Exodus 7:5 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them.
The ungodly world is hard to
teach.
Egypt does not know Jehovah and therefore dares to set up its
idols and even ventures to ask, "Who is the LORD?" Yet the LORD means to
break proud hearts, whether they will or not. When His judgments
thunder over their heads... Darken their skies, destroy their harvests,
and slay their sons, they begin to discern somewhat of Jehovah's power. There will yet be such things done in the earth as shall bring skeptics
to their knees.
Let us not be dismayed because of their blasphemies, for
the LORD can take care of His own name, and He will do so in a very
effectual manner.
The salvation
of His own people was another potent means of making Egypt know that
the God of Israel was Jehovah, the living and true God.
No Israelite
died by any one of the ten plagues.
None of the chosen seed were drowned
in the Red Sea.
Even so, the salvation of the elect and the sure
glorification of all true believers will make the most obstinate of
God's enemies acknowledge that Jehovah, He is the God.
Oh, that His convincing power
would go forth by His Holy Spirit in the preaching of the gospel...Till
all nations shall bow at the name of Jesus and call Him LORD!
Why do I run to this neighbor and that when God is so near and
will hear my faintest call?
Why do I sit down and devise schemes and
invent plans!
Why not at once roll my- self and my burden upon the LORD?
Straightforward is the best runner -- why do I not run at once to the
living God?
In vain shall I look for deliverance anywhere else...
But
with God I shall find it; for here I have His royal "shall" to make it
sure. I need not ask whether I may
call on Him or not, for that word whosoever is a very wide and
comprehensive one.
Whosoever means me, for it means anybody and
everybody who calls upon God.
I will therefore follow the leading of the
text and at once call upon the glorious LORD who has made so large a
promise. My case is urgent, and I do
not see how I am to be delivered; but this is no business of mine.
He
who makes the promise will find out ways and means of keeping it.
It is
mine to obey His commands; it is not mine to direct His counsels.
Son 5:6 I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer. The
Lord, when He hath given great faith, hath been known to try it by long
delayings. He has suffered His servants voices to echo in their ears
as from a brazen sky. They have knocked at the golden gate, but it has
remained unmovable, as though it were rusted upon its hinges. Like
Jeremiah, they have cried, "Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that
our prayer should not pass through." Thus have true saints continued
long in patient waiting without reply... Not because their prayers were
not vehement... Nor because they were unaccepted... But because it so
pleased Him who is a Sovereign, and who gives according to His own
pleasure. If it pleases Him to bid our patience exercise itself, shall
He not do as He will with His own! No prayer is lost. Praying breath was never spent in vain. There is no such thing as
prayer unanswered or unnoticed by God... And some things that we count
refusals or denials are simply delays. ~H. Bonar~ Christ
sometimes delays His help that He may try our faith and quicken our
prayers.
The boat may be covered with the waves, and He sleeps on; but
He will wake up before it sinks.
He sleeps, but He never oversleeps; and
there are no "too lates" with Him.
~Alexander Maclaren~ Be
still, sad soul!
Lift thou no passionate cry...
But spread the desert of
thy being bare To the full searching of the All-seeing eye...
Wait!
And
through dark misgiving, black despair...
God will come down in pity...
And fill the dry Dead place with light, and life, and vernal air.
Pro 11:25 The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself. If I carefully consider others,
God will consider me... And in some way or other He will recompense me. Let me consider the poor, and the LORD will consider me. Let me look
after little children, and the LORD will treat me as His child. Let me
feed His flock, and He will feed me. Let me water His garden, and He
will make a watered garden of my soul. This is the LORD's own promise; Be it mine to fulfill the condition and then to expect its fulfillment.
I may care about myself till I
grow morbid... I may watch over my own feelings till I feel nothing... And I
may lament my own weakness till I grow almost too weak to lament. It
will be far more profitable for me to become unselfish... And out of love
to my LORD Jesus begin to care for the souls of those around me. My tank
is getting very low; no fresh rain comes to fill it... What shall l do... I
will pull up the plug and let its contents run out to water the
withering plants around me. What do I see? My cistern seems to fill as
it flows. A secret spring is at work. While all was stagnant, the fresh
spring was sealed... But as my stock Rows out to water others the LORD
thinketh upon me. Hallelujah! ~Charles Spurgeon~
Yesterday's promise secured us
strength for what we have to do, but this guarantees us aid in cases
where we cannot act alone. The LORD says, "I will help thee." Strength
within is supplemented by help without. God can raise us up allies in
our warfare if so it seems good in His sight... And even if He does not
send us human assistance... He Himself will be at our side... And this is
better still. Our August Ally is better than legions of mortal
helpers. His help is timely... He is a
very present help in time of trouble. His help is very wise... He knows
how to give each man help meet and fit for him. His help is most
effectual, though vain is the help of man. His help is more than help,
for He bears All the burden and supplies All the need. The LORD is my
helper, I will not fear what man can do unto me. Because He has already been our
help, we feel confidence in Him for the present and the future. Our
prayer is, "LORD, by thou my helper"... Our experience is, "The Spirit
also helpeth our infirmities"... Our expectation is, "I will lift up mine
eyes unto the hills, whence cometh my help"... And our song soon will be,
"Thou, LORD, hast holden me." ~Charles Spurgeon~
Joshua 7:20 And Achan answered Joshua, and said, Indeed I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done:
Joshua 7:21 When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it.
The Achan factor is significant.
There were two things connected with Achan's sin, or which were the forms of expression which that sin took.
There was the wedge of gold, and the Babylonish garment.
The wedge of gold incidentally is of interest, inasmuch as it has been discovered that wedges of gold, not coins, formed the currency of that part of the world at that time.
Business was transacted, and payments were made in this way, and, in a word, credit hung upon these wedges of gold.
It was one of those wedges of gold representing the commercial values of this world which Achan took.
The Babylonish garment, on the other hand, is a foreign element, which has proved to have been a link with a religious system, the Babylonish religious system...
For that Babylonish garment was nothing other than something connected with the system of worship in Babylon.
It might have been a garment of a priestess.
The gold was claimed by Jehovah.
When the city was taken it was commanded that the gold should be devoted to the Lord for His purposes...
That is, the Lord laid claim to the gold...
And all the gold was the Lord's property, the Lord's by right.
Achan, therefore, appropriated what belonged to the Lord, and sought to turn it to his own account.
That is what the flesh Always does.
The flesh Always takes to itself the glory that belongs to the Lord.
The flesh is Always taking God's rights from Him.
The flesh is Always putting itself in the place of the Lord.
As to the Babylonish garment: that was a part of the whole system of things which was to be utterly destroyed from the Lord...
And it represented a spiritual order which was in antagonism to God...
A worship which was energized by the god of this world, his religious system, in usurping God's place as God...
And that whole system, with every accompaniment, every feature, was to be utterly destroyed.
But Achan preserved something which was a representation of a spiritual antagonism to God as the only God...
So that Achan's sin was a Very Deep Sin.
You see how inclusive Jericho was, in that its every feature foreshadowed, or represented, what the conquest of the land was to be.
The judgment of Achan's sin showed that God had first rights...
And the flesh must not appropriate what belongs to God...
Must not take God's place.
It showed that the land represents a false spiritual system which had to be blotted out...
And not one fragment of it left to survive.
When Achan took the Babylonish garment he was violating a law which had to govern the conquest of the land...
And he became the enemy's instrument of breaking into the Divine order, so that Jericho gathered up everything through the whole land.
We are told in the Book of the Acts that the Lord cast out seven nations greater than Israel.
The "seven" of Jericho is symbolic of the seven nations which are to be destroyed, and they are virtually destroyed in Jericho.
