Colin Gale reflects on two “ancient, slightly weird” stories of God’s gracious provision for human life.

Give thanks
A sermon preached on Exodus 17 by Colin Gale at St Luke’s, Ramsgate, on 16 July 2023

Give thanks with a grateful heart! That is the title and first line of a simple song of thanksgiving and trust written by someone called Henry Smith in 1978, and ‘give thanks’ is the life lesson emerging out of the two ancient, and – you may think – slightly weird stories that we have heard read from Exodus chapter 17 this morning, stories from the years that Israel spent in the wilderness, having been led by Moses out of Egypt.

Memories of ‘the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites quarrelled with the LORD and where he showed himself holy among them’ (Numbers 20:13);

memories of ‘what the Amalekites did to [the people of Israel] when [they] came out of Egypt, when [they] were weary and worn out’ (Deuteronomy 25:17-18);

memories of what happened next –

these memories are all revived in the later books of the Old Testament, and the books of the New Testament as well.

These stories echo down the centuries and the millennia, and they have never been entirely forgotten. They are reminders that are still needed today, reminders to re-set our own hearts and minds away from their default setting, which is one of self-reliance, and to perform the re-set by giving thanks to God.

Let’s start with the account of the rebellion at Massah and Meribah in verses 1 to 7 of Exodus chapter 17. The people of Israel, having been led out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, are wandering in the wilderness and have no water to drink. So they quarrel with Moses, saying in verse 2, ‘Give us water to drink’, and in verse 3 ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt to make us an our children die of thirst?’ They are so desperate that Moses believes they are almost ready to stone him. The default setting of their hearts and minds is self-reliance, and self-reliance can go one of two ways: toward self-congratulation and pride, if you think you have what it takes to survive and prosper, or toward despair, if you don’t think you have what it takes. Either way, these are both expressions of self-reliance. Wandering in the wilderness, without any access to water, the people of Israel knew they did not have what they needed to survive. They were facing death by dehydration. It is no wonder that they got desperate. It was a massah, which is the Hebrew word for test, and it led to a meribah, which is the Hebrew word for quarrel.

Moses had no secret water supply of his own to offer the people, and rather than being self-reliant, he cried out to the LORD, and the LORD’s answer is given in verses 5 and 6: ‘Walk on ahead of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile – back when the river turned to blood, in the first plague – and go. I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.’

If we try to read this as a description of water divining, or if we look for “modern parallels of water breaking through the crust of rock in the desert”, we will miss the “whole point of the story”, which is “the gracious and surprising provision of God who provided water for his people when none was available”.1 If the discovery of water in the desert was purely accidental, or if it were the result of the resourcefulness of Moses or the people of Israel, this would be a story about the role that either chance or human ingenuity plays in life. But in the way it is told, it is clearly a story about the provision God makes, seemingly against all the odds, to preserve human life, and the life lesson for us is to ‘give thanks with a grateful heart’, give thanks to the one who has shown himself to be holy among his people.

The fact that the Earth is just close enough to the Sun, and also just far enough away from the Sun, for the sustenance of human life is just as miraculous as the waters of Meribah. The fact that water and a non-poisonous, breathable atmosphere clings to the Earth in a way unlike any other known planet is just as miraculous as the waters of Meribah. We are the beneficiaries of these and many other things essential for human life, in the same way as the people of Israel were the beneficiaries of the water provided by God in the desert. These are conditions necessary for human life, which humanity has itself done nothing to bring about. So the only rational response is not self-congratulation on the one hand, as if you have yourself to thank for your continued existence, or despair on the other, as if you think you don’t have what you need to survive. The only rational response is gratitude. ‘Give thanks with a grateful heart, give thanks to the Holy One’.

This episode takes place near the beginning of Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness, and there is a very similar episode recorded near the end of their wanderings in Numbers chapter 20. These stories at the beginning and end are a way of indicating the obvious point that the people of Israel would have needed water supplies from the beginning right through to the end.

In the New Testament, in I Corinthians 10, the apostle Paul tells us that they had continuous access to water and their lives were preserved through a spiritual rock, and ‘that rock was Christ’ (I Cor 10:4). I suppose this saying would surprise anyone who has read the Old Testament but not the New Testament. How can Paul possibly identify the rock, from which water flowed, and which sustained the lives of the people of Israel in the desert, with Christ? From the perspective of the Old Testament, this is not an obvious identification, but from the perspective of the New Testament, it makes perfect sense. “A good story is one in which events occur unexpectedly but on account of each other, so that before each decisive event we cannot predict it, but afterwards we can see it was just what had to happen”.2

The New Testament insight, the thing that would have been impossible to predict beforehand but is obvious in retrospect, is that the spiritual rock from which they drank, and which kept them alive, was Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ was himself with God, and was God, from the very beginning. Everything they needed to live ultimately came from him, whether they knew it or not: ‘that rock was Christ’. Likewise, everything we need to live ultimately comes from him, whether we know it or not. The decisive events of Jesus’ death and resurrection set his people free from sin, and made it possible for us to know him. It is good to know him, and to give praise where praise is due, not to our own selves in misguided self-reliance, but to him, and in reliance on him. That is why our prayers are made ‘through Jesus Christ our Lord’. ‘Give thanks with a grateful heart, give thanks to the Holy One, give thanks because he’s given Jesus Christ, his Son’. That is the test, and that is the life lesson of the waters of Meribah.

Let’s look now at the second story in Exodus chapter 17, the account of the defeat of the Amalekites in verses 8 through to 16. The life lesson we will find in this second story may be summed up in the words: ‘And now let the weak say “I am strong”, let the poor say “I am rich”, because of what the LORD has done for us’.

This is how the story goes. The Amalekites launch an unprovoked attack on the people of Israel, who are wandering the desert at this time, without a home and highly vulnerable not only to attack but to actual annihilation. The struggle they are thrown into is one for their own survival. Joshua led the troops, and “Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill” overlooking the battlefield. What happened next was nothing short of miraculous, as recorded in verses 11 to 13. “As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up – one on one side, one on the other – so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.”

If we treat this as a reminder of the importance of prayer, or of lifting our hands in worship, or of anything else we contribute to the equation, in times of testing and trial, we will miss the whole point of this story. The point of the story is the contribution God makes to the equation in times of testing and trial. If the victory won over the Amalekites was the result of chance, or the power and skill of Joshua’s fighting force, then this would be a story about the part played by happenstance or human agency in life. But in the way it is told, this is clearly a story about God’s agency, not about human self-reliance. There is no suggestion that the fighters look up and are encouraged to fight harder by the sight of the uplifted arms of Moses, and are then discouraged by the sight of his hands being lowered, and so on through the day. Something totally inexplicable within a purely human frame of reference is spoken of here, just as it was in the previous story about water gushing from a rock. This is not a story about human capacity, but about the capacity of God. ‘Now let the weak say “I am strong”, let the poor say “I am rich”, because of what the LORD has done for us’.

Subsequent references to the Amalekites in the Old Testament, such as we find in Deuteronomy chapter 25, record the generational conflict that prevailed between Israel and Amalek as a result of this first unprovoked attack. However, the subsequent decisive events of the cross and resurrection of Jesus make it possible for us to see in retrospect that the promises of blessing first made to Israel have been extended to Amalek, along with all the people of the earth. We can now see clearly that there need not be any more war between nations. The fact that wars continue is an indictment on the human race. But the strength that was once needed on the battlefield, and which God then miraculously provided on the battlefield, is now required to live the Christian life, and it is given to us by God so as to live the Christian life. The author of Hebrews chapter 12 verses 12 to 14 probably had this chapter of Exodus in mind in writing: ‘Lift up the hands that hang down, strengthen your weak knees, make level paths for your feet, and make every effort to live in peace with all and to be holy’.

You have probably heard the saying that ‘God helps those who help themselves’. But according to these two stories in Exodus chapter 17, ‘God saves those who cannot save themselves’. That is the life lesson for us today: let us re-set our hearts and minds away from their default setting of self-reliance. Let us give thanks with a grateful heart, knowing that we rely on him.

This is not an excuse for doing nothing at all. An old preacher once wrote: “In vain shall Moses be upon the hill with his hands held high, if Joshua be not in the valley doing the fighting”.3 Spiritual food and drink have to be sought. The Christian life has to be lived. It is not an excuse to do nothing at all. It is instead a re-orientation of our trust, away from us and towards the LORD. Self-reliance leads inevitably to pride when we think we’re doing well, and despair when we think we’re doing badly. Renewed, re-set reliance on the LORD leads to gratitude and thankfulness for his work in our lives. Gratitude and thankfulness nourish our Christian lives from the start, through the middle and to the very end.

I do not presume to know what this looks like in anyone’s life in particular, but I can tell you the story of Henry Smith, who wrote the song ‘Give thanks with a grateful heart’, alongside 300 other Christian songs in his life, none of which were published, apart from ‘Give thanks’, and at first ‘Give thanks’was published without any acknowledgement of his authorship or royalty payments. Henry went to university after school, so to that extent he was privileged, but after his graduation, he struggled to find gainful and meaningful employment, and during this struggle he was diagnosed with a degenerative eye condition with eventually left him legally blind. In short, Henry Smith had many reasons he could call upon, if he wanted to, to complain, to be discouraged, and to despair. No doubt, his default expectation starting out was of a bright future, but his life did not pan out the way he had expected or had hoped.

Yet without these challenges, we would not have had his song. Without these challenges, perhaps Henry Smith may not have been able to distinguish between living a life of gratitude to God for his goodness and grace in Jesus Christ, between that and living a life of privilege, opportunity and comfort.

I’ll stop there with the story of Henry Smith, because I don’t know any more about him, but I can relate to this desire for a life of comfort and smooth sailing. There are only two problems with this desire:

The first problem is that we can learn little or nothing about ourselves, or about God, from a life of uninterrupted smooth sailing. In that state, we may find it difficult to tell the difference between self-reliance and trust in God.

The second problem is that none of us actually experience lives free of set-back, disappointment, grief and heartbreak. We have never been promised such a life, and in practice we can never live such a life.

And these problems are actually blessings, because thankfully, the LORD knows what is good for us, just as he knew what was good for the people of Israel, whom he led into the desert where they were vulnerable to thirst and to attack. Let us learn to trust the LORD in the wilderness. It is right to give him thanks and praise.

This might not be a question you’ve ever asked yourself, but we don’t have to look far in the news or on social media to see examples of dissatisfaction.

These are some headlines from the last year that all have dissatisfaction in the title: public satisfaction with NHS hits All Time Low, with dissatisfaction doubling in two years survey, says. Dissatisfaction with democracy at record high. Nurses strikes show staff dissatisfaction. British social attitudes survey reveals record level of dissatisfaction with social care services.

I wonder if you can think of any other headlines or circumstances that might indicate some dissatisfaction in the world around us. I wonder what comes to mind when we think of our own lives, are there things that we’re dissatisfied with?

When I looked up the dictionary definition of dissatisfaction – the entry says: lack of satisfaction. Which isn’t very helpful although it does come With a sentence example of:

“widespread public dissatisfaction with incumbent politicians”

If we look at The dictionary definition then of Satisfaction it is described as the fulfilment of one’s wishes, expectations, or needs, or the pleasure derived from this.

Therefore dissatisfaction is when one’s wishes, expectations or needs are not met, and there is no pleasure gained from this.

Until I was preparing for this time, and I didn’t realise that actually dissatisfaction or rather Satisfaction can be measured.

There exists in the world, a world happiness report. Apparently these have been published for the last 10 years. United Nations General assembly adopted the observation of March 20 as an international day of happiness, and since then, apparently more and more people have come to believe that the success of countries should be judged by the happiness of the people.

According to statistics of the most recent report

Finland is the No. 1 happiest country in the world for the sixth year in a row. The UK is not in the top 10 of the happiest countries in the world. It does, however, appear in the top 20 – this year, it is the 19th happiest country in the world, following behind Australia (12th), Canada (13th), Ireland (14th), and the United States (15th).

The report is produced using six factors social support, income, health, freedom, generosity, and absence of corruption and the figure is calculated and it is d we termites if you are a happy successful country or not

A Positive response to Dissatisfaction often drives people to make changes: change job, move country, seek new relationships, join a gym, lose weight, start a new hobby.

A positive response to dissatisfaction is when people own it and make changes.

A negative response to dissatisfaction is when grumbling and complaining reigns. Dissatisfaction is recognised and voiced but voiced in a way of complaint, and doesn’t involve taking ownership of that dissatisfaction.

Hebrew people were dissatisfied

This is definitely the case in Our reading from Exodus today. The Hebrew people are utterly dissatisfied with their lot. And are grumbling away.

They’ve escaped from slavery in Egypt in a pretty fantastic and unforgettable way, but its not long before the grumbling starts and they’ve appeared to forgotten what their life was like before.

They complain to their leaders, to Moses and Aaron, for having led them out into the desert. They can’t see beyond their immediate situation and seem to have forgotten who is really in charge.

In v3 they say if only we died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt there we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time he’s right side complained to Moses, and it was in the last in Exodus 15 verse 24, we read the bush people grumbled against Moses, saying what are we to drink. The Israelites had come out of slavery in Egypt through the red Sea they saw God at work. They put their trust in Henry’s in verse 31 of chapter 14 and chapter 15 starts with this amazing song of praise, and then they start out from the other side of the red Sea going into the desert of shur. I’ve been going three days there isn’t water around. Then they find some water but it’s better and so they cry out this complaint.

For God intervenes, he tells Moses how to make the water become fit to drink

Then, as they carry on the journey, they come to a place where there’s 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees, so there is shade and shelter and water being provided and then one verse later we get to grumbling again

If only we died in by the Lord’s hand in Egypt (16:3)

Had they really forgotten?

Sadly, the Israelites grumbling didn’t stop after chapter 16. In Exodus 17 they’ve travelled on again and are once again in a place with no water and in v3 they complain to Moses why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?

Before, God provided water for them, and he does again, and yet still they don’t seem to get it, that God is on their side. Their dissatisfaction turns to grumbling.

Response to their grumbling

I would’ve been tempted to go hello! Red Sea! walls of water on either side! Walked through on dry ground. Hello!!

Moses however responded differently. He didn’t take their criticism Personally, he recognised it for what it was. In v7, he says, who are we that you should grumble against us? And in v8, who are we? you are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.

Gods response is to use it as an opportunity to further show the Israelites who he is, what he means to them and what he does for them.

Firstly, he use it as an opportunity to provide food for them, v4 we read I will rain down bread from heaven for you, in v12 it says at Twilight, she will eat meat and in the morning you will be filled with bread and v13: that evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning, there was a layer of dew around the camp. This dew was bread from heaven. Described as white flakes and it’s called manna because translated manna means what is it? God provided for their physical needs.

I think also in this passage she provides for the spiritual and emotional needs to, he provides them with a pattern of rest. In this passage, it’s quite subtle, but if we read v5 it says on the six day, they are to prepare what they bringing, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days. This was because the seventh day would be the sabbath and say God is providing enough food on the sixth day to last through to the seventh.

Finally, God’s response to their grumbling is to be present with them. We read in v10 ‘ they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the Lord, appearing in the cloud.’ God made his presence known to his people. Later on in the book of exodus, we see that go appears to them in the clouds during the day, and in a pillar of fire at night as they walked through the wilderness. When God instructs his people to build a tabernacle, a place of worship, there is a place within that where his presence is to dwell – in the ark of the covenant. Later on in their history in the temple Gods presence is there. When they’re instructed to build a temple, there is a special place, the holy of holies, where gods presence was to dwell. We as Christians in the 21st-century enjoy God’s presence within our hearts through the power of his Holy Spirit. Gods desire is to be with his people to be present with them. It was the same back in the garden of Eden when we read that God walked in the cool of the day, looking for Adam. God continues to desire to be present with his people today.

Why does God respond in the way he does to their dissatisfaction and grumbling? I think he does it to see them obedience to see if they will follow him and trust in him. I think he does it to show that he listens. There is many repetitions of the phrase and God heard their grumbling throughout this passage. He did it to show that he acts that he has God, that he longed to be present with them, because of his love for them as his special chosen people, and he did it because he is God is the I am who is the same yesterday today and forever he was an is an is to come, and he wanted the Israelites to know that more and more.

God has saved them from slavery for freedom, and I wonder if part of their satisfaction because their expectations were very different from God’s intentions. I wonder if they expected to just be picked out of Egypt and put directly into the promised stand. This was not the case there was a journey for them to go on that journey gave them opportunity to know God better.

Their Dissatisfaction may have come from not fully knowing who God really was, from not realising his love for them, and that he would and could provide for all of their needs. Maybe they didn’t fully understand the need to follow, obey, trust.

God promises to provide for his people’s needs

In this account in Exodus God is listening to his people he’s continuing to reveal himself to them and he provides for their needs. God bring satisfaction to his people they just had to trust scripture is full of examples of this truth that God would provide for all his peoples needs.

This morning our opening verse was from Isaiah 58:11 – the Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a son, scorch land, and will strengthen your frame. You’ll be like a well watered garden, like a spring, whose waters never fail. What a beautiful image, an image of flourishing. In psalm 23 we read the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. Again, an image of God, being a guide, a protector, providing for all his children’s needs, and in the new Testament book of Matthew, Jesus says these words in the sermon on the mount. ‘ Therefore do not worry saying ‘what shall we eat?, or ‘what shall we drink?’ or ‘what shall we wear for?’ After all these things the Gentiles seek. for your heavenly father knows that you need all these things, but seek first, the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

God will provide for everything we need if we put him first, and keep her eyes fixed on, following him and obeying his will for our lives.

I think dissatisfaction comes about when our wants are in a opposition to our needs. Or they overtake our needs. A few years ago I went through a period of dissatisfaction. I’ve been lucky to know God most of my life. I’ve never not consciously known what Jesus has done for me another, I said a prayer of Faith at the age of nine I’d known the reality of Jesus is Love for me before then. faith is a journey. I’ve been on an amazing faith journey , the last 40 years. But I was feeling dissatisfied. I was looking at people around me and seeing the married and with families. My want was making me dissatisfied. However, God knows what I need and right now I’m really content with my life. God has always given me what I need. I needed to be single and without family ties to be able to care for my mum. moving here. I think it’s been made easier not having a family. I felt extremely blessed being brought here to Ramsgate. I know that everything in my past has brought me to this point I am truly satisfied. I know that Jesus is the way the truth and the life is the person that I wanna fix my eyes on.

Jesus says that he is the bread of life anyone who comes to him, will never be hungry. Anyone who comes to him, will never be thirsty. In a Bible, reading manna was the bread of Heaven. Jesus is the tree bread from heaven who brings full satisfaction. Life isn’t easy, but when we do become dissatisfied, let’s look at those reasons. And maybe see if something is out of balance.

Jesus promises life in abundance: life, fully satisfied. So are you satisfied?

Maybe you don’t know the joy of Jesus being your guide maybe we just need more reminders of his provision, sharing those truths with each other sharing our stories. God is the I am he is the same yesterday today and forever. He doesn’t change and will never change so let’s keep trusting that he will provide for all of our needs for now and always Amen

Interpreting Bible stories can be challenging. The author simply tells the story and doesn’t tell you what its relevance might be for future generations. The crossing of the Red Sea was an unforgettable event for those who were there, but what might it be saying to us?

The Bible has played a huge part in the evolution of our culture and language. Back in the 1950s, when the New English Bible translation was being put together, one of the editors wanted to give a more contemporary feel to the story of the prodigal son, and in particular the meal to celebrate the son’s homecoming. So he asked a firm of butchers how they would describe such a momentous feast. Oh, that’s easy, they said, we call it killing the fatted calf! Isn’t it funny how we have so many Biblical expressions embedded in our vocabulary:
at the eleventh hour, from Jesus’ story of the labourers in the vineyard
Jesus’ own words … casting your pearls before swine
eat, drink and be merry can be found in Ecclesiastes, Luke & Corinthians
a leopard cannot change his spots, said the prophet Jeremiah
Isaiah used the phrase like a lamb to the slaughter
And Belshazzar’s feast in Daniel 5 introduced the writing’s on the wall

But our society also has deeply embedded Biblical narratives and values that we jettison at our peril. The story of the Exodus and the crossing of the Red Sea is just one of those …
• Non-conformist English Christians who fled persecution and discrimination and settled in America for a better life used it of their experience – Benjamin Franklin initially recommended that the Great Seal of the USA carry a depiction of Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea.
• African Americans who had suffered years of slavery and oppression interpreted their aspirations in the language of the Exodus. For example, on the night of his assassination, Martin Luther King pictured himself with Moses on Mount Nebo looking down on the Promised Land … I may not get there with you, he said, but I want you to know that I’ve seen the promised land.
• And then there’s the 20th Century South American Liberation Theology movement, unfamiliar to many of us European Protestants, but where exploited people consciously identified with the oppression of God’s people in Egypt.

The specific story of the Red Sea crossing is very familiar. Those of us who are a bit older will remember Cecil B de Mille’s film The Ten Commandments, with Charlton Heston in the starring role. Others may only be familiar with Disney’s The Prince of Egypt. That moment in both films of Moses holding out his staff and the waters dividing isn’t quite what it says in Exodus 14:21. In the actual text you have a strong wind that blows all night, pushing the flow of the water back and yet somehow reconfiguring it so that there is a wall of water on both sides when they cross. It’s quite hard to picture exactly how that happened with the wind in only one direction, but whatever the fine detail, that moment of crossing marked a change of identity for the Israelites – on the one hand they were leaving slavery in Egypt behind them, and on the other they were about to become God’s covenant people, His light to the nations.

To put it another way, the Red Sea pointed backwards to what the people had been saved from and forwards to what they had been saved for. And when the people of God, whether Jews or Christians, use the word “salvation”, we must all think in terms of both those things … what we’re saved from and what we’re saved for. Many of us grew up thinking that salvation is just about praying the sinner’s prayer so that we don’t go to hell – salvation through fear as you might say. It never occurred to me that I had been saved for something!

In 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, the NT makes a very clear link between, on the one hand, that historic Old Testament story of deliverance and, on the other, Christian salvation which is symbolised in baptism: For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptised into Moses in the cloud and the sea. Now, of course, they weren’t exactly baptised in the Red Sea because they didn’t get wet, so you have to be careful how you handle metaphors, but you can see the parallel – that moment of crossing over from one reality to another. In Baptist churches, where I ministered for many years, we immerse people, so that the water not only symbolises being washed clean, but also the rather startling concept of drowning – we die to the old life and embrace a new one with Christ.

1 Corinthians 10 is an interesting chapter because Paul points out that, although God’s people witnessed the plagues and then this extraordinary miracle where the sea turned to dry land, they still fell back into disobedience. Moses held up the tablets with the 10 commandments and asked the people Will you promise to follow God’s ways, and the people said Yes, but then they didn’t. They were sexually immoral, they grumbled, they were untrusting and they tested God’s patience repeatedly. The golden calf is the best known story from that period, but there were plenty of others. And, as a result, only two of that generation that crossed the Red Sea got to enter the Promised Land – Caleb and Joshua. The rest died in the wilderness because of their disobedience. There’s a saying that it was easier to get the Israelites out of Egypt than it was to get Egypt out of the Israelites!! And we who profess to be Christians, we also experience that struggle within us between the old and the new. For years I misunderstood communion – I thought it was a Passover meal, just looking back to what we have been saved from, but Jesus took a cup and quoted Moses’ words from the foot of Mount Sinai, weeks after they had crossed the Red Sea – This is the blood of the covenant. That communion meal looks back and it looks forward to what we have been saved for!

It’s interesting. People sometimes say: If I were to be given a miracle I would believe. Well, the Israelites witnessed all those extraordinary miracles. God’s intervention on their behalf was both dramatic and undeniable, whether it was the plagues in Egypt, or the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, or the Red Sea, or the manna and the quails, or the water from the rock – and yet they still rebelled. They showed little resolve when it came to that other part of salvation – what they were saved for. And in 1 Corinthians 10 Paul warns the believers in the city of Corinth to resist the lure of idolatry, because temptation is no less real for us New Testament believers and no less hard to resist. We are called to live distinctive and pure lives, and despite experiencing God’s intervention, we are all prone to slip back. Those who read the Christian Press will know that some very high profile leaders have been forced to resign in recent times. We’re all vulnerable and we need to take care how we live.

We often pray a version of the General Confession in church. It’s a prayer seeking both forgiveness for the sins of the past and power to live faithfully in the future. The prayer encourages us to examine ourselves. Those innermost thoughts that are best kept secret, the way we sometimes speak carelessly or even maliciously, not to mention our tendency to live indulgently rather than sacrificially:
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we have sinned against You and against our neighbours in thought and word and deed, through negligence, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault. We are truly sorry and repent of all our sins. For the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ, who died for us, forgive us all that is past and grant that we may serve You in newness of life to the glory of Your name.

Now in particular, Paul talks about meat that has been offered to idols (1 Corinthians 10:23-33). On the one hand, the idols are not real and the meat is no different after it has been sacrificed, but if by eating it you give someone the impression that sacrificing to idols is okay, then, says Paul, don’t eat it. Think through the optics, how other people see the way you live, and show some self-restraint.

We’ve had a lot of talk about optics recently, what Christians used to call ‘avoiding all appearance of evil’. Whatever the truth around Boris Johnson and Partygate, the optics always looked dodgy. The CEO of Thames Water has just resigned. Apparently, she was aware of the optics, so she turned down this year’s bonus of half-a-million, although she did so at the end of a year in which the company has been routinely dumping sewage in its rivers, and she, at the same time, had been accumulating £1.5million in earnings!

Anyway, if you want to summarise all this in a word it’s holiness! In the words of J.B. Phillips, not letting the world around you squeeze you into its own mould. Now that’s not a particularly appealing idea these days. We prefer to pursue happiness. We would rather be happy than holy. But here’s the thing. Jesus’ death saves us from judgment, but it also saves us for holiness. Hence that verse that we began with, about being created in Christ for good works. You are God’s advert to the world of how He wants the human race to live, so live carefully and live faithfully.

When I was growing up back in 1960s and 70s, there was huge interest in the Second Coming of Christ. Apparently, that interest was just as big in the 1800s! People talked endlessly about the rapture and the tribulation and the Anti-Christ and Armageddon. Some Christians writers began to produce Biblical ‘horoscopes’, reading the signs of the times, and encouraging Jews around the world to return to their homeland and rebuild the temple so that all the conditions for Jesus’ return could be fulfilled. The American Tim LaHaye wrote a thriller called Left Behind which sold 70million copies and spawned a film with Nicholas Cage 10 years ago. Once you dip into it, it gets very complicated, but apparently you can’t stop these events happening anyway, so the big question is: In the light of all this, how should I live my life?

One Christian from a few generations back, a man called Harold St. John, bypassed all the speculation and simply remembered what he had been saved for. And so each morning he would pull the bedroom curtains and say: It could be today. And each evening he would draw the curtains with the words: It could be tonight. And in the intervening hours he simply sought to live like Jesus.

The first bishop of Liverpool, J. C. Ryle, used to regularly ordain new priests within the Church of England. On the evening before their commissioning, he would go through the running order and seating arrangements with the ordinands, but then on each occasion he would say this: Tomorrow you will be invited to make vows as you embark on your ministries, and I will repeatedly ask you this question: Will you? But there will come a day at the close of your ministries and your lives, when you will stand before Jesus and He will ask you this question: Did you?

So may we all remember the purpose for which we have been saved, and may we pursue faithful and holy lives, and may our endeavours always be in grateful response to the One who sacrificed everything for us.