Burunche’s Blog

Exodus 35:1 – 3 “Then Moses assembled the whole congregation of Israel and said to them, “These are the things that the LORD has commanded you to do: For six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you are to have a holy Sabbath of complete rest to the LORD. Anyone who does work on that day must be put to death. Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day.”

Picture this: Here is Moses, who has just come down off Mount Sinai with the glory of the Lord shining from his face so brightly that people have to shade their eyes to look at him. God has laid out for Moses exactly what He wants the Israelites to do. Moses is speaking with all the authority granted to him by the Ruler of the Universe. And the very first command that Moses gives is that everyone must observe the Sabbath and that anyone refusing to do so must die! I don’t know about you, but I would be shaking in my sandals and nodding my head, “Sure, Moses! Whatever you say, Moses!”

Authority! How do you recognize it when you see it? An ad from several years ago pictured a huge crowd of people making all kinds of noise and then suddenly, wham! dead silence! The caption would always read “When E. F. Hutton speaks, everyone else is silent!” E. F. Hutton was a financial trading company, and the ad was designed to hopefully make viewers believe that E. F. Hutton was the ultimate authority in financial information. Sadly, in the early 1980’s a combination of several different kinds of fiscal wrong – doing led to the demise of E. F. Hutton. It has since been revived several times but has never regained its position as a leader in the stock industry. At that point, the ad might better have said, “When E. F. Hutton speaks, everybody snickers!” But nobody is snickering at Moses!

Moses is moving in the authority of God. The first thing out of Moses’s mouth is another warning to keep the Sabbath. Why does God keep harping on this one command, reminding the Israelites repeatedly about it?

Dennis Prager offers the following suggestion: “The remainder of Exodus is concerned with the building of the Tabernacle. First, however, the laws of the Sabbath are reiterated to provide the Israelites with an important stipulation: Even though the building of the sanctuary is the holiest work they will engage in, they are not allowed to do it on the Sabbath. In the Torah and later Judaism, time is holier than place, and thus the observance of the holiest day of the week takes precedence over the building of the holiest place.

Abraham Joshua Heschel notes that in the Hebrew Bible, “not even the Promised Land is called holy. While the holiness of the land and the holiness of the festivals depends on the actions of the Jewish people, the holiness of the Shabbat preceded Israel’s existence. Even if people fail to observe the Shabbat, it remains holy.”

“Anyone who does work on that day must be put to death.” Prager continues: The Torah prescribes such a severe punishment for violating the Sabbath to emphasize the severity of the infraction. The Sabbath affirms God created the world – the foundational belief of ethical monotheism, of the new Israelite nation, and the new and better world that should emanated from them. Without the Sabbath, there will ultimately be no Jewish religion, and no Jewish people. Hence, the aphorism of the Jewish philosopher Ahad Ha; am, “More than Israel has kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jews.” Such an observation has not been made about any other ritual law in the Torah, including kashrut and Yom Kippur.”

Why the proscription against lighting a fire on Shabbat but on no other holy days, except Yom Kippur? Again, Prager tells us: “The answer must lie in the meaning of the Sabbath: to affirm that God is the Creator (by not working or creating on the day God ceased working and creating). Aside from making new life (conceiving a child..), making a fire is the ultimate symbolic act of human creation. (Animals, too, make new life but they do not make fire.)

As only God creates ex nihilo (out of nothing), the kindling of fire is the closest humans come to creating. By kindling fire, humans are engaging in an act uniquely close to creating, whereas the purpose of the Sabbath is to refrain from such acts in order to affirm the one Creator is God… (Fire) has the unique power to transform everything it touches….The uniquely transformative entity – fire – thus becomes the archetypal Sabbath prohibition…The fires in the Temple affirmed the Creator, whereas all other fires had other purposes.” (Dennis Prager The Rational Bible: Exodus)

APPLICATION: God commanded the Israelites to observe the Sabbath both to rest and to honor Him as Creator. What practices do you follow on a regular basis to honor God in your life?

When my husband and I were first married, we chose to honor God by not shopping on Sunday unless it was a matter of dire necessity. To this day, we maintain that practice. This sounds ridiculously easy; but at the time, both of us were in demanding professions where we might work the rest of the week and Sunday afternoons would be our only free time. We at least try to wait to shop until after sundown on Sunday afternoon, and we continue to avoid shopping on that day as much as possible.

Whenever possible, we attend worship services. Now that many churches are live – streaming and posting their services on – line, it is far simpler to catch a worship service than it used to be. As much as possible, we reserve Sunday as a rest day. (On the other hand, as a surgeon in a district hospital, I have spent many Sundays in the operating theater. God has called me to save lives and I feel that I honor Him when I fulfill that calling.)

Ask God how He would like you to honor Him in your life and in the lives of your family members. The answers might surprise you.

PRAYER: Father God, we want to honor you but don’t know how. Please guide everyone who reads this devotional into special practices that will be meaningful to them and to you. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Exodus 34: 27 – 35 “The LORD also said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” So Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

And when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was unaware that his face had become radiant from speaking with the LORD. Aaron and all the Israelites looked at Moses, and behold, his face was radiant. And they were afraid to approach him. But Moses called out to them; so Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke to them. And after this all the Israelites came near, and Moses commanded them to do everything that the LORD had told him on Mount Sinai. When Moses had finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with Him, he would remove the veil until he came out. And when he came out, he would tell the Israelites what he had been commanded, and the Israelites would see that the face of Moses was radiant. So Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the LORD.”

You will always be known by the company you keep. If you consort with evil people, you will become evil and you will radiate evil. But here Moses has spent forty days and nights with God. Why didn’t Moses have to eat or drink? Well, Moses was in the company of the One who had created him; why couldn’t God keep him going supernaturally? If God is the God of time and space and exists outside both of those, then God has control over space and time and can multiply or contract things at will. Now Moses is coming off the mountain, but this is a Moses whom nobody has ever seen before!

After spending all that time with God, Moses has absorbed God’s glory to such an extent that his face is radiant, shining so much that even his closest associates fear to be near him. Moses removes a veil from his face just long enough to communicate God’s words to the Israelites and then replaces the veil so that he can move among his friends and family easily.

APPLICATION: “Did I really just see what I think I did?” The year was 1988, and we had just come to Ghana. One of the key people in our situation at that point was allegedly a church member; however, once we got into the country and became better acquainted, we soon realized this man was demon – possessed. At times, this man would appear to be a sweet – natured, helpful and generous individual. At those times the demons were hiding. But when the demons decided to manifest themselves, the looks that came from this man’s eyes were purely evil. We later learned that this man’s mother had wanted a second son so badly that she had promised a fetish priest that if the fetish would give her a son, she would dedicate the son to the fetish from the womb. This poor fellow really didn’t stand much of a chance because nobody in his situation was brave enough to confront him and help him get delivered from his demons. Church members took advantage of this man’s wealth without caring for his soul.

Moses radiated God’s holiness and purity because he spent so much time with God. Each of us needs to ask ourselves what spirit do we radiate? One of our friends who was a vibrant Christian used to pray that God would help her to draw closer to Him each day than she had the day before. That’s a good prayer for all of us!

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for Your holiness, Your purity, Your glory, and Your grace. Please draw each of us closer and closer to you, so that when people are with us, they will see you and not just us. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Exodus 34:26 “Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God. You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

God has already ordered the Israelites to bring the best of their first fruits to Him several times. At my childhood home, we had all kinds of fruit trees – two kinds of cherry trees, two kinds of pear trees, two kinds of apple trees, grapes, and other fruits. And we also planted a big garden every year. But some years, the insects or caterpillars moved in. Some years, the birds got to the cherries before we could pick them. And some years, a hail storm would hit just when the fruit trees were blossoming, tearing all the blossoms off the trees and eliminating the possibility of fruit. The raccoons LOVED our sweet corn, and we had to plant enough for the raccoons and for us. The point is this: when your garden or your fruit trees begin to bear, you are never certain how much you will harvest, if anything. Bringing the best of the first fruits is an act of faith; you are telling God that you trust Him to provide for you. You are willing to give God the best at the beginning, rather than enjoy it yourself.

This command regarding the cooking of a young goat in its mother’s milk has led to all kinds of controversies over the years. For Orthodox Jews, this command is the basis for many of their dietary regulations regarding the separation of meat dishes from dairy, with different sets of cookware for each, etc.

The best reason I have found for this prohibition is described by Dennis Prager. “According to the Torah, one is not permitted to boil a kid in the same substance (milk) with which the animal’s mother gave it life. This law exists not for the sake of the animal, which is already dead, but to elevate the Israelites. There is something perverse – even mocking and cruel – in cooking a baby animal in its mother’s milk. This injunction was considered so important that the Torah states it three times (in this verse, Exodus 23:19, and Deuteronomy 14:21..)

The Torah is rooted in distinctions: God – man; male – female ; human- animal; and life – death. This law likely concerns the last. God does not want us to symbolically combine death (the dead animal) with life (milk – especially that of its mother, which sustained it). Judaism expanded this law into a general ban on consuming milk and meat at the same time.” (Dennis Prager The Rational Bible: Exodus)

Why is God so particular? As God continues to give commands, He gives all kinds of orders regarding the handling of dead bodies of humans and animals, handling of infected materials and even buildings, and assessment of medical conditions.

When I was growing up, there were many times when my mother refused to let me do “what everybody else is doing.” Mom’s rejoinder: you are MY child and I don’t want you to behave badly.” God is doing the same thing with the Israelites. The tribes throughout the area had all kinds of barbaric practices. God has chosen Israel to be a light to the nations and He wants His children to behave properly. God wants Israel to become a graphic demonstration of everything that is right and true and pure and holy.

APPLICATION: What kinds of standards do you have for your life? Are there things that you absolutely refuse to do because you know they are wrong? There are people who try to argue that there are no moral absolutes; however, you will notice that they want others to treat them in a moral fashion. Those destroying the property of others in demonstrations become incensed if someone messes with THEIR possessions. Some people try to argue that every situation must be judged on its own merits, but how do you judge anything when there are no fixed principles of right and wrong?

Throughout the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, God continually turns the attention of the Israelites to those things that will promote life. Egyptian religion made a big thing about death; God wants the Israelites to turn away from a death – focused religion to focusing on life instead -turning away from darkness and into the light.

1 John 1:5 says, “And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you: God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” Today, God wants you to move toward the light. Come to Him in prayer, and He can take away the darkness that torments you.

PRAYER: Father God, today many of your children are struggling in darkness and are afraid. Please send your light into their lives and help them to see how much you love them and care for them. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Exodus 34:25 “Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to Me along with anything leavened, and do not let any of the sacrifice from the Passover Feast remain until morning.”

Reading Exodus for the first time, you might wonder, “What’s the big problem with leaven? Why is God so obsessed with leaven and why does He keep making such a point about avoiding it?” Leaven is also known as yeast, and yeast is used in fermentation, a process invented by the Egyptians. The Israelites left Canaan and moved to Egypt to escape a terrible famine. Joseph was able to secure some of the best land for his family, so the Israelites remained in Egypt for 400 years. But the Israelites had no strong worship practices and only a vague memory of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 400 years is plenty long enough for the Israelites to adapt all kinds of religious practices, many of them horrible.

The Egyptians had a culture that was obsessed with death and the after life. Those who died were mummified in an involved process, and the higher the social status of the deceased, the more involved the process was. God repeatedly uses leaven as a symbol of the Egyptian culture to encourage the Israelites to completely repudiate those religious practices that they have learned in Egypt. God demands purity without compromise.

God has instituted the blood sacrifices made at Passover and at other times. But the Egyptian religions have strongly emphasized making sacrifices of food to gods and even placing food in tombs so that the dead would be nourished in the afterlife. Knowing how strongly the Israelites have been influenced by the culture they have just left, God wants there to be no mingling of religious rituals.

Why blood offerings? Blood is necessary to make atonement for sin. The Egyptians had no such concept. The Egyptians had a strong sense of right and wrong; however, they seemed to feel that if they could convince the gods of their innocence, everything would be fine. Siegfried H. Horn, Ph.D., is dean and professor of archeology and history of antiquity, emeritus, Andrews University Theological Seminary, Berrien Springs, Michigan. According to Dr. Horn, “the Egyptians were so sure that they could convince the gods of their innocence that they had a whole list of statements written in the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, a document that describes the experiences that the deceased would have upon reaching the underworld. It also contains the formulas to use in facing one’s judges upon entering the underworld. The following are examples:

“I have not blasphemed a god.

“I have not done violence to a poor man.

“I have not done that which the gods abominate.

“I have not killed.

“I have neither increased nor diminished the grain-measure.

“I have not added to the weight of the balance.

“I have not committed evil.

“I have not stolen.

“I have not been covetous.

“I have not told lies.

“I have not committed adultery.” (Dr. Siegfried H. Horn, “Sin and Judgement among the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians, Ministry Magazine)

Notice that the Egyptians evidently felt that the gods could be fooled as long as the deceased could tell a convincing enough story! But there was a problem with the Egyptian belief system: sin. The Egyptians were depending on their own efforts to be good enough to cancel their own sin, a total impossibility!

APPLICATION: In the Old West there was a saying that a self – made man had “pulled himself up by his own bootstraps;” in other words, that he had succeeded without any outside assistance. But when it comes to our dealing with our own sin, we are all in trouble! Nothing any of us can do is good enough to make up for even one tiny sin such as telling a white lie, let alone all the other wrong things we do throughout our lives.

The reason God instituted regular blood sacrifices was to emphasize that only the shedding of blood can bring forgiveness for sin. But how can the blood of a lesser creature such as a lamb or a bull pay for the sins of even one human? Only the blood of a perfect sinless man who willingly gives up his life will pay the price for human sin. And that is what Jesus Christ, the Son of God, did when he died for the sins of all of us on the cross at Calvary. 1 John 1:8 – 9 tells us, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

The One True Living God is all – knowing and all – seeing. You can’t fool God; He knows you better than you know yourself. Why not let God be the Ruler and Guide for your life? What do you have to lose?

PRAYER: Father God, help everyone who reads this devotional to seriously consider Your claims on their lives. Help them to realize how much You love them and how much You care about them. And help them to realize how much better their lives are when they follow You, their Creator. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.

JULY 7, 2021 MERCY 129: GOD’S GOT YOUR BACK!

Exodus 34: 22 – 24 “And you are to celebrate the Feast of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year. Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel. For I will drive out the nations before you and enlarge your borders, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear before the LORD your God.”

There are NO flat places in Israel. Visit Israel, and you rapidly see why the Bible speaks of Jesus going “up to Nazareth” or “down” to Bethsaida. The elevation of Nazareth is 349.05 meters or 1145.18 feet and the elevation of Bethlehem of Galilee is 171.93 meters or 564.08 feet, which is a difference of 177.12 meters or 581.1 feet.

At 695.8 feet below sea level, the Sea of Galilee is in that valley that actually extends all the way down and into Africa as the Rift Valley. The difference between Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee is 1841 feet! Now imagine that you are living somewhere in rural Israel and that you are an observant male Jew who must visit Jerusalem three times a year for the major feasts. True, you are going to enjoy a wonderful celebration, but getting there is not going to be easy or simple.

God is ordering all Jewish men to appear before the Lord God in Jerusalem for Passover, for the Feast of Weeks, (Pentecost) and for the Feast of Ingathering (Sukkot.) Each of these feasts is actually tied to the agricultural calendar year. Passover takes place in the month of Abib, the month of Spring when lambs are readily available. Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks, marks the wheat harvest. Sukkot takes place in the Fall and is a celebration at the time of the major harvest. Sukkot is also known as the “feast of booths,” a time when Jews are commanded to eat and live in temporary shelters to remind them of the shelters the Israelites lived in during the 40 years in the wilderness. Even today, Jewish congregations will make some effort to erect some kind of a shelter to remind themselves of God’s great working in the lives of the Israelites.

Actually, many families eventually travel to Jerusalem together; in fact, when Jesus is twelve, his family and he go to Jerusalem for Passover. While Mary and Joseph leave for Nazareth, Jesus remains in the Temple, discussing religious questions with the teachers. (Luke 2: 41-50)

But what’s going to happen if all these men leave their families to travel to Jerusalem? That’s when the next set of promises becomes significant. “For I will drive out the nations before you and enlarge your borders, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear before the LORD your God.” God Himself promises to watch the homes and the land of the men who travel to keep His feasts. What a guarantee!

APPLICATION: In the early 1960’s nobody in my home area used to lock the doors of their houses for any reason. I don’t even remember having keys to the doors for the old house in which I grew up. In August 1961, my family took their first vacation trip ever out to the West. We were gone two weeks and we visited the Badlands of South Dakota, rancher friends in Montana, and Glacier National Park, as well as a host of other tourist sites in between. We returned home to find a strange family having a picnic on our lawn and using our toilet facilities. Nothing was missing from the house and these people were perfectly nice. Our unexpected visitors were traveling and needed a place to make a pit stop. Our yard with its huge maple trees and flowers looked like a perfect spot, and it was. My parents chatted with the visitors, they finished their meal, and they continued their trip refreshed.

God protected our home all the time we were out on that trip. Sadly, today nobody would dream of leaving their home unlocked as we did. As the years went by, my mom died, my dad remarried and moved to the house that had been my grandparents’ home. In that new location on a major road, Dad and my beloved step mom Mary did lock their home. But even then, God continued to protect my parents and keep them safe.

Let’s face it; there is no amount of insurance that can totally protect you. Security systems are good, and there are apps that allow you to view the hidden cameras from your smart phone. But security systems can be hacked or worked around. Cameras can be disabled or destroyed. Psalm 127:1-2 says, “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain; unless the LORD protects the city, its watchmen stand guard in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for bread to eat— for He gives sleep to His beloved.”

At a point, you have two choices: live in a state of perpetual anxiety or trust God. Certainly, insurance is a good idea as are security lights, security systems, and other measures. But at the end of everything, remember that ultimately, your security must rest in the One who created you and who knows you best.

PRAYER: Father God, we live in a world filled with anxiety! Even when we want to worship you, we fear for our lives, our families, and our possessions. Thank You, that You are faithful, that You are true, and that You care more for us and for our families than we do ourselves. Help us to find our rest in You. In the mighty Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Exodus 34:21 “Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in the seasons of plowing and harvesting, you must rest.”

When I was growing up on an Illinois farm, there was plenty of work. We milked cows by hand twice a day, seven days a week. We fed feeder cattle, pigs, chickens, and sheep regularly. We had to make sure that all of these animals had the feed they needed, clean water, and a safe place to rest at night. We had to make sure that our fences were “horse high, hog tight, and bull strong.” Even though we didn’t keep a bull, our cows knew PLENTY of ways to test the strength of our fences, as did our pigs. Our days were ordered by the chores that we did twice a day. But our weeks were ordered by the Sabbath. Impatient as Dad might be to get into the field before the weather got bad, Sundays were always a day of worship and a day of rest, even during plowing and harvesting. My dad did not completely retire from farm work until he was in his middle eighties; many of his friends had retired earlier or had even died.

What makes the Sabbath so important? Dennis Prager tells us, “Living according to God’s will generally, and the Ten Commandments specifically, demands making sacrifices. Everything good – every achievement – demands sacrifices. In the case of the Shabbat, that sacrifice is abstaining from work one day each week when doing so may diminish one’s income or even employability.” Before the days of labor laws, some Jews lost jobs when they refused to work on Saturdays.

“However, as those who observe the Sabbath are well aware, the rewards usually far exceed the sacrifices. No practice in the Torah brings as much joy and elevates a life as does observance of the Shabbat. Leaving the world and its material concerns one day every week is literally and figuratively life – saving. Having prolonged meals with family and /or friends every week is uniquely bonding. And the Shabbat creates a communal life. No wonder it is the one ritual commanded in the Ten Commandments.” (Dennis Prager The Rational Bible: Exodus)

APPLICATION: Everybody needs regular periods of rest. Our bodies were not created to run at top speed constantly. Those of us who have been forced to work while sleep – deprived can attest to the fact that exhaustion can cloud our judgment. On a recent episode of “Air Crash Investigation,” one female pilot helped cause a plane to crash and burn when she remained awake for 9 hours of a 14 hour layover, getting only 5 hours or less of sleep before flying again. The cockpit voice recorder faithfully chronicled her complaints of fatigue to her fellow pilot as they began their fatal flight. This woman’s refusal to rest adequately cost her life, the life of her co – worker, and an expensive cargo plane with all of its contents.

WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR YOU TO REALLY REST? I can tell you what it takes for me; I get sick. I have two choices: either I rest regularly or my body simply goes on a sit down strike and quits. Yes, there have been times in my life when I have worked insane hours and have survived; however, I feel that God probably gave me supernatural strength to endure those times. But God is not going to bless you with supernatural strength if He wants you to be still and to wait on Him. God loves you too much to leave you in the middle of your messes. If you persist in driving yourself, you may find yourself in burn-out, a place where you definitely do NOT want to be. People who burn out in a given situation generally require 5 or more years to return to that situation. Sometimes the burnout is so severe that they can never return but must find some other work instead.

If you want to see the Sabbath truly celebrated, spend a weekend with Orthodox Jewish believers. From the first prayers offered by family members on Friday evening to the last prayers on Sunday evening, you can feel the holiness and the peace. Now ask yourself how much your own peace is worth. Yes, the Sabbath requires sacrifices, but sacrifice brings restoration and peace.

PRAYER: Father God, help us to honor you by observing the Sabbath and by fully resting. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to be restored regularly. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Exodus 34:18 – 20 “You are to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, you are to eat unleavened bread as I commanded you. For in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt. The first offspring of every womb belongs to Me, including all the firstborn males among your livestock, whether cattle or sheep. You must redeem the firstborn of a donkey with a lamb; but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. You must redeem all the firstborn of your sons. No one shall appear before Me empty-handed.”

You are reading this on the Monday of 4^th of July weekend 2021, one of the biggest celebrations of the year in America. But did you realize that God is the One who instituted celebrations for the Jews? In this passage, God is laying out for Moses the order of special times of worship marked by feasts and celebrations. The Feast of Unleavened Bread marks the night the Israelites left Egypt in the middle of the night, carrying everything they owned with them while their Egyptian neighbors urged them to move even faster! It was on that night that God killed every first born male animals and humans in Egypt. It was on that night that the Israelites saved their first born sons and male animals by smearing the blood of a sacrificial lamb on the doorposts of their houses. Because of the haste with which the Israelites had to leave, they didn’t have time for the bread to rise. The bread baked that night was probably similar to the pita bread we know today.

God is commanding the Israelites to perpetually remember their flight from Egypt by redeeming every firstborn males, both livestock and human, with a blood sacrifice. But at the same time, this celebration includes seven days of special meals. The seven days is to remind Israel that God created the earth in seven days and that He is the sovereign and only true God. Later in Jewish history, an extra day was added to assist in calculating dates for the festival; unfortunately, this change blunted the importance of the number of seven days with its reminder of creation and the Creator.

What’s the point of rituals and celebrations? Dennis Prager tells us, “These rituals are intended as a way for the Israelites to keep faith in God alive once the land has been conquered and God is no longer intervening with miracles on their behalf. This is one of the major reasons for rituals – to keep faith alive once regular and apparent divine intervention ends.

The following list of ritual commandments comes right after the prohibition against making molten gods. This suggests another important reason for religious rituals. One way people guard against the temptation to create idols and other false gods is by observing regular rituals that keep them focused on the One True God. One of the appeals of idols is they exist physically, whereas God does not. The practice of physical rituals helps keep people attuned to the reality of Gods’ presence, otherwise, God can become too abstract and difficult to connect to. Humans, being physical beings, need some physical connection to God.

Prager continues, “This helps explain why Christianity has many fewer ritual laws than Judaism. For Christians, God has taken on a physical form that provides them with a physical connection to God. But for Jews, since God is always non-physical, the way to have a physical connection to God is through ritual.”

APPLICATION: There is nothing wrong with rituals and special forms of worship, as long as we do not lose sight of the God whom we are supposed to be worshiping and serving. We brush our teeth at least twice a day to preserve them. Those of us who must take medicine for hypertension or diabetes or some other physical disorder do so on a regular basis to remain healthy and to avoid the complications of a stroke, loss of eyesight, etc. We maintain our vehicles on a regular basis so that they will run properly. All of these practices can be considered as rituals with a purpose. Here God is instituting rituals that also will have a purpose. Throughout Jewish history, when revival has come, one of the first acts of the Jews has been to celebrate Passover.

The 6^th chapter of Ezra describes the celebration of Passover by the exiles who have returned from Persia at the command of King Cyrus. After great opposition, King Darius of Assyria gets his administrators to check the records and learns of the decree made by Cyrus. Darius orders enough assistance to the Jews in Jerusalem that they are able to rebuild the temple and to dedicate it. In the month of Abib, the “first month,” which is also in Springtime, the Jews in Jerusalem celebrate Passover. Ezra 6:22 tells us, “For seven days they observed the Feast of Unleavened Bread with joy, because the LORD had made them joyful and turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them to strengthen their hands in the work on the house of the God of Israel.”

This weekend as you celebrate, don’t forget to remember: Remember the God who holds your life in His hands. Remember the God who loves you and who cares more for you than you even care for yourself. And remember to thank and praise God for allowing you to celebrate.

PRAYER: Father God, thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You are worthy to be praised and glorified! We magnify your Name and shout out our praises to you! You have given us life and light and breath. You have brought us to this day and have preserved our families and friends so that we can celebrate with them. Father, help us to be continually grateful for Your mighty works in our lives. We pray this in the precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Exodus 34:10 – 17 “And the LORD said, “Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will perform wonders that have never been done in any nation in all the world. All the people among whom you live will see the LORD’s work, for it is an awesome thing that I am doing with you. Observe what I command you this day. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. Be careful not to make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land you are entering, lest they become a snare in your midst. Rather, you must tear down their altars, smash their sacred stones, and chop down their Asherah poles. For you must not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

Do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you, and you will eat their sacrifices; and when you take some of their daughters as brides for your sons, their daughters will prostitute themselves to their gods and cause your sons to do the same. You shall make no molten gods for yourselves.”

Make no mistake! God has NO illusions about the Israelites! True, God has given Moses plans for a portable Tabernacle and for a completely new mode of worship. But God also knows the human heart, and God knows that if the Israelites ever encounter full – bore fertility cults, they will jump into all kinds of perverted practices without a second thought!

In ancient Egypt, it was the goddess Hathor who was identified with the sky, women, fertility, and love. The Greeks considered Hathor to be another form of their goddess of love, Aphrodite. Hathor’s principal animal form was that of a cow and she was strongly associated with motherhood. (Encyclopedia Britannica) It’s possible that many of the Israelite women might have carried small images of Hathor or even necklaces with her image as they left Egypt. And some of the Egyptian women might have given the Israelites such necklaces as they were giving up all their jewelry to get rid of the Israelites. (Possible response of an Israelite lady to a Hathor necklace from her Egyptian neighbor, “Oh great! I’ve always wanted one of those!”)

Now God is sending the Israelites to a land inhabited by many tribes worshiping different fertility gods. God is warning the Israelites to have nothing to do with any of these practices and to destroy every evidence of them. In fact, the Israelites ultimately do not obey God completely; these religions remain a snare for straying Israelites until they are finally carried away by the Babylonians and the Assyrians. It is only after the Israelites are carried off to other countries that they FINALLY reject these idols!

APPLICATION: The word “awesome” gets thrown around so much today that it has lost most of its intrinsic value. Someone finds a great bargain while shopping? “Awesome!” Someone wins a ball game? “Awesome!” But in the beginning, “awesome” meant something totally different. The original connotation of “awesome” indicated an event so enormous, so unusual, so magnificent, and so out of the ordinary that all anyone could do was to remain silent in wonder. In the Book of Job, at the end of God’s answers to Job’s accusations, Job says to God, “You asked, ‘Who is this who conceals My counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak. I will question you, and you shall answer.’ My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You. Therefore I retract my words, and I repent in dust and ashes.”(Job 42:3-6)

 God is promising to do an awesome thing. But the price of deliverance is obedience. Sadly, it’s a price that the Israelites will ultimately be unwilling to pay. The question for us is this: when God shows you something, do you obey or do you argue? Do you find fault or do you worship?

The second thing to note is God’s warnings of what will happen if the Israelites compromise with the fetish worshipers. “Do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you, and you will eat their sacrifices; and when you take some of their daughters as brides for your sons, their daughters will prostitute themselves to their gods and cause your sons to do the same.” Sex is NOT merely a physical act but also a spiritual one. Demons transfer during sex. There is an old saying, “You lie down with dogs; you get up with flees.” This proverb could be paraphrased to read, “You have sex with demon worshipers; you get up with demons.”

Twenty – six years ago, we knew a young man who was a bright Christian believer and active in his church. But over the years, this fellow became sexually involved with a series of ladies from fetish – worshiping families. Now this man has a vagabond spirit and cannot focus on any task for very long. The talents that might have made him a success have been largely wasted and he does a poor job of supporting his children. Without deliverance, this man is still being influenced by demons.

Truly, God knew what He was doing when He warned the Israelites against all these practices! But what if you find yourself in a situation where you have been sexually indiscriminate? The way out is repentance, repudiating your earlier acts, refusing to repeat this behavior, and confessing your sins to God. Let’s pray!

PRAYER: Father God, we confess that we have NOT kept your word and that we have engaged in sex with people from whom we may have acquired evil spirits. Lord, we confess these acts as sin! We beg you to cleanse us, to help us turn away from sexual sins, and to follow you whole – heartedly all of our lives. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Exodus 34:8 – 10 “Moses immediately bowed down to the ground and worshiped. “O Lord,” he said, “if I have indeed found favor in Your sight, my Lord, please go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our iniquity and sin, and take us as Your inheritance.” And the LORD said, “Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will perform wonders that have never been done in any nation in all the world. All the people among whom you live will see the LORD’s work, for it is an awesome thing that I am doing with you.”

Poor Moses! While Moses was up on Mount Sinai the first time, the Israelites made an idol and then held an orgy. The Israelites had dug themselves into a nearly bottomless spiritual hole! Carrying the stone tablets that God had fashioned and on which God had written the Ten Commandments, Moses returned to the camp to find the orgy in full swing with demons laughing at him from every tent. In a fit of righteous indignation, Moses threw the tablets to the ground and ordered the ring leaders of the orgy slaughtered as the only means of gaining control of the situation. Bottom line: Moses did nothing wrong. The Israelites had put themselves in danger of hell fire.

Now God has ordered Moses to return to Mount Sinai and is meeting with Moses. God has just informed Moses of His (God’s) true character. At one point, God has even offered to wipe out the Israelites and to use Moses to create a new nation. But Moses is realistic enough and humble enough to realize that his progeny potentially have just as much chance of going astray as have the Israelites. Now it’s damage control time as Moses begs God on behalf of the Israelites.

1. God has already indicated that He will no longer accompany the Israelites. Moses is begging God to go with them, even though they don’t deserve it in the slightest.

2. Moses begs God to forgive the sins of the Israelites and to take them as His inheritance, despite their idolatrous heart attitudes. Moses hopes that God will be tolerant of the hardheartedness of the Israelites, even though He (God) doesn’t agree with it. Moses also hopes that if God walks among the Israelites, they will have a change of heart due to the presence of God.

God’s presence DOES change things! There are stories told of men and women of God who only had to enter someplace where people were gathered for those seated there to come under the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. Why hasn’t the Holy Spirit anointing that is already upon Moses been enough for this conviction to occur? The answer lies in the stubbornness of the Israelites. Any bunch of people who can ignore a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to go off on an orgy certainly qualify as unusually stubborn. And what about all the fire and smoke encircling Mount Sinai while the earth shakes? These people have a really serious problem! Moses is hoping that if God continues to be present with the Israelites, they will not be able to continue to ignore Him.

v. 10 “ And the LORD said, “Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will perform wonders that have never been done in any nation in all the world. All the people among whom you live will see the LORD’s work, for it is an awesome thing that I am doing with you.”

God is amazing! Both God and Moses know the nature of the Israelites and how likely it is that they will stage another orgy, given the opportunity. And yet God is willing to make a covenant with them and to do wonders. Dennis Prager points out here that “the Hebrew word used here, imach (“for you”), is in the singular, which suggests God will perform wonders for Moses’s sake rather than for the sake of the nation. Though still angry at the people, God is willing to establish a covenant with them because of the merit of their leader, who has interceded on their behalf.”

APPLICATION: THE FIRST RULE OF HOLES IS THAT WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF IN ONE, STOP DIGGING! Moses must have had excellent cardiovascular conditioning because if he hadn’t, he would have just had a heart attack and dropped dead as soon as he saw the evil that the Israelites had done. By the time Moses returned from Mount Sinai the first time, the Israelites were within a hairs’ breadth of being annihilated. Only Moses’s intercessions and quick actions preserved the majority of the Israelites.

Notice what Moses did NOT do:

1. Moses did not make any excuses for the Israelites. Sin is sin.

2. Moses acknowledged the terrible heart attitude of the Israelites.

3. Moses begged God to remain with the Israelites on the basis of God’s character, so that God would not bring dishonor to His own Name. By this point, word had gotten out to all the nations and tribes around Egypt as to what God had done when he delivered the Israelites. This deliverance signaled the first major act of the One True Living God on behalf of an entire people and was a visible demonstration of God’s character.

What did God do? God responded positively to Moses’s intercessions. God promised to do wonders, the likes of which nobody had ever seen before.

Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure—who can understand it?” Really, folks, most of the time we don’t even know the state of our own hearts. We carry around an idealized image of what we are like, but that might bear little resemblance to reality.

Want to hear from God? Get someplace quiet and then ask God to show you the state of your own heart and soul. Be prepared to record the results but also be prepared to be shocked. And if/when you find yourself in the bottom of a spiritual hole, do what Moses did. Refuse to make excuses for yourself. Acknowledge that you have a terrible heart attitude that needs to be changed. Give God permission to change you. And then ask God to remain with you.

PRAYER: Father God, we confess that all of us are sinners and that each one of us has done things that grieve or displease you. Show us our sins so that we will stop repeating them. Help us to change into the people you want us to be. And please, please, please, remain with us and guide us. In the mighty Name of King Jesus. Amen.

Exodus 34:1 – 9 “Then the LORD said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the originals, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Be ready in the morning, and come up on Mount Sinai to present yourself before Me on the mountaintop. No one may go up with you; in fact, no one may be seen anywhere on the mountain—not even the flocks or herds may graze in front of the mountain.”

So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the originals. He rose early in the morning, and taking the two stone tablets in his hands, he went up Mount Sinai as the LORD had commanded him.

And the LORD descended in a cloud, stood with him there, and proclaimed His name, the LORD. Then the LORD passed in front of Moses and called out:

“The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness, maintaining loving devotion to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. Yet He will by no means excuse the guilty; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers on their children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”

How many mothers over the years have told their kids, “You break something, you replace it!” Here God is doing the same thing. God orders Moses to chisel out two stone tablets like the originals “which you broke” and return to Mount Sinai. Is God angry with Moses? Perhaps, but I prefer to think that God was smiling at Moses as He gave these instructions. After all, Moses only threw the original stone tablets on the ground because he was so shocked/angry/disappointed/frustrated with the Israelites. God wants Moses to have to work a little, but He is still inviting Moses to come up onto Mount Sinai where He will show Moses His glory and will re – write His commandments on the stone tablets. This time, Moses is to come alone without even Joshua to accompany him. And God demands that nothing and nobody come anywhere near the mountain! God is taking no chances that some curious shepherd is going to herd his sheep to the foot of the mountain and then swat them on the rumps with his staff to encourage them to climb up the mountain, giving the shepherd the excuse to watch when God shows up.

v. 6 -7 “And the LORD descended in a cloud, stood with him there, and proclaimed His name, the LORD. Then the LORD passed in front of Moses and called out:

“The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness, maintaining loving devotion to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. Yet He will by no means excuse the guilty; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers on their children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”

APPLICATION:

Here God lists nine distinct characteristics:

1. Compassionate – the word in Hebrew for compassionate comes from the word for “womb,” indicating that God has the feelings of a mother for her children.

2. Gracious

3. Slow to anger – Thank heavens, literally, that God is slow to anger! Otherwise, we would all have been reduced to cinders a long time ago.

4. Abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness – again, the Hebrew indicates a form of extraordinary kindness

5. Abounding in faithfulness – The Hebrew word here literally means “truth.” Prager observes, “God is true to His word, promises, bows, and standards. One of God’s attributes is truth because goodness cannot exist without truth. Indeed, most great evils are based on lies.”

6. Maintaining loving devotion to a thousand generations – WOW! God wants His people to understand how much He cares for them and how eternal His loving devotion is.

7. Forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin

8. Not excusing the guilty – God is still a just God, and there is ultimate justice.

9. He will visit (remember) the iniquity of the fathers on their children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generations. Does God hold grudges? No. Contrast this with God’s assertion that He maintains loving devotion for a thousand generations. God is not keeping score of all the wrongs that people do, but consider how many children follow their parents’ examples, whether good or bad. This verse is not so much a threat as a warning to parents: be careful about the example you leave for your children. You may be blighting your family for several generations.

When God actually shows His glory to Moses, God hides Moses in a small cave and then shows Moses as much of His glory as Moses can handle. In the picture at the beginning of this devotional, Moses is looking down, not because he is about to smash the tablets, but because God is inscribing His commands on them again, and Moses is turning his face away because of the incredible glory of God shining around him.

Does God hold grudges? So many times when things don’t go the way we wish they would, we throw around all kinds of accusations. But in fact, God does not hold grudges; instead, God gives us all kinds of new opportunities to do well. We are the ones who mess up our lives, not God. Sometimes people will complain that God should have stopped them from making bad choices; however, this is a foolish statement that ignores the fact that we are created with free will and can choose to do good or bad things.

The next time you are frustrated with God, try looking at God’s description of Himself and then examine your own life. All your life, God has been working, even though you might not have realized it.

PRAYER: Father God, thank you for your wonderful attributes! Help us to trust you and to believe you when you tell us of your love and faithfulness and your grace and forgiveness. In the mighty Name of King Jesus. Amen.