Le livre Modèle de l'Ancien Testament: Chapitre 4
Le champ de maïs Apocalypse
"Maintenant, ce que je te prescris aujourd'hui n'est pas trop difficile pour vous ou hors de votre portée. Ce n'est pas dans le ciel, de sorte que vous devez vous poser, «Qui montera au ciel pour l'obtenir et l'annoncer à nous afin que nous puissions lui obéir?«Il n'est pas au-delà de la mer, de sorte que vous devez vous poser, «Qui va traverser les mers pour l'obtenir et l'annoncer à nous afin que nous puissions lui obéir?«Non, le mot est très près de chez vous; elle est dans ta bouche et dans ton cœur afin que tu puisses lui obéir ".
Deutéronome 30:11-14
J'étais quelque part entre Boise, Idaho et Des Moines, Iowa. Je revois encore le blé et les champs de maïs des deux côtés de la voiture glisser par, mile après mile. Le moment de la journée, l'angle de la lumière, la température, the clear blue skies are all as real in my mind at this moment as they were the day God spoke.
For more than a year, it had been clear to me that Christians were missing a significant part of God’s revelation. My generation was well on its way to reaching every creature with the salvation message, but had no idea what it meant to disciple nations. How could we regain the wisdom, connaissance, and influence to transform communities with the gospel as the church has done in history? What are the keys? I understood our gospel message was incomplete, but how would we restore the greater revelation?
In my search, I had pursued men and women of God who seemed to see the same deficits in the impact of the church. One man, Tom Marshall, was pastoring a small church in New Zealand. This man of God had an enormous vision of the church’s role in building the Kingdom of God and its influence on earth. After he spoke at YWAM’s university in Kona, I wept for hours with a broken heart over our diminished gospel message. As I wept, I prayed, «Dieu, You must show us the road back. You must reveal again Your great revelations of Kingdom life beyond salvation.” I was so constrained by the Holy Spirit it felt as if I was having a heart attack. «Dieu, You must reveal Yourself to me or I feel I will die of need.”
Over the next few days I went to Pastor Marshall and asked the same questions I had put to others. The difference this time was that I was sure Tom Marshall would have the answer. “Tom, how do we do it? How do we actually disciple the nations? How do we put feet to the vision?” His answer was simple, short, and immediate: “I have no idea! God hasn’t revealed that to me.” That was all he said. To say that I was crestfallen is truly an understatement. The man with the greatest vision in the area of my search had no answers for me. What hope was there?
Within the year I was traveling through the grain fields of the Great Plains states of the U.S.A. I was on a seven-month trip visiting mission bases in America. Driving, for a change, instead of flying, was a great relief for me, and it gave me wonderful time to process and pray. Before I started the journey I had asked the Lord to give me a plan for my time in the car. I had been reading through the Bible nearly every year and a half for over twenty years and had read most of the English versions at least once. During this drive I felt that God gave me a very specific goal of listening to the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation during my trip. I will never forget that morning in the grain fields. The penny dropped and everything in my life, from that moment, changed.
As I was listening to Deuteronomy, suddenly it was as though I was given ears to hear what I had read so many times in my life and never understood. I realized the passage I had just listened to was about law! Moses was teaching civil law. Moses was forming government. Then there was a passage on economics; then one on the family and health care; maintenant un autre sur le droit ... et il est allé. La lumière jaillit dans mon pauvre petit cerveau. Révélation frappé comme un faisceau laser. Le travail de Moïse était à disciple une nation. Son travail consistait à enseigner des gens qui avaient été esclaves pendant plus de 300 ans la manière de former et diriger leur nation. Moïse était d'enseigner les principes du gouvernement d'Israël Dieu, économie, la famille, le sacerdoce et chaque domaine donné par Dieu de la société humaine. Il avait quarante ans dans le désert pour le faire, et il avait tout ce qu'il écrit!
Qu'avais-je pensé quand j'ai lu les livres de Moïse, une vingtaine de premières fois? On m'avait appris à lire les Ecritures à la recherche de certains thèmes: salut, sin, pardon, prière, droiture, et le combat spirituel. These great themes are there because they are major parts of the gospel message. J'avais lu les livres allégoriquement, même s'il est clair qu'ils sont des enregistrements historiques des événements qui ont eu lieu dans le temps et dans l'espace. Mais, quand je lis d'Israël dans la servitude à l'esclavage, J'ai vu un message sur le péché et la vie sans Christ et le salut. Quand je lis sur les Juifs dans le désert que j'ai appris sur la "vallée de la décision" entre la vie de péché et de la grande promesse de salut de Dieu. Quand Israël est entré dans la terre promise…salut! Ils ont la volonté de Dieu au dernier. J'ai prêché ces messages.
Ces parallèles du péché, décision, et le salut sont dans la Bible, et il n'y a rien de mal avec leur enseignant. Mais, ils ne sont pas le premier message du texte. Qu'est-ce qui se passe à Moïse était réel, pas allégorique. Il avait une population réelle des Juifs, dans un vrai désert, with the real challenge of turning them into a prosperous nation. Moses was discipling a real nation in the truths that will make them great in every area of life, and God inspired him to write it all down for you and me. I knew I would never be able to read the Bible in the same way again. My mind was turned upside down.
Moïse: What A Job!
What a job Moses had! We think we have needy nations today; look at what he had to deal with! We know that 600,000 able-bodied men left Egypt with Moses.1 What was the entire population?
If we take the number of women and children for each able-bodied man in Jacob’s family of 702when they enter Egypt, it is about 4.5 à 1. At that ratio, the number of Israelites leaving Egypt would have been somewhere around 2,700,000 personnes. Mais, remember, they were having problems with the pharaohs because they were multiplying so rapidly they threatened the balance of population with the Egyptians.3 Furthermore, Israel did not leave Egypt alone. Slaves that were not part of Israel left with them as well. They had alien members wandering with them from the very beginning of their wilderness journey. It is no exaggeration to say that Moses was leading more than three million people out of Egypt into the desert.
To put that number in perspective, it amounts to the entire population of New Zealand. The largest refugee situation in modern history was that of the Afghans on the Pakistani border after the invasion by the former Soviet Union. They numbered in the area of two million. Encore, even with the combined resources of the United Nations, the Red Cross, and aid from developed countries, this refugee situation overwhelmed our modern agencies. The Jews had no outside help come to their rescue. Moses’ people were in far worse circumstances. The Afghan refugees had a country to go back to. They had homes, schools, businesses, and institutions to which they could return. They had banks, roads, and infrastructures to rebuild even though the Soviet Union had demolished some of them. The Afghans were refugees. The Jews fleeing Egypt were people without portfolio. They had no country. They had only a promise.
Imagine!
These are a people who have grown from a tribe of seventy people to more than 3,000,000 en 430 ans.4 They have been in exile this entire time. For the last 400 years they have been doing slave labor under Egyptian pharaohs. Ils ont tout juste de sortir de la nation d'Egypte avec ce qu'ils sont capables de porter et les animaux qu'ils possèdent. Pensez-y! A AMÉRICANO. Armée intendant général a mis son esprit mathématique de la situation et compris qu'ils auraient besoin d'environ 1,500 tonnes de nourriture par jour - deux trains de marchandises d'une valeur de, chacun deux miles de long - et 4,000 tonnes de bois pour cuire la nourriture chaque jour; million de gallons d'eau par jour seraient nécessaires pour boire et se laver les plats. Cela nécessiterait un réservoir de voitures de plusieurs miles de long. Leurs terrains de camping auraient été les deux tiers de la taille de l'État Rhode Island. Plus:
• Ils sont pauvres.
• Ils n'ont pas d'écoles.
• Ils n'ont pas de gouvernement.
• Ils n'ont pas d'économie.
• Ils n'ont pas de terre.
• Ils n'ont pas d'armée.
• Ils n'ont pas d'industrie.
• Ils n'ont pas l'agriculture.
• Elles n'ont pas de système religieux.
• Ils ont une mentalité d'assistés et aucune éthique de travail.
• Ils ont été opprimés et victimes.
• Ils ont un système social peu développé.
• Ils sont, sans aucun doute, le plus grand, masse la plus développée de personnes qui ait jamais existé sur la face de la terre. Par rapport à toute nation, je ne peux penser à aujourd'hui, Israël était dans un état bien pire.
C'est à ces personnes que Dieu dit, vous n'êtes pas un peuple, mais je vais vous faire un peuple. Il promet de ces personnes, à cette condition,, qu'ils vont devenir une grande nation et que d'autres pays pourront admirer leur grandeur et être béni par les.5 They have just left one of the greatest civilizations in human history, Égypte, dans son jour de gloire sous les pharaons. The Jews are an impoverished mob in the middle of a wasteland. Encore, to them God says He will make them a great nation! Can you imagine the unbelief, the bewilderment, even the cynicism they might have felt?
Cependant, in about 300 years’ time, God does it. He makes them one of the greatest, if not the greatest nation on the face of the earth. They have such a notorious reputation that within three centuries the whole known world is talking about Israel. A queen from the Saudi Arabian peninsula hears of this great kingdom and decides she will check it out first hand. She travels north, passing the crossing to Egypt, the former greatest nation. Her journey continues further north toward Canaan. Listen to these words:
1 Kings 10:1-10
1 When the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon and his relation to the name of the LORD, she came to test him with hard
questions.
2 Arriving at Jerusalem with a very great caravan – with camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold, and precious stones – she came to Solomon and talked with him about all that she had on her mind.
3 Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was too hard for the king to explain to her.
4 When the queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon and the palace he had built,
5 the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, his cupbearers, and the burnt offerings he made at the temple of the LORD, she was overwhelmed.
6 She said to the king, “The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true.
7 But I did not believe these things until… I came and saw with my own eyes. En effet, not even half was told me; in wisdom and wealth you have far exceeded the report I heard.
8 How happy your men must be! How happy your officials, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom!
9 Praise be to the LORD your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of the LORD’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king, to maintain justice and righteousness.”
10 And she gave the king 1 0 talents of gold, large quantities of spices, and precious stones. Never again were so many spices brought in as those the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.
God Made A Promise And Fulfilled It
God had made a promise to build a great nation and He did it. He built a great nation in every category. Israel had just laws. They were economically prosperous. Their architecture and crafts were brilliant. They had superior education and wisdom. One of their kings, Solomon, was a great scientist. They were even admired by their former slave masters, the Egyptians. They were by no means a perfect kingdom; God had never indicated that He was promising that. Mais, they were a great kingdom. This history of Israel is not written as an allegory from which we are to learn the benefits of salvation alone, although you could make that point from the text. This is history – it happened in time and space to real people, to a real nation. The point for us is: si Dieu l'a fait une fois, Il peut le faire à nouveau. La vérité de Dieu, si elle est appliquée, peut, et le fait, transformer les communautés et les nations. Si Dieu peut développer ces pauvres Juifs dans une grande nation, Il peut le faire pour n'importe quelle nation existante dans n'importe quel âge parce que pas une seule communauté ou de la nation dans le monde d'aujourd'hui est pire que les Israélites dans ce désert.
Dieu nous a dit d'atteindre chaque créature avec le message du salut, et Il nous a enseigné comment faire. Il nous a laissé le modèle de Jésus et de Paul et l'église du Nouveau Testament pour nous guider dans la vision globale d'atteindre toutes les langues, chaque tribu, et toutes les personnes. Mais Dieu nous a aussi dit de "disciple chaque nation." Comment le faisons-nous? Dieu ne nous a pas donné un travail et ensuite resté silencieux sur la façon de l'accomplir. Just as the keys to evangelism are in the story and life of Jesus and Paul, the keys to our job in transforming communities are in the story and life of Moses. Israel – its journey from slavery to greatness – is our Old Testament template of how to disciple a nation!
Now the question is, “Will we learn how to use it?” Will we take the time to study God’s Word until our minds have been restored, until we understand God’s principles of community and nation-building in every arena of life? Will we do the work of being reformed in our generation so that God can once again glorify Himself through the wisdom and influence of His people? We must decide. You must decide.
1. Exodus 12:37-38
2. Genesis 46:26-27
3. Exodus 1:6-7
4. Exodus 12:40
5. Deutéronome 4:5-8
