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Leviticus 23-27

God gives instructions to Moses on Mount Sinai for observance of the Sabbath and the Year of Jubilee once they have entered the promised land.  What did this mean to the Children of Israel?  The ones who have been wandering homeless in the desert for forty years are told that when they enter the land they can build their houses, accumulate land, servants, build up fortunes, and at the end of fifty years, it all goes back as it was.  Would they be grateful for what God had given them, Would they recognize that He was the giver of all.  Would they acknowledge him as the giver of harvests and rain, peace and safety, fruitfulness and increase, the one who broke the bars of their imprisonment in Egypt?  Or would they begin to think that it was their own efforts that brought about their prosperity. 

Sabbath rest is something most of us don’t understand any more.  It’s not just a matter of the blue laws, which prohibited commerce on Sunday, becoming extinct.  We have lost the ability to rest.  We are all continually multi-tasking; surfing the internet, communicating with our cellphones, twitter, skype, playing browser games with strangers around the globe or using one of the many social networking application.  If we’re not doing that, we’re trying to find some way to obtain, organize or get rid of an accumulation of material possessions, or pursuing any of a thousand possible leisure options to keep ourselves amused.  We’re doing anything to keep ourselves busy.  What are we running from?  What do we not want to face?  Could it be our very own creator?

When God set forth the Sabbath rest and Year of Jubilee for the Israelites, it was intended to make them stop.  Stop and rest as in the case of the Sabbath and stop and start all over again as in the case of the Year of Jubilee.  In both cases, the outcome was that people were forced to recognize that life was not all of their doing or all about them.  Rest, because that’s what God did on the seventh day after he created the world.  Return everything to it’s original owner, because we are only sojourners after all.  Both celebrations were to remind the Israelites and us of the supremacy and permanency of God as opposed to those of us for whom life is fleeting and all of our possessions only temporary.

God lays out for his people a road map of what it will look like if they are obedient, and what it will look like if they hostile.  It’s interesting that God goes into much greater detail of what the punishment will be for disobedience.  Prosperity for the Israelites will be open-ended.  There is no limit to the blessing they could experience as God’s people.  Punishment is cut and dried.  There is a limitation to God’s patience, but not his covenant.  ” ‘Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the LORD their God.  But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the LORD.’ ”  Leviticus 26:44-45 NIV

Whether or not the Children of Israel would be able to keep their part of the covenant remains to be seen.  Can they accept the fact that they are custodians of God’s grace or will the Ancient of Days be relegated to someone they call on only in an emergency?

Leviticus 16-22

“‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.
 “‘Everyone who does any of these detestable things—such persons must be cut off from their people. Keep my requirements and do not follow any of the detestable customs that were practiced before you came and do not defile yourselves with them. I am the LORD your God.’”  – Lev. 18:24-30 NIV

God was very explicit in His warning to Israel.  They should not become conceited because they were inheriting the land from a people who didn’t know the Lord God.  If the Israelites failed to follow God’s commands, they would be subject to the same consequences as the previous occupants of the land…they would be vomited out of the land.  God’s decrees and laws had to be kept, not only by the Israelites, but by the native born and aliens living along side the children of Israel.  God’s laws are God’s laws.  Detestable practices in God’s sight defiles not only the people committing those acts, but the land as well.

History has shown this to be true.  Through successive generations, those who once lived under God’s favor became less God like and more like the natives and aliens of the land they inhabited together.  Whenever that has occurred, God’s people have sprung up in other lands that have not become defiled by what God has defined as detestable practices.

Leviticus 12-15

Just how dirty was it, wandering around in the desert with thousands of others and their children and their flocks.  How were the Children of Israel to survive without water purification tablets, Clorox and antibiotics?  They had to be constantly vigilant and willing to be placed outside the camp or have their dwelling destroyed for the safety of the community.  The commands in chapters 12 to 15 may seem a little dramatic to us now, but they were absolutely essential for the survival of the Israelites.  Not only did their hearts have to be pure, but their bodies and surroundings had to be pure as well.  What’s up with this God?  You, who created the heavens and earth, could have done away with mildew, boils, and infectious diseases.  Oh yeah, that’s right.  One man’s sin destroyed the perfect world you created.  Now, in addition to envy, greed, and lust, the Israelites have to deal with all the manifest results of uncleanliness.  All they can do is bring their sacrifices of a sin offering and burnt offering to the priest so he can make atonement for them. Only a sacrifice will wash away their sin.  Only blood will make them whole again.

Leviticus 9-11

Do we understand what it means to be consumed by the fire of the Lord?  The Israelites didn’t.  One minute they’re shouting for joy and falling face down in amazement when they witnessed the glory of the Lord and his fire consuming their burnt offering.  The next minute they’re stunned when such a simple thing as adding incense to the fire that is offered before the Lord causes Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, to be consumed by fire.  That old proverbial saying, ‘You can’t fight fire with fire.’ is untrue.  God can and will fight fire with fire, and his fire is all consuming.  We have no  modern day grasp of God in this image.  One who is so holy, that anything that approaches him must keep entirely to his rules, not our own.  If it were not for the sacrificial death of his son, we would all be in danger of perishing by fire.  Some of our modern worship songs sing of calling down fire from heaven.  Just like the Israelites, who rejoiced when they first saw the fire of the Lord, do we really know what we’re singing about. 

Leviticus 5-8

God has made known to Moses all of the offerings he requires: “This is the law of the burnt offering, the grain offering, the sin offering, the trespass offering, the consecrations, and the sacrifice of the peace offering, which the LORD commanded Moses on Mount Sinai, on the day when He commanded the children of Israel to offer their offerings to the LORD in the Wilderness of Sinai.” – Lev 7:37-38 NKJV
God has also made it clear that in addition to the offering for purposeful sinning, an offering has to be made for unintentional sins and sins of commission. And furthermore, lack of resources does not free one from the responsibility of making atonement. If the one who sinned could not afford a lamb, he could bring two doves or pigeons. If even that was not affordable, an offering could be made of fine flour. There was only one path to forgiveness and it required an offering. The ever-seeing, ever-knowing God cannot abide sin in any form. If his creation cannot be as He originally intended when they were placed in the garden, they will have to make atonement for any and all imperfections.

Leviticus 1-4

I am an animal lover, so it is difficult to read of the sacrifices of innocent animals as an offering to God.  Perhaps I can imagine sacrificing a bull, but a perfect, innocent lamb?  It’s much easier to put cash or a check in the offering plate every Sunday than give a live creature that you’ve personally nurtured from birth.  It’s even more difficult to imagine an offering where the sacrifice demanded is supposed to be perfect, without defect, from a people wandering around in the desert with few resources for food other than their daily allotment of manna.  It didn’t matter if it was a fellowship offering or a sin offering, it always had to be without defect and to make matters worse, not only were they required to make the offerings, they were the ones that were to slaughter the animal in front of the Tent of Meeting.  A perfect sacrifice slaughtered by one’s own hand. 

I think if I faced the prospect of having to offer one of my animals whenever I sinned, I might consider my actions more carefully.  But the Israelites proved that was not the case.  The requirement of a blood sacrifice did not change their hearts and as the years progressed, their sins became more flagrant and insulting to God.  Eventually, no sacrifice was sufficient to compensate for their sins.  So it was left to God to offer a solution, the perfect sacrifice that none of us could make.  Imagine offering one’s own perfect son as a sacrifice, not for your own sins, but for the sins of everyone else.  What mercy, what love and what grace. 

Exodus 36-40

God’s demanded nothing but the best from the Israelites for the building of the tabernacle.  The finest gold, silver, precious jewels, linen, wood, and even the finest craftsmen were to be used to build God’s dwelling place.  When the tabernacle was finally finished, Moses inspected the work and saw that it was done just as God had commanded.  All the preparations, the sacrifices and washings, were complete and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.  Not even Moses could enter this sacred place.  It was only for the Lord.  The people gave of their best and it pleased God to dwell there. 

How much of our best do we give God today.  Do we give him the most costly of our gold and silver, or does he get the left-overs.  The builders of the great cathedrals recognized that God was worthy of the best.  Can we say the same about the prefab church structures of today?  Is God worthy of more than we are giving?

In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted. So the cloud of the LORD was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel during all their travels.– Ex. 40:36-38 NIV

God rewarded the faithfulness of the Israelites in building his tabernacle by being faithful in return.   Are we losing his guidance because we have brought him down to our own level and no longer recognize the sacred nature that demands only the finest and best for his glory.  Just asking.

Exodus 33-35

‘I know you by name’, God told Moses, and Moses’ reply was, ‘If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you.  Remember that this nation is your people. – Ex.33:13 NIV

Moses was much more to be trusted than the rest of the Israelites, and it wasn’t just because he saw the burning bush. Moses knew what it was to trust in his own doing and how that had failed.  The years had humbled him.  He had matured from the impetuous favored child of Pharaoh’s daughter to one who could not do it on his own. He had become one who would ask for the impossible, one who would tell the Lord:  “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
 And the LORD said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”
Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.” – Ex. 33:15-18 NIV

What a far cry from most of our prayers today.  Give us this, provide this, heal this, save this.  When, all along we should be asking the one thing that draws God’s heart to our own.  Go with us.  We can’t do this on our own.  Go with us, across any river we have to ford, through whatever desert we must crawl through, up whatever mountain we have to climb.  Go with us.  And on that journey, show us your glory.  Not our glory, not what we can accomplish, but show us your glory. 

Exodus 29-32

When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war in the camp.”
Moses replied:
   “It is not the sound of victory,
   it is not the sound of defeat;
   it is the sound of singing that I hear.”  – Ex. 32:17-18 NIV

This is the place where a lot of us spend our Christian lives…living in a war zone, where we experience neither victory nor total defeat.  There is singing and rejoicing.  It’s a great party.  We acknowledge that we’re following God, that we’re his chosen people and now we’re heading for the land he’s promised.  We’re following God, or at least a god.  The problem is we have seized the first god we could find, a golden calf, but that golden calf that we’re following doesn’t have the power to save.   But it’s much more pleasant to worship an inanimate object rather than an all powerful God that demands total surrender in all aspects of our lives.  One for whom obedience is better than sacrifice.  One who sets up rules that we don’t really want to follow like not having any other gods, keeping the Sabbath holy, not coveting what we don’t have. 

The sound of war is the sound of our hollow worship when it’s really other gods we’re chasing after.

Exodus 25-28

No matter how many times I read these chapters and these descriptions, I cannot paint in my minds eye what the tabernacle or the High Priest’s garments looked like.  I cannot grasp the over all, just like I cannot grasp the overall essence of God.  But, specific details leap out; references that help me define the small glimpse of God that I am allowed to see.

The first thing that catches my attention is the two cherubim that adorn the cover to the Ark of the Covenant  “Make an atonement cover of pure gold—two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide. And make two cherubim out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover. Make one cherub on one end and the second cherub on the other; make the cherubim of one piece with the cover, at the two ends. The cherubim are to have their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim are to face each other, looking toward the cover. Place the cover on top of the ark and put in the ark the tablets of the covenant law that I will give you. There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the covenant law, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites. – Ex. 25:17-22 NIV

This is the place where God will meet Moses.  It is a protected place, between the wings of the Cherubim.  As David sings, it is the secret place of the most High.

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. – Ps. 91:1-4 KJV

There is a place where we can meet the heart of God.  A place, far away from all the craziness of life, where we can commune with Him, where all we hear is His voice.  We do not access that place easily and cannot  take it lightly.  It is the Holiest of Holies.  We can only enter there when we are completely clean and the perfect sacrifice has been offered.