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| Exodus (soundtrack) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
THE EXODUS
Author Anonymous
Psalm 95:1-5
Psalm 95 begins with encouragement to sing to the Lord, whether that be in our hearts
or in our attitudes or in singing out verbally
We shout with Joy to Our Rock, the Rock of ages
We are encouraged to thank the Lord Jesus and we are reminded that all belongs to The Maker
of heaven and earth
Cross references
Micah 6:6-8 Psalm 135:5-8 Genesis 1:9-10
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The second part of the Psalm Psalm 95:6-7
Again encourages us to kneel and bow down to Our Maker
As we are the flock the Shepherd watches over and cares for
Cross references
Hebrews 3:7-11 Hebrews 3:15-18
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Psalm 95:8-11
The third part of this Psalm refers to hardened hearts and to those who will
never enter Gods place of rest
Those who have hardened their own hearts against God , who have stopped believing
Cross References
Numbers 20:13 Deuteronomy 6:16 Numbers 14:22 Acts 7:36
Deuteronomy 1:35 Hebrews 4:3 Hebrews 3:10
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Lord God in Jesus name, you desire our hearts , to have us as your own , ...as You gave yourself for us
You desire our attention and worship.............as You are always thinking of us
You desire that we turn to you ..............as You turned to us, when we deserved nothing
You desire That we do not harden our hearts ..........as You are The Rock who soften ours
You desire that we enter Your Rest............As you gave us The Rest
Lord Jesus speak to us
In Jesus name amen
Gods Will and God will
This Psalm can be seen as a reflection of Exodus 15:1 Onwards
As the Chosen ones are led from their slavery out of Egypt and into their journey
following the shepherd Moses
And they rejoiced at their salvation ! what had they been saved from ?
They had been saved from their bondage of slavery and given new lifes !
Of course their salvation was in progress and was an ongoing salvation
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THE EXODUS
And so they rejoiced as Miriam the prophetess began to sing a prophesy and the women
followed her withgreat excitement and rejoicing as she encouraged them to praise God
"Sing ye to the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he
thrown into the sea. "
(And so we see the prophetic song sung by a woman in the "Old Testament"Wink
But as the people walked in Gods will, as they followed like sheep, as their lifes were
Lined up with Gods will (Disciple .......Lined)
They were tested and again we go back to the previous lessons
When we asked " Is this an attack ? Is it a testing ? Is it a consequence of my own doing ? "
And we come to the bitter waters of Marah where we are so thirty and yet we cannot drink
the water (Father take this cup from me , yet not my WILL, but yours be done)
And we remember that the Branch was thrown into those waters to make the bitter waters sweet
Exodus 15:23
And we see that Jesus makes the bitter waters sweet, as too the Cross was indeed a victory
over death itself and not a defeat
And we come to again to when the people were thirty at Massah and Meribah and the people
complained
"Is the LORD among us or not?"
Exodus 17:7
You might say that the poeple lost their faith or you might say they lost the reason why they
were there
But in a sense its also more that they looked back at what they had and compared it to their
present situation
When in Egypt they had food and water and were cared for and now here they were and they
complained against Moses and against God Himself
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GODS WILL
We can compare this with our own lifes where we come out of the "World" as Christians
We rejoice but then we look back and compare what we had with what we have now
When we complain and murmer
I hear people say "I want Gods will for my life"
And that sentence explains it all
Gods Will may not be "MY" will
Gods will might be going against OUR will
Gods will might not be what we had anticipated
When we realise that what we like may not be good for us and what God wants for us
might be then we might "Repent" and turn
Once we come to the testing , then it is not so easy to praise, but it is then that we "Repent"
in other words turn to God "And again we go back to a previous message"
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And so Psalm 95 can be seen as a reflection of the Exodus
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Question
What does it mean when scripture says
"They will never enter My place of Rest" ?
................................................................
oatker says:
im afraid it means going too hell their is no nice way of getting around this uggh what a
thought they will be brands not plucked from the burrning how terrible
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Gatekeeper says:
HARDENED HEARTS
Hebrews 3:1-17
So lets look at another reflection in Gods word and we see Hebrews 3
And in this we see the relevance to us ...NOW ...TODAY
In fact now at this moment, at the very second
This is the Kingdom that is at this precprecise moment in time
With Jesus Christ the Son of God as the Shepherd, the One we follow
And as Moses was then the shepherd of those people so many years ago
So now Jesus Christ is above all and is the Head and Leader and we follow Him
He is the Light in front of us , the Light that shines in the darkness and who Lights our Path
And He says" TODAY, If you hear My voice, do not harden your heart"
In other words give me entry, let me in.
Listen to me now, believe NOW , Today
Do not be like those in the rebellion 1 Samuel 15:23
This testing here is not God testing the people BUT the people testing God
Deuteronomy 6:16
Here the peoples hearts had gone astray, they were there but they were not really there
The same as you can be in a relationship but not really in a reltionship
You can be in a room full of people but be lonely
The same as you can say one thing and yet do something completely different
And Here now God is angry, yes God shows and displays the emotion of Anger, a Godly
anger, A Holy Anger, not just with one person but with all who follow but do not follow
11So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion.”
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DENYING HIM
Today do not harden your heart , do not deny Him
LISTEN 2 Timothy 2:12
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You say "Ahhh but He will never leave me, He is always with me,"
Look at all the scriptures that say He will never forsake me ?
Yes your right, God or should I say "Jesus" led those people up to the Promised land and He never left them, He was always with them
He led them to the Land flowing with milk and honey , the land of plenty, the land full of fruit
But they did not enter
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If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us;
also Hebrews 4:1
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TESTING GOD
And so the people bagan to rebel becasue they thought themselves better off if they had stayed
in egypt at least there they had the rich foods given by the egyptian slave masters, at least there
they had the benefits of water from the Nile, at least their they had a place called "home"
And so the poeple murmurs and groans reached the ears of God
What does that mean ?
Well God heard , of course He did , He heard them speak before they spoke, He heard their
thoughts from afar, He knew their ways, He knew their hearts, He knew what could come
from their hearts before one word was ever spoken
And so they are in a testing and at the same time of being in a testing , where there is no water
and the are thirsting , they complain and they test God and His patience
And so the poeple murmurs and groans reached the ears of God
In other words it had go to the point where the sin of their hearts had reached the nostrils of God
It had got to the point where God had to act upon their complaining
We see this all through scripture, its sometimes referred too as "abominations" or sin
And in this testing of the people , the people had tested God
(Its not so much what you go through, but how you go through it)
And we know the the Rock was struck Numbers 20:13
Isaiah 48:18-21 Psalm 78 John 19:34
And the earth grew dark and the rocks split and the tombs opened and the dead came back
to life and the whole earth shook
And those who believed and followed were saved and received the Holy Spirit
That water of life coming fourth from the Rock, from the One whom was slain
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And you might say "God was testing me ? "
Deuteronomy 6:16 Luke 4:12
In Luke we see that Jesus was tested by satan himself
Jesus answered, "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
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JUDGING GOD
You might see this as the Judgement Of God coming from a test and in the test and in being
tested, God Himself is being tested by us and in this can be a Judgement
Does that make sense ?
But what am I doing here ?
Do I not have a choice ?
In my life I have a choice !!
I can choose to wealk in a certain way or not, knowing that if I walk another way although it
may be easier and seem to be a better way, in fact it only leads me to a "dead" end
Or I can choose the "narrow way" its a "lot" harder but its leads to "Life"
And in this narrow way I might be tested and in this testing I might test God ?
What do I mean in this ?
I can be the one, I can find myself Judging God , I can find myself judging the ways of God
and in this it is not me being tested but me testing God, not me coming under judgement but me
judging God
When we come to Jesus Christ at the Cross, (The Rock who was struck)
Jesus takes that sin, and we have new life, a new road, a new way,
But it is for us to choose Genesis 13:10-12
And so in other words it is not so much Gods judgement on us
But our Judgement on God
We are the ones who choose life or death
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COME TO THE LORD NOW - TODAY
Psalm 95 begins with encouragement to sing to the Lord, whether that be in our hearts
or in our attitudes or in singing out verbally
We shout with Joy to Our Rock, the Rock of ages
We are encouraged to thank the Lord Jesus and we are reminded that all belongs to The Maker
of heaven and earth
.......................................
Lord God In Jesus name I come to you and seek you above all else, to rest in you,
the Sabbath, My Sabbath
Lord whatever stage we are at , where ever we are coming from, speak and work in lifes
We come to you Now Today and we ask you for hearts to hear and not just to hear but to listen and do, we repent of our hardened hearts and ask that as we respond to you , you in turn would soften our hearts and bring us back to your Will
Thankyou Lord that at any time we can come back to the Rock of Meribah and drink, not wit rebellious hearts but with hearts that draw from you
It our choice,
In Jesus name amen
