Egypt

The Stand-In

Just a quick note today; It is fascinating to me that when God visits destruction upon the land of Egypt by sending an angel of death to take the lives of all the firstborn sons, He told the Israelites how to avoid this fate. By marking their doorposts. And so these firstborn sons were spared.

And after this, the Lord said that all firstborn sons were to be offered to Him (and obviously purchased back with another offering), recognizing that the most valuable “first fruits” were the Lord’s.

On an apologetic note, this isn’t because God finds males to be more valuable than females, it’s merely because the PEOPLE at that time (and for a great many years to follow, sadly) valued the males more than the females, and the firstborn were the elite of that group as well.

Anyhow, here again we see foreshadowing of Jesus, as the Lord no longer requires the firstborn male of each family be offered to Him. Instead the Levites (the priests) will stand in for the firstborns.

Hmmm… a firstborn priest who will stand in our place. Very interesting!

Don’t take for granted the price paid to purchase you! God loves you very much. And go share that love with someone else this weekend!

Numbers 8:1-9:14, Leviticus 1:1-3:17 | 047/365

What Was God Waiting For?

Exodus opens with the Israelites growing into a mighty sub-nation within Egypt. And so the Egyptians seek to subjugate them with slavery. They do so successfully. But God does nothing. Pharaoh orders all the newborn male children drown, and God does nothing.

Eventually one little boy is hidden in the reeds down the river by his mother. Her hopes and motivations are not stated in the text, but by having her daughter — Miriam — keep watch, it’s clear that she hopes someone will come rescue the child and his sister can report back what has happened.

Moses is taken in by the daughter of Pharaoh. He is raised by Egyptian royalty in the lap of luxury while his people are beaten and enslaved. One day Moses sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew man and killed him. The next day Moses saw two Hebrews fighting each other and asked why they would be attacking their friend!

Shortly after this, Moses fled for his life after Pharaoh put out a decree to have him killed for the murder of the Egyptian man. While in Exile Moses got married and had a son. All the while the Israelites are still enslaved and God still hasn’t done anything. But now, now God begins to move.

What took God so long? Why didn’t he step in right away? Because He was waiting for Moses. Moses demonstrated a zealous (maybe a little OVERzealous) love for his fellow Israelites. And this was the man God wanted to task with bringing the law to His people. This man would be the one who would FIRST write down the words and instructions and history of God and His people.

We need to remember when things are going sideways that God has a plan, a purpose, and a person in mind to do address what’s happened. We have a hard time seeing beyond where we are at in any particular moment, but while we only see what’s on the road in front of us, God can see every road. And he knows when our course will change even if we can’t see it yet.

We need to trust enough to wait on God. He is coming. When the time is right.

Exodus 1:1-4:17, 1 Chronicles 6:1-3a | 032/365

Whose Will Be Done?

“I admit the deed! — tear up the planks! — here, here! — it is the beating of his hideous heart!” The satisfying release can almost be felt as we reading the thrilling conclusion of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’. It is the story of a man whose guilt consumes him, until he can do nothing other than admit the deed. His conscience haunted him. It is a similar condition in which we find Joseph’s brothers during today’s reading.

They are struck by the famine Joseph predicted, and so make the trek to Egypt where food has been stored for exactly this occasion. Joseph’s Brothers bring money to Egypt to purchase food as their own supplies have nearly run out. They do not recognize Joseph when they come before him to request to purchase food. Joseph questions the brothers extensively before telling them that unless they bring their youngest brother, they’ll not be allowed to purchase any additional food. So they pay for their portion and head back to Canaan.

Along the way, they find that they have not only the food they purchased, but also the money paid in their bags. A secret blessing from Joseph. But they cannot even receive the blessing, they were still, after all these years, consumed with guilt about what they had done to their brother. It is a curse! they thought, God was surely punishing them. They could never go back.

But eventually they were forced to return. Now we pull God’s careful positioning of Joseph back out of the pocket from yesterday. Because it was during this trip that Jacob revealed himself saying, “God has sent me ahead of you to keep you and your families alive and to preserve many survivors” (Gen 45:7, NLT). Does this mean that God orchestrates evil events to bring about good? Some faithful Christians would say that He does. But I would say that God, in His omniscience, knows what each of us would do in any given circumstance and that He factored in the evil free-will choices of mankind when he providentially arranged the world.

Is it good that you did a bad thing because it achieved God’s Will? No. But God’s Will cannot be defeated by the works of mankind either. His Will be done. Amen.

Genesis 42:1-45:15 | 016/365