Sat.’s Devo - God’s WILL

Read: Exodus 5:22-7:25; Matthew 18:21-19:12; Psalm 23:1-6; Proverbs 5:22-23 The cycle continued. God would tell Moses what he was going to do. Moses would tell the people and Pharaoh. Things would get rough. The people would complain to Moses and Moses would complain to God. So far, nothing that God promised had happened and it only stirred everyone up. Pharaoh was as brutal as ever making life even more difficult than it was before Moses came. God did have a response. He reminded Moses about his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to bing them into the land of Canaan and give them it to them. God gave them six “I WILL’s”. He said, “I WILL free you from oppression.” “I WILL rescue from the slavery of Egypt.” “I WILL redeem you with powerful acts.” I WILL claim you as my own people.” And, I WILL bring you into the land I promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” “I WILL give it to you as your own possession.” When Moses told this to the people, they were done with his false promises and wouldn’t listen. God told Moses to tell Pharaoh to let them leave his country. How was Pharaoh going to listen if his own people weren’t behind him? God told him to go anyway and tell the people and the Pharaoh what He had said. Then in the middle of the story we have the genealogy of the first three sons of Israel. The sons of Israel in their order represent the timeline of history. Reuben represented Adam and his birth. When Leah had Reuben she said, “See a son.” which was the meaning of his name. Simeon means “God hearkens and hears.” which describes how God heard the sin of man and came down and destroyed the earth but heard the righteousness of Noah and preserved his generation because of his righteousness. Levi means “attached or joined”. They would be God’s priests here on earth. God attached himself to Abraham calling him his own family and making him the Father of many nations. He gave promises to Abraham which are to be continued through Moses. The three clans of Levi describe the three types of people that would serve as priests. Gershom means “a refugee, a stranger there.” They were the group that never made Egypt their home. They truly wanted to be delivered and would be true worshippers of God. The next group were the Kohath’s which mean “to ally oneself; waiting, obedient.” Moses was a Kohath. Then there were the Merari which means “bitter”. The timeline stops for now and resumes with the narrative because that was where they were in history. God told Moses he would make him seem like God to Pharaoh and Aaron would be Moses’ prophet. When he met with Pharaoh, Pharaoh demanded a supernatural sign to prove that Moses had godly authority. Moses threw down his staff and it became a serpent. Pharaoh took the challenge and had his magicians do the same only Moses’ snake ate their snakes. Pharoah should have seen the sign right there. Pharaoh hardened his heart so Moses proclaimed the first plague. He went to the Nile and announced to Pharaoh that since he refused to obey God’s order to let his people go, the Nile would turn to blood. When he raised his staff over the water, it all turned to blood. All the waters of Egypt turned to blood, even the rivers, canals, ponds and reservoirs. Even the water stored in wooden bowls and stone pots so all Egypt was affected by this. The magicians could turn water to blood, but they couldn’t turn blood to water. So, for a week the water remained blood. In Matthew, Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive someone. He came up with seven times but Jesus told him that seven times ten. In other words, Jesus was telling Peter HOW he should forgive sins - completely and thoroughly. Then he gave the account of the man who owed the king a great amount of money that he couldn’t pay. He went to the king to ask for mercy and the king forgave him. But when some of the man’s creditors came to him with the same request, he wouldn’t show mercy toward them. When the king found out about it, he rebuked him for his lack of mercy and threw him in prison till he could pay his debt. We are the man who owed God a great debt because of our sin. He forgave us of our sin completely so we should forgive others their sins the same way. Next, Jesus got the question about divorce. Jesus explained that Moses allowed for divorce because of their hard hearts. The man was to give the woman a writ of divorcement which was a legal paper giving the woman concessions and taking care of her. What they were doing in Jesus day was divorcing their wives without the legal document. This did not make the divorce legal thus if either remarried, they were committing adultery because they were still legally married. What superseded the papers was unfaithfulness of the wife. God divorced both Israel and Judah because of their unfaithfulness. Lord, help us to remember your covenant with us to free us from our sin, rescue us from the slavery of this world, redeem us supernaturally, claim us as your people and give us a land that is all our own. We believe you will do that for us.