January 24, 2021
Upcoming Events and Notices
This week San Diego Country remains in the highest COVID-19 risk category of Purple/Widespread. The State of California guidelines for San Diego County states that all worship services should be conducted outdoor. And given the challenges of weather and logistics, we will continue to hold our Lord's Day worship service online only.
Please join us 10 AM, January 24, 2021, for worship. You can participate in this week's service via YouTube here. You can find the order of worship and songs here.
You can find the sermon from the January 17, 2021 service here.
Please join us as we read another collection of great books for the year 2021. You can find the list here.
January 24 (Lord's Day 11:15 AM): Please join us for fellowship after the worship service via Zoom: Meeting ID: 879 4595 5692 — for meeting passcode please text pastor Ken.
January 20 (Wednesday 7 PM): Please join us for for "Knowing God" Zoom study. This week's study will cover 16 — "Goodness and Severity." Meeting ID: 831 0828 6050 — for meeting passcode please text pastor Ken.
Thank you for your continued support of Grace Fallbrook (PCA). Your loving support makes the proclamation of the gospel and the building up of the saints possible. Please continue to mail in your gifts and offerings to our church treasurer, Bruce Summers. In addition, our church website now features online giving. Please visit the church website and click on "Give" which you will find in the upper left corner of our church's website. When you click on "Give Online Now" button on that page, you will be directed to the PCA Foundation where you can give towards Grace Fallbrook (PCA).
Before We Worship
It is incredibly easy to judge the Israelites. And they deserve it, too! It is almost as if they were afraid of missing out on opportunities to act stupidly. If they could act badly, they did. Exodus 17 is a case in point. In the previous chapter, Israel grumbled against Moses about food: "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 the whole assembly with hunger." Oh the good old days when we were beat mercilessly and groaned under back-breaking labor! We had it so nice when we had to bake bricks without straws and all the Egyptians treated us like the scum of the earth! At least then we had our fill of meat and bread!
It is quite clear not everything was right in their heads. What makes them look back fondly to the days of misery, only because their tummies were full? This is certainly an indication of their spiritual poverty, but not the good kind that Jesus teaches us to have in the Beatitudes. Israel is here seen to be the kind of people who have no other aspirations than food and drink. To them, even God served to meet their fleshly desires, and if he doesn't, well, of what use is he? God, however, rained down bread from heaven for them, and fed them with manna.
Exodus 17 follows this event. And, once again, Israel is grumbling. This time they are complaining about water. Yes, water is a basic necessity of life. But their complaint follows on the heels of God providing miraculous bread for them. God had proven himself to be their faithful provider. That is what makes Israel's grumbling about water so pernicious. They should have trusted in God's faithfulness, and should have asked for the LORD's instruction how to acquire water, rather than grumble against him. "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?" Life was so much better when we didn't have to live by faith and depend on God moment by moment. In Egypt we had food and water to spare and we never had to think about God!
However, God once again showed them mercy. "Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock on Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink." The NIV says "I will stand there before you by the rock." But translations that reflect the Hebrew faithfully say "I will stand before you there on the rock." That is, the LORD stood on the rock and received the blow that saves Israel's life. This was a foreshadowing of Christ receiving the blows that we deserve, for "by his wounds we are healed."
But what does it say about us that ancient Israel and we need the same Savior? We both needed someone else to receive the blows we deserve. That means that Israel's stupidity is our stupidity, that we are just as hopeless as ancient Israel, and that when we judge Israel's failures, we judge our failures also. So what will you do? Complain and grumble? Or trust and listen? What has filled your heart with bitterness and unbelief this week? Will you not come to the Lord, trust, and believe?