Mar 16, 2014 Notes from Norman Moses By Norman P. Grubb I hesitate to pass over in a few moments events which are so tremendous. This extraordinary story of the way in which God forced the release of the children of Israel, finally, by the deaths of the firstborn, the shocks of the nation, the final shock in which we see every family, from Pharoah down to the lowest slave crying to the children of Israel, Get out. Not only did they send them out, but they poured their wealth on them. The Israelites borrowed. I always like these Spirit jokes, They borrowed the treasures of Egypt, but they had a right to them. After all, they had been made slaves. They had not been paid. They had better have some repayment. I keep saying, see things always in the spirit. The terrified people poured their treasures, their jewelry and their gold on the people. They went out laden with the wealth of Egypt. Tremendous! Now God had purposes in which Israel must function as an efficient nation. It must have a national image and be a nation. At present they were nothing but a bunch of slaves, probably about two million people. Its difficult to imagine this huge group pouring out of Egypt. They couldnt possibly settle into Canaan like that where they would have to meet the various tribes that were already occupying Canaan. There were educations and disciplines and orders which had to be brought into them to form them as a nation. So the Bible says that God didnt lead them by a short cut. They could have cut through the land of the Philistines up near where Israel is now, on the coast, and in a day or two they could have gotten into the land, However, he led them through the wilderness to Mt Horeb, for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war and they return to Egypt. That brought them up against the Red Sea which they had to cross to get in along the established route towards Mt. Horeb (Sinai) in the -wilderness. Here we begin to see the way the children of Israel went into a tailspin whenever they came across some dangerous condition. They arent the only ones who go into tailspins. We keep saying, because its all we can say, that people are controlled by their inner consciousness, because thats what you are. If, from your inner consciousness you see evil as evil and believe it, you are controlled. You immediately are terrified that something is going to overcome you. What can you do? That was the condition of the children of Israel. They only had an outward relationship, although I must say it was a real relationship because they were under the blood. Certainly there were those among them who also had the inner relationship, as we shall see later on, but on the whole they had an outer faith. They asked Moses to interpose between them and God. You could say that the outer passes into the inner, but you start by a trust in someone who is a symbol of God to you. That is the danger of outer forms. Paul says they were baptized unto Moses, not unto God, and to most of them, Moses was practically like their God. They would say, Moses, you talk to God for us, you interpret God to us, It isnt wholly a false faith when the person you are attached to is expressing God to you. Its not like attachment an idol or something, but it is a kind of stepping stone. Paul would say, Follow me as I follow Christ. Jesus on earth said, Follow me. We dont follow Jesus, we are He in human form, operating as Jesus, and we are not altogether in the New Testament experience. However, he starts by saying, Follow me, which is external. That didnt work very well because you cant follow anything outward. It has to be something inward. So you get this continually occurring with the children of Israel.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 14:52:09 +0000
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