GOD SPEAKS TO ISRAEL
The Lord had brought Israel out of the bondage of Egypt. He
brought them to the mount Sinai. And it was there He decided to
speak to them.
"And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and
the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the
people saw it, they removed, and stood far off. And they said
unto Moses, Speak you with us, and we will hear; but let not God
speak to us, lest we die. And Moses said unto the people, Fear
not: for God is come to prove you, and that His fear may be
before your faces, that you sin not. And the people stood afar
off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Thus you will say unto the children
of Israel, You have seen that I have talked with you from heaven"
(Exodus 20:18-22).
It really was God literally speaking to the children of
Israel. We see this again proved to us in Deuteronomy 4:33,36.
"Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst
of the fire, as you have heard, and lived? Out of heaven He made
you to hear His voice ... and you heard His words out of the
midst of the fire."
We have further evidence from Moses:
"The Lord talked with you face to face in the mount out of the
midst of the fire ... And it came to pass when you heard the
voice out of the midst of the darkness, (for the mountain did
burn with fire) that you came to me, even all the heads of your
tribes, and your elders; and you said, Behold, the Lord our God
has showed us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His
voice out of the midst of the fire: we have seen this day that
God does talk with man, and he lives ... For who is there of all
flesh, that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of
the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived?" (Deut.5:4, 23-26).
God can indeed, if He wills it, SPEAK in a voice that can be
heard by thousands upon thousands in any language or dialect that
there is in the world.
GOD CAN BE OUR BATTLE AXE
If any nation will turn and serve the Eternal God, if they
will OBEY Him, and worship Him in spirit and in truth, loving Him
with all their heart and mind, THEN the Lord says HE will be the
enemy unto the enemy of that nation who serves Him. It is God who
can and then will CUT THEM OFF!
"I will send my FEAR before you, and I WILL DESTROY all people to
whom you shall encounter, and I WILL MAKE ALL YOUR ENEMIES TURN
THEIR BACKS TO YOU (and run away from you). And I will send the
hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivite, the
Canaanite, the Hittite, from before you" (Exodus 23:20-28).
We see examples of God DOING THE FIGHTING for Israel or
Judah as we read through the Old Testament. He is able to fight
for His people in DOZENS of different ways. Through the unseen
angels, through the forces of nature, through sending plagues to
destroy the enemy.
There are no nations on earth today to have decided to FULLY
OBEY God, to stand and RELY upon His sure faithfulness as He has
written it. There is no nation on earth today who have FAITH in
the power of God to DELIVER them from the enemies, BUT the Lord
says HE WILL DO SO, for any nation that will deeply follow His
word and commandments.
He is the power, the force, of the universe. If "the force
be with you" (a line from some popular space movies of the last
decades) NO ONE CAN HARM YOU !!!
Think of all the money that could be saved by a nation, put
to use in many other avenues of health and prosperity, if they
did not have to spend a dime on having physical war machines and
people trained to use them against their enemies.
GOD'S SABBATH IS A SIGN
A fundamental part of knowing the mind and nature of God is
understanding the IMPORTANCE of the Sabbath day to God and to His
people who call themselves after His name. The Sabbath day
relates us to the CREATOR of the universe, the ONE who made all
that is made, the seen and the unseen, from one end of the
universe to the other end of the universe IF there was any ends
to the universe.
"...Verily My sabbaths you shall keep: for it is a sign between
Me and you throughout your generations; that you MAY KNOW that I
AM the Lord that does sanctify (set you apart) you. You shall
keep the Sabbath therefore, FOR it is HOLY unto you: every one
that defiles it shall surely be put to death ... Six days may
work be done; but in the SEVENTH is the sabbath of rest, HOLY to
the Lord: whoever does any work in the sabbath day, he shall
surely be put to death ... it is a SIGN between Me abd the
children of Israel for ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven
and earth, and on the SEVENTH day He rested, and was refreshed"
(Exodus 31:13-17).
The Sabbath day, the SEVENTH day of the week, NOT the first
or the fifth, or any other day, but the SEVENTH day is the day
God made holy, sanctified it, set it apart, for on the SEVENTH
day He rested from the work of creation He did from the first to
the sixth day, as we can clearly see in Genesis chapters one and
two.
The SEVENTH day is the FOURTH commandment of the great Ten
Commandments. The fourth commandment is very clear to understand,
even for a child. I was once a child, going to a "church school"
and attending regular "Sunday school" classes. Not one teacher
every pointed out to me that Saturday was the 7th day of the
week. In my simple child's mind of reading the Bible, I KNEW that
the Sabbath day, the holy day of the week, to God, and for God's
children, was the SEVENTH day of the week. In my simple child's
mind I knew NO OTHER day of the weekly cycle was ever made holy
or set apart by God.
The mind of God, to KNOW it, to really come to KNOW Him, is
to come to understand the simple truth that it is the SEVENTH day
of the week that is holy and that it is that particular day that
is to be kept holy by the children of God. It is a SIGN that we
KNOW who the CREATOR and TRUE God of the universe REALLY IS!!
It is NOT hard to understand God on this matter of which day
of the week He has sanctified and made holy, and tells us to
honor him by keeping that seventh day of the week holy, set apart
to stop doing our work of six days, and to take the time to
worship and communicate and fellowship with God on that seventh
day.
The Sabbath day is a wonderful BLESSING. A WHOLE DAY TO STOP
AND BE REFRESHED IN MIND AND BODY!
GOD'S PATIENCE CAN RUN OUT!
The Eternal is VERY longsuffering, slow to anger, and very
patient. BUT .... YES, the Lord's patience CAN RUN OUT, IT CAN
COME TO AN END! And woe be to the person or nation that no longer
has God's extension of patience given to them!
It is written:
"For if we sin willfully after that we have come to the knowledge
of the truth, there remains no more sacrifice for sins. But a
certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation,
which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law
died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much more
sorer punishment, suppose you, shall he be thought worthy, who
has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood
of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing,
and has done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him
that has said, Vengeance belongs unto me, I will recompense, says
the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a
FEARFUL thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews
10:26-31).
The Lord had delivered Israel from Egypt. He had entered a
covenant with them. He had given them His Ten Commandment. They
had seen His miracles. They had heard His voice speaking to them.
Now Moses is told by God that Israel had corrupted themselves.
"And the Lord said to Moses, Go, get you down (from up the
mountain, for your people, which you brought out of the land of
Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly
out of the way I commanded them; they have made a molten calf,
and have worshipped it and have sacrificed there to, and they
have said, These be your gods, O Israel, which have brought you
up out of the land of Egypt.
And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and
behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone,
that my wrath may wax hot against them; and I will make of you a
great nation" (Exodus 32:7-10).
We are given relatively few words here as to the anger of
the Lord. But the words we do have make it abundantly clear that
the patience of the Lord had run out concerning the children of
Israel. God was ready to wipe them off the face of the earth and
START OVER AGAIN with the descendants of Moses, his literal
children, and make of them the great nation He had promised to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
God's longsuffering does not easily come to an end. We need
to put ourselves in the shoes of the Lord and what He had done
for Israel, then we will readily see why God had had enough with
the children of Israel.
If I may I will look at it from God's perspective and put in
my words what would have been the overall thought of the Lord's
mind, to make Him say what He said to Moses.
"Moses, look what I have done, and what the children of Israel
have seen. They must have heard than I made your rod a serpent
that ate up the serpents of Pharaoh's sorcerers. They saw the
rivers and pools of Egypt become blood. They saw plague of frogs.
They witnessed the plague of lice. They knew I put a difference
between them and the Egyptians with the start of the plague of
lies. They knew about the cattle murrain I put on the Egyptians.
They surely knew about the plague of boils, the plague of hail,
the plague of locusts, the plague of darkness, I put on the
Egyptians. Then I killed the first born of the Egyptians, while I
spared those under the blood of the lamb all in Israel.
I brought them to the Red sea and there I moved the waters so
they went across by dry ground, and then in the sea I killed the
army of the Egyptians. I provided them with food and water in the
wilderness.
I brought them to mount Sinai and there they heard my voice as I
talked to them.
What nation can claim God so worked such mighty miracles for
them, as I did for Israel.
But Moses I send you back down the mountain to them, for they
have SINNED, they have REBELLED, they have so QUICKLY turned back
to WICKEDNESS, to worshipping the work of their hands. This is a
STIFF-NECKED people beyond words.
Let me be now, I will consume them, destroy them from the face of
the earth, and I will start over to fulfil what I promised to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with your very children Moses. I will
make a great nation from you and your descendants.
My longsuffering and patience has come to the end with this group
of people I delivered from the bondage of Egypt!"
When you look at the whole context of what God did for the
children of Israel as preserved in the first part of the book of
Exodus, I think we can see why the Lord was quite justified in
stating He would start over again with Moses and his family, and
destroy that generation of the children of Israel. It is truly a
lesson as to the deceitfulness and hardness of the human heart,
as well as the deceptive power of Satan and his demons. In such a
short time from seeing the hand of God in mighty miracles, the
children of Israel returned to idol worship, and cast aside the
very thought of the true God they had experienced.
It is amazing how soon after the children of Israel HEARD
the very voice of God talking to them, they could FORGET Him and
turn back to false religions.
It is no wonder the patience of the Eternal had come to its
end!
GOD WILL LET HUMANS REASON WITH HIM
Moses was probably stunned by what God had told him. But
vainness and self-ego Moses did not have. It is written of him,
"Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were
upon the face of the earth" (Numbers 12:3).
I'm sure Moses must have felt some kind of honor that God
would want to start over again with him and his children, but
that honor was not going to get in the way of him wanting the
Lord to change His mind about obliterating the children of
Israel.
This not the first time we see a human willing to talk with
God as friend to friend and asking Him to reconsider His
thoughts. We first encounter it back in the book of Genesis, when
Abraham talked with God and discovered why He had come to earth
and what His thoughts were concerning the cities of sodom and
Gomorrah. The account is in Genesis chapter 18. Read verses 23 to
33.
The true God is someone you can talk to as a friend, not
just as a Father. It also teaches us that the Lord is OPEN to
allow people to talk to Him in the manner Abraham did, as
recorded in Genesis 18.
WHAT AN AWESOME PERSON GOD IS. HE IS FATHER TO US, BUT HE IS
ALSO A FRIEND! True friendship is a two way street. Both sides of
a true friendship with be willing to LISTEN to the other one.
Abraham reasoned with God, actually struck a bargain so to
speak, with Him. In the end it was that IF God could find only 10
persons in those even cities, the cities would be spared
destruction. We all know the rest of the story. There were not
ten righteous, there was Lot. He was taken out and the cities
were destroyed from the face of the earth.
Abraham was able to talk to God, to present his case, to
give his thoughts on the thoughts that the Eternal was thinking.
And so it was here also for Moses to do the same.
"And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why does
your wrath wax hot against your people, which you have brought
forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a
mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak like this, For
mischief and evil did He bring them out, to slay them in the
mountains, and to obliterate them from the face of the earth? So
Lord, please turn from your wrath, and repent of this evil
against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your
servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, I
will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land
that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall
inherit it for ever.
AND THE LORD REPENTED (CHANGED HIS MIND) OF THE EVIL WHICH HE
THOUGHT TO DO UNTO HIS PEOPLE" (Exodus 32:11-14).
Oh, what a mighty and worthy to be praised, Lord God is the
Eternal. He can be talked to as friend to friend. And even the
clay vessel in His hands He will at times not only listen to, but
that lump of dust from the ground can even get Him to CHANGE HIS
MIND!
So that generation of the children of Israel were not
obliterated from the face of the earth. God appreciated what
Moses had to say, and that man Moses changed the Lord's mind as
to the evil He would do to His people.
The two examples of Abraham and Moses we have just examined,
should add one more piece to the real life portrait of the real
life God. He is not a far away nebulous nothingness God. He is
very real and personal, and He desires YOU to have Him not only
as your Father and as your FRIEND!
.....................
To be continued
Entered on this Website October, the Last Great Feast Day 2008
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