Chimp Eden

If the Lord delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us. - Numbers 14:8


Eugene Cussons rescues chimpanzees. Orphaned by those in the business of bush-meat trade and taken from the jungle as infants, many have lived their entire lives confined in a space smaller than a prison cell. When Cussons arrives to take them to the game, reserve he calls "Chimp Eden," he often finds them hostile and trusting.

"These chimps don't realize that I am one of the good guys," Cussons says. When he tries to put them into a smaller crate for the trip to their new home, they put up quiet a fight. "They don't know that I'm going to take them back to Chimp Eden and give them a life so much better."

On a much grander sale, God's offer to liberate us from the slavery of sin is often met with resistance. When He rescued the children of Israel from Egypt, God took them through difficult places that caused them to doubt His good intentions. "Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?" they cried (Num. 14:3).

On our journey of faith, there are times when the "freedom" of sin that we left behind is more appealing than the retrictions of faith that lie ahead. We must trust the protective boundaries found in God's Word as the only way to get to the place of ultimate freedom. - Julie Ackerman Link


Sin's lure may look like freedom
But in its grip we're bound;
It's when we're bound to Jesus
Real freedom will be found. - D. De Haan

Obedience to God is the key to freedom.

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Numbers 14:1-10

All the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. All the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said to them, Would that he had died in the land of Egypt! or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why does Yahweh bring us to this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will be a prey: wouldn't it be better for us to return into Egypt? They said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.

Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel. Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were of those who spied out the land, tore their clothes: and they spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceeding good land. If Yahweh delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it to us; a land which flows with milk and honey.

Only don't rebel against Yahweh, neither fear the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defense is removed from over them, and Yahweh is with us: don't fear them. But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. The glory of Yahweh appeared in the tent of meeting to all the children of Israel.

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