| WHEN GOD WAS OBVIOUS |
| Few athiests, but many rebels. |
| To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. 24:17 |
| Why doesn't God intervene more? Why doesn't he directly feed the hungry, heal all the sick, and stop all wars? If God really exists, at the least why doesn't he make himself more obvious? People who ask such questions often assume that, if God ever did spectacularly reveal himself, all doubts would vanish. Everyone would line up to believe in him. Astonishing Reactions Exodus tells of a time when God made himself perfectly obvious. The plagues on Egypt revealed his mighty power. An enormous miracle at the Red Sea provided sensational deliverance. A recurring miracle supplied food for the Israelites every morning. And, if questions about God's existence arose, doubters needed only to look to the ever-present glory cloud or pillar of fire. It must have been hard to be an athiest in those days. Yet every instance of God's faithfulness seemed to summon up astonishing human unfaithfulness. The same Israelites who had watched God crush a pharaoh quaked at the first sign of Egyptian chariots. Three days after a miraculous escape across the Red Sea they were grumbling to Moses and God about water supplies. A month or so later, when hunger pangs began to gnaw at them, they bitterly complained, "If only we had died by the Lord's hands in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death" (16:3). God responded with a provision of manna (that would continue for 40 years) and quail, but the Israelites were soon grousing about the water supplies again. |
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