Exodus. Today begins the long struggle between God and Pharaoh. I noticed how God tried to get Moses to take on the full responsibility of speaking and Moses argued that he wasn't eloquent. The Lord seems reluctant to make Aaron the spokesman "to the people." I wonder if that is because Aaron is the one who would give in to the people in the matter of the golden calf. How often does God prompt us in a direction that we refuse and we find out later that He was trying to protect us from pain.
Before Moses arrived back in Egypt, a mysterious event takes place when it seems as if God will judge Moses because he has refused to circumcise his son. Here is at least part of the meaning...
Circumcision was the sign of Israel's covenant with God. The shedding of blood in this way looked forward to the day when blood would be shed to pay for all the sins of humankind. It was, then, a severe violation that Moses hadn't circumcised his son. It was a compromise on Moses' part. Ethnically Hebrew, he had grown up like the Egyptians. When he fled to the wilderness, he married a woman who grew up worshipping other gods. Perhaps it was Zipporah who didn't want to circumcise her son in the custom of the Jews and Moses didn't push the matter. Now, though, they were going back to be among God's chosen people and the true nature of the compromise was seen. God himself would have intervened if Moses' wife hadn't. Why didn't Moses take care of it? What do you think?
Monday, January 31, 2011
January 31, Day 31
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Reading about Moses' conversatios with God citing his own inadequacies as a speaker as the reason why he couldn't do the big things God has for him reminded me a bit of a conversation I recently had with God.
ReplyDeleteThanks for explaining the circumcision thing. It wasn't something I thought to ask about but it sure brought clarity.
ReplyDeleteSomething that I do want to ask you about, however, is how at the end of chapter 3, God tells Moses that he'll "make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward them" and in chapter 4 He says "I will harden his (Pharaoh's) heart so that he will not let the people go". Isn't this controlling their free-will? It seems a little like they're puppets.
Ah, Meg, the sovereignty of God! Hard to grasp, isn't it. Read Romans 9 and it will really throw you for a loop. I believe it was D.L. Moody who said, "A man traveling the highway bound for hell sees a detour in the form of a door. 'Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,' it says. He chooses to take the detour and steps through the door. As he he passes through, he looks back and sees inscribed on the back of the door: 'Chosen in Him before the beginning of time.'"
ReplyDeleteWhich is it? Free will or God's divine design? Are we free or is God completely in control? The answer is...
YES! Only our creative God can do something like this.
Did God manipulate Pharaoh to have such a hard heart or did God allow Pharaoh to keep traveling down the highway of a hard heart? Did the Egyptians change their own hearts to favor the Israelites or did God change their hearts?
This grows long, so here is my conclusion: "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." We are all without hope, except that God intersects our lives and calls us to Himself. We come, not out of some goodness deeply imbedded in all humans and which we choose to exercise, but because God draws us out of our sin deeply imbedded in us. He and He alone gets the credit when we turn to Christ. Man and man alone is responsible for our sinful rebellion.