Conversing the kingdom: Know Me

Hebrews 3:19

When the Israelites were being rescued from Egypt one phrase was repeated by God in connection with the plagues, "That they might know me." This phrase was as much for the Israelites as it was for the Egyptians. Yet despite all that the Lord did in showing himself to the Isrealites in all the ways that he presented himself personally to them they still did not get it. The Lord was bringing the Israelites out of Egypt so that they might enter the promise land and his rest. But what they failed to understand was that the rest they thought the Lord had for them was not a rest from the rulership of Pharoah, some easy life in the promise land but a new rulership in his kingdom. You see the Lord's rulership is different it is a personal relationship of knowing him and that is what brings the rest. But those in the wilderness who rebelled against the rulership of the Lord, who wanted nothing to do with this knowledge of him through a personal relationship, never found the rest they were looking for because they were looking in the wrong place. As the writer to the Hebrews puts it "So we see that they were unable to enter (the Lord's rest) because of unbelief." The Lord brought the Israelites out from under the bond of salvery to Pharoah that through the process of the Exodus they might come to know him and find rest. And this was a foreshadow of Jesus' sacrifice that enables us to be brought out from under the bondage of sin that we might know him and find rest.