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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

David Wright

Leading to Please

This morning I want to begin with a little trivia that may go back a few years.

There was a little television show that started in 1948 and ran for the next 56 years until 2004.

This television show involved concealing, and this will give it away, concealing cameras.

So they could film ordinary people confronted with oftentimes very unusual situations.

Some trick props perhaps, maybe a desk drawer that when you close this drawer, the other 1 opens, and you close this drawer and this other 1 opens, and you just are fiddling with this crazy desk forever to get all the drawers closed.

Maybe he was pulling up to a gas station in a renter car that didn't have any place to put in the fuel.

And they're searching and they're looking and they're asking questions and they're looking behind the license plate.

Until finally, at some point, somebody would come along and bail them out, so to speak, save them in their moment of pure embarrassment, And they would say the show's catchphrase.

In 1 such show, they caught on tape as a bunch of people were riding an elevator up to the top floor.

Everybody in the elevator was in cahoots except for the 1, of course, that was boarding the elevator.

And the thing that was strange was that every person in the elevator was not facing the doors as we always do.

They all had turned and were facing backwards to the doors.

Yet interestingly enough, this tells us a little bit, this is a revealing little study, if you will, case study.

Interestingly enough, people would come on to the elevator, make a strange face, I don't know what's going on.

And often times they'd turn, well I don't know, and they'll, you know, ding, ding, ding.

And invariably every time, I don't know why I'm doing this but I'm going to turn and face the other way.

They're having to do this to see, is this my floor?

And the next people come in and the same thing, everybody is turning around.

And of course, this makes for great entertainment.

ABC News did a study in January 12 of 2006 asking why do people follow the crowd?

So on ABC's prime time, did many of their own studies and the results of these studies were the same.

Gregory Burns, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Atlanta's Emory University, not too far away, he tried to answer this question with a recent groundbreaking experiment and paper.

And in the conclusion of his article, why do people conform?

Scientifically speaking, what is going on here?

He came up with 2 conclusions in his article.

The First is, they know what their eyes are telling them, and yet they choose to ignore it and go along with the group so that they can still belong to the group.

I'd rather belong than to follow what my eyes or my senses are telling me.

Second conclusion he came up with, second explanation, even if those conclusions are wrong they can actually change what they see.

They can change what they see, distorting their own perceptions.

That is, the interpreting centers of the brain light up when others' opinions are heard, and thus the brain tries to find and search for ways to interpret the data in such a way to conform with what everybody's doing.

So you're sitting in class and everybody else is saying this 1 answer and you're quite positive it's this answer, but your brain is now racing, racing, racing.

Maybe he said the false 1 or something else.

And so you're racing trying to figure out, oh yeah, of course, I'll go along with that.

Have you ever been pressured by your peers?

Sometimes we think this is a youth thing, right?

Oh, the poor youth of today, they go through all this peer pressure.

But folks, I hate to break it to you, the whole end time scenario centers around this idea of peer pressure, does it not?

Too scared to stand up and stand out for fear of what it might cost, be it my reputation, my job." The list goes on.

So this morning I want to take a look at a very well-known story.

Turn with me in your Bibles if you brought them this morning to Exodus.

We'll begin in chapter 32, but before we get there let me refresh you a little bit of the background leading up to this chapter.

Exodus 32, towards the end of the book of Exodus, prior to our story, God has made a covenant with His people.

We have God audibly speaking the 10 Commandments in their hearing, inviting them to a deeper level of commitment to Him.

And in those intense moments, can you imagine being there listening to God's voice?

I imagine God's presence was unmistakable.

As the thunder and the lightning in Mount Sinai billowing with smoke and the earth is quaking and the trumpet blast is getting louder and louder with greater intensity until this voice comes booming out of Almighty God.

And in that moment, everybody responds and says, Lord, all that we have heard, all that you have said, forgive me, we will do.

And Scripture tells us that Moses again climbed up the mountain and went into the midst of that cloud.

Where Scripture tells us he was sustained by God for 40 days and 40 nights.

Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him, come make us gods that shall go before us.

For 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." Really?

They could still see the cloud of God's presence over the mountain.

6 weeks have passed, we haven't heard a thing from Moses.

So with Moses gone, this mixed multitude is now crying out for some visible representation of God.

And so, they turn their back to the cloud and ask for an image.

Now granted, they haven't fully rejected God, they just want to worship him on their own terms.

Does that sound like many in society today?

And Aaron, you recall, is Moses' sidekick.

It is on the way to see Pharaoh that Moses picks up his brother and he is the 1 needed to speak to Moses.

He says, Aaron can speak because Moses has a stammering tongue.

And so he has faced Pharaoh, Aaron has, time and time again.

In fact, just before God speaks the 10 Commandments, he commands that Aaron come up with Moses up Mount Sinai.

You can read about it in Exodus chapter 19.

This is 1 of God's top leaders among his people Aaron And now with Moses absent Aaron you're in charge it's you And now the people want an image.

The crisis called for a man of firmness, decision, and unflinching courage.

1 who held the honor of God above favor, personal safety, or even life itself.

Patriarchs and Prophets, page 316 says this, Aaron feebly protested, but his wavering, His timidity at that critical moment only rendered the people more determined.

A blind, unreasoned frenzy seemed to take possession of the multitude.

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Leading to Please

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