With their deliverance at the Red Sea comes a new relationship with God: Praise! And with it comes a whole new set of vocabulary words: “song,” “praise” and “exalt,” “majestic,” “glorious,” “wonders,” and even “sanctuary,” “tambourines” and “dancing.”

If only God would clearly show me His will. Like, where to go and when. That would make following Him easier. You know, like a pillar of cloud by day or fire by night?

Been there. Done that. It was an abysmal failure! The only thing worse was when He came in the flesh as Emmanuel—God with us—and we actually killed Him!

He has already given you a roadmap in the Bible. So if in doubt, just do what He already told you, and do as you please.

Everybody wants to board the freedom train, but first you gotta buy your ticket. Only members of the covenant will be redeemed. And only the redeemed of the Lord may enter here. Or, in this case, exit from here. If you want to live through the night and then escape to freedom with riches in hand, first you must be part of the covenant.

God gave what you might call the first fast food order: Plan ahead, roast it, consume it all, but eat in haste. Be clothed to travel (shoes on your feet, staff in hand), because things are going to change suddenly right after this meal is done. God knows about logistics; He made the heavens and the earth in a word, and then populated it all in less than a week. So when He says to be ready to move, you can believe that it will be too late if you just start getting ready after you eat.

We have been exploring the Exodus Event, which started with the Passover meal. The Passover meal revolved around a lamb. The Passover lamb was to be without blemish, tested for five days, and was to provide innocent blood to deliver the firstborn sons of Israel. Each of these details of the Passover lamb found its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ—the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

Quick! Name a holiday that was established to commemorate an event BEFORE the event took place? . . . Passover! Any others? . . . The Last Supper! Wasn’t that one also a Passover meal? Think about the implications of this.

Moses says, “I can’t deliver Your message! I have uncircumcised lips!”

”So, circumcise your lips.”

”I can’t circumcise my lips!”

”Then circumcise your heart, and say whatever comes to mind.”

Here’s a riddle: When Pharaoh wouldn’t let the people of Israel leave Egypt, and the ten plagues were raining down on him, did Pharaoh have a stubborn hard heart, or was Pharaoh just a puppet in the hand of the Lord, and it was God who hardened Pharaoh’s heart? In other words, did God harden Pharaoh’s heart, or did Pharaoh harden his own heart?

God is pro-life, right? . . . He is also holy, right? . . . What happens when those two aspects of God collide?

For that matter, is Moses a hero of the faith, or a disobedient skeptic? . . . I’m guessing that the answer is, he is a bit of both. As I am, I confess.

We are entering into a new great event that will mark the people of God, known by some as The Exodus Event. The Exodus Event is summarized by the answer to the question from children at Passover. God tells them to answer the question: 

“And the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders. And he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” Deuteronomy 26:8-9

What’s in a name?

A name is earned by what someone does. Doing comes first, reputation follows, and a name grows out of that reputation. Jesus did the works and earned every one of these names: Eternal One, Almighty God, The One who Provides, the One who Heals, and the One who Gives Victory. At His name, raging seas are stilled, the sick are healed, the dead are raised, the demons flee, the saints conquer.

His NAME is His authority, His nature and character, and His will, all rolled into a single word: Jesus!

In Exodus 3, God shows Himself to Moses in the form of a burning bush that is not consumed. From there, God calls to Moses and calls Moses to do His work. There are many details to belong in a different blog entry, but today, let’s zero in on this miraculous moment when God shows Himself in visible and audible form.

Moses has his famous encounter with God in Exodus chapter 3. I don’t suppose he was spiritually well-prepared for the moment, but Someone had guided him for some 80 years to prepare him for this moment. Of course, he had been born into the tense scenario of Egypt’s fear of Israel, leading them to commit genocide against male babies of the Israelites. He had been saved by means of his family’s plan that led Moses to be raised in Pharaoh’s household, a foreigner who lived as a privileged insider. At the age of 40, Moses presumed that the time had come for Israel to rise up against their oppressors, but his plan backfired. He killed an Egyptian, assuming that it was the start of a revolution. But instead, the Israelites would not follow him, while the Egyptians were about to arrest and kill him. Moses reeled and ran and kept running all the way across the desert where no one would find him. There, I’m certain, Moses was planning to live out the rest of his days, raise his two boys, and be gathered to his fathers. But God had other plans in mind.

What does the book of Genesis show us about God? From the opening chapters, there are many details that we know about the nature and the character of God. We also know much about His relationships, especially His relationships with people. We know that God has plans for people, especially to bless them, but that He unfolds His plans in layers. 

IN the book of Genesis, there are some awkward side roads in the practices of worship. Some things are obviously wrong, forbidden and wicked. Other actions are perhaps just a tick or two off from what we might consider to be worship that is pleasing to God. But keep in mind that the Law of Moses had not been given yet, so the clear black-and-white standards or morality or practice in worship had not yet been written. Worship is always more discovered than prescribed by each generation, so we see a lot of shades of gray in the book of Genesis. 

Joseph’s confidence in interpreting Pharaoh’s dream is so high that he dares to advise him to reconfigure the country’s entire economic model around a weather prediction that goes fourteen years out!

Take heart. After all, the Bible says that the Lord was with Joseph, even when he was a slave. Even when he was in prison. God gave him success in everything that he did, even while he was at the bottom of the pecking order.

On the surface, this seems to be a story about a man named Joseph, the penultimate son of Israel and Rachel. But in truth, it is a story about God and His providence. In baseball parlance, I guess you could call this, That’s Why They Play Nine.