clear river

SOAP:@$#!&

Scripture:
Numbers 10:1-11:23

Observation:

Ever been in one of those charismatic services where people try to blow a shofar? I’ve never heard that done well. Always sounds like some kind of animal in trouble. I would like to have heard what the trumpets in the wilderness must have sounded like. They weren’t made of the horns of animals, they were made of silver and they must have packed a punch to notify a couple of million folks that it was time to celebrate a feast, break camp or just feel good. The breakdown of the tribes and the order in which they moved is here.

Judah goes first.   Judah means “praise” and there’s certainly a principle there! The last tribe is Dan. Dan means “judge” and while there’s probably a principle there, I’m going to have to think on it. Asher (Happy) and Naphtali (wrestling) are both part of the last group. Something’s cooking there…In vs. 29-32 Moses begs a relative named Hobab to travel with them cause basically he’s a boy scout and knows where to camp. This is curious as I thought the cloud dictated that. Maybe just an insight to Moses needing a little flesh and blood to go along with the Spirit. We all need that sometime. Later on in chapter 11 the people start pitching a fit because they have no meat to eat and manna is getting old. Moses, basically goes to the Lord and throws his own temper tantrum and the Lord is none to happy with the whole bunch and you just know there’s going to be some trouble.

Application:

Praise leads the way. There are few things that I could say are without doubt God’s will in my life. One of them is this: “No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”  (1 Thess 5:18) Pretty plain. Still I find myself doing far more complaining. It’s not that God can’t handle complaint. Despite the fact that the Israelites here are about to get into hot water, the Psalms are full of complaints. I guess one thing may set them apart. There is complaining that is desperate and complaining that is indignant. I guess is that if I’m going to complain it better be out of desperation over my personal deliverance rather than whether I have to eat McDonalds rather than go to Ruth Chris’. Praise leads the way. Praise and thanksgiving take me somewhere. At the very least they take me out of myself and help me to stay more tuned to God’s will. Complaining stands still. It has no vision. Sometimes it’s simply what you have to do. You just can’t stay there.

Prayer:
Why am I discouraged?
Why so sad?
I will put my hope in God!
I will praise him again —
my Savior and my God!

Ps 42:5-6

 Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

SOAP: By the Numbers

Scripture:
Leviticus 27:14 - Numbers 1:54

Observation:
I finally make my departure from this book that has confounded me far more than comforted me. I know I'll need to go back. I'm intrigued. The God revealed here escapes my simple definitions. Once again I am reminded how infinite He is and how finite I am. As Buechner said of humans trying to understand God:  "it's like a dung beetle trying to comprehend a human." Andrew Bonar said that no other book in scripture contains more of the direct words of God than Leviticus. So how can I not go back and wrestle? The final chapter contains a good bit of real estate, farming, animals, grain, etc... and how to dedicate them and how to redeem them back. For a moment I'm thinking of Monopoly. I remember having to mortgage property so I could pay somebody the rent on stupid Park Place. I had to turn the property over until I redeemed it by paying the mortgage value plus interest.  It's a lot of that kind of thing in the final chapter. Not being flip. The words redemption and jubilee show up so much here and in the rest of the book that you have to go back after that stuff.  We're off to Numbers now and appropriately it opens with a bunch of counting. The whole community gets called together and all the males 20 or older have to be counted up. There's over 600,000 of these guys so I'm guessing it took some time.

Application:
What occurs to me is how quick I am to be impatient or grumble about the things I have to do. When you have to stand around in the desert while more than a half million people say "present!", the stuff I have to wait on seems pretty mild. More than that, I think that there is a maturity in God that shows up when we complain less and just do what we need to do. You know? Quit your griping and just do it. It's startling to think of the simple things I have to do from time to time  that require very little from me and yet provoke so much crabbing. Perhaps, growing in the Lord is growing in patience with what He asks of me, which so often comes through the needs of others, and maybe even expressing a little gratitude and joy while doing it. Besides, heaven knows I given the Holy One at least half a million reasons to prove my need of the redemption He so freely gives. But who's counting?

Prayer:
Father, in countless ways you show your kind compassion to me. In countless ways I miss the mark. The Psalmist says "If you were to count our transgressions, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You..." (Psalm 130:2-4) Thanks for not keeping track of some numbers and causing me to wonder at what other numbers would be like...

Psalm 139:17-18

"How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee. "

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.

SOAP: The Fullness of Wrath and Love

Scripture:
Leviticus 25:47-27:13

Observation:

The reading today was overpowering. Confronted with the holy and pure fury of God's wrath, I'm at more of a loss of words than filled with commentary.  The contrast between the consequences of obedience  and of rebellion could not be more dramatic. The path of obedience is blessed and summed up best in vs. 5-6:

"You will eat your fill and live securely in your land. I will give you peace in the land, and you will be able to sleep without fear."

What follows after this promise is nothing short of terrifying.  Horror after horror is depicted, one after another in a slow parade of destruction. The phrase that brings it to the lowest point for me is found in vs. 27-29:

"If after this you still refuse to listen and still remain hostile toward me, then I will give full vent to my hostility. I will punish you seven times over for your sins. You will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters..."

Like crumpled newspaper in a fireplace are the rebellious in God's presence.  You don't find many bestsellers in the Christian bookshops called "The Full Venting of God's Wrath Against Those Who Rebel."  It doesn't preach well but... we must not forget.

"For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in our bodies. It is because we know this solemn fear of the Lord that we work so hard to persuade others." - I Cor. 15:10-11

God's wrath is real. Israel experienced it. The judgment and exile that awaited their rebellion are pictured here so vividly. Violation of the covenant, the worship of idols, the despising of God's law... it all brought a terrible price.

One interesting note here is how the land is portrayed as victimized by the rebellious. In verses 34-35 the land is rewarded by being able to "enjoy it's Sabbaths" that were denied under the rebellious.

Application:
The fear of the Lord is something we so often describe as "reverence" or "respect." I understand what people are doing when they say this. Who wants to be afraid of God? After all haven't we been delivered from a spirit of fear? Hasn't death lost its sting? Do we not now come boldly before the throne of grace? Yes! In truth, the wrath of God was spent in its full fury upon the broken savior upon the cross. All who take shelter in him find safety, eat their fill and live securely in the land. Still we must not forget that wrath is not "spent" in the sense of emptied. Once I have spent my cash I may have no more but God is not limited by a cap on His resources. To say that God has given "full vent" to His wrath simply means a complete expression of it. God completely expressed His wrath upon the cross just as surely as He completely expressed His love and neither have been depleted one iota. Just as surely as God's love will burst forth in a future day of manifest glory that delivers creation from bondage, so His wrath will burst forth in a future day of great darkness, dread and judgment. As Paul said, knowing this, we should be motivated to persuade men to take shelter in Christ.  On a side note, as I become more and more convinced that this very planet will be redeemed and set free from it's curse, I wonder if God's wrath is not only provoked by our disregard for His law but also by our abuse of the planet. Those on the left are literally playing with fire by disregarding human life but those on the right who mock the "tree huggers" do well to remember that those same trees one day will "clap their hands for joy."

As for personal application, my sense is that there should always be within me the greatest sense of peace in Christ while remembering what I have been delivered from. My motivation for personal holiness should be fueled by love for my Savior but the faint smell of smoke doesn't hurt.

Prayer:
Father, thank you for who You are in the entirety of Your character. In truth I was once an object of Your wrath as well as Your love. Thank you for letting love carry the day! Stir my heart to persuade others that Your love is the shelter of grace and that now is the Day of Salvation.

SOAP: Oil, Stones and Slaves

Scripture: Lev.24:1-25:46

Observation: I’m not particularly fond of this book. Is that okay? Are you in deep kempshe if you don’t like part of the Bible.? I’ve been reading the Bible through on one of these yearly deals and as I’m reading I mark things that are meaningful and I also put question marks beside things that make me go “What the…?” I got question marks everywhere.

For instance… back in Lev. 20 Aaron is told by the Lord that in all future generations any of his descendents who have any kind of physical defect will not qualify for serving the Lord. Now, I’m a product of a PC culture that will shut down your business if you don’t have handicap access. The leader of Canada, a quadriplegic was on world wide TV a few nights ago waving the Canadian flag with his wheel chair at the closing ceremonies of the Olympics. I mean, we celebrate this stuff. We admire folks who overcome obstacles and achieve great things. We go to great lengths to remove hindrances that would stop people from participating fully in society. Still, back in the wilderness, if you so much as had broken a bone when you were a kid then, no dice. If you were blind, uh-uh. If you were a dwarf? Forget it.

I understand that part of this flows from the whole typology thing. This was a shadow of what was to be. When I read about bulls, goats and lambs having no defect, I think about Christ having no corruption, no blemish of sin in his soul. I get that. The offering itself had to be perfect... spotless. Still isn't the whole point that it's we, the broken, dwarfed in spirit if not body, that need to bring the offering? Then again, maybe the point is that it's Jesus who had to enter the heavenly Holy Place and make the offering on our behalf and the priest needed to represent that. I don't know, there are just some people issues that allude me. One of those showed up in the reading today.

After all of the blood, leprosy and “emissions,” I was breathing a sigh of relief when the thing got back to oil, lamps, incense and bread. I like that stuff. Then boom! Some guy was in a fight and apparently he must have got socked pretty hard and took the Lord’s name in vain. So the poor guy gets taken by divine order out to some field for the whole community to stone him to death. Wow. I guess that you have to make an example of someone? I’m sure he was not the only chap to commit the sin. There where hundreds of thousands of folks… lots of camels… how many toes got stepped on? So... how many with sin were casting stones? Anyway, I’m chewing on that and then we get into a whole section on real estate and farming which does little for me as there’s no way I could afford land in Northern Va. The whole thing finishes up with something that I’m sure white racist preachers in the south relied on back in the day. It’s the last few verses of the chapter which basically tells the Israelites that they can buy slaves from among the foreigners to keep as property and pass on to their children as property. I’m sure that somewhere, some much more educated person than I has a whole shtick on the culture of the time and blah,blah…   It’s just a head scratcher for me.

Application: Is anybody still reading this?? I’ll admit, application is a challenge in some of these chapters. Frankly, if I was smart, I could have just bypassed the whole rant above and went for the softball. For instance, I could have done a whole thing here on verse 2: "Command the people of  Israel to provide you with pure olive oil for the lampstand, so it can be kept burning continually."  I could have just talked about  oil as a symbol of the Spirit and how it’s important that we keep the Spirit’s presence fresh in our own lives daily. Just as the priest had to continually tend the lamp with oil to keep it burning, so we also should continually stay aflame. “Don't burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame.” – Romans 12:11 And really, that’s a pretty good application and reminder for me. I guess the point of the rambling was just to be honest with the fact that there’s a lot I don’t understand. I need a little illumination from the Holy Lampstand…

Prayer:

Jesus, there is much about God that I don’t understand. You said that if we’ve seen you then we’ve seen the Father. I’m going to keep looking at you and following you and I hope that I’ll come to know what I don’t understand through you. Please send your Spirit upon me today. Let me be aflame with love and bring honor to your name. - Amen