Learning from the children of
You know it said that if you do not study history and learn
from it you are doomed to repeat it and so this morning we are going to be
examining several great lessons that we can learn from the children of
Exodus 2:23 Now it
happened in the process of time that the king of
So first lesson we
learn is that God is listening and He will acknowledge his people when they
call out or pray to him. Now we need to realize that when we pray we might not
get an immediate result which does not mean that the answer is no it simply
means not yet. For example the children of
Now we learn from
our story that God answers the prayer of the children of
As the story
continues we know that Moses and Aaron talk the Pharaoh and show him miracles
from God but because of his pride and hardened heart he will not let them go.
Then after 10 plagues with the last one killing all the Egyptians first born
male children the Pharaoh finally lets them go. But of course he tyranny wasn’t
over yet as he tried to chase them down and trap them at the
Just as the evil
Pharaoh was continual after the God’s people in similar way evil is always
after the Christian today.
1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary
the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
But just like in our
story God always makes a way of escape from the evil that pursues on daily
bases.
1 Corinthians 10:13 No
temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful,
who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the
temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
Now
do remember how I said that you when you pray you better be sure that you
really want what you ask for? Well, it doesn’t take long at after the children
of
Exodus 15:22 So
Moses brought
Even though they had seen
the great miracles of God they had very little faith or trust that God would provide
for their needs.
Exodus 15:25 So he
cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a tree. When he cast it into the
waters, the waters were made sweet.
So,
again God provides and the children of
Exodus 16:1 And
they journeyed from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel
came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the
fifteenth day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt. 2 Then the whole congregation of
the children of
If there is one thing
that we learn about the children of
Numbers 11:19 'You
shall eat, not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty
days, 20 'but for a whole
month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you,
because you have despised the LORD who is among you, and have wept before Him,
saying, "Why did we ever come up out of Egypt?" ' "
Again this shows you
should be careful what you ask for. But God didn’t stop here because latter on
in that chapter we learn that he caused a plague to come up on them because of
the continual complaining. Even Moses was getting fed up with their complaining
he asked God to kill so that he wouldn’t have to listen to it anymore. This
teaches us today that we should be very careful about complaining about what we
have or don’t have. As children of God we must learn to be content with what we
have and rejoice in the blessing that we have received from the Lord.
Hebrews 13:5 Let your
conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For
He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." 6 So we may boldly say: "The
LORD is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?"
We live in society
where we think we have to have the best house, the best car, the best boat. We
think we have to have every electronic gadget under the sun and many Christians
will do whatever it takes to obtain these material possession even if it means
being buried in debt. But this should not be the case. We should learn to be
content and stop coveting things that we don’t have and stop complaining about
everything that we do have and be happy with our lives knowing that we have God
in our lives. We need to realize as Christians we are richer than anyone of
face of this earth because our treasure is in heaven.
2 Corinthians 8:9 For
you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for
your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.
As
Christians we should not be complainers instead we should be proclaimers of
God’s Grace.
Philippians 2:14 Do
all things without complaining and disputing,
15 that you may become blameless and harmless, children of
God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom
you shine as lights in the world, 16
holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that
I have not run in vain or labored in vain.
Another
think that we learn from the children of
Numbers 11:4 Now the
mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving; so the children
of
I can just imagine how
there mouths were watering as they thought about the meat and the fruit they
had as slaves. Even though they had originally wanted to be free from their
bondage they now want to go back to it. Of course this kind of thinking upset
Moses and was not pleasing to God. However this has been a common occurrence
among many people including the 1st century Christians and
Christians today. The Christians at
2 Peter 2: 20
For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the
knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them
and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. 21 For it would have been better
for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to
turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 But it has happened to them
according to the true proverb: "A dog returns to his own vomit," and,
"a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire."
So no matter how much you
think your old life style was so wonderful as you lived in sin we must keep
ourselves from returning to it or we will be worse off than when we began.
Another lesson we learn
from the children of
Exodus 16:4 Then the
LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And
the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test
them, whether they will walk in My law or not.
Here we learn that God is
testing them to see if they will obey his commands. Well, guess what some of
them failed. Some didn’t have enough trust in God that he would provide them
with manna everyday so some of them tried to gather more than they were suppose
to so they could keep some till the next day. Well when they did that the next
day their Manna had worms all in it. God had also instructed them to gather
twice as much on Friday because he would not provide on the Sabbath day or
Saturday and again some didn’t believe this word and they went out on Saturday
trying to gather more Manna and it was not there. The children of
The teaches us that we
need to learn to have a great respect for God’s Word and that we need learn to
trust in God and that he will take care of us. We can get ourselves into a heap
of trouble when we stop trusting in God or when we stop respecting his
authority. I just wonder how many times we have failed to do things for God
because we had a lack of faith in God to help us. Friends we need to understand
that we have access to a power that far beyond our own abilities and that power
comes from God. But we can only use that power if we have faith and trust in
him.
2 Timothy 1:7 For God
has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound
mind.
Now
the way that we make sure that we have faith in trust in God is by making God’s
Word a part of our every day life and making sure that the we respect what it
says and do our best to live our lives accordingly. If we truly love God we
will obey his commands.
1 John 5:2 By this
we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His
commandments. 3 For this is
the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not
burdensome.
Another lesson we learn
from the children of Israel is when Moses goes up Mount Sinai and is gone for a
while the children of Israel decide that Moses had been gone to long so they
decide to make up their own God’s and they even get Aaron to participate as
they make a golden calf.
From this we learn that
if we allow ourselves to be separated from God guidance that is we stop reading
the Bible, we stop praying and we stop going to church we will end like the
children of Israel. We will make up our own way of doing things and it will
cause us to be enemies of God. This story also teaches us the importance of
good leadership because when Moses their leader was gone it was easy for them
to transgress because he wasn’t there to direct them. This is why it important
that we have strong leadership within a congregation so that we can be guided
in the way of God. Now I want to stress that everyone should be a leader one
way or another. Here is what I mean. A person who has been a Christian for 1
year can help lead or guide a new Christian to the level that they are at.
Every Christian can do this. This is also a principle that they teach Sarah’s
Karate class. When you learn how to become a yellow belt you should be able to
teach or help a new Karate student how to get to your level. Again this same
principle hold true with every Christian.
So to keep from falling
in the trap of the children of
Now lets look at one more
thing that we learn from the children of
Numbers 12:1 Then
Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had
married; for he had married an Ethiopian woman.
2 So they said, "Has the LORD indeed spoken only through
Moses? Has He not spoken through us also?" And the LORD heard it. 3 (Now the man Moses was very
humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.) 4 Suddenly the LORD said to Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam, "Come out, you three, to the tabernacle of
meeting!" So the three came out. 5
Then the LORD came down in the pillar of cloud and stood in the door of
the tabernacle, and called Aaron and Miriam. And they both went forward. 6 Then He said, "Hear now My
words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, make Myself known
to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream.
7 Not so with My servant Moses; He is faithful in all
My house. 8 I speak with him
face to face, Even plainly, and not in dark sayings; And he sees the form of
the LORD. Why then were you not afraid To speak against My servant
Moses?" 9 So the anger
of the LORD was aroused against them, and He departed. 10 And when the cloud departed
from above the tabernacle, suddenly Miriam became leprous, as white
as snow. Then Aaron turned toward Miriam, and there she was, a leper. 11 So Aaron said to Moses,
"Oh, my lord! Please do not lay this sin on us, in which we have
done foolishly and in which we have sinned.
12 "Please do not let her be as one dead, whose flesh is
half consumed when he comes out of his mother's womb!"
Here we see an instance
where Moses brother and sister decide judge Moses wife because of he skin color
and nationality and God does put up with this. In fact we see that causes
Miriam to turn leprous because of there judgment call.
Friends we have to be
careful on how we judge people. Again we live in society that is very vain and
some very prejudice but we must learn to overcome this way of thinking. We must
not judge people and make rude comments about them simply because they are
different. To many today try to compare others to themselves or how they think
they should be and if they don’t stand their test then they are quick to talk
about them or to point out what they perceive as weaknesses.
Matthew 7:1"Judge
not, that you be not judged. 2
"For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the
measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
You see we need to be
careful that we are not judging people based up on our opinions. You know what
God doesn’t care if someone black, white, brown or yellow and he doesn’t care
if they tall or short pretty or ugly. He doesn’t care if they are smart or dumb
if they smell good or they stink. He doesn’t care if there socks don’t match or
if there teeth or straight or crooked. He just cares about their heart and how
pure it is and that is exactly what we must do. So instead of saying something
rude or belittling about another person why not look at them as soul that is
precious to God and treat that way.
The only type of judgment
that we authorized to do is a righteous judgment and that judgment comes from
the Word of God and will never find where this type of judgment judges people
based on their appearance or simply being who they are.
We have learned a great
deal from the children of