Exodus 14

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

And every obstacle is an opportunity for people of faith.

A “teachable moment” for all time

Exodus 14 is a chapter that changed the world.

Before the cataclysmic events of this narrative, the Jews were enslaved to the mightiest empire the world had ever known. After this chapter, they were an empowered people protected by the mighty God of the universe. Their lives and destiny would never be the same.

After God parted the Red Sea and destroyed the Egyptian army, the people responded to their deliverance with praise: “Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, ‘I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him” (Exodus 15:1-2).


Unfortunately, it took only three days and a lack of water for the people to complain against Moses (vv. 22-24). But Moses, unlike the people, knew that the God who stopped the Red Sea could provide water in the wilderness. He “cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet” (v. 25).

Then God used this “teachable moment” to make “a statute and a rule” for all time: “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer” (vv. 25-26).

Who are your Egyptians?

These miraculous events are God’s strategy for us when we face the Egyptians of our day.

First, view opposition as opportunity.

Even though the Jewish people were following God’s explicit will, the enemy nonetheless pursued them and threatened their very existence. We should expect spiritual Egyptians to attack us every day (Ephesians 6:12). But such challenges show us our need for God and draw us to him in faith. And, as Jesus said, persecution “will be your opportunity to bear witness” (Luke 21:13).

Second, remember what God has done so we can trust him for what he will do.

His nature does not change: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). If he has forgiven your sins in the past, he will forgive them in the present (1 John 1:9). If he has met your needs before, he will meet them again (Philippians 4:19). All he has done, he can still do.

Third, “diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God” (Exodus 15:26).

The Word Biblical Commentary translates “diligently listen” as “pay close and committed attention to his voice.” The question is not whether God will speak to us, but whether we will choose to listen.

Fourth, obey his word and will.

If we “do what is right in his eyes,” we position ourselves to experience his best for us. Such provision is not legalism but grace. As we noted yesterday, we cannot earn God’s favor, but we can receive it.

Who are the Egyptians in your life today?

NOTE: There is a New Testament parallel to this Old Testament miracle. Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and left the tomb on Easter Sunday, and the world has never been the same. He came to “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), defeating our spiritual enemy by dying for our sins and rising from our grave.

William James Roop, M.A.B.S.

Roop-Crappell Ministries

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Apostolic Theological Seminary

10 Bible Verses Most Gets Wrong!

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Crosswalk.com
10 Bible Verses Everybody Gets Wrong
Kathy Howard

10 Bible Verses Everybody Gets Wrong
The Bible is the most important book ever written. The one true God chose to reveal Himself to us through the written word. Amazing and humbling!

Yet sometimes we get it wrong. We misunderstand or misapply the truth God has given us. Although there are countless causes, through my experience I’ve seen two primary problems crop up again and again.

Perspective - Too often we read God’s Word with our own purposes and goals in mind. But the Bible is all about God. When we read it with His eternal purposes in mind, we will better grasp the truth of His Word.

Context – The Bible may have unlimited applications, but its meaning never changes. It means the same today as it did when it was written. To understand the original meaning, we must pull back and understand the context – of the passage, of the chapter, of the book.

1. 1 Corinthians 10:13
“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

Many Christians claim this verse as a “promise” that God will never allow them to experience more difficulties than “they can handle.” Yet, the larger passage (1 Corinthians 10:1-13) deals with temptation and our ability to withstand it. God promises He will always provide a way for us to say “no” to temptation. In fact, Paul learned by experience that God will allow us to face circumstances “beyond our ability to endure” so that we will learn to rely on Him (see 2 Corinthians 1:8-11).

2. Proverbs 22:6
“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.”

Misunderstanding Proverbs 22:6 as a promise has led to grief for many parents. The book of Proverbs is wisdom literature, which offers general principles for successful living. A proverb is not a promise. Instead, let us use it as a tool for wise parenting and decision-making, and entrust our children to our faithful God!

3. Matthew 7:1
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”

Is all “judging” wrong? Jesus did condemn a harsh, critical “judging” motivated by a self-righteous, hypocritical attitude. But in the whole of Scripture, God clearly commands Christians to lovingly point out sin and exhort each other to holiness. It is not our place to determine their motives, but it is our responsibility to gently identify behavior God has already judged to be “sin.” The goal is to reconcile that person with God and others and to keep the sin from spreading (Matthew 18:15-17, 1 Corinthians 5:5-7, Hebrews 12:15, James 5:19-20).

4. Psalm 37:4
“Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

If I find joy in God, will He fill my life with all the things I value and enjoy? Wait – remember context and focus. In this psalm, David contemplated the age-old question of why evil people seem to prosper while the righteous often struggle. David wrote to encourage his readers – and us – to widen our perspective, to live in light of eternity and to set our hope in God’s everlasting purposes. When we commit ourselves (delight) to God’s capable hands, our desire for the righteous to prevail will be realized in His timing.

5. James 1:2-3
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”

We would think that James meant we could find joy in Christ in spite of our trials. That makes more sense! Yet, James really did say – and mean – because of our trials. While God cares very much about our physical circumstances, James knew He uses trials to refine our faith and make us more like Jesus. That is something to rejoice about!

6. Matthew 18:20
“For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

Considering just this verse, we might believe that Jesus is with us only when we are with other believers. But the context of the larger passage is church discipline. When another believer sins, if he will not listen to one, two or three fellow believers should bring the matter to the church (Matthew 18:15-20).

7. Romans 8:28
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Does God control all the circumstances of our lives to make things turn out great for us? Let’s take a step back to grasp the glorious truth of Romans 8:28. First, this promise is not for all people, just Christians who love and follow Jesus. Second, in the larger context, (Romans 8:18-39), Paul reminds us that although we must temporarily endure earthly suffering, God works through it to continuously work out His greater, eternal plan for us (Romans 8:28-30). The “good” God is working towards is not temporary, earthly “success,” but the eternal purpose of us being “conformed to the likeness” of Jesus (Romans 8:29).

8. Habakkuk 1:5
“Look at the nations and watch - and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.”

If we read this verse by itself, we might believe God is going to do something wonderful and glorious before our eyes. Well, He definitely did, but probably not what you’d expect. God sent the prophet Habakkuk to pronounce judgment on Judah for turning away from God. The amazing thing God planned was to send the brutal nation of Babylon to conquer His people and carry them into captivity. This verse should stand as a strong reminder that God does discipline His children.

9. Jeremiah 29:11
“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”

This verse is definitely a promise. But it’s a promise for a particular people in a particular time. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God promised that after Judah’s pre-determined exile in Babylon, He would bring them back to the Promised Land. We often misappropriate promises. And while God does make a lot of promises to all believers, this particular promise isn’t one of them.

10. Philippians 4:13
“I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

Philippians 4:13 is probably the most misused verse in the Bible. We pull it out of the surrounding passage and hold it out as God’s obligation to empower our plans and dreams. Yet, Paul was writing about being content no matter his earthly circumstances. He could endure any difficulty or physical need through the strengthening power of Christ. Oh yes, Philippians 4:13 is a great promise indeed! Jesus will give us the strength we need to endure desperate need. His empowering presence will be with us through every difficult circumstance.

William James Roop, M.A.B.S.

Roop-Crappell Ministries

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Apostolic Theological Seminary

The Secret Bomb Shelter

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

I and my wife with my mother was up visiting my Uncle and Aunt, Jerry and Nancy and Mankowski. They both are still living on the old family dairy farm. My mother still has a lot of family living in that area.

I was sitting down with my uncle, and he was telling me about the local news. He said that a couple of towns over, they had leveled a building, so that they could build a parking lot.

When they leveled of the building they found underneath something very interesting. They discovered an old nuclear fallout shelter that was constructed for the town. They built the shelter in the nineteen-fifties, to I'm sure, a great fanfare. But since that time it was slowly forgotten about, except for a few city officials. After the Cold War they sealed the shelter off.

After about thirty years everybody had forgotten about the shelter. That's until they tore down the building that was over it. That's when they re-discovered the long lost shelter that was underground. The shelter was full of dehydrated food stuffs, for the hundreds of people they planned on keeping safe in there for weeks at a time.

The city officials decided to just throw away all the dehydrated food, and fill in the old shelter with dirt! I just shook my head and told my uncle that I thought that was a great waste. But when word of the dehydrated food, most of it was taken by the local hunters.  But for just a little money, that could keep the shelter in place, and just put it in the parking lot on top of it.

It's just a little extra money they could have kept their nuclear fallout shelter! But these days you never know if you're going to need one! Both Russia and China are still threatening us with nuclear war! I thought it would be a good investment just to keep it around.

William James Roop

 Roop-Crappell Ministries 

 Hospice Volunteer Stories 

 The Trucking Tango 

 Apostolic Theological Seminary 

James the Servant

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The apostle James was honored with a favored position by Jesus Christ. Not only was he one of the twelve chosen disciples of Jesus, but he was also one of three men in Christ's inner circle. The others were James' brother John and Simon Peter. One more great distinction of the apostle James was to be the first to die a martyr's death.

Apostle James

Also Known as: James of Zebedee; Nicknamed by Jesus, the “Son of Thunder.” Known for: James followed Jesus as one of the twelve chosen disciples. This apostle James (for there were two) was the brother of John, and a member of Christ’s inner circle of three, along with Peter and John. He proclaimed the gospel after Jesus' resurrection and was the first apostle to be martyred for his faith.
Bible References: The apostle James is mentioned in all four Gospels and his martyrdom is cited in Acts 12:2.
Father: Zebedee
Mother: Salome
Brother: John
Hometown: He lived in Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee.
Occupation: Fisherman, disciple of Jesus Christ.
Strengths: James was a loyal disciple of Jesus. He apparently had outstanding personal qualities that are not detailed in Scripture, because his character made him one of Jesus' favorites.
Weaknesses: With his brother John, James could be rash and unthinking. He did not always apply the gospel to earthly matters.
Who Was the Apostle James?
James was among the first of the twelve disciples. When Jesus called the brothers, James and John were fishermen with their father Zebedee on the Sea of Galilee. They immediately left their father and their business to follow the young rabbi. James was probably the older of the two brothers because he is always mentioned first.

Three times James, John, and Peter were invited by Jesus to witness events no one else saw: the raising of the daughter of Jairus from the dead (Mark 5:37-47), the transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-3), and Jesus' agony in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-37).


But James was not above making mistakes. When a Samaritan village rejected Jesus, he and John wanted to call down fire from heaven upon the place. This earned them the nickname "sons of thunder." The mother of James and John also overstepped her bounds, asking Jesus to grant her sons special positions in his kingdom.

James' zeal for Jesus resulted in his being the first of the twelve apostles to be martyred. He was killed with the sword on order of King Herod Agrippa I of Judea, about 44 A.D., in a general persecution of the early church.

Two other men named James appear in the New Testament: James, the son of Alphaeus, another of Christ's chosen apostles; and James, the brother of the Lord, a leader in the Jerusalem church and author of the book of James.

Life Lessons
In spite of everything James experienced as a disciple of Jesus, his faith remained weak until after the resurrection. Once, when he and his brother asked Jesus for the privilege of sitting beside him in glory, Jesus promised them only a share in his suffering (Mark 10:35–45). They were learning that the greatest calling of a servant of Jesus is to serve others. James discovered that following Jesus Christ can lead to hardship, persecution, and even death, but the reward is eternal life with him in heaven.

Key Verses
Luke 9:52-56
And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village. (NIV)


Matthew 17:1-3
After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. (NIV)

Acts 12:1-2
It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. (NIV)

William James Roop, M.A.B.S.

Roop-Crappell Ministries

Hospice Care and Dying

The Trucking Tango

Apostolic Theological Seminary

The Phone Harvest

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

I was talking to my mother earlier, and she told me the story that she heard from her brother Jerry Mankowski, in Wautoma, Wisconsin. Jerry is my Uncle and he still lives on the old family dairy farm. 

Jerry lives in the farmhouse and still has twenty-six acres around it. He doesn't do anything with it, but he lets his son do some farming on the acreage. His son Mike has a small farm a few miles away. Mike is a middle-aged full-bearded, ex-biker, who now farms, after he had a major heart attack.

After harvesting a crop of corn, on ten acres behind the barn, Mike decided it's time to disc under what remained of the crop. After you harvest corn you still have the stubble from where the corn stocks or cut, And the old root system. All this leftover plant material gets disc under into the dirt, to be ready for next year's planting.

Mike was driving his antique, 1941 Farmall H tractor, pulling his disc, and discing under the plant material when somehow his phone slipped out of his pocket and he lost it!  He drove around and looked everywhere for his phone but could not find it anywhere. So he had to buy another phone and forget about the old one.

After waiting out the long Wisconsin winter, when the land was cut covered with snow, which now has melted, Mike could think about replanting in the spring.

His father Jerry walked the fields just to look for any large stones that might damage the equipment. When is spotted a strange looking item in the dirt!  He walked over and picked it up. It was Mike's old phone! The phone was in the dirt and covered with snow the entire cold winter!

Just because he had nothing better to do Jerry decides to plug in the phone and recharge it. He took it to the barn cleaned it up real good and plugged it into the charger. After several hours he came back and tried to turn the phone on. The phone came on, and it worked just fine, as if nothing happened!

My cat already long bought a new phone. So my uncle Jerry kept the phone, and he still using it today! Once or twice a week you use the same phone call my mother down in Texas. Every time he calls I think of the day that the phone was harvested from the old corn field!

William James Roop

 Roop-Crappell Ministries 

 Hospice Volunteer Stories 

 The Trucking Tango 

 Apostolic Theological Seminary 

A Visit To Hell

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

I was traveling for work, when I meet a co-worker in Waller Texas. We worked together for a few years, but we both worked for different companies. We both met again while we were pumping fuel next to each other.

You start telling me a lot of different spiritual experiences he was having throughout his life. It started when he was praying whether or not I changed jobs. You said that God told him to, "stay where you're at."

After a few different stories you told me about a man in England named Tandell. You said that twenty years prior he had raped and murdered a woman from Thailand in London England. He says for so long he would never be caught. But after twenty years he had a major heart attack and his heart stopped!

Who was rushed to the hospital while the paramedics tried to work on him. This man said that he was looking down on his body when they are paramedics arrived. We then start walking away with a very thick, black cloud, chasing after him. He would say later the thick, black cloud, was time closing in on him!

He was running from the thick, black cloud, when it came to three tunnels. He said the tunnels were his three big mistakes in life. He chose to go down one of the tunnels. He was running down the tunnel with darkness closing in on him. I came out of the tunnel and started walking on a rope bridge. Who wrote bridge spanned a lake of boiling blood!

When he got to the other side, demons that resembled frogs standing upright, jumped on him and started stabbing him and beating him over and over again! They kept killing him over and over again but he would not die! This went on over and over again until he woke up in the hospital! He woke up screaming for help!

The doctors revived his heart by shocking his chest. That's what brought this man alive again, and back from the dead!  This man knew immediately when he was revived, that he was being punished for the murder that he committed twenty years ago!  

He know that the doctors and nurses to call the police immediately. He was a murderer that he wanted to confess his crimes! The medical staff was confused, but they called the police anyway. Two detectives arrived and he confessed to the murder and everything else that he was guilty of. He confessed to all his crimes to the place but especially to the murder of the woman.

The courts pronounce him guilty and gave him a life sentence in prison. This man spent the remaining years of his life in prison reading the Bible. That's how he died years later, It is prison cell reading his Bible!

William James Roop, M.A.B.S.

 Roop-Crappell Ministries 

 Hospice Care and Dying 

 The Trucking Tango 

 Apostolic Theological Seminary 

The Admirals Steaks

Hello everyone.  Praise the Lord!

I was just up to central Wisconsin visiting family. My wife and I escorted my elderly mother there. My mother was raised there on a dairy farm. My Aunt and Uncle are still living there today.  My Uncle Jerry is my mother's older brother.

One afternoon, Uncle Jerry was telling me about his navy days. He served in the early fifties on a destroyer named the USS Wadleigh, DD 689. Named after the World War One admiral, George H. Wadleigh.

My Uncle Jerry's job was in the boiler room, and the engineering department in the bottom of the ship. One of those jobs was to maintain the temperatures of the food refrigerators and freezers. One of the items in the food freezers were steaks specifically for the captain of the ship, and the admiral of the fleet.

Once in a while when Jerry wanted to get in good with the cook, He would bring up a couple of the Admirals steaks to the kitchen. The cook with fry up the steaks, and Jerry and the cook with dine on the admiral steaks! Jerry said they always had plenty and didn't miss a few once in awhile!

The ships cook appreciated the gesture of a steak now and then, so my Uncle Jerry never went without eating a good meal on the ship during his cruise!  My Uncle Jerry has been out of the Navy for sixty-five years now, so I guess it's safe to tell the story!

William James Roop

 Roop-Crappell Ministries 

 Hospice Care and Dy

 The Trucking Tango 

 Apostolic Theological Seminary