No Place for God’s Glory
Israel is set forth as a people for Christians to learn form (1 Cor 10) because after all we are very much like them in heart. We are prone to complain and to do what is especially and repeatedly a problem—seeking to go back to Egypt; which was not so much about Egypt itself, but was about something so much more.
The ‘something so much more’ was simply having a plan, just not God’s plan; and having a direction, just not asking for God’s direction (Isa 30:2). It is really a childish (or better put—acting like a baby) sort of immaturity that makes people despise the Word of God.
We are prone to think of God’s ‘Torah’ or ‘Law’ is putting limits on our lives, when it’s really God teaching us how life works.1
In childish rebellion, we say ‘No’! or “Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel” (Isah 30:11), etc. And if that were the chief and first cause of things, the effect would be our destruction.
The good news is that our rebellion is not the first cause, God’s grace is. And as such we hear the beautiful words “Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you” (Isaiah 30:18).
Promise precedes everything we could ever negatively do, and therefore there is hope for God’s people even in their awful sin. And when God acts toward us, we throw out all the foolish things we have clung to (Isaiah 31:7).
The worst of our problem however may be this—we take things into our own hands to fix things leaving no opportunity for God to fix it. We solve our problems and therefore there is no place for God’s glory in the matter. We often give no place for the glory of God by doing it our way right away.
A note here is in order, because often we are prone to add or make up our own rules like the Pharisees did that were not Torah. They made their interpretation of the Torah the Torah, and put heavy burdens on others they themselves were not willing to lift. Caution therefore is in order, and precision in handling God’s law.