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 heard them crying out
because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their
suffering.
B. And then He promises to lead them to a land flowing with milk and
honey. What sort of promise was this?
1. Let me see if I can explain the concept to you. First of all the milk.
Ask farmers in Wisconsin. When do you have to milk cows. Does
anyone know? The answer is every morning.
a. On dairy farms all over the world this is a constant. They milk
those cows early in the morning and a couple of times a day
after that.
b. There is no letting up. Winter, summer, spring, autumn. Those
cows are going to give milk.
c. If they don’t give milk it’s off to the slaughter house and later to
McDonalds. Milk is a symbol of a constant source of provision.
2. I believe that God is communicating I will always be there for you.
When you feel the warmth of my presence and when you don’t. In
the summer in the winter. I am you constant source of provision.
I’m as reliable as the milk cow that gives milk every day.
3. Second let me see if I can communicate to you what Honey
means. Honey is a seasonal blessing. When do bees produce
honey? Spring and summer. By the fall they are preparing their
store for winter.
4. If you have taken all the honey from the bees all season long and
not fed them a sugary mixture they will starve to death during the
winter.
5. I believe God is communicating that you will go through seasons in
your life when you have a super abundance—you have more than
you need
6. Luke 6:38 gives the measure Give, and it will be given to you. A
good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running
over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you
use, it will be measured to you.”
7. The Milk and honey are two sure constants—two things the child of
God can count on in their journey. #1. You will always have what
you really need. #2 You will have seasons that will fill your heart
with gratitude toward God because He has given you more than
you need, and you will have seasons which will try your faith.
C. God promised them a land of milk and honey, but when they arrived
there 40 years later, the same giants that possessed the land nearly
4 decades earlier still occupied their land.
1. They were going to have to fight for the land of milk and honey.
2. They were going to have to trust God to work miracles before them
as they launched out certainly with fear but also with faithful
obedience.
III. ARE YOU OCCUPYING THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY?
A. You all know what Annette and I are going through right now. Yet
here I stand in the land of milk and honey.
1. We don’t face a financial struggle. Some of you make more money
than me, but I don’t see that as a financial crisis for me. Some
years ago God allowed us to be tested financially. I believe that we
passed the test and that victory has allowed me a reprieve from
other such tests in the here and now. Here we stand, a little
battered but no worse for wear. Moneywise I’m in the land of milk
and honey.
2. We are not facing a crisis today with Clint. For a couple of years
now you have helped me pray for the boy when we were being
tested with a failed college attempt and marijuana. But God has
heard our cry and he is making good grades (impossible if he were
still smoking), going to class every day. Why Annette even spied
him reading the Bible. We have had seasons of want, but here we
stand no worse for the wear in the land of milk and honey. God
has been faithful.
3. I could stand and testify of season after season, situation after
situation when we have been tried and tested, endured seasons of
lack and sometimes fear—times when I have been sick in body, on
a couple of occasions even sick unto death. But miraculously, as
sure as the spring time flowers and the buzzing of the bees, the
honey has started flowing again.
4. No, we are facing Annette’s serious kidney/bladder situation.
Please don’t think I’m trying to garnish sympathy—you all know
her problem well. I’m not exaggerating the situation when I say
that this could lead to kidney failure and death.
a. I tell you the milk is hear and the honey will start flowing again.
We haven’t received her healing yet, but I’m still believing for it.
b. Some might think, “She’s still young...the odds are on her
side...she’ll likely get better on her own.”
c. But I tell you it will be God who causes the milk to be provided
everyday and the blessed honey to flow again.
5. I say this knowing full well that one day I will be an old man—I’m
now in between middle age and just plain old---what do you call
this season of life anyway?
6. There will come the day for all of us when our health begins failing
us, when our sight will begin to grow dim. What can we expect
from God?
7. I tell you we should still expect milk and honey. God is just as
faithful to supply our needs no matter what season of life we may
be in.
8. Its milk! Its honey! That’s what God has promised! You can count
on it.
IV. CHALLENGE
A. I don’t know what you may have on your heart this evening. I don’t
suppose to know every struggle you are enduring—I’m willing to
listen anytime.
1. But I challenge you to take God at His word. He’ll provide what you
need. He’ll bring you through.
2. And when your time comes and you leave this old world what can
you expect? Milk and honey. Honey all the time.
3. Don’t give up on God—He’ll bring you home—He’ll provide—He’ll
bring you through!
