Bitter Water

Thursday, September 21, 2023

Then Moses led the people of Israel away from the Red Sea, and they moved out into the desert of Shur.  They traveled in this desert for three days without finding any water.  When they came to the oasis of Marah, the water was too bitter to drink.  So they called the place Marah (which means “bitter”).  Then the people complained and turned against Moses.  “What are we going to drink?” they demanded.  So Moses cried out to the Lord for help, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood.  Moses threw it into the water, and this made the water good to drink.  It was there at Marah that the Lord set before them the following decree as a standard to test their faithfulness to him.  He said, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his sight, obeying his commands and keeping all his decrees, then I will not make you suffer any of the diseases I sent on the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you.”   Exodus 15:22-26

The children of Israel had water issues.  When they were running away from Egypt, they were stuck with too much water, the Red Sea, preventing them from getting to the Promised Land.  The Egyptian storm troopers were hot on their heels, and God parted the waters so they could walk through dust, instead of swimming (and mostly drowning).  Three days later they had the opposite issue – no water.  They complained and Moses led them to Marah…where the water was unhealthy, bitter.  God fixed that by purifying the water.  Further on in the journey they were dry once again, and God brought forth water from a rock. 

I had my own issues with a water valve this week.  The plumber came right away and did another miracle, fixed it, and charged me less than the cost of a Buick!

Normally I write in the early morning hours.  Yesterday was an exception.  I started the day by getting my dog settled with his business, and carrying him to that spot he occupies right next to my desk.  I began to write when dawn was just breaking.  Elizabeth opened the study door and the pitiful sight of my bride in pain was worse than Israel’s drought on the run.  We immediately got in the car and went to the Emergency Room.  Around three o’clock we found out she had pancreatitis, along with a secondary infection.  An hour later she was admitted and settled into a room.  It is now 8:22pm, I’ve just had supper; it’s been a day!

So what does all that have to do with Marah’s bitter water?  Well, I’m glad you asked.  Today’s events were much like Israel’s Marah experience.  When they were back in Egypt as slaves, they could at least count on having water to drink from the beautiful river Nile.  Out in the desert life became uncertain, uncontrollable.  Today reminded me of that…my sweet bride, usually smiley and always on the lookout for our family…now helplessly rubbing her side, and not wanting to do anything but be left alone.  And Russell, helpless, unable to do anything like Superman, leaping tall buildings, stopping speeding bullets; I had no way to take away her hurt.  All I could do was just sit by the bitter water of pain.  I’m not sure how many people prayed for us today; I do know my phone looked like an exhausted little puppy when the battery died.  Tons of people responded to our Facebook post, and the word spread.  When I left Elizabeth’s room at 6:30 this evening she was smiling, and looking forward to coming home tomorrow.  The doc had said, “we’ll see,” but I know that look in the woman’s eye.

So…time to wrap it up and get some sleep.  My day was planned to write.  Pain had other ideas…and like too much water at the Red Sea, too little water in the desert, and bitter water at Marah, I got frazzled and saw my weakness.  But God had the answer…even before I asked.

For You Today 

Whatever you’ve got going on today, remember where the well is located.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library. 

Title Image(s) courtesy of Pixabay.com

Images without citation are in public domain.  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©   

Between the Rock and Hard Place

 

Thursday, March 3, 2022

So the slave drivers and foremen went out and told the people: “This is what Pharaoh says:  I will not provide any more straw for you.   Go and get it yourselves.  Find it wherever you can.  But you must produce just as many bricks as before!”  So the people scattered throughout the land of Egypt in search of stubble to use as straw.  Meanwhile, the Egyptian slave drivers continued to push hard.  “Meet your daily quota of bricks, just as you did when we provided you with straw!” they demanded.  Then they whipped the Israelite foremen they had put in charge of the work crews.  “Why haven’t you met your quotas either yesterday or today?” they demanded.  So the Israelite foremen went to Pharaoh and pleaded with him.  “Please don’t treat your servants like this,” they begged.  “We are given no straw, but the slave drivers still demand, ‘Make bricks!’  We are being beaten, but it isn’t our fault!  Your own people are to blame!”  But Pharaoh shouted, “You’re just lazy!  Lazy!  That’s why you’re saying, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifices to the Lord.’  Now get back to work!  No straw will be given to you, but you must still produce the full quota of bricks.”  The Israelite foremen could see that they were in serious trouble when they were told, “You must not reduce the number of bricks you make each day.”  As they left Pharaoh’s court, they confronted Moses and Aaron, who were waiting outside for them.  The foremen said to them, “May the Lord judge and punish you for making us stink before Pharaoh and his officials.  You have put a sword into their hands, an excuse to kill us!”  Then Moses went back to the Lord and protested, “Why have you brought all this trouble on your own people, Lord?  Why did you send me?  Ever since I came to Pharaoh as your spokesman, he has been even more brutal to your people.  And you have done nothing to rescue them!”  Exodus 5:10-23

Four hundred years in captivity was a hard place.  The descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph were conscripts of Pharaoh’s dynasty.  They were forced to work endlessly just to stay alive, and had nothing.  Then things really got hard.

Bondage is brutal – and that is certainly an understatement.  Not just Israel, but humanity has been under something of bondage to COVID-19 and its cousins the past two years.  Even if you have been blessed enough to have escaped having the virus, you know someone, perhaps many, who have had to tough it out like making bricks without straw.

You’ve also seen what happens when the rock of struggle meets the hard place of frustration…someone must take the blame.  Pharaoh, like any pandemic virus, was an iron-fisted, hard-hearted tyrant.  He threatened, bullied, and killed.  His soldiers spread the virus of hate and oppression.  The people, frustrated, having no place to turn for relief, blamed Moses for stirring up Pharaoh’s anger.  Moses went right to prayer….and blamed God!

Just a few plagues later, the slaves were seeing Egypt in the rearview mirror.  Forty years later Moses saw the Promised Land from the mountaintop.  But none of the original group, including Moses, ever set foot on the other side of Jordan. 

The conclusion is rather rock-like:  Blaming someone else for your problems will get you somewhere, and it’s often a harder place than the rock you were facing.

For You Today

When the temptation comes for you to blame someone, some pandemic, some circumstances, or God, for whatever trouble presents, let your prayer of surrender to God’s will and care turn blame into blessing.  

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©    

The Hatred Prison

 

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you.  He is your example, and you must follow in his steps.  He never sinned, nor ever deceived anyone.  He did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when he suffered.  He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly.  1 Peter 2:21-23

This may be one of the easiest passages to understand in all of Scripture.  It is, arguably, also one of the most difficult to incorporate into our thoughts.  It is even harder to practice.  When you’ve been wronged, the human response is to, at least, defend…and, more likely, hit back!   Our recently retired president was hailed as the Counter-Puncher-in-Chief; he proudly lived-up to the reputation.  If he sensed a criticism from you, the response would be lethal.

The problem with revenge is the jail time to which it is connected.  Certainly, the kind of revenge that involves committing felonies might require time behind iron bars.  However, the jail time that is most damaging to the human spirit, and the possibilities of genuine community Christ offers, and promises, won’t be incarceration time spent in Attica, Sing Sing, or San Quentin.  The prison of revenge remediation is found within; it is hatred which binds us more strongly, and with greater destruction to the soul, than any cellblock. 

In a previous post (The All-Inclusive Temple of God) I mentioned “cancel culture” which, considering some of the responses to that post, begs a deeper look.  This phenomenon of a power-shift in 21^st century cultural norms is a belief system that holds previous norms are wrong and should be silenced, dismantled, and banned.  It is closely connected to the unique brand of reverse prejudice which creates a revenge cycle, which, in turn, leads to hatred prison just as dramatically as the souls of slave owners in Colonial America wound up confined there. 

Cancel culturalists will probably eat me alive for this thought train, but here goes.  The comparison I make is thus: 

·       In the annals of slavery and since the end of such bondage, the black person was viewed as “less”.  White supremacists, pushers of Arian dominance, claimed a superior position and held down their captives with a strong hand.  Hangover prejudices persist to this day

·       In the new norm of cancel culture, anyone (even remotely) connected to the wrong of the previous norm are immediately suspect (at mildest), or (at worst) held as culpable, first-degree racists.

So, just laying this argument on the low shelf, whites persecuted blacks, and now it is the black person’s time at bat.  Evidentiary of that is the hyper-radical anger that classifies any white person as racist, purely based on race.

I know…the irony screams so loud it’s impossible to laugh or cry…it’s just stunning, that it matters not what a black person said in 1830, he was black, and white America considered him part of nature’s mistake.  In 2021 the tsunami of “equality” overwhelms whatever remorse or compassion the white-skinned descendants of racists may have, and relegates them to racist by color. 

In proper perspective, most white people have never come close to the kind of personal, or group pain experienced by those who are black.  And there is nothing whites can do to atone for the sins of racism and oppression of the past, nor those who would hold on to it in the present, and promote it for the future.  Racism is indefensible and heinous.

But neither is there a commonsense argument for revenge’s retaliation.  Not only do two wrongs never make a right, the only genuine, workable commonsense argument is on the side of mental health.  The only healthy choice regarding racism is not fists in the air, anger, and getting even…it is forgiveness.  For those who care, it’s the only way to avoid spending time in The Hatred Prison.

For You Today

It’s time to join the Cancel Culture movement…let’s cancel racism from any perspective, and put the Hatred Prison behind bars.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com    Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

The Brutality of SLAVERY

Title Image:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

Thursday, February 20, 2020

And God said to Moses, “I am Yahweh—‘the Lord.’  I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty’—but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them.  And I reaffirmed my covenant with them.  Under its terms, I promised to give them the land of Canaan, where they were living as foreigners.  You can be sure that I have heard the groans of the people of Israel, who are now slaves to the Egyptians.  And I am well aware of my covenant with them.  “Therefore, say to the people of Israel:  ‘I am the Lord.    I will free you from your oppression and will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt.  I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgment.  I will claim you as my own people, and I will be your God.  Then you will know that I am the Lord your God who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt.  I will bring you into the land I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  I will give it to you as your very own possession.  I am the Lord!’”  So Moses told the people of Israel what the Lord had said, but they refused to listen anymore.  They had become too discouraged by the brutality of their slavery.  Exodus 6:2-9[1]

The brutality of any kind of slavery is a powerfully discouraging kind of image; it’s also enraging to the heart of anyone with even a mild sense and desire for the decency of affording human dignity which freedom conveys to all people. 

In the context of Israel’s conscription into a slave nation at the hands of Egyptian power in 1700 B.C., my mind’s eye conjures mud and straw images, making primitive bricks to build monuments to domination of one people by another.

While the odiousness of slavery in American culture most often evokes the shameful history of plantation life in the 16^th – 19^th centuries (as well it should), there are other slave owners fully empowered and operational today.  And these are as brutal as any Pharaoh building a pyramid. 

The list of so-called Seven Deadly Sins serves as a prime example of the kind of brutal slave holding done long before Egypt; it started in the Garden of Eden.  The Apostle Paul uses “slave” as a metaphor to help us understand how powerful sin can be in our lives to hold us captive, away from God:

We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.  Romans 6:6

The personal (and also powerful) choice of trusting the slave-busting act of sacrifice on the cross by Jesus – his blood cleansing us from the guilt of our sins – liberates us from being slaves to the baser nature.  It doesn’t make us perfect in the sense that we are above it all, better than others, but it means we’ve been given the power to depend on God fully for His power in our lives to keep us free.

I had a seminary professor who expressed it this way:  when God saved my soul I became free to sin all I want…and I do, you see, because when God saved my soul He also changed my ‘wanter’.

For You Today

If you find yourself stuck in some kind of bondage, always returning to the sin you don’t want to do, but can’t help yourself, there is a cure for doing those things you detest.  It can be found, if you start looking…down on your knees.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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[1] For another post on Exodus 6:9 see Discouraged 

Orthodox Dilemma - Part 2

[i]

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

So Peter invited the men to stay for the night.  The next day he went with them, accompanied by some of the brothers from Joppa.  They arrived in Caesarea the following day.  Cornelius was waiting for them and had called together his relatives and close friends.  As Peter entered his home, Cornelius fell at his feet and worshiped him.  But Peter pulled him up and said, “Stand up!  I’m a human being just like you!”  So they talked together and went inside, where many others were assembled.  Peter told them, “You know it is against our laws for a Jewish man to enter a Gentile home like this or to associate with you.  But God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean.  So I came without objection as soon as I was sent for.  Now tell me why you sent for me.”  Cornelius replied, “Four days ago I was praying in my house about this same time, three o’clock in the afternoon.  Suddenly, a man in dazzling clothes was standing in front of me.  He told me, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, and your gifts to the poor have been noticed by God!   Now send messengers to Joppa, and summon a man named Simon Peter.  He is staying in the home of Simon, a tanner who lives near the seashore.’  So I sent for you at once, and it was good of you to come.  Now we are all here, waiting before God to hear the message the Lord has given you.”  Acts 10:23-33(NLT)

We left Peter yesterday receiving impure, untouchable, undesirable Gentiles into his home; now we find Peter at the door of a Gentile’s home, telling the humble God-fearing Gentile Cornelius that God said Peter’s thinking was what was undesirable.  The question I often had – and get questioned about as a Pastor is:  Why did God label Gentiles impure in the first place, and then change His mind?

The whole issue centers in one word:  CHOICE.

Consider these few basic assumptions about our relationship with God:

1.     All humans are created in the image of God (we don’t choose humanity), and therefore are endowed-with (given) intrinsic worth.

2.     All humans sin, and therefore choose to disfigure (sin-away) that image and our relationship with God; we choose our impurity.

3.     Everything follows the pattern of the first two and needs restoration.

Returning to the Methodist fracas du jour for the moment as an example, God never ordained, never said a single word in favor of today’s aberrant sexual depravity, but has much strong condemnation of it.  Setting aside the argument of genetic predisposition – being born a woman in a man’s body, or vice-versa[ii], homosexuality, bi-sexuality, trans-sexuality, as opposed to heterosexuality is largely a matter of choice of behavior.  We act how we choose to act.

Sin is very much that way, a matter of choice.  People are not impure or unclean in God’s eyes (and neither should they be in ours) because of birth, genetics, race, or defect or any kind.  We make ourselves unclean with sin by rebelling against the bond of relationship with God.  Rebellion in sexual matters is no different for a homosexual or any of the other aberrations, as it is for a heterosexual who violates fidelity in marriage, or abstinence in singleness.  Heart rebellion is the center of the issue; when we choose to separate ourselves from God’s will, our free will accomplishes the task…and we know it.  Our eyes are no less opened by our sin than Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened when they rebelled.

So, why did Peter tell Cornelius he’d concluded that he should not think of any man as impure or unclean?  Simple; Peter had watched a woman brought to Jesus for condemnation because she was caught in the act.  Jesus told her accusers, ok, stone this sinner…whoever among you doesn’t have any sin on his card, step forward and throw the first stone.[iii]  They all slinked away.  It’s not a question of if we’re all guilty; we just can’t be proud of the fact that we might be less-guilty than the next guy.  We’re all sinners!

For You Today

Ash Wednesday is tomorrow; it’s a great time to put pride where it belongs.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[i] Title Image:   By Illustrator of Henry Davenport Northrop's 'Treasures of the Bible', 1894 Public Domain

[ii] I do not set this aside entirely; gender is not an identity, it is chromosomal; and that from conception.  Anything less is subjective science digging for excuses.

[iii] John 8:1-11

Orthodox Dilemma

[i]

Monday, March 4, 2019

The next day as Cornelius’s messengers were nearing the town, Peter went up on the flat roof to pray.  It was about noon,  and he was hungry.  But while a meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance.  He saw the sky open, and something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners.  In the sheet were all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds.  Then a voice said to him, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.”  “No, Lord,” Peter declared.  “I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure and unclean.”  But the voice spoke again:  “Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.” The same vision was repeated three times.  Then the sheet was suddenly pulled up to heaven.  Peter was very perplexed.  What could the vision mean? Just then the men sent by Cornelius found Simon’s house.  Standing outside the gate, they asked if a man named Simon Peter was staying there.  Meanwhile, as Peter was puzzling over the vision, the Holy Spirit said to him, “Three men have come looking for you.  Get up, go downstairs, and go with them without hesitation.  Don’t worry, for I have sent them.”  So Peter went down and said, “I’m the man you are looking for.  Why have you come?”  They said, “We were sent by Cornelius, a Roman officer.  He is a devout and God-fearing man, well respected by all the Jews.  A holy angel instructed him to summon you to his house so that he can hear your message.”  So Peter invited the men to stay for the night.  The next day he went with them, accompanied by some of the brothers from Joppa.  Acts 10:9-23(NLT)

Peter had his world rocked more than a few times because he was a follower of Jesus Christ.  Often Christian disciples tend to read Scripture, especially parts that contain Jewish tradition, as if it doesn’t apply to us, here in the 21^st century. 

We forget that Peter was a Jew, and here, a very orthodox Jew.  In this account his orthodox menu is challenged by a vision of everything he was forbidden to eat.  It says Peter was puzzling over what he’d just experienced when an invitation showed up at the front door from Cornelius, a Gentile Roman Officer, to come to his home and preach the Gospel message. 

The fact that Peter responded at all is evidence that the message from Heaven’s sheet full of meat was becoming clear to Peter.  If God is in something, you get on board with it.  In Peter’s case it is clear he got it right away, because he invited the messengers to stay the night with him.  In Peter’s orthodoxy it was forbidden to enter a Gentile’s residence, and it would have been a severe offense to have them stay in your home. 

It is dangerous to assume that every whim of change that floats around in the culture is God telling us what’s happening is a new direction for the church, or for individual discipleship.  On the other hand, we cannot, because of settled orthodoxy, summarily dismiss the possibilities.  Therefore, we listen to others before going to war over differences of opinion.  Culture wars are not always about right and wrong; sometimes they’re just attempts to get traction on approval for a new way to sin.

In many cases the development of civilization has meant throwing-out old ways, in favor of something more beneficial.  Slavery, Racism, Sexual abuse, and many more such evils, have been targeted as monstrous, intolerable by godly and civilized humanity. 

We must be ready to listen to those who claim victimization.  At the same time, we must listen closely; not all that glitters is gold, and not all that demands space must be accommodated. 

For You Today

For those who are serious about following Christ with pure motives and heart, even a direct message, let down in a sheet from Heaven must be a puzzling dilemma.  But a genuine move of God can never be orchestrated by demonstration, demeaning, manipulation, or false witness. 

That kind of agenda-driving is not let-down from Heaven, it’s brought-up from below, and it smells like smoke.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[i] Title Image:   By Illustrator of Henry Davenport Northrop's 'Treasures of the Bible', 1894 Public Domain

When It's God's Move

[1]

Friday, December 14, 2018

Listen to this, you who rob the poor and trample down the needy!  You can’t wait for the Sabbath day to be over and the religious festivals to end so you can get back to cheating the helpless.  You measure out grain with dishonest measures and cheat the buyer with dishonest scales.  And you mix the grain you sell with chaff swept from the floor.  Then you enslave poor people for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals.  Now the Lord has sworn this oath by his own name, the Pride of Israel:  “I will never forget the wicked things you have done!  The earth will tremble for your deeds, and everyone will mourn.  The ground will rise like the Nile River at floodtime; it will heave up, then sink again.  “In that day,” says the Sovereign Lord,
“I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth while it is still day.  I will turn your celebrations into times of mourning and your singing into weeping.  You will wear funeral clothes and shave your heads to show your sorrow—as if your only son had died.  How very bitter that day will be!  “The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the Lord.  People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from border to border searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.  Amos 8:4-12(NLT)

Amos was a simple shepherd.  God called him out of a little village called Tekoa in the mountains of southern Judea to go preach to the northern cities of Israel.  (Amos was a good ol’ boy sent up north to preach to the Yankees!)

News traveled slowly back then.  Who knows how much Amos knew of Samaria, Jerusalem and Damascus, even as he journeyed to the north on his mission?  It didn’t take him long to find out, however.  A simple man, Amos had spent his life in the hills, raising sheep.  His days were all about protecting sheep from wolves and other predators.  He could recognize danger.  A simple man can see injustice – and Amos saw clearly; Amos saw a flood of human predators:

·      At Damascus Amos saw God’s own people buying and selling each other at slavery auctions ^{(Amos 1:3-9)}.

·      He saw brothers killing each other in Edom ^{(Amos 1:11-12)}.

·      He saw children ripped from mother’s wombs in Ammon ^{(Amos 1:13)}.

·      He saw pagan worship rituals in Judah, people of God’s own flock ^{(Amos 2:4)}.

·      He saw oppression of the poor and sexual perversion in Israel ^{(Amos 2:6-7)}.

Amos saw then and there, what we see here and now in America!  It is hard to deny that we live in a land where the tide has turned from a safe-haven for Godliness and moral living to seeing the worst humanity has to offer.  We have seen the depravity of humankind on display, approved by the Supreme Court, and covered live on CNN.

In Jerusalem Amos couldn’t believe his eyes; in the midst of all the flagrant sinning, the total disregarding of God’s commands, the people of Israel were still holding their worship services and rituals…and God said through the prophet, I cannot stand what I see…it doesn’t matter how many prayers you send up here…I’m not having any of it…you get your lives straightened out, and do it now!^[2] 

It is amazing how the people were going to worship, praying, and counting on God to answer and provide for them, all the while not giving the slightest attention to doing right, or being obedient.  Things have not changed!

God was not amused in Amos’ day, and He still isn’t.  In so many ways the people to whom Amos preached were the stereotypical “Sunday-morning Christians”.  They were out hustling in the world during the week, cheating on the stock market, short-changing an employer, embezzling like an Enron specialist from 9 to 5.  After hours and on Saturday nights they populated the bars, brothels and honky tonks.  Come Sunday morning they were filling the pews at 11am, smiling and “Amen-ing” with the best of ‘em.  If ever a house-cleaning was needed; it is no wonder God wanted justice to roll-down like a Tsunami over that bunch…and maybe over America as well.

And while politicians the world over plot their strategies and move the chess pieces of armies, trade embargoes, tariffs, border walls and more, the voice of God’s Word hangs heavy over humanity:  The time is coming!

For You Today

Heavy stuff here from Amos.  What can a mere mortal do?  The simple answer from a simple prophet from Tekoa – be obedient, worship God, love your neighbor and do right; continue to pray for revival in our land…because when it’s God’s move, the game is going to be over!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com

[2] Amos 5:21-23 my paraphrase