Home improvement. A lesson in Exodus 18

Introduction

I’m amazed at the proliferation of the genre of television shows on house restoration. Seems that when one show ends another begins. And each one wants to take a very dodgy looking lounge or backyard garden or room and make it into something gorgeous and state of the art. But wait, it’s not just houses that are under the knife and getting repaired; it’s also people. Many shows are now growing in popularity that have to do with personal makeovers. In one, a perfect stranger approaches someone on the streets and offers to do a makeover for them, allowing them all the looks and beauty they have always dreamed of. The common thread in each of these shows is a desire to improve what is, or who we are, with something deeper than a cosmetic paint job. 

Another reality to these programs is the ever-present camera that shows us way too much information about the feelings and development of the person or room or garden involved.  It’s hard to have a genuine reality show when a camera constantly reminds you that this is a made-for-TV reality and thus not exactly real.

Of course, change in these shows is always only skin or sod deep. A room can get a makeover with new paint and new furniture, with a new design and some new cut outs, but bottom line, it’s still a room. And it’s the people in those rooms who have to enjoy or experience the new reality. Sure it’s easier to relax, say some, in a new leather lounge chair than the old dilapidated broken armchair, but some will fret more with the new one and the condition to be maintained.

What is also common in these shows is that change requires an agent. People dream of the Hollywood makeovers and the liposuction and the plastic surgery; they even write in with a video self-presentation of shameful self-promotion. Their purpose is to be noticed and to request that the agency choose them for improvement.

“Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.”  Thomas a'Kempis. 

“I want to talk to us this morning about change and improvement. There's always room for improvement. It's the biggest room in the house.”     Louise Health Leber, quoted in Women Women Women. 

We all long for growth, for change, for improvement, in us, in our situations and in our lives. Today’s reading of the Bible highlights the improvement for the court system of the Jewish people, and thus a principle in understanding our own personal growth as well.

Here’s my order of thinking today. 1) We need a change agent. 2) We need to admit the need for change. 3) We need to accept change when it is offered. 4) Peace will result in our lives when all these take place.

Lesson 1: We need a change agent.

Although we often think of ourselves as the only soul who really matters in life, this is disjoint from truth and from reality. And if there is more than us, then hope can exist for others and for us from outside ourselves. In fact, the only way we can really change with any permanence is to gain strength from others. On the TV shows, change happens when you are chosen. Or when the designers enter. Or when the cameras begin rolling.  Change requires a changer. And friends, true humility in our lives will help us understand, we cannot deeply change ourselves. 

In our reading of Exodus 18 today we see Jethro being changed and then bringing change to Israel as they are newly freed. They have been slaves and thus government did not exist for them in Egypt. They had no rights, no treaties, and no possibilities of justice. God then spared them after 400 years of slavery and out we came into the wilderness on our way to Eretz Yisrael. Justice is a daunting reality for a slave people. Hope for a fair go is the desire of every man, and one of the chief promises you will be hearing outside the polls today as you vote.

Jethro, the efficiency expert extraordinaire, recommends to his son-in-law a new method of holding court. Modify the leadership structure, Moishe, he says, and you will gain from this. Of course, so will the leaders. And so will the people. It was a good plan all the way around.  And it came from an outsider. A wise man listens to those near and far from him.

Lesson 2: We need to admit the need for change

“Everything continues in a state of rest unless it is compelled to change by forces impressed upon it.”  Isaac Newton, First Law of Motion.

Not everyone wants change, but when we admit it, then it can surely come. It is hard to believe now, but the potato was once a highly unpopular food. When first introduced into England by Sir Walter Raleigh, newspapers printed editorials against it, ministers preached sermons against it, and the general public wouldn't touch it. It was supposed to sterilize the soil in which it had been planted and cause all manner of strange illnesses--even death. 

There were, however, a few brave men who did not believe all the propaganda being shouted against it. It was seen as an answer to famine among the poorer classes and as a healthful and beneficial food. Still, these few noblemen in England could not persuade their tenants to cultivate the potato. It was years before all the adverse publicity was overcome and the potato became popular. 

A Frenchman named Parmentier took a different tack. He had been a prisoner of war in England when he first heard of the new plant. His fellow prisoners protested the outrage of having to eat potatoes. Parmentier, instead, thoughtfully inquired about the methods of cultivating and cooking the new food. Upon his return to France, he procured an experimental farm from the Emperor, in which he planted potatoes. When it was time to dig them, at his own expense, he hired a few soldiers to patrol all sides of his famous potato patch during the daytime. Meanwhile he conducted distinguished guests through the fields, digging a few tubers here and there, which they devoured with evident relish. At night, he began to withdraw the guards. A few days later one of the guards hastened to Parmentier with the sad news that peasants had broken into the potato patch at night, and dug up most of the crop. 

Parmentier was overjoyed, much to the surprise of his informant, and exclaimed, "When the people will steal in order to procure potatoes, their popularity is assured."  

Moses had to admit the need for change in the justice administration system.  And the desire for change whether in the home improvement shows or the justice in Israel in 1500 BCE is the beginning of real change.

Lesson 3: We need to accept change when/ how it is offered

A few years ago in the Hunter Valley, my wife and I left our motel room to ascend a hot air balloon at 6 a.m. It was her birthday. What a beautiful experience it was. Now not all balloon rides have been so welcome.

On June 4, 1783 at the market square of a French village of Annonay, not far from Paris, a smoky bonfire on a raised platform was fed by wet straw and old wool rages. Tethered above, straining its lines was a huge taffeta bag 33 feet in diameter. In the presence of "a respectable assembly and a great many other people," and accompanied by great cheering, the balloon was cut from its moorings and set free to rise majestically into the noon sky. Six thousand feet into the air it went -- the first public ascent of a balloon, the first step in the history of human flight. It came to earth several miles away in a field, where it was promptly attacked by pitchfork-waving peasants and torn to pieces as an instrument of evil!

Some don’t readily accept change when or how it is offered.

Moses had the humility of a man of God who heard the advise of his father-in-law and welcomed it. Moses saw the benefits, although he could easily have said some pretty negative things about the people of Midian or the ancestry of Jethro. He could have been racist against the nations surrounding wandering Israel. He could have missed God’s plan for justice for Israel. But he didn’t. He welcomed change, as we all must.

Lesson 4: Peace will result

Verse 23 ends with and all these people also will go to their place in peace.” 

This is God’s plan for us all. You can have makeovers and you can see Dr Phil or Oprah and be challenged in your motivations and in your life. Bottom line, if the Almighty changes you, you will have peace in your life. And it’s a peace that passes all understanding.

Paul the apostle wrote the Romans (14.17) the “kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

Note the order of things. First righteousness, then peace, then joy in relationship with God. Be right with God first, and then peace follows.

For us who know this God in Yeshua, real righteousness comes in admitting our need for change, and the method of change, which is still startling—the death of the Saviour. The real problem is sin, and that takes some admitting, doesn’t it? Then the agent of change has to be someone outside us, and that’s the Redeemer Yeshua. His death solved the justice of God to the letter, and His resurrection gives us eternal life. If we will only admit it, and welcome it, and be saved by it. Righteousness then peace. In the Holy Spirit.

Evangelism is God’s method of bringing change to others

Of course the changes that came to Israel by means of Jethro’s advice are clear in the text. I want you to think about Jethro’s change as well. Moses told him ‘all’ the Lord had done (.6) and as a result Jethro changed and began to follow the Lord of Israel. He even shouted a “Praise the Lord” (v.9) I remember a woman telling me some time ago that she would pray and become a follower of Yeshua, but she didn’t want to become a “praise the Lord” Christian. What? I asked. She informed me that she wanted to be more private than ‘ all that.’ Shame, and what a waste. If you become a follower of Yeshua, you can and will boast about the One who did so much for you.

Evangelism brought a change in Jethro’s understanding of God and brought him clarity of understanding of life. Jethro benefited a great deal from the Almighty and it was as a result of the agency of Moses, as evangelist.

People around us need to hear the Good News as well. I read an article from Dr Dobson answering a question on evangelism whose opening struck me greatly. It was a ‘how to’ question and the doctor answered saying, “Evangelism is not an event, it’s a process.” I liked that. It helped me understand the continuous care we give others and our hopes for their improvement.

Lessons learned

I believe we should see applications from our stories today. 

1)    Yeshua is God’s eternal answer for change in our lives

2)    He is the perfect outside agent, who cares and brings peace

3)     His method of change is through following his example of suffering and the cross on which he died.

4)    Desire to change is as important as all the opportunities to change you will receive.

What comes out may surprise you. A study in Exodus 17

Introduction

 I like the story of the country couple and their son who came to the big city. They had never been in such splendour and seen such majestic buildings. They had lived all their life in the backwoods and were quite content. But they were entering this hotel for the first time and the old farmer was amazed at the glitz and the business. His room was on an upper level and he was instructed to go to the lift and take it to his room.

He had never used a lift before.

The farmer and his son watched as an older woman entered the lift and then watched the numbers ascend and then descend back to the Ground Floor. Out of the lift came a very beautiful young woman dressed to the nines. 

The man was shocked and quickly yelled, “Son, get your mother!” 

The story of course is legend, but it illustrates the idea I want to address today… what goes in is not what always comes out.

We have been studying the book of Exodus the last 16 days, one chapter at a time, and learning what it might say to us as 21^st Century people. And today is no different. What shall we make of this story of the water from a rock or the people in battle with a man named Amalek?

I see a theme of things going in and coming out quite differently. No one expects a beautiful woman to replace an older lady in the magic of a lift. No one expects water to come from a rock. No one expects a slave people with no military training to be able to conquer a marauding band of nomads. 

And what do you expect coming out of your life? Or what do you expect from situations around you? Or from a man named Yeshua in any period of history?

Water from a rock

The story today begins with another serious complaint by our ancestors in the wilderness. We spoke at length a couple weeks ago about complaining and the utter uselessness of it. But it does make a comfortable companion, doesn’t it? The doctors don’t know what they are doing; the traffic is never going to move; the problems in our world only increased when that ethnic group moved in; the referees don’t know how to call a game anymore. Complaining is a bad habit of selfish perpetual re-conditioning.

And that’s where our people are by the rock of Massah (which means ‘testing’) and Merivah (meaning “strife”). When complaining arises in the people of God, there is sure to come testing by God on them. Here though, before that next test, is the supply of the Almighty. He tells Moses to use his rod that had prevented water drink-ability earlier in the Pharaoh plague number one, to make water out of nothing. Rocks don’t produce water; lakes and rivers do. But God is going to do another miracle for his people. Water from rocks- ha!

I’m amazed at this scene. God seems to be on trial here. The people are angry and yell at Moses. God, who is rarely one to deal well with accusations, simply supplies what the people need.  Moses probably is amazed as much as we all are at this rock-to-water thing. Surprise is a good thing in your walk with God.

We will deal more with the justice system of the Jewish people in tomorrow's lesson, but it might be in view here. Especially if you know the Hebrew word “Merivah” has at its root, “Riv” meaning ‘plead a cause’ or ‘to bring a lawsuit.’ 

RC Sproul says “the move to stone Moses (v. 4) is the execution of a legal sentence for treason. The verdict is threatened if Moses does not provide water.”

Driver says ‘nissah’ means to test or prove a person, to see whether the will act in a particular way, or whether the character he bears is well established.”

 So God comes through and provides the water for the complaining millions. He answers the allegations of the trial lawyers among Israel. He tells Moses to bring the accusers (v. 5, the elders), and that God will stand in the dock on the rock.  That’s amazing humility as God stands in the courtroom.

And what does God name the place? Miracle house? House of water? A place of God’s provision? A place of thirst quenched? Nope… it’s the place of their doing wrong. So perpetuity will call it ‘Merivah” and “Massah”, that is, strife and testing. Israel, since you blew it, you will be reminded of this whenever you walk past this place. This is where you argued with me and yet I satisfied you. It’s not called “God satisfied us here”; it’s testing. It’s to our shame.

Imagine a later generation… ‘hey, honey, it’s time to make our holiday plans. Where to this year? How about a boat cruise along the Red Sea and remember God’s victory? How about Massah or Merivah? We can see where our ancestors failed… ok?” Don’t think many chose the 2^nd option. It’s a place of perpetual embarrassment and shame. It’s good to remember our failures so that we can all the more rejoice in God’s forgiveness and love.

Listen to the Jeremiah the prophet who said,

Lam. 2.11 My eyes fail because of tears, My spirit is greatly troubled; My heart is poured out on the earth, Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, When little ones and infants faint In the streets of the city.

 Peter and Yeshua had a serious conversation during Passover’s seder, what some call the “Last Supper”. 

 Yeshua said, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” 

And Peter said to Him,  “Lord, with You I am ready to go both to prison and to death!” 

 And Yeshua said,  “I say to you, Peter, the cock will not crow today until you have denied three times that you know Me.” (Luke 22.31-34)

Peter is not at all aware of his own capacity to fail. How significant then after he does fail, Yeshua restores him. But what do you think will happen next week when Peter hears a rooster crow early in the day… what will Peter remember? His own failures.

And it’s good to remember your failures SO THAT you can rejoice in the God who forgives and marvelously transfers us out of darkness into His marvelous light. We need a good dash of humility more often. We are often rejuvenated with the constant human lie of self-sufficiency.

Amalek defeated

The second story today is a battle scene worthy of Peter Jackson’s cinema magic. Amalek is a near relative, being a descendant of Esau. His people is from the South of Israel, later the Negev. They are wandering looking for good grazing land and are cut off by or cut off the back of the people of Israel, thus separating the strong from the weak who feebly hobbled in the rear. (Deut 25.18) A battle ensues under the leadership of Moses’ eventual successor Joshua. (Originally named Hoshea, but renamed with the name of God in his new name. Numbers 13.8) [Many get new names, but you know who didn’t? Moses. This was an Egyptian name. He has this name throughout all time.]

But what a weird method of military victory… Moses keeps his hands up in the air. Is this a picture of celebration or is it one of hope? Is it a signal to the troops or simply a posture ordained by the Almighty? No one is quite sure, although the naming of the place with the word ‘banner’ may help us here.

So as Moses kept his hands up, Israel won the battle. Eventually Israel conquered the interlopers and continued on its way to Sinai.

Rabbi Hertz says of this situation, “This is another trait which no legend would have created for the first martial exploit of Israel. Moses plays but a secondary part; and even as intercessor his arms have to be held up!”  In other words, if you have a legend about a saint, you make him eternally powerful, a la Clark Kent who becomes Superman, and who would never fail. Here the Bible paints the hero as needing to sit and rest while the rest of the army is fighting. He cannot perform his own duty without assistance from two helpers who should be out fighting on the battlefield as well. But the Bible is an honest book which shows the heroes failing whether it was Abraham lying to the king, Jacob conniving sheep from his uncle Laban, Peter failing to stand by his dying Saviour, or some leaders fighting one another in the early church, the community of faith in Israel.

No one would really expect the newly wandering slaves to have any military experience or expertise. What a surprise this must have been to Amalek. And maybe even to themselves! Wow, we are winning; wow, we won! Fantastic… and then they looked up and saw the reason. They were being prayed for. They were being attended by something greater than energy and by determination. They saw Moses and two other fellows waving their hands and perhaps a banner, reminding them that God was on their side. God was the one who had brought them out of Egypt; God has been giving them daily bread. God gave them water out of nothing when they needed it earlier. Now He will give them victory. The battle belongs to the Lord!

Remember by writing

Back in the US, I was a school teacher. I learned that the more senses a person used to learn, the better they would remember. If you could sing a lesson the better. If you could cook it and they could smell and taste and feel, learning would increase. Maybe that’s why God gave so many lessons to the Jewish people through food. I wanted my students to take notes and write things down, sure that the more they wrote they would do better on the examinations.

Not very often does God say to take notes. But in this text he does. And he tells us to write is as a memorial.

In February/ March we often remember Amalek as his descendant was famous in the Purim/ Esther story. We are to remember God’s fame and Amalek’s infamy, and try to blot his name out from among us. That happens during Purim, of course. As a child you might have written “Haman” on the sole of your shoe and stomped it during the ‘megillah’ reading. You might have simply ‘boo’ed during the reading at the mention of his name. Blot it out!

So God tells us to write this down in a book and to learn by that writing and to revisit that book often. 

And the announcement of the new name of the altar venue again reminds us of how we are to remember things. There are times when we fail and we must not live by them, but it’s right to be honest about them. And when we succeed, it’s right to give honor and testimony to the Lord who is our victor. 

By the way, the name Nissi, banner, will be featured later in the story of the Serpent on the Pole (Numbers 21.8), but that’s just forward roll.

What do you learn from today’s lesson?

1)    What we think is our capacity may be met by God’s overarching resupply and we will not be exhausted any longer

2)    Naming things carries significance far beyond today’s gesture

3)    God will supply all our needs according to His riches

4)    What we have put into something may not be all there is… surprise is God’s nature of making sure we know life is about Him, and not about our efforts.

 

Let me mention one we haven’t stated. The Jewish people later will call God, “The Rock” and look to His nature of provision. The Psalms are replete with reference to God giving us water in the desert. And later Paul the apostle will say of the Exodus people,

“For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea;  and all ate the same spiritual food;  and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Messiah.” (1 Corinthians 10.1-4)

The baptism was the Red Sea experience; the food was the manna as we saw last week. The rock and drink is in today’s lesson. 

If you miss everything else today, and I hope you don’t, don’t miss this. Yeshua is the eternal Rock who provides water for us in our spiritual thirsting. Anyone who is humble will admit to need. And if we are spiritually honest we will admit to needing more from God in our lives. No amount of good works will satisfy us. No amount of complaining will bring to us what we want. Only when we stop and attend to the Messiah will our needs be met. Yeshua is the rock, and the supply of water for our thirsty souls.

There is a lot of misunderstanding about Yeshua in the Jewish world today. To some he is just a rock on the side of the road of Jewish experience; but for us who know Him, he is the Rock of Ages and the Rock of our salvation. What comes out will surprise everyone who trusts in Him.