You can’t fight the battle against sin alone!

Exodus 17-20

In Exodus 17 the Israelites are on their journey through the wilderness.  The wilderness can be viewed as an analogy for sin and in fact in the first verse of this chapter we are told that the Israelites journeyed “from the Wilderness of Sin”.  Think about sin for a minute.  Sin is a dry, barren, strength sapping wasteland.  Sin is a mirage.  You think you’ve found an oasis, dive in, and drink deeply only to discover that you’ve got a mouthful of hot, gritty, throat-choking sand; the opposite of what you thought you were getting.

Brothers, we are sinners.  We have this place inside us that thirsts for something.  We try to fill it up with all sorts of worldly things only to find that those things do not quench; in fact, they not only fail to quench but they provide the exact opposite of what we really need to fill that empty space.  What is our typical response to this on-going thirst?  Usually, more of the same.  Doesn’t make sense does it?

Here in the desert the people cry out for something to quench their thirst.  Moses struck a rock in Horeb, which means desolate place, and life sustaining, thirst quenching water flowed.  What does the rock symbolize?  There is no need to speculate.

1 Corinthians 10:1-4

“For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.”

John 4:14

“but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.‘”

Remember the manna from yesterday?  Christ is the Bread of Life.  Now we have the Rock from which thirst quenching water flows.  Christ is the Water of Life.  Remember the last supper?

Luke 22:19-20

“And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.‘”

The rock gave forth its life sustaining water when Moses struck it.  Christ was struck and His death can give you life if only you’ll drink.  He is the Water of Life.

We need Christ in our battle against sin.  By ourselves we cannot defeat sin.  God’s analogy concerning the battle of sin is only just begun here in Exodus 17.  We go from God’s provision of water to the battle against Amalek.  Amalek is a descendant of Esau.  Amalek and the Amalekites are a symbol of the flesh.

This is the first battle between Israel and any nation and we will see these two battle each other off and on throughout the Old Testament.  This is just like us.  If you’ve drunk of the Water of Life you will battle sin and the flesh until that day when Christ returns and our bodies are raised or changed into something “incorruptible”.  Frankly, if you haven’t drunk of the Water of Life I don’t think sin is much of a battle for you.  That is unless you haven’t accepted Christ and God is calling you to Him.  It is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, also symbolized by water, that causes you to fight with sin and gives you the power to triumph.

This victory, however, does not come easily.  Joshua led men to fight Amalek while Moses, Aaron, and Hur gave prayer support, Exodus 17:9-12.  Notice that Joshua did not go out to fight Amalek alone nor did Moses pray alone.   As long as Moses held his arms up in intercessory prayer and dependence on God, the Isrealites succeed in their fight against Amalek.  As that prayerful dependence sagged so did their efforts agains Amalek.

As Moses tired, Aaron and Hur supported him by giving him a place to sit and by holding up his tired arms.  Fellas, we can’t win in our battle against sin if we do not depend on God.  I love John Wayne, Die Hard, and any other movie where a self-sufficient, rugged individual “He Man” defeats the bad guy through his own strength, wisdom, and persistence.  That’s fine for the movies but it doesn’t work in real life.

In real life we need God, His Word, and prayer, as well as fellow brothers in Christ to help us defeat sin.  If you don’t have a group of Christian brothers to encourage you and strengthen you then get some.  Go to church, join a men’s ministry, start a men’s group, or at the very least get an accountability partner.  Whatever you do, don’t go into battle by yourself.  You will get the tar kicked out of you and God is showing you this truth right here in today’s reading.

As if this isn’t enough of an example, Exodus 18 goes on to show that Moses is trying to do too much.  His father-in-law gives him good advice to select trust worthy men to help him.  Yes we all need help and this story gives us two examples of accepting help: first, Moses accepts the wise counsel of his father-in-law, second, he accepts the help of other men to accomplish the task at hand.

You know the old joke about how men don’t like to ask for directions.  Jokes are usually funny because there is some underlying truth to them.  We guys don’t like to ask for help.  We think if we are men then we should be able to take care of things ourselves and that it is just a little un-manly to ask for help from others.  Guys, that just isn’t biblical.  You want to be a Godly man?  You need other Godly men around you to help you fight your battles.  You’re not manly if you don’t ask for help; you’re just alone.

I’m skipping over the 10 commandments for now since we’ll get another crack at them in Deuteronomy.  But feel free to comment on them if you feel so moved.  Let me leave you with a question in hopes of sparking some comments.

What do you think God means when He says in Exodus 19:6 “and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests“?

Have a great day brothers!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

He set you free. Do you long to go back?

Better off a slave?

Exodus 14-16

Yesterday we read about how God manipulated all of creation to show His power to Pharaoh, Egypt, and Israel.  That manipulation is called the “10 Plagues”.  After all that God had done, could there be any doubt about His power?  Having blessed the Israelites by setting them free does one really think He would do so only to abandon them in the desert to die?

Today’s reading shows the Israelites bouncing between praising God for His blessings, power, and protection and grumbling that God has dragged them into the desert against their will to die a horrible death.  So, we have the 10 plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, bitter water made fresh, meat (quail) in the evening and bread (manna) in the morning and they aren’t done griping yet; in fact, they never are.

Do we act that way?  Christ died on the cross for us.  If we accept that sacrifice we are adopted into the family of God!  The Holy Spirit comes to live within us and guide us through the desert which is this life.  Can there be a greater miracle than Holy God dying for you that you might live eternally with Him?  Yet trouble comes, as we should know it will, and we wonder if God still loves us, if He hears our sorrow, if He really cares.

God didn’t rescue you from the bondage of sin and death only to let you starve in the wilderness.  He has shown His power in your life and when in doubt all you need do is remember that power and that He would not have used it on your behalf if He intended for you to waste away.  Trouble will come.  He didn’t promise that you wouldn’t go through a desert.  He promised He would go with you.  He didn’t promise you it would be easy; in fact, he told you it would be hard.

Our task is to follow where He leads, depend on Him to provide our daily needs, not our wants, and to bring us safely into the land He promised us when the shadow of death passed over us on account of the shed blood of the Lamb.  Even though the journey be tough, God will grow you through the process.  He will show you the man He created you to be and you will enter into your reward and you will hear “Well done my good and faithful servant!”

Men, you are not yo-yos.  God has shown His power and He is the light unto your feet.  Follow!  Rejoice!  For He is God and He has done it!  It is finished!

Have a blessed day.

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

Jesus is the Lamb that was slain!

Exodus 11-13

Today we read a foreshadowing of the good news.  The Passover is a picture of salvation through the shed blood of Christ.  There is so much one could comment on in today’s reading.  I’m afraid I can only breeze over this wealth of scripture with the briefest of summary.

The 10^th and final plague God placed on Pharaoh and Egypt was the death of every first born; human and animal.  Before anyone says some nonsense about God’s cruelty let us remember “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23, and “The wages of sin is death” Romans 6:23.  Every one of us, you, me, the Israelites, the Egyptians, deserve to be blasted to atoms.  Anything short of that is grace.  As I said, Pharaoh and Egypt’s time of iniquity has passed.  It’s judgment day!

So what will judgment day look like?  We get a glimpse of it here in Exodus.  Each of the Israelites were instructed to take an unblemished, or perfect lamb, into their home to live with them for four days, Exodus 12:3-5.  To save their lives from the judgment God was about to exact, the lamb had to die, Exodus 12:6.  The blood of the sacrificed lamb had to be placed on the doorway of the home of every Israelite that hoped to live through the judgment night, Exodus 12:7.  When God saw a house with the blood of the lamb on the door posts He passed over that house and death did not deliver its blow, Exodus 12:13.

That’s how it is for us brothers.  If you want to live you must invite Christ into your heart.  You must accept His sacrifice as your lamb; His blood guarding the doorway to your heart.  When your time comes, judgment will pass over you and death will have lost its sting.  Notice in Exodus 12:26-27 and again in Exodus 13:14-15 guys, that God says that we are to teach our children about God’s saving grace.

Again, there is so much I’d love to comment on but I must try to keep things short.  With that said let me point out just two more things I found interesting.  Unleavened bread is bread prepared without yeast.  Bread without yeast is basically a cracker.  Yeast “puffs up” the dough.  Just a little pinch of yeast will permeate the entire loaf of dough  in no time.  Yeast is used in the Bible as an analogy for sin.  Just a pinch of sin will permeate the entire man.

Unleavened bread is an analogy for Christ in the Passover meal; there is no yeast, no sin.  In observing the Passover one is not to eat anything with leaven.  You are to turn your back on leaven just as a Christian is to turn his back on sin.  I’ve participated in a Seder service, Passover meal, and the unleavened bread, or Matza, has little holes in it and it has “stripes” and “bruises” from the baking process. (See picture just below and to the right.)  Isaiah provides a number of prophecies regarding the Messiah.  Here is one I think you’ll find interesting.  I take it from the NKJV translation:

Isaiah 53:5

But He was wounded (pierced) for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.

Finally, I noticed something in reading these passages that I’ve never seen before and I wonder about its significance.  In Exodus 12:42 ESV, God says “It was a night of watching by the Lord” referring to the night of the Passover.  Now other translations render this verse differently so I’m not sure I’m on to something here but do you remember how Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane said to Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, in Matthew 26:38 “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.”  In Matthew 26:40-41 Jesus uses the word “watch” twice more “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”

Perhaps there is no real connection between the “watching” in the Passover story and Jesus in Gethsemane.  What do you think?  Come on brothers, I’ll bet one of you has some insight on this.  Let’s hear it!

Have a blessed day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE ME!

Exodus 8-10

So what is with the 10 plagues thing?  I mean, why not 3, or 5, or 8?  I think we’d get the point after three don’t you?  “Okay, okay!  We do what you say or we’re toast!  Got it!”  Seriously, what’s going on here?  What is the purpose?

Is His purpose to punish the Egyptians?  Is it to strengthen the faith and resolve of the Israelites?  I suspect one could say all of the above and more but God Himself tells us specifically His purpose in Exodus 9:16 “But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”

I believe I have said before in this blog that your purpose in life is no big mystery.  Your purpose in life is to be in “right relationship” with God; that’s why He created you.  Your purpose is to Glorify God.  I can hear you now “Hold on their brother!  You just said my purpose is to be in right relationship with God and then you say it is to Glorify God.  Which is it?”  Don’t you see?  They are one and the same.  A right relationship with God includes humbling yourself before Him, denying yourself, and glorifying Him.  A right relationship with Him means your heart is in the right place.

I am a sinner saved by grace, but my struggle to be the man God created me to be continues.  That said, I have had moments when my heart and mind were in the right place; every thought on the glory of God, on His grace and mercy, on His majesty; a word to glorify His holy name ready on my lips.  It is in those moments that I have glimpsed the fullness of life Christ came to give me.  In those moments my face is beaming, my spirit soaring, joy overwhelms me and I am at peace.  Oh to live there continually!

My brothers, God didn’t make us to glorify Him because He needed that adulation.  He does not need us.  It is we who need Him.  When we are in right relationship with Him, when we glorify Him, it is we who benefit.  You want to do something really selfish, glorify God.

So, God performed 10 mighty works in the form of plagues so that His name would be proclaimed in all the Earth and here we are thousands of years later doing just that in response to these very deeds.  I see something else here as well, however.  I see Pharaoh’s hardened heart.  I have met people that say God doesn’t exist but the moment they fear for their own well being or that of a loved one they are on their knees praying to that alleged non-existent God.  I’ve said it before, there are no atheists in fox holes.

Look at Pharaoh.  He is, in his own mind, lord of all he surveys.  In fact, he sees himself as a god.  His response to Moses’ warnings is to shake them off and toss him out.  That is until the plagues start to hurt.  Then it’s bargain time and “okay okay”.  That is until the hurt goes away.  Then it’s “I’m lord of all I survey.”  Pharaoh’s return to his previous state of arrogance is communicated by the words “Pharaoh hardened his heart.”

Let’s admit it fellas.  Sometimes we’re like that.  Lord of all we survey until things go wrong then we are on our knees in prayer only to return to our illusion of lordship once the trouble is passed.  In Exodus 10:3 God, through Moses, asks “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me?”  Bouncing up and down on our knees based on how the wind blows is not an act of humbling ourselves before God.  Only turning to Him when we want something is insincere worship and God sees right through it.

Now I know that some look at Pharaoh and say “What choice did he have?  If God set all of this up to glorify Himself then Pharaoh has no free will and is being treated unjustly.”  They will inevitably point to Exodus 10:1 where God specifically says “I have hardened his heart”.  First off, let me say this.  God is Holy and we are not.  If God treated us as we deserve, we’d each be fried up like a piece of crispy bacon upon our first angry, deceitful, disrespectful, lustful, or idolatrous thought; anything less than that brother is mercy.

Let me also say that what I see in the 10 plagues is grace.  If the only thing God wanted to do was glorify his name and free the Israelites then I suspect He could have done it with fewer plagues.  It isn’t until the eighth plague that God says He’s hardened Pharaoh’s heart.  Pharaoh’s heart was his to command through seven plagues.  Pharaoh had seven opportunities to humble himself before God.  The choice was his and he chose poorly.  He rejected grace.

Do you remember way back in Genesis where God told Abraham that He would bring his people back to Canaan to take possession of it but as yet the iniquity of the people in that land was not yet complete?  God knew that they would complete their iniquity and their time for judgment would come just as it had for Sodom and Gomorrah; but He didn’t hasten it.  He could have judged them then and there and established Abraham in Canaan; but He didn’t. He gave them their fullness of time to return to Him knowing that they wouldn’t.  By the time Pharaoh has gotten to the eighth plague his time of iniquity is up.  It’s time for judgment and he has it coming.

Guys, this whole deal is about the heart.  Get yourself right with God.  Humble yourself before Him.  Deny yourself and put Him first; not for His sake but for yours.

Have a blessed day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Today’s reading: Exodus 5-7

Exodus 6:2-3 “God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them.”

Remember back when Jacob was born.  They named him Jacob because as Esau was birthed first Jacob’s “hand took hold of Esau’s heel”.  So Jacob can mean “heel-catcher” or “he supplants”.  Names in Biblical times often reflected the character of the person named.  Jacob did “catch” his brother’s heel but this was symbolic of his lifelong efforts to supplant his brother. His name was indicative of his character.

The names of God are also indicative of His character.  Until Exodus 6:2 God is known to the descendents of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as “God Almighty” (El Shaddai), signifying God as a source of blessing.  Here in verse 2 God is saying our relationship is going to another, deeper level.  The Israelites will now know God as Yahweh, translated here as Lord, which is from the verb “to be”.  From this we get God identifying Himself as “I Am” or more correctly “I Am who I Am”.  This is a simple but profound statement about God.  This means no one defines God but God Himself.  How often have you heard a lost person say something like “I can’t believe in a God who allows suffering in the world.”  They are attempting to “define” God; to create God in their own image.

By the way, the Israelites viewed this as a very personal name for God and held it in such reverence that they never spelled out the word completely.  They only used the four consonants, YHWH, to represent this name in scripture and in fact, when they read the scriptures aloud they would substitute the word Adonai, which means Lord, for Yahweh.  In the medieval period the vowels of Adonai were attached to the consonants YHWH which lead to the word Jehovah.  Thus Yahweh and Jehovah are the same name for God.

Now the name Yahweh was known in Abraham’s day so what God is communicating here is that the patriarchal fathers knew God as One who provides and protects but they did not have the fuller understanding of the name Yahweh.  In context of this revelation in Exodus of a deeper meaning, we understand that God is saying I Am will fulfill His promises and save His people.  This is God’s covenant name which, in a sense, is Redeemer.

The story we are entering into here is the foreshadowing of the salvation, or redemption, God will bring to all of mankind through Jesus Christ.  God will call his people out of the slavery/sin, and deliver them to the Promised Land/Heaven.  I’m sure we will get into the beautiful imagery God provides in this salvation story but first we are learning that salvation will not come from the hand of man but from the hand of God.  It is His character that guarantees salvation; not ours.  Thank God!!!

I have heard people say that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are two different gods; the Old Testament vengeful, the new loving.  What nonsense.  God is God.  He is unchanging.  He is today what He was yesterday.  God’s revelation of Himself here to Israel is yet another demonstration of one of His character traits which is unchanging love.

There have been times when I have corrected my daughter and her response was a statement that I didn’t love her; or to be more precise, that I hated her.  What she didn’t seem to realize is that I corrected her because I love her.  If I didn’t love her I would not correct her.  If I didn’t love her I wouldn’t be involved in her life; I wouldn’t care what happens to her; I wouldn’t work to instigate positive change in her life.  God is saying here in Exodus “I will be involved in your life.  I care what happens to you.  I love you.”  A God that does not love does not take the trouble to redeem mankind.

What’s in a name?  If it’s yours or mine: nothing.  If it’s God’s: everything!

Blessings brothers!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

Guys,

The tragedy in Haiti is mind blowing.  I donated to the SB Disaster Relief organization and they’ve been sending me updates on what’s going on there.  I thought you might be interested in this.

Bill

Disaster Relief Update – Wednesday, January 20, 2010

“I will also make you a light for the nations, to be My salvation to the ends of the earth.” Isaiah 49:6b (HCSB)

Haiti Earthquake

Amid the rubble, there is joy as well as heartache. Tuesday, one week after a massive earthquake destroyed the capital of Haiti and surrounding areas, a woman was removed from a collapsed building alive. On this same day rescuers told families waiting outside a supermarket there was no one else alive. Joy and heartache are themes repeated throughout the countryside.

Security remains a major issue. The UN is sending in additional troops and police forces. Getting food to the 1.5 million homeless in Port-au-Prince is also a challenge, For the second straight day, forces air dropped MREs and water to people gathered in makeshift campgrounds. The death toll continues to climb, approaching the 100,000 mark, and expected to grow. There are still thousands in the rubble.

Medical care is slowly improving as more clinics are established by military troops and volunteer organizations. Even so, multitudes of injured Haitians wait for life-saving care and many die before getting the help they need.

Southern Baptist personnel on the ground report the sobering reality before them. Leaders are urgently stressing the importance of accurately assessing every volunteer’s ability to cope with the sights, sounds, and smells of the devastation. Those planning to respond to the call to action in the next few weeks should prayerfully consider their own ability to handle the impact of what they will encounter.

While teams and individuals are eager and ready to respond, the situation on the ground requires caution, careful planning, and well-organized logistics. In line with agreements with BGR for international responses, Kentucky and Mississippi are at the top of the list for deployment this month. Their state DR leaders are currently on the ground with the assessment team.

In the midst of tragedy, there can be an extraordinary gift. Henry Courser of Georgia reported that on Monday he assisted in the rescue of a little girl. She turned out to be an orphan in the last stages of adoption to a California couple. Henry, with close ties to the American ambassador, spent most of Monday and Tuesday completing the process, getting her passport, and arranging for her evacuation to the US with the help of Ted Turner. When we are faithful, God places His people in the right place at the right time.

Communication is another area that is proving to be a challenge. Cell phone service is improving but service is not consistent. Satellite phones are proving to be more reliable but they are costly and few are available. Several Southern Baptist HAM radio operators have been in touch with operators in Haiti offering words of encouragement and praying with them. Perhaps others will choose to reach out in this manner.

Bill Hoops K3WJH of PA/SJ Disaster Relief communications is one who reported talking with operators in Haiti. He said that those he has communicated with tell him the situation is “worse than you can imagine, a true war zone, bodies and all.” They report that they are working off generators, quickly running out of fuel for the generators.

While the needs are enormous (the scope and magnitude of the response needed is greater than even Katrina a few years ago), we realize we are dealing with a sovereign nation. We are learning how to navigate in the brand new waters of Haitian politics, UN control, and State Department leadership. Let us remain faithful as we await God’s fullness of time. There is no doubt that God is in control. In His time He will get the glory and His Kingdom will be strengthened in Haiti.

Read more about the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief effort in Haiti.

Support Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Efforts

Southern Baptist Disaster Relief responds to disasters across the US and around the world. Donations are fully tax deductable and 100% of all gifts are used to meet the needs of hurting people in the wake of disasters. Donations can be made online, by phone (866) 407-6262, or by mail – checks should be made payable to “North American Mission Board” and sent to Disaster Relief Fund, P.O. Box 116543, Atlanta, GA 30368-6543.

To contact SBDR, call 1.888.462.8657 or e-mail disasterrelief@namb.net