December 2, 2004

Reading through the Bible in one Year: Acts 21-22

Weekly Memory Verse: Proverbs 27:17

Good Evening Brothers and Sisters,

Good news today, my wife went to the neurosurgeon today and is progressing OK.  We won't know if the leak is stopped until next Thursday, but she has been allowed to start walking now.  Praise God!

Exodus 15 (The Message)
¹ Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to God, giving voice together, I’m singing my heart out to God—what a victory! He pitched horse and rider into the sea. ² God is my strength, God is my song, and, yes! God is my salvation. This is the kind of God I have and I’m telling the world! This is the God of my father— I’m spreading the news far and wide! ³ God is a fighter, pure God, through and through. ⁴ Pharaoh’s chariots and army he dumped in the sea, The elite of his officers he drowned in the Red Sea. ⁵ Wild ocean waters poured over them; they sank like a rock in the deep blue sea. ⁶ Your strong right hand, God, shimmers with power; your strong right hand shatters the enemy. ⁷ In your mighty majesty you smash your upstart enemies, You let loose your hot anger and burn them to a crisp. ⁸ At a blast from your nostrils the waters piled up; Tumbling streams dammed up, wild oceans curdled into a swamp. ⁹ The enemy spoke, “I’ll pursue, I’ll hunt them down, I’ll divide up the plunder, I’ll glut myself on them; I’ll pull out my sword, my fist will send them reeling.” ¹⁰ You blew with all your might and the sea covered them. They sank like a lead weight in the majestic waters. ¹¹ Who compares with you among gods, O God? Who compares with you in power, in holy majesty, In awesome praises, wonder-working God? ¹² You stretched out your right hand and the Earth swallowed them up. ¹³ But the people you redeemed, you led in merciful love; You guided them under your protection to your holy pasture. ¹⁴ When people heard, they were scared; Philistines writhed and trembled; ¹⁵ Yes, even the head men in Edom were shaken, and the big bosses in Moab. Everybody in Canaan panicked and fell faint. ¹⁶ Dread and terror sent them reeling. Before your brandished right arm they were struck dumb like a stone, ¹⁷ Until your people crossed over and entered, O God, until the people you made crossed over and entered. You brought them and planted them on the mountain of your heritage, The place where you live, the place you made, Your sanctuary, Master, that you established with your own hands. ¹⁸ Let God rule forever, for eternity! ¹⁹ Yes, Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and riders went into the sea and God turned the waters back on them; but the Israelites walked on dry land right through the middle of the sea. ²⁰ Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine, and all the women followed her with tambourines, dancing. ²¹ Miriam led them in singing, Sing to God— what a victory! He pitched horse and rider into the sea! ²² Moses led Israel from the Red Sea on to the Wilderness of Shur. They traveled for three days through the wilderness without finding any water. ²³ They got to Marah, but they couldn’t drink the water at Marah; it was bitter. That’s why they called the place Marah (Bitter). ²⁴ And the people complained to Moses, “So what are we supposed to drink?” ²⁵ So Moses cried out in prayer to God. God pointed him to a stick of wood. Moses threw it into the water and the water turned sweet. ²⁶ That’s the place where God set up rules and procedures; that’s where he started testing them. God said, “If you listen, listen obediently to how God tells you to live in his presence, obeying his commandments and keeping all his laws, then I won’t strike you with all the diseases that I inflicted on the Egyptians; I am God your healer.” ²⁷ They came to Elim where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees. They set up camp there by the water.^[1]

Rather than break down the whole chapter, I am going to focus on just a few chunks of it.  One thing that I found interesting is the prophetess Miriam.  Consider who she is for a moment, she is the sister of Moses.  Remember, she is the one who placed him into the water and stood back to watch over him when he was a baby.  In their family, there were three prophets, Miriam, Aaron and Moses:

Numbers 12:1-2 (NASB95)
¹ Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had married a Cushite woman); ² and they said, “Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us as well?” And the Lord heard it.

Micah 6:4 (NASB95)
⁴ “Indeed, I brought you up from the land of Egypt And ransomed you from the house of slavery, And I sent before you Moses, Aaron and Miriam.

Exodus 2:4 (NASB95)
⁴ His sister stood at a distance to find out what would happen to him.

Exodus 2:7-9 (NASB95)
⁷ Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women that she may nurse the child for you?” ⁸ Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go ahead.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. ⁹ Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. ^[2]

I have found references to prophetesses to be interesting when I study the Bible because so many denominations are bent on keeping women out of places of authority.  Consider also that she is called a prophetess, and she is dancing, playing musical instruments and singing.  There are also a few denominations that have problems with these actions today.  The point of all of this is simple, from the beginning, women had a place in ministry, the modern day church as a whole has given up a valuable resource.   From the beginning, there was also music in place to worship God with.  It is time that the modern day church throw off the garbage that we have accumulated over the years and start following the Biblical example that God has given us.

The main focus of the song is that God has proven that He is all powerful.  If you remember, as we discussed the ten plagues, this was the gist of what God was demonstrating during those plagues. 

Verses 1-6 deal with the details of the sea claiming the lives of the Egyptian army.  God is described as a "warrior", the description of His actions are as victory in battle.  Regardless whether we agree or disagree with war, God used it.  Think on this, if this tactic were used today, God would be condemned as using senseless power, killing men that are innocent and following the orders of their commanders.  I spoke with a retired Gunny Sergeant from the Marine Corps the other day.  He had fought through the Viet Nam war, and still fights with the senselessness of war.  We talked about this very topic, God is a warrior, He fights for His people.  When people are killed in the act of war, it is a part of war.  (That is another study.) In this case, the people that were killed received the wrath that God had for Egypt.

The second section, 7-11 God is described in human terms as Moses describes how the Red Sea was parted.  Imagine the water standing up in a heap, piled up.  In verse 11, he validates the way that God had put all the other gods to shame.  Verses 9-10 give the attitude of the Egyptians, and the results of their useless attempt to fight against God.

Verses 12-18 Show how that God affected the people.  First He redeemed His people, and guided them into His will.  Notice, the focus was not on the Hebrews, it was on God.  One lesson that we carried away from the Purpose Driven life series was that it is not about us, it is about God.  This song of praise did not praise anything that the Hebrews had done, it praised God for His works. 

Deuteronomy 2:25 (NASB95)
²⁵ ‘This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you upon the peoples everywhere under the heavens, who, when they hear the report of you, will tremble and be in anguish because of you.’

Joshua 2:9-11 (NASB95)
⁹ and said to the men, “I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. ¹⁰ “For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. ¹¹ “When we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you; for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.

Joshua 2:24 (NASB95)
²⁴ They said to Joshua, “Surely the Lord has given all the land into our hands; moreover, all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before us.”

Joshua 5:1-4 (NASB95)
¹ Now it came about when all the kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard how the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan before the sons of Israel until they had crossed, that their hearts melted, and there was no spirit in them any longer because of the sons of Israel. ² At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make for yourself flint knives and circumcise again the sons of Israel the second time.” ³ So Joshua made himself flint knives and circumcised the sons of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth. ⁴ This is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: all the people who came out of Egypt who were males, all the men of war, died in the wilderness along the way after they came out of Egypt. ^[3]

The fear that was struck into the other people is discussed later in the Bible when Joshua went to fight against the people.  This fear was so intense that it lasted for forty years while Israel wandered in the wilderness. 

The caboose in this chapter is the story regarding Marah.  Try to imagine the frustration that Moses was feeling at this time.  The Hebrew people thought they were dead when Pharaoh's army chased them into the desert.  They didn't have anywhere to go.  God delivered them by splitting the sea, then finished the job by executing the army that followed them.  Once the people went through the sea and observed the hand of God at work, they were moved to worship God.  The lesson was not learned though.  Now they face bitter water, one more thing to go wrong!  Moses did not hesitate to take the problem before the Lord, and one more solution was given out. 

Look at the promise in verse 26, God makes a promise to them that all of us can learn from.  The point of all of the trouble so far was so that they would recognize that the Lord was God in their lives.  The point of all the plagues was to show that the Egyptian gods were not real, and that He was.  The other point of the plagues was so that Israel would understand who their God really was, and so that they would be able to teach their little ones about Him.  It was time for them to take the intellectual knowledge that they had and to put it into shoe leather.  God wanted them to act according to the knowledge that they had.  He wanted them to follow the voice of the Lord, do what God called them to do, and keep His standards sacred.  Guess what, God wants the same thing today.  Read through the Gospels and look at what Jesus says about those who follow Him.  Then look at what is stated in the epistles.  God does not want a bunch of intellectual followers.  He wants a bunch of doers, people who are willing to put into action the truth that He has given them.  Remember, this was before the Law, so don't try to say that this had to do with following the law.  This had to do with following God.

I am going to close here, if anyone wants to comment, please feel free to write in.

Father, as we consider the awesome power and praise that is revealed in this passage, open our eyes.  Give each one of us a determination in our hearts to put Your word into action in our lives.

In Him,

Joe Turner.