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Exodus 16-18
Shall we turn now in our Bibles to the book of Exodus, beginning with
chapter 16. God has delivered the children of Israel from
their bondage in Egypt. Having watched the Pharaoh and his
armies drown in the Red Sea, chapter 15, they sing the glorious song of
God’s deliverance, God’s power, God’s
destruction of their enemies. But how quickly we forget the
work and the hand of God. They come to the water at Marah,
they find it bitter, they complain against Moses, and the Lord shows
Moses a bush that He throws into the water; it becomes sweet.
They journey from Marah to Elim, an
oasis where there are twelve wells of water and several palm
trees. And in chapter 16 now, they move on from Elim,
And all the congregation of the children
of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and the
Sinai, and on the fifteenth day of the second month after they departed
from the land of Egypt, the whole congregation of the children of
Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
So, they’ve been one month now
out of Egypt. They left there on the fifteenth, actually,
they’ve watched the Pharaoh destroyed, and now a month down
the road, a month into the wilderness experience, and listen to them,
as they said to Moses and Aaron,
Oh, that we had died by the hand of the
LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, and when we
ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness
to kill the whole assembly with starvation.
Now, they begin to complain to Moses and
to Aaron, saying, “It would have been better off had we died
when God killed the first born in Egypt. At least theirs was
a sudden death, the stroke of God; in one night, they were
gone. But instead, you brought us out here to starve us to
death; the slow, painful death by starvation.” Now
it was not possible that they were starving yet, for they had brought
great flocks and herds out of Egypt, but they had now begun to
experience a little bit of the barrenness of the desert. They
could probably foresee that there wasn’t enough grazing for
the cattle, and they could foresee that it could get pretty tough
living out here. It would have been better to have died
suddenly in Egypt rather than to die by starvation here in the
wilderness.
And the LORD said to Moses, Behold, I
will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and
gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they
will walk in my law, or not.
Now, it is interesting to me that God
does not indicate at all any anger or even being upset with the people
murmuring. The Bible tells us concerning the people at this
point, that God knew their frame, that they were but dust, and so God
tolerated a lot, knowing that they were just weak, and God promises
that He’s going to provide for them bread from
heaven. However, in so doing, He was going to test them to
see if they would walk in His law or not.
And so, with this bread from heaven, the
manna that was to come, there were two laws involved. The
first is that they were not to try to store any overnight; only take
what you can eat, but don’t try to store it
overnight. The second was; don’t expect to find any
on the seventh day. On the sixth day, you will gather enough
for the sixth and the seventh day, and there won’t be any of
this manna on the ground on the seventh day, so don’t go out
to find it on the seventh day. So, two laws; God’s
going to test them. Will they keep my law or not?
It shall be on the sixth day that they
shall prepare what they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they
gather daily. Then Moses and Aaron said to all the children
of Israel, At evening, you shall know that the LORD has brought you out
of the land of Egypt; and in the morning, you shall see the glory of
the LORD; for He hears your murmurings against the LORD; but what are
we, that you should murmur against us?
So they let the people know that your
murmuring really isn’t against us as your leaders,
you’re murmuring is against God, whose direction we are
following. Now, in time, their murmuring got them into
trouble. In the beginning, God tolerated the murmuring, but
in time, it really became an issue for which they were punished by
God.
Interesting to note that the murmuring
was recognized to be against God, and any time we murmur concerning our
lot in life, we are, in essence, murmuring against God, because we have
committed our lives to God, and He is in control of those circumstances
of our lives. And so, for me to murmur against my
circumstances is to murmur against God. He’s the
one who has created the circumstances. He is the one who has
brought me to this place. He is the one who has brought me
into this trial, perhaps. And though I may direct my
murmuring at an individual, in reality, it is God who is in
control.
The Lord one day said to Jeremiah the
prophet, “I want you to go down to the potter’s
house, and watch him as he works a work on his
wheel.” So Jeremiah said, “I
went down to the potter’s house, and I watched him as he was
working with his wheel, and he took this bit of clay, and he began to
shape the clay. And then, he wasn’t satisfied with
the way it was coming out, and he took it, and he just destroyed the
shaped. Took it back in just a lump of clay again, and he
started all over, and he formed a second vessel.”
And the Lord spoke to Jeremiah from this figure of the potter; and God
declared that in this case, the nation of Israel was like the clay, and
God was the potter, and God was able to shape it as He desired, and
even though they didn’t fit His first intention,
He’s able to remake them. He’s able to
make of them a vessel that would please Him.
Isaiah the prophet also saw the figure
of God as the potter and man as the clay; and who are you, oh man, to
respond to God, asking Him, “Why, God, did you allow this to
happen? Why, God, did you make me
thus?” Recognizing that the Potter has
absolute power over the clay to do with it whatever He
wishes.
But as Jeremiah was in the
potter’s house, we see there are three aspects to
it; there is the clay, there is the wheel upon which the
potter works, and then there is the potter himself. Man is
the clay, God is the potter, the wheel are the circumstances of our
lives that God uses to shape us and to mold us. Our
characters are being shaped by God, molded by God through the
circumstances of our lives. God allows trials, God allows
testings, God allows painful experiences, that through these, He might
develop character, trust.
And so, my life is being developed by
the circumstances in which I find myself; and unfortunately, many times
I resist the circumstances. I don’t like it, I stiffen
up. And the moment I stiffen up, as with Jeremiah, the vessel
becomes marred in the hands of the potter. God
wasn’t able to shape me as He desired.
I’d stiffened against the work of God, hardened myself to the
work of God. So God has to start over.
I wonder how many times He’s
had to start over with me; back to zero, back to the blob.
Here I start, all over again. The wheel starts turning, the
circumstances start coming, and God begins now to mold and shape again;
but the wheel is the instrument through which the potter does his work,
shapes and molds the clay. And so, the circumstances of our
lives, by which we are shaped and molded.
Now, I notice that the wheel is under
the continual control of the potter. He is able to speed it
up, He’s able to slow it down, He’s able
to stop it. The wheel is under His control. So
that, God is in control of the circumstances of my life. God
is the one who has allowed these things to happen to me. Now,
according to the Scripture as I understand it, God has allowed them to
happen for my good. God is only interested in my best
welfare. Thus, for me to complain of the circumstances of my
life, or to murmur about the things that are happening to me is, in
reality, to murmur against God.
They came to Moses and Aaron murmuring
about being led out here in the wilderness to die of
starvation. It would have been better off to die in
Egypt. And God comes back and says,
“They’re going to see my glory; I’m going
to test them to see if they’ll obey my law or
not,” and He says, “tomorrow morning,
you’ll see the power of God, the glory of God; but
you’ve murmured not really against us, you’ve
murmured against the LORD.”
And Moses said, This shall be seen, when the LORD gives you meat to eat
in the evening, and in the morning, bread till you’re full;
for the LORD hears your murmurings which you make against him;
That’s sort of heavy, that God
actually hears every time you murmur against Him. And again,
Who are we?
'Why are you murmuring to us?
We’re only the instruments of God. We’re
only God’s appointed leaders. You’re
really murmuring against Him, not against us.'
Then Moses spoke to Aaron; he said, Say
to the congregation of the children of Israel, Come near before the
LORD; for He has heard your murmurings. Now it came to pass,
as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the children of Israel,
they looked toward the wilderness, and, behold, the glory of the LORD
appeared in the cloud. And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, I
have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel; speak to them,
saying, At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be
filled with bread; and you shall know that I am the LORD your
God. So it was that quails came up at evening and covered the
camp; and in the morning the dew lay all around the camp. And
when the layer of dew lifted, there was on the surface of the
wilderness a small, round substance as fine as frost on the
ground. So when the children of Israel saw it, they said one
to another, What is it? For they did not know what it was.
And Moses said to them, This is the bread which the LORD has given you
to eat.
So they complained. They said,
“Oh, if we were only back by the flesh pots in
Egypt. There we had all the bread we could eat. You
brought us out here to starve us to death.” So, the
Lord said, “I’ll show you that I can feed you in
the wilderness,” and in the evening, He brought quail into
the camp.
Now, this is a phenomenon that often
takes place in the spring time as the quail are migrating northward
from Africa. As they fly across the Red Sea, after flying
that distance non-stop, often as they get to the northern side, they
fall by exhaustion on the ground. And so it was that the
quail fell in the camp of the Israelites. The ground was
covered with these quail as they migrated northward. That
happens even to the present day. Doesn’t take away
from the miraculous aspect that God told Moses He was going to do it
that evening.
Then, the next day, on the ground, sort
of like coriander seed, when the dew lifted, there was this little,
round seed-like that they gathered. Now, there was an
interesting thing. They were to gather each of them
an omer per person, and there’s a divergence of opinion of
what constitutes an omer, or how much an omer is. And the
estimates of an omer by the scholars is anything from a pint and a half
to seven pints, and there are scholars that take different positions
translating the word different ways. And so, it’s
anywhere from a pint and a half to seven pints.
Now, it would appear from the text in
the Hebrew, and this is the interesting thing, that when they gathered
it and brought it into the tent to measure it, if they gathered more
than an omer, all they could measure out was just an omer.
And if they gathered less, they poured it in to measure it, and it
turned out to be an omer. So, if they would lack, it was made
up, and if they would gather more, it was taken away, so that when they
measured it, it would always measure out to be an omer; and then, on
the sixth day, when they would measure it, no matter what they had
gathered, it measured two omers. Gathered the same amount,
but you’d go to measure it, and you’ve got
twice. So it would seem that there was a miracle involved
even in the amount gathered, that it was something that God was
creating for them.
Now when they saw it, they
didn’t know what it was; they said, What is this?
And Moses said to them, This is the bread which the LORD has given you
to eat. This is the thing which the LORD has commanded, Every
man gather according to each one’s need, one omer per each
person, according to the number of persons in your family; let every
man take for those who are in his tent. And the children of
Israel did so, and gathered, some more, and some less. Some
gathered more than others, some less than others. But when
they measured it by omers, he who gathered much had nothing over, he
who gathered little had not lack; God leveled it off; every man had
gathered according to each one’s need. And Moses
said, Let no one leave any of it until the morning.
Now this was one of the
commands. 'See if they followed it or not.
Don’t leave any of it over till tomorrow.
Don’t try and save it until tomorrow.'
Notwithstanding they did not heed Moses;
but some of them left part of it until the morning, and it bred worms,
and stank; and Moses was angry with them.
So they tried to keep some;
“Ah, I won’t have to go out in the morning,
I’ll just keep it tonight.” And the thing
got wormy and smelled. The interesting thing is that on the
sixth day, they could keep it overnight, and it kept; God’s
provision. Why would God make it so, that they would have to
gather every day? Because God wanted to teach them to live by
faith in Him day by day, and faith is a daily lesson, even as Jesus in
the prayer said, “Give us this day our daily
bread.” So they gathered for each day;
and tomorrow, we’re going to have to trust God to put it on
the ground for our needs tomorrow; that God takes care of us day by
day.
Now, this is the way God wants us really
to live; day by day, trusting in Him to take care of us. We
don’t like to live that way, do we? We like to have
a little security here. I like to be able to store up enough
so that if there isn’t any there tomorrow, well, I
don’t have to worry, I can still get by. We
don’t like living daily by faith. It’s
something that we find objectionable; as I have often said,
the life of faith is something we really don’t care
for.
It’s so much better when I
finally understand, when I finally see what God was doing.
Then I say, “Ah, isn’t that wonderful. I
see now what God is doing. Alright! That’s
great!” But when I can’t see what God is
doing, when I don’t understand what’s going on, I
don’t like that. I don’t like to be in
that position where you just have to wait on God day by day; but
that’s exactly what God wants.
And so, not going to let it stay
overnight. But, they failed. Some of them failed in
the first test. God says, “I’m going to
test you, see if you’re going to keep my law or
not.” Some of them failed.
So they gathered it every morning, every
man according to his need; and when the sun became hot, it would
melt. And so it was on the sixth day that they gathered twice
as much bread, two omers for each one; and all the rulers of
the congregation came and told Moses; and he said to them, This is what
the LORD has said, Tomorrow is a sabbath rest, a holy sabbath to the
LORD; bake what you will bake today, and boil what you will
boil; and lay up for yourselves all that remains to be kept until
morning.
So, they would bake it, they would beat
it into sort of a flour, and bake little cakes; or they would boil it,
probably into a cereal form. Interesting that this started
one month after they left the land of Egypt, and God provided this for
over forty years until the day that they came into the promised land,
then this supply ceased. But for their whole forty years of
wandering in the wilderness, every day, six days a week, they could go
out and gather, and on the sixth day, gather twice the amount; baking
it, boiling it.
And so they laid it up until morning, as
Moses commanded; it did not stink, nor did the worms come in
it. And Moses said, Eat that today; for today is the sabbath
to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field. Six
days you’ll gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the
sabbath, there will be none. Now it happened, that some of
the people went out on the seventh day to gather, and they found
none. And the LORD said to Moses, How long do you refuse to
keep my commandments and my laws? See, for the LORD has given
you the sabbath, therefore He gives you on the sixth day bread for two
days; let every man remain in his place, or in his tent, let
no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people
rested on the seventh day.
Out of his place, or out of the camp,
actually.
And the house of Israel called
it’s name Manna;
Now, there are some Hebrew scholars that
say that that means “what is it?”. Manna;
what is it? Others, and the preponderance of Hebrew scholars
I should say, say that the word in Hebrew is, literally, “a
gift”. And so they called this a gift of
God. The manna; it’s a gift of God, rather than
“what is it?” So, those are the views of
the Hebrew scholars, and the preponderance, though, seem to feel that
the idea of “what is it?” is a mistake made by the
Septuagint translators, and that in reality, it should be,
“it is a gift of God”.
It was like white coriander
seed, and the taste was like little wafers that you would make with
honey.
So there is a sort of a sweet taste to
it.
Then Moses said, This is the thing which
the LORD has commanded, Fill an omer with it to be kept for your
generations; that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the
wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of
Egypt. And Moses said to Aaron, Take a pot, and put in an
omer of manna in it, and lay it up before the LORD, to be kept for your
generations. As the LORD commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up
before the Testimony, to be kept. And the children of Israel
ate manna forty years, until they came to an inhabited land; they ate
manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.
Now an omer is one-tenth of an ephah.
Which, as I said, is about
one-and-a-half pints to seven pints, according to which scholar you are
reading.
Now, the command here is to take an omer
of it and put it in a jar. Later on, when God gave to Moses
the command to build the tabernacle, in the Holy of Holies of the
tabernacle, there was to be what was called the Ark of the Covenant; a
box made of acacia wood, overlaid with gold, covered by a lid, which
was called a mercy seat. And upon the lid there were carved
two cherubim. But in this box; later when the tabernacle was
constructed, and this box was constructed, the Ark of the Covenant to
be placed in the Holy of Holies; they took the two tables of stone,
upon which God inscribed the law, they took this jar of Manna
that Aaron was told to preserve, and they took the rod of Aaron that
budded to prove that the priesthood was to be with Aaron, and they put
these three artifacts in the Ark of the Covenant.
That is why, to me, one of the most
exciting archeological discoveries that could ever be made, would be
for someone to find the Ark of the Covenant. I
don’t know if I would want to be the one to open the lid to
look in, but if someone else would open it, I would probably take a
look. David’s men got in trouble for touching it;
but to think that God set these to preserve them as a
testimony of His faithfulness to His people. A witness;
God’s witness, “I was faithful, I provided them
every day with their bread.” And what I would
really love to see are those two tables of stone that God, with His
finger, wrote the Law on. That’d be dynamite;
powerful.
Now, let’s turn to Psalm 78 to
see how deeply this was then imbedded into their minds and into their
culture. We find the psalmist making reference to
this. Let’s start with, maybe verse 38.
"God was full of compassion, He forgave their iniquity, He did not
destroy them; --" That was when they murmured, and so
forth. "Yes, many a time He turned His anger away, He did not
stir up His wrath, because He remembered that they were but
flesh;" or dust. "A breath that passes the wind,
and does not come again. How often they provoked Him in the
wilderness, and grieved Him in the desert! Yes, again and
again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.
They did not remember His power they day when He redeemed them from the
enemy, when He worked His sign in Egypt, His wonders in the field of
Zoan, turned their river to blood; and their streams, so they could not
drink. And He brings," you know, he talks about all
of the plagues. And then he said, verse 52, "He made His own
people go forth like sheep, He guided them in the wilderness like a
flock. He led them safely, so they did not fear; the sea
overwhelmed their enemies. He brought them to this holy
border, the mountain which His right hand acquired. He also
drove out the nations before them, allotted them the
inheritance," and so forth. "But they tested and
provoked the most high God; did not keep His covenant." And
so forth.
Let’s go back in the same
chapter; verse 17. "They sinned even more against Him by
rebelling against the Most High in the wilderness. They
tested God in their heart by asking for food in of their
fancy. Yes, they spoke against God; they said, Can God
prepare a table in the wilderness? Behold, He struck the rock
so that waters gushed out, and streams overflowed; can He give bread
also? can He provide meat for His people? Therefore the LORD
heard this, and was furious, so a fire was kindled against Jacob, the
anger also came up against Israel; because they did not believe in God,
nor trust in His salvation; yet He commanded the clouds above, He
opened the doors of heaven, rained down manna on them to eat. He gave
them of the bread of heaven. Men ate angels’ food;
and He sent them food to the full."
And so, he talks then about raining the
meat like dust, the feathered fowl like the sand of the seas, when God
brought the quail.
Psalm 105, Psalm 106, the Psalmist again
makes mention of God’s provision of the Manna, the bread from
heaven.
Jesus, in the New Testament, declares
that He is the bread come down from heaven, of which the manna was a
type. “And he that eats of Me,”
He said, “will never hunger, and will never die.”
CHAPTER 17
Now in chapter 17,
All of the congregation of the children
of Israel set out on their journey from the wilderness of Sin,
according to the commandment of the LORD, and they camped in Rephidim;
but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the
people contended with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may
drink. And Moses said to them, Why do you contend with
me? Why do you tempt the LORD? And the people
thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and
said, Why is it that you have brought us out of the land of Egypt, to
kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?
'First you’re going to starve
us to death, now you’re going to kill us with thirst.'
So Moses cried out to the LORD, saying,
What shall I do with these people? They’re ready to
stone me. And the LORD said to Moses, Go on before the people,
'Get out of there. Go ahead of
them.'
and take with you some of the elders of
Israel;
So, it could be that they were really
ready to stone Moses. God says, “Get out in front
of them. Go out away from them.”
take some of the elders with you; and
take in your hand the rod with which you struck the river, and
go. And behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in
Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it,
and the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of
the elders of Israel. So he called the name of the place
Massah, which means “tempted”, and Meribah, which
means “contention or strife”, because of the
contention of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the
LORD, saying, Is the LORD among us or not?
And so, no sooner does God provide the
bread daily, now they’re thinking that God’s going
to let them die of thirst. Isn’t it interesting how
quickly we forget what God has done? How quickly we can
despair and imagine the worst? “Now we’re
going to die of thirst; better off to have died in Egypt than to bring
us out here to die of thirst. Horrible way to
die.” And as Moses cries to the Lord, the
Lord instructs them to go before the people with some of the elders so
that they can witness the miracle of God. Take the rod,
strike the rock, water would come out.
Now, in the New Testament, Paul the
Apostle, in I Corinthians 10, tells us that rock that was with them in
the wilderness was Jesus. "That rock was
Christ." The rock smitten brought forth water of
life to the people. And so, the beautiful figure of Jesus
smitten on the cross brings forth life to us. Jesus said,
“If any man thirst, let him come unto me and
drink.” Again, one of the last
invitations of the Bible is to he that thirsteth, let him come and
drink of the water of life freely; that water of life provided for us
through Jesus Christ, having been smitten on the cross for our
sins.
Now, this is down near Egypt in
Rephidim. Forty years later, when they’re near
Kadesh, they’re going to come to Moses again, and
they’re going to say, “Moses, why did you ever lead
us out of Egypt? That we might die of thirst in this
wilderness? You haven’t brought us into the
land. Now we’re going to die.”
And Moses was angry, and he went in before God and he said,
“God, I can’t take it anymore, I’ve had
it up to here with these people. I’m
through. Can’t stand it. For forty years
this constant complaining and murmuring. I’ve had
it.” And God said, “Moses, go out and
speak to the rock, that it might bring forth water for the people; they
are indeed thirsty.”
And Moses went out angry. This
time it was before all of the congregation of Israel. Before,
it was just before the elders that he smote the rock. This
time, before all of the congregation of Israel; angry with them,
yelling at them, calling them a bunch of hypocrites.
“HOW LONG AM I GOING TO HAVE TO PUT UP WITH YOU, YOU
COMPLAINERS, HYPOCRITES. MUST I SMITE THIS ROCK AGAIN AND
GIVE YOU WATER?” And he took his rod and he smote
the rock, and the water came pouring forth, and the people
drank.
And God said, “Moses, come
here, son. Did I tell you to smite the rock?
Didn’t I tell you just speak to the rock? Do you
realize, Moses, what you’ve done?
You’ve failed to represent Me before the people.
You were a poor representation. In fact, you didn’t
represent Me. You represented Me wrong. You
represented Me as angry and upset with all of those people.
I’m not angry and upset with them, by they think I
am, because that’s the way you represented Me. You
failed to represent Me, Moses, before the people, and therefore;
I’ve got some bad news, Moses. I can’t
let you lead them into the promised land.
Moses said, “God,
You’ve got to be kidding. Man, I’ve taken
all this stuff for forty years, and I can’t lead them
in?” God said, “No,
Moses.” “Lord, now that isn’t
fair. You ought to let me lead...” God
says, “Don’t talk to me about it anymore,
it’s settled. You can’t do it, because
you failed to represent me.”
Oh, what is an awesome thing here, that
God holds us responsible to properly represent Him. You see,
many people are getting their entire concept of God and of Christianity
from what they see in your lives. You, in reality, are living
epistles, known and read of all men. There are many, many
people who never pick up a Bible to read it to understand about God,
but they’ll read you like a
book. They’re watching your
reaction. They’re watching you especially; not when
things are going well, they’re watching you when things are
tough, when the chips are down. They want to see how you
respond and how you react then, because you are God’s
representative. I wonder how many times, as Moses, we fail to
properly represent God.
Now, there was a double evil here in the
smiting of the rock. Because of the typology, and that rock
is Jesus; once the rock was smitten, once Jesus was crucified, he never
need to be smitten again in order to bring life, salvation.
He died once and for all, and all that is necessary now is to speak to
the rock, and the water of life will flow freely to you. You
don’t have to smite the rock, He has been smitten
once. That’s all that’s
necessary. Now by faith, just ask, and the water of life will
flow freely to each of you. And Moses destroyed this whole
beautiful symbolism that God was creating with the rock and the water
flowing forth. By smiting the rock the second time, he
destroyed the beautiful symbology that God was creating.
Now Amalek came and fought with Israel
in Rephidim.
Amalek was one of the descendants of
Esau, they were part of the Edomites. And Amalek, in
Scripture, interestingly enough, as we move along, will become a type
of your flesh. And, notice that God says you’re
going to have problems with this from generation to
generation. It’s a battle that never is over; the
battle with flesh. And Amalek becomes a type of the
flesh. And we find that the flesh is something that we must
contend with.
And God, you remember in the time of
Saul, ordered the complete, absolute destruction of the
Amalekites. 'Utterly destroy them, don’t let anyone
remain.' But Saul was disobedient. He kept King
Agag alive, some of the finer animals and all. And later in
history, one of the descendants of Agag, an Amalekite, was the one who
talked King Ahasuerus into signing the decree for the extermination of
all of the Jews within the kingdom of Persia. God ordered the
absolute destruction of the flesh; didn’t happen, and the
flesh almost destroyed the Israelites later on. God has only
one sentence for your flesh, and that’s, "crucify
it." Mortify the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit.
Give no place to the flesh to live after it. Reckon the old
man to be dead, crucified with Christ. That’s
God’s order for the flesh. We’ll get to
that as we move on, and we see Amalek coming up again and again.
Now, the Amalekites began by attacking
in the rear of the camp; the older people who were having a hard time
keeping up with everybody, the stragglers and all, and that’s
where the Amalekites first began their attack, in the rear of the
camp. And, they had an initial victory. They
destroyed some of these older people, the stragglers, those that
weren’t able to keep up; and they began to attack the camp of
Israel from the rear.
And Moses said to Joshua , Choose us
some men to go out and fight with Amalek;
And so, Joshua, who was later to take
over, first comes into the scene.
tomorrow I will stand on the top of the
hill with the rod of God in my hand. So Joshua did as Moses
had said to him, he fought with Amalek; and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went
up to the top of the hill. And so it was that when Moses held
up his hand, that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand,
Amalek prevailed.
He was probably holding up his hands and
praying. As long as his hand were held, and he was praying,
Israel would prevail. When he would get weak and tired and
his hands would droop, then the Amalekites would start to
prevail.
So, Moses was getting weak, and his
hands were drooping, and the Amalekites were coming on, and so, they
got a rock, and he sat down on a rock, and Aaron stood on one side and
Hur on the other, and they held his hands up, supported him until the
going down of the sun. And so, Joshua defeated Amalek and his
people with the edge of his sword. And the LORD said to
Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and recount it in the
hearing of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of
Amalek from under heaven.
The flesh is ultimately to be blotted
out from remembrance.
And Moses built an altar, and he called
the name of it Jehovah-Nissi; Jehovah is my banner; for he said,
Because the LORD has sworn the LORD will have war with Amalek from
generation to generation.
God will never make peace with your
flesh. No peace treaties with the flesh. God wants
our flesh to be reckoned dead. He doesn’t want us
living after the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh.
CHAPTER 18
Now Jethro, the priest of Midian,
Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for
Moses, and for Israel his people, that the LORD had brought Israel out
of Egypt; then Jethro, Moses father-in-law, took Zipporah,
Moses’ wife, after he had sent her back, with her two sons;
of whom the name of the one was Gershom; for he said, I have been a
stranger in a foreign land; and the name of the other was Eliezer; for
he said, the Lord of my father was my help.
Eliezer means “God is my
help.”
Now, you remember when Moses was heading
back to Egypt at the command of God to go to the Pharaoh to demand the
release of the people, and the LORD smote Moses and he was dying, and
his wife then circumcised the one child, and said,
“You’re a bloody man to me,” and was
upset; evidently at that point, Moses said, “Go home,
woman. Go back to your father.” And he
did not take her to Egypt with him during the time of the plagues and
all, but he sent her at that time back to her father with the two boys.
So now, word has come to Jethro that
Moses has brought the people out of Egypt. And so, Jethro
comes to see Moses, bringing with him Moses’ wife, Zipporah,
and the two sons, which, of course, Moses has not seen for a period of
time since he went down to Egypt to make his demands upon the Pharaoh;
and probably about a year of time has lapsed since Moses sent her back
to her father.
And Jethro, Moses’
father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife to Moses in the
wilderness, where they were encamped near Sinai, the mountain of
God. Now he had said to Moses, I your father-in-law Jethro am
coming to you with your wife, and your two sons with her.
So, he sent messengers on ahead to let
Moses know that he was coming.
So Moses went out to meet his
father-in-law, he bowed down and kissed him; and they asked each other
about their well-being; and the went into the tent. And Moses
told his father-in-law all the LORD had done to Pharaoh and
to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all of the hardship that
had come upon them on the way, and how the LORD had delivered.
So, Moses was just sharing all of the
wonderful things that the LORD had done for them.
And Jethro rejoiced for all of the good
which the LORD had done for Israel, whom He had delivered out of the
hand of the Egyptians. And Jethro said, Blessed be the LORD,
who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, out of the hand
of Pharaoh, who has delivered the people from under the hand of the
Egyptians. Now I know that the LORD is greater than all the
gods; for in the very thing in which they behaved proudly He was above
them.
The Egyptians, proud of their crops, and
these are the things that God destroyed. And so, God showed
Himself more powerful than the gods of the Egyptians. Now I
know that JEHOVAH is above all of the gods.
It is possible that Jethro, as so many
of the pagans, was a polytheistic person, that they believed in many
gods. But, when Moses recounted all that God had done, he
became convinced that JEHOVAH was above all the gods.
Nebuchadnezzar came to the same
realization; the Babylonian king, who, in Babylon, they had so many
Babylonian gods. But when Daniel was able to interpret the
dream, and all of the wise men and all were unable to do so, he said,
“There is no god like the God of Daniel, who is
able to interpret dreams,” and so forth; made a
proclamation. Later on, when God delivered the three Hebrew
children out of the fiery furnace, he said,
“There’s no god like the God of the three Hebrew
children, who is able to deliver out of fiery
furnaces.” Later on, when he went insane for seven
seasons, when he regained his sanity again, he said, “There
is no god at all like the God of heaven, who is able to raise up those
whom He will, and bring down those whom He will; and I testify that He
is the only true God,” and he became converted. He
believed that JEHOVAH is the only true God.
Darius the king, when Daniel was
delivered from the mouths of the lions, again, declared, “No
God like the God of Daniel.”
So, even pagans brought to the
realization that there is only one really true God, living God,
powerful God, who is able to hear and to answer prayer. Oh,
there have always been false gods, people have always enthroned objects
or things or philosophies or concepts in their lives, and made them
their gods, but they’ve all failed in the time of
need. They’ve none been able to deliver them.
You remember when Elijah had the contest
with the priests of Baal. Let the god who answers by fire,
let him be god. How they prayed all day, and about lunch
time, Elijah began to tease him a bit. He said,
“Hey, I’ll bet your God has taken a
vacation. You better cry louder. Or maybe
he’s asleep.” And then he became a little
naughty; he says, “Maybe he’s locked up in the
potty,” he said, “he’s relieving himself;
so you better work a little harder, fellows.” And
they began to leap on the altar and cut themselves with knives, and
dance around, and the whole thing, until the evening hour, the time of
the evening prayer; and Elijah said, “OK, guys,
that’s enough. You’ve had your
day. You’ve had your time. Now dig a
trench around my altar, and take and pour some water. Pour
more water. Pour more water.” Soaked down
the altar, and the trench around it was filled with water, and Elijah
says, “Now, Lord, show them who the true and the living God
is.” Fire came from heaven and destroyed the altar
and the sacrifice, licked up the water in the trenches. The
people acknowledged. They fell on their faces, they said,
“JEHOVAH is God, JEHOVAH is God.”
Acknowledgment.
Now here, Jethro, when he
hears of all that God has done, made the acknowledgment,
“JEHOVAH is above of the gods. I know that JEHOVAH
is greater.
Then Jethro, Moses’
father-in-law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices to God; and Aaron
came, with the elders of Israel, to eat the bread with Moses’
father-in-law before God.
So, it was a time of worship, feasting
together with God; the bread, the meal offering, and the peace
offering, fellowship offering.
And so it was on the next day, that
Moses sat to judge the people; and the people stood before Moses from
morning until evening. So when Moses’ gather-in-law
saw all that he did for the people, he said, What in the world are you
doing? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand before
you from morning until evening? And Moses said to his
father-in-law, Because the people come to me to inquire of God.
They want to find out what
God’s ruling, or God’s law is.
And when they have a difficulty, they
come to me; and I judge between one and another, and I make known to
them the statutes of God, and his laws. So Moses’
father-in-law said to him, Hey, that’s not good.
You’re going to kill yourself, man. Both you, and
these people who are with you will surely wear yourselves
out. It’s too much for you; you’re not
able to perform it by yourself.
You’ve got to delegate some
responsibilities to others.
Listen now to my advice, I’m
going to give you some counsel, and God will be with you.
Now, stand before God for the people, so that you may bring the
difficulties to God; and you shall teach them the statutes and the
laws, to show them the way in which they must walk, and the work that
they must do. Moreover, select from all of the people able
men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place
such over them, to be the rulers of the thousands, hundreds, fifties,
and tens;
So, get men, and let them be over tens,
let them be over fifties, let them be over a hundreds, and let them be
over thousands.
And let them handle the matters of
judgment; and if something becomes too difficult, and they
cant’ handle it at that level, then let it work
it’s way up to you.
But, otherwise, you’re going
to kill yourself, man, trying to do this every day; arbitrating the
differences of all these people. It’s just more
than you or they can handle.
Now, the qualifications for the judges
to me is interesting. First of all, they were to be men who
feared God; God-fearing men, men of truth, men who hate
covetousness. These were the qualifications, the three
qualifications.
If you do this thing, and God so
commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all of the
people also will go to their place in peace. So
Moses heeded the voice of his father-in-law, and did all that he had
said. And Moses chose able men out of Israel, made them the
heads over the people, rulers over thousands, rulers over hundreds,
rulers over fifties, and rulers of tens. So they judged the
people at all times; the hard cases they brought to Moses, but they
judged every small case themselves. And Moses let his
father-in-law depart; and he went his way to his own land.
So, Moses is reunited with his
wife, his father-in-law goes home, and Moses has an easier time because
of the advice that his father-in-law gave him as he spreads out his
responsibilities of judging in the issues of the people over these
qualified men.
Next week, probably some of the most
important lessons of the Old Testament as we get into the ten
commandments, and God giving to Moses the Ten Commandments, and as we
deal with them and our relationship to them today.
May the Lord be with you now, and watch
over, and help you through the next couple of days; protect you in the
traffic and in the mall, keep you from getting mauled.
Looking forward to the relaxation of Tuesday evening when
it’s all over--if you don’t have it by then, forget
it; next year--and we’ll gather together and quiet our hearts
before God, and we’ll just give thanks to God for His
glorious gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, as we worship the Lord
together, and as we celebrate the coming of Jesus into the
world. So, may the Lord be with you, and strengthen and keep
you in His love, and enrich you in your walk with Him, in
Jesus’ name.