RTW February 6

4 Comments

1. so beautiful Wendy! thank you-just this morning I was trying to remember the verse that you referenced today John 14:27, Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (NIV)

   so timely! thank you!

2. Something Old
   Exodus 16:2, “The people gathered the food morning by morning, each family according to its need. And as the sun became hot, the food they had not picked up melted and disappeared.”
   The people gathered the manna early in the morning….no sleeping in….as soon as the sun become hot, it melted. God provided, but the recipients were expected to exert effort and gather it. Thus, God instilled a work ethic. And it was clear that God provided, but we must do our part.

   Something New
   Exodus 16:32, “Take two quarts of manna and keep it forever as a treasured memorial of the Lord’s provision.” This is a physical reminder of what God had done. I love all kinds of tangible ways to remind myself of God’s goodness and abundant care.
   Also:
   Exodus 19:21, “Go back down and warn the people……”
   God’s repeated warning and Moses response that they already knew…indicates that God knew the hearts of some of those waiting. He must have been aware of wrong intentions. He made Moses go back down and reiterate his instructions. He knows the waywardness of the human heart.

   Something To Do
   Exodus 17:8-16.
   Practice the ability to accept help. In fact, the need to accept help is God given. We must practice this as much as being in the role of the helper. Interesting that immediately following this we read in Exodus 18 that Moses was in danger of wearing himself out by trying to handle all the work of judging disputes. Jethro helped him to see the error of his ways. Moses could be of more help and bring more glory to God if he learned how to share the work load.

3. My Takeaways:
   God continues to provide, even though the Israelites continue to complain.

   Something Old:
   Genesis 16:32 ” The Israelites called the food manna…” Jesus Compares himself to Manna in John 6:48-51. Christ is our daily bread who satisfies our internal, spiritual need.

   Something New:
   Have some questions. “The warriors of Amalek” Do these warriors come from Esau’s grandson? Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. Just wondering what all this means and if it all ties together somehow? I also wonder why Moses kissed his father-in-law, Jethro, but not his wife or sons (Exodus 18:7)? Why did wife and sons leave with Jethro in the first place? Didn’t they all want to be with Dad and Husband? Jethro gave Moses some wise advise, or did he? God was leading- don’t you think if he wanted Moses to delegate his responsibilities he would have shared that with Moses? Moses needs to do what God says not Jethro. I wonder if he talked this decision over with God? So much I don’t know, but I do know that Jethro did come to recognize the one true God. Jethro met God through Moses and that is all that really matters. God might have chosen the Israelites but His love and concern is for all nations.

   Something To Do:
   Who am I introducing to God? Is my relationship with God the kind that brings excitement in allowing God to guide my life? Am I looking for opportnities to share my faith with others and letting them know what God has done for me? I love Exodus 18:8-11. Thanks to Moses’ faithfulness Jethro was able to say, ” I know now that the Lord is greater than all other gods…”

4. When Slavery Looks Good
   Well we’ve reached a place in the Chronological Bible where our Israelite slaves are finally released from 400 years of captivity by Egypt. They’ve been pleading with God to get them out of their lives as slaves to Pharaoh and his cruel taskmasters. God sends them Moses, with the help of his brother Aaron, to persuade Egypt into letting God’s chosen people go. Just how long it took to convince Pharaoh is not exactly known, some sources think perhaps one month, some say 50 days, some say four to five months, while others think it may have been a year. Regardless of the time, it’s sure to say that the Israelites and Egyptians saw some pretty impressive signs that God is who He says that He is through the ten plagues.

   As each of these plagues take place, the intensity of the each plague and it’s resulting effects increases. And with this intensity, I am sure that the Egyptian belief system that Pharaoh was the devine son of the Egyptian god Ra, is eroded. Since the Israelites lived so long in Egypt, they too would have known of this belief of Pharoah being a deity. God delivers a mighty impressive display.

   Of specific interest are the plagues in which only the Egyptians suffer:
   – Plague four: flies, particularly nasty blood-sucking “dog flies,” swarm only the Egyptian people. The Israelites who reside in the land Goshen are safe.
   – Plague five: Egyptian livestock out in the fields dies, while the Israelite’s livestock is untouched.
   – Plague seven: Hail, thunder, and fire ran down on the earth, but once again only affected the Egyptians.
   – Plague nine: Darkness engulfs the Egyptians for three days while the Israelites have light where they lived.
   – Plague ten: Israel is sort-of not effected by plague ten. Death of the firstborn, the Passover – by sacrificing a unblemished lamb and putting some of it’s blood on the two doorposts and the lentel of the houses, those places are passed over and the firstborn children of the Israelites inside does not die.

   Finally, the Israelites are released, and they go out of Egypt with great riches. They are led by Moses, Aaron, and also directly by God Himself in the form of a pillar of cloud by daylight, and a pillar of fire at night. God’s right there with them, and they can see a physical manifestation of His presence! God knows the nature of the Israelites, and He knows if these people face an enemy this early in the game, they will cave, and they will want to go back to slavery in Egypt. So God takes them to camp by the Red Sea. Then what happens? Well, Pharaoh has yet another hardening of his heart – I swear that man’s heart had to be stone by now – and sends his army chasing after them. The Israelites are trapped, there’s no place to go, and what do they do? They panic, even with God right there in their midst, they panic, they blame Moses, and they are sure they are going to die right then and there. Did they forget all that God has done for them? Did they forget all of those plagues which demonstrated God’s glory and power? After all they’ve been through, do they really think that God is going to let them be slaughtered by Pharaoh’s army?

   As if God hasn’t done enough for the Israelites already, He now uses Moses and parts the Red Sea! Can you imagine the wall of water on each side of the Israelites as they walked through on dry land? I can imagine it fairly well because I’ve seen the movie The Ten Commandments several times. And, for all the times that I’ve read the Bible account, I missed that the Israelites crossed through the Red Sea at night – well, I’ll be, Cecil B. DeMille, you got that part wrong! Then when dawn comes, the Egyptians try to chase after the Israelites, and God drowns all the Egyptians.

   The miracles that these Israelites saw are nothing short of amazing and awesome. Yet, only one month later after being released from bondage and these very same people are longing to go back to slavery in Egypt because they miss meat and bread. *“and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”* (Exodus 16:3, ESV) Really? Did they forget how much they wanted to be free from being slaves under Pharaoh? Now as far as I know, God is still guiding them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, He’s still there. The Israelites are beginning to get a bit on my nerves, they sound like ungrateful whiney babies to me. I mean every single time they face some inconvenience or threat, they want to run back to Egypt! Really? Come on! Why, oh why did they behave that way? Couldn’t they trust God whom they knew? Didn’t they think that God could be trusted with their future?

   Have you ever had an extraordinary experience with God? The kind of experience that when it was all said and done, you knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that God orchestrated everything? I know that I have. And after some time has expired, when I experience my next bout of big difficulty, have I too doubted God, doubted God’s provision, cried out to Him as a whiny baby? Yup, I have, holy moly! I’m just as bad as those Israelites that I was complaining about above.

   Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch Christian, helped Jews escape the Nazi’s Holocaust, and as a result was imprisioned. Her life story is quite amazing, and she was a very strong woman of faith. Some of her well-known quotes include:
   *“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
   “When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”*
   Too bad the Israelites didn’t have Corrie to impart her words of wisdom to them, however, if they didn’t listen to Moses & Aaron who spoke directly with and for God, I doubt they would have listened to Corrie either.

   Over the years, those times of doubting God’s provision and plan for my life have become fewer and far between. God has proven to me time and time again that He can be trusted with my life, that His ways are best. Yet, I still wonder that if the situation is desperate enough, will I resort to whining again just like those hard-headed Israelites in the wilderness? Will I be afraid to trust my unknown future to my known God? Will I jump off of the train just because I’m in a dark tunnel? I think we all do it at some point in time, we lose our trust in God because we cannot understand our situation. It’s human nature, and God being God, knows that we’ll be this way. After all, He called it with Israelites, and He calls it with us.

   We however don’t have to act this way. We know things about redemption that those Israelites in the Old Testament didn’t. We know Jesus. With Jesus’ work of redemption in the lives of believers, we are assured that no matter what we do, no matter how much we complain, no matter how much we whine, no matter how much we doubt, we still have assurance that we have a place with God. That’s very encouraging to me.

   How about you? Have you ever doubted God’s provisions for your life?

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