How Soon We Forget

Introduction

-Parents might be familiar with a scenario of taking your kids all over for a day of fun, and then all of a sudden at night they completely forget all you did with them and accuse you of never doing anything for them or getting them anything.

-So, for example (and this is just a made up scenario), you could spend the morning and afternoon at a zoo, buying them lunch and buying them a stuffed animal. Then later in the afternoon maybe you take them to a movie and get them popcorn and a drink. And then after the movie you get a quick bite to eat before you go home. On the way home you remember you need something from the store right quick, so you all run in there. As you are checking out your kids ask for a candy bar at the check out line there. You tell them no because they’ve had enough sweets and stuff for the day.

-What’s their response to that? They start pitching a fit and then have the audacity to yell out at you: YOU NEVER BUY ME NOTHING!

-You just spent the entire day buying them stuff, and you dare tell them NO once and they completely forget everything else you did for them that day.

-But, you know what? We have all done the same thing to God. God has blessed us tremendously in various ways, but then the second things don’t go our way or we go through some trials or trouble or tribulation, in our hearts we’re screaming out at God: YOU NEVER GIVE ME NOTHING! YOU NEVER DO NOTHING FOR ME!

-That’s why we have a day like Purple Sunday to give us a second to pause and say, you know what, God has done a whole lot for me—praise the name of the Lord.

-In the passages we’re looking at today, the Israelites quickly forget what God had done for them and they turned their hearts away from Him. I want us to learn and beware that when we forget God’s work in our own lives the easier it becomes to turn our back on Him. And we want to prevent that. So I want to lead you to remember all the good things God has done in your lives so you are encouraged to continue walking with Him.

Exodus 32:1–6 ESV

1 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2 So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” 6 And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

-I want to consider the Israelite’s forgetfulness so that we would be convicted of our own forgetfulness

1) What they forgot

-So, the Israelites forget what God did for them and then seem to go off the deep end. So, I want us first to consider what exactly they forgot and hopefully it will cause us to think about everything we’ve forgotten that God has done for us so that we snap out of it.

a) They forgot God’s past actions

-Psalm 106 gives a commentary on this passage, and according to Psalm 106:21-22 “21 They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt, 22 wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.” God did great things for them—they saw God’s miracles and power on display—and it completely left their mind.

-They saw God reign down 10 plagues on Egypt that completely brought the nation to its knees. They saw how the plagues affected only the Egyptians and did not affect the Israelites at all. And they completely forgot about that.

-They saw, when they were trapped between the Sea and the Egyptian army, how God kept the army at bay while He supernaturally created a path for them to cross through the Sea and then the Sea returned to its place, destroying the Egyptian army in the process. And yet they completely forgot about that.

-We humans are so thick headed, even when God does something grand and supernatural, it’s like it never happened. Here they are maybe about a year (if that) from when those events occurred, and the Israelites already forgot what God did for them in mighty ways.

-You say, oh if God did something like that in my life I’d never forget. The problem is, you already have. The second something doesn’t go your way, you forget God’s past actions. You take on some Janet Jackson theology, only thinking about what God has done for you lately instead of remembering the great things He has done for you in the past which leads you to praise in the present.

b) They forgot God’s covenant faithfulness

-They forgot that they were God’s special people whom God called to Himself to be a people of His own possession. Out of everyone in the world, God called their ancestor Abraham to follow Him and God promised that they would become a nation and would possess the land of Canaan. And right then, where they were at, God was fulfilling the covenant He made with Abraham.

-Through the law of Mt. Sinai they would become an official nation and then they would be led to the Promised Land to take it over. The covenant was being fulfilled right before their eyes—and yet they were clueless to the implications. 500+ years after the covenant was made, there it was being fulfilled. God remained faithful to the covenant after centuries, and it meant nothing to them.

-And here we are, 2000 years after the cross of Christ that brought forth the new and everlasting covenant. God saves today through Jesus as much as He did 2000 years ago, and we receive all the promises and benefits that have eternal weight and glory. But if things aren’t going the way we want them to during our short sojourn on earth, we completely forget how faithful God still has remained all this time since Jesus’ work.

c) They forgot God’s constant provision

-This particular incident wasn’t the first time they forgot—it’s just the most extreme. But, if you read about Israel’s journey from Egypt to Canaan you notice that the people are just constantly whining and complaining about everything. It’s like they don’t think that the God who freed them could also take care of all their needs.

-They whined and complained that they should have stayed in Egypt because there they had all these things that they wanted. But even with a whiny, complaining people, God showed Himself mighty. He provided water to them from rocks. He provided food for them every day through the manna. He even threw in some quail and stuff every once in a while. He protected them from armies and nations because they were in no shape to fight yet. God’s providing hand was constant for them. And yet they completely forgot everything that God gave them.

-We’re all the same. If we don’t get what we want when we want it and lots of it we will murmur and complain until our faces turn blue. We want what we want now and we forget how in the past God gave us what we need (not necessarily what we want).

-Just think of everything God has done and provided in your life, and how faithful He has been to you. If you just pause and do that, a lot of things will come to remembrance that you forgot about, and it will hopefully encourage you to persevere in your walk with God. But now, I want to consider:

2) Why they forgot

-What’s really behind their forgetting and then acting the way that they did?

a) Impatience with God’s timing

-Our passage tells us that they got sick and tired of waiting on Moses. Moses went up the mountain and had been gone about 40 days and they hadn’t heard from him. They may have thought that he died, but honestly it just boils down to impatience. They were sick of waiting and wanted to get on the road. But they didn’t want to go on the road alone. They had equated Yahweh’s presence with Moses’ presence, so without Moses there would be no representation of Yahweh withe them, so their solution is to make a gold calf.

-God wasn’t moving at the pace that they wanted to move, so they took matters into their own hands. Now, mind you, after a year’s worth of being led by God you wouldn’t think 40 days would be that big of a deal, but it obviously was. They forgot God’s leading and timing that came beforehand—how God did things His way in His time—now they wanted to force God’s hand to do things their way.

-How much have we forgotten of what God has done for us in the past, and we want to move ahead with our own ideas and dreams and agendas instead of waiting on His timing. Trying to force things to happen never bodes well. Remember, God has the timing of everything in His sovereign hand.

b) Discontent with God’s supply

-What God had given them up to that point was not enough. They wanted more.

-God revealed Himself through His works, but also with a manifestation of His presence at the top of the mountain. They saw the cloud and lightening and power; they heard His voice rumble through the air. But that wasn’t good enough. They thought they wanted something a little more tangible. They wanted a physical manifestation of God.

-God’s provision wasn’t enough. They despised the water and the manna and wanted more. They thought that they deserved more. So, by longing for other things, they forgot what God already supplied.

-How often do we get so wrapped up in what we think we don’t have that we completely miss what it is that the do have from God’s hand. Our society is one of constant discontentment. That’s how marketers sell their products. You already may have so much, but you don’t have this and if you don’t have this then it doesn’t matter what you do have. How we have bought into that lie, and it causes us to forget God and everything He has already done and given.

c) Pride with hard hearts

-The Israelites thought they could do things better their own way, and they became stubborn and hard-hearted toward anything God revealed or said. Later in our Exodus passage God says in Ex 32:9 “9 And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.” The Israelites corrupted themselves and turned away from God’s commandments almost instantaneously because they were prideful and stubborn.

-Things never got any better for the Israelites. Almost 1000 years later, God said this through the prophet Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 7:22–26 ESV

22 For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. 23 But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ 24 But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward. 25 From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day. 26 Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.

-And we are no better. We think we can run our own lives better, even after years of seeing what God has done. Yet we willfully forget Him and His works, and we harden our hearts toward Him so that we can do things our own way. But now let’s look at:

3) The result of forgetting

-Because they forgot God and His works and ways, what happened, what did they do?

a) They fell into idolatry

-Since they forgot God, they decided to replace God with something of their own making. They collected gold and hand-crafted this calf. The calf was a symbol used for many different gods in Egypt and Canaan, so making a calf seemed natural. All the other nations were doing it, why not them?

-It’s interesting-they didn’t consider that they were worshipping another god. They had crafted this calf to represent Yahweh—the only problem was that they had already forgotten the 2nd commandment and Yahweh God could not be represented in that way. They were trying to form and shape and mold Yahweh into what they wanted. When you forget God and what He has done and how He has revealed Himself, you begin to form Him in your own image.

-That happens to us as well. When we forget God, instead of us being made in His image, we try to make Him into our own image. We try to make Him to be just like us. And just like the Israelites, our worship is led astray—you are no longer worshipping in spirit and truth.

b) They fell into worldliness

-At the end of v. 6 it says that they rose up to play. That may have certain immoral undertones, but at the very least it means that since they forgot God, they decided to live any old way that they wanted to. They cast off restraint and began to live for the world.

-When you forget God, you cast off His moral standards and replace them with your own.

c) They fell into judgment

-God wanted to wipe them out, but Moses interceded on their behalf and God spared them. But later on Moses would call all the people on God’s side to start destroying those who fell heavy into idolatry, and they were the hand of God’s judgment on the people.

-But the bottom line is that when you forget God, you start to live like you have forgotten God, and it only leads in one direction—there are consequences to your choices.

Conclusion

-This is why we have days like Purple Sunday. We don’t want you to forget God and all He is and all He’s done so that you don’t go down that same road.

-GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME, AND ALL THE TIME...

-Find some way to every day remember something good about God. Find at least one thing every day to remember how God has worked in you and through you and around you and thank Him for it.

-Christian, come to the altar and worship Him for His goodness in your life. Come to the altar and commit to never forgetting all God is and does. Maybe you have taken on a bitter attitude that causes you to forget God and you need to come and repent.

-But maybe you haven’t seen God work in your life because you haven’t come to Him yet. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved...