“Who Made You a Prince and Judge Over Us?” (Exodus 2:14 - cf Acts 7:27,35)

Who Made You a Prince and Judge Over Us?

Sunday, March 27, 2022

Our critical question from the Bible for this week comes from the opening chapters of Exodus. Like the telling of the Jesus’ story, Moses’ birth story and has a note about growing up, but almost immediately we find Moses, like Jesus, involved in public ministry. Moses, an outsider, like Jesus, tries to stand up for his people, and he is rebuffed with this question: “Who made you a prince and judge over us?” (Exodus 2:14). It’s almost as though they could have quoted the yet unwritten verse from John: “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (John 1:11 ESV), speaking, of course, not of Moses, but of Jesus. The same pattern has been repeated against many people called to be instruments of God, and rejected by people they sought to serve.

The same line was experienced by the character of last week’s post, Joseph. In telling the dreams to his brothers, they said, “Are you indeed to reign over us?” (Gen 37:8). There seems to be a consistent tendency throughout human history to resist those who would be instruments of salvation.

The key application, though, is not our response to Joseph in Genesis, or Moses in Exodus, but to Jesus, revealed to us in the Gospels and preached to us in the Epistles. Many have heard; some have believed into this Jesus, but the issue of our submission to this Jesus is a constant question and battle for each of us.

Jesus is, to be sure, our “never failing friend,” as the old chorus goes. But do you relate to Jesus as your Prince, your King, and submit to His rule? He is your Judge, the text says, and therefore we are accountable to Him for every thought and action. To Him. Not to the neighbors or the tribe, or the party. “Are you really going to reign over us?”, the text says. Yes,” Jesus shall reign” (from the hymn), and He will indeed reign over you and me, if not now, then later; if not willingly, then unwillingly. Are we taking this seriously?

We are now approaching Resurrection Day. We will pass through pondering on the betrayal of Jesus, and then His suffering, and then His death. This is not just a tragic story like so many others tragic stories. This is the pivot point of all history. It is the defeat of darkness and the introduction of light. It is the defeat of death and the introduction of life. Jesus is the fulcrum at which our lives are changed, by which we are saved. And it cannot be a mere, polite acknowledgment. It must be an absolute submission and allegiance. Can we honestly sing “Take the world, but give me Jesus,” as the chorus goes? 

“How Can I Do this Great Wickedness against God?” (Genesis 39:9)

 How Can  I Do this Great Wickedness against God?

Sunday, March 20, 2022

This critical question is familiar to us, though when I once told the story of Joseph at American House, a sweet, little old lady asked, “Is there a book where I could read that story?” Why yes, there is a book, it’s called the Bible, and the story of Joseph is found starting in Genesis 37.

Joseph had been disabused by his brothers and sold into slavery, a strange kind of mercy, given that they initially plotted to kill him. But God’s mercy followed him into the slave market, and he landed in Potiphar’s house, where he was elevated to a position of trust: “(Potiphar) left everything he owned in Joseph’s charge; and with him there he did not concern himself with anything except the food which he ate” (Gen 39:6). Oh, and his wife.

It was not that Joseph pursued Potiphar’s wife. The problem was, Potiphar’s wife pursued Joseph. He respectfully put her off, saying these famous words: “How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?”  She caught him by the garment and then falsely accused him after he escaped. Joseph ended up in prison, and the story goes on from there.

It’s the question we should ask ourselves time and again, at all the critical times of temptation in our lives. The problem is, when our minds are clouded by passion, we operate according to our fleshly feelings instead of a “renewed mind,” and thus we don’t end of thinking and pondering the critical question, “How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?” 

And don’t think that this applies only to sexual temptation. It applies also when we are consumed by greed in other areas, such as the temptation to steal or falsify reports or records. It applies to the temptation to lie to make ourselves look better or “less worse.” It applies when we are filled with rage and are about to blurt out something mean and awful. “How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?”

The critical question reminds us of another important truth, that when we sin, we certainly sin against the person that we are stealing from or lying to. But we ultimately are sinning against God. David, following his sin with Bathsheba, in which he sent Bathsheba’s wife, Uriah, to death on the battlefield, said, “Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight.” He, and you and I, sin against the God to whom we will give an account. Let’s repeat the critical question to ourselves one more time: “How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?”

“Of Whom Shall I Be Afraid?” (Psalm 27:1)

“Of Whom Shall I Be Afraid?”

Sunday, March 13, 2022

Our critical question is found in the first verse of Psalm 27, but note this verse in light of the assault on Ukraine:

Psa. 27:3   Though an army encamp against me,
my heart shall not fear;
though war arise against me,
yet I will be confident.

We pray that many, many of those Ukrainian citizens and soldiers will be those who know the Lord, or will come to know the Lord, that they might have this kind of courage.

But the critical question is for all of us as we face different situations in life. If we examine the first verse, we are confronted with situations of darkness and destruction. Counter to this, we find our Lord to be, not just the giver of Light in the face of darkness, but He is our Light. And likewise, He doesn’t just give salvation, but He is our Salvation.

This is not to lessen the danger or threat. Verse 2 of this great psalm talks about evil-doers, adversaries, and foes. Whether these are actual physical entities, or whether they are spiritual, or mental - it matters not. What matters is that God is more than able to defeat them, and to continue to be our Light and Salvation.

Verse 4 paints a picture of being able to gaze in wonder at the beauty of the Lord, even if the rest of our vision be clouded or darkened. Think of Jonah in the “great fish.” It had to be the darkest hole in the world in which to be “hidden,” or imprisoned. And yet, as we read Jonah 2, the poem from the gullet of the great fish, we find that Jonah’s ability to see was actually greater in that darkness than when he was on dry land. Why? Perhaps sometimes we see God better when we can’t see anything else.

Verse 5 paints another picture, when we are being hunted down like a dog. It is the day of trouble, and we don’t know how many of those days are going to be strung together. But standing as outposts all around that day of trouble are the safe places of God, described as “His shelter,” in which we are hidden; “the cover of His tent,” under which we are provided and cared for; and “high upon a rock,” where we are given a firm and safe place to stand, out of reach of the enemies arrows or safely above the raging storm. 

Our God is our Light and our Salvation. Don’t be afraid!

 “Why do the Nations Rage?”

Sunday, March 6, 2022

The kings of the earth desire to be deified. They demand to be regarded as gods, requiring obedience and, if not worship, then fear. With regard to this, a critical question in the Bible occurs in the second Psalm 2, where it says “Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot in vain?”

I’m so glad for those last two words, “in vain.” They preen and they pout; they demand and they threaten. They bring together tremendous forces to exert their will. But all these things that they do, they do “in vain.”

Why? Because of the Father and the Son - the LORD and His Anointed. Here in this Old Testament text, we have both together, working together, to frustrate the plans of the wicked. There is no real problem here. These “great men of the earth” are as nothing to God. In their faces, God laughs: “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision” (v.4). 

These wicked leaders can hurt us. They can hurt a lot of people, ruining lives, ending lives - except for the fact that the Father and the Son give eternal life and abundant life with the promise that the former hurts will be so far removed that it will be as though they never happened. These wicked leaders are a real problem - to us. But ultimately, they are no problem for God.

Think of these rulers standing before God on judgment day. We are given pictures in Scripture of the end of these men - small pictures, like Joshua with his men with their feet on the necks of the kings who rose up against the plan of God as God’s people came to inherit their land (Joshua 10); of Agag’s beheading by the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 15:32-33); of Haman’s hanging on the gallows that he himself built, intended for the hanging of righteous Mordecai (Esther 7:9-10); and who can forget wicked Herod who, without human help, was destroyed by God for his arrogance (Acts 12:21-23) - small pictures of a much great scene to come.

All of this makes the phrase “Christ crucified” all the more shocking. Here is Jesus, the Anointed, sentenced by a Roman governor for the pleasure of a Roman emperor and with the agreement of the “fake” king of the Jews, Herod. On that day, it seemed as though the bad guys won, just as it seems so many times today. But each of those “bad guys,” every single one, will stand before that same Lord in judgment one day. God will have the last laugh.