Let My People Go

Tuesday, September 5, 2023

After this presentation to Israel’s leaders, Moses and Aaron went and spoke to Pharaoh.  They told him, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Let my people go so they may hold a festival in my honor in the wilderness.”  “Is that so?” retorted Pharaoh.  “And who is the Lord?  Why should I listen to him and let Israel go?  I don’t know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go.”  Exodus 5:1-2

If you’ve hung around God’s people for a minute or two you’ve heard how Israel was in bondage to the Egyptians, and God sent Moses to lead them away from slavery to the Promised Land.  If you’re a believer, you’ve also probably shaken your head over the way Pharaoh was so hard-hearted (and hard-headed). 

These two verses give us God’s Heavenly understanding about why Pharaoh was so cruel…and why people of all generations do such mean stuff.  The bottom line of it all is when God said (through Moses) let my people go.  Pharaoh answered with a defiant scowl:  Is that so….why should I listen…I don’t know the Lord…and I won’t let Israel go.  Pharaoh wouldn’t listen or obey, because he had no clue Who he was dealing with, or the consequences. 

The Psalmist understood this well:

Why are the nations so angry?  Why do they waste their time with futile plans?
The kings of the earth prepare for battle; the rulers plot together against the Lord and against his anointed one.  “Let us break their chains,” they cry, “and free ourselves from slavery to God.”  But the one who rules in heaven laughs.  The Lord scoffs at them.  Then in anger he rebukes them, terrifying them with his fierce fury.  Psalm 2:1-5

I’ve known some angry and violent people, a few who directed that hostility towards me.  I’ve looked into the defiant eyes of those who would have taken my head off with little (or no) remorse.  I have seen hatred which I could only describe as demonic.  I’m not an exorcist…I don’t even like movies that deal with that stuff…but I’ve seen too much to deny that spiritual evil is real.  One such violent man was part of my life during early ministry days.  After wreaking havoc on our church for a few months, his alcoholic stupor and violence ended with him committing suicide in a police standoff.  I’m no psychiatrist, but this was more than booze, and much more than angst over life’s smaller questions.  This was a man who had shaken his fist at God for so long…so angry…that anger led him to the brink of despair, and, finally over that brink into the abyss.  His last act of pulling the trigger was desperation, the mark of one who had lost all hope.  Why do the heathen rage?  Why are the nations angry?  Why is life filled with such an absence?  A void?  A tasteless treadmill of nothing? 

Let’s do the math…it is entirely the lack of knowing the Lord.  Pharaoh wasn’t the only one…name any serial-killer in history…start with Cain, make your way through Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, and all the conquerors of history, Alexander the Great, Atilla the Hun, Stalin, Hitler, Tojo, et al.  What is the thread that binds all that violent behavior?  They didn’t know the Lord of Heaven.  They would not bow before anyone but their own thrones.

Knowing the Lord is more than knowing about God; rather it is a personal relationship of friendship, based on understanding God’s love, and responding appropriately.  Cain is the chief poor example.  When he killed his brother out of envy, God’s love for Abel was assaulted.  God’s love for Cain held him responsible:

You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out!  Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. Genesis 4:7a

For You Today 

Let’s finish Moses’ words:  Let my people go….to worship God.

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

Not Much Left

Thursday, September 15, 2022

This is what the Lord said to me:  “Go and buy a linen loincloth and put it on, but do not wash it.”  So I bought the loincloth as the Lord directed me, and I put it on.  Then the Lord gave me another message:  “Take the linen loincloth you are wearing, and go to the Euphrates River.  Hide it there in a hole in the rocks.”  So I went and hid it by the Euphrates as the Lord had instructed me.   A long time afterward the Lord said to me, “Go back to the Euphrates and get the loincloth I told you to hide there.”  So I went to the Euphrates and dug it out of the hole where I had hidden it.  But now it was rotting and falling apart. The loincloth was good for nothing.  Then I received this message from the Lord:  “This is what the Lord says:  This shows how I will rot away the pride of Judah and Jerusalem.  These wicked people refuse to listen to me.  They stubbornly follow their own desires and worship other gods.  Therefore, they will become like this loincloth—good for nothing!  As a loincloth clings to a man’s waist, so I created Judah and Israel to cling to me, says the Lord.  They were to be my people, my pride, my glory—an honor to my name.  But they would not listen to me.  Jeremiah 13:1-11

This sermon of Jeremiah’s was a long time cooking.  God had told the prophet to buy some new underwear, put it on for a while, and then go bury it under a rock near the river.  Then, after a long time, God instructed Jeremiah to dig it up.  When the cloth was retrieved, there wasn’t much left.

Why would God orchestrate this strange behavior?  What was the Lord doing?  Well, it’s not too difficult to figure out…a garment that’s meant to be worn doesn’t do well buried in the damp ground…it will rot. 

The meaning in the story’s impact makes Israel God’s undergarment, meant to stay closely-wrapped to the One who saved them, and led them to the land flowing with milk and honey.  The short version is painful…they wouldn’t, and they didn’t.

To sensible people it seems odd that anyone who had been carried like a child by a loving parent would want to stray from that relationship.  But, as seen over and again in Scripture’s account of Israel’s history, God’s people left the calling of JHWH in the dust to serve other gods.  Chalk up a win for stubbornness and pride!

Over the course of human history the willfulness, and very stubborn pride of humans, has preciptated much grief and pain.  People leave the one true God to serve all kinds of other gods, easier gods, gods that will let you indulge your own whims, and applaude your decision.  In the end, when you dig up what is left of their life’s record, it is as rotten as discarded underwear, buried on the riverbank.

For You Today

A Christian is a person who has surrendered all rights to self-determination, committing his or her life to following the one, true, living God’s will and calling.  And that calling, no matter if it is to business, church, government, or a billion other occupations and ways to spend your days on earth…unequivocally means staying close to the God who loves and saves you.  To do anything other makes the human the god.  That didn’t work for Israel, and it will not fare better for any of us.

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

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There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Nervous Kings and When Faith is Discarded

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

 

Will They Never Learn?

Friday, September 8, 2022

The Lord looks down from heaven on the entire human race; he looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God.  But no, all have turned away; all have become corrupt.  No one does good, not a single one!  Will those who do evil never learn?  Psalm 14:2-4a

The Psalmist could have inserted my picture as the headline to this Psalm.  He was being kind and discreet, but this has me written all over it.  The evidence is overwhelming, but one incident, in particular, gives the overall sense of stubbornness lodged deep in my soul. 

It happened on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon drive.  There wasn’t much money in our household budget, so a family drive was a major tool to combat hot summer boredom.  This was long before the price of gas reached a zillion dollars a gallon, back when air-conditioning in cars was for the rich.  To keep cool we had “450 air-conditioning” – you opened the car’s 4 windows and drove 50-miles-per-hour!  But, I digress.

On one of those drives down the country lanes and backroads my Dad favored, he half-turned to us boys in the back seat and told us to close our eyes.  Russell did the 10-year-old thing every parent has heard:  Why?  Dad replied:  Just close ‘em; you’ll see.  Russell:  But how can I ‘SEE’ with my eyes closed?  Dad:  Russell Jay Brownworth…just close your eyes.  Russell, (rolling eyes and sighing rather dramatically) But, what if I don’t want to?  Dad:  It’s too late now – just forget it.

Later that day my older brother, Thom informed me the moment I trashed with my attitude was Dad’s attempt to add just a little more excitement to the ride.  He was coming to the “dip” in the road, and was speeding up to get us airborne.  It’s one of those weightless instants when you’re suspended between going up, and then down.  It’s the apex of a hill’s up-and-down that makes your stomach do a loop-de-loop.  We couldn’t afford to go to the carnival rides, so Dad was trying to bring the roller coaster to us.  I wonder how often Dad whispered to himself:  Will he never learn?   

That incident always turns my mind to how my Heavenly Father may have the same thought…not just about Russell – about God’s entire family.  Sometimes our foolish ways are beyond understanding.  We steal moments of selfish pleasure, thinking to enhance our lives and self-esteem, only to find ourselves crumbling on the inside in shame and emptiness.  We kill each other with amazing regularity, playing out Cane’s hatred.  We mock God with our little sand castles of empires and imperialism, and find them washed away with the next tide.  Nothing we build lasts, and little is our self-agrandizement recognized for the childish illusion of life we claim.  In short, like a 10-year-old stuffed with pride, we won’t listen to a single bit of helpful joy.  And God says:  Will they never learn?

For You Today

Willfulness and pride aren’t hard to hold-onto, but they’re the devil to let-go-of.  And their results are harder to swallow than just one spoiled moment on the roller coaster; failing to let go of self, to find oneself wrapped in the everlasting arms of love from Father, is the most costly of all our obtuse ways.  This begs the question unendingly:  Will we never learn?

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

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

When Mercy Outweighs Justice and In the Beginning

[1] Images:  Bing Images (Royalty Free)   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

A Fortress Like No Other

 

Friday, January 22, 2021

Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him.  He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken.  My victory and honor come from God alone.  He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me.  O my people, trust in him at all times.  Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge.  Psalm 62:5-8

      ·       Note – often, when writing these devotionals, I check back to see what I’ve written before on the same text, so I can list other posts on the same Scripture.  ^{(Hint:  check the footnotes)}.  This morning the check-back proved painfully fruitful.  Here’s what I wrote in October 2019 about Waiting in a Small Place:

When alone, particularly early in the morning as this moment can attest, I think of the life I’ve lived, and those small places that I return to…

·      stubborn, not submitted to Christ’s changing power

·      willful, hardly obedient, except if it can be seen by others

·      selfish, less than generous, except if it can be seen by others

·      fearful, not depending on the Rock of Jesus’ saving power

·      wavering, looking for a way out that I can see instead of faith-walking

·      wobbly-kneed, untrue, and crabby…hardly a tower of graciousness. 

Before I begin a day, I must always cover this ground in my prayers.  Like David, I know myself too well to imagine I’ll be just fine without God’s constant hand leading, and His Spirit forming me from the inside-out.

Now, what I wrote a year ago was true about Russell (and perhaps you as well).  And it was true about King David when he wrote Psalm 62 three-thousand years ago.  Truth doesn’t change, especially about human nature’s fragility.  Honestly most human beings spend more time than not in small places, inside our bubble, either denying vulnerability, or, perhaps, planning how to achieve safety in a scary world. 

King David knew both vulnerability and the false feeling of invincibility.  He began life as a sheep-tender, spending much time alone in the wilderness.  He spent some time in the company of a madman (King Saul), the object of a paranoid schizophrenic’s fear of losing his throne.  David also had to live with his sins, adultery, conspiracy, and murder of an innocent man.  As king, David was the most powerful man on earth at the time.  However, when he was alone with his thoughts, all David’s strength paled by comparison to the righteous, omnipotent power of Jehovah-God.  It’s easy (and right) to feel quite small at such times.

And yet David could write about that God, Jehovah, as the very reason to feel safe, to know safe and secure; this God of David’s was a fortress like no other.  And so the shepherd-turned-king could encourage his flock, Israel, to always trust God, and pour-out their hearts in prayer to Him. 

No matter what kind of scale you use to measure the importance of political views and policies, this world has always been a scary place. 

·       It is scary for Republicans to see the Democrats control, and the reverse is also true. 

·       It was hard, as a young child, for me to hear about the Russians dropping a nuclear bomb on my head. 

And when, at such times, I spend too much time inside my head, figuring out how I will survive, or what the government, or pandemics, or my own sins can do to unravel my life, it is time to stop that maddening process and run like a surprised jackrabbit to the fortress of my soul.  It is time to practice what I preach, placing all my trust in God.

For You Today

What does your fortress look like?  And, who built it? 

King David assures us that if your fortress is any place, person, or thing other than Christ’s outstretched arms, you’ve built yourself a house on a foundation of sand.  Better something built on the solid rock!

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

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

For other posts on Psalm 62 see Lightweights in the Wind and Waiting in a Small Place      

 

An Apology to Molech

 

Tuesday, July 21, 2020

A brief word of disclaiming before we begin today.  When I first began Rocky Road Devotions I committed to a process of selecting one of the texts appearing in the daily Lectionary.  Occasionally a very controversial, counter-culturally-correct text shows up in that process, and today’s was a doozy!  Two of the texts are a direct challenge to the practice of abortion.  Depending where you fall on the sociology line of today’s thinking concerning the “right” of a woman to choose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, you might either love what I’m going to say, or call it hate speech, and offer to have me drawn and quartered.  My only comment at that point is, we all have our opinion; I get mine from Scripture, because God is wiser than Russell.  I stand by what you are about to read.

Psalm 139:13-18

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.  Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!  Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.  You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.  You saw me before I was born.  Every day of my life was recorded in your book.  Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.  How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.  They cannot be numbered!  I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand!  And when I wake up, you are still with me!

Leviticus 18:21, 20:4-5

“Do not permit any of your children to be offered as a sacrifice to Molech, for you must not bring shame on the name of your God. I am the Lord….And if the people of the community ignore those who offer their children to Molech and refuse to execute them,  I myself will turn against them and their families and will cut them off from the community.  This will happen to all who commit spiritual prostitution by worshiping Molech.                                        

There is a saying that disappeared rather abruptly from “acceptable speech” in today’s culture – if God doesn’t punish those who practice homosexuality, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.  Likewise, if God doesn’t follow through on taking any culture to the woodshed for practicing abortion, the killing of the unborn children…He owes an apology to Molech.

Molech was an Ammorite god, the chief deity of one of the peoples that inhabited the Promised Land.  When Moses pointed the people in the direction of the land God had said He’d promised to Abraham, he also recorded (in Leviticus) that they were not to worship Molech, or copy the practices of the Ammorite people of burning their children to death as a means of appeasing Molech.  This was genocide of a monsterous sort.

The Jewish and Christian view (doctrine) of the inherrent worth to God of every human, born or not yet born, is expressed in the Psalmist’s words that we are, created by, watched over in the womb, brought forth in wondrous complexity, and carefully included in all the plans God has for humanity and history.  An abortion puts an end to those plans God laid out for that child.  

An agonizing worldwide statistic is that, in the next 5 minutes, the time it takes to read this devotional, approximately 450 unborn children will be sacrificed to Molech, the god of this pregnancy just doesn’t work for me right now. 

I can do nothing but weep for the children at this point, because the country in which I reside, along with most of the governments of this world, have a hellish disregard for life.  And the plain fact is that abortion doesn’t just wrestle with God’s creation; abortion is a fist-in-the-air rebellion against God’s will. 

It is sin; it is evil; it is dead wrong.

Let’s Pray Together:

Father, only You know the total number of souls lost to the abortionist’s knife, and that, with the consent and approval of human governments acting out the wishes of the Adversary.  Forgive us, we pray; help us to speak out so the world will know just how much evil there is in this dark path we are walking.

For You Today

I’m at a loss with what I, or anyone can do against such a heinous practice that is just part of the landscape these days.  Except, we can pray, and we can speak out.  We can tell the truth no matter whether it is liked or hated.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

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

For other posts on this text:  Subway Sermon and Still There

The Ability to Blush

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Wednesday, May 16, 2018

At the time of the sacrifice, I stood up from where I had sat in mourning with my clothes torn.  I fell to my knees and lifted my hands to the Lord my God.  I prayed, “O my God, I am utterly ashamed; I blush to lift up my face to you.  For our sins are piled higher than our heads, and our guilt has reached to the heavens.  From the days of our ancestors until now, we have been steeped in sin.  That is why we and our kings and our priests have been at the mercy of the pagan kings of the land.  We have been killed, captured, robbed, and disgraced, just as we are today.  “But now we have been given a brief moment of grace, for the Lord our God has allowed a few of us to survive as a remnant.  He has given us security in this holy place.  Our God has brightened our eyes and granted us some relief from our slavery.  For we were slaves, but in his unfailing love our God did not abandon us in our slavery.  Instead, he caused the kings of Persia to treat us favorably.  He revived us so we could rebuild the Temple of our God and repair its ruins.  He has given us a protective wall in Judah and Jerusalem.  “And now, O our God, what can we say after all of this?  For once again we have abandoned your commands!  Your servants the prophets warned us when they said, ‘The land you are entering to possess is totally defiled by the detestable practices of the people living there.  From one end to the other, the land is filled with corruption.  Don’t let your daughters marry their sons!  Don’t take their daughters as wives for your sons.  Don’t ever promote the peace and prosperity of those nations.  If you follow these instructions, you will be strong and will enjoy the good things the land produces, and you will leave this prosperity to your children forever.’  Ezra 9:5-12^(NLT)

Ezra was instrumental in rebuilding Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity.  After hearing reports that the people had totally disregarded God’s commands to become involved in sinful practices, he did what we 21^st century Christians have seem to lost the ability to do…Ezra blushed with embarrassment before God.  In his priestly prayer Ezra lifted up the sins of a nation, steeped for generations in spiritual adultery.

Many have misread this prohibition of inter-marrying as a racial issue.  God never forbade inter-racial, or inter-cultural marriage; God’s issue was inter-spiritual unions…a joining of those with faith to those without.  It is marrying outside your faith, not outside your race, that brings the judgment of God on your choices.

The Apostle Paul made it pretty clear (from just about any perspective…marriage, business partners, playdates for children), it is spiritual, not racial difference that matters when it comes to choosing your life partner, friends or associates.

Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness?  2 Corinthians 6:14^(NLT)

God’s reasons are God’s reasons, and we cannot second-guess the Almighty.  However, you can see, from a human reasoning perspective, the logic of Christians choosing those with strong faith in Christ as friends, and particularly those with whom you will spend a lifetime in marriage.  Faith (or the absence of faith) influences virtually every desire, ethic, or decision you make.  For those who sincerely desire to be transformed by Christ into the image of Christ, the desires, intentions and direction of life is going to be 180^o from those interested in the world. 

Simply put…you cannot go East and West at the same time!

For You Today

Last words of famous people are often recorded as powerful messages for generations to come.  The successor to Moses, Joshua, led the people of God in the conquest of the Promised Land.  As he said his farewell after decades of leading, Joshua held up that same principle of obedience with his last words before the new nation:

But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve.  Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates?  Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live?  But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”  Joshua 24:15^(NLT)

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

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy Pixabay.com

Blush

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Tuesday, November 14, 2017

They read from the Book of the Law of God and clearly explained the meaning of what was being read, helping the people understand each passage.  Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were interpreting for the people said to them, “Don’t mourn or weep on such a day as this!  For today is a sacred day before the Lord your God.”  For the people had all been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.  And Nehemiah continued, “Go and celebrate with a feast of rich foods and sweet drinks, and share gifts of food with people who have nothing prepared.  This is a sacred day before our Lord.  Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength!”  And the Levites, too, quieted the people, telling them, “Hush! Don’t weep!  For this is a sacred day.”  So the people went away to eat and drink at a festive meal, to share gifts of food, and to celebrate with great joy because they had heard God’s words and understood them.  Nehemiah 8:8-12^(NLT)

Some things stick like an unbreakable weld in your mind – that feeling of being surprised on a memorable birthday, or the smell of your first car, or being caught with your hand in the cookie jar.  Some things are meant to stick!

One of those phrases I will probably take to the grave is what Dr. Charles Graham said in the Old Testament course I was taking in seminary.  When Dr. Graham came to the verse that said the people had all been weeping as they listened, he stopped and said:

You don’t find that much in our culture anymore; we seem to have lost the ability to blush!

Blushing is an involuntary physiological response to being embarrassed.  You spoke when you shouldn’t have, or lied and were called on it, or you’re standing on that step stool at the kitchen counter and Mom just walked in and busted you for that hand you’ve got foraging deep in the cookie jar.

What Dr. Graham was getting at was that we aren’t much embarrassed by our sins anymore.  Our culture seems to take the approach that, no matter what we’ve done, it either wasn’t our fault (we were dropped on our head as a child), or we’re just following our natural instincts, or some other excuse.  The whole concept of culpable, 100% first-degree sin, where you choose what you want to do over what conscience and clear common sense say is right to do…well, that whole thing is just so cute and Grandma-ish down at the church house kind of thinking, but it has nothing to do with reality – we are not sinners; we are modern, sophisticated adults who have choices.  There’s no such thing as sin.

It wasn’t so in Nehemiah’s experience.  When Ezra, the scribe read God’s Word to the assembled people, all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, they stood from early morning to noon listening.  And what’s more, they took it to heart, saw where their behavior was in direct disobedience to God’s Word and began to weep. 

They knew how to blush; we don’t.  They (properly so) were embarrassed by the simple understanding that they were sinning against Almighty God; we aren’t.  As a direct result of this cultural blunting of the odiousness of sin we have cut off the ability to repent.  People laugh-off the notion that “I’m OK; you’re OK” is really a lie.  We go on believing that the whole concept of sin is antiquated and so unsophisticated; with nothing to be sorry for, nothing to repent over, we find no difficulty in elevating ourselves to having the right to claim, rather assertively, without the slightest blush:  I’m a good person, and you ought to be ashamed for trying to make me feel guilty!

An honest study of Scripture would say otherwise.  Every prophet came to tell humanity otherwise.  Paul said it without stuttering:

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.  Romans 3:23^(NLT)

When the people blushed over their sins, it was the initial, critical step in repentance.  And with that step, the forgiveness of God was close at hand, and the leaders were quick to tell the people to put away their tears.

For You Today

The tears of repentance come before the graceful forgiveness of God.  God never forgives sins we refuse to confess.  So, go ahead, blush…repent…confess…be forgiven!

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

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com

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