God Sees Our Distress; Our Deliverer Is Coming :: By Jonathan Brentner
I love the words of Scripture. They form the basis for my hope of eternal life, provide needed assurance in times of trouble, and calm my soul during the turbulent times in which we live.
Sometimes a passage or a phrase speaks to me in a new way. Such was the case with Exodus 2:23-25:
“During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.”
I like the phrase at the end of verse 25 in the ESV, “and God knew.” In the Hebrew text, the word is yada, which in its basic form simply means “to know.” It appears 947 times in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament.
In Exodus 2, yada reveals God’s awareness of the plight of the Israelites in Egyptian bondage just before He tasked Moses with the job of delivering His people. Yada appears again in Exodus 3:7:
“Then the Lord said, ‘I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings.’”
After forty years tending sheep in the wilderness, Moses was fully prepared to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt. The longsuffering slaves were ready to accept freedom and follow the leader God would send to them. The Lord knew the time was right.
He doesn’t explain why this time was better than twenty years earlier. He doesn’t need to fill in all the blanks for us. We trust His sovereignty and wisdom.
God Hears Our Groaning
Members of the body of Christ suffer from afflictions of a wide variety. Some face martyrdom for their faith, others lose their freedoms, and many endure severe opposition to their faith. We all fight off the relentless attacks of our enemy.
I know many saints who are hurting because of cancer, other ailments, and grief. The afflictions of this life, along with aging, have a way of catching up to all of us.
And like the ancient Israelites, we groan.
I love how the Apostle Paul connects our anticipation of the Rapture with our sighing amid the many hardships of life:
“And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:23-25).
The Lord hears the cry of our hearts as we long for Him to appear and take us to glory.
The Lord is not distant as some imagine Him to be; He sees; He hears; He feels all our grief; and He’s our deliverer just as He was for ancient Israel.
Someday soon, the prophetic words of 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 will be past tense, and we will rejoice with our Savior in glory:
“For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.”
There are days when it seems as though the perfect time for the Rapture has long since passed. We see the tears of loved ones and watch as violence, wickedness, deception, and lawlessness explode in our world. We often wonder, “How much longer, Lord?”
In the meantime, we rest in the fact that God sees our distress and His Deliverer will come for us. Is it not encouraging to know that the Lord knows all about our distressing circumstances and has our rescue in sight?
The One who has “called us to glory” (1 Peter 5:10) is ever so close to taking us there (Colossians 3:4).
A Glorious Restoration for Israel
The forty years that Moses tended sheep in the wilderness must have felt like an eternity for Israelites in Egypt. It’s likely that most knew about God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and looked for a deliverer to take them to the Land promised to their forefathers.
During the last half of the seven-year Tribulation, a much more frightening scenario will exist for the Hebrew people. Once the antichrist defiles their temple, they will face the darkest time in their history. In the end, only one-third of them will remain alive.
The prophet Zechariah, speaking for God, wrote these words about this future time of peril:
“And I will put this third into the fire,
and refine them as one refines silver,
and test them as gold is tested.
They will call upon my name,
and I will answer them.
I will say, ‘They are my people’;
and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God’” (Zechariah 13:9).
Zechariah 14:1-8 describes the arrival of Israel’s future deliverer, the Lord Jesus. He will fight for Israel as a mighty warrior, destroy all the armies that will have come against Jerusalem, and establish His worldwide kingdom over which He will rule from Jerusalem. Is it not fitting that Moses referred to Jesus as a “prophet like me” in Deuteronomy 18:15-18? The greater Moses will deliver the Israelites at His Second Coming.
It will be a glorious time of restoration for the kingdom of Israel. God will forever protect the Jewish people with His presence in Jerusalem (Zephaniah 3:14-20).
We Trust God’s Timing
We often groan because of personal pain or that of those close to us. At other times, it’s because of a world descending into lawlessness and wickedness, the likes of which we once thought impossible.
In the midst of the distress we feel, the words, “And God knew,” bring welcome relief. We know our Deliverer is surely coming to catch us up to meet Him in the air.
As we wait, we remain confident that:
- God is always aware of the plight of those who belong to Him. He sees, He hears, and He loves us more than we can imagine.
- Jesus remains ever mindful of the promises we hold dear to our hearts. He’s preparing a place for us in heaven (John 14:2-3).
- The Lord will surely come for us before the judgments of the day of the Lord (1 Thessalonians 5:1-10).
- God’s timing often mystifies us, but we trust His purposes, knowing Jesus will arrive at the perfect time.
The words “And God knew” seem so simple, yet they breathe hope into the most distressing of circumstances. Our Deliverer stands ready to rescue us and will surely do so.
In the meantime, we pray for Him to come soon.
Maranatha!!
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My book, The Triumph of the Redeemed-An eternal Perspective that Calms Our Fears in Perilous Times, is available on Amazon. In it, I connect the dots between God’s keeping of His covenants for Israel in the future and our hope as New Testament Saints.
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