting you, Samuel. They're rejecting me. That's what God said.

And so this was something they struggled with, and I think we struggle with. You know, if we don't stay focused, it can be easy to say, well, it's hard for me to believe in something I can't physically see. I want to be led by something I can see.

I mean, you can see your retirement account building wealth. You can see your nice house. You can see your talents developing and all that kind of stuff.

There's a lot of things we can put in the place of God. And the reason we do it is because we can see that. You know, Jesus, he was talking to his disciples, and he said, blessed are you, you believe because you can see.

He was talking to the people that were with him during his ministry. He said, but blessed are those who believe that can't see. And he's talking about us.

I mean, we don't see Jesus, you know, healing the multitudes and feeding the multitudes and walking on water with our own physical eyes. And Jesus said, you are blessed if you believe, even when you can't see with your physical eyes. But it's something we all have to be aware of and be careful on, because we can fall into this trap.

So they grew impatient. They wanted to be led by something they could see. The third thing that we can learn here from them is they took something that God had given them or gifted them with, and they turned it into an idol.

And I kind of hit on that just a minute ago. We do the same thing. You can take something that God's given you, maybe a great career, and you can make that more important than him.

He may have given you great talents and abilities, and you can put that ahead of him if you're not careful. And so that's just something for us to be aware of. And then the fourth thing, I think this is so powerful.

They convinced the man of God to compromise. They put pressure on Aaron to cater to their fleshy desire. And I believe that if we aren't careful, we do the same things to preachers and men of God today.

We put pressure on them to compromise and teach what we want to hear. In fact, the scriptures say in the end times, people will only listen to people who scratch their itching ears, I believe is what it says. They'll speak words that they want to hear, and that's it.

If it steps on their toes at all, if it's against what they agree with, then they won't even hear it in the end times. And if you are a minister or a teacher or a leader of your family, you want to step up and speak faith. You know, think about that situation.

What should Aaron have done? He should have stepped up as the mouthpiece of God. He should have stepped up and preached a good old faith message.

He should have said, now, wait a minute. You came to me asking me to make you a God to lead you. Do you not remember that we just walked through the Red Sea on dry ground?

Do you not remember that the Israelite or the Egyptians just gave you all their wealth when we walked out of there? You walked out of there healthy. You walked out of there prosperous and free.

Do you not remember that? God was faithful to bring us this far. He'll be faithful to take us the rest of the way.

We're not making any false gods. We're waiting on Moses to come down that mountain. He's up there getting prepared.

He's getting preparations made for us to go all the way to the promised land, and we will not compromise. Well, the same is true for us today. The Lord is coming back.

Jesus will come back down. Just like Moses came out of the top of that mountain, Jesus is coming back. And we must stand up and speak faith.

We must encourage the people to be brave, to wait upon the Lord, to be brave, to be courageous, praise God. And it's easy for me to sit here in this little closet right now making a podcast to say that. But if you put yourself in Aaron's situation, he had all the people coming against him.

There was pressure on the man of God, and there will be pressure on the church in the last days. We know that's coming. But friends, we got to stand up and be bold.

We got to shine like a bright light for heaven, and warn people, tell people, hey, hang on, hold on to your faith. The Lord is coming. He is coming back down.

You know, a lot of times, the greatest pressure is right before the breakthrough. You know, Moses, he had the instructions in his hand. It was probably just a matter of moments until he came down that mountain, and they compromised.

If they would have just held on another day, another two days, we saw that happen with the Israelites with Saul. Remember that? Saul was supposed to wait on Samuel to show up, and he didn't obey.

And as soon as he did it, Samuel walked into camp. If he would have just waited another day, but he had so much pressure, the people were pressuring Saul to compromise, and it cost him his kingdom. A lot of times, the greatest pressure is right before your breakthrough.

So I want to encourage you, if I could be an Aaron today, I want to step in the gap for you and say, hang on, keep your eyes on the Lord. Wait patiently upon the Lord. Be brave, be courageous, refuse to quit.

Well, thank you, friends, for taking the time to listen to the podcast, and we'll be back soon with some more teaching. But until then, be blessed.

Thanks for listening to the podcast. To find this and other teachings, simply search for The Branches on any of your regular podcast platforms.