This Wicked Congregation

Reading in Numbers 14.35, this morning, where God refers to the generation of the Exodus as This Wicked Congregation. He could not have chosen harsher words. The remarkable thing is that this generation saw God move in power like perhaps no generation has seen before or since, except maybe the generation of Christ. They witnessed the ten plagues; they lived through the release from Egypt; they walked across the Red Sea between two walls of water; they experienced the miracle of manna; they saw water come from a rock in the desert, and yet when it came to take the land God had given them, they shrank back, to their own destruction; thus earning the name, This Wicked Congregation.

What to take from this? First Hebrews uses them as an object lesson on (lack of) faith. The writer says, "don't shrink back from following the Lord like his own people shrank back; they did not enter God's rest because of their unbelief. Don't miss out on God's rest because of your own unbelief." Second, a lesson for us is to trust God's promises despite appearances. This Wicked Congregation became distracted by appearances and refused to trust in what God had promised.

On Being Stiff-necked

Thinking about Ex 33.3 this morning where God tells his own people that they are a stiff-necked people. Ouch! That must have hurt. Events prove that God read his people exactly correctly. Despite having seen the ten plagues decimate Egypt; despite witnessing the great deliverance at the Red Sea; despite seeing the daily miracle of manna; and God bring water from a rock, the people fail as a generation. They do not go up and take the land that God commands them to do. They are stiff-necked.

It is easy to see events from 3000 years and throw stones at the generation of the Exodus, but despite having all of the promises of the Scriptures, and seeing God's work completed in Christ's resurrection, and having the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as an ever present reality, we are often stiff-necked as well, when the Holy Spirit commands us to do what we do not want to do. Rather than condemn the generation of the Exodus, we should probably evaluate our own lives in light of this verse. Am I stiff-necked?

3 Day of Darkness

Thus Moses records the plague of darkness with which God struck the Egyptians in Exod 10.22,23. One can imagine the intensity of the darkness since it was brought by God and his destroying angels (Ps 78.49). It must have been a darkness with which the Egyptians were not familiar, able to stymy what light the Egyptians could produce. This was emphatically not an eclipse or any sort of darkness that can be explained naturally. It was the hand of God, and therefore, one assumes, a supernatural darkness; one that brought fear to the Egyptians throughout the land. The Israelites were protected.

Adam Clarke has some interesting comments: So deep was the obscurity, and probably such was its nature, that no artificial light could be procured; as the thick clammy vapors would prevent lamps, &c., from burning, or if they even could be ignited, the light through the palpable obscurity, could diffuse itself to no distance from the burning body. The author of the book of Wisdom, chap. xvii. 2–19, gives a fearful description of this plague. He says, “The Egyptians were shut up in their houses, the prisoners of darkness: and were fettered with the bonds of a long night. They were scattered under a dark veil of forgetfulness, being horribly astonished and troubled with strange apparitions; for neither might the corner that held them keep them from fear; but noises as of waters falling down sounded about them; and sad visions appeared unto them with heavy countenances.

The Mystery of God's Ways

In Exod 5.22,23, this morning. God orders Moses to go free the people from slavery. After some "encouragement" from the Lord, Moses goes. He declares his purpose to the people. They believe, bow their heads, and worship. And then...things get worse, much worse. The people have to find their own straw to make bricks, and still have the same daily quota of bricks. Moses expresses his feelings to God here. Why did you ever send me?...You have not delivered your people at all. I no doubt would have felt the same. Moses expectations did not meet God's actions, which is a problem one sees over and over again in the Scriptures (the whole book of Job comes to mind).

What do I take from these verses. God's actions and my expectations will often not mesh and God feels no obligation to explain himself. This is where faith and trust come in, not to mention God's promises in Scripture.

The Correct Response to God's Intervention in our Lives: Worship

Whatever else one can say about the group of Israelites that came out of Egypt, their initial response to Moses's message that God had sent him to deliver his people from captivity was absolutely correct. Moses tells us the people believed; they bowed their heads; they worshipped (Exod 5.31).

It was what followed afterwards, when the deliverance was not immediate and the burden grew worse instead of better, that the people failed, and then again in the desert, they failed multiple times.

It should be a lesson for us. We can start well and immediately veer off into the ditch; or we can start well and do well for awhile and then veer off into the ditch; or we can even be going along well for a long time and then...into the ditch. The Christian life is a life of watching and analyzing to make sure that we obey the Holy Spirit and stay faithful. We should emulate the Israelites first response: believe, bow, and worship.