How does the Word of God multiply? Does God have a place for you and I in the transmission of the Gospel? Listen to the story of God’s Spirit falling on 2 believers who were not ordained preachers, but who began speaking the Word of God at home. Tonight's podcast and the Scripture references and notes are available on the podcast page, or you can listen in the player below. We would love to hear from you, our listeners. You can send Listener Feedback at any time: Our Phone Number is 206-202-3201 Or, you can send media files to my Email: administrator@reason2believehim.com Reason2BelieveHim Podcast Discussions about Faith and Reason, using Science and Bible History. Wife and mother, Former Teacher, Overcoming a Disability. My Website and blog is found at www.reason2believehim.com My poetry is at: http://www.reason2believehim.com/poetry-from-the-spirit.html | |
Music:
"I Choose to Praise You"
Used by permission from Mark Snyder
Written by Mark Snyder of Tree Hill Collective
http://www.weekendwarriorworship.com/www-artist-weekend-warrior-worship/
http://treehillcollective.com/
Vocals by Helene Immel
https://www.facebook.com/Heleneimmelofficial
Tree Hill Collective’s music may be purchased at:
Amazon- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007ITCAB8/ref=dm_dp_adp?ie=UTF8&qid=1331706018&sr=8-3
ITunes-
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/one-redemption-ep/id509287455
|
In the best of prayers, we are humble, selfless, and praying for the needs of others. Of course we ask for something for ourselves too, but it's something deep like... compassion, or courage, or strength, or God's presence. But, then there are the prayers where we have to clasp our hands over our mouth after the first 15 words are all "gimme more nouns" requests. (Note that in the place of the word nouns, you can insert any naming word that describes people, places, or things.) We blush before God to realize that yet again we have been so shallow; such plastic people.
Why do we do that? When did we learn the idea of prayer being a begging list? We don't do that to our other friends, do we? "Loan me $20.00 Susie." "Gimme your old car, Susie." No, Susie would get tired of us before too many conversations like this. Yet, it seems like a pretty high percentage of our time talking to God is about physical and money blessings that we want Him to give us. How do you stay away from that? If you do, do you find yourself asking the "set up requests" for others first, just so you don't feel guilty throwing in the sports car for yourself at the end?
One of my favorite Bible prayers is the prayer of Moses when He asked God to go with Him to the promised land. He didn't want to go alone. No one does.
|
This cartoon is so funny to me because of the fact that Moses is holding a rod and has that "ecstatic" look of a prophet on his face, like when he held his rod over the Red Sea, and later during the battle all night. He's concentrating really hard here in prayer. :)
| | I bring this prayer up, because namely it looks like Moses was trying to slip something past God. He asks for the deep stuff that He's sure God will grant, like "Go with me God." God, says, "Sure, Moe I'll go with you." So, Moses replies that He is glad because he would rather not go if God is not going with him. God feels real good about this devotion. Moe is buttering Him up it seems. Finally, after the easy requests, Moe goes almost shallow there and asks to see God, just so he knows God is with Him. At least, that's how it comes across to me. I have to wonder what the result would have been if he'd just come on out with the request to see God right up front. It's something to think about.
Click to enlarge image
|
Click to enlarge image
|
Click to enlarge image
| | |
My PowerPoint at the left is available on SlideShare, or here, for notes on Exodus. The three screenshots above are from this Power Point Presentation.
|
God chooses the ready and the willing. He makes them able. In Numbers 11:16 God instructed Moses to gather 70 men. He gave Moses charge over this job of selecting the men. They were hand-picked by Moses. Yet when they were ordained in a circle around the tabernacle, and God gave them the gift of prophecy, there were reports from within the camp that two other men were also prophesying. These other two men, Eldad and Medad, were said to be also "written" or "listed" just like the other seventy. Whatever that refers to, whether it means that they were also elders, or just assistants, either way the men weren't among the seventy that Moses handpicked.
God will come looking for you if you are not where He wants you. He knows where you are. We must prepare our hearts and minds to be of service to God. When the Spirit falls, it won't matter where you are... God will find you. These two men were prophesying within the camp and messengers reported it to Moses. Joshua was at that time Moses' assistant. He was apparantly disturbed at the disorder or rather the violation of what he perceived as the "chain of command" in the church. The anointing didn't flow down "Aaron's Beard" or something like that. (For an explanation of this allusion to Aaron's Beard see an earlier blog titled, The Brass Ceiling.)
We don't know why these two men did not go to the ordination service with the other seventy and Moses. But, the fact that God wanted them anointed is obvious. Moses answered to Joshua in Numbers 11:29 "would God that all the LORD'S people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!" When God calls, it doesn't matter how you are ranked. That is grace!
Men and women in the Bible were simply human...interacting with a God. We have many accounts of great exploits and heroic faith recorded, but most Bible believers had some major faults or problems recorded as well. I can't think of any who were perfect, except maybe Daniel. (And, surely his problems were merely unrecorded.) Even John the Baptist had poor social skills; eating grasshoppers, living in the desert, and calling people names. I don't imagine many bedouins have excellent table manners.
It seems the greater men, the ones held in higher regard, had more faults listed. Like Moses, we see that God was able to do a great work through him, despite his many weaknesses and flaws.
The twelve apostles were a ragged lot, not highly esteemed among their peers. Judas was greedy and disloyal. Peter was rash and often foolish. Doubting Thomas must have been slow-minded, if not mildly mentally handicapped, from some of the statements he made and the way he misunderstood simple figures of speech used in the common language that Jesus used.
Noah got drunk on unmixed "strong wine" not long after the flood and passed out naked. I'm sure he knew better. Lot got drunk twice after being delivered from the burning Sodom and Gomorrah, with incestous results. Genesis 19:33-36
Even the great Apostle Paul was frequently recorded as being stubborn, rash, and thick-headedly inflexible. To begin with, we see him supervising the stoning of Steven in the book of Acts, in the name of Heaven. He continued to violently harass the early church, stoned and arrested Christians, and vented his human rage on those whose doctrine differed with his. I wonder what made him such an angry man? I wonder what he encountered in his early years that made him express his passion for God so violently? Maybe his Father was abusive and violent. Or, perhaps there was an ex-wife in the picture. He mistakenly took this human rage to be the zeal of God. But, he quickly found himself up against Jesus Christ Himself.
He spoke harshly and brassly about having got in Peter's face about Peter's prejudices and inconsistencies against the gentiles. He argued with Barnabas about allowing John Mark to resume his junior missionary field work, after John Mark's desertion. This seems quite selfish and petty when you consider how kind Barnabas had been to Paul immediately after Paul's conversion; taking the murderous Saul/Paul under his wings, and urging the other disciples to accept him in the church. I like the kind Mr. Joseph Barnabas! His name means Son of Encouragement. Acts 4:36 He was often seen encouraging others.
We could argue that Paul's goal was not to "Win Friends and Influence People," but to spread the gospel message. Yet, when you compare Jesus' methods to Paul's, you see quite a bit more discord sown in Paul's path. As a side note, Ministers often have different preaching styles. Before you think that a man who is spitting and shouting has more anointing than the Preacher who speaks calmly and quietly, with his hands in his pockets, remember of which sort Jesus often was when preaching. Kerygma, the Greek noun for the Preaching (Kerusso is the act of Preaching/Verb form,) is worship, and like worship preaching comes in many forms, and is a unique expression of the individual giving the gift.
One event in Paul's ministry particularly stands out as totally irrational and bizarre. He was on his first missionary journey, covering Acts 13, 14. He and Barnabas had gone through Cyprus Island with some success, but had more trouble when they reached the mainland. The men of Antioch weren't all agreeable. (Incidentally, for those who like to point out the way women were even prone to arguing in the Bible like Euodias and Syntyche in Philippians 4:2, :) notice that men were prone to throwing big rocks at people.) By the time Paul got a few sermons in at Iconium, they were mad enough to plot together to stone him. Acts 14:5
Paul and Barnabas decided to skip town quickly, as they hadn't yet been beaten or stoned, and didn't seem to desire that outcome. Then they began preaching in Derbe and Lystria, where they healed a man born crippled, through the power of Jesus' name. The people were in awe of the disciples after witnessing that miracle, and decided that Barnabas was the Greek god Jupiter, and Paul was Mercury, since he was the main speaker of the preaching pair. Then the local priest of Jupiter brought in garlands and cows to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas.
This was just too much for Paul's and Barnabas's Jewish sentiments and their fierce devotion to the one true God. The Bible records that the two men tore their own clothes and ran among the people, putting a stop to the worship. Acts 14:15.
Tearing and shredding of clothes was not uncommon in those barbaric days, but was a way to show intense sorrow or anguish. The Jewish are often intensely outwardly emotional people, culturally. But, even then people could be shocked and put off at excesses of zeal. This fact can be illustrated by looking at the time the prophet Samuel chopped the hostage King Agag to bits with his sword, because God had commanded the Israelites to take no hostages in that particular battle. We know Samuel's passionate zeal was a shock to the people because we see that his own people shortly after that trembled at his presence when Samuel came to town to anoint David king. 1 Samuel 16:4
Back to the case of Paul shredding his clothes, we see intense expressions of anger. It can be inferred that Paul was not merely saddened, but deeply angered because of the use of the word "vanities." Paul was calling their deeds foolish. Coupled with the way they ran in among them, you quickly see that Paul found it easier to let his emotions show, than to control his temperament.
Now, Paul had already made the men in Iconium mad, and they followed him here and stirred up the people who Paul had just offended to stone Paul. The Bible doesn't say that Barnabas was stoned with him. Only Paul. This seems reasonable since we know that Paul did most of the talking. Also, as we see later when Paul and Barnabas argue over John Mark, Barnabas is a tender, sensitive man. He appeared to be gifted at making friends. Paul, conversely, appeared to be gifted at making enemies.
There is no way to explain away the fact that they participated in the act of shredding their own clothes in anger. This was not a reasonable response or reaction to the ignorance of those who don't know God. Even if you consider it as a cultural norm for that day and age, you know that Paul had to know better than shredding his own clothes in a fit of rage. Surely, he felt some shame and remorse for that afterwards, (or at least by the time they were finished stoning him.)
Here you had Paul, who considered worship of false gods a heathenistic practice, yet he was ripping his own clothes like the heathen. This behavior was inconsistent, to say the least.
But, we all have our inconsistencies, don't we? Many good Christian people struggle with feelings of anger and rage that can be uncontrollable. Many pastors like to use the term "goals" to describe the behavior we know we should be displaying as Christians. In other words, it is our goal as Christians to grow in the fruit of the Spirit and learn to control our anger, if that is what we struggle with. Sometimes you may fail in weak areas, but you have to allow God to pick you back up and you have to keep striving towards mastery of your weaknesses. If you haven't overcome any of your weaknesses, then you are still drowning or wallowing in sin. Otherwise, what has God saved you from?
Isaiah 45:6-7
Who is God? No, I mean really! Do you ever feel like you don't even know Him? Of course, you think you do, until you see some other aspect of His character and Being. He is multi-faceted, and appears to be ever-changing, like the kaleidoscope. Yet He changes not. Malachi 3:6 We are merely allowed these fleeting glimpses of a God in motion; the creative, working God of action. And, the Bible says He never sleeps. Psalm 121:4
You see these two "God nevers" give a lot of information about who God is to us. Actually, it's no surprise that we get this feeling that we don't really even know God, because right there in Isaiah 45:5 God complained, "though thou hast not known me." So, not only do we not know God, but God knows that we don't really know Him, and He's not happy about it.
But you are feeling a little uneasy about my title, right? Can I call the righteous God of love a Creator of Evil? Really, the devil gets too much credit. Look at Isaiah 45:7. God formed light... and as a result created darkness. Darkness would not be known, had not the light first existed. Who is this God, that by virtue of His forming light in His own Being, He created darkness as an antithesis?
But, it doesn't stop there. God makes peace, and evil is the flip side of the coin. You know, Paul talked about this very thing, along the vein of sin and righteousness in Romans 7:18-19, 20-21.
The very existence of peace creates evil. That means we can generalize here and say that God, by virtue of His character of love, created hatred. God, because of His Holy person, caused sin to run rampant, simply because all holiness is in Him.If you want to be holy, you have to stand close to God.
This makes sense in the realm of physics. Ever notice that if you are near someone smoking, the smoke heads straight for you... a nonsmoker? It's not your imagination, but it's osmosis. Things tend to move from an area of greater concentration to an area of lesser concentration. So, seeing that you are surrounded by nice clean, carcinogen-free oxygen, the cigarette smoke avoids all the smoke saturated smokers, and fills up your breathing space, trying to even it out.
So, God is holy. Filthiness fills the space where God's holiness is not operating, by default. God is love. Leave God out of your life and you find yourself filled with hatred and anger. God is joy, but leave God out and you will be a sad person.
But, if the idea still bothers you that God created evil, look back at the last phrase..."I the Lord do all these things." You see, God has spent the last few pages of this portion of Isaiah obsessing over the fact that He created everything. But, we still don't realize in our hearts that God actually created everything... even our turmoil, our pain, our defeated situations. Of course there is an antidote for all these ailments. God is the antidote, seeing that we sometimes suffer the aforementioned repercussions due to not allowing God to operate in every situation. And, sometmes we are cut off from His presence by those around us, against our own decisions. But, God is as close as the name Jesus.
Romans 11:33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of
God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
One thing is sure; we will fully comprehend God's person in the eternal state. In the meantime, we are like Moses, watching the glory pass by from our little hole in the ground. Amazingly, this God in motion has captured me, heart and soul, though my mind cannot fully contain Him. Exodus 33:18
God is the God of the Universe. He has made all things. He orders the laws of physics, mathematics, and all that we know is eclipsed by the surplus of His knowledge of this created world that we yet do not know. Some things in
Scripture stand out more readily than others. Some stories capture the attention of the casual reader, like dear sweet Jochebed and brave, heroic David. It's easy to see why children can become enchanted with the stories of the Bible. But, there is so much more in the Bible that remains unnoticed by casual reading. Bible reading becomes almost intoxicating when you dig deeper. It seems like the more you know, the more you have to dig to get a better taste. Like the harder drugs or alcohol bring a greater sense of euphoria. Or, so I've been told, as I have never experimented with even gateway drugs. So, just ignore any idotic thing I may inadvertantly say about drug usage, seeing that I am not well versed on that subject, and didn't really listen in Health class.
In the book of Numbers is an exciting story of redemption and desire, possession, and purchase. So, you think I'm lying now? The title is very misleading. Actually it is probably the most boring meaningless title for a book isn't it? Let me show you the real story. God gave birth to the nation of Israel in Genesis, the book of beginnings.
In Exodus, the child Israel grew in bondage, like Joseph. God delivered His children from bondage in a mighty act of deliverance that took a series of plagues against Egypt to effect. The last of those plagues was the death of the
firstborn of all Egypt. Now, this would have convinced the hardest hearts to listen to Moses, to lose your firstborn child. But, those who were under the blood were saved. From that day of God's deliverance from bondage, God declared to Moses that all the firstborn of Israel would belong to Him, seeing that He had saved their lives from the plague of death.
You've heard stories where a person saved another person's life, and the saved man felt he owed his life of service to the man who saved him. That is exactly the case with Christians, and with the firstborn Israelites. But, the day comes, after the Israelites are in the wilderness and ready to move towards possession of the promised land, when God organizes the little band of men into a nation. Moses takes a census of the men of war above the age of 20 in Numbers 1, but doesn't count the Levites. God says the Levites will now be His to use as priests, instead of the firstborn of every family. Numbers 3:12,13.
Of course, God knows how to make a trade. He also keeps count of what belongs to Him. The firstborn were already his. He ordered Moses to count the firstborn, and a total of 22,273 is reported. Then God orders a count of the Levites, every male above one month of age. That's interesting. God only counted the men of war above the age of 20. But, when He was counting His own of the Levites, He counted even the babies. We all belong to God regardless of age.
But, back to the counting. I was totaling the numbers in the margin of my Bible as I read, when I first read this story several years ago. The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. Gershon's family numbered 7,500. Kohath's family was counted at 8,600, and Merari's family totaled 6,200 males. I totaled that to get 22,300. When I finished reading the counting...after I had already added... Numbers 3:39 gave the total as 22,000.
Notice that that number is different from the number of the total of the individual families. This could be due to several factors. I call the number recorded in verse 39, the "Total accepted Levitical count" because that was the
number accepted and recorded by Moses, Aaron, and God. The other 300 were not accepted in the number for some reason. It could be perhaps, that the firstborn Levites were excluded so that they would not be counted twice. Or those 300 may have been on "disability" for some reason or other. We know that God said the Levites with a handicap were not to be put to work in the temple, but were to be fed...God's disability plan for priests...they can eat without working. Leviticus 21:22. Regardless, they were not part of the accepted count.
Look back at the total number of the firstborn, 22,273. Without the 300 that were not accepted, God will be losing a total of 273 souls in the trade. They want to do the right thing by the God of the Universe when they calculate their gift. So, God tells Moses to set the redemption price at 5 shekels apiece for the 273 firstborn that are not replaced by acceptable Levites. This totals 1,365 shekels to be paid to God's treasury by the Israelites. Now, God has a tabernacle, priests, and a treasury.
It is noteworthy that 5 shekels, the redemption gift of a firstborn child, was a small amount, and was
equal to the amount that Joseph was sold into slavery for by his brothers in Genesis. And, Scientists calculate the worth of all our basic elements in any given human body to be about $4.70. So, don't think God is devaluing us. He is giving us a higher market value at the value of five silver dollars today. So, go ahead and sell out to God, since the world won't give you what Jesus did on the cross.
The part that grabbed my heart was the fact that God desired ownership of the Levites, and he didn't want them counted along with the rest of the Israelites, because they were his. Possessed, owned by God Almighty. But, he did not forget that these firstborn were His. These things were done as a type of Redemption at the cross.
Today, God has purchased and redeemed us off the slave market of sin. We belong to the God of the Universe. He paid a price for us in blood. He knows who is His. He counts us everyone. He talks about this ownership throughout Scripture. And, in the end, He will take us to Himself. Revelation 21:3.
We are instructed to care for the possession of God, which he purchased with his blood. Acts 20:28. Don't think you are not an overseer. Regardless of your position in church, somebody is watching you. Remember when we have baby dedications in church, the church is pledging to be an example in front of the child of a Christian, and not become a stumbling block before him as he is raised before God. Just like the parents are responsible for his upbringing, so are the fellow church members responsible for the example of Christianity that they show this child.
I think it is remarkable the way God seems to be jealous of His own people. Exodus 34:14. Romans 14:8. When one is lost, God will not rest seeking him. Luke 15;7.
Don't you live for failure? Don't you just wallow in every little defeat? or would you rather count your victories, choosing to focus instead on the individual human successes sitting before you? For every defeat, there is a victory, if you adjust your glasses.
When Israel went out of Egypt,
the house of Jacob from a people of strange language;
Judah was his sanctuary,
and Israel his dominion.
The sea saw it, and fled:
Jordan was driven back.
The mountains skipped like rams,
and the little hills like lambs.
What ailed you, O you sea, that you fled?
you Jordan, that you were driven back?
You mountains, that you skipped like rams;
and you little hills, like lambs?
Tremble, you earth, at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the God of Jacob;
Who turned the rock into a pool of water,
the flint into a fountain of waters.
Psalm 223-228 form the Hallel, which is a praise song sung by Israelites at many celebrations. (Think Hallelujah.) The first psalm (113) begins with a praise and the last one (118) ends with thanks being given. It is quite a fitting passage for a worship service. But, Psalm 114 here is a beautiful little poem imbedded near the beginning of the Hallel, to give a reason for all this glorying in the God of Israel. It sounds like a patriotic anthem, because it speaks of national deliverancee, yet it doesn't even name the national heroes who achieved the victories. All the glory is given to God. The power working in Moses and Joshua is what is the focus of the Psalm. Still, it begins without even mentioning God. Only pronouns are used at he beginning. This leads to the questions in the third stanza, to surprise you with the climatic answer, the lord, the God of Jacob.
Can you suffer defeat without being overwhelmed? Can you win victories without personal pride? Is it the power working in and through you that makes you who you are? Whose approval are you seeking?
This poem Psalm was used by Dante in his book on Purgatory as the hymn being sung by the spirits of the dead headed by boatloads to the shores of Purgatory. So, the Psalm is often taken to represent the exodus of the soul from this world to the next.
The Psalm speaks of the transcendence of God, a God who is above the whole Earth, a powerful God who can shake the earth. Yet it speaks of the imminence or nearness of God, a God who keeps house in your neighborhood (in the capital city of Israel) and was concerned with water provisions for a wandering band of nomads without a city.
Isaiah spoke of a Lord being high and lifted up, and he is. Isaiah 6:1 In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
Matthew quoted a prophecy of Jesus being God with us in our neighborhood, and He is. Matthew 1:23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
God is high and lifted up, yet he is with us. We know that God is with us when victory is apparent. When successes are being tallied, we know God is near. When all our needs are miraculously met, we see God's power towering above us. But, can we see the power of God in defeat? In failure? In circumstances of human need? In verse 8 we see that adversity is a means to prosperity. We are reminded that God brought water from a rock in the desert. Yes, God can bring prosperity from adversity. There is a prayer written by John Henry newman in 1833 that was turned into a hymn...
"Lead kindly Light, amidst the tumult and gloom,
Lead Thou me on,
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on."
This is only the first verse, but it was sung on board the sinking Titanic in a last minutes worship service. It seems that some passengers were aware that God was in charge. Do you trust human resources or divine initiative? The skipping mountains in verse 4 refer to the theophany (experience with God in a vision) at Sinai.
Psalms 68:8 The earth shook, the heavens also dropped rain at the presence of God: even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel.
Exodus 19:18 And mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke of it ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.
In the song of Deborah we see similar references to the moving of the mountains for Moses. She refers to the mountains melting in Judges five. It becomes obvious that God can be near and He can be big and powerful, as He sees our needs. The fact of omnipresence makes Him always within our reach...even when we can't see Him. So, the answers are yes and yes. The God who is High and Lifted Up, is right beside you.
Exodus 2:1-2 And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and bore a son: and when she saw him that he was a fine child, she hid him three months.
God Bless Jochebed! Oh the love of a mother's heart! (We find her name in Numbers 26 by the way.) Giving birth to a child, though not a unique event, just happens to be one of the most meaningful events in a woman's life... to her. Yes, every mother has a child...but, this was her child. No government mandate would stop a mother's love from pounding in her heart. You have to wonder what she was thinking. Breaking the law is really stupid, you know. She was a criminal! She hid a child the government ordered executed. Picture this poor girl, for she had to be still young, with a smile on her face as she held this chubby little baby. Now, she already had a boy and a girl, older children. But, something in her heart refused to reject this child. To look at this silly laughing baby and know she would defy the law to keep him, was easy to understand, if you are a mother.
Other Hebrew women had seen their children killed. They suffered the grief. They cried and screamed as the child was torn from their arms to be dashed to pieces. Who did Jochebed think she was to hide her baby? Did she think her baby was so special? She had to have suffered the pains of childbirth in silence, without even calling for a midwife. Maybe her husband did the unthinkable and delivered the child himself. I can hear Jochebed crying, grabbing her husband by the arm and pleading that he not call a midwife, because they would kill her child. No, she must deliver this child in silence and hide him today.
The verse says she saw he was a "goodly" child, probably meaning pretty, or cute. Loveable. But, that describes most every mother's baby, does it not. What made her baby so special? Well, there you have the difference in the saved and the lost.They both know they are lost. But, the Christian decides that regardless of how little they deserve salvation, they want it. The Lost accept that they don't deserve salvation. They won't take it. The Saved found themselves at a place where they would not be denied heaven at any price.
Matthew 11:12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.
Lawbreaker! Just who do you think you are Jochebed? Do you think your baby is so special? We find later that this baby had a speech problem, Moses. But, God spoke from the mouth of Moses. God can speak from a rock. God has spoke in various times and in various ways, you know. (Hebrews 1:1) It doesn't really matter who you are, because God is the one speaking. Dear Jochebed, God will speak. Go ahead. Step out on faith and hide God's promise. Lay little baby Moses down in the bulrushes, and watch God bring him up out of Egypt.
In this story you see a mother who had no idea, no plan. She was just taking it one day at a time. She only knew she could not allow this good baby to be killed. Each day she hid him, not knowing what else to do. Finally, she knew she could hide him no longer. She had to have a plan. Oh, but God already had a plan waiting for her. Moses would not only be saved, but he would become the salvation of his people. Jochebed couldn't have realized that this had been God's decision all along. Here she thought she wanted her baby to live, and all along it was God's child. God put that love in her heart for a reason. God would not only sustain the child, but He would make a way of escape, when Jochebed's resources were depleted.
And, to think, God lets us have a part in His plan...when we will ask for His will. He could do it without our help. But, God chose to use Jochebed and her "good" child. Afterall, God used David and a rock. He could have killed the giant with just the rock. But, David chose to get involved in God's will. David hooked his sling up to God's rock. Just who did he think he was?! Still wet behind the ears, and you think you're going to fight a giant? Sit down boy!
You see, the problem was that the other men had been there working all the time. David had not been on the battlefield, serving in the war. They saw him as coming fresh out of Father's protecting arms, to criticize their work. Had David seen war, they might ask? Where had David been while they were faithfully serving the country? Here he was catering lunch. But, David had been serving in the sheep fields of his Father. He was working elsewhere. A job is a job, is it not, when you are in the employ of Dear Old Dad. Somebody has to watch the family business. They must have wondered who David thought he was.
I never read what becomes of Dear Old Dad and Mom (David's Dad Jessie and Moses' Mom Jochebed.) But, Moses delivered a nation from bondage. David became King of Israel, and his son after him, and Jesus will one day sit on his throne. Imagine, being part of such a great big plan! That's where we find ourselves...right in the middle of God's glorious Kingdom!
|
