Praise the Lord for this new day. The Lord blessed us with a bountiful and beautiful weekend. It was great to be in the house of the Lord yesterday. Jack Black gave his testimony, sharing about his walk with Jesus. He told us that through it all he has learned to trust Him. Praise the Lord for his faithfulness. He is in upon the throne.
The children shared the songs that they had learned during the VBS week. It was a treat and a a thrill. I shared briefly from the life of Moses The book of Deuteronomy ends with Moses' unparalleled epitaph (Deut. 34:10-12), “But since then there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, in all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, before Pharaoh, before all his servants, and in all his land, and by all that mighty power and all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.” To Israel Moses was the greatest prophet. He was the great lawgiver. He was Israel’s greatest historian (authoring everything from Genesis to Deuteronomy). He was considered Israel’s greatest saint, being revealed by God’s word as the humblest of the entire human race (Numbers 12:3). He was also Israel’s greatest deliverer, delivering Israel from 400 years of slavery in Egypt. Because Moses ranks so highly among the Old Testament figures, to show that he lived by faith and not adherence to the Law was a powerful argument to convince the Jews that God’s way had always been the way of faith.
Hebrews ( 11: 23-24): ”By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s command.” The faith of Moses began with the faith of his parents. That the parents of Moses saw that he was a “beautiful child” - implies not merely a handsome or beautiful child - literally they saw that he was no ordinary child. All normal parents feel that their child is beautiful, even when the truth may be that it is really “a face that only a mother could love"! He was not only handsome but was gifted and unusually promising. John Calvin remarked, “…but there was some sort of mark of excellence to come, engraved on the boy which gave promise of something out of the ordinary for him.”
To stem the population explosion among the Hebrew slaves in Egypt the Pharaoh had given an edict that all male babies were to be drowned in the Nile. To protect their newborn child, Amram and Jochebed (Ex 6:20) first hid him for three months, and then put him in a water-proofed basket and placed him in the reeds along the Nile near the place where the Pharaoh’s daughter bathed. The great risk that Amram and Jochebed took in secretly keeping their son in spite of the command of Pharaoh was evidence of their faith. The parents of Moses were willing to risk their lives to follow God’s will. Their decision was clear: save the child, whatever the consequences. It was no light thing to defy the royal decree, but faith drove out fear. From a human perspective, his parents had no way of knowing even that his life would be spared, nor that he would be given back to them for awhile. Yet they willingly let him go, entrusting him to God.
Jochebed put the baby Moses in a woven basket and placed the basket in a certain place among the reeds...a place where she knew the princess came to bathe. Then she sent Moses’s pre-teen sister, Miriam, to watch. Perhaps they may have rehearsed the whole carefully thought out plan over and over again, watching every day and timing the princess’ arrival, helping Miriam memorize her lines so she sounded convincing. The plan went flawlessly, and the daughter of the Pharaoh "found" the baby Moses, adopted him as her own son, and (without realizing it) even hired his own mother, Jochebed, to nurse and raise him. Scripture infers that she and Amram took care of him well past the age of weaning. They probably had him into the mid-childhood years -- certainly long enough to firmly establish his Hebrew roots and teach him of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. This is evident in that, when Moses became old enough -- when he reached the age of accountability -- he decided to follow his parent’s example and place his faith in the one true God.
I read some time ago that over six million Americans will take a life-changing step this year.... they will have children. HOW they raise these youngsters will have a greater impact on our society than anything else they do in life. In the next 12 months, six million new Americans will become a part of our culture and, depending on how they are raised, will either become a part of the solution or a part of the problem.
The words of Proverbs 22:6 offer hope, "Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it."
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UBS1AEs_dg
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment