Waiting on God’s Timely Deliverance

April 30, 2024April 29, 2024Todd R Leave a comment

Fellow Travelers,

There are times in our lives where God seems to be distant and uninvolved. In these times we may feel like crying out with the Psalmist:

“Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord?
Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever!
Why do you hide your face?
Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?”[1]

The nation of Israel faced times like these, and one example comes from Exodus chapter 5. The story is during Israel’s slavery in Egypt, while Moses was pleading with Pharaoh to let Israel go to worship God. Pharaoh was stubborn because Israel was a vast (and free) workforce for him. Instead of letting Israel go, he decided to punish them. Pharaoh commanded his taskmasters: “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as in the past; let them go and gather straw for themselves. But the number of bricks that they made in the past you shall impose on them, you shall by no means reduce it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.”[2]

With their jobs suddenly much harder, the people of Israel complained to Moses: “The LORD look on you and judge, because you have made us stink in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”[3] Even Moses became discouraged and frustrated, as we see in the next verses: “Then Moses turned to the LORD and said, “O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.”[4]

It seemed like God was “sleeping.” Like He had forgotten His people’s “affliction and oppression.”

However, we know that earlier God told Moses: “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.”[5]

God was not sleeping; He has “surely seen” what was happening. He also had not forgotten; He had a plan “to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians,” even if it wasn’t apparent to Moses and the people. Their frustration grew because time had passed since God made His promises, and they still hadn’t been delivered.

Do we often feel the same frustration? Do we often feel His deliverance should come sooner? We know in our minds that God sees the effect of sin on the world, and on each one of us. We also know that He has promised to return and deliver us from our sin. But time keeps passing.

From our point of view, we have information Moses and the people didn’t have. We know that Israel did eventually enter the “broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” It took time, but it happened when God determined it was the right time. When His people were truly ready. Therefore, we know that God will also deliver us when He determines it is the right time. When His people are ready. Not because we see certain signs or our interpretations of prophecy have been fulfilled. We have the gospel “as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”[6] When the time is right, according to God (not according to us), all will be aligned under His plan. Things we currently know and see, and things not yet revealed. Only God knows.

In the meantime, do we give God the right to determine the method and timing of our deliverance? Or do we impatiently insist on our own way and timing? Would we have chosen this world as the path to heaven, or would we have designed a different way, if given the choice? Because this is the world we have, we know God chose this way, and we must trust Him, for only Jesus is “the way, and the truth, and the life.”[7]

Sometimes things look to us like we should cry out to God, “you have not delivered your people at all,” but He delivered Israel from Egypt in His time, and He will deliver us in His time. He guarantees it.

[1] Psalm 44:23-24
[2] Exodus 5:7-8
[3] Exodus 5:21b
[4] Exodus 5:22-23
[5] Exodus 3: 7b-8
[6] Ephesians 1:10
[7] John 14:6

Only Resurrection Will Satisfy

March 30, 2024Todd R 2 Comments

Dear fellow travelers,

When the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:11-12 – “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” – he was referring to the story of Israel’s 40 years of wandering in the wilderness between Egypt and the Promised Land. In verse 5, Paul wrote “with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.” Paul assures us that “these things” help keep us from temptation and strengthen our faith in these last days.

But what are these lessons? One of them can be found in the only Psalm written by Moses – Psalm 90. A key verse in that Psalm is verse 12, which says:

“So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

And what is wisdom? One way I describe it is: the ability to choose paths that lead to life, over paths that lead to death, paths that Moses unfortunately was very, very familiar with. He may have understood the consequences of neglecting God in our daily lives better than anyone for three reasons.

First, in recording the events of Genesis, Moses knew that ever since Adam and Eve, mankind has been facing, and mourning, the consequences of sin. The repetition of “and he died” in the genealogy of Genesis 5 and elsewhere reminded Moses of the result of missing the mark of God’s righteousness. Centuries before Paul, Moses knew that “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”[1]

Second, Moses also saw the consequences of sin very clearly in the shortening of lifespans. In Psalm 90:10, he wrote:

“The years of our life are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.”

This same Moses wrote about early patriarchs who were said to live hundreds of years[2], but by Moses’ day 80 years was considered a long life.

And also, Moses is known as author of the book of Numbers, which as the 4^th book in the Pentateuch, lines up with Psalm 90, the first Psalm in book 4 of the Psalms. Numbers tells of the consequences of Israel’s disobedience and grumbling on their journey to the Promised Land, and why it took 40 years and the entire generation that left Egypt (except Joshua and Caleb) died. Psalm 90 is almost a summary of what Moses learned from that experience:

“So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

What does this have to do with the resurrection? Psalm 90 starts with these 2 verses:

“Lord, you have been our dwelling place
            in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
            or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
            from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”

Moses, who led Israel out of Egypt, through the wilderness for decades, and to the threshold of the Promised Land, says the only dwelling place of God’s people is not a specific place, but it is the Lord Himself. When we are with Him, we are home.

Moses concluded Psalm 90 with verses 16 and 17:

“Let your work be shown to your servants,
            and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
            and establish the work of our hands upon us;
            yes, establish the work of our hands!”

While Moses’ understanding of a resurrection and an afterlife was likely very minimal and vague, he was able to conclude that the best way to spend our short lives here is to do work that matters in eternity, which God has laid out for us to do[3]. We should let Him “establish the work of our hands.” All through the Pentateuch, Moses recorded the choices between life and death made by Israel, and one of his conclusions is: life is short; live for God!

However, a life truly dedicated to God only makes sense if there is a life to come. Only resurrection will satisfy because Paul wrote: “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”[4] However, since there was an Easter resurrection and there is a resurrection to come, we may look forward to our Promised Land of a new heaven and a new earth. Moses knew our only other option is a long, purposeless meandering on this earth ending in death.

Therefore, let us pray as Moses wrote in Psalm 90:14 –

“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”

May we – in wisdom – choose the paths that lead to life everlasting! Amen.

[1] Romans 5:12
[2] Genesis 5:27 and 9:29, for example
[3] Ephesians 2:10
[4] 1 Corinthians 15:19

Lessons from an Unlikely Idol

March 18, 2024March 17, 2024Todd R 1 Comment

The history of the kings of Judah can read like a back-and-forth between construction of idols by bad kings and the destruction of idols by good kings. Hezekiah was one of the few good kings, and one reason is recorded in 2 Kings 18:4, which says:

“[Hezekiah] removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).”

Judah was meant to have only one God, the true God Yahweh, and to destroy anything that would lead them to idolatry. Unfortunately, worshipping other gods in high places was not uncommon, and neither was worship of Asherah. What’s interesting about this verse is the mention of this “Nehushtan.” The origin of this bronze snake that Moses made comes from a story in the book of Numbers.

As often happened while they wandered the wilderness, the people of Israel complained to God and Moses that they would have been better off if still in Egypt. They hated the food God was providing and accused Him of leading them into the wilderness to die. As discipline for this grumbling, “the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.”[1] The people repented and asked for the serpents to be removed, and Moses prayed for them.

The answer was that “Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.”[2] This serpent being lifted up was later identified in John 3:14 as a prelude to Jesus being lifted up on the cross, but in Hezekiah’s day it had become an idol, an object that took people away from worship of the true God and the then-future Christ. Instead of being a symbol of salvation, the bronze serpent became a symbol of idolatry, which leads to damnation.

The story of the serpents ends there, and there is no mention that God told the people to keep this bronze serpent, or that God told them to give it a name. This was probably the beginning of the problem, that Israel added to God’s intentions for it.

So, what are the lessons for us?

Nehushtan, the bronze serpent, was created at God’s command to be an aid to worship, a device for reminding His people of His provision for them, from above. Instead, it became an idol. What this tells us is that anything, even something once (or currently) used in worship, can become an idol. Even things like private Bible study or public singing of hymns can be idols if we use them as ends in themselves and not as a way to worship our only God. A thing can be an idol not because of what it is, but because of our attitude toward it.

Also, something that is an idol to one person might not be an idol to another. The bronze serpent was not an idol to Moses, but it was to people in Hezekiah’s time. So, if we know that something tempts us, that thing might not be a temptation for others, and vice versa. Therefore, we should not be quick to judge others for doing things that bother us, but may not be a problem for them, and are not specifically prohibited in the Bible.

When Christ was raised up on the cross like the bronze serpent and was raised from the dead like those who survived the bites of serpents, He identified Himself as the only God and the only one worthy of our worship, but He also identified Himself as the merciful one who desires that we be merciful to each other.

Like ancient Israel, we all have Nehushtans in our lives that corrupt our worship, and like the good king Hezekiah, we must remove them from our lives to reform our worship.

[1] Numbers 21:6
[2] Numbers 21:9

Barbs in Our Eyes

March 14, 2024Todd R 1 Comment

As Israel was preparing to enter the Promised Land of Canaan after wandering in the wilderness, God gave them many instructions through Moses about how they were to live when they got there. One of the instructions was to eliminate all of Canaan’s inhabitants. Part of the warning not to ignore this comes in Numbers 33:55, which says:

“But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell.”

What this is communicating is the urgency of getting rid of anything that could influence us to sin, and this applies as much to us as to ancient Israel. In Israel’s case, the nations they were to remove from Canaan were under God’s judgement for centuries of worship of false gods, which included practices like ritual prostitution and child sacrifice. God knew that His people would be tempted by these foreign gods and practices unless all trace of them was eliminated.

For us, God also wants to protect us from false gods and harmful practices and habits, and the phrase “barbs in your eyes” is a picture of the urgency for us to get rid of anything that would tempt us. Think about it: If I had a thorn in my eye, I would drop everything and not be able to do anything else until I got it out. Until the thorn was gone, it would be my one and only priority. In modern times, God doesn’t tell His people to attack other nations in judgement, but He does want His people to attack sin with the same zeal.

So when I read “But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell” it leads me to ask the question:

Do we remove sources of sin from our lives as urgently as we would a barb in our eye?

The God Who is Never Inadequate

February 22, 2024February 21, 2024Todd R 3 Comments

Once upon a time, “Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.”[1] It seemed like a normal day for a shepherd until he saw a burning bush, but not any burning bush. This one, though on fire, was not consumed by the fire. As anyone would, Moses was curious and stopped to look. Then, “When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’”[2] [emphasis mine]

But just a few verses later, “Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?’”[3] Moses’ “Here I am” quickly became a “Who am I,” and why? Because God had spoken to Moses from the bush saying that He had come to deliver the Jews from their affliction as slaves under the Egyptians. God wanted Moses to be His representative before Pharaoh, but Moses objected not just this one time, but three more times:

“Then Moses said to God, ‘If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?’” – Exodus 3:13
“Then Moses answered, ‘But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you.’’” – Exodus 4:1
“But Moses said to the LORD, ‘Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.’” – Exodus 4:10

“What should I say?” “Who are you?” “What if they don’t listen?” “I’m not a good speaker” …These were the objections Moses weighed against the fact staring him in the face that God was there, burning a bush without the fire consuming it. Moses went from amazement to avoidance incredibly fast, once given a seemingly difficult task.

It’s easy to criticize Moses, but do we also change our view of God, and of ourselves, based on what God asks us to do? Do we praise God on Sunday morning and in our private times, yet say we’re busy when asked to do something specific for God that might be uncomfortable?

If so, all of us, and Moses, are in plentiful company. Gideon likewise pushed back on God’s call in Judges 6:15 – “And he said to him, ‘Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.’”[4]

Jeremiah tried to argue with God in Jeremiah 1:6 – “Then I said, ‘Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.’”[5]

Isaiah, like the others, claimed he was no good for what God asked him to do, and in Isaiah 6:5 “said: ‘Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!’”

Back to Moses’ case, he was either certain that a God who could make a bush burn without it being consumed could not empower him to speak, or just too scared to do what God had asked. However, if we rely on God, who is always the I AM, we can do whatever He asks. But if we focus on who we are, we cannot. Our “Here I am” will became a “Who am I” when we feel inadequate.

We can read on and learn that later, God had strengthened the faith of this same Moses, so that when Israel was terrified and cornered against the Red Sea, with Pharaoh’s army approaching, he declared: “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”[6] The Moses who was once full of excuses was used by God to deliver a nation.

If God is asking you to do something difficult or uncomfortable today, you know what to do. We can’t read on to the rest of our story, but He has, and He knows what He is doing.

[1] Exodus 3:1
[2] Exodus 3:4
[3] Exodus 3:11
[4] I wrote about Gideon’s call in Giving Gideon the Benefit of the Doubt
[5] Likewise, in God Equips Those He Calls
[6] Exodus 13:13b-14

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