David Pawson - Exodus 2

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NEW THOUGHTFUL THOUGHTS 18.9.26 BY JOHN DUNNING. 

Living Life God’s Way;-  EXODUS, Part 2

PROLOGUE 

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WEEKEND THOUGHTS

INTRODUCTION

CS Lewis used stories to teach children about God. He created characters around talking animals so that the stories would be child friendly. In his book “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, there was a Mr and Mrs Beaver, who were teaching Susan and Lucy about Aslan the lion who was the rightful King. 

Lucy showed she understood what Mr and Mrs Beaver were explaining to her about Aslan, because she asked the question, “Then He isn’t safe?” 

Mr Beaver replied, “Who said anything about being safe? Of course He isn’t safe; but He is good! He’s the King I tell you.”

CS Lewis is teaching an important point about God’s holiness, that Jews understand only too well. Jesus is a King above all kings, who will judge the world. He will say one day to those who were once powerful, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.” And “Cast them into the outer darkness”. 

In the vision of the Revelation of John, when he was taken up to heaven in a vision and saw Jesus as He really is, he wrote that he collapsed when he saw Jesus.

We can lose sight of Jesus’ Divinity in the same way that John was completely overcome, and collapsed. 

We are wrong if we see Jesus in the way that some Christmas carols portray Him.

What we see in CS Lewis’ parable of Aslan is a great King giving up His life voluntarily to take the execution that His creation would have faced. 

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MONDAY’S THOUGHTS

Gentile believers hear about God’s love all the time, as if that was all we need to know, but that is only part of the picture. 

The word we translate as “love”, is “agape” in the original, and has a much deeper meaning. The word “agape” could be translated as “benevolent charity”, as that helps provide its much deeper meaning than we understand by the English word of “love”. To explain, Lord Shaftesbury provided homes for homeless street children, so a memorial statue was created in central London to him, correctly labelled “Agape”;- (but incorrectly later nicknamed “eros”, which was the opposite of what was intended.) Lord Shaftesburt is an example of “agape” love.

“Agape” is costly for the giver. God’s agape love caused Him to want to rescue His creation from the imminent punishment hanging over us, that Godly Law demanded. Justice demanded punishment for sin. The agape of God reached out to rescue us from the death sentence that justice demanded.

To do that, until the cross of Jesus, we see another “shadow” of animal sacrifice, to teach of the seriousness of sin, with costly recompense coming before forgiveness. Animal sacrifice was a stop-gap measure. The journey in the desert that we find in the book of Exodus was used to teach the people what was required of them. God used Moses to educate the people about God’s law, where the desert was their classroom.

The next generation were unanimous about trusting God as they entered Canaan. Even Moses was not allowed to enter the promised land as he had disobeyed God in the desert, so he was receiving his punishment for sin before dying, so that he wasn’t punished later, which also taught the people about crime and punishment.

TUESDAY’S THOUGHTS

HOLINESS

When Ananias and Sapphira lied in front of Peter in church, (Acts 5), they literally fell dead.

That taught the people about holiness - that we cannot come before God whilst worldly. Hebrews 10:31 teaches us “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God”.

Compare that with how the High Priest had a rope tied around his ankle when he went into the Holy of Holies in the Temple, so that if he entered casually without preparing himself and therefore dropped dead, he could be pulled out. 

Moses was the intermediary between God and the people, as he was the only person God would talk to directly.

Moses passed on to the people the laws God instructed, which became the national rulebook and constitution. 

We can learn about the holiness of God from the story on Sinai. If the people were to come into contact with the location where God was, on Mount Sinai, they were warned that they would drop dead. That was why God in His mercy He repeated to Moses that he must keep the people away from the mountain whilst He was there talking with Moses. 

As for us, God expects us to leave behind our sin after our own personal Exodus of escaping from the evil one. God is our King too, and expects His people to live life His easy.

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WEDNESDAY’S THOUGHTS

EPILOGUE - 

Alfred, King in southern England, became a Christian and used the Ten Commandments as the law of the land, and was the first King to do it outside of Israel. He was the only king to withstand the Vikings. 

Elsewhere in the world, the law was simply whatever their current monarch decided he wanted.

God’s laws came to the people because God is holy and His people must become holy too, if we are to be included in His family. 

Old Testament teaching repeats that what is unclean cannot come into contact with the holy, or it dies. That was why a man who touched the Ark of the Covenant dropped dead when he tried to stop the ark falling off a wooden cart when it was being moved. 

That caused David to park the Ark of the Covenant in a house nearby out of fear. The point is, that the unclean can never come into contact with the holy. That warning is repeated in the Old Testament over and over again. 

Now for Christians, once in God’s family, we are taught that if we go back to our former ways we grieve the Holy Spirit, and He can leave. 

Jesus taught His disciples that God is our Father, which is why Jesus said He commanded that we must not call any other man “Father”. (In the context of a spiritual Father - and not our biological father, who we are told to respect.)

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THURSDAY’S THOUGHTS

CHALLENGE

When we die, our human spirit goes to be with Him, which is what my sister saw when my mother went home to be with the Lord. She saw my mother’s spirit being clapped into heaven by those who knew her. My sister is a very “earthy” horticulturalist and dog trainer, and not the kind of person to speak irrationally. 

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On the one hand, we can end up leaving Egypt but not entering the promised land, just as the first Israelite generation that left Egypt, missed out on.

Or, alternatively, we can obey God and enjoy Him forever, by entering the promised land of the Kingdom of God, just as the second generation did enter Canaan; - which was their promised land. Jesus said His Kingdom is within, and closer than anything else can be. 

Jesus told His disciples not to do anything until after He sent His Holy Spirit, (Acts1:4), (which happened at Pentecost in Acts 2).

God rescued the Israelites first and then expected them to live life His way, afterwards. 

Previously we looked at God rescuing the people from slavery in Egypt, through the great Exodus, and how Jesus spoke to Moses in His transfiguration comparing Moses’ Exodus to Jesus’ rescue of us from sin and Satan, in our Exodus. God offers to take our filthy rags and give us in return His righteousness. Peter tells us to repent, be immersed and receive the Holy Spirit, (acts 2:38).

The Jesus Movie can be viewed at this link… https://www.jesusfilm.org/watch/jesus.html

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Do share this study with your friends…

This is John Dunning signing off from “Thoughtful Thoughts” for another week.

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PS. To help pray for the ‘suffering church’ see;- https://barnabasfund.org/nz/pray/daily-prayer/#previous-dates

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