Month: February 2019

Posted on

Leviticus 1 – 7

Some of the choices the sovereign creator God almighty makes are difficult for us to understand. As the One offended by sin and as sovereign God, He has the right to define what the payment for sin should be. We are fortunate that He provided a payment for sin; without it we would be doomed to eternal punishment for our sin. His choice for the method of payment for sin doesn’t mean that He is bloodthirsty or uncaring of innocent animals. Rather, it teaches us what a horrible and costly thing our sin is.

For a homeschool assignment my daughter Emma had to write a description of what sacrificing an animal as laid out in Leviticus would be like. Perhaps I’m just a proud homeschool mom, but I feel moved by her description. She gave me permission to share it here.

Offering Burnt Offerings

            I am going to show God sorrow for my sin and how dedicated I am to Him. First I must find a young bull, sheep, or goat without defect. As I look for a lamb I see my favorite, so I walk over to it. It nuzzles my hand looking for a treat or two. I whisper to him that I don’t have anything today, still he nuzzles me. His wool feels clumpy and soft like a silk blanket. Then I present my sheep at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, and he looks up at me, bleating as if to say, “Please don’t choose me.” I tie my sheep’s legs together, and I put it on the altar of burnt offering. I can feel it squirming, trying to get out as I lay my hand on it. He looks up at me with pitiful eyes like he is trying to say to me, “Are you really going to do this to me? I thought you liked me!” When I slaughter him I start to cry. I can still taste my salty tears. I feel him go limp. As the priests sprinkle the blood I can smell the blood of my lamb that had to be killed because of me! I skin it and cut it into pieces, and wash the inner parts and legs. As I skin my favorite lamb I feel the skin that I used to spend a lot of time petting and grooming. I see the nose that used to be sticking in my hand looking for food. I smell the meat burning that used to be my favorite lamb. Sin is a very gruesome thing, isn’t it?

LambGoatCalf

 

Since we don’t have to kill animals to pay for our sin, we may lack an understanding of the awfulness of our sin. Since Jesus was the one to sacrifice for our sin and not we ourselves, we may be tempted to take our sin and its payment lightly. Can you ask God to give you a true understanding of your sin?

Posted on

Exodus 36 – 40

Did you notice the key phrase, “as the Lord had commanded Moses”? That gives us an indication why we are regaled with a second account of the Tabernacle. The record preserved for us could have saved us a few chapters of dull reading by simply stating that they did everything just as the Lord had commanded Moses. That it didn’t abbreviate the account tells me two things:

  • He wanted to show us as well as tell us that they got it perfectly right. Where God specified details for their worship they accomplished every detail, and His pleasure with the result was pleasure with nothing less than their very best and perfect obedience to His revealed will. When God reveals His desire for our work, He expects us to get it done in perfect obedience. He didn’t cheapen words by simply telling us that they got everything right. When the details were important, He specified the details.
  • Worship is important enough to pay attention to every detail. It is not something we offer on our own terms, but on God’s.

This leaves me wondering if my worship practices are too casual or too me-centered. If I insist on satisfying my own self-preference for the songs we sing in our worship service or for traditional practices or lack thereof, or if I decide I’m unable to accept God’s message because I don’t like the messenger, is that worship worthy of God? Is it worship of God at all, or worship of self?

Posted on

Exodus 33 – 35

The consequences of their sin were distressing to the Israelites. That will always be the case with sin – it never delivers what it promises, and its consequences are often beyond what we expect. Does the prospect of sin separating us from God distress us? If not, these Israelites were in better spiritual condition than we are.

But note that it’s not because of His anger that sin separated Him from His people; it was because He might destroy them in their sin. God isn’t harsh not to accept us sin and all. He can’t be in the presence of sin, and if our choices bring sin into His presence, the result is our destruction. It seems as if destruction is a reflexive response God has to sin. Thus, His refusal to allow us in His presence in our sinful condition is not harsh, but merciful.

He speaks of destroying them, and yet the first manifestation of His glory is His goodness (Exodus 33:19), mercy and compassion. In 34:5-7 the name He proclaims is “the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” How can we reconcile those two ends of the spectrum characterizing the same person? What does this teach you about God?

God did forgive the people, and their response was to give and serve to fulfill the need for the Tabernacle. His forgiveness should move us to action as well.

Posted on

Exodus 30 – 32

We may be frustrated by or scornful at the Israelites for their faithlessness, but we always should be warned by their example, especially when our first tendency is to be frustrated or scornful. For we are disposed by fallen human nature to be like them. If we’re not like them then we need to thank God for His mercy toward us and praise Him for His transforming power in us.

The golden calf they made was not because they wanted to worship cows; more likely they were trying to put a form to this mysterious Lord who had brought them out of Egypt, and cows were a form of god that they knew from Egypt’s religious system. Again, let’s be warned by their example. As they did, we often want to reduce God to something we know and understand, when He is much higher than we are and beyond our understanding. We believe that God thinks like we do instead of seeking to think like He does. He wasn’t honored by their attempt to put Him in a box; is He any more honored by our attempts?

The Israelites’ sin seems to us to come on the heels of their making their promise to God to do everything He said to do, but it was a reaction to Moses being gone for forty days. That is a long time, and no one could blame them for giving up on him after that length of time. Think about how frightening that must have been to them to be faced with the prospect of moving into the Promised Land with no leader, and they didn’t know how to apprehend God. So they took matters into their own hands, thinking they had been deserted. Yet another warning for us. If only they had waited another day longer!

Seeing the Israelites as a mirror of our own human tendencies apart from the transforming power of Jesus, we understand why Jesus taught us to pray, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Posted on

Exodus 25 – 31

Don’t skip over these passages, tempting as it may be! We may have to work harder to figure out a point of application in this for us, but I believe it’s there. If we skip over this part of God’s word we will be tempted to skip others; then where do we draw the line? I don’t skip over any of God’s word, but rather I trust Him to give me revelation each time I read it. The more we search for meaning for us, the richer the reward.

This is actually an important passage to help us understand God’s desire for our worship. God lays out few rules for our worship of Him as New Testament believers. He tells us that “God is spirit and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24), but we don’t get much guidance beyond that. Lack of mention shouldn’t fool us into thinking our worship isn’t important to God, for it obviously is, indicated by the priority and detail He gives here for the building of the Tabernacle and its furnishings. God wants our worship of Him to be better than Old Testament worship, because He wants it to spring out of our genuine love for Him rather than out of motions we go through in obedience to rules. However, if we are going to honor Him our worship should be informed by the practices He laid out for His Old Testament people.

Their worship was to center around the Tent of Meeting, or Tabernacle. God’s presence would be there, in their midst, on the mercy seat, which was another name for the covering of the Ark of the Covenant. We New Testament folk enjoy the luxury of taking God’s presence for granted, but consider what a privilege it was for them to be able to point to the place where God’s presence abided in their midst. When in history had that happened? This reminder of what a privilege it is to have God’s presence in us should prompt thanksgiving.

Each of the articles in the Tent of Meeting had significance for their worship: the light that was supposed to burn nightly, the incense that was supposed to burn perpetually, the bread on the table, the altar of burnt offering, and the wash basin. Consider why each one was important to Old Testament worship, and then apply that to our New Testament worship of God. If you need some help go to last year’s posts on these chapters, where I describe the significance of each item and apply it to New Testament worship. I’ll make it easy for you: click on each day’s scheduled reading here, and it will take you to those posts: Exodus 25 – 27, Exodus 28 – 29, Exodus 30 – 32.

I am combining three days of reading in this single post. Rather than give you my thoughts, I encourage you to talk to God about your worship of Him based on what these chapters reveal about His desire for man’s worship – for your worship.

Posted on

Exodus 22 – 24

This is the covenant God made with Israel: He made promises to them, and they made promises to Him. It’s a worthwhile exercise to make note of all that God promised them and all that they promised to God. Don’t forget to include the Ten Commandments in the “everything He has said” that the people promised.

We will not understand Old Testament covenant ceremony without teaching on the subject. I’ll limit my comments to the fact that blood was part of the solemn ceremony. Neither God nor the people would take that lightly because it meant the death of an animal. So the people entered into binding covenant with God, and then Moses headed up the mountain to meet with God to receive instructions for what their relationship with God would look like – how they would worship Him.

Moses was gone forty days receiving these instructions. That’s what the next seven chapters are about. Those seven chapters feel like a long time because they aren’t the most interesting reading to us, and so the reader tends to miss how the events unfolded. You might want to take a peek at chapter 32, where the instructions end and the story picks up again to see what happens next. What happened to their commitment to God?! Does that teach you anything about yourself?

This description of God in chapter 24 is important because there are few people who actually saw God, and their accounts add to our understanding of what God looks like. Do you wonder why it only describes what was under God’s feet, and not God Himself? My guess is that they didn’t have words to describe what they saw, and that was the best they could do.

That is a challenge to my perception of God. If He seems less than what He says He is, if He seems like less than enough or less than wonderful to me it’s because I don’t know Him well. There’s no way we can know Him by our own efforts or desires – knowledge of Him comes only by the way He says. He has given us ways to know Him, and if we don’t take advantage of them, we’ll not know Him. Making up our own ideas of Him is not knowing Him. No, He is beyond our ability to imagine just as He was beyond their ability to describe.

What do you learn about God from today’s readings? Please ask Him to show you something new about Him in these various revelations He gives of Himself.

Posted on

Exodus 19 – 21

After liberating Israel from slavery, God offered them a special relationship with Him, if they would obey Him and keep His covenant. Even though He had rescued them and had a plan for them, they had to meet His conditions.

The people agreed unanimously and promptly, without knowing the terms of the covenant, that they would do everything God told them to do. So God moved forward with establishing the covenant relationship. Note that it was going to be done on His terms; the people had no say in the terms of the covenant.

Even enjoying a special relationship with God, the people couldn’t meet Him too familiarly. They had to prepare by cleaning up. It’s amazing to think how difficult that would have been to wash their clothes in the desert. It took two days for them to prepare, and then the closest they got to God was standing at the foot of the mountain onto which God descended. Indeed, they didn’t want to get any closer than that, or even that close, because the fire, billowing smoke, violent shaking of the mountain, and sound of the trumpet was so terrifying to them that they trembled with fear and begged for Moses to be their intermediary. We can only imagine what it would be like to be in God’s presence, but my guess is that it will be more like this experience than the familiarity modern man commonly envisions when He thinks of God as his buddy. Based on this description, it seems like greater intimacy with God results in greater reverence for Him, because we recognize that He is fearsome. To know Him more fully is to fear Him more. As Beaver says of Aslan in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, “Of course He isn’t safe. But He’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

What lessons do you learn about God from this description of man’s close encounter with Him? What feelings does that arouse in you? Can you praise God for who He is?

Posted on

Exodus 16 – 18

Exodus 16 is the first mention of the Sabbath. Think about what God’s intention for the Sabbath was, that He didn’t provide manna on that day because His plan for their rest included not gathering, baking, nor boiling. They were to stay where they were and not “go out.” The idea of rest didn’t just mean to cease from their normal work and do whatever they wanted to do, but it meant “to sit down in quiet, to ease self, to settle, to repose, to desist from exertion, to put away, to cease, to be still, to celebrate,” according to Strong’s Concordance. The Hebrew word used in Exodus 16 was the same word used to describe God’s resting following completion of creation in Genesis 2:3.

As God expanded on the terms of the covenant He established with them, He would later reveal that their observance of the Sabbath was a sign of the covenant (Exodus 31:13). Failure to keep it was punishable by death.

Jesus gave us no such command, but He did give us an example, as did the apostles. He didn’t command His followers to keep the other Ten Commandments, either, but He clearly expected them to keep them without being told.

Scripture is full of examples of God’s people confusing man’s traditions with God’s commands, and in their preference for their traditions failing to worship God and please Him. This is an opportunity for us to evaluate our Sabbath observances.

A lover of God will not simply do or not do something because it is commanded or forbidden; he will want to please God. That means seeking His mind and doing what we know to do.

Posted on

Exodus 13 – 15

Familiarity with this story likely prevents us from appreciating how miraculous the Exodus was. Egypt was the superpower of their known world in that day; Israel was not even a nation, but more of an ethnic group. Their position was very weak despite their numbers because they had no leader, no homeland, no independent economy, nor military strength. That they escaped Egypt at all was a miracle; that Egypt was totally destroyed in the process is amazing. It is incredible, except to people who believe that God is who He says He is. Today’s reading is an occasion to remember and to praise God for His miraculous and mighty works on behalf of His people.

People who critique the Bible from a strictly academic perspective doubt the accuracy of the Exodus account because it was not recorded in Egypt’s history, to their knowledge; however, that shouldn’t be cause for us to doubt the truth of God’s word, for there is a reasonable explanation for why this major event was not recorded by Egyptian historians. Egypt was not a literate society. Their hieroglyphic writing was very difficult to learn, and so few people learned to read and write. Pharaoh himself didn’t learn! But he did employ a number of the few literate people, and he told them what to record. Predictably, pharaohs never were interested in historical accuracy, but in recording their greatness for the world to remember. Much of the writings that still exist today were carved on stone monuments and painted on tomb walls; the goal of such writing wouldn’t be to relate the failures and defeats of the honoree, but to extol his greatness. Thus, it’s not a stumbling block that the Exodus and God’s judgment on Egypt was not recorded in Egypt’s history.

God wanted to make sure His people remembered the Exodus, so He made the annual Passover observance a law and required a remembrance on the happy occasion of every firstborn son. Do you believe they could possibly have forgotten such an event? We will read in II Chronicles that in fact they did forget, at a time when the nation as a whole had only a superficial relationship with God. There’s an interesting connection there that makes a strong argument for our need to build remembrance into our relationships with God.

God gives His New Testament people few commands, but one that He does give is to observe communion in remembrance of Jesus’ sacrifice for us. As great a miracle, as mighty a work as the Exodus was, our salvation in Christ is even greater and mightier. Let us appreciate it: we are freed from sin – we don’t have to live in sin, but can escape its grasp on us through the power Jesus gives us. We can be healed of sin’s wounds. We’re not only freed from sin, but from sin’s consequence, death, to be reunited with loved ones. The Exodus is an object lesson of our salvation, and today’s reading is an opportunity to remember and reflect on that. Let’s not neglect to do so or we’ll fail to appreciate it for the great gift and wonder that it is, and our hearts will grow hard.

How do you make sure that you remember the wonderful things God does for you? If you aren’t doing anything, would you ask God today to show you how you can build that practice and start researching? If you have good ideas about how to remember, please consider sharing them. One great way I know of is to read God’s word thoughtfully and use those readings as occasions to consider how they speak to your life. That’s what my posts are about. God’s Old Testament people offer us New Testament people a look at the human tendencies of unredeemed people– tendencies we share with them unless God graciously transforms us. They had before them the miraculous experience of crossing the Red Sea by foot on dry land and seeing God destroy their enemy, and in the time of crisis they looked back longingly toward enslavement. Do you make the same senseless choice in holding on to sin instead of living in the freedom Messiah has bought for you? Please ask God that question today, and choose to let Him lead you away from slavery and into the miracle of freedom from sin and enslavement to selfish desires, if you haven’t already. If you have, praise and thank Him for what He has done, and invite Him to continue the work. Likely we can’t imagine the adventures into which God wants to lead us!

Posted on

Exodus 10 – 12

What do you suppose made Pharaoh disregard Moses’s warning about the death of his firstborn son? Having suffered the other plagues, he was foolish not to believe and take action to protect his son and his people. II Corinthians 4:4 says, “The god of this age (that’s Satan) has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” We choose not to believe God to our peril, just as Pharaoh did. Today’s reading is an opportunity for you to check yourself: is there any truth that you have chosen not to believe that imperils your knowledge of God? I encourage you to ask God that question about yourself.

The Passover is a key Old Testament event because it offers us much instruction about Jesus’s work on our behalf. He died on Passover so that we don’t have to die, and the New Testament teaches that He is our Passover Lamb. What observations about Passover can you use to enlighten your understanding of our great salvation? At the least, this passage gives us an opportunity to consider how great our salvation is and to praise and thank God for it; why don’t you spend some time doing that?