The Voice of God: Your Path to Healing or to Suffering

There the LORD made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer.” (Exodus 15:25-26)

Since we are created beings, it is only reasonable to expect that the one who created us did so for a specific reason and with a specific plan in mind. Darwinian evolution is a lie and teaches just the opposite: that our life is the result of random chance and has no real meaning and purpose outside of ourselves. Evolution teaches that it’s a “dog-eat-dog” world, and that you have to look out for yourself.

Moses was 80 years old when he met God in the burning bush on Mt. Horeb. The first 40 years of his life was spent in the courts of Pharaoh in a life of luxury in Egypt, and the next 40 years were spent in the wilderness as a fugitive after murdering a man. His people were slaves in Egypt and oppressed. So when God appeared to him and told Moses that he was sending him back to Egypt to deliver his people, Moses could hardly believe his ears and began to argue with God. He had no confidence at all that God could do such a great thing as that through him. He was quite sure that God had made a mistake, that he had the wrong man.

But he was the right man. God works best when we put no confidence in ourselves, but instead trust him and his purpose for our life, and his power to see it accomplished. God told Moses that when he was done with Pharaoh, and that when the Israelites marched out of Egypt with all of the gold, silver, and fine clothes of the Egyptians, that they would all come back to Mt. Horeb to serve God as his people: “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

As created beings, we all serve a purpose in God’s grand scheme of events in history. Evolution is the vain imagination of man that tries to believe that there is no God, and no accountability in life. But since we are created beings, everyone is a servant, a slave of someone else more powerful than ourselves. No one is more powerful than God, the Creator of all. So it is obviously best to serve him as a willing slave, and not others. And that is just what God was offering to the Israelites. He was offering them the opportunity to stop serving Pharaoh as slaves to Pharaoh’s purposes, and instead to start serving God and his plan for their life. God’s plan and purpose for their lives was based on a promise, a covenant that was made to their forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It included the land of Canaan as their home, the promised land “flowing with milk and honey”: God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. (Exodus 6:2-5)

Pharaoh also served God’s purposes, but not willingly. He did not know God, so he chose to not obey God and to not listen to the voice of God: Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.” (Exodus 5:2) The result was disastrous for him and his people. They lost their health, their wealth, and even their firstborn children. God used Pharaoh and his stubbornness to accomplish his purposes: For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth. For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth. But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth. (Exodus 9:14-16)

As created beings, we all serve someone. As the Creator, God has a master plan, and none of his created beings can prevent his purposes from happening. We can get with the plan and listen to his voice to find out where we fit in, serving him willingly and realizing what a wonderful God he is and how much he loves us. Or we can ignore him and his voice, choosing to follow our own selfish desires which lead to slavery in the kingdom of darkness, and face the consequences of standing in the way of God and the carrying out his master plan like Pharaoh did. The Apostle Paul recognized this truth of everyone being a slave to someone also and wrote:

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:16-23)

The Israelites had been slaves to Pharaoh and Egypt for so long, that it was hard for them to serve someone who actually loved them. They didn’t believe it. So when the going got tough, they just expected the worse, and doubted that God really loved them or cared about them. They had a hard time listening to God’s voice and obeying it, because they had ignored him for so long. So God brought them through various tests in the desert, to see if they would respond in faith and trust him. Most of them failed miserably. In Exodus 15, just after God miraculously divided the sea and rescued them from Pharaoh’s army, they find themselves thirsty with no water and doubting God again. So God made a promise, a conditional promise tied to a commandment: saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer.” (Exodus 15:26)

It is interesting to note that this promise and command was given before the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Law that was given to Moses on Mt. Horeb later on, suggesting that listening to the voice of God is even more important than the Ten Commandments. After all, if we had a perfect relationship with God and listened to his voice perfectly moment by moment always obeying it, what need would there be for a written law??

Could God have stated this any simpler? Listen to his voice and obey it, and he will be your healer. Ignore his voice and choose not to obey it, and you have Pharaoh and the Egyptians, along with all their diseases, as your example of those who disobey his voice.

Now while there are many other reasons why we might experience sickness besides disobeying God’s voice, one thing is very obvious: God is our healer! Evolution would deny this, seeing sickness as only a physical problem with man-made drugs and technology as the solution, with no regard for God and his voice in the matter. But the way to health is listening to the voice of God and understanding his will for your life. Are you serving God today by listening to his voice and obeying it? Are you getting your spiritual nourishment by seeking his specific will for your life so that you are following the game plan of the Creator of the universe? Or are you foolishly trying to stand in the way of God, living a life of slavery to your own passions and desires, because you have ignored God? One way leads to health, but the other way leads to misery and suffering. All of us are going one way or the other today. Which way are you going today?

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.  (Words of Jesus in Matthew 7:13-14)

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