A Bit About Idolatry

Several years ago, I tried to follow a 'read through the Bible in a year' plan. In fact, I've tried it several times. For me it was like eating a juicy piece of steak and swallowing it whole. The enjoyment of savoring its taste is in the 'chewing'. We have taste buds for that very purpose.  We need to allow our spiritual 'taste buds' to savor the words of God.

I loved 'chewing' on Genesis last year.  I learned so much about God's grace and His incredibly unmatched love for us. Genesis really lays the groundwork for the whole Bible. We not only learn about God and His dealings with people; we also learn about His competition, the devil. The devil seems to disappear after Genesis 3 following Adam and Eve accepting his suggestions. He became the god of this world. We discover in the same chapter in Genesis that because they listened to him things would not be easy. There would be 'thorns and thistles' in life as a result. The devil hides and eludes out and out exposure throughout the rest of the Old Testament to the point that people get mixed up and attribute the evil that occurred as God's doing. Lucifer was a spirit being and it takes spiritual eyes to recognize his actions.

In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. 2 Corinthians 4:4

I have stalled a little in writing about the events in Exodus involving the plagues of Egypt. I am humbled by the God/Moses connections and the great detail of deliverance that is exhibited in these pages of Exodus. There is so much in this section and I am really still 'chewing' little by little, but I am in awe about how this section is loaded with lessons of deliverance for God's people. 

In order to get the full truth of this record, it is absolutely imperative to start with an important principle of God's love:

I John 1:5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.

Physical light has wonderful lessons for us.  The fact that visible light breaks up into the colors of the rainbow is amazing! Light contains healing properties and is a disinfectant. Just google 'properties of light' and see the awesome complexity of the properties of light! The greatest thing about light is that it 'dispels darkness'. Jesus Christ is the light of the world. He was foreshadowed in Genesis 3:15. His purpose was to expose the secret ploys of the devil (I John 3:8b).

Moses was a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ. God made known His ways to Moses and the children of Israel saw His acts (Psalm 103:7). Moses was aware of the idolatry that existed. Ancient Egypt had many gods. The Nile River, because of its abundant supply to the people of Egypt, became an object of worship through a multi-god system of dependence. As the 'light' of God focused on the Nile River, it was the idolatry that was the ultimate cause of calamity. Only God could remove the calamity as was the case of the second plague when frogs (another object of idolatry) overran the area. The magicians couldn't remove the frogs, only God could and God did it!

Moses represented God because the spirit of God was upon him. The spirit of God was upon certain men and women in the Old Testament. The rest of the people could just see God's acts and learn. Moses got some great tutoring in God's ways. The 'burning bush' incident lays it all out. Today, the spirit of God is available to anyone (Romans 10:9-10). It is God who can light up the dark crevasses of idolatry and clean 'em out. Moses was the meekest man on the earth. He is a lesson for us to not allow heaviness, condemnation, hardness, guilt, feeling of unworthiness and ultimately fear to deprive us from basking in the light of a wonderful God.

Happy New Year and may it be filled with many 'burning bush' moments!