Heavenly Multiplication

 

As I've been thinking about the Sunday sermon from Exodus 2, it's amazing to me the powerful intricacy with which God has orchestrated human history. It gives me immense comfort to know that nothing can thwart the sovereign plan of God to bring the God/man into the world, not even the trillions of human decisions along the way. And that God will ultimately live eternally with his redeemed mankind—not merely on a tiny patch of land that He would temporarily give to a very small people group known as Israel—but on the re-created Earth, the expanded Eden! And no longer with only the small people group of just Israel, but where there will be a magnificently multiplied amount of people (remember “70 souls went down to Egypt” becoming “600,000 men, plus women and children”, plus a mixed multitude from Egypt who were delivered from slavery there). These are all the people whom Revelation 7:9 says God the Father has chosen from among "every trible, and peoples, and languages" who will one day worship and enjoy His glorious bodily presence forever - Immanuel, God with us!

It is this "heavenly multiplication" that is God's overflowing generosity and grace and love poured out on un undeserving people which required the delivering incarnation of His Son that was promised first in Genesis 3:15: The good news that Christ would come and pass the test that Adam had failed by:

• His perfectly lived life in place or our sinfully lived one
• His substitutionary death in place of our deserved one
• His powerful resurrection bringing the power of new life metamorphosis to the hearts of sinful people, changing us from the roots of our desires all the way out
• His ascension as King of Glory because He said it was, "better that I go away and that the Holy Spirit comes" (John 16:7)
• The coming of the Holy Spirit to accomplish all that the Father and the Son has covenanted together before the foundations of the world (Eph. 1:2-11)

And now, this is the basis for our great commission from Christ to:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age

(Matt. 28:18-20).

God used faithful godly men and women who were willing to do hard things, things they had no idea would turn out as they did, just doing the next right thing, using their God-given brains and skills, and He also used sinful people who did not know or trust Him:

• The faithful midwives who spared the baby boys, living not under the fear of man but under the fear of the Lord
• Jochabed and Amram spared their son because they knew it would be wrong to kill him, and they made a water-proof basket to put him in, trusting that God was in the basket with him and would guide it to safety - not trusting in the basket but in the God who would be with their son in that basket
• Miriam stood guard, talked to Pharaoh's daughter and ran and fetched her mother
• And God even used ungodly Pharaoh's daughter, within whom He stirred up the image of God, to give her compassion on the crying baby in that basket that she found floating among the bullrushes - even though she knew this was a Hebrew baby that her Father had ordered murdered. And I also suspect she knew that Miriam was the baby's sister and that the "nurse" she went and fetched was the baby's mother. 

God is not thwarted from bringing Immanuel by evil kings or edicts, by flawed human choices, or by our sin. And God uses real people, in real situations, using their real brains and skills and choices, to bring about His eternal plans. He is also able to deliver the righteous out of trouble (Ps. 34:17). He prevents us from doing things that would hinder His eternal purposes, while also sparing and equipping us for the work He has planned from eternity past that we will do (Eph. 2:10). Moses thought he ought to kill the Egyptian who was oppressing the Hebrew slave because he did not yet have a clear picture of what deliverance of God's people was going to look like, (so in essence he was taking a dog by the ears - Prov. 26:17) but God removed him to safety using the means of Moses' choice to run away from being killed by Pharaoh. God was not thwarted by Moses marrying a Midianite woman, and preserved and trained him for the next forty years of his life in total obscurity where, rather than forgetting God, Moses grew in knowing and then trusting YHWH, the I Am eternal God, as God chose to unfold and reveal more and more of Himself to Moses about His holy nature and character and His plans to deliver a people group through whom Genesis 3:15 would be carried out. 

Hebrews 11 fills in the gaps that Exodus says little about, things like Moses chose to align himself and suffer with the people of God, rather than stay in Egypt and have temporary earthly riches, because he understood in some way that he was choosing eternal reward from God.

And when God pursues us in our uncleanness, in our murderous desires and actions (Eph. 2:1-10), and brings us into His people, we then pursue Him and cry out to the One who sympathizes with our weaknes (Heb. 4:14-16). Jesus Christ not only feels our infirmities and knows our weakness, but also has done something about our sin and infirmity and weakness by being our gospel deliverer: accomplishing eternal redemption for as many as will place faith in His name.

Jesus is now seated on a Throne, high and lifted up, and His train is filling the heavenly temple, and He has sent the Holy Spirit to live in His people until all human history is gathered in, and every last person whom God the Father has given Him has repented and believed the gospel (John 6:37). Jesus told us that it was better that He went away so the Holy Spirit could come and indwell His people here and now - the down payment of future all-emcompassing Immanuel; and we are called to be filled with that same Spirit, which means we have a choice as to how much we will depend on Him. 

So we have Scriptures that call us to pray for one another that the:

• "God of hope may fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." (Rom. 15:13); and
• "Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit." (Eph. 5:18); and
• "Walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." (Rom. 8:4); and
• "Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh." (Gal. 5:16).

This means we have human choice as to whether we will take our minds captive to obey Christ (2 Cor. 10:5), and offer our bodies as daily living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1-2) to God. We have choice as to whether we will keep in step with the Spirit and obey God, empowered with all the grace and blessing He gives us to accomplish that (Titus 2:11-14; Heb.13:20-21).

Do we truly trust the Holy Spirit of God enough to give up our own agendas and goals and plans, our schemes and desires, dying to self daily? Do we truly trust that His constraints on our lives, the "chains" that Colossians refers to, are really for our good and God's glory, and that they are all working Immanuel, God with us? The extent to which we believe and trust God is the extent to which we will love and obey and serve Him with both our hearts and bodies.

The end of the story gives us hope to continue to trust the Holy Spirit of God today:

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’

“And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ And he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.’"

It really does not get any better than this! And as we think about all the hard things in our lives today, let us be energized by God with us in the person of the Holy Spirit, and let us truly not distrust Him but depend on Him in ever-increasing ways. Let us fly to the throne of Grace today, where we may find the grace and mercy to help us in our times of need, as we take steps to work out our salvation with fear and trembling—because it is God who is at work in us both to will and to work for His good pleasure! (Phil. 2:12-13).

And let us do this together, as women who uphold one another in prayer and loving service and distinctly Christian homes and friendship, increasingly pointing one another to our Savior, Jesus Christ, first in our homes, then with our friends and family and co-workers and neighbors and the lost people in our spheres of influence. Let us be part of God's heavenly multiplication as He brings in His kingdom - I guarantee you there is not a better and more joyful way to live!