Breaking Faith and Not Treating God as Holy has its Just Deserts -- Deuteronomy 32:44-52

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After the Song of Moses, God Delivers Moses' Fate -- Deuteronomy 32:44-52

So Moses spoke the whole song to the people of Israel, with Joshua present. Matthew Henry makes an interesting comment about this exact moment:

"Moses who was laying down the government, and Joshua who was taking it up, they would see they were both in the same mind, and that, though they changed their commander, there was no change in the divine command; Joshua, as well as Moses, would be a witness against them if ever they forsook God."

Once he finished, he told the Israelites to take to heart all that was in the song, with this warning:

"It is not an idle word -- it's your life. By it, you can prolong your days in the [promised] land you are about to enter."

So many people take God's Word as an idle thing, and his warnings as idle threats. Moses and God warn us against doing that very thing here. Unfortunately, like 'know-it-all' children, many will not listen and they will bring destruction upon themselves. They better be ready for the consequences.

This whole thing reminds me of the big issue right now about taking the covid vaccine.  Whether you are for it or against it right now is not our concern here.  The point I want to make is that if you take it, you have to be prepared to accept the risks of taking it.  If you don't take it, you have to be able to accept the risks of not taking it. The choice is clearly yours (and mine).  Similarly, our ultimate state of affairs depends on the decision we make about God and His Word and our obedience to it. We have to be able to withstand the consequences of that decision. But know this, it is a lie of the devil that it is a futile thing to serve God and obey His Word.  It is not. There are rewards and there are great consequences in not doing so.

Then God speaks to Moses that very day and says,

"Climb Mt. Nebo and view the Promised land from afar. Then die on that mountain and join your people, as Aaron did, because you broke faith with Me in the midst of the Israelites at the waters of Meribah-kadesh, because you did not treat Me as holy in the midst of the sons of Israel." [emphasis mine]

This is Moses' last act of his 120 year old life. But once again Robert Jamieson reminds us thus about Moses:

"Notwithstanding so severe a disappointment, not a murmur of complaint escapes his lips. He is not only resigned but acquiescing; and in the near prospect of his death, he pours forth the feelings of his devout heart in sublime strains and eloquent blessings."

Matthew Henry says this:

"The remembrance of his sin might make death terrible, but the sight God gave him of Canaan took off the terror of it, as it was a token of God's being reconciled to him, and a plain indication to him that though his sin shut him out of the earthly Canaan, yet it should not deprive him of that better country which in this world can only be seen, and that with an eye of faith. Note, Those may die with comfort and ease whenever God calls for them (notwithstanding the sins they remember against themselves) who have a believing prospect and a well-grounded hope of eternal life beyond death."

Here's what we need to ask ourselves.

1. Are we "breaking faith" with God? Are we disobeying Him? That is a sin that will count against us here and now as it did for Moses, although it will not ultimately cause us to lose our salvation.

2. Are we somehow "not treating God as Holy"? Are we not trusting His Word and obeying it? Are we doubting Him? 

3. Finally, are we doing these things in the presence of others? Are we bad role models for our families, our friends, our Christian brothers and sisters? God says He doesn't appreciate that.

These are crucial questions we must ask ourselves. And if we don't like the answers, we must do something about them. My prayer for you and for me, if we realize our sin and repent and stay the course like Moses, is that God would treat us as well as He did Moses. May it be so.

Note to reader: If you like the way we are studying scripture, why not subscribe to our posts by providing us just with your email? You can do that to the right of this column in the "Subscribe to" section.  You can also search our earlier studies in the "Blog Archive" section below that.  Finally, please encourage others to study along with us by sharing this link with your family and friends. Thank you and God bless.  Ken G.

 

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If Ever There was a Need for Social Order, it is Now.

Leviticus 19:1-8 – Social Order Basics Part I

[parts of this intro appeared first as a standalone article on LinkedIn March 29, 2020]

Day 11 of our 14-day self-quarantine. I can hardly wait to go out and have the whole neighborhood to myself. It’s almost eerie like the pictures of an empty Times Square in New York City in the middle of the day.  The biggest challenge we have today is to be able to discern the truth from everything that is communicated to us (and that includes what we ourselves communicate to others).  Is the Covid-19 a big thing or will it too pass? Are the One World Government proponents behind this or is it just China or the anti-Trump movement or someone else? Is God trying to reach us one more time or is He just letting it be? Is this a build-up to the so-called end times?

Simply put, I don’t know. We do know this much. We are approaching 33,000 deaths worldwide as I write this (March 29, 2020).  That is more than the number of deaths of SARS, Ebola, and MERS combined. The next milestone (for lack of a better word) is Yellow Fever in the late 1800’s which took between 100 and 150 thousand people, followed by the Swine Flu in 2009/10 which took 200,000. We need to watch the stats.

With respect to who is behind all this, my personal feeling is that while one or more players may have had a negative role in this pandemic, the reality is that most of them are taking advantage of the situation to promote their own agendas. And that they’re prepared to do it in stages, taking what ground they can this time and setting up for the next ‘big thing’ that will help them do so. We need to be aware of that.

Finally, is God trying to reach us through this pandemic?  God is always trying to reach us. He has been doing that since He created the world and put man on it.  He made His ultimate reach 2,000 years ago when He gave His son to die on the cross providing a gift of eternal life to mankind. Some of us have not accepted that gift yet. Many are accepting it now. For them, and in the big scheme of things, the coronavirus pandemic will have been most worth it in the end. There is no virus or disease of any kind in heaven.

If ever there were times for having social order in the world, this is certainly one of them. And with that in mind we turn to our passage of Scripture today.

The Passage

Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

² “Speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. ³ Every one of you shall reverence his mother and his father, and you shall keep My sabbaths; I am the Lord your God. ⁴ Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods; I am the Lord your God.

⁵ ‘Now when you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord, you shall offer it so that you may be accepted. ⁶ It shall be eaten the same day you offer it, and the next day; but what remains until the third day shall be burned with fire. ⁷ So if it is eaten at all on the third day, it is an offense; it will not be accepted. ⁸ Everyone who eats it will bear his iniquity, for he has profaned the holy thing of the Lord; and that person shall be cut off from his people.

Thoughts on the Passage

Here are God’s basic initial requirements for a social order that brings true “peace and security” to people.  This peace and security is NOT what all global and one world government proponents promise (until they have you under their control).  It is internal, it is lasting, and it cannot be taken away.

First, God says we need to be holy. Because He is holy. Simple. And we humans become more holy as we follow His commandments and live by his statutes. I love what David Guzik says about being holy:

The idea behind the word holy is “separate”. As it is applied to God, it describes God’s apartness. It means that God is different than man and from all other beings in the greatness and majesty of His attributes. He has a righteousness unlike any other; a just unlike any other; a purity unlike any other – and love, grace, and mercy unlike any other. . .. Being holy [for us] means being like God, separating ourselves unto Him and His truth - and naturally, separating ourselves from those things that are not like Him and not according to His truth.

And that is what we are to move towards.

Second, social order requires (now think about it) that each one of us “reverence his mother and his father”. Period. My, have we ever screwed this part up. Part of that is our own doing as sometimes we are not the parents God intended us to be; other times it happens because we allow the state or the school system to take over our responsibilities as parents. Sometimes it happens because we allow society (what others are doing or allowing with their kids) to dictate what we do or allow with ours. It’s just so much easier that way, we argue, because we need to focus on so much other stuff these days. Well, I’m sorry, but what your kid does (even as a teenager) should be one of your uppermost priorities.  We can only get “reverence” from our children, if we show them love and provide them with the limits that they need to become the adults God wants them to be.

Guzik says this law is an essential building block for the stability and health of all society. Harrison says, “Reverencing parents is an act of piety towards God, since the parents are substitutes for the heavenly Father as far as their children are concerned."

Third, God says, we are to keep His sabbath. That calls for another period! At this point I don’t care what day of the week is your sabbath, as much as I care that you have a sabbath and adhere to the idea of it being a day of rest – whatever God leads you or shows you or wants you to mean by that. Search the Word about keeping the sabbath and find out. And then in the words of some famous marketer, “just do it.”

Third, in this initial set of criteria for social order, God says to His people, “do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods”.  Well, many of us today may say we don’t do that. Check again. This very thing I am typing on right now may be an idol. So may my phone and the many apps on it. So too that idiot tube I watch periodically. Not to mention that glass container of spirits that we may pour into our bodies. Or porn. I would even go as far as to say that “idleness” – my “free time” can become an idol for us today. Did I mention money? (Are you going crazy because your sales or income is down right now? Maybe this is a time when you need to adhere to this verse – don’t make money your idol.)

Finally, God says, in verses 5 to 8, keep on making your sacrifices (or today your offerings) of service or gifts to the Lord. And do them in the appropriate way, He says. We learned about that earlier in this study from previous chapters. We have been away from our church for four weeks now due to our trip south and then our quarantine. Today, we wrote our check to make up for our inability to contribute to the weekly offerings. This Thursday, when we are released from quarantine, one of us will make that special trip to our church’s mail slot and make that donation. That is tops on our list. Do not forget to continue making your offerings unto the Lord, God says.

In the rest of this chapter, God continues with His “laws” of “social order”.  Boy, do we ever need them now. May you reflect on this as He speaks to your heart this day. Stay tuned for the next installment of this study and feel free to share this one.  God bless you.

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The purpose of Dietary Laws in the Old Testament

The Purpose of Dietary Laws

Leviticus 11:41-47 

⁴¹ ‘Now every swarming thing that swarms on the earth is detestable, not to be eaten. ⁴² Whatever crawls on its belly, and whatever walks on all fours, whatever has many feet, in respect to every swarming thing that swarms on the earth, you shall not eat them, for they are detestable. ⁴³ Do not render yourselves detestable through any of the swarming things that swarm; and you shall not make yourselves unclean with them so that you become unclean. ⁴⁴ For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. And you shall not make yourselves unclean with any of the swarming things that swarm on the earth. ⁴⁵ For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God; thus you shall be holy, for I am holy.’”
⁴⁶ This is the law regarding the animal and the bird, and every living thing that moves in the waters and everything that swarms on the earth, ⁴⁷ to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean, and between the edible creature and the creature which is not to be eaten.

Thoughts on the Passage

There are certain things God did not want the Israelites to eat.  These included anything that “swarms” on the earth. There are things that do swarm that elsewhere God okays for eating – birds, locusts, etc.  So, it is only those things that swarm and crawl on their bellies, or walk on all fours, or have many feet – it is those swarming things that God says are ‘detestable’.  Eating any of those things would make people detestable and unclean.

But it is more than that.  God told the Israelites to do that because He was the Lord their God. Instead, He wanted them to consecrate themselves in order to be holy because He is holy. And being holy is what is required He says by the God who brought them up from the land of Egypt where they were slaves.

The passage ends by Moses saying, that this is a law that enables God’s people to distinguish between what is clean and what is unclean; and thus, between what can be eaten and what cannot (or should not) be eaten.

On this passage, David Guzik says, “God claims the right to speak to every area of our life, including what we eat. He had the right to tell Israel what to eat and what not to eat. One great purpose of the dietary laws of Israel was to sanctify – to set them apart – from other nations. It made fellowship with those who di dnot serve god far more difficult.”

This also reminds us of the story in Daniel chapter 1 where Daniel and his friends refused to eat the unkosher food at the king of Babylon’s table – and God blesses them for being set apart for His righteousness. 

Guzik quotes Harris in saying, “"In general it can be said that the laws protected Israel from bad diet, dangerous vermin, and communicable diseases."

Are we expected to follow a strict kosher diet today?  No, that issue was settled in Acts 15 where it was decided that this was not necessary to follow Jesus. In I Timothy 4:1, 3-5, Paul further gives us the liberty to eat what we want. Having said that, however, we also have to deal with the wisdom of I Corinthians 9:24-27 where we are shown that some things are not beneficial to us for certain personal reasons. Each person knows his or her own dietary needs to stay healthy or to be able to sleep well at night. Guzik reminds us that “no one should think themselves more right with God because they eat or don't eat certain things.”

Matthew Henry reminds us that the key objective of all this was first and foremost to make us holy as our God is holy, not necessarily to dictate our diet.  We need to know the difference between good and evil, clean and unclean. We need to be constantly aware of divine laws in our lives. And to be different from, or set apart from, our neighbors in these respects.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

No Defence Cuts It When It Comes to Desecrating What God Has Called Holy

Leviticus 5:14-19:

¹⁴ Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 

¹⁵ “If a person acts unfaithfully and sins unintentionally against the Lord’s holy things, then he shall bring his guilt offering to the Lord: a ram without defect from the flock, according to your valuation in silver by shekels, in terms of the shekel of the sanctuary, for a guilt offering. 

¹⁶ He shall make restitution for that which he has sinned against the holy thing, and shall add to it a fifth part of it and give it to the priest. The priest shall then make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering, and it will be forgiven him.

¹⁷ “Now if a person sins and does any of the things ^[a]which the Lord has commanded not to be done, though he was unaware, still he is guilty and shall bear his punishment. 

¹⁸ He is then to bring to the priest a ram without defect from the flock, according to your valuation, for a guilt offering. So the priest shall make atonement for him concerning his error in which he sinned unintentionally and did not know it, and it will be forgiven him. 

¹⁹ It is a guilt offering; he was certainly guilty before the Lord.”

Thoughts on the Passage

Before we jump into this current passage, I wanted to add a note on the issue of why the Jews do not sacrifice animals today.  We also need to remember that the temple in Jerusalem was (once the Tabernacle, that was the precursor of the Temple, had served them in the desert) the only place that God dwelt.   And when it was destroyed by the Romans in the first century, there could be no more sacrifices.  Synagogues were the place for sacrifices.  And that’s another reason the Jews want the Temple rebuilt in Jerusalem – so that they can offer their sacrifices to God.

Now, let’s study The Guilt Offering as described in our current passage.

David Guzik offers that the guilt offering was used when someone had sinned in regard to the holy things. Perhaps with respect to some type of desecration of the tabernacle or its associated items. In this case a mere sin offering was not enough.  Guzik says restitution was also required, paying back what was lost plus twenty percent (see verse 16).  Interesting that in these cases, not only was the wrong to be put right, but an additional one-fifth had to be added. That’s twice the amount suggested for tithing elsewhere in scripture. That’s how seriously God’s perspective on this kind of sin was.

What comes to mind for me is all the desecration that is going on around the world these days – of churches and synagogues. Surely God does not look lightly upon these things.

Here also we have the situation that even when a person does not know he has sinned in regard to the holy things, a guilt offering is still required for otherwise the person is still guilty and will bear his punishment (verse 17). “I didn’t know” did not cut it.  Just like “I didn’t know the speed limit was only 50 m.p.h. here” does not cut when one is stopped for speeding by an officer today. Or put another way, ignorance is no excuse of the law.

Matthew Henry reminds us that sin-offerings and trespass-offerings were one and the same. The first part of Chapter 5 deals with trespasses against others. Our current passage deals with, as we mentioned above, trespasses against holy things.

One way this would happen was if a man took anything dedicated to God or set aside for the priests and used it for himself or for his own purposes. This was a trespass. But again, it was to be that the offender did not do it intentionally. Henry reminds us that where the offender did do it presumptuously and in contempt of the law, he was put to death without mercy in accordance with Hebrews 10:28 and its associated references.

Robert Jamieson suggests the kind of other sins covered here would include not paying the full due of tithes, or offering sufficient first-fruits, etc.

The bottom is that the desecration of things that are holy is an abominable sin in God’s eyes. We can’t just say that was the Old Testament Law and we need not worry about it.  As I have said elsewhere, the principles on which those Old Testament laws were based often do apply to us today.  I again believe this is one case in point.

Now I understand that today’s “Church” is not the building or the furniture of the place wherein we worship. No argument there. But still it is often a place where we do worship – were believers gather together and expect the Holy Spirit to speak to them there. In fact, we invite Him to such a place as a congregation. If that’s true, then we owe it to ourselves to stop and assess our actions in such environments. If we are making something holy unholy, we are guilty of what God was talking to the Hebrews about in this chapter.

If we are involved in that, then we need to admit, confess, repent, and change our ways. If others are, we are to speak up. If they listen, all fine and good.  If they don’t, perhaps it is time for us to move on – but not give up.

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Now that we're under Grace and not the Law, what about the Sabbath?

What God Expects On The Sabbath

Exodus 31:12-17: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “But as for you, speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘You shall surely observe My sabbaths; for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. Therefore you are to observe the sabbath, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work on the sabbath day shall surely be put to death. So the sons of Israel shall observe the sabbath, to celebrate the sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from labor, and was refreshed.’”

As I continue with this “layman’s look at the Bible” I must state to all reading it that I just came out of a conference with Andrew Farley, author of many books including The Naked Gospel and lead pastor of Church Without Religion in Texas.  I have a new appreciation of the Law of the Old Testament as a result, but have also come to realize what I believe to be more of its appropriate role in our passage from death to life.  You may be detecting some of my growth in that area in the pages ahead.

In this passage, God once again has something to say to the Children of Israel and He does it through Moses, their leader. The topic this time is how they are to treat God’s Sabbath.

God makes some pretty strong statements about the Sabbath.  First, that the Children of Israel were to “surely” observe it, primarily because it’s a perpetual sign of the covenant between He and them, but also because it is “holy” to them, and finally because if they do not, they will be cut off from their people through death. We also note that these days are “His” Sabbaths and the implication is clearly that we dare not keep from God what is rightfully His.

Now keeping the Sabbath is just one of the ten commandments.  And the ten commandments were only a very small percentage of the entire Mosaic Law that Jews were required to keep in their Covenant with God. The complete list included 613 commandments, taking into account both the “do’s” and the “don’ts’s” (yes, that’s how my computer says it is spelled).  Elsewhere in Scripture we are told that even breaking one law of those 613 makes us guilty of falling short in meeting the Law, period.  (James 2:10 reads, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.”) Since no one could keep them all, God had to provide another way (the sacrifice of His Son) to clear us once and for all, of all our sins – past, present, and future.  The problem was not the Law for it was good and pure and reflected the character of God. The problem was man. He couldn’t keep it.  But the principles of the Law while they no longer have to be kept in order for us to keep our salvation are still a reflection of God.  And once we have Christ living in us, we now want to reflect as much of that character as possible – only now it becomes volitional rather than compulsory.

So then, while no longer being bound by the Law, we want to consider how keeping them (not for the purpose of our salvation, but because God loves us and we love Him) will enable us to better reflect as much as His character as possible.

In the case of the Sabbath, there are also some beneficial benefits in keeping it. First of all, keeping the Sabbath reminds us, our text says, that it is the Lord Who sanctifies us. That is, we become holy by keeping the Sabbath.  What does that mean? Well, it’s not that by somehow not working on the Sabbath, something miraculous happens and the cells of our body turn ‘holy’. No, the intent here is to convey that by keeping the Sabbath, we are, to a certain extent, fulfilling the meaning of the word, ‘holy’.  And if you look that word up as used in Scripture, there are two meanings that apply here – apartness and separateness.  Keeping the Sabbath is just one small indication of how we are different from others in our desire to reflect God’s character.

Secondly, it provides our physical bodies a complete rest. For those well familiar with computer-talk, we are not talking about putting our ‘physical body computer’ to sleep, but rather a full shut-down when it comes to ‘work’. Recently my iPhone froze and I took it in to the repair depot. The technician asked me one question.  “When was the last time you turned it off?” I told him we had been going through some challenging times and we had to have it on in case of an emergency call 24/7 for at least a month.  He said, “That’s your problem.  These machines need a rest just like you do.” He did his magic (really one small technical step), and lo and behold, everything was fine, but he advised that I turn it off more regularly and let it rest.  Since then, no problems.  Similarly, our bodies were created with what Pastor Ed Young of Fellowship Church in Dallas calls a built-in drum rhythm that goes like this – ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom, bang; ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom, bang; etc.  In case you missed it, each ‘ba-boom’ is a two-day cycle; there’s three of them; and then a new sound “bang” – the rest day.  Our bodies, as well as our minds and hearts need refreshing that keeping the Sabbath can give us.

And God, too, rested on the seventh day of creation. If we are to reflect His character, we would do well to keep this particular law (out of the 613) to the best of our ability.

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