February 19, 2010

Exodus 2

Frequently in this world, the glory of God must shine through the inhumanity of man. Can you even imagine having to hide your newborn from the government officials lest they kill him? What irony that God performs here that he should let the inhumanity continue but provide a deliverer in such a way that that deliverer is raised up in Pharaoh’s household by Pharaoh’s daughter such that the deliverer brings a downfall to firstborn of the Pharaoh’s own household.

It is also ironic that we frequently think that we are doing God a favor in aiding his process of deliverance. Observe Moses, raised in Pharaoh’s household, yet nursed by his biological mother. Surely he kept some kind of contact with her after being weaned. Surely, she told him stories about his brethren. Surely, he felt like God had raised him up to be a deliverer. So, he murders a man, as if this one death might begin a revolution to set his brothers free. Indeed it would take death to set them free, but man taking it into his own hands was not what God had in mind. Had Moses been successful in leading the rebellion, then for all eternity we would have honored Moses as the deliverer. He wasn’t the deliverer. The Lord was there deliverer. Yes, Moses was used of Him, but only God could do it as it was done. Only God could do it in such a way that it would be a type of how He would ultimately deliver the whole world. So, Moses spends 40 years being raised in Pharaoh’s household learning that he was somebody. With his act of murder He spends 40 years in the desert learning that he was nobody. As we will see in the upcoming weeks, he learns the next 40 years that God takes nobodies and performs mighty works through them so that He will receive all the glory. Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!

--Pastor john

Mark 1:21-45

Going to Grandpa Chaffin’s house was always a special treat. He lived a six hour drive from us. So it wasn’t a trip we could make every weekend or even every month. He was some what fond of traveling. When he and grandma went places, they always took slides. So some evening while visiting them, they would break out the slide projector and show us places where they had been. I loved seeing the pictures of the far off places they had been, Petrified National Forest, locations of a few World Fairs, Florida Everglades and so on. Grandpa loved to tease. One night after the slides, he announced that he had a pet broom that he had trained. He brought it out and sat down in the dark end of the room where the screen had been. Without touching the broom he made it rise up off of the floor into his hand and move around. He did this for a little bit while I sat mesmerized wondering how he did it. Finally, when the light hit it just right, I saw it. He had tied black thread to the broom and to his hands and feet etc. He was wearing dark clothes and was sitting in a dark end of the room. You couldn’t see the thread, unless the light hit it just right. It looked as thought the broom was moving on its own. But all along, it was he pulling the broom around with dark threads.

We live in a sin darkened world. The result of the darkness of sin upon the creation is physical illness and evil behavior. Sometimes things happen for which there is no physical explanation. Sometimes there is illness without physical explanation. Sometimes there is a bondage to sinful behavior that cannot be explained by physical or mental reasons. It is as though the elements or people are being pulled by an unseen thread and made to act in other wise bizarre ways. The Scripture declares that there is an unseen spiritual world that affects the seen world. In that world there is a struggle between the forces of Satan and the human race. These demons occasionally pull strings in the lives of people causing them to act in certain ways.

Jesus met one of these people in a most curious place, the synagogue of Capernaum. It is interesting that often these unseen forces are afflicting people in religious institutions. This demon recognized who Jesus was, even when no one else did. The demon began to whine in fear of the Lord. The powers of darkness often recognize the glory of our Lord before we do. Jesus, with a word, made the demon hush and set the man free. He brought His glory to bear upon the man. When He did, the demon had to fly. The glory of this Servant sets people free. This chapter is full of the results of the glory of the Lord. It sets the captive of the unseen world free. It heals the ills of the physical world. He cuts the treads of sin that keep us in bondage. We are not brooms to be jerked by the threads of the unseen world. He sets us free and heals us.

Why then don’t we see more freedom and more healing? Healing and freedom will not reach their fullness until we come into the presence of His glory at His return. This sin-wrecked world must first be cleansed of sin’s corrupting presence; then, the final freedom and healing will come. In the meantime, for His purposes, He gives us glimpses of the ultimate healing and freedom that is coming. We call them miracles. In the meantime we need to focus on His glory lest we slip back under the control of sin’s controlling threads. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!

--Pastor John