Take Heart! #6
THERE’S HOPE FOR THE WEARY!
Matthew 11:28; Exodus 15:1-7; 22 – 16:1
Matthew 11:28
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Exodus 15:1-7
Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord:
"I will sing to the Lord,
for he is highly exalted.
The horse and its rider
he has hurled into the sea.
[2] The Lord is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
[3] The Lord is a warrior;
the Lord is his name.
[4] Pharaoh’s chariots and his army
he has hurled into the sea.
The best of Pharaoh’s officers
are drowned in the Red Sea.
[5] The deep waters have covered them;
they sank to the depths like a stone.
[6] "Your right hand, O Lord,
was majestic in power.
Your right hand, O Lord,
shattered the enemy.
[7] In the greatness of your majesty
you threw down those who opposed you.
You unleashed your burning anger;
it consumed them like stubble.
Exodus 15:22-27
Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. [23] When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.) [24] So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What are we to drink?"
[25] Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.
There the Lord made a decree and a law for them, and there he tested them. [26] He said, "If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you."
[27] Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water.
Exodus 16:1
The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt.
He lived from 1865 to 1936. He was English, yet born in Bombay, India. He wrote poetry and is the author of books like Captain Courageous, How the Leopard Got His Spots, and The Jungle Books. Who was this man? Rudyard Kipling.
Kipling’s writings not only made him famous but also brought him a fortune. A newspaper reporter came up to him once and said, "Mr. Kipling, I just read that somebody calculated that the money you make from your writings amounts to over one hundred dollars a word.”
The reporter reached into his pocket and pulled out a one hundred-dollar bill and gave it to Kipling and said, “Here’s a one hundred dollar bill, Mr. Kipling. Now you give me one of your hundred dollar words.”
Rudyard Kipling looked at the money, put it in his pocket and said, "Thanks!"
Well, the word "thanks" is certainly a one hundred dollar word. In fact, I would say it is more like a million-dollar word. It’s a small word but it has a powerful meaning. It might only have 6 letters but it gets across a message that few other words are capable of achieving.
When that little word is missing, we feel it deeply. You know what it’s like when someone doesn’t say "thanks" – you feel hurt, used, ignored, and taken for granted and you wonder why you bothered to do something for the person in the first place.
Saying thanks in the good times doesn’t seem so difficult, does it? Just ask the children of Israel.
I love the story of the grumbling motorist. "What am I supposed to do with this?" grumbled the motorist, as the police clerk handed him a receipt for his traffic ticket.
"Keep it," the clerk said, "When you get four of them, you get a bicycle."
The children of Israel had just gotten a divine ticket out of Egypt. If you look at Exodus 15, you will find it to be a most unusual chapter. It begins with the song of Moses and ends with the sigh of the murmurers.
The children of Israel had just been delivered from Pharaoh. They were now marching towards the Promised Land. You would think that they had the wind in their sails and nothing would detract them. But that is not the case. How is it that they could come from such a miraculous deliverance and yet not trust God and murmur?
* They failed to realize that the way of God’s leading is not all an emotional experience. They became weary of the journey. Yes, the Exodus was one of the greatest movements. There was always an undertone of irritability. There was always a murmuring of an idealized path they wanted to get back to. They would have rather been slaves in Egypt than corpses in the wilderness. Moses had learned so much and out of all the valuable lessons, he learned that:
* It is easier to get the people out of slavery than to get the slavery out of the people.
In the midst of all this, though, stands verse 27 like an oasis in the middle of the desert:
Exodus 15:27
27 Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water. (NIV)
Do you ever become weary? I must confess I do. Just the other day, I got weary of things going wrong . . installations are always challenges to me. (installing the vent free fire place insert) – I went out to Home Depot and purchased a vent free fireplace insert – to save heat . .
There was an older vented insert (for looks) in the fireplace and so I had to remove it. It was 9:00 p.m. The instructions said that it would take “one hour to install.” To make a long story short, I had incredible difficulties and became very weary. The natural gas pipe came off from within the wall of the fireplace . . I heard gas . . then smelled it . . Called Pastor Malcolm, our assistant to help . . I crawled under the back porch at 11:30 p.m. . . tore off the bottom of the chimney to get to the pipe that had been installed crooked . . I got it all together by 1:00 a.m. and stumbled into bed.
I needed one more part that I purchased the next day . . installed it and settled back to enjoy the fire, gues what happened? The smoke alarms started going off in the whole house due to the new insert now burning off its new fumes. I really was weary after all of that!
Julie Ward Howell, who wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic said one day as she slumped way down into a chair, "Oh, I’m tired. I’m so tired. I’m tired way down into the future."
We all get tired and weary and it’s when we are tired and weary that we often become the most vulnerable. Perhaps you have experienced weariness and as a result of it, you recall when you were sharper with your spouse or children than you should have been with your words? Or you became more irritable.
(Max Lucado: Six Hours One Friday): Pages 28-29 – great illustration on being weary!
Some of you identify with what he is saying. You, too, are weary. Weary of:
* Sitting beside, day after day, a loved one that seems to get worse.
* Filling out job applicants that ask senseless questions and with each one destroys your self-esteem.
* Sitting up all night with a child or new born that has little understanding of schedules.
* Taking a handful of pills to stay healthy and alive.
* Worrying over a wayward son or daughter.
* Growing old and feeling unappreciated.
* Being alone or left alone or abandoned.
But why did these people lose their fight? Lose their desire to go on? What did god do to help them?
1. They were physically tired!
We, too live in an age of tiredness and weariness. If you don’t believe it, just ask the house wife with five children. Our vocabulary and daily speech gives us away. We use words such as "strain, stress, tension." Doctors hear daily, "Doctor, I’m so tired. Can’t you give me something to help replenish my deleted energies?"
People who are tired and weary CAN’T REST . . .
Norman Vincent Peale: "Things are so bad, people are so uptight and tense that it’s been a long since I’ve seen anyone sleep in church." ( I’d like to write to him and say, "I know things are bad, but they’re not that bad where I preach."
Why did they murmur and complain? Why did they have the problems they had? They were physically tired.
All, too often, we are too. We drive our muscles, we drive our minds, over tax our energies, and after awhile there is an uncomfortable disintegration that sets in. It is somewhat like a defense mechanism that nature has built in us to head off further "taxation" until we are rested. We truly are a “driven people.”
Bob Hope (Comedian): His activities for a day:
My heart beat 103,369 times
My blood traveled 168 miles
I breathed 23,040 times
I inhaled 438 cubic feet of air
I at 3 and one half pounds of food
I drank 2 pounds of liquid
I perspired 1 and a half pints
I generated 450 tons of energy
I spoke 4800 words
I moved 750 major muscles
I exercised over 7 million brain cells
All of that in one day. And boy am I tired . . . .
We need to remind ourselves that as we march towards the promised land, that it will not be easy. The sand, hot sun, sore feet take their toll on us. The only kind of remedy for this kind of tiredness is rest, relaxation, and restoration. THEY CAME TO ELIM.
Many of our tensions would be solved if we would make our way more often to Elim and make wiser use of natures restative powers. Even David realized that Green Pastures + Still waters = a restored soul.
(Often Satan attacks us when we are tired and tells that we are not saved or sanctified or loved by God).
2. They were mentally frustrated!
This is the kind of weariness that comes as a result of prolonged waiting, disappointments, delayed hopes. Have you ever experienced this?
You see, the road to freedom was a whole lot longer than they expected. It was not the easy victory they expected. They had not grasped how God works. The dusty desert was far from what they hoped for. (Imagine their dreams: out of Egypt and into the promised land.). But they had counted on the monotony; the day after day of just keeping at it with the sun beating down upon them, and the desert stretching on for miles without anyone or thing in sight.
"The trouble with light," says Dorothy Seyers, "is that it is so everlastingly daily."
What do we need to understand? In spite of the marvelous victories in our lives today and in the days past, there are not easy ones or permanent ones. You win one battle today and tomorrow you have another. Earle Wilson: "No matter what state of grace you possess, just remember, the wheels of the chariots still get stuck in the sands of life as we make our way to the Promised Land."
Let us clearly understand that our resources for living are not just in the crisis experiences, but are found in HIM. He reminds us in:
John 15:5
5 "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (NIV)
As Christians, there will times of mental frustration. We will have delayed hopes and dreams. There will be the Pharaoh’s and the pursuing Egyptians. We will have to wait beside some bedside, wait for some job, wait for some specific direction. But we must not quit. We must not blame God or take it out on those "of the house hold of faith."
Your enemy and mine will be intent on wearying us down and out on the path to the promised land with the scorching sun, desert paths, dreary days, delayed waits, cantankerous saints and distant lands. But we must not quit.
Isaiah 40:28-31 28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. 29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: 31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (KJV)
Why is it that good people get tired of being good before bad people get tired of being bad?
Galatians 6:9-10 9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. 10 As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. (KJV)
3. They were spiritually depressed!
People can stand anything just as long as they believe what they are doing makes sense. They may get tired in it, but not tired of it! But when faith in God goes, Hope goes.
You can trace it back to these murmuring Israelites. There was a growing fear that they had been deceived. The road led nowhere but to death they thought; maybe there was no promised land; maybe no God. Moses is a fool and there is not a "ghost of a chance." Remember: Satan is a liar. The Good Shepherd always leads His sheep; Satan always drives them.
It was said of the Irish Peasants during the Great Depression that they were put to work by the Government of Ireland building roads. For a while it worked; they were glad to work. They sang and swung their shovels and picks.
But little by little it dawned on them that the roads they were building did not lead anywhere and these roads were pointless and decided to stop working.
The truth came out - the roads they were building were pointless and they had been put to work by the government as an excuse to feed them. When asked by their foremen why they had stopped singing and working they said, " Sirs, because the roads to nowhere are difficult to make. For a man to work good and sing, there must be an end in view."
* The world has lost it sense of divine leadership and mission. I think the church has, too. We are like the Israelites: standing around, kicking sand, grumbling about what we don’t like about the leadership and the roughness of the road.
But Moses saw more . . . He knew different . . . He saw ahead to the Bethlehem stable. He saw ahead to the birth of the Christ and the early church. He saw Christ sitting on the throne of David coming for His saints and with His saints.
Yes, the road may get rough, but we have the greatest guide. The sun may get unbearable, but we have walking with us the One who made the sun, the moon and the stars. . . . . . . . . We’re Marching To Zion . . . . .There’s Hope For The Weary . .
