Seeds of Restoration

Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.” And Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? Exodus 5:1-2Then the king of Egypt said to them, “Moses and Aaron, why do you take the people from their work? Get back to your labor.” So the same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their officers, saying, “You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves.  And you shall lay on them the quota of bricks which they made before.  You shall not reduce it.  For they are idle; therefore they cry out, saying, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God. Let more work be laid on the men, that they may labor in it, and let them not regard false words. Exodus 5:4-9 So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw. Exodus 5:12

As we continue on in the book of Exodus we now find the children of Israel living a land where the king no longer knows of Joseph or his God…the God of Israel. It is a land of many so called gods…including Pharaoh! It is a land full of trials and great oppression for God’s people. Yet, in the midst of this bondage and affliction, the children of the Living God are given instruction to keep a pilgrimage “feast” in the wilderness.  Didn’t God know the difficulties that would result from this instruction?  Couldn’t He see how Pharaoh would react…how life in
Egypt would become still more difficult for those who seek to follow the God of Abraham?

If you listen, you will hear the lives of our fathers, who lived as strangers in Egypt, echoing thru the years into our lives, as we walk thru this world. There are those today who have been given the responsibility of understanding that as the “seed of Abraham” (Galatians 3:29) as disciples of Messiah…we too have instruction to keep “feasts of the Lord” (Leviticus 23) including His 7^th day Sabbath…no matter the consequences.  Jesus said that if we love Him, we should keep His commandments.(John 14:15) In the midst of a world which for the most part no longer recognizes the God of Israel or His Torah…we are called to walk in ways which seem very foreign to most.  Is it any surprise that we should encounter some difficulties as we seek to worship our Father as He instructed? Is it any wonder that the god of this world, the system which seeks to keep us in servitude, is vehemently opposed to our being obedient to any other?  Is it any wonder that our enemy does not want us to be gathered together in worship of our Father in “spirit and in truth” but instead wants us to be scattered throughout the land…chasing after “stubble”?

The Bible teaches us that His Commandments are not burdensome. (1John 5:3)  Our sufferings come not from His instructions…but from the fallen world in which we live. Let us be encouraged as we remember how our fathers were brought out of Egypt…rescued from their bondage and redeemed with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. (Exodus 6:6) “And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out My hand on Egypt and bring out the children of Israel from among them”. Exodus 7:5

Tim’s Torah Take—Seeds of Restoration