Milk and Honey

TITLE: Milk & Honey pm102206
TEXT: Exodus 3:7,8 The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey

I. DOES GOD ANSWER PRAYER?
A. Does God answer prayer? Does He keep His promises of old? These
are questions I have attempted to answer many times as I have stood
before you on Sunday night.
1. Sometimes I have felt like an apologist explaining the fine print to
the saint who feels she/he has been slighted by the hand of God—
the one who says, “Preacher I didn’t get my answer.”
2. You see the answer to the to the age long question often depends
on who you ask and at what point in their lives have you asked it.
3. If you were to ask the person on the mountain top of spiritual
experience you would get the answer, “Absolutely! Praise His
name!”
4. If you were to ask someone struggling right now like Annette... She
may give you the pat Christian answer. But what she feels to be
the truth is gnawing at her soul as much as her infirmity is gnawing
at her body.
5. Ask the Duponts and unless they are feeling especially vulnerable
at the moment you may get the pre-prepared answer. But down
inside can they really help but wonder if God is going to come
through this time.
6. Does God answer prayer? Does He keep His promises of old?
Does He see the state that I’m currently in? Does He feel my pain?
Or is He a god who doesn’t care who lives a way up there?
7. Is He so far removed—detached from the affairs of this world and
it’s people that He is unable to hear their cries of agony and faith.
8. Or, is Jesus really that friend who sticks closer than a brother.
9. Will He really Eph 4:19 meet all your needs according to his
glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
10. Will the prayer offered in faith accompanied by the oil of anointing
really make the sick person well.
11. Do we really have no cause for worry? –for food, shelter, clothing.
Does the Heavenly Father really know in advance that we need
them?
12. I could go on and on. Does God really answer prayer? Does He
keep His promises? Does He know what I am going through?
II. GOD PROMISES MILK AND HONEY.
A. At a time when the people of God were at their lowest—when they
were asking similar questions to the ones we ask today, God gives
this promise. He promises to lead them to a land flowing with milk
and honey. What did He mean. As a young child in Sunday School I
have often wondered what this really meant.
1. The Israelites found themselves lamenting their situation just like
we do when the seasons of our lives turn from sunny to cloudy,
from warm to frigid.
2. Hear them again. Can you relate? They were literally groaning
under the tyrannical hand of their oppressors. The word says,
Exodus 2:23 The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried
out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to
God.
3. And the word gives us God’s response I have indeed seen the
misery of my people in Egypt. I have