Spare Change

March Forth (Part I)

Posted by Bryan

March 4 is more than just a date on a calendar, it's also a command given God, an expectation placed upon every believer. In the face of great challenges, seemingly unsurmountable obstacles, and even frightening or overwhelming circumstances, a person who's faith rests in God alone can step forward and experience the miraculous.

Approximately 3500 years ago, a Jewish man named Moses was led by God to free the nation of Israel from the oppression of Egypt and its Pharaoh. He took a little convincing, but eventually Moses stepped forward, and as a servant of God, said to Pharaoh, "Let my people go!" Time and again, Pharaoh resisted. Each time, Pharaoh's obstinacies brought a greater and greater judgment upon his people. Finally, God swept through and took the lives of every firstborn of Egypt, including Pharaoh's own son. With this, Pharaoh relented, and freed the nation of Israel from their bondage. In Exodus 11:37, the Bible says that 600,000 men and a mixed multitude of women and children who joined them, packed their belongings, and marched forth out of Rameses of Egypt.

It's probably worth your time to read the story, and keep it open to refer back to if necessary.

n leading them to their promised land, God led them through the wilderness by the Red Sea so they would avoid the land of the Philistines and thus be tempted to return to Egypt out of fear. Furthermore, as verse 21 of chapter 13 reveals, the Lord went before them as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, giving them light, as well as the comfort of His presence.

Not long after they left (14:5), the Lord turned Pharaoh's heart. Pharaoh was born for this purpose. Yet, we must also acknowledge that the Lord took Pharaoh where his heart wanted to go. Pharaoh was no unwilling pawn. He was a man who did not love God, did not serve God, and did not want to see God's people free. God hardened his heart, and Pharaoh sent out the word that showed his true heart when he asked, "Why have we done this, that we let Israel go from serving us?" So Pharaoh called up his armies, harnessed up his chariots, and began a ferocious pursuit of the people of God.

From the time they left Egypt to this moment of Pharaoh's hardened heart, the Jewish people had been marching forth. The Lord had been with them, and they had made considerable progress. All of a sudden though, they faced new obstacles that seemed to keep them from marching forth:

• The first obstacle they faced was the obstacle of dilemmas. In the exodus, God revealed a plan to Moses that wouldn't make sense to a lot of people. He told Moses to tell the Israelites that, basically, God was leading them to back track. They had been heading in a south-easterly direction, but God wanted them to proceed in a south-westerly way. This was the new direction the Pillar of cloud or fire would be going. The dilemma for the people was, "are we going to follow?" The dilemma was simple - keep going the way they had been going, even though the pillar was no longer with them, or backtrack, and camp in a place where they'd be surrounded by the desert to the west, the mountains to the south, and the Red Sea to the east. To their credit, they followed Moses and God, and set up camp. We see that throughout their 40 years following the exodus, the nation of Israel faced the dilemma of, "God's not going where we planned. Are we going to follow Him or not?"

  Friends, we face that same dilemma today. Every day, you will have at least one opportunity to answer the question, "Am I going to follow God, even though He's not going where I planned?"
  



• The second obstacle for the nation of Israel was the obstacle of distractions. Just as the Lord foretold, Pharaoh pursued Israel because his heart had been hardened by God, because he wanted his slaves back, and because he wanted to exact revenge. The Egyptians in their vigorous pursuit overtook Israel on the shores of the Red Sea. Israel had been doing well up to this point. They had been following the pillar of cloud and fire. They left boldly, but they were distracted from their single focus, and saw the oncoming army.
  


• Once they were distracted, they fell prey to the third obstacle to marching forth - the obstacle of dread. We know they were distracted, because "they lifted their eyes," saw the Egyptians marching after them, and suddenly "were very afraid." They were terrified. They suddenly found themselves stuck, quite literally, between a rock and wet spot. In their panic, "they cried out to the Lord."
• Unfortunately, they didn't continue to seek the Lord's deliverance. Instead, they made the issue worse by stumbling over yet another obstacle to marching forth - the obstacle of disparagement. They began to slander Moses. This man who had been used so mightily by God. This man who had got them to where they are now, suddenly was under attack for getting them for where they are now. They ask/accuse, "What did you bring us out here for? To die, because there were no graves for us in Egypt?" The man who served them selflessly and sacrificially was now their object of scorn and hatred.
• Finally, when they in their faithlessness had fallen so low to curse the man given to them from God, they fell face-first over the final obstacle - the obstacle of delusions. They complained to him, "If you had just left us alone. We told you we were better off serving the Egyptians. Look. We're all about to die, thanks to you!"
  

What a tragic regression the people of Israel followed. From a dilemma they became distracted. Once they were distracted, they began to dread. In their dread, they began to disparage. Once they disparaged, they became ensnared by delusions.

Are we any different? Every dilemma you face has been brought to you by God. Every dilemma you face is an opportunity for you to pass a test and glorify God, or fall into temptation and struggle with Satan. Life is black and white. When you choose right and follow God, you do fine. When you choose wrong, you find yourself struggling over obstacle after obstacle.

Let's say the dilemma is, "Do I pay my tithe this week?" If you do, you experience the blessing of obedience. But look what happens - the longer you wrestle with the issue, the easier it is to get tripped up. You might all of a sudden get distracted with the thought, "Ooh, it's tax time, and I'm not sure I'll have enough. I better not." So your mind is made up, but your attention is totally refocused. All of a sudden, you are starting to dread. "I don't know what I'll do if I face an audit." From there, it's very easy to disparage. You might think, "I don't know why I've tithed at all. The church always seems to be struggling with money anyway. My part doesn't even help, and they don't even know how to manage the funds anyway." From there, it's a simple step to the thought of, "you know, I don't think I'm going to tithe any more. If they've got a special need, I'll help out. Otherwise, I'm going to make sure I'm covered for my own problems."

While it doesn't always happen like this - you cannot deny that it does happen. And its not just finances, either. We face dilemmas in our private lives over relationships, moral decisions, and just being a child of God. We must understand that in every one of these situations, if we stumble over the obstacles, we'll find ourselves not marching forth, but holding back and facing the consequences.

March 4, 2004 12:30 AM