The Bible was not originally broken into chapters and verses. Chapters were introduced around 1227 AD, with verses added much later. So, verse 18 being the last verse of Exodus 31 and verse 1 of Exodus 32 would have originally read like this, (18 ) “when the Lord finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai … (1 ) When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.””
Isn’t it a sad irony that almost at the same time that God had finished speaking with Moses and he was about to return to camp was when the people got tired of waiting, quitted and decided to build the golden calf?
Please remember this, the next time you are tempted to quit on God. That it may just be the golden moment you have been waiting for all along. You and I know that the waiting period isn’t always the easiest, so let us ask God for grace for endurance, so as not to turn our golden moment into a Golden Calf moment. It really hurts when that happens. Often, it costs more than gold earrings; the Israelites didn’t only pay in carats, at the end of the day they also paid in corpses, loads of them.
My dear fellow pilgrim, don’t quit on God, please hang in there, develop the resolve of Job that said even if it takes a lifetime he would wait “all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come” (Job 14:14 KJV). As the Kenneth E Hagin’s saying goes, “those who are ready to wait forever won’t wait for too long.”
“So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For, “In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay.” ‘ (Hebrews 10:35-37 NIV).
Amen! There is a test in waiting and a rich reward for those who pass that test!
Yes and a big Amen! Blessings!