The day in which we live is an age of speed. The craze for speed gets into the blood and the death rate increases. On the contrary, nature’s processes move slowly and steadily to their conclusion. But man can’t wait. Synthetic pearls replace nature’s patient product. But God is not in a hurry, even if people are. With Him, a thousand years are as one day and one day as a thousand years. We often spoil God’s handiwork by our overeagerness. Scripture is full of people who tried to take a shortcut across God’s time and suffered for it.
In Matthew 22, we have a man who tried to take a shortcut to salvation. He came to the wedding feast without a wedding garment. We know the incident has its dispensational bearing, but it is true of many in the present day. The construction of the original implies that he deliberately ignored the garment provided by the king. It was a studied insult, as he knew perfectly well that a provision had been made and he chose to take no notice of it. He might have thought that his own garment was good enough or of better cut or material than the one provided for the wedding. But he was mistaken. When the king appeared, he was found out and turned out without a word to say in his own defense. So today, “Heaven’s easy, artless, unencumbered plan” is set aside for men’s ideas and opinions, and as a result many will be eternally lost. Filthy rags of human righteousness or fig-leaf aprons are no substitutes for the “best robe” of God’s provision.
In 1 Kings 12, we read of a man who took a shortcut to worship. Jeroboam was a young man unquestionably brave and industrious, and as such came under the eye of both the king and the prophet. As a result of Solomon’s jealousy and persecution, he fled to Egypt, from where he returned to start a rebellion. He would probably excuse himself by emphasizing and enlarging upon Solomon’s failure, but at heart he was selfish and egoistic and was only too glad for political ends to perpetuate the division among God’s people. To make this effective, he set up the calves at Dan and Bethel and told the people that it was too much for them to go up to Jerusalem. For many, Dan or Bethel would be much nearer and would save a lot of trouble. This is “religion made easy.” Those who listened to Jeroboam had a false priesthood, a false feast, and at the wrong time. It was a reversion to Aaron’s idolatry, and twenty-one times in the Word of God the man who started it is stigmatized as “Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin.” God has only one place today as a gathering center for His people and it is found in Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” To gather to any other center than the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ is a shortcut with which God will ultimately deal (Rev. 18).
Moses was a man specially raised up by God for a special work, but in his younger days he took a shortcut to service. While still in Egypt, he went out one day and saw an Egyptian oppressing an Israelite. In the heat of the moment, he took the law into his own hands and slew the Egyptian. If he had been sure of God’s call to action, he need not have looked this way and that, nor have bothered to hide the body in the sand. Neither would he have taken the trouble to flee when it arrived at Pharaoh’s ears. The truth is that he acted in the flesh and was afraid of the consequences. He had not yet seen the burning bush nor had the threefold confirmation of his commission — the rod, the leprous hand, and the water turned into blood.
Sometimes preparation for special service is a slow, costly thing. But it pays. John the Baptist spent about thirty years in the desert before his short six months of invaluable service, and Paul had his nine years (some say eleven) before his call to a wider sphere. Running unsent is only lost time. We must remember the order of the Lord Jesus with His disciples. He called them (1) that they might be with Him, and (2) that He might send them forth to preach (Mark 3:14).
There is an interesting and well-known story of a man called Gehazi in 2 Kings 5 who took a shortcut to wealth, but the methods he took to get it were lying and deceit. Wealth honestly earned and used as a stewardship from God can be a tremendous blessing and help in the work of the Lord, but covetousness and the love of money are both roundly condemned by the Word of God. How many of God’s beloved people, like the man at Bunyan’s silver mine, have fallen into this trap and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. Stock market crashes and bank failures have scattered many a nest and broken many hearts. Some suffered through no fault of their own, but others have been badly bitten by the desire for a shortcut to wealth. The last we hear of poor Gehazi, he is a storyteller to the king of Israel. He could recall past days of blessing but he died a leper.
The last case we wish to mention is that of Abraham, who took a shortcut to heirship. God had made certain promises to the patriarch in connection with a son, but many years passed without a fulfillment. At last, Abraham got impatient and took another wife whom he had acquired in Egypt and the result was Ishmael. It seems to be a fleshly attempt to help God fulfill His promise. Hence Abraham’s pitiable plea, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before Thee!” But when the time had come, God ultimately fulfilled His promise, and the result of Abraham’s effort has been the agelong conflict between the sons of the bondwoman and the sons of the free.
It always pays to wait God’s time. How often we have to bitterly regret hasty action! Sometimes God overrules for His glory, but at other times we carry a heavy heart to the grave on account of some false step — something precipitously done without clear guidance from God. “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths” (Prov. 3:5, 6).
Written by T. E. Wilson