"Wherefore then do ye
harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when he
had wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and they
departed?" - 1 Samuel 6:6
God is
powerful, mighty, terrifying; he always was and will always be. To the
righteous, his power and might can and will be a rally point. There is
comfort and rest knowing that God is in your corner. To the wicked, God
is not someone you want to hear from, nor hear about. God will be a force
in your life, he has given life. The
question is: will you yield to Him or will you fight against Him?
The Bible
is an amazing book. When you have the Holy Ghost on the inside and you
begin to read, there will be verses that you have read over a hundred
times. Then, one day, God will just bring you to it and teach you
something or show you something that you have never seen before. The Jews
spent 400 years as slaves in the land of Egypt, then one day God told a Jew
named Moses to go down there and lead them out. He obeyed, but when he
got there the king of Egypt said that there was no way he was letting his
country’s free labor force go. Moses
told God that Pharaoh was not letting His people go and God basically said,
watch this: he then plagued Egypt. Pharaoh was hard headed but by the
time the showdown was done, he let the Jews go, in fact, they were begging them
to leave. God’s power was so mighty and great that generations later
another group of people called the Philistines are talking about it and
counseling their people to not do the same. In short, God was such a mighty
force of deliverance for the Jewish people that they had a reputation for it
and God did as well! The scripture above is evidence of that. God’s power was mighty in their lives and he
was glorified in their lives.
When you
live in sin, maybe not a first, but by and by it becomes like slavery. Hopefully, there comes a point where you cry
out to God because you just want to be rid of it. The scripture tells us that if we confess our
sins he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. This is a
deliverance that God has prepared for you and a grace that he is willing to
offer you. When you decide to follow
him, he will bring you out of bondage and it will not be a half-way
deliverance. Moses didn't know how he
was going to even speak to Pharaoh, at first, the Jews didn't want Moses’s
help, and the whole thing seemed impossible; but God majors in impossible. God swooped in, delivered them, and the power
of God was so mighty in their lives that to generations later it was a rallying
point to the Jews and terrifying to the surrounding Gentiles (non-Jews). God can deliver you from sin in such a
fashion that it will resonate with the world around you. In the past, like the Jews, your reputation
may have only been defeat and enslavement; a consistent and reoccurring “I
can’t help it.” Then Jesus shows up,
endorsed by the Father and with great power and might he delivers and the
deliverance is so wonderful and drastic that your reputation changes: those
around you begin to say “there is something different about them.” It’s Jesus!
The only thing that made the Jews God’s chosen people was that He chose
them. When Jesus went to the cross, he
chose you.
In
closing, we use these last few lines to send out a heartfelt plea. A plea to you to turn away from sin and call
on God to save. He can and will be a
positive saving force in your life, he will be the force in your life. God can save you completely, and when he
does: you will know it, the devil will know it, and everyone around you will
know it.
