Your feelings can be faulty. What do I mean?
Stay tuned to find out on this week's episode of Liberty at
Home. Hello there, folks.
Welcome to our latest edition of Liberty at Home, broadcast here
on Easton Community Access Television and brought to you by
the Liberty Baptist Church, where I, Adam Rivero, have
served as pastor for almost 13 years.
Today, as always, we're broadcasting from beautiful
Easton, MA, where the new Chipotle has now opened its
doors at Five Corners and is now in direct competition with a
nearby Taco Bell to see who can butcher authentic Mexican
cuisine the most. But I will say I'll love me some
Taco Bell. On this week's episode, I want
to talk about feelings. And to do that, let's head over
today's text, which is located in the first 3 verses of Exodus
16. And they took their journey from
Elam, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came
unto the wilderness of sin, which is between Elam and Sinai,
on the 15th day of the second month after their departing out
of the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of
the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the
wilderness. And the children of Israel said
unto them, would to God, We had died by the hand of the Lord in
the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we
did eat bread to the full. For he had brought us forth into
this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.
In the 16th chapter of the Book of Exodus, the Israelites were
in the desert between Egypt and the Promised Land.
Through the power of God manifested in 10 plagues, the
Israelites had escaped the clutches of the Egyptians.
No longer slaves, they were now free.
Yet they had an arduous journey ahead of them through the
unforgiving desert before they were to arrive at the land
promised to Abraham by God several generations before.
Now Exodus 16 recounts a time where, very early in this
journey, the Israelites complained about their seemingly
meager rations. In their discouragement they
made some very odd statements. Consider what we just read a few
moments ago. The Israelites feelings about
the situation were off base on a number of levels.
First, it's odd that the people of Israel would reminisce about
their time in bondage, for certainly they did not joy any
kind of freedom in their final years in Egypt as slaves.
It's also unlikely they sat at the flesh pots or ate bread to
the full. The Egyptians would not have fed
them in this manner as they saw Israel as a threat and were
actively trying to decrease their population, not strengthen
it. Also, the people of Israel had
forgotten that Moses and Aaron were used by God to hearken.
They released from bondage and brought them safely through the
Red Sea. Now they're complaining that
these same two men were going to hasten their demise.
Wow. Feelings can be wonderful
things, and they certainly are a gift from God when they're in
line with God's Word. Yet our feelings should not
always be trusted as accurate representations of truth.
No doubt the Israelites felt discouraged as they were
discovering their desert experience wasn't everything
they'd hoped it to be. Yet instead of trusting the same
God that had brought them so far already, they ended up trusting
their own flawed assessment of the situation.
So now, instead of looking to ourselves, instead of the
Israelites of the Old Testament, how do we know if our feelings
are correct? Well, it's easy.
We line them up with the Word of God.
Although we may loudly proclaim that nobody can tell us how to
feel, God's Word often admonishes us to align our
thoughts with the Word. Why?
Well, one reason is Jeremiah 17 verse 9, where it says the heart
is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
Who can know it? This means that because our
hearts are sinful, we shouldn't automatically trust our feelings
and emotions to be accurate representations of the truth for
Israel. Everything they claimed about
their situation in Exodus chapter 16 verses 2 and 3 was
wrong. We can make the same mistake
ourselves, and we trust ourselves and our fallible
feelings over an infallible, loving God.
Feelings can be like a funhouse mirror.
They give an inaccurate, distorted picture of the truth.
Trust, the mirror of the Word, which James calls the perfect
law of liberty. In James 125, truth read comes
from trusting God in His Word, not from trusting our own flawed
sensibilities and emotions. Well, it feels like we've used
up all of our time for today's episode of Liberty at Home, and
well, that's because we have. But before we go, I'd like to
thank you for watching and invite you to join us this week
at Liberty Baptist Church. We meet every Sunday and
Wednesday at 800 Washington St. Route 138, right across the
street from Easton Pool and Spa. Learn more about a church or
watch online services anytime by heading over to my
libertybaptist.org. Well, I'm Pastor Adam Rivero,
reminding you that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's
liberty. See you next week on ECAT for
our next edition of Liberty at Home.