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Ex. 14:24 And in the morning watch the LORD in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic,
Ex. 14:25 clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the LORD fights for them against the Egyptians.”
Ex. 14:27 So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the LORD threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea.
This is the kind of passage that critics of Christianity love to use when saying, “how could a loving God judge sin?” The truth is Exodus 14:14-27 doesn’t make God look very loving.
After all the Egyptians in 14:26 are fleeing (running away from) Israel and confessing they had no chance of escaping God. It’s possible that if the Lord had let them go they would even worship Him instead of their pagan Gods!
Instead of having mercy God picked pharaohs army up, and then threw them forcefully into the red sea so none would live [1].
The Lord does this to teach a very important lesson…there is an end to God’s mercy.
Actually there is nothing the Egyptians could have done to escape the judgment of God because the crossed the point of no return long before.
Note the words of God in Exodus 14
Ex. 14:2 “Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon; you shall encamp facing it, by the sea.
Ex. 14:3 For Pharaoh will say of the people of Israel, ‘They are wandering in the land; the wilderness has shut them in.’
Ex. 14:4 And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD.” And they did so. (emphasis added)
God tells the Jews Pharaoh will believe they are trapped and pursue them into a trap God had prepared for him. The really interesting thing is God told them He would “harden Pharaoh’s heart.”
This phrase speaks to the response of Pharaoh whenever God took away one of Egypt’s plagues. Every time he would ask Moses to pray it would be removed (with the understanding the Jews would be set free) but he always hardened his heart, or refused to obey.
In Exodus nine, after Moses is asked to take away a plague of painful boils on the Egyptians we find a different phrase.
Ex. 9:12 But the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had spoken to Moses.
Do you see the difference?
Pharaoh’s hardening his heart meant he willingly chose to disobey
God hardening his heart meant he had no choice but to disobey
In other words, pharaoh could not choose to do the right thing, even if he wanted to. From that point forward he and all the Egyptian army were destined for destruction.
I don’t believe that God hardens the hearts of individuals today so that they cannot accept Christ as their Savior (the Gospel is offered to everyone) instead Egypt’s destruction is a warning to those who take the Grace of God for granted.
We do serve a gracious and merciful God who gives us many opportunities to turn or repent of sin. But any individual (Believer or Unbeliever) who continually refuses to obey will have no choice but face His judgment.
There will come a time when we all repent of our sins and beg God for mercy. Unfortunately some of us like the Egyptians will refuse until it’s just too late.
[1]: this is figurative language for God’s putting them in a place they couldn’t escape
I love junk food…no seriously I LOVE junk food! Like most of you my desire for it is greater when stressed, tired, or just having a bad day.
My list of favorite comfort foods looks something like this
- Macaroni and Cheese
- Donuts
- Bagel with cream cheese
- Pizza
- French fries
Numbers two through five may change, but I doubt anything will ever dethrone mac and cheese as my favorite 🙂
Since this weeks been stressful my mind immediately started demanding a cinnamon crunch bagel with blueberry cream cheese from Panera bread after my english tutoring this morning. And in less than thirty minutes I was devouring one (savoring every bite).
Something strange happened though…
My bagel didn’t make me feel any better
As a matter of fact it made me feel WORSE!
and yes I see the irony of a blog post entitled “the healing power of a cinnamon crunch bagel” being directly above my picture.
At first I was confused as to why a favorite comfort food would betray me like this, but then another thought occurred to me.
There are some problems that comfort food can’t fix.
Many of our challenges in life are emotional so while a huge amount of calories may make things feel better for a few moments, you can’t fix emotional problems with food (but that doesn’t keep us from trying).
That doesn’t mean we should completely give up on comfort food of course. But it’s important to realize healing doesn’t come from what you eat, it comes from a relationship with God.
In about an hour I’ll be traveling to a local library where I help with a weekly computer class. While all ministry opportunities to share the Gospel are appreciated, this may be my favorite.
Not because it’s about technology (though I am a geek) but because it allows me empower people.
In my opinion every class dealing with technology or computers should have at least two people. One who teaches the information, and another who helps anyone who has a problem [1].
My role in class is the helper (which I prefer) so early on I had to figure out which of the three major teaching philosophies I would use:
- I do the work for you
- I show you how the work is done so you can do it
- I watch you do the work and help if necessary
To be honest I would go with number one by nature because I enjoy helping people. However this would end up making things much worse instead of helping them [2].
While at first glance number three seems a lot better it actually isn’t because I’ve found if there is someone else nearby who can fix the problem, people won’t even try to do it themselves (even if they can).
So I embraced philosophy number two which involved:
- Doing it for them one time
- The next time they struggle with it give clear instructions
- Encourage them to try even if it doesn’t work properly
- Celebrate when they did it themselves
It’s incredibly hard watching someone struggle doing something that I could accomplish very quickly, and there’s a big part of me that wants to push them out of the way, in order to fix the problem myself
But that isn’t empowering people
It’s teaching them to rely on me for everything
Yes being super-John who can swoop in and care for any technology problem with one hand tied behind his back makes me feel awesome. But I’m just feeding a deeper problem in our culture.
People aren’t being empowered anymore, instead they look around for someone who can fix the problem for them. Many people refer to these individuals as lazy, but the truth is they aren’t the core of the problem.
The core is those individuals who constantly cared for their problems instead of challenging them to fix it themselves.
Yesterday toward the end of class I walked along the rows of computers and noticed something shocking.
Nobody needed any help.
Yes there were some questions to be answered and clarification was needed, but the students did the work themselves.
While empowering that group of students didn’t make me feel like superman, it did fill my heart with pride because they were prepared for the real world
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