Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 12:35-38

35 And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: 

36 And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required. And they spoiled the Egyptians. 

37 And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot that were men, beside children. 

38 And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle.

I pointed out earlier that when God instructed the Israelites to take the jewels of their Egyptian neighbors, it had the appearance of a conquering army taking the spoils of war. Verse 36 makes this interpretation concrete by saying the Egyptians were indeed “spoiled.” Though the Israelites had not raised a single hand against their overlords, yet they carried the trophies of their triumph over them.

Moving on, in verse 37 we hear exactly how large the Israelite nation had become. Back in Exodus 1, we were told that there were only 70 souls when Jacob and his family first entered into Egypt. Since that time, just their men were nearly 10,000 times greater in number! If their men “on foot” were 600,000, then presumably there were approximately 600,000 women, and probably more than 600,000 children, bringing their total up and to and even exceeding 2 million! One can see why the Egyptians had been worried about their growing strength. The “on foot” description of the 600,000 men seems to mean men who were still strong enough to travel forward under their own power, and therefore also fit to carry a sword. It was justifiable that Egypt would be concerned about this potential army within their borders, though their solution to that problem was certainly not justified.

Verse 38 tells us that they also took up all of their flocks, herds, and cattle, which of course Pharaoh had previously tried to deny them. Also of interest is that “a mixed multitude went up also with them.” This might have been the remnants of other nations that had been conquered by the Egyptians and made to serve alongside the Israelites. It might have been Egyptians who had intermarried with the Israelites or been converted to the Lord by His miracles.

Of course, we will see a theme soon enough of the Israelites being seduced from God by the strangers in their midst. It is possible that this “mixed multitude” was the first group to tempt them to sin. Though we will not have it spelled out to us in Exodus, a later recounting in Numbers shows that it was this group of foreigners who first began to complain to Moses in the wilderness, leading the way for the Israelites to also tempt the Lord. Thus, even in this moment of triumph, there are already the seeds of a downfall.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 12:34, 39

34 And the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneadingtroughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders.

39 And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of Egypt, for it was not leavened; because they were thrust out of Egypt, and could not tarry, neither had they prepared for themselves any victual.

We just read how the Egyptians were anxious to hurry the Israelites out of their land. Today’s verses explain even more of this haste, describing the Israelites as being “thrust out, and could not tarry,” with no time for even their dough to rise. Hence the wisdom in God telling them beforehand to prepare all of their bread to be unleavened. He knew the great hurry that would soon be upon them.

I mentioned yesterday that it sounded like Pharaoh had summoned Moses and Aaron in the very same night that all the firstborn of Egypt had been slain, and given today’s verses it sounds like the Israelites had to be out of their homes by the very next morning. Waiting for the dough to rise would only have been a matter of hours after all, not days, and they apparently didn’t have that long to spare. An immediate departure would also explain why God told them to have staff in hand, shoes on feet, and to burn any leftover lamb.

To sum up, it seems most likely to me that on the evening of the tenth day of Abib the Israelites had their Passover feast, the Egyptian firstborn were killed during the night, that same night Pharaoh commanded the Israelites to leave, and all the camp was gone in the morning. I never realized before how rapidly all these events might have transpired, and if it was this way then it shows just how quickly God can change everything, accomplishing the impossible in an instant!

Posted on by Abe Austin

Finding Christ in the Conscience

We’ve all heard the admonition to reflect on “what would Jesus do” and then conduct ourselves in the same manner. This advice brings up the question, though, of how do we know what Jesus would really do in our particular situation? In some cases he showed compassion and reservation, such as when he spared the woman caught in adultery. At other times he showed judgment and passion, such as when he turned the tables of the money-changers in the temple. How can we really know which way he would deal with each situation, or even the things he would do that don’t even occur naturally to our minds?

Anticipating the behavior of another person typically requires a deep and intimate knowledge of that person. This is something else we are encouraged to develop: a personal and intimate relationship with Jesus. We are told that we ought to know his personality, his manner, his attitude. But once again, how do we do that when he isn’t here in the flesh?

Of course, we can glean some of Christ’s personality and pattern of behavior from the Biblical account, and we might gain further insights through personal, spiritual experiences, but there is also a third way that is perhaps the most reliable method of them all. Jesus told his disciples: “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). Paul later confirmed to the Corinthians that he had sensed this light of Christ shining within him: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). This light of Christ is in all of us, even in those who have not yet accepted Christ. It is the conscience that always persuades us to do what is right. And this conscience is the key to learning who he is.

When we feel our conscience whisper in our hearts and we follow its counsel, we are at the same time both learning the nature of Jesus Christ and also doing what he would do. The conscience is telling us how he would behave in this instance, and as we do the same we feel his emotions and desires come alive in our own hearts. Thus, the prick of the conscience is an invitation to actually be Christ for a moment, and we are educated to his nature from within our very own selves!

Of course, this is also why following our conscience typically feels so strange and unnatural to us. It almost always means setting aside our own personality and choices, and stepping into an entirely different personality and pattern of behavior. This is a hard thing to do, but the more we practice it the more natural it becomes. Bit-by-bit we will be transformed from our old nature into Christ’s, taking on his attitude and likeness until we become his true representative. Thus, we can come to a deeper and more intimate knowledge of Christ than any other person. We will know him even as ourselves, because we will ourselves be as him.

If you truly want to know who Christ is, the tool to do so is already there in your heart. Practice bending yourself to the light he has put in you, and you will become a foremost expert on who the man really is. And then, everyone who sees you will also see the image of their Savior, and learn of him by you.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Chicken or the Egg?

The Paradox)

We’ve all heard the classic dilemma, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Most people merely see this as an amusing puzzle, and quickly discard it as having no suitable answer.

But really, it is a very serious question, one that was posed by Aristotle himself over 2,400 years ago! The fact that we are still talking about it to this day, and still shrug it off without any clear explanation is a very alarming fact!

Now, to the creationist, the question really isn’t that troubling. If God created the Earth, the atmosphere, the seasons, and the universe as we know it, is it really any stretch to say that He could have architected the egg-bearing chicken also? And whether He did that with an egg or a mature fowl doesn’t really matter, He could have begun with either without any paradox.

But the materialist throws out the idea of an omnipotent creator, and puts in His place the forces of undirected, spontaneous evolution. Darwinism states that neither the chicken nor the egg came first, but a single-celled organism which, through a lengthy process of mutation and natural selection, developed into the species that we now call the chicken.

And I might concede that this would be a possibility, if we could agree that the evolution would have to have been a tool purposefully directed by the hands of an intelligent creator. But if one insists that this evolution occurred totally at random, which is the position of modern science, well that’s just plain ridiculous.

The Requirements)

Again, the proposal is that the chicken would have had to originate as some sort of single-celled organism, one which reproduced by dividing itself in half, but eventually it evolved into a creature that reproduced itself via a fertilized egg. This would mean that at some point in between there would have been a creature that still reproduced asexually, but which was also gradually developing sexual organs. Organs that eventually were able to produce and lay an egg, but initially this egg would not yet have been functional.

This means that the pre-chicken was expending energy and effort, giving up nutrients of its own body, subjecting itself to a more vulnerable state, all to produce something that was—for the time being—useless. And again, this might be acceptable if some Higher Power was requiring the life form to undergo this process, but it according to the laws of natural selection, this would mean that the species had a detrimental mutation which would have led to its extinction, not to its flourishing. This unnecessarily-handicapped pre-chicken simply would have been overrun by all the other variants that weren’t wasting energy laying undeveloped eggs.

And that’s just the matter of the chicken and the egg. But by itself, a female chicken still cannot produce a fertilized egg. Just as the species would have had to evolve from a replicating cell into a chicken that had embryonic and adult stages, it also would have had to evolve itself into male and female forms also. Thus it had go from being sexless to having sexed versions, but at least for a time those two halves would still have been reproducing asexually until they evolved into full sexual maturity. That means that there would now be two separate strands of random mutation, each evolving separately from one another, but somehow also in perfect tandem, developing in complementary ways, remaining compatible with one another once they both reached full sexual capability.

A Valid Question)

So as it turns out, the childhood question of “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” is actually a very weighty matter. It has all manner of scientific and metaphysical implications. 2,400 years later it still pokes holes in the most airtight theories of man and leaves us either with a stronger belief in our divine creator, or else a greater confusion of this inscrutable world.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Maintaining Hope in a Doomed World

A Vision of Destruction)

The Bible’s descriptions of the final days have struck fear into the hearts of many people. Even those who are otherwise unacquainted with the stories and messages of the Bible are still familiar with its visions of fire and brimstone raining down upon the world, destroying all the wicked, administering God’s judgment before the return of Christ. The passages also describe the terrible persecution that will first afflict the faithful, and that the world will ultimately reject the gospel message before they feel the wrath of heaven.

Given all this, it can be easy to feel pessimistic about ministry efforts in the world today. We’ve skipped ahead and read the end of the story and we already know that the world as a whole does not become convinced by the missionary efforts of the righteous. So why bother protesting evil? Why speak against the ways that society is moving towards its own destruction? The world is just going there anyway, so why not just separate yourself from it and live as a faithful hermit?

The Many and the One)

If, indeed, we are in the last days, there is a sort of logic to all those cynical, nihilistic questions. If we are fast approaching Armageddon, then no matter what we do the world is still doomed to fail, and so any effort on our part to save it are also doomed to fail.

But saving the world or abandoning it aren’t our only options.

Maintaining the light of hope and optimism, even in the midst of a world falling apart, only requires us to shift our perspective from the many to the one. I have made this point previously, that anyone who is focused on saving the whole world will be disappointed, but anyone who is focused on saving the individual may yet find success.

We could see ourselves as firefighters standing before a blazing building. Perhaps the fire has spread through too much of the structure to save it. Perhaps the whole thing is coming down no matter what we do. But what about the individuals that are trapped inside? There may yet be time to rush in and get as many of some of them as possible out to safety before it all comes crashing down!

Even if the earth is going to hell in a handbasket there is still a work for us to do, a challenge for us to meet, and a success for us to achieve. We can follow Christ’s admonition to stop fixating on the ninety-and-nine, and to go in search of the one, bringing it back with great rejoicing!

The fate of the world is already known, but the fate of you, your loved ones, and your neighbors still hangs in the balance.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Not All Light is Equal

Is Light Good?)

Carl Jung is known for his quote “The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.” By this he meant that the more a person fixated on trying to be better, the more the darkness inside of him would lash out in defiance, leading to a pendulum swinging back-and-forth between periods of extreme good and extreme evil. Jung therefore recommended a sort of gray area, a place where a person could embrace both his vices and virtues, letting neither get out of balance.

The first time I heard this perspective I was struck by how it contradicted some of the most sacred experiences I have ever been witness to. In the twelve step group I attend we frequently express how good it feels to finally shine a light on the darkness and feel it dissipate from us. Men come to the meetings and confess all manner of temptation and unholy desire, and then tearfully express gratitude that the darkness is leaving their hearts even in the telling of it. There is no sense of the shadow growing darker, for the light is permeating all the way through and coming out the other side.

But as I gave Jung’s words a second consideration, I realized that I knew a few instances where I would agree with his assessment. I think that Jung’s perspective does have value, but that it is incomplete. In my experience, there are three types of shining a light on a problem, each with different degrees of usefulness.

Outer Light)

The first kind of light is one that one person shines on another. An example of this would be getting caught in a lie, or with incriminating evidence, anything that exposes one’s secret wrongs. There was no intention in the guilty to expose his secrets, but exposed they have been!

This light could be useful, depending on how the exposed person reacts to it. Ideally he would turn this embarrassing exposure into a wake-up call. Maybe he was horrified when he first got caught, but later on he says that he is so grateful that it happened. Having been seen at his worst, he could finally begin the work of becoming his best.

Alternatively, though, he might be resentful at being caught. Perhaps his exposer gives him an ultimatum and he does recovery work, but only begrudgingly. In this case he will have no gratitude for the light that shone upon him, and he will take the first opportunity to recede back into the darkness. He will pretend that he is cured, but all that he really learned was to be more careful in his lying. This therefore leaves him worse off than before.

The Light in the Cave)

The second kind of light is when a person fixates on his own problems. He is still in denial towards the rest of the world, but not towards himself. Silently, in his own head, he continually berates himself for failing to live in harmony with his conscience. He launches many campaigns against the darkness, trying to force himself to be better by sheer force of will, but these efforts always end in failure.

A person can white-knuckle his way to some length of acceptable behavior, but he hasn’t actually destroyed the darkness inside. Sooner or later it comes back, and this time with a vengeance. Inevitably the person slips back into his old ways, and usually delves deeper into them than before.

This is the sort of light that Jung was able to observe, and he was correct to be skeptical of it. However, his conclusion that there was no appropriate way to change one’s life was incorrect. A better conclusion would be that repentance was never meant to be an isolated experience.

Bringing Into the Light of Others)

The third kind of light is the one that I mentioned at the start. This is when the guilty freely confesses his wrongs to another. The key difference between this light and the first is that the person wasn’t caught against his will. This time the person is bringing his shame to trusted friends of his own volition, not trying to face the darkness on his own.

All throughout the scriptures we are told that we must confess. Confession is only confession when it involves another. We do not confess to ourselves, or by being found out. We confess by taking the initiative and sharing the darkest parts of our soul with another trusted person. Because of our shame, most of us would suffer in silence for years rather than take this step. Some will suffer in silence for their entire lives, feeling in their hearts as though being truly honest would kill them!

And in some sense it would. It would kill the dark self and replace it with the light. This effect might be difficult to accept by a modern psychologist, but only because it isn’t a natural, measurable thing. It is a miracle. It is absolutely real, but it defies intellectual explanation because God is in it. God is the light that dissipates the darkness, where our own light often only hardens it.

Exactly why God’s light shows up when we confess to one another could be a topic of study in-and-of-itself. For now, let us content ourselves with the fact that one reason why God shows up in these moments is simply because He promised that He would:

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. 
-James 5:16, Matthew 18:20

Posted on by Abe Austin

Not All Good Deeds Are Equal

Blocked From My Own Good)

I have mentioned before how I lived many years under the power of an addiction to lust. Though I hated myself for it, I did things that I felt ashamed of, that I knew were wrong. I never was under the delusion that my objectification of women was an okay thing, yet I did it anyway. Because of my guilt, I would try to compensate in other areas. I would try to balance out my evil with extra kindness and devotion in my community and church.

But I never felt satisfied. In fact, I believe I was experiencing what it means to be cursed. To me this means that all of your actions, no matter how good on the surface, simply do not count. You may strive and flail, but it is as if you are running on a treadmill, all your energy leaving you in the same place. Like Cain, I tried to bring my fruits to the Lord, but He just would not accept my offering.

All of this changed, though, when I finally made confession. I told my wife what was going on in my secret life, I told my church authorities, I joined a recovery program, I went through a process of repentance, and I truly felt the atonement of Christ wash away my uncleanness.

And then I felt a sudden change. I felt the reality of God’s words to Cain: “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?” I felt the curse lifted, and now anything good that I did actually felt like it mattered.

Surrendered to Christ)

Sin is one thing that can keep our good works from reaching their full potential, but so, too, can refusing to surrender to the Lord. During my study of Pharaoh’s interactions with God and Moses, I have been thinking about this concept of surrender. Genuine surrender to the Lord is the first and fundamental basis of any true discipleship. Trying to do good while still holding back a part of your heart will always lessen the value of that good.

I know many who want to be basically good people, but who resent any notion of surrendering their will to another. In their desire to retain autonomy, to be their own master, they refuse to give themselves fully to God. They expect God to be content with the gifts that they decide to give Him, never seeking to understand what gifts He actually wants them to give. As a result, they live uninspired lives. They never experience the joy of being moved by the spirit to approach someone they normally never would have approached and saying to that person what they normally never would have said. They live according to their assumptions, not according to His genuine knowledge.

Surrendering ourselves, heart and soul to God, is necessary to be a part of His kingdom. And being part of His kingdom is necessary to having our good works sanctified for the building up of that kingdom. Trying to do good autonomously is like a swirl in an ocean, not necessarily worthless, but ultimately dissipating before it can accomplish much. Trying to do good as a pure vessel of the Lord is like being part of a flowing current, permanently and meaningfully changing the world for the better.

It is good to do good, but it is best to do the best good. And the best good can only be done by one who has repented of sin and fully surrendered to the Lord.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Miracle of Seeds

Seeds are one of the most miraculous things I know of, and they have been quietly working their wonders every day for untold years. Seeds usually come in a miniscule package, sometimes no more than a pinpoint, yet from their confines entire trees will emerge, stand for hundreds of years, and produce millions of new seeds of their own.

I also find incredible how the saplings that emerge from the seed is able to take dirt and nutrient from the earth and transform it into stem and leaf. The transformation of material is one of the most strange and mysterious things, and the more we learn of the complex process by how it works the more miraculous it seems.

And here is one more miracle of seeds, most of them have incredible versatility, able to lay in sterile or hostile environments for multiple years, appearing absolutely dead to the world, but will still germinate and grow long after they fell from their parent tree. In some cases, seeds have been known to still grow after laying as a dead husk for more than a thousand years! Somehow they retain the potential for life without food or batteries or nourishment.

When a seed lays dormant, all that it is waiting for is the correct environment. Once it is put in the right levels of moisture, temperature, and oxygen, it finally begins to flourish.

And so it is with people.

I have met men and women who moved through their lives in a catatonic state, feeling useless and reaching for nothing. It can be all too easy to write such people off, to assume that if they have already spent years in this lifeless same state then they will remain there forever.

But these people still have the potential for life—real life. It may be laying dormant inside of them, but that doesn’t mean it is dead. Like a seed, they are often just waiting for the proper environment to flourish, and from what I’ve seen, that proper environment is being brought into the light of God’s love. I have seen how lethargic and passionless men and women fell into the soil of belief, were rained on by the saving power of Jesus Christ, and sprouted towards the sun! Suddenly they wanted to go back to school and get the education they had abandoned, and change jobs for something more purposeful, and begin engaging in their home and family! They started seeing and helping the needy around them, and meeting with their brothers and sisters with sincere purpose, and finding joy and nourishment in the little wonders they had never noticed before.

Not only did they sprout upward, but they also reached further downward, deepening their roots and stability. These people began operating from a seat of power, sure enough to finally thrive.

Before this sprouting, these people appeared to be dead. But they were not dead, they simply hadn’t yet been born. There are many people who are still waiting to start living for the first time, so help plant them somewhere good if you can, somewhere that they can finally open their shell and live.

Posted on by Abe Austin

A God of Vengeance

God’s Devastation of Egypt)

In my scripture studies I have been making my way through the early chapters of Exodus, in which we read the story of God sending His plagues against the people of Egypt, afflicting them until finally they let the Israelites go. Recently I noted how these chapters show the side of God that is a God of vengeance. It has stood out to me a great deal just how vicious God’s breaking of Pharaoh and the Egyptians was.

God began the whole affair by summoning forth the blood of the innocent Israelite babes thrown into the river, symbolizing that He was about to require the same blood of the Egyptian people. He then procedurally and strategically took from the Egyptians their comfort, their health, their wealth, their sacred animals, and their safety. He announced that He had propped the entire nation up for the express purpose of beating it down in the sight of all the world. When finally He brought His death upon them, He made sure to take someone from each and every household, ensuring that all of the Egyptians had their hearts broken in the very same night.

One cannot seriously meditate on this story without being moved by the absolute devastation God inflicted upon those people. And more meaningful than the size of the devastation was just how methodical and purposeful it all was. God really knew just how, where, and when to intimidate, to apply pressure, and to break.

A Guilty Heart)

Personally, seeing this view of God does not disturb me. I have always understood and been comfortable with the view that God is to be trusted by the righteous, but feared by the wicked. I know that God endeavors to save the sinner, for He saved me. But before my time of repentance He stood against me and afflicted me, and never did I resent Him for that. I have come to see that the nature of my sins is that they inevitably lead to hurting others, especially those that I love most, and in those moments I am absolutely deserving of God’s judgment and punishment.

Granted, God hasn’t visited me with so great of curses as He did the Egyptians, but neither have I killed thousands of innocent babes as they did. I know that some people struggle with the magnitude of God’s punishments in the Old Testament, but when I read the accounts that are given I do not see that He did anything that was unwarranted. Yes, He smote Sodom and Gomorrah, and Egypt, and the various nations who possessed the land of Canaan, but we also know that they were given to all manner of cruelty and perversion. Many of them worshipped pagan gods which demanded horrifying and barbaric practices, such as the sacrifice of living children!

A Lost Perspective)

The fact is, if we struggle to understand the good in a God who uses great power in attacking the wicked and defending the righteous, it is only because we live a life that is so safe and secure that we cannot fathom the horrors of darkness that God has historically stood against.

In general, as a people today we have no firsthand knowledge of what it is like to live without a powerful government to protect us, or to spend our entire life as a slave to another, or to have no welfare support if we become sick or injured, or to be surrounded by a culture that doesn’t believe in the basic dignity of every person, or to be at the mercy of wild animals and natural elements, or to have the necessity of doing hard labor all day just to have enough food and shelter to survive, or to be constantly be at risk of being slaughtered by a roaming army. Some of the most unfortunate among us might encounter just one or two of these daily realities of ancient life, but overall we are left only to our imaginations of how such an existence must have been.

When one is as vulnerable, persecuted, and afraid as the ancient Israelites then, and only then, can one truly judge whether God’s mighty hand against the Egyptians was a good thing or not.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 9:31-32

31 And the flax and the barley was smitten: for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled.

32 But the wheat and the rie were not smitten: for they were not grown up.

Different crops grow at different seasons. The flax and the barley had already sprouted out of the earth and were developing their fruit, thus they were exposed to the elements and destroyed. But the wheat and the rye were still in the ground, which provided a sufficient barrier to keep the seeds alive and well. They would still be able to grow and be harvested.

What is the significance of this? Other scholars have pointed out that flax would have been used for the Egyptian manufacturing of linens, and the barley for the feeding of livestock and brewing of beer. In short, these crops were not essential for human life. The wheat and the rye, however, were a major food source, and necessary for survival. Thus, even in the midst of God’s curse, He had shown mercy. He had sent His hail at precisely the right time to hurt the Egyptian’s finances, but not their bellies. This is yet another example of God creating a wall between what was to be destroyed and what was to be preserved. It shows what careful control He has over the Earth and His power upon it.

God had shown terrific power to kill, but as of yet had not turned that power directly upon the Egyptians. He had destroyed their livestock, He had destroyed their crops, He had irritated and inconvenienced them, but the only loss of human life had been due to those who were so obstinate as to leave their servants in the field during the hailstorm. God was churning a menacing storm before the eyes of all the Egyptians. With every curse it grew nearer and nearer to lashing out against the lives of the people. How much longer could it be before God’s storm would fall upon Pharaoh’s people directly? Not much longer.