Has God Forgotten?

When Israel was in Egypt

They laboured hard and long,

Strew straw, made bricks, and served with rigour

And lost their every song.

Four hundred years they were oppressed,

They lived and died in vain,

Their backs were lashed; they wept and longed

For Canaan’s Land again.

Egypt’s ambitions were to build

Cities of treasure galore,

A grotesque sphinx and pyramids rose

From burning sands by the score.

The thirst of manic pharaohs vent

Their lust on peasant slaves,

The landscape scarred with monstrous sites

From the blood of countless knaves.

Israel lost sight of the God of their past

And thought it never would end,

They watched their brethren die every day

To a tyrant whose will would not bend.

 “O where is the God of our fathers?

Just why has He left us alone?

He promised to make us a nation

And give us a land for our home.”

With loved ones dying all around them

Can you imagine their grief?

History has distanced us from the pain,

The time factor lends us relief.

But get into how they were feeling –

The hopelessness of their case,

They’d watched their parents into the graves.

And knew they would soon be erased.

Just what could they tell their children?

They knew they would follow them too,

How bleak was their present and hopeless their future,

Death beckoned all that they knew.

The promise God made them, forgotten –

He said He would set them free,

‘Twas a “fairy tale” that their grandparents told,

A story that never could be.

Despair and mistrust and a vision, but lost

As they perished each day at their task,

But God made a promise – He had not forgotten

E’en though it was deep in the past:

Jacob had said unto Joseph,

“God Almighty appeared at Luz,

He spoke to me in Canaan

And what He says He does.”

“Behold, I’m the Lord God of Abraham,

Thy father, and Isaac’s God too,

The land whereon thou liest

I give it to thy seed and you;

Thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth,

West, East, North, South ye’ll spread,

And all the families of the earth

Shall in thee most surely be blessed.”

“And behold, I surely am with thee

And will keep thee wherever thou go

And will bring thee again unto this land,

I’ll not leave thee, but here thee bestow,

Behold, I will make thee fruitful

And multiply thee more,

I’ll give this land to thy seed after thee –

A possession that’s for evermore.”

Small wonder they’d forgotten

In that burning desert heat,

Blood trickling from the backs of corpses,

Surrounded with doom and defeat.

But God would raise their deliverer,

He told them not how or when,

Yes! “Out of the blue” when no one knew,

He’d remembered His promise to them.

Unexpected, there stood this man, Moses,

Who declared, “God will set you free!

To a land of milk and honey,

Just come with me – wait and see!”

Nothing then seemed more impossible,

But God said and God would perform,

They had to work harder – their trials increased –

But a new day was starting to dawn.

They saw serpents and rivers of blood

With frogs and lice and flies,

Then pestilence, hail, thunder and fire

Right before their eyes.

Then locusts ate everything green.

Then the first-born of Egypt died,

With death on an unprecedented scale,

God’s promise to realise.

Through horrendous trials they were dragged

To the Red Sea’s banks where they stood,

Just what were their thoughts with death threatening behind,

Were they now to die in the flood?

It makes a fantastic story now

But what were their thoughts in the midst,

Were they filled with doubt and despair as they fled,

Wondering what would become of their kids?

Of course, we now know the outcome,

A story we’ll never forget:

The Red Sea opened, God set them free,

But in our own trial, don’t we fret?

It’s easy to judge others’ downfall,

It’s on record for all to learn,

But when we’re in the midst of a terrible trial,

Don’t we for deliverance, yearn?

The same God has made us promises,

And many have died on the way,

But does it detract from the God Who has said

And left us a price to pay? –

By faith believing His promise,

Awaiting with patience the day

When all flesh shall see the Glory of God

Through those who will trust and obey. 

“Works greater than these shall he do?

That believeth on Me!” Jesus said,

And He stilled the waves, healed the sick,

Opened blind eyes, raised the dead!

Someone, somewhere will believe,

And as sure as He opened the sea,

That which has always impossible stood

Shall be possible for all to see.

This world is sinking below the waves

To a watery grave of sin,

The devil’s deceiving and damning the millions

Like lemmings that cannot swim.

He “educates” the masses

To engage the lusts of the flesh:

“The Bible’s outdated, its teachings defunct!”

And so, their lives are enmeshed.

Free sex is taught to our children,

Experimentation’s approved,

Abortion’s accepted and innocent babes

Are murdered before they are schooled,

Children are reared without fathers,

This now has become the norm,

Men marry men, and women women,

Disease spreads the whole wide world o’er.

So few assess the damage

From illicit relationship’s scars,

The mother’s silent weeping

At the loss of the baby she’s harmed,

The heartbreak of broken liaisons

That never can be repaired,

The mental state one’s left in,

The feelings that cannot be shared.

God gives them up to uncleanness

Through the lusts of their heart and mind,

They dishonour their bodies between themselves

And change God’s truth to a lie,

God leaves them to vile affections,

Their natural use cast aside,

Without God in their knowledge, He gives them over

To an evil, reprobate mind. 

Without, they look the same,

But within they’re filled with hate,

Deceitful, proud, malicious,

Filled with pride and murder, debate,

Without natural affection and boasters,

Inventors of evil things,

Without understanding, unmerciful,

A mind diseased, sin brings.

The snare of the wicked one surrounds us,

He laughs God’s people to scorn,

But God will have them in derision,

A new day is about to dawn,

Nothing looks more impossible,

We stand before our Red Sea,

And God Almighty will open the waves

To set the captives free.

The sinners will come in their droves

To find salvation from sin,

They’ll turn from their drink and their drugs

To One Who can change them within,

Nations shall be changed in a day

As revival spreads o’er the earth,

And the God Whose Son died on the Cross

Shall give the whole world a new birth.

So let us not wallow in defeat

Nor look at the things which are seen,

Our God is almighty, will soon bear His arm,

Reveal to us all He’s bequeathed:

Our inheritance stays incorruptible,

His promises through ages have stood,

The eye is to see, and the ear is to hear

The cry of the children of God.

Governments shall be overthrown,

Tyrant kings brought to their knees,

The genocide of false religions

Overnight will cease.

The power of the love of the Gospel.

Will end every war at a stroke,

And none shall gainsay the might of the truth,

As the power of the devil is broke. 

And broken hearts shall be healed,

Every mountain and hill made low,

And every valley shall be exalted

As God’s love all men shall know.

Forgiveness will flow like a river,

As God smashes the enemy’s hold,

Men will lay down their arms, and wars will cease

As the news of the Gospel is told.

So let us not give up the fight

Against sin, wickedness and lies

That would so easily beset us

In a world where the devil resides.

In God we have mighty promises,

So let not the bushel hide

The light God’s ignited within us,

Let’s declare it the whole worldwide!

We stand on the shore whereby faith we can scan

An ocean of bewildered, lost souls,

But a new day is dawning with each rising sun

Where salvation we soon shall behold.

Can our God forget the millions

That are perishing day by day

In the snare of the devil’s deceiving?

Just watch those waves and pray!

Peter Burt