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Chapter 22 Rod’s and Serpents (Note: This chapter is continuous to the book but with
different pagination from this point on) Page 291 This chapter will
be devoted to the study of what really happened in Egypt. Of necessity, it will
be a radical departure from the traditionally accepted concept. But it will
be in harmony with the life and teachings of Christ, the principles of God’s
character, and God’s eternal upholding of His sacred law. By sending Moses
and Aaron to enact the parable of the rods and the serpents, God detailed
before Pharaoh exactly what was about to transpire. The Lord would have
spelled it out in words, but the monarch’s mind was so darkened by sin that
it was necessary to tell it in the clearest possible way—in pictorial form. Millions of other darkened minds since, have failed to read
correctly the message God sent to the king that day. It has been almost
universally read as the ultimatum of an all-powerful executioner, who had
come to personally administer His judgments. But, “God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner
of the sentence against transgression; but He leaves the rejectors of His mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have sown.” The Great Controversy, 36. Correctly read,
this was the message delivered to the haughty monarch. God had ever looked
with saving love upon the land of Egypt. It was not alone for the salvation
of Israel that Joseph had been kidnapped to the southern kingdom. It was that
Egypt might also hear the tender voice of mercy. Joseph was a type
of Christ. Both were betrayed by their brethren, sold for twenty pieces of silver, had no record of sin written
in the Bi- ble against them, and, finally, were the
saviours of their own nation. “The sin of the Egyptians was that they had
refused the light which God had so graciously sent to them through Joseph.” SDA Bible Commentary 1:1098. Christ did not come
to save Israel alone, but the whole world. Therefore, as a true type of Christ,
Joseph’s mission was to bring salvation to the world, not just to his own
family. In the mysterious dreams given by God to the king and in the
mar- velous interpretations given by Joseph, the
Egyptian ruler recog- nized the voice and power of God and obeyed the
directions of the King of kings. Page 292 That obedience
resulted in Egypt not only being saved from starvation, but also in her
becoming the wealthiest nation on the face of the globe. They prospered
beyond imagination. Such prosperity is the natural outworking of obedience to the laws of God’s kingdom. Any study of the church’s history will
show that whenever the people of God obeyed Him, they were
wonderful- ly blessed with prosperity in health,
knowledge, power, and wealth. This is the outworking of following out the law of
self-sacrificing service, the principle of receiving so that more can be given.
The continuing and despairing tragedy of mankind is the swift
forgetfulness of the principles of righteousness which had elevated them in
every way. Initially, the basis of their security lay in their complete faith
in God. It was a faith so deep and firm that it enabled them to give all they
had to meet the need of the moment, and know that God would provide for
tomorrow. No better illustration of this faith can
be found than the widow of Sarepta. When Elijah came to her, she had only enough flour
and oil to make a last cake for her son and herself. Beyond that,
death was the only prospect. When the need of God’s cause was
present- ed before her—and how essential to that cause
the life of Elijah was—she unhesitatingly gave all the food to him, with simple
con- fidence in the promise that her own need would be
supplied. This kind of faith is the basis of that self-sacrificing love
which brings great prosperity to God’s people. But, as material
posses- sions accumulate, little by little they displace
faith in God as the basis of security. It is always so much easier to believe in
money in the bank, a good solid house, and a prosperous farm or
business which you can see, than in a distant God whom you cannot see. It is not that faith has been lost. It has simply been
transferred from the God of the gifts to the gifts themselves. This is not an
instantaneous thing. It is a slow metamorphosis, so gradual as to be
imperceptible except to those on guard against it. But, in direct proportion
to its development, is an increasing desire to amass wealth to strengthen
this material security base, and the corresponding drying up of the spirit of
self-sacrifice. Increasingly, the
gifts of God are devoted to selfish pleasure, un- til selfishness becomes the dominating force in
the life. The person or movement which began so richly in God’s service, comes to
deny the principles of righteousness. As the years pass, they will
go on from this point to develop into the full stature of the man of
sin. Page 293 Step by step they
thereby remove themselves from the protecting circle of God’s love until they
stand fully exposed to Satan’s malice. So it was with the Egyptians. While God was
working only for their salvation, Satan master- minded a plot for their total destruction. He knew he could
touch neither them nor the Israelites while they remained obedient
to God. So he worked with
unflagging diligence to turn the eyes of Egypt to their marvelous, God-given
prosperity, diverting their attention from the God who had blessed them to the blessing received
from God. As usual, he was successful. Egypt became proud, self-confi- dent, self-serving, and oppressive. This led to their becoming
task- masters over the Israelites through whom all their blessings
had come. Thus Satan
engineered a situation wherein the Israelites were
not able to serve God fully except at the direct cost of their lives. The
daily sacrificial system ceased, the Sabbath was hardly kept, if at all, and
the people became degraded in sin. This was just as
Satan wanted it, for he knew that once he had led Egypt into the full
practice of self-service and therefore of utter rejection of God, they would
move outside the circle of God’s mercy and would be in his destructive power.
As generation after
generation of Egyptians descended more deeply into the mire of abandoned iniquity, Satan saw the day drawing nearer when there would be none of God’s protection
left. He exulted in the increasing depravity of the Israelites, for
this meant they had less and less of God’s protection also. Plotting every move
with calculated care, he proposed to involve the land of Egypt in a
destructive cataclysm of such proportions as to exterminate every Israelite,
thus certifying that the Redeemer would never be born. If this necessitated
obliterating every Egyptian as well, Satan would not hesitate. It must be
emphasized that, as the day of Egypt’s doom approached, God did not wish to
withdraw His protective presence from them. They were taking themselves outside
it. They were making it impossible for God to remain. Meanwhile Satan was
marshalling destructive forces in an attack ring around the whole nation. All
it needed now was for the Egyptians to make the final dismissal of God from
His position as Protector, for the plagues to begin. Page 294 At this point, a
quick review of the original creation and the in- trusion of sin will clarify the situation which had
developed. As an act of
infinite, inexpressible love, God purposed to give life to the human family.
The equally infinite wisdom of God saw that life without a home in which to live would be misery, for no
one could enjoy being perpetually suspended in supercold, utterly dark
space. Thus wisdom and
love gave birth to this beautiful planet. But it was not yet enough. No such home could be fully effective
without the necessary powers of sun, gravity, and others outside of
man, and the wonderful powers within him. These are God’s
mighty powers which He gave to His beloved children and they must be
distinguished from the powers which are in Him as a Person. But there is, by
nature, a problem with these powers. While given only for blessing, they have
in them the potential for destruction. To remove that possibility is to take
away the power itself, so that then, was no solution. To solve the
problem, God gave man the love gift of the law. While they related themselves
to, and used those powers according to law, they lived in perfect safety, but
the moment they cast aside the law as their saviour, those mighty powers God
had put into nature were turned into a terror of destruction. It would be well if
every person on the earth were to know that all nature, from the instant Adam and Eve rejected the law as
their sav- iour, is deranged and poised to collapse into
all-obliterating devas- tation. The reason it has
not done so is because “The instant man ac- cepted the temptations of Satan, and did the very
things God had said he should not do, Christ, the Son of God, stood between
the liv- ing and the dead, saying, ‘Let the punishment
fall on Me. I will stand in man’s place. He shall have another chance.’” SDA Bible Commentary 1:1085. When man rejected
the law as his saviour, then God gave Himself to be the Saviour. Ever since the fall in Eden, Christ by His
person- al power has been holding under control that fearsome wrath
all around us. Should sinful,
defiant, desperate men during any period of histo- ry, make a total rejection of that Saviour,
then they dismiss Christ from His post, His restraining power is removed, and the flood
of death pours upon the unprotected. God, in it all, has gone the
sec- Page 295 ond mile and beyond. It is sinful man who
finally puts God in a po- sition where there is nothing more that He can do.
If everyone
upon this earth understood and believed the truth of these words, with what diligence would they return to God and watch with care that they remained under His pavilion of
protection. But the
Egyptians neither understood nor believed this. They were unthankful, self-sufficient, self-centered, self-reliant, and self-serving. They deemed they had no need of God and were
even superior to Him. They had advanced from one depth of
wickedness to even greater, and had come to the point of making the final
dis- missal of Christ from their world. It was now that
Moses and Aaron appeared with the rods. This was God’s last love message to the haughty king. It was a futile
attempt to explain to him the principles laid out above. The message
was giv- en in the simplest possible form—pictorially, in an acted
parable. The symbols God used were Moses, Aaron, the rods, and the ser- pents. Moses was the
representative and symbol of God. He portrayed before the monarch, God’s role
in the coming time of terrible trouble. This is certified in God’s own words.
“‘So the Lord said to Moses, ‘See, I have made you as
God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet.’” Exodus 7:1. Moses had not
become God. By no means could this be true. He was still Moses, but he
portrayed God’s role to Pharaoh. He demonstrated God’s behavior and appealed
to the rebel to recognize and accept the petition of love being presented to
him. The rod in the hand
of Aaron who held it on Moses’behalf, was the
symbol of the powers God had given to mankind for his blessing, which,
because of sin, were poised to destroy, but which, because of Christ’s
interposition, still remained in God’s hands and under His control. It is
directly referred to as the “rod of power” which had been given him. See Patriarchs and Prophets, 396. The importance of
distinguishing between the powers which God had given to man and the powers of God Himself, was mentioned earlier. The distinction is well illustrated by this parable.
Allowing the rod to symbolize the powers given by God to man, it is not
diffi- cult to distinguish between that and the powers in Moses. The
rod of power could be separated from him and pass out of his
control and direction, but not so the powers within him. While he lived,
they were inseparable from him. Page 296 So with God. The mighty powers given to mankind can and have
passed out of His control, but the powers within Himself can never be
separated from Him. This distinction must be clearly seen for the Egyptian
incident to be correctly evaluated. Finally, there was the serpent into which the rod turned. No
one will have any difficulty in recognizing the serpent as a symbol of the
destroyer. The symbolism
established, we return to the story. “So Moses and Aaron
went in to Pharaoh, and they did so, just as the Lord had commanded. And Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent. But Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers;
so the magi- cians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with
their enchant- ments. For every man threw down his rod, and they
became ser- pents. But Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.
And Pharaoh’s heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, as the Lord had
said.” Exodus 7:10-13. As the brothers
stood before the king, the rod was held firmly in Aaron’s hand and was under his personal control. While that
rod remained thus, it never became a serpent. Only when it passed
out of his hands and control did it change and that instantly so.
As long as this situation remained, it continued to be a serpent, but
the mo- ment it returned to his hand it again became a rod.1 With what simple
and beautiful clarity, the Lord sought to communicate to Pharaoh the vital
truth that at no time whatsoever, while the powers of nature were still in God’s
hands and under His control, could they be agents of destruction. Only when
out of His hands and control could they be such. This truth is not
limited to those days or to that particular situation. The Lord does not
change. Ever since man fell, till today and beyond to the final annihilation
at the end of the thousand years, the truth revealed in the rods and the
serpents is the same. Never while the powers of man and nature are in God’s
hands and control, can they be destroyers. That is impossible. 1 It is clear from the Scriptures that Aaron held, threw down,
and recovered the rod as they stood before Pharaoh. Again it was he who
stretched forth the rod for the first three plagues. Later Moses stretched
forth the rod himself. But even when Aaron stretched out the rod, he did so
only on Moses’ behalf and at his direction, therefore, we will refer to
Moses’ rod rather than to Aaron’s in the following pages. Page 297 This is beautifully
illustrated in the experience of Elijah at Horeb. He had fled from Jezebel in fear and discouragement to take
refuge in a cave. “And there he went
into a cave, and spent the night in that place; and behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to
him, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’So he said, ‘I have been
very zeal- ous for the Lord God of hosts; for the children
of Israel have forsak- en Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your
prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my
life.’ Then He said, ‘Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.’
And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore
into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but
the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake,
but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a
fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small
voice. So it was, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his
mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And
suddenly a voice came to him, and said, ‘What are you doing here,
Elijah?’” 1Kings 19:9-13. Had God been in the
wind, that is, had those forces been in His hands and under His control, no
storm would have been possible. There would have been only peace and
blessing. Likewise the
earthquake and fire were manifestations of great natural forces turned into agencies of destruction, but they
were not such under God’s control and direction, for He was not in
the earthquake or the fire. Had He been in the mighty powers un- leashed, there would have been an altogether different result.
Firm ground would have been beneath Elijah instead of the earth
roll- ing like the sea. The truth that so
long as the powers of nature are in God’s hands and under His control, then they can never break into any form
of destruction, needs to become forever settled in the minds of
every child of God. This is the message
with which God sought to convict and convert the heart of the king of Egypt. As Moses and Aaron stood there
in his presence, with the rod firmly held in their hands under their
direct and complete control, they portrayed to the wicked ruler a
picture of things as they then stood. This picture showed that, despite
the many decades during which Egypt had sunk into deeper iniquity,
the mighty powers of nature were still under God’s control and
direction. Page 298 But the time had come when, unless immediate steps were tak- en in repentance and obedience, the powers of nature would
pass out of God’s hands and from His direct and complete control.
In- stantly, they would then become fearful scourges of
destruction, even as the rod released from Aaron’s hand turned into a
serpent. What those powers did to Egypt while out of God’s hands and
con- trol, were not God’s work or responsibility. He
had exhausted ev- ery possible means to save them from coming to
this point. The king’s response revealed the extent to which self-sufficien- cy had become his. He simply called in his magicians who threw
down their rods. Satan, through witchcraft, made it appear that they were
also turned into serpents. Page 299 “The magicians did not really cause their rods to become ser- pents; but by magic, aided by the great deceiver,
they were able to produce this appearance. It was beyond the power of Satan
to change the rods to living serpents. The prince of evil, though
pos- sessing all the wisdom and might of an angel
fallen, has not pow- er to create, or to give life; this is the
prerogative of God alone. But all that was in Satan’s power to do, he did; he produced a
counterfeit. To human sight the rods were changed to serpents.
Such they were believed to be by Pharaoh and his court. There was nothing in their appearance to distinguish them from the serpent produced by Moses. Though the Lord caused the real
ser- pent to swallow up the spurious ones, yet even this was
regard- ed by Pharaoh, not as a work of God’s power,
but as the result of a kind of magic superior to that of his servants.” Patriarchs and Prophets, 264. This produced a
situation where the serpent formed from the rod separated from the direction and control of God’s
servants, was faced with quite a number of what appeared to be real
serpents. Here was Satan’s and, likewise, Pharaoh’s counter to God’s ap- peals. Just as God was saying something by producing that one serpent from the rod, so the apparent turning of many rods
into serpents constituted a counter-message from the powers of
dark- ness. Pharaoh may not have fully understood what
he was say- ing, but the devil who inspired and motivated
him certainly did. Instead of humbly accepting the warning which the Lord gave them, they answered by saying that they were not concerned if the Lord did lay down the control of those mighty powers for
they had more than sufficient forces to contain those plagues. Did
not the king have multiplied serpents? What hope did one have against the many? So, let the Lord release His control.
Pharaoh would not be intimidated into freeing his profitable slaves. Thus the monarch displayed a terrible and dangerous igno- rance of the extent and magnitude of the powers
which had, to this point, been held under control by a merciful and loving
God. Knowing nothing of the might of those powers, he was likewise ignorant of the strength of the God who held them in check. Therefore, he had no fear, no realization of the awful danger
he was in; no sense of need of God, and no trust in Him. This is a revelation of self-sufficiency at its very worst. It
had been developing in the king and his kingdom for a very long
time Page 300 until it had reached this state of maturity. Having rejected any
sense of need of God, the king and his subjects were in
effect, and in fact, rejecting all connection with, and dependence upon
Him. By this means they cut themselves off from God, placing Him in
a position from where He could no longer hold the powers connected with the
land of Egypt in His hands and under His control. While those forces were so
held, they were only a blessing and benefit to the nation, but, when no
longer in God’s charge, they could only turn into ravages of destruction. Filled with an
altogether false and grossly exaggerated view of his own powers, and a terribly deficient concept of the
magnitude of the powers around him, the king was confident that he could easi- ly handle anything God might release. The
sight of his numerous serpents advancing against one, reinforced that conviction. It was not possible for the king to have a more misleading or dan- gerous self-assurance. His puny power could never
withstand the onrush of the mighty forces of nature out of God’s hands, direction,
and control. Such ignorant and foolish thinking in the face of
this loving appeal from God, could only serve to separate him
entirely from God and to place himself outside the circle of God’s
protection. Even though the king rejected God’s call, God did not abandon him to his errors but continued to seek to save him. To
accomplish this the Lord demonstrated the futility of the king’s forces
to con- tain the powers symbolized by the one serpent.
Though to all ap- pearances hopelessly
outnumbered, the one serpent busily swal- lowed the rest. This was a message saying to the king, if he
could only see it, that no matter how great an effort he might put
forth to hold in check and redirect the forces released against him, he
would be unable to do it. He and his people would be consumed while
the mighty powers remained as undiminished as if they had not been
touched at all. This was the
message brought to him through the rods and the serpents. It was a message of love designed to soften and
save. Had the great
ruler perceived both the message and the spirit of infinite love in which it was given, he would have quickly
confessed his spirit of rebellion, and his utter helplessness to change
his heart to one of obedience to God. Then, he would have pleaded with
Mo- ses to show him the way of salvation so that he
could obey God and release the Israelites from slavery. Instead, the king resisted the loving appeals of the Holy
Spirit, Page 301 who was there to bring home God’s message with convicting
power. By so doing, he took the final step, whereby he placed himself
and his nation outside the limits of God’s protection. Having cast
aside God’s law as his saviour, he now cast aside Christ, the
Saviour, too. There was no more God could do. The control of those assembled
forces of destruction passed out of His hands and the plagues
be- gan. Yet, even so, God’s love for Egypt and His
reluctance to see the people suffer was so great, that He only released His grip as
far as He was compelled to. He could have taken Himself completely
away and left the land to be swamped with all the plagues at once,
but in- stead He went back only one step at a time, each move being
forced upon Him by Pharaoh’s increasing stubbornness. Each successive
withdrawal released from His hands another powerful element of
nature to scourge the Egyptians. The Lord was enabled to leave
them only one step at a time, because the nation
was not as fully hardened against God as Pharaoh. While Israel was
the primary target of Satan’s wrath, the plagues did not consume them for the simple reason that, even though
they were far from fully righteous, there were at least a goodly
number among them who loved and served God the best they could under those circumstances. They had not cast aside either the law or
Christ. Consequently Christ, who will always remain Protector even of sinful, ungrateful men as long as possible, was able
to shield the house of Israel from the successive pestilences. In the acted
parable of the rods and the serpents, God demon- strated His role in the coming catastrophes. If the
king saw the truth of it, he certainly neither believed nor heeded it. His
scorn and unbelief did not change the certainty that the mighty forces
of sin-deranged nature would punish him and his people. Nor did
his insulting attitude provoke God into taking those forces into
His hands and using them as a personally directed scourge against
the Egyptians. That which devastated them were those
forces out of the hands and control of God. Furthermore, they were taken from His
grasp, not because He had chosen to release them, but because the Egyp- tians themselves had displaced Him from His
position as their Protector. Thus the plagues
were not what God did to the Egyptians. They were altogether what they did to
themselves. So it will ever be. Page 302 God never changes. He does not do one thing to the sin-cursed Egyptians and something different to like rejecters of His
mercy in another age or clime. When, at any time or place, nature in
a state of implacable and merciless wrath, savages human life
and lands, it is because those powers have passed out of God’s
hands and control—never because they are instruments in His hands to
destroy. Therefore, whenever
we are witness to the desolating march of plague, fire, earthquake, tempest, or pestilence across the
land and are tempted to think God is at work, let us remember the mes- sage of the rods and the serpents. Then we will know the real
truth of what is happening. To believe that God
forcibly subdued the Egyptians in order to effect the release of His people, is to level, by implication,
a terri- ble indictment against the Lord. It is to
charge Him with deliber- ately and callously leaving the Jews to suffer
for centuries when they could have been released long before they were. He who in the possession of omnipotent power, uses it as the means of executing his will, can do what he wishes when he choos- es. If this is God’s way as so many suppose,
then every day that the Israelites continued in servitude, was because He chose
not to release them. For centuries, they were ground down in brutal bondage, all the misery of which would have to be accounted to
God for failing to exert His mighty power at any chosen time to
set them free. God could not be a God of love and at the same time
be- have in this fashion. The truth is, God
has committed Himself never to solve prob- lems by the use of force. Therefore, the timing
for the Israelites’ release would be determined, not by God’s own personal choice,
but by the effects of the Egyptians’ deepening apostasy. This brought about a separation from God which released destructive
powers upon them until they had destroyed their capacity to
hold their slaves. Then and only then, could the Israelites go
free. When these principles are understood, no problem will be seen in
their being left in servitude for so long. God will not
deviate from His ways, for He knows that the use of force is self-defeating. Had it been His principle to rule
by force, then He would have stamped rebellion out of existence as soon
as Page 303 it manifested itself initially. There would have been no long
period of sin in this world. But sin must be
allowed to run its course until it ultimately de- stroys itself and all who cling to it. Then the
Lord will be free to make the new heavens and the new earth with no danger of their
defilement. Christ and the Scourge The same message
which God sought to convey to the stubborn Egyptian ruler, Christ endeavored to
impress upon the minds of the traders in the temple when He cleansed it for the first time.
Some study has already been given to this event in chapter
fifteen, but we deferred the analysis now to be given until Moses’ rod
had firstly been considered. The declaration
given by Christ when He held the scourge, is the exact counterpart in the New Testament of what Moses did in
the Old when he held the rod in his hands. The symbolism is
identical. As has already been established, the rod Moses held symbolized
God’s powers in nature still under His control and direction.
As Moses gripped the rod, so Christ held the scourge, which
likewise symbolized God’s powers in nature. Just as Moses’ rod could
not, and did not, turn into a serpent while it remained in his
hands, so the scourge could not and did not strike a single person while
it was in Christ’s control. The story can be as
easily misinterpreted as was the Egyptian episode. Most would argue that, while it is true that Christ
did not actually strike the offenders in the temple, He most certainly
threatened to and would have done so if they had resisted Him.
To adopt this view is to regard the character of Christ as being iden- tical with that of men, while missing the message
which the Sav- iour desired to convey. He had come upon
them while they were practicing serious in- iquity. This could only serve to separate them
from the protection of God so that they would be left exposed to the terribly destruc- tive forces surrounding them. Christ desired to
save them from this, so He portrayed before them the situation which was devel- oping. He wished them to understand that the
usually mild and beneficent forces of nature, were being transformed into a
punish- ing scourge. That they had not yet been smitten
by this whip was due alone to the fact that Christ still held it under His
control and Page 304 would continue to do so until the period of their probation
ended. For them, that
was still several years away. During the ensuing interval of time, God’s presence was progressively withdrawn
from the land. Christ announced His eternal departure from the
temple in the sad words, “See! Your house is left to you desolate.”
Matthew 23:38. This was just before His final sufferings and death. In
A.D. 34, probation closed on the nation as a whole in accordance
with the prophecy of Daniel 9, but the retribution still tarried,
Christ still held the scourge in His hands, until in A.D. 70, He laid
it down and the full fury of enraged nature in the form of the Roman
sol- diery burst upon the shelterless, unprotected
heads of the Jews. In the temple, Christ had as vividly warned them of their im- pending fate as Moses had warned the Egyptians of theirs. But,
just as the ancient oppressors of Israel would pay no heed to
God’s entreaties, neither would the Jews. This being their choice,
there was nothing further the Lord could do to save either. The rod
be- came a serpent, and the scourge left the control of Christ. When the warning was given to each in turn, it was not too late
to repent. This above all else the Lord desired them to do.
Therefore, the demonstrations were given in infinite love and mercy. In
no sense of the word, were they the expression of a spirit of
vindictive anger and revenge. No matter how far they had gone, or how long they
had persisted in rebellion, the Lord was still ready and anxious
to save them. That they were not saved was entirely their own fault. Some may argue that Christ did overturn the tables and scatter
their money thereby establishing the fact, as they see it,
that He would destroy their possessions. But, again, He was only
giving them an object lesson of the real truth that all the earthly
treasure in which they were putting their trust would be no support to
them in the hour of trouble. Instead, it would be swept away, even
as the coins were scattered in hopeless confusion across the
pavement. Rightly considered, Jesus Christ did exactly in the temple
what He and His Father had done in the land of Egypt. He came to both with
the offer of forgiveness, protection, and life. He showed each of them the
terrible consequences of their continuing in their present course, in the
hope that the realization of their need would prompt them to reach out for God’s
solution to it. In both of these
situations, God and Christ were living out the maxim of their lives, in
contrast to that of the devil who is the destroyer. Christ expressed the
truth of this in these words: Page 305 “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come
that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” John 10:10. His sorrow is: “But you are not willing to come to Me that you may
have life.” John 5:40.
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