9/27 - Exodus 2:23-25 - When does the rescue begin?

²³ After a long time …

the Israelites groaned under

their slavery, and cried out …

²⁴ God heard their groaning …

²⁵ and … took notice of them.

Exodus 2

 

·         Question 1: When did God realize that Israel was bondage?

 

Answer 1: From the moment that Pharaoh placed taskmasters over them (Wait! “From that moment” was at the minimum, right?! Our all-knowing God has known such things from the beginning of creation! But let’s stick to our human timeline … When did God realize that Israel was in bondage? From the moment that Pharaoh placed taskmasters over them. That’s Question 1.

 

·         Question 2: And when did God begin to rescue them? (Again we’ll base this on our earthly timeline.)

 

Answer 2: From the moment Israel “groaned under their slavery and cried out.”

 

·         Question 3: If God’s people were oppressed and enslaved, why did God wait a couple of hundred years to rescue them?

 

Answer 3: Because God is gentleman! He generally doesn’t choose to act … until we give him our full permission.

 

Rescue, healing, and victory generally don’t begin until we come to “the end” of ourselves, and cry out, “Lord, I can’t … but you can.” And though it surely grieves the Father’s heart to watch us suffer, God-the-Gentleman, nevertheless, waits until we ask, until we cry, until we repent, until we invite him in.

 

Now, most of us like to be self-sufficient. Therefore, many of us never really allow ourselves to get to the point of humble submission. (This may be especially true of men. We were taught to pull ourselves up from our own bootstraps.) But if Step 1 in the journey to freedom is realizing that we are in bondage, then Step 2 is crying, “Lord, I can’t … but you can.” It’s calling, “God I am totally dependent on you.”

 

Will you humble yourself … and turn from your wicked ways … and pray … and seek his face? That’s what God-the-Gentleman is waiting for, saying things like, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” ^{2 Chronicles 7:14, emphasis added}

 

In Christ’s Love,

a gentleman

who needs

The Gentleman