Israel Defeats Amalek

 Exodus 17:8-16

September 10, 2024

Israel Defeats Amalek

Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim.  So, Moses said to Joshua, “Choose for us men, and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.”  So, Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.  Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed.  But Moses' hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So, his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.  And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.”  And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, The Lord Is My Banner, saying, “A hand upon the throne of the Lord! The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, ^“Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil.  For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!  Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone?  And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

 

AI Overview

The Bible verse "a cord of three strands is not quickly broken" appears in Ecclesiastes 4:12. The verse can be interpreted in a few ways: 

 

·      Strength in numbers: Three people are stronger together than an individuals. 

 

·      Defense: Two people can stand back-to-back to defend each other. 

 

·      Unity: God's people are stronger together than they are as individuals. 

 

·      Need for each other: People need each other.

As I read this account of Moses, the verses from Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 came into my mind, God could have given Moses Victory by holding his hands up, but instead, God wants to show us how much better we are when we work together.  “Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!  Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone?  And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

But as I began to look, there was a lot of Bible instruction on coming alongside another person to help or encourage.  “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds,  not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”(Hebrews 10:24-25)

I was sure glad that God did this; I do not want to think about my life without Jan; Genesis 2:18, “The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”  So many verses, what if the follower of Christ obeys this verse in Philippians 2:3-4, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

         From the Back Porch,

         Bob Rice

Water from the Rock

 

Exodus 17:1-7

September 9, 2024

 Water from the Rock

All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.  Therefore, the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?”  But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”  So, Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”  And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.  Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel.  And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?

Several Scriptures tell us 600,000 plus Israelite men crossed the Red Sea out of Egypt, and this is what “Got Questions” had to say on the subject.  “This phrasing is traditionally interpreted to mean just over 600,000 adult men, implying a total population about four times that size, or 2.4 million.”  And you have a small group of 1200 that shows up on Sunday, and they grumble, and by doing so, you wonder why God has put this burden on you?  I bet they have not planned a stoning party for you.

Clearly, they had a trust problem, and its focus was Moses, but it was God they refused to trust.  Moses is just like a pastor who knows he is not a hired hand, and his only Master is God, not a bunch of adults acting more like two-year-olds who have ears that cannot hear and eyes that cannot see what the Spirit is doing.  That was the problem for Moses and Aaron, and not one thing has changed.  The culture of today is very different than then, but the hearts of people have not changed. As I stated in an earlier paper, I fight my desire to grumble; it is clear that we do not want God or man to mess with our plans.  

Now here is the problem, God loves you too much, not to mess with your plans, His plan for your life is not about you but Him.  He, the Truth, He is Love, and He is the one who saw you before you were and numbered your day.  Why then would you want to follow the folly of a culture that is built on lies and deception?  Jesus had this to say to us in John 14:6: “Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Any other claim is a lie, for Truth has spoken.  

Note: From Bob, Following Jesus is not easy. You will find that often those you love reject you, and often they call you names like a religious person, and that is one of the nicer ones.  I have found that the enemy of my soul brings up, even from childhood, my many sins.  He loves me to confess things about my person that are not true, like I am dumb, and when that does not work, he tells me I’m too smart to buy into the Truth in the Scriptures.  His favorite is that you deserve, and when that does not work, he talks about your little worth, but he is a liar and the Father of lies.  So, I’ve learned, when I heard those messages, to run to Jesus, for it is not from Him, and I am redeemed, and God has stated that He does not remember the sins of His saints that are confessed.  So that only leaves one source, the devil and his demons.

From our Back Porch,

Bob Rice

God's Faithfulness

 

 

Exodus 16:13-36

September 8, 2024

 

In the evening, quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning, dew lay around the camp.  And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground.  When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.  This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer, according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.’”  And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less.  But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat.  And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.”  But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them.  Morning by morning, they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted.

On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses,  he said to them, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.’”  So, they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it.  Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field.  Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none.”

On the seventh day, some of the people went out to gather, but they found none.  And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?  See! The Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore, on the sixth day, he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.”  So, the people rested on the seventh day.

Now the house of Israel called its name manna. It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.  Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’” And Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the Lord to be kept throughout your generations.”  As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the testimony to be kept.  The people of Israel ate the manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan.  (An omer is the tenth part of an ephah.)

I had no understanding of Omer, but the Lord commanded them to gather as much as each person needed to eat.  I read two sources that say it would be about two quarts per individual.  When I was young, we had, I believe, what was called the blue law, that stores were not open, and those that were could not open till 1:00 pm.  No adult beverages were sold on Sunday, and many other things.  

It was designed to get people to attend Church, to have a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord.  One big problem, it is not their present God, it is their heart.  Today, Sunday, is not even a day of rest; it is just one more day of the week.  For many years, Sunday was the day we attended our local church, but after Church services, I came home and did whatever was needed, mowed the lawn, washed the car, and I was acting like my neighbors who never attended Church but for weddings and funerals.   The bad thing about sharing a conviction is that God convicted me that I was not having a day of solemn rest, and that it was a bad testimony to my neighbors.  If He has not told you to do so, then go about your Sunday as you have been doing.  

Many of the things God gave Israel as commands were to help them. God, being all-knowing, knew we needed a day to rest; many of the problems in our health are that people are not getting the rest they need.  When it comes to your Spirit, it needs to be able to sit in a quiet room and seek the Lord for counsel on many things that have us all worried and unsettled.

For forty years, the people of Israel wandered around in the wilderness because of unbelief.  Your life may seem as if you can’t get to a place of contentment and peace. Could it be that you are not ready to trust God with your life? You do not have to stay there; just ask Jesus to take over. He is waiting for you to seek Him, listen, and do as He guides you out of the wilderness.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Bread from Heaven

 

 Exodus 16:1-12 

September 7, 2024

 

Bread from Heaven

They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt.  And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness,  and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.  On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.”  So, Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, “At evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt,  and in the morning, you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord. For what are we, that you grumble against us? “And Moses said, “When the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full because the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him—what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord.”

Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, ‘Come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.’”  And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.  And the Lord said to Moses,  “I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, ‘At twilight, you shall eat meat, and in the morning, you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’”

 

This was very convicting and easy for the writer to apply to his life, and, to be honest, you also are a grumbler.  I’m going to list some of the things I’ve grumbled about when traffic seems to be going 20 miles under the speed limit, when people run red lights, do not seem to know how to turn, and sit waiting for the light to change.  Are sit at a red light when it changes because they are on a cell phone.  You may do some of that also; we as a people want things to go according to our plan.  We grumble at church when the lights are so low you cannot see the print on your Bible, or the lights are so low, but the stage is fully lit, more like a concert than worship.  What about when one of you has a memory issue, and things get hard for you, spending a lot of time looking for things put in the worry place?  And I’m sure you never gripe about those public servants, who are a lot like us, who forget that they were sent to represent us, the people, and whose focus is on more power and wealth.  

It was easy for me to hear God speaking to me in this, my wilderness is very different than the people of Israel, they were three days without water, and then it was bitter, and it had been a good while and they wanted meat to eat, and bread, do they cry out to God who they worshiping after seeing what He did to the army of Egypt, no they grumbled against Moses and Aaron.   But Moses made it clear, and the same is true today, it is God we are grumbling against, not the men who lead us.  

 

From our Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Perils of Power

 

 

The following is a paper I wrote back in 2010, once again it time I should be a sleep, at 1:30 I had a coughing attack and was not able to sleep.  Before going to bed, I ran across a paper I had written in 2010, nothing has changed.  I’ve come to this conclusion, when we the family of God humble ourselves and pray and seek God’s face, God will heal our land. 

 

Good morning, it began with someone calling the house at 5:50 a.m. and no answer when I awoke from a deep sleep.  It has been very windy so far but the sun is breaking through the clouds and I’ve been reading on page 1427 of (The Complete Works of O.C.) title Perils of Power.  This thought came to mind; the perils of power are taking place in our Congress?  Jan and I were having a discussion on this and she thought not, because many of them are not Christian, but as Oswald states, it is God who places a person in a position of honor, as he did Pharaoh.  King Nebuchadnezzar, came into my mind and how God gave him great power till the terrible peril of pride entered his heart, and God hardened his heart and only after seven years of eating grass did God extend grace and bring him back to rule.  It was at this point, we see a man who understood that his power was a gift, and that the God who gave the gift, was more than able to remove it at His will.  

 

Chambers used this line, “The inevitable result of sin is to destroy the power of knowing it is sin.”  That quote reminded me of what Pastor Joe, the missionary told me as a young Christian, “Sin is akin to darkness, at first it is so dark, but the longer you stay in the darkness your eyes adjust, and before long it is not dark.”  Is that what has happened to the Congress, do they not even know that they are sinning; when they, lie, steal, and break the public trust with the very people who sent them to Congress to represent them?

 

Just Pondering,

 

Bob

 

If you do not have the book “The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers” I am adding the article.

 

Perils of Power (Jeremiah 23:1-3; Luke 22:24-27)

 

Temporal power is merely the manifestation of a Divine purpose, leaving ample room for the prostitution of that power.  “But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”  When once a man is placed in a position of honor under God’s providence and does not maintain a right relationship to God, the very position in which God has put him will harden him against God.  Power we must have, whether we like it or not, but power is a terrible peril unless it is rooted in God’s grace.

 

Bear in mind the distinction between the results of sin and punishment for sin.  Verse 2 refers to the latter – “… behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the Lord.”  The inevitable result of sin is to destroy the power of knowing it is sin.  The punishment of sin is that God banishes the sinner from His presence.  What is being forgotten today is that there is no punishment – “This is simply the result of having made a mistake.”  The suffering that comes to the children of bad people is the inevitable result of sin, not its punishment; punishment is meted out here or hereafter to the parents who may never suffer in this present life.  In this case, God interfered with the punishment because they were His people.

 

“Ye have scattered My flock, and driven them away…” Beware of the possibility of being confronted by God at some time with the lives you have caused to be driven out.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice

http://fromourbackporch.blogspot.com/

Bitter Water Made Sweet

 

 

Exodus 15;​ 22-27

September 6, 2024

 

Bitter Water Made Sweet

Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur.  They went three days in the wilderness and found no water.  When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore, it was named Marah.  And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?”  And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.

There the Lord^] made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them,  saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.”

 Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.

Three days and found no water, can you put yourself in their shoe? They had just seen God destroy the army of Egypt, and let them walk across the Red Sea on dry ground, and after three days without finding water, they had forgotten how big their God is.  And they come to Marah, and the water is bitter, and they are really upset with Moses.  You ask any pastor who has been given a task by God, and it, so to speak, hits that bitter water point, and you are going to have a lot of backseat quarterbacks.  

I was going to ask if God has changed, but you know He changes not.  And the more I read, we humans are not any different than our Jewish friends; we have short memories.  This was the requirement for them, and it is my belief it is still for those who are followers of Jesus. “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.”  IF that is a two-letter word, and it is repeated in 2 Chronicles 7:14, “ If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”  IF, and that applies to you and me, until we learn to listen to the voice of our Lord and do what is right in His eyes and keep His commandments and all of His statutes, this nation we care about will not be healed.  Let me quote a man I had great respect for: “You can’t; He never said you could; He can, and He promised He would.”  It's all about whether you are willing to ask the Holy Spirit to give you ears to hear and eyes to see, and follow Jesus, not the culture or anything else.  

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

The Song of Moses

 

​                                                         

Exodus 15:1-21

September 5, 2024

​                                                         

Exodus 15:1-21

September 5, 2024

 The Song of Moses

Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.  The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him.  The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name. 

One has to wonder if the person who goes by the title of Christian believes that.

 “Pharaoh's chariots and his host he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea. The floods covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone.  Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy.   In the greatness of your majesty, you overthrow your adversaries;  you send out your fury; it consumes them like stubble.  At the blast of your nostrils, the waters piled up;  the floods stood up in a heap; the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea.  The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them.  I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.’ You blew with your wind; the sea covered them; they sank like lead in the mighty waters.

“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?  Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?  You stretched out your right hand; the earth swallowed them.  “You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.  The peoples have heard; they tremble;  pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia.   Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed; trembling seizes the leaders of Moab; all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.  Terror and dread fall upon them; because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone, till your people, O Lord, pass by, till the people pass by whom you have purchased.  You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.  The Lord will reign forever and ever.”

 For when the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them, but the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea.  Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing.  And Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.”

They were witnesses of God's power. It took a little faith to step into the Sea with the walls of Water on each side, but they were now out of the sea on dry ground, and they witnessed God letting the  Egyptian army come into the middle of the Sea and the waters cover them.  And they did not look to Moses to give him praise; they looked to the Lord, for He alone had done a great thing.  This is what I witnessed: God begins to move in a Church, and the next thing you see is many churches copying what they believe will give them the same results.  I witnessed and was part of the Law Renewal, a method using Lay people to go to the Methodist Church and share what Jesus was doing in their lives.  Soon, other denominations were asking Ben Campbell Johnson, who heads up the program for the Methodists, to send a team to their Church.  But as always, it was the Baptists who came up with a copycat version, and soon, if a Church had great success, and we witnessed God doing that in the lives of many, including the team members, a year later, they ask for another team to come in the hope of it bringing renewal, and it just did not work.

Many of us who were leading teams believed God had withdrawn His hand, and it became apparent that the Lay Witness Mission had become like the church that had the same Evangelist come back the next year, in that two years ago God had shown up, and they believed it was the Evangelist, and not God, who spoke through him. 

As we keep reading the account, we will find they had short memories of their God; are we that much different?

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice 

Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.  The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him.  The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name. 

One has to wonder if the person who goes by the title of Christian believes that.

 “Pharaoh's chariots and his host he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea. The floods covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone.  Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy.   In the greatness of your majesty, you overthrow your adversaries;  you send out your fury; it consumes them like stubble.  At the blast of your nostrils, the waters piled up;  the floods stood up in a heap; the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea.  The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them.  I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.’ You blew with your wind; the sea covered them; they sank like lead in the mighty waters.

“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?  Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?  You stretched out your right hand; the earth swallowed them.  “You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.  The peoples have heard; they tremble;  pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia.   Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed; trembling seizes the leaders of Moab; all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away.  Terror and dread fall upon them; because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone, till your people, O Lord, pass by, till the people pass by whom you have purchased.  You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.  The Lord will reign forever and ever.”

 For when the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them, but the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea.  Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing.  And Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.”

They were witnesses of God's power. It took a little faith to step into the Sea with the walls of Water on each side, but they were now out of the sea on dry ground, and they witnessed God letting the  Egyptian army come into the middle of the Sea and the waters cover them.  And they did not look to Moses to give him praise; they looked to the Lord, for He alone had done a great thing.  This is what I witnessed: God begins to move in a Church, and the next thing you see is many churches copying what they believe will give them the same results.  I witnessed and was part of the Law Renewal, a method using Lay people to go to the Methodist Church and share what Jesus was doing in their lives.  Soon, other denominations were asking Ben Campbell Johnson, who heads up the program for the Methodists, to send a team to their Church.  But as always, it was the Baptists who came up with a copycat version, and soon, if a Church had great success, and we witnessed God doing that in the lives of many, including the team members, a year later, they ask for another team to come in the hope of it bringing renewal, and it just did not work.

Many of us who were leading teams believed God had withdrawn His hand, and it became apparent that the Lay Witness Mission had become like the church that had the same Evangelist come back the next year, in that two years ago God had shown up, and they believed it was the Evangelist, and not God, who spoke through him. 

As we keep reading the account, we will find they had short memories of their God; are we that much different?

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice