God always had a plan.

Sunday, May 1, 2022

God always had a plan.

Sometimes he will share what it is and other times it’s a surprise.

The 400 years of bondage in Egypt was predicted centuries before it’s reality.

As Jehovah was unveiling the Abrahamic covenant and all it’s positive aspects God also added a prophesy of a great and future time of suffering for Abraham’s offspring of his Son of Blessing Isaac.

God predicted a future time of his people’s loss of freedom and real identity. 

From Genesis 15:13 “And he said unto Abram, know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;”

Think about this length of time.  That’s four centuries.  America as a nation is 245 years in existence.

So, add another approximately 150 years to it.

Or 400 years would in time take us back to the Jamestown colony in Virginia.

400 years of slavery, bondage, servanthood, living with no hope for a better and happy future.

So many years had passed that they had lived in this pagan land of idolatry and mythology that very few of these descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had forgotten their ancestral God Jehovah.

But he never forgot them.

Once again God had predicted this activity of his people’s plight, this occure3d so that the Hebrews would know freedom in Jehovah.  They would learn the agony of freedom loss and one day they would know and remember the God of their fathers and their deliverance through him just as he also predicted to Abraham would occur.

I related from Genesis 15:13 if God’s revelation of the future captivity, but I waited to expound for this moment to reveal God’s promise of deliverance in verse 14. “And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.”

Perhaps Henry Wadsworth Longfellow thought about this servanthood and then ultimate deliverance by Gods will when he wrote:

“The mills of God grind, yet they grind exceeding small, the mills of God grind slowly.

In Layman’s terms:  God justice will occur, it is all in his timing, Gods wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind.  No matter how long it takes.

Even over a 400-year span.

God promised the captivity and he promised ultimate delivery and Egypt would pay a big price for abusing God’s people the Hebrews.

One day a baby was born and eventually hidden in the rushes and reeds of the Nile to assure the young boy’s life, this occurred as a decree from Pharaoh to the midwives of Egypt that all male babies be killed at birth.  This was the devil’s work; it was on early version of infanticide.

The Baby was put in a miniature arc, and he was found by Pharaoh’s own daughter.

She raised him as her own son, he was named Moses which meant “To be pulled out or drawn from water”.

Pretty appropriate name.

Moses was raised as a prince of Egypt, yet he realized his Jewish bloodline.

He killed an Egyptian overlord who was beating a Hebrew slave and God’s mills ground slowly, but they did grind.

Moses went into self-imposed exile for 40 years, married, become a shepherd in his fathers-in-law employment.  

One day while tending the flocks, the famous voice of God spoke from the famous burning bush turned Moses’ life into quite a state of upheaval.

God told Moses that he was chosen to be Jehovah’s voice before Pharaoh in demanding from God to the Pagan King “Let My People Go.”

I wish I could tell you that Moses was a willing participant, but he came up with an excuse each time God assured his success.

5 Times:

1st from Exodus 3:11 – “And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.”

2nd Exodus 13 – “Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to “What is his name?  What shall I say to them?

3rd Exodus 4:1 – “And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee.”

4th Exodus 4:10 “And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.”

5th Exodus 4:13 “And he said, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send.”

With each excuse God had a rebuff and an answer.

First “Who am I to go to Pharaoh?” He was happy and content with his life of a shepherd.  His thoughts of the memories of his murder of the Egyptian likely returned.

God did not accept this first excuse.

Second – Moses was raised in the upper Ruling house of Egypt, he was well educated, well read.  I believe very well God asked him to do was the issue.

But this wasn’t about him it was about God, his will and his providence.

God was but asking him to be his vessel and God already had it all figured out.

He was being asked to God’s vessel and his voice to fulfill God’s promise of deliverance to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

God rejected excuse #2

Third – Moses was concerned about being vulnerable before a potential two-pronged, two headed beast of anger and rejection in both the Egyptians and also the Hebrews tool.

God

Called Moses Bluff on this one.  Was Moses merely being humble or did he have a physical impediment.  Personally, I think the latter.

#5 Lord, please ask anyone but me!!!This time God kinda lost his patience.  Alright Moses, your brother Aaron will go with you, and he will be your voice if necessary.

Excuse 5 abates too.

Moses learned that whenever God asks or tells us to be about his business that God will always have it all figured out even before his calling.

He also learned that God expects compliance and obedience when he asks or commands, if we don’t we will lose great blessings and God will get his will done by another servant who will be blessed.

Moses figured out that no excuse was good enough.

Moses submitted and so began one of the great chess matches in history.