May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts
be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. AMEN.
Let us pray! Eternal God, we come before You this day/night
to direct us during this Lenten season.
For the children of Israel were sent out of Egypt in haste because of
the great fear in the Egyptians hearts of what God would do to them. Enable us to not act out of haste or fear,
but respect for God and His promises for us found in Jesus Christ and His sacrifice
on Calvary for all of mankind, but especially for all of us saints gathered
during our Lenten pilgrimage. AMEN.
When crowds gather at sporting events the ticket sales made
give a pretty accurate count as to how many ‘paying customers’ see the event. Whether it is KU playing basketball, K-State
moving the football down the field or even the Chiefs or Bronco’s trying to get
to the Super Bowl, the crowds in the stadiums are usually at or near capacity
for the stadium. Today/tonight in our
series of the People and Places of Lent we will be considering the crowd of the
Children of Israel.
From our Old Testament Lesson this morning/evening, we enter
into the story of the children of Israel fleeing Egypt and the tyranny of the
Pharaoh. The booming words of Charlton
Heston saying, “Let my people go” resonate for some because of the famous
movie, “The Ten Commandments”, but what is most interesting is that the
Children of Israel who left Egypt weren’t a tattered band, but an enormously
large group of people. Our text says
clearly, “Now the sons of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six
hundred thousand men on foot, aside from children.” What is ironic is that no mention of the numbers
of wives or women are mentioned either.
If every man had one wife and two children the number of people leaving
Egypt numbered, not a simple six hundred thousand, but over two million people
fleeing the Egyptians.
Yet, it is not only the fleeing of the people of Israel, but
how the people of Isreal fled Egypt.
Just as when Michele and I moved here to Goodland, it took weeks of
planning, weeks of preparation and packing all our worldly possessions. But for the Children of Israel they left in
great haste, even to the extent that the dough that would be used to make their
bread had not even leavened and was bound up in their clothes in the kneading
bowls. The Children of Israel headed up
and moved out on a moments notice in great haste with the urging of the
Egyptians who were fearful of their feeling the wrath of the Israelite God.
What is additionally ironic is that the date of their
leaving Egypt is not left to chance, fractions or partial time, but in God’s
divine wisdom and provision the people of Israel are in Egypt a certain length
of time. Moses writes, “Now
the time that the sons of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty
years. And at the end of four hundred and thirty years, to the very day, all
the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.”
But of what significance is the length of time, the haste of
their departure or the number of people that actually flee Egypt? Why should that be of importance for us
today? Simply, the children of Israel
are models for us of what God can do in our lives when we trust Him fully and completely. God in His infinite wisdom clearly allowed
the Children of Israel to experience the worst of what Egypt would offer and
with the speed of a running back removed His chosen children from the gravest
situation. But this was not just a few
people like with Noah and his wife and sons wives getting into an ark. This was a group of people of epic proportion
who had to have complete trust in their God to remove them from the tyranny of
the men who earlier in the day had beat them into submission as they built the
cities for their masters. And ultimately
God fulfilled the children of Israel’s departure in His time.
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