December 18, 2010
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broken cisterns
Consider these 4 passages from the Torah -
Exodus 1:8-14
8Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
9He said to his people, "Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we.
10"Come, let us deal wisely with them, or else they will multiply and in the event of war, they will also join themselves to those who hate us, and fight against us and depart from the land."
11So they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor And they built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Raamses.
12But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out, so that they were in dread of the sons of Israel.
13The Egyptians compelled the sons of Israel to labor rigorously;
14and they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and at all kinds of labor in the field, all their labors which they rigorously imposed on them.Exodus 2
23Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God.
24So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
25God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them.
Numbers 11
1Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the LORD; and when the LORD heard it, His anger was kindled, and the fire of the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.
2The people therefore cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the LORD and the fire died out.
3So the name of that place was called Taberah, because the fire of the LORD burned among them.
4The rabble who were among them had greedy desires; and also the sons of Israel wept again and said, "Who will give us meat to eat?
5"We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic,
6but now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all to look at except this manna."
7Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its appearance like that of bdellium.
8The people would go about and gather it and grind it between two millstones or beat it in the mortar, and boil it in the pot and make cakes with it; and its taste was as the taste of cakes baked with oil.
9When the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna would fall with it.
10Now Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, each man at the doorway of his tent; and the anger of the LORD was kindled greatly, and Moses was displeased.
Numbers 13
17When Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, he said to them, "Go up there into the Negev; then go up into the hill country.
18"See what the land is like, and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many.
19"How is the land in which they live, is it good or bad? And how are the cities in which they live, are they like open camps or with fortifications?
20"How is the land, is it fat or lean? Are there trees in it or not? Make an effort then to get some of the fruit of the land." Now the time was the time of the first ripe grapes.
21So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, at Lebo-hamath.
22When they had gone up into the Negev, they came to Hebron where Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai, the descendants of Anak were (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)
23Then they came to the valley of Eshcol and from there cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes; and they carried it on a pole between two men, with some of the pomegranates and the figs.
24That place was called the valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster which the sons of Israel cut down from there.
25When they returned from spying out the land, at the end of forty days,
26they proceeded to come to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.
27Thus they told him, and said, "We went in to the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.
28"Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there.
29"Amalek is living in the land of the Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites are living in the hill country, and the Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan."
30Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, "We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it."
31But the men who had gone up with him said, "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us."
32So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, "The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size.
33"There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight."
14:1Then all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night.
2All the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron; and the whole congregation said to them, "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!
3"Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?"So the story starts with Israel groaning because of its forced slavery and oppression in Egypt... God has compassion on them and rescues them to freedom with awesome miracles, like the 10 plagues against Egypt (each one pointing out the impotence of a specific Egyptian "god") and opening up a canyon through the ocean for the Israelites to cross through on dry land (after having received lots of gold and other valuables from their Egyptian neighbors as a "parting gift"...)
When the Israelites get a couple days into the desert, they run out of food. God promptly begins sending "manna" every morning, enough to feed some 1-2 million people. They run out of water. God splits open a rock and provides a stream to flow out of the rock in the middle of the desert.
One would hope that the Israelites would begin to "get the picture". God has provided for them in every way in the past, turning all their almost-disasters into amazing-deliverances.
But instead they complain, because they want tastier food. Yeah sure God had promised "a land flowing with milk and honey" in the future by-and-by-pie-in-the-sky, but they wanted it NOW.
After a while, they arrive at the Promised Land. The spies tell them that gee whiz, sure enough, the land actually IS "flowing with milk and honey"! God hadn't been lying to them! One sample cluster of grapes from their Promised Land was so heavy that it took two men to carry it home. The days of good food were here at last.
But no. There were big scary Canaanites in the land. "Who knows, after taking care of us for many months, God might decide to stop helping us right as we start fighting battles! How do we know this God really cares about us? Or how do we know he's even there at all? Oh for the days of peaceful bliss back in Egypt, when we could eat garlic and melons and we didn't have to fight (because we just shrank back in helplessness when they beat us into submission and killed our babies)."
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Aren't we a lot like the Israelites? God leads us from trying/maturing situation to trying/maturing situation, with lots of miraculous provision and gratuitous pleasure along the way, with every past promise kept and lots of amazing promises written for the future. But we often focus on how we used to have it better in the past... when (fill in the blank) life was easier, we had fewer challenges/problems/heartbreaks, etc.
Each day however, for those of us who belong to God, He is leading us into situations full of blessings and victory just waiting for us to experience, by His power. And we are heading to an unspeakably awesome "Promised Land" with Him after this earthly life finishes.
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Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, "We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it." Numbers 13:30
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Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.
- William Cowper
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