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Backward and Forward--God is Faithful!

4/25/2022

אַֽעַלְךָ֣
’a-‘al-ḵā
Verb: Imperfect Hiphil
"I myself will continuously bring you up"

Have you ever felt yourself to be in a place of confusion, where it seems like the way that God is leading you and your family is backward or contrary to the purpose He has for you? When perhaps where you are being led now is the direct opposite of where you know God has promised you that He wants for you—and yet His leading is undeniable in your circumstances. Maybe you have prayed, been in the Word, and the two opposites of the direction in God’s leading just seem like they could never combine to make a positive in your life.
When God calls us to follow Him, sometimes we find ourselves going backward to go forward. We can trust God’s faithfulness! He has promised to continuously be working to bring us up to where He has His plan and purpose for us!

Let’s Trust God with our Backward Steps.

So they went up out of Egypt and came to the land of Canaan to their father Jacob. And they told him, “Joseph is still alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt.” And his heart became numb, for he did not believe them. But when they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived. And Israel said, “It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.” Genesis 45:25-28 ESV

So Israel took his journey with all that he had and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. And God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, “Jacob, Jacob.” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph’s hand shall close your eyes.”
Genesis 46:1-4 ESV

In Jacob’s story, we find ourselves stepping into an intricately played out drama between jealous and now repentant and forgiven brothers who had sold Joseph away as a slave into Egypt and that of a heartbroken father who had just learned that his favored son was still alive after many years of mourning.
In God’s omniscient foreknowledge, He had known that there would be a seven-year, worldwide famine in Joseph’s time. Using the jealousies of Joseph’s brothers, God had arranged for Joseph to arrive in Egypt in time to plan a massive food storage event and to save many from the impending death caused by the famine.
After years in the pharaoh’s dungeon, Joseph was miraculously raised to power, takes the opportunity God provides him to confront his brothers about their hurtful actions, and walks through a powerful repentance and reconciliation with them.
It is at this point that we find ourselves back with Jacob: Joseph had just sent his brothers back to tell Jacob the good news that He was alive as if from the dead, and that Jacob and his family would all be able to stay in Egypt in the best of the Egyptian agricultural land.
But Jacob, though happy to hear of his son’s prosperity, is afraid to go to down to Egypt. He was living in the land of the Promise—the area of Canaan that God would one day give to Abraham’s descendants. And Jacob knew there was more to that prophesy. It was “more” that filled him with dread:

As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” Genesis 15:12-16

Could Jacob trust God’s promise, that even if their family went into slavery, God would bring them back to Promised Land? Could God take care of their family through many harsh years of slavery? These are the questions that Jacob must have had as he contemplated such a drastic move back to Egypt.
What about you? Have you ever wondered if God could possibly have a good plan when it seems like He's leading through back into something scary or away from the final goal and purpose that He has for you?
I know these things are difficult for me at times. In these times, God's promise to Jacob brings me peace. He will go down with us into these places and seasons. He will never leave us alone: He will not abandon us. As surely as He himself will go down with us, He also promises to continuously be bringing us back up!

Let’s multiply while we wait.

In Exodus chapter 1 we find the story zooms back in on a greatly multiplied Israel under a new pharaoh—one who did not know of Joseph. This pharaoh found himself greatly afraid of such a massive amount of a mighty group of people, and—just as God had foretold—he began to enslave and even kill their children in order to prevent their imagined revolt. Rather than reduce their population, all of Pharaoh’s efforts to prevent the blessing and multiplication of the people resulted in greater blessings and multiplication!
Do you find yourself in a place of waiting, when you cannot move yet into what you know God has for you? You may find that you cannot make the changes you need to step out into freedom in a physical sense. In these moments of waiting for God to work for us, there is something we can do: we can trust God to do His work, and we can share the good news of Jesus to everyone around us!
We don’t need to passively wait on God, we may actively wait! In doing this, we are standing on the promise of His faithfulness to us. God’s blessing and favor rest on us when we produce fruit in these seasons of waiting on God to do the work that only He can accomplish.

Let’s watch God bring us Home.

It was during this time in the book of Exodus that God raised up Moses to deliver the people out of slavery, through the wilderness, and back into the Promised Land. At the very moment that their time in the place of preservation was over, God brought them out. On the very day that fulfilled the end of the prophecy, the Israelites were delivered to freedom by the sovereign God on whose promises they could place their absolute trust:

The time that the people of Israel
lived in Egypt was 430 years.
At the end of 430 years, on that very day,
all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.
It was a night of watching by the LORD,
to bring them out of the land of Egypt….
Exodus 12:40-42a

We can watch peacefully through the night in which God works because of this: He Himself is watching out, keeping vigil, all the night while He works to accomplish this work for us.
One thing that brings me comfort in the backward seasons is knowing that when it’s time for God to work, it is His power alone that does the job. When we are walking in the will of God, there is nothing and no one on earth that can prevent God’s plan from being accomplished in our lives.

In that moment, all that we need to do is stand in peace...
and watch.

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Gethsemane's Dawn

4/14/2022

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perílypos
from 4012 /perí, "encompassing" and 3077 /lýpē, "sorrow") – properly, being sorrowful "all-around," i.e. engulfed in sorrow.1

On the night Jesus was betrayed to be crucified by His disciple, Judas, Jesus spent the evening with His other disciples in the Garden of Gethsamene, a grove of olive trees on the Mt. of Olives near Jerusalem on the night He was arrested:

Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matthew 26:36-41

The Garden was called Gethsemane because in Hebrew the word comes from two words, “gat,” which refers to a place for pressing oil or wine, and “shemanim,” which means oils.2 These gethsemane stones were used in three different pressings to extract the oils.3 Arlene Bridges Samuels details the process that the olives would go through to extract the valuable oils:

"During Roman rule, olive presses numbered in the thousands—in groves scattered all over Israel and the Roman Empire. Large and small presses made of stone crushed the harvested fruit. The larger presses included stones suspended with ropes from wooden crossbeams—stones that weighed up to a ton. The pulp eventually underwent enough crushing that the precious commodity could be emptied into clay jars. The refined oil was used in cooking, anointing oil, and Temple lights.
In Isaiah 53:5 (NKJV) we read this compelling verse, “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.” Like the wooden beams holding the stones on the olive presses, our Savior Jesus bore the wooden beams of the crucifixion tree crushed under the incalculable weight of our sins." 4

Stay Here

Are you in a season of painful suffering? Perhaps your circumstances feel so calculated at times. It will often seem that there is a specific intent by a corrupt force to produce the most pain. The timing and effectiveness of the suffering these things produce for us is insidious and well planned.
In James 5:13, the word James used for trouble was “kakopathéō” It combines the use of “kakós,” which means a malicious evil flowing out of rottenness, with “pathos,” or pain.
As followers of Jesus, we experienced all-encompassing sorrow at times when we are walking in God’s will. We ourselves face the crushing weight of troubling and malicious circumstances created by an evil and malevolent enemy who wishes to destroy any hope or future we have.

For me, when pressure increases and life feels crushing, my reaction is often to long to get away. I find myself googling places in sunny, warm locations, where I can feel freedom from the responsibilities, anxieties and pressures that come along with loving. Greece sounds particularly appealing right now, as the deceptive warmth of spring sunshine in Oregon darkens to another week of snow in April!
The Word of God teaches us that pain brings the temptation to come out from under the authority of God in order to do what is more pleasant to us. We are tempted to think that we are smart enough to have a better way of accomplishing heavenly purposes. We may believe that our alternate methods are more effective.
In the story of King David, his son Absalom certainly believed this. Absalom had experienced very painful and malicious suffering as a result of his sister Tamar’s rape by their half brother. This suffering was accutely compounded by the distinct lack of justice from their father David.
Absalom believed he could do things better than his father. His misguided actions are understandable, though wrong. He staged an elaborate and extremely intelligent coup, first stealing the hearts of the people over to him. He waited outside the judgement room for those who wanted justice from the king. He asked those who came for their story, and always agreed with their perspective of the events. He said that if he was king, he would make sure they had justice. He initiated doubt in the hearts of the people over whether their king cared about their situation and would give them justice in the end.
At the height of Absalom’s military takeover, King David was exiled from Jerusalem and was fleeing with the people for his life. It was at this very place, the Mount of Olives, that King David, the father, walked up the hills, weeping as he went for the great betrayal of his son and the loss of so many lives.
It was here too that Jesus’ submission to His Father, the King of the universe, became a stunning reversal of the story of Absalom with his father, the king of Israel. (2 Samuel 15:30-31). Rather than take things into His own control, rather than build His own kingdom in His own way, Jesus stayed in the Garden at a high cost in order to bring the Kingdom of God under God’s authority.
Jesus stayed, knowing that His own betrayer would be coming quickly.

Keep Watch

When faced with his impending suffering, Jesus knew what He must do. Just as the olives are pressed three times, Jesus went three times to pray to His Father, humbling Himself to the point of death and submitting His own will to that of the will of His Father in prayer:

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus:
Who, existing in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God
something to be grasped,
but emptied Himself,
taking the form of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
He humbled Himself
and became obedient to death--
even death on a cross.
Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place
and gave Him the name above all names,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11

The only effective way to not enter into agreement and unity with the temptation we face under extreme sorrow is to first humble ourselves to acknowledge God’s sovereignty, authority and perfect plan. In that humility we then have grace cast our anxieties upon Him and to pray for His grace to help in our time of need (Heb. 4:16).
It is by faith that we can continue to thank Him for His goodness and plan. Even though we cannot see the outcome of our sorrow now, we can trust by faith that God has a resurrection waiting on the other side of the cross!
We each have our Gethsemanes. Perhaps it is serving without honor. Maybe those around you do not value your sacrifices for them. Maybe you suffer with difficult finances, and things look like they cannot be resolved. Some of us may be asked to serve with health problems, pain and disease. Perhaps our place of ministry is small, insignificant and unnoticed by others. Maybe people around you try to even punish you or increase your problems in order to pressure you to stop serving Jesus.
All the while the enemy whispers that our Father isn’t fair, doesn’t see, and won’t deal with the concerns we have. He falsely promises that if we choose our own way that we will get justice, happiness, and glory. He tries to make us believe that he has the power to give us the kingdom, when in fact that kingdom has already been won by Christ.
Jesus’ promise is something far better, and is based on reality rather than illusion. Instead of the elusive happiness of a crumbling and decaying world, there is the sure hope of eternal life with no sorrow, no pain, no death and no evil.
On the other side of the cross, there is a resurrection!
The new life that Jesus rose to is available to us in Jesus. The very will of the good Father that we submit to is the same will that desires eternal life and resurrection for us:

For my Father’s will is that everyone
who looks to the Son and believes in him
shall have eternal life,
and I will raise them up at the last day.
John 6:40

So let’s stay and keep watch, friends. There is a joy set before us! He is risen!

1Strong's Greek: 4036. περίλυπος (perilupos) -- very sad (biblehub.com)
2That the World May Know | Gethsemane and the Olive Press
3Prayer: The Garden of Gethsemane - FaithGateway
4The Perfect Lamb Crushed in Gethsemane - CBN Israel
5Strong's Greek: 2553. κακοπαθέω (kakopatheó) -- to suffer evil (biblehub.com)
6Strong's Greek: 2556. κακός (kakos) -- bad, evil (biblehub.com)

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Backward and Forward--God is Faithful!

אַֽעַלְךָ֣
’a-‘al-ḵā
Verb: Imperfect Hiphil
"I myself will continuously bring you up"

The time that the people of Israel
lived in Egypt was 430 years.
At the end of 430 years, on that very day,
all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.
It was a night of watching by the LORD,
to bring them out of the land of Egypt….
Exodus 12:40-42a

Gethsemane's Dawn

perílypos
from 4012 /perí, "encompassing" and 3077 /lýpē, "sorrow") – properly, being sorrowful "all-around," i.e. engulfed in sorrow.1

Stay Here

Keep Watch

For my Father’s will is that everyone
who looks to the Son and believes in him
shall have eternal life,
and I will raise them up at the last day.
John 6:40

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Backward and Forward--God is Faithful!

אַֽעַלְךָ֣ ’a-‘al-ḵā Verb: Imperfect Hiphil"​I myself will continuously bring you up"​

The time that the people of Israellived in Egypt was 430 years. At the end of 430 years, on that very day,​all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt. ​It was a night of watching by the LORD,to bring them out of the land of Egypt…. Exodus 12:40-42a​

Gethsemane's Dawn

perílypos ​from 4012 /perí, "encompassing" and 3077 /lýpē, "sorrow") – properly, being sorrowful "all-around," i.e. engulfed in sorrow.1​

Stay Here

Keep Watch

​For my Father’s will is that everyonewho looks to the Son and believes in himshall have eternal life,and I will raise them up at the last day.John 6:40​

Author

Archives

Categories

אַֽעַלְךָ֣
’a-‘al-ḵā
Verb: Imperfect Hiphil
"I myself will continuously bring you up"

The time that the people of Israel
lived in Egypt was 430 years.
At the end of 430 years, on that very day,
all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.
It was a night of watching by the LORD,
to bring them out of the land of Egypt….
Exodus 12:40-42a

perílypos
from 4012 /perí, "encompassing" and 3077 /lýpē, "sorrow") – properly, being sorrowful "all-around," i.e. engulfed in sorrow.1

For my Father’s will is that everyone
who looks to the Son and believes in him
shall have eternal life,
and I will raise them up at the last day.
John 6:40