Thoughts on Hebrews: God's Rest, Part 7

In the previous posts we have examined sin and hardening one’s heart, today I want to work through hearing as in “Today, if you hear His voice.” We’ve touched on this briefly in the last post by contrasting Adam and Peter. Both heard the voice of God with two diametrically opposed reactions to His voice.

I also talked about the goodness of God seen in the garden and on the shore of the Galilee. I would remind you that the Bible begins with Genesis 1 and 2, the goodness of God, not man’s sin. And our faith should start with God’s goodness as well.

I want to expand upon His goodness a bit by looking at “hearing.” We are going to the Exodus, but I want to first look at Ishmael because there’s hope in that story for us, and an assurance that God hears us.

You remember Ishmael. He represents the sin of presumption and an impatience with God’s timing in the fulfillment of His promises. Abraham and Sarah didn’t wait for the promise of a son to be fulfilled; and we have an echo of the garden story. Sarah suggests Hagar as the possible fulfillment of God’s promise, which seemed impossible and in any event a long time in coming—and that decision chain involving both Abraham and Sarah gave birth to Ishmael—someone who would be at odds with Isaac and his descendants. Nonetheless, God does this:

And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16 I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” And Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before you!” God said, “No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation. But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year.”

But things did not go well after Isaac was born, and Hagar and Ishmael were ultimately thrust out with Abraham giving them little for wherever they would go—some water and some bread. When they had run out and the sun had become too much, they both collapsed and Hagar stayed at some distance from her son so she did not have to watch him die. Strange choice; but this is what God does:

And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.” Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

Very interesting and very encouraging words about the character of God. Ishmael is not the child of the promise. He is not the Seed. And yet God hears both the cry of the mother and the voice of her son and God has mercy on a slave girl and her rejected child. God hears.

Fast forward to Israel in Egypt. Isaac has been born. Jacob has been blessed instead of Esau. Jacob has a complicated life, much by his own hand. His son, Joseph, is sold into slavery, and by the hand of God rises to lead Egypt through a great famine. The family of Israel, some 70 strong, come into the land under Joseph’s protection and prosper for a time. But they too become enslaved for centuries.

In Exodus 2, we read:

During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. and God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.

Then in the next chapter, when God calls Moses out of the burning bush, we read again:

Then the Lord said [to Moses], “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them . . . .”

In Chapter 6, God repeats:

God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord . . . . ”

Notice that God heard their groanings, their cries, their suffering, and responded. He called Moses, He sent Moses to Egypt, and He spoke to the people of Israel, In other words, He showed that He had heard. He in Chapter 6, God makes seven promises to Israel to deliver from slavery, to be their Deliverer, and to be a new life Giver.

So what do we have? God heard, God spoke and acted, and God promised life and freedom from Egyptian slavery and oppression. The next obvious question would be: what kind of Person is He? Will He keep His promises? Will He make good on them?

We know that He does make good. 10 plagues. The Passover. The deliverance of Israel from the Red Sea and the Egyptian army. He has heard and then drawn near—and He draws them unto Himself in the wilderness.

Would Israel hear Him? Let’s take that up in the next post.

Image courtesy of Unplash and JD Mason