Too Good To Be True?

Have you ever received news that was so incredible that it sounded “too good to be true“? Have you had times in your lives when it seemed that all you EVER got was bad-news, when you felt like the next “shoe” was going to drop at any minute? I certainly have, and after losing five people, including three family-members, in the last two years, frankly I was, and am dreading what this year will bring, particularly after finding out a few days ago that a dear friend has terminal-cancer. What next?

The children of Israel had had hundreds of years of bad-news. They had been treated decently in Egypt, as long as Joseph was alive, but once he was gone, all hell broke loose. They had become slaves, slaves of a long line of narcissistic Pharaohs who built their empires on the backs of slave-laborers. Then, Moses came along…

2 God spoke further to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord; 3 and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, Lord, I did not make Myself known to them. 4 I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they sojourned. 5 Furthermore I have heard the groaning of the sons of Israel, because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. 6 Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. 7 Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8 I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession; I am the Lord.’” 9 So Moses spoke thus to the sons of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses on account of their despondency and cruel bondage. (Exodus 6:2-9)

What should have been music to their ears was ignored, because it sounded “too good to be true“. After all, the last time that trouble-maker came to town, rather than liberating them from Egypt, Moses had provoked Pharaoh to make their work even harder. Now, they even had to gather their own straw, rather than having it given to them to make bricks with. Their slave-drivers got even meaner and more cruel than ever before. Maybe it was time to run him out of town on a rail.

Now, it wasn’t that God didn’t intend to liberate the children of Israel from their bondage, that these were empty-promises, He didn’t intend to liberate them – YET. They did have to undergo more pain and suffering before God DID liberate them from bondage, but He eventually did.

We need to make note of the last phrase in the passage, “on account of their despondency and cruel bondage.” There are times when we should be skeptical of seeming “good-news“, and it’s not wrong to question whether it is legitimate or not. People over-promise and under-deliver all the time, which may have been where the phrases “Talk is cheap” and “Put you money where your mouth is” came from. I’m sure there have been plenty of times when I over-promised and under-delivered, but not God. He ALWAYS fulfills His promises, even if it isn’t when we want Him to.

God NEVER forgets a promise He made. Several thousand years elapsed between God’s first promise of a Redeemer in Genesis 3:15 and its fulfillment on Calvary’s hill, but it came “when the fullness of time had come” (Galatians 4:4-5), and many more promises followed that one, but nobody to whom a promise was given lived to see that promise fulfilled. God keeps a different “schedule” than we do, and it can be hard on us.

It is also hard believing the promise of Romans 8:28 when things are going from BAD to WORSE, but a promise is a promise, and if God makes it, it WILL come true. As I noted in “Romans 8:28 – What It DOESN’T Say”, we aren’t promised that the “good” will come in this life. It also doesn’t tell us what the “good” will be, just that “good” will come from even our worst experiences. God determines the “what” and “when”.

Final thoughts…
You may have heard “If it sounds “too good to be true”, it probably is”, because we have all seen things that claim to be “free”, but the “shipping and handling” are more than the item is worth, so it behooves us to be wary of the “fine-print”. Sometimes “no-news is good-news”, or, “a silent-phone is a happy-phone”, because we can’t get “bad-news” if we don’t get any news at all. I don’t mind at all when my phone is silent for a whole weeks.

There is ONE piece of good-news that really is GOOD-NEWS, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came to save sinners, of which I am “pro-grade”, so if God can save me, He can save anyone. That is one piece of good-news that “you can take it to the bank”.

Sola Deo Gloria!

Steve