Author: Randall Smith

Idolatry is the single most talked about problem in all of Scripture – but you don’t hear it that much in the western church. When we do mention it, we picture some primitive tribe far away, not people we see every day. According to the Bible, most people are idolaters. Now, I readily admit that in the modern world of the west, most do not think of themselves as idolaters – but in the Biblical terminology that is exactly how they would be described. This isn’t a new problem, but one that accompanies the ages. It was John Calvin who wrote: “Everyone of us is, even from our mother’s womb a master craftsman of idols.”

We may not build elaborate temples and construct vast sacrificial platforms. We may not bow to a statue of some hideous creature or sumptuous human form, but each of us serves something with vigilant allegiance – even if it is ourselves. The Biblical definition for idolatry is “anything that takes God’s rightful place in our life as it regards our hungers, choices and desires.” For some it is money, for others an inordinate craving for the love of another. For some it is surely power. Some yearn deeply for success and will cast aside any principle for the perks of material gain. For some the driving hunger is fame. For some, every waking moment seems to be a search for sexual gratification. Some make a god of their career, while others exalt their body to serve the god of image and strength. To a great many in our culture, the god of comfort and pleasure demands our highest allegiance. I have to agree with Kyle Idelman who wrote: “Behind every sin struggle that you and I have is a false god that is winning the war in our lives.”

We must be careful not to allow other things to come between us and God. The Bible warns us in many places concerning this – but there is another “twist” on idolatry I want you to notice – our modern attempts to re-shape God into something that is more acceptable to our sense of fairness and justice. We began to see this in the last chapter, where we noted the “modern clash of culture” we have with the text of Scripture regarding the judicial responsibility of women (Numbers 30). We noted the unchanging principles of God’s Word are sometimes openly offensive to modern sensibilities, and that in our day the church is quickly succumbing to the need to be loved by the world rather than firmly committed to holding the treasure of the Creator’s words above all else. If you have been listening, you know the media LOVES any church that wants to update and re-think the Bible’s most clear statements to conform with the morals of modernity.

I don’t want to obfuscate and sound so theoretical I skirt needed discomfort, so let me say it plainly: Our culture is at war with the God of the Bible as He is presented in the text. They don’t WANT HIM. IF they want any god (and many do not), they want to be able to shape what He cares about. They want to tell Him what the Bible SHOULD say. They want to re-make the rules on marriage, finance, sexual behavior, honesty – all of it. The parts of the Bible about God’s love are no problem. The problem is all the other things God says… God the Sovereign is being demoted to God the elected… and there is a reason.

Many Christians simply don’t understand that from the opening line, the Bible is deeply offensive to the modern sensibilities of our culture. Its pages open with a simple claim: “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth.” If that claim is true – if God DID in fact create all that is and then defined its purpose (as the rest of Genesis 1 claims) – everything finds its real meaning and definition in Him. He defines justice. He defines goodness. He defines mercy. He defines truth. Even more offensive is the notion that in such a case, God isn’t forced to act according to modern man’s ever flexing sense of fairness… a truly burning offense to modern man. Our culture cries out for a creator that can be shaped! Our nation seeks a god that blesses us without questioning our gluttony for endless pleasures and encourages us without challenging our flexible morality and unrestrained perversions.

A God that pre-existed the material world, a God that created all things– is fundamentally at odds with the gods of modern men. Why? If God created, He was not a creation of good men – He is the author, not the tale. If God created, He has by definition a Sovereign right to be recognized as Who He is. He cannot be forced into rules that His creation attempts to subject Him to, nor can He be shaped by men’s thinking, for we were shaped by His hands. He is the Untamable God – the writer of a story in which we find ourselves characters.

Key Principle: God isn’t forced to act according to our sense of justice – He defines justice. He defines goodness. He defines mercy. He defines truth… This is the truly offensive word of the Bible to modern man.

Let me challenge you with a story from the Bible that will help us see even our own temptation to shape God. Like the last lesson – this one challenges our modern definitions of fair and just, and forces us to rethink how our minds have been pressed into the world’s mold. There is much in the passage, so we will deal with it in two parts – this is the first installment.

Part One: The Last Battle for Moses

The first half of the chapter is constructed as a record of four scenes:

• God commands Moses
• Moses passes marching orders to leaders
• Israel’s army routs Midian
• Moses meets the returnees

This is a story about a war. It is the plan and execution of a surprise attack, initiated by God against a devious enemy that had caused problems in the past for Israel. It is a tough story to read – with butchery and blood of men and women, and the enslaving of children. It is a frank look at the rugged and brutal existence of God’s people long ago… and it is not easy to seriously contemplate.

Scene One – God to Moses:

It opens with God talking to Moses. Take a moment and pull in your focus to listen to a short and direct command from God given millennia ago:

Numbers 31:1 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.”

The opening line of the story is no doubt a summary of a longer conversation, but in the short two sentences we see the revelation of three facts:

First, God wasn’t willing to let the terrible abuse of His people by devious men who tried to destroy God’s plan in and through them remain unanswered.

When we read “take vengeance” as Christians, we are perhaps uncomfortable with a kind of call from God, since it seems contrary to the call of God to us – and it meant the brutal killing of human beings. Don’t you feel a reaction? Perhaps it will help if you recall the event that God was referencing in his command, and see if it puts this command in context. Numbers 25:1 reported: “While Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. 2 For they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. 3 So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the LORD was angry against Israel. 4 The LORD said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people and execute them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel.” 5 So Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you slay his men who have joined themselves to Baal of Peor.”

While observing this first fact – that God wouldn’t let the abuse go – it occurs to me that four ideas surface that we should take a few minutes to explore on the way to helping us make sense of this command of God for vengeance:

• God called Moses in with the plan to pay back Midian for their sin. This wasn’t a political stunt, and it wasn’t done with a malicious heart on the part of Moses. Vengeance is God’s alone – and we are not to cook up ways to hurt people who hurt us. Moses was acting as the hand of God in a specific situation – and we aren’t Moses. We don’t have the history of the same kind of communion with God and don’t have the same responsibilities before God as he did.

• We don’t recognize how hurt the people of Israel were concerning the resultant plague that decimated them, killing 24,000 of their family and friends (Numbers 25:9) directly because of that sin. These deceivers felt like cloaked terrorists, and the event felt like a 9/11 cataclysm to the people. America WANTED to fight after they were attacked. After Pearl Harbor, there was no ground swell of a peacenik American. When people are hurt and victimized, their sense of JUSTICE overwhelms them. God’s call probably satisfied many people who lost loved ones that were casualties of another’s misdeeds. Some of you may be keen to ask: “Wait! These didn’t die in an attack – the plague of the Lord took their lives. That isn’t the same thing!” (I want to address this, but I will do so later in the lesson).

• We don’t recognize how deeply God abhors those who ensnare His people in idolatry and licentious living. To God, these tribesmen were like an ancient form of a street “drug pusher” – offering something free and getting people “hooked” – while steadily “milking” their life from them. If you have ever felt that there was a special place in Hell reserved for such people, you know a bit of the outrage of God over what they were doing. He HATES the deliberate perversion of a child. He DETESTS the beckoning of the tempter who creates enslaving pornography and traffics in human flesh of those held in bondage. He LOATHES the voices of those who arrogantly challenge His right to keep His people distinct from filth.

• We must recognize that God worked with Israel in unique ways in the past in regards to national direction, and this view of “carnal warfare” is not the same in our nation and time in history. We follow a chosen value at Grace called “Non-resistance”. We are not pacifists, and do not believe that Jesus’ commands to individual believers translate to national instructions, but we do believe there is a profound difference in the way we should handle what our forefathers called “carnal strife” – fancy terms for “national wars”. Non-resistance in our doctrinal statement means essentially that we do not believe that our nation or our church are to involve themselves in battles that are designed to “carry out the Lord’s vengeance on them” as stated in Numbers 31:3. Serving in the country’s armed forces is not a problem for us – but it would be if our country tried to execute a war claiming it was the “arm of God”. In our time, we believe there is a distinction between the Kingdom “not of this world” that we serve, and the earthly kingdom to which we show allegiance as a matter of obedience to Romans 13 and those who are in authority. Our movement came from a time in European history when people were killing each other in the name of Jesus – and we don’t believe in that. We can and will defend our national interests as loyal citizens, but we will not defend the nation claiming it is “the command of the Lord” over another people. We make a distinction between our faith Kingdom and our earthly Kingdom that ancient Israel did not need to make.

God wouldn’t let it go, but there is more in this little reading of Numbers 31:1-2.

Second, Moses needed to care for the response and not let it pass to his successor. There would be plenty of fighting that Joshua needed to contend with – but God wanted this chapter finished by Moses’ administration. It wasn’t wise to place the clean-up operations on the shoulder of the new guy. As we slip out of a long-held role of leadership, sometimes we are tempted to “let things go” and not press to the final tape with our best efforts. It would have been easy to see how Moses could have felt it best not to “re-open a can of worms” and rather “let sleeping dogs lie” – the laissez faire (“leave it be”, literally “let do”) form of leadership. Because of that temptation, and because God wanted to balance the scales of judgment, He simply stepped in and instructed that Moses clean up this problem.

Third, this was the LAST big assignment Moses needed to face as leader. He would be “retired” after this war. Moses was probably looking forward to resting from the weight of the office, and since many of his friends were already gone, he probably knew it was time for a new leader. From what we can tell, the words of God didn’t threaten him, they comforted him.

Scene Two – Moses to Men:

There are more than two verses to consider in the story! Keep reading…The instruction firmly planted in his ears, Moses drew the people together and faithfully reported to him all that God told him to say:

Numbers 31:3 So Moses said to the people, “Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites so that they may carry out the Lord’s vengeance on them. 4 Send into battle a thousand men from each of the tribes of Israel.” 5 So twelve thousand men armed for battle, a thousand from each tribe, were supplied from the clans of Israel.

He told them to get ranked, dressed and ready for battle. He delivered the reason, just as God gave it to him – it was God’s idea, not his. The objective was given by the Most High, but the plan needed to be executed in their hands.

Scene Three – Men to War:

Gathered and ready, off they went to attack as they were told to do. They were strong physically, and walked with an emotional certainty knowing they were following the Lord’s command.

Numbers 31:6 Moses sent them into battle, a thousand from each tribe, along with Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, who took with him articles from the sanctuary and the trumpets for signaling. 7 They fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man. 8 Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba—the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. 9 The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. 10 They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. 11 They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals, 12 and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho.

Moses SENT them, but Eleazar the High Priest ACCOMPANIED them with articles from the Tabernacle – the silver trumpets used to call them to war from its doorway. The men apparently attacked the Midianite encampment with complete surprise – and the slaughter was thorough. Every fighting man of that tribal encampment was killed. Five chieftains were encamped there – though the text does not inform us why they were all in that one camp. It looks like a “pow-wow” was interrupted at just the right time!

Did you notice that Balaam the prophet was also with them? At the end of his time with Chief Balak, Numbers 24:25 recorded: “Then Balaam arose and departed and returned to his place, and Balak also went his way.” What was he STILL DOING IN THE MIDIANITE CAMP? Truthfully, we do not know. It could be that he returned to his tent at the end of Numbers 24 with the intent of going home, but decided to stay around and see how the whole thing worked out. Some have even suggested that he set out to return to Mesopotamia, but was again summoned by tribesmen that wished to hire his services. 2 Peter 2:15 certainly left the door open to that when it recorded his legacy as: “forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness.” I cannot prove it, but I suspect that he found himself seduced by the sensual cult that pervaded the camp of Midian, and he wasn’t willing to go back home.

Because I feel it inappropriate, I will not graphically remind you of the cultic practices, except to say they were sensual and orgiastic. The women captured by Israel’s raiders were some of the same enchantresses from the “cultic orgy” of Numbers 25 that drew them into trouble with God and His Word. It is also important to mention that the so-called “towns” or “cities” Israel burned in verse ten were “encampments” and “maqads” or safe havens – cave structures that stored food and water for the journey through their surrounding territory. Moses was trying to make it clear that every Midianite in the area was taken, and the raiders checked carefully the region around the camp. What they brought back was a rich trove of stored materials, and a certainty that there would be no immediate counter-attack.

Scene Four – Moses Met Returnees:

Collecting the spoils of the encampments in the region, and the supplies of the maqads, they returned to Moses – with flocks, herds, plunder, women and children. The reading that follows is a bit jarring:

Numbers 31:13 Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. 14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle. 15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. 19 “Anyone who has killed someone or touched someone who was killed must stay outside the camp seven days. On the third and seventh days you must purify yourselves and your captives. 20 Purify every garment as well as everything made of leather, goat hair or wood.”

The record of the return reveals that Moses looked at what they brought back. He was, no doubt, relieved to see them all come home. Any leader would be. He walked out of the camp to meet Eleazar the High Priest, and address the commanders of the tribal warriors of Israel. As he saw them, dirt and blood still dried on their skin and tunics, his eyes scanned the crowd. He saw the spoils of silver and gold, the trinkets and treasures of a people now defeated and dispatched. Then the smile slipped from his face… His mouth dropped open. Could it be? Were the very women that stood before him those who had seduced the children of Israel and brought about the idolatry and plagues a short time before? What had his army done? Why had they let them live? Here is the question at the heart of the narrative’s application for our study.

When my unbelieving friends want to criticize the Bible, verses like the one we just read are the very ones they use. They sound barbaric. Any Pastor would rather avoid these texts and hide inside the warmth of the Gospels or the reasoned argumentation of the Apostle Paul. This record is sickening to anyone who is not calloused. We are speaking of the death of women and children. How can this be in our Bible?

Despite what my students may say, I am not an un-compassionate man. Seriously, I ache when I see scenes from Damascus today, or Egypt, or Libya, or Afghanistan or Iraq. I cannot easily endure the sight of killing – and I have seen it before, and handled fallen bodies with my own hands. When you really look at war, you learn that, up close, all wars seem like crimes – regardless of the point. Who can take the life of a child and not be changed forever by the taking? I watched in horror as the footage was released of those who were painfully gasping for breath as they suffered the effects of Sarin nerve gas in Syria.

You see, the burning desire for God to fit into our feelings, our inner barometer of justice – makes us vulnerable to a sinful reshaping of God. Do you recall the key principle I cited for the study?

“God isn’t forced to act according to our sense of justice – He defines justice. He defines goodness. He defines mercy. He defines truth… This is the truly offensive word of the Bible to modern man.”

Let’s remember when we read of this tale that God was leading the people through the journey to the Promised Land. They were following Him when the enemy attacked through a slick traveling preacher named Balaam and his suggestion to win their hearts through sinful compromise. He may have sounded like a man of god, but the rattle of a snake was present behind his voice. He didn’t seem like such an offensive character – he was not a vulgar and boisterous man. He did not stand on the hillside shouting obscenities to his foes. He sat in a meeting, and quietly planned seduction and destruction of God’s people. He laid out the plans with care and shared with tribal chiefs how they could make God’s people GIVE THEM a victory they knew they could not TAKE by force. That’s the way the enemy really works most effectively. Why assault us openly when he can lull us into conformity and then force us into slavery?

Let’s recall when we encounter this story that God directed the assault on the people and that God had the absolute right to do so. That is where the real justice issue plows into our culture. It is that same sense of justice that is causing the modern “church of tolerance” so pervasive in our day – to reshape the Bible on a narrative on the mention of Hell. It offends an American culture that doesn’t truly accept authority – even from a Creator. In our culturally accepted arrogance, we feel qualified to shake our fist at Heaven itself and demand that God get into the box of our sense of fairness. He can’t kill if we don’t think He has that right. He can’t demand a man to take his only son and place him on an altar and sacrifice him at God’s call. God doesn’t really OWN people – He isn’t really ENTITLED to do as He pleases with my life… do you see where this is going?

Here is the crux of the struggle. A believer cannot truly make sense of God’s commands if they don’t remember God’s position as Creator, Master and Sovereign.

When we compromise on the Sovereignty of God, we destroy the Bible. We declare God subject to human will. We make Him answerable to US and not us to HIM. We draw back in fear of rejection or hunger for acceptance from a broken and temporary world and do not represent the God Who is not intimidated by the strongest of men. We stand, like David’s brothers, quaking before a defiant Goliath as he mocked the God of Abraham.

I simply argue that I cannot make the God of the Bible palatable to the arrogant voices of modernity. I have no way to bend God so low as to serve men’s pleasures, or to flex His sayings to make what is popular right. If the work of the shepherd in a church is going to be measured in terms of common popularity, I suspect those of us standing with the plain reading of the text will not be deemed successful this side of Heaven. No matter. All I can do is be as kind as possible, but be true to the Word as well.

Given time, people will re-write and explain away every counter-cultural statement of the Bible – including the Gospel itself. I like something Pastor Tim Keller wrote: “The universal religion of humankind is: We develop a good record and give it to God, and then he owes us. [God should weigh out the good I have done in my life and let me into Heaven.] The gospel is: God develops a good record and gives it to us, then we owe him (Rom. 1:17). [God sent His Son to save us.] In short, to say a good person, not just Christians, can find God is to say good works are enough to find God. You can believe that faith in Christ is not necessary or you can believe that we are saved by grace, but you cannot believe in both at once. So the apparently inclusive approach is really quite exclusive. It says, “The good people can find God, and the bad people do not.” But what about us moral failures? We are excluded. The gospel says, “The people who know they aren’t good can find God, and the people who think they are good do not.” Then what about non-Christians, all of whom must, by definition, believe their moral efforts help them reach God? They are excluded. So both approaches are exclusive, but the gospel’s is the more inclusive …. It says joyfully, “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been at the gates of hell. You can be welcomed and embraced fully and instantly through Christ.” (taken from “Preaching Today”).

One who embraces the God of the Bible recognizes a truth the world is blinded to. They grasp that there is no compassion in man greater than compassion found in man’s Creator – He invented love, He invented care. God didn’t ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac without a plan to save both of them. God’s compassion was so great that HE GAVE HIS SON. He sent Jesus. He allowed Him to be nailed to a Cross. Then, in the midst of the agony and tears, God did the unthinkable. He left Jesus there. He allowed Jesus to experience the utter anguish of Hell – the separation from God Himself. Jesus had existed as ONE with the Father throughout the ages back to eternity. On a terrible early afternoon outside of Jerusalem as the sky grew dark, God turned His back on His Son. The separation tore at the universe on a molecular level. Jesus’ great punishment was not simply that He was stripped of His clothes in a body beaten nearly beyond recognition. His profound punishment was not simply that his skin was torn through by the piercing nails into his flesh. These things were horrible, but paled in comparison to the absolute horror of the tearing away of His Father.

Hell is exactly that. It is, at its essense, the removal of God’s presence. All the grace, gentleness and love evacuates like the day’s heat in the cloudless desert. The cold settles and the darkness envelopes the soul. The physical pains are real and descriptive, but the separation from God is the reason the thirteeeth century poet Dante Alighieri placed above the gates of Hell these words: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”. Jesus did that for me and you – because that was required to save us from our mutiny.

You can try to make God fit into your mold – but God’s face will be shaped in your heart to look like your own. America is suffering from a need to have a man-like Christ in the place of a Christ-like Christian.

God isn’t forced to act according to our sense of justice – He defines justice. He defines goodness. He defines mercy. He defines truth… This is the truly offensive word of the Bible to modern man.

Perhaps nothing is more beautiful than a quartet of musical master performers playing soft chamber music on perfectly tuned and delicate strings. The dips and vibrations of the music are incredibly soothing to me. Conversely, nothing is more difficult to listen to than the dissonant sounds of an instrument utterly out of tune.

I am being brief because I want to get to the point, and I don’t want the point to be muddled by a cute opening story. Today we tackle a tough passage. It will not be boring, nor will it be complex. It will, however, be openly rejected by much of the church in our country at the beginning of this century. What we desire to study will be both TRUE and TERRIBLY UNPOPULAR – because the tones of this passage will sound as dissonant to the accepted morays of modernity. The Bible is not a book that flexes with man’s fickle sense of progress – it speaks as a foundational set of truths by the Creator. Those who do not believe that have already dismissed its message – and they control the “culture shaping” airwaves of our day. In Numbers 30 we are looking at a passage that was once in tune with our nation and her people, but no more. Yet, as our culture has walked away from Biblical truth, many have made God, our very Creator, the villain that works against our freedom and happiness. Even in the church, we find ourselves at odds with some key truths of Scripture.

Let me mention two, and then look carefully at one of them – because it is the heart of our passage for this lesson. We have been thoroughly taught that America was designed to be a “melting pot” of many people into one. At one time that was true. The corollary teaching that has been a subtext to many a politician’s speech has been this popular notion that PLURALITY is what makes America strong. I want deliberately to argue that is both an unwise premise and an untrue statement. Only a strong culture can accept many into its shores and resist giving up its long held tenets. As a nation keenly and deliberately built on certain Biblical premises expressed clearly in the Declaration of Independence, we were at one time able to accept masses into Ellis Island without diluting the essential nature of our understanding of national purpose and cosmic plan. Weakened from the inside, we no longer have such a resolve. Let me illustrate:

When a doctor that heads the department of surgery or a local government sponsored “health care review board” at our local hospital is Buddhist and believes in reincarnation, how do you suppose that will affect his view of the dignity of human life, and the amount of effort and cost that should be expended in the prolongation of life of a senior citizen?

Is plurality always a strength? Should not the dignity of man found in their ONE life on the earth be the deciding factor. No, if you are from a generation that equates pluralism with strength and the demand to stand on founding principle as a throw-back to some red neck form of ignorance. Pluralism is the sweet brand of polytheism that now reigns in the hallways of Kansas public schools that are challenged in court at the very mention Jesus, but enforce policies whereby students learn the five pillars of Islam. Pluralism in a culture that doesn’t know its own foundation is a tsunami pushing against a building that is unattached to a foundation. Yet, ask students across the country, and they will not only not know much of the Bible, they will overwhelmingly believe what they have been taught – pluralism is GOOD, and always the BEST WAY FORWARD.

If you find yourself troubled by the first illustration we just offered, you will find yourself enraged at the next one. We are going to tackle a treasured misbelief so dear, that many believers would fight with their last sinew of strength to defend a principle that just won’t hold up in the court of clear Biblical study. I don’t want to pick a fight, but the time to back up when the culture leans in to push the text around is long over. These clashes must be answered with LOVE, but that love does not imply a PUSH OVER DOCTRINE.

Key Principle: Our true purpose is determined by our Creator, not our culture. It is in that purpose we find peace.

Before we dive in, let’s set the passage in context. The “Civil Code” of Law in Exodus and Numbers finds its last chapter here. The subjects of Civil Code began with the Core Values of Exodus 20, along with some case studies on issues regarding Servants, Injuries, Property, Social Issues and Celebrations in Exodus 21-23. The Exodus account ends with an affirmation that the people of Israel would stand by that Law as a covenant with God (Exodus 24). The laws were to them, but the principles within those laws made clear the priorities of a changeless God that we serve today – and in that way the laws were also for us (in principle form). Numbers continued that Civil Code of Law in passages like:

• Numbers 5 that dealt with the purity in marriage and the faithfulness of a spouse.
• Numbers 6 we discussed the issues of purity again, and saw the Nazarite vow before the Lord.
• Numbers 15 we observed the “basics” of Jewish observance of religious rites that pleased God.
• As we end our view of the Civil Code, we have discussed offerings given to the Lord.
• In the end, we read of the very important statement concerning the subject of making VOWS before God.

Take a deep breath, because the lesson today isn’t about VOWS – it is about judicial responsibility before God. It is about the direct clash the Bible has with our modern assumption that God has made us all, in every way, absolutely EQUAL before Him. Let me be very clear to state something I believe to be overwhelmingly Biblical, but undeniably at odds with modern western culture… God did not make all men and women equal in responsibility before Him- though He made them all absolutely equal in value before Him.

I am not suggesting that our sex determines our VALUE before God – but it does determine our judicial equality and our culpability before God. The Bible nowhere tries to make the case that women have the same spiritual culpability and judicial responsibility before God as men. That doesn’t make them any LESS than it makes those of us without a WOMB less a parent. It makes us DIFFERENT, but modern western thinkers ABHOR DIFFERENCES – for they can only see one size for everyone. In modernity, there must be equal pay for one who cannot lift the jackhammer as for one who can – or somehow it is NOT FAIR.

Don’t write off what we are studying yet, for the Bible offers a very complete explanation that has been so thoroughly erased from our culture, that many young women would trade the Bible away for the promise of an equality that will leave them both empty and adrift.

First, let’s wrestle with the text before us, then we shall put it in a larger Biblical context. We will address it in a series of five principles:

Principle One: Tough Issues are supposed to be handled by leaders, and carefully explained to the people.

Look at the opening of Numbers 30:1 Moses said to the heads of the tribes of Israel: “This is what the Lord commands…16 These are the regulations the Lord gave Moses concerning relationships between a man and his wife, and between a father and his young daughter still living at home.

Moses spent no time explaining God’s right to prescribe truth. That would have been foolish! This was the generation who spent time in the desert. They knew God stood for them in front of the Amalekites that attempted to wipe them out. Their parents told them of the parting of the Sea when Pharaoh launched an attack on them. Stories of manna and water from rocks filled their childhood ears – so God’s power and their protection was nothing new to them. Yet, like the miracles God performed to get a few small wooden vessels across the Atlantic to the shores of the new world; like the powerful record of God’s abundant provisions of dried corn to prayerful and desperate settlers at Plymouth Rock – many stories had lost their power over time. Moses simply took the Word of the Lord and spoke it. That was the beginning of power, and still is.

When the pulpits of our land ring with a serious tone of the truth of God’s Word – there will be seriousness about our sin. When our schools again remember that a Personal and Loving God gave us a world to live in – there will be the bowing of the knees of our people rather than the arrogance of entitlement. When Washington stops trying to placate the insatiable perversions of men and turns its sights again to the Heavens – the family will take wings and rise from the desperate ashes we have enflamed. Judgment begins with the household of God. Truth begins with the knowledge of the Lord. Where there is neither truth, nor seriousness over sin – folly reigns – and with it increasing darkness, higher expense, and less safety to good citizens.

Look at the words of the last verse of Numbers 30. This is the regulation of God. These are truths about how the Creator views the responsibility of men (fathers and later husbands) of a woman. This is God’s expectation, and behind it is a simple principle – people are to pattern respect, understanding and rules by what God says is right.

Principle Two: Your word is your bond before God!!

Moses moved to the simple statement that has been deeply eroded in our own litigious society. Numbers 30:2 When a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said.

Here is the standard of a vow. Keep your word. Don’t look for a thousand justifications in piles of paperwork to somehow recuse yourself from keeping a promise. When you say you will do something, let your word be your bond. When you carefully speak to the Lord concerning an issue in your life, and you outline your own willingness to make a change – keep what you have promised. When you sign it, stop looking for ways to say you shouldn’t have to do what you signed.

I know in the slippery world we live in this principle is getting harder to deal with. Recently, I had to take a child to the hospital and was handed a form and told I had to sign it. I replied, I need to know something about the cost. I cannot simply sign that “I will be responsible for payment” when the amount could be $1,000 or $1,000,000. The man at the desk looked at me as if I grew an extra head. “Just sign it, that’s what everyone does!” I found no comfort in those words, and I know that it isn’t always as simple as doing what you said, when you cannot even know what promise you are making.

What I can say is this: a great many people are trying to skirt the rules they knew very well when they made promises. Let me try it this way: When you agreed to do your job, you may have been given sick days as part of your contract. These SICK DAYS are not extra vacation days. They are exactly what they are called – SICK DAYS. I cannot tell you as an employer how many people used them up on silliness, and then posited that I wasn’t a nice guy because now they “were actually sick!” Let’s stick to honest use of our tongues. If you have to lie to sell it, leave the work. If you have to cheat to win, quit the contest. If your word is no longer important to you – know that it IS IMPORTANT to God.

Principle Three: Women do not share equal judicial culpability before God.

Here is where we really get into some trouble with modern culture. First, listen to what Moses said God told him in Numbers 30:3 “When a young woman still living in her father’s household makes a vow to the Lord or obligates herself by a pledge 4 and her father hears about her vow or pledge but says nothing to her, then all her vows and every pledge by which she obligated herself will stand. 5 But if her father forbids her when he hears about it, none of her vows or the pledges by which she obligated herself will stand; the Lord will release her because her father has forbidden her.

Look carefully at the conditions. This is a young woman that has not been married, and she is at her father’s home. She vows to the Lord something that she must do. When her father became aware of the vow, he had the power of a veto over her decision. At the same time, if she made the choice but her father rescinded her vow – God cleared her of responsibility for the vow.

Look at another case to underscore the point in the text. In Numbers 30:6 “If she marries after she makes a vow or after her lips utter a rash promise by which she obligates herself 7 and her husband hears about it but says nothing to her, then her vows or the pledges by which she obligated herself will stand. 8 But if her husband forbids her when he hears about it, he nullifies the vow that obligates her or the rash promise by which she obligates herself, and the Lord will release her.

In the second case the woman is outside her father’s home, and living with her husband. She is an adult, and she is capable to busy herself in commerce, as Proverbs 31 clearly says. If she makes a rash promise and her husband hears and rejects the terms – God releases her from the guilt involved in that promise. This is one reason why the Bible insisted on parental involvement in the wedding process – something our culture now assumes to be utterly unimportant.

While some of you are ready to fight back about this as if God was robbing this woman of some intrinsic dignity and value – don’t forget the premise. Our true purpose is determined by our Creator, not our culture. It is in that purpose we find peace. God protected women in a way that our society has desperately tried to define as bondage.

When our culture followed God’s law, I could open a door for a woman without her feeling as though I was somehow stating that she could not manage to turn a knob and pull it. I could exempt her from the awful conditions of combat to keep her as a protected and cherished part of our homes that would not be subjected to the forced situations that plague our military even as we speak. We think we made women free – but we didn’t. We demeaned them by making them do things they were not meant to do. The horrors of war are just the beginning. The world stands back and cannot fathom the harm done to women in India, when a group of empowered men assault a woman in broad daylight. I will speak from my own experience – war is worse. It is unquestionably, unfathomably worse. Amped up with testosterone and with the taste of blood in the mouths of warriors, there is no place for a woman in a combat zone. You can agree or not, but I have been there, and I will not change my mind after the horrors I have seen.

Enough of my opinion, the text is what is important. The text makes certain that a woman is protected from ultimate judicial responsibility. That much is clear and undeniable.

Principle Four: There are women without coverings.

God never wanted it to be this way, but one of the most difficult parts of becoming a widow or a divorcee as a woman was to have your covering removed. The protection that a woman had under the law did not extend to such cases, as found in Numbers 30:9 “Any vow or obligation taken by a widow or divorced woman will be binding on her.

Here I can offer only one comfort: the fair warning should make one more careful about making agreements when uncovered. Advise should be sought, as it will make things safer. Fortunately for believers, we have a family beyond the physical, and this is one place the covering can be, at least in part, restored. That was part of the purpose of Paul’s careful instructions concerning widows to Timothy.

Principle Five: A husband is judicially responsible for his wife.

When you read the last part of the passage, it appears a repeat – but it is not. The purpose is to emphasize the end. In Numbers 30:10 “If a woman living with her husband makes a vow or obligates herself by a pledge under oath 11 and her husband hears about it but says nothing to her and does not forbid her, then all her vows or the pledges by which she obligated herself will stand. 12 But if her husband nullifies them when he hears about them, then none of the vows or pledges that came from her lips will stand. Her husband has nullified them, and the Lord will release her. 13 Her husband may confirm or nullify any vow she makes or any sworn pledge to deny herself. 14 But if her husband says nothing to her about it from day to day, then he confirms all her vows or the pledges binding on her. He confirms them by saying nothing to her when he hears about them. 15 If, however, he nullifies them some time after he hears about them, then he must bear the consequences of her wrongdoing.”

The point of the passage is that the husband is held fully responsible for his wife’s vow if knows about it and does not swiftly nullify it. This is because of the judicial chain of responsibility of the Bible.

If you look elsewhere in the Bible, you will see how this truth plays out in life for a believer, even today. Let’s looks at three passages that will help us see it:

First, let’s recall when, how and why women were created in Genesis 2.

Genesis 2:18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” 19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought [them] to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” 24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

• God had the intention of making woman to help man because he would be alone, and that was not good (2:18).
• God made her to be different (“nehged” is translated “suitable” but also “apart from” or “opposite” him – 2:18).
• God waited for man to recognize that there was no one “like” him, even though it was clear to God already (2:19-20). This is a common pattern, where God allowed man to learn what he needed to by experience.
• God fashioned woman FROM man – so that he would cherish her as part of himself. Self-preservation and its paired value of EGO were very much a part of man from the beginning (2:21-23).

Here is the part we often read past. The point of the passage wasn’t supposed to offer a science lesson on woman’s creation – it was much more. The whole POINT to the story was the end in 2:24. God formed the family based on the MAN HAVING THE JUDICIAL RESPONSIBILITY before God and making himself responsible for covering the woman. The woman was to be HIS RESPONSIBILITY to love and protect, to cherish and provide for. This wasn’t supposed to be about her taking responsibility for HIM. That is the projection of values that are foreign to the Biblical idea.

I simply argue that we MUST teach young men to care for women with a special protective cover. They should not mock, mimic or molest – but treat them with respect, care and courtesy. It MUST come from within the church – because the society is at odds with this under the guise of “equal rights”. I will say it again – because I do not have a womb does not make me less a parent. Value is not the same as function. She is to be prized, but she is to be protected. That is the clear pattern of the text.

Second, let’s examine the cataclysm of the Fall in Genesis 3 and observe what happened to women in the aftermath of the Fall.

Sin entered the garden with the Tempter taking the form of the serpent. In Genesis 3:16 God spoke to the woman about her rebellion and its consequences: “To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.”

Even the most casual reading reveals three truths: First, God levied a measure of discipline on the woman directly. Second, the reproductive system and pain were part of the discipline. Third, she would have a desire that was part of the discipline – a passion for something regarding her husband that was followed by the phrase – “Your husband will rule over you!” The term for “desire” is seldom used in Scripture, but is used in cases where one stretched out to gain something they wanted – they reached for it. The term “rule” simply translates “have dominion”. A simple reading is this: You will reach for control, but I have given that to him. You aren’t in charge, but you will want to be.

“Chauvinist!” You may yell. Ok, I don’t believe if you knew me you would believe that, but I am willing to accept that in “modern culture terms” that is what it looks like. Rack that one up alongside the notion of “tolerance” that is now making it impossible to agree with the Bible on marriage and morality and still be considered a truly “loving” person. Rather than being a reactionary, let’s simply evaluate what the Bible actually says. For those who don’t like it, that is a different problem than those who don’t hear it clearly or understand it thoroughly.

Third, let’s observe the way Paul applied the truths about women to leadership issues in the church.

Paul’s argument about women leading in the church had nothing to do with their personal capability to do so. He didn’t stop women from Pastoral ministry because he thought they were less adequate in their mind or heart. He did so because the Scripture doesn’t allow us to overrule the judicial standards of God because we wanted God to do things more in keeping with our culture.

Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 2:11 A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. 12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. 13 For it was Adam who was first created, [and] then Eve. 14 And [it was] not Adam [who] was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. 15 But [women] will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.

Paul argued the reasons she was to quietly learn in the public worship meetings of the church were because of the order of creation, and the order of the deception involved in the Fall in the Garden. In another letter, this one to the Corinthian church he said this in 1 Corinthians 11:7 For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. 8 For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; 9 for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake. 10 Therefore the woman ought to have [a symbol of] authority on her head, because of the angels. 11 However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. … 16 But if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God.

Here Paul added to the order of creation and fall, and inserted PURPOSE of Creation, and because of some on-looking angels, that seem to still be open to rebellion. He finished the passage with a note that ALL THE CHURCHES were so instructed – resisting the notion that this was but a localized principle for the women in Corinth.

Finally, let’s see how Numbers 30 applies in principle to the background of these three other passages.

Let me say it gently, carefully, but ever so clearly. God made women from men and held them under a man’s judicial responsibility. They were designed to be cherished not abused, protected not objectified. Our culture stands opposed to this. They want EQUAL RIGHTS to mean that she serves in combat, and she is treated in all respects as though her body is identical to his. It offends common logic, and worse yet – is flat out un-Biblical.

Now the point of the lesson:

Our true purpose is determined by our Creator, not our culture. It is in that purpose we find peace.

We won’t find peace in our society by erasing the Bible – we will find confusion. We won’t free women by saddling them with weight they were not designed to carry – regardless of how many people in our society say we will. These are the voices that say “family” is a cultural term. These are the voices that say “gender” is in your “head” and not determined by your biology. Watch the social services budgets soar as we create more confused, more entitled, more broken people. They wanted easy divorce – they got it. They want now to erase the other lines. The Bible will not go with them – so they will fight to extinguish its message. We will, filled with love and compassion – look them in the eye and tell them they are wrong. The undoing of the foundation will be the undoing of the society it built. Of that, I have no doubt.

We will deal honestly with the clash of cultures, just as Christians have done for centuries. We will wash their dirty feet and hug filthy bodies. We will work hard and provide for ourselves to be an example to the ever growing community of the confused and needy. Their freedoms will enslave them, but we will show them where the key that unlocks the shackles can be found. The Savior still has the keys!

Are you surprised at how fast a year goes by? I am always surprised at how fast time flies. One of the unexpected realities of how my life has been structured after starting the school at GCBI is how the pattern of school has again become my own. Each year, we start with 1189 chapters of the Bible to complete, page by page – and work frantically to get through it without pressing it so quickly that it is not meaningful. Just about the time that school is over, we are cleaning up the last of the Bible, and then we graduate the students and fly off to Israel with them. There is a two month retooling, and then we have to get set up for the next group. I love the process, but I feel like I blink, and we are back at it again. Those close to the process know that our coverage of the Bible has grown to be more and more thorough with each passing year, as we press to do the job a little better with each group.

For some of you, the year looks like getting the children ready for school and living for the next vacation. I am not talking about the CHILDREN living for the vacation, though that may also be true – I am talking about YOU trying to keep up the energy to make it through to the next break. Many of you are working, providing a proper home for your children, and trying to keep it all together. Morning at your house may be a breakfast mess while lunch bags are being prepared, and children are trying to find homework. For those who are past that stage, you remember it “oh so well!” Years rush by, and it seems like seasons brush lightly the landscape and then give way to the next.

God knew that our lives would be like a vapor, and He said so. He knew that we would get caught up in the pursuit of all kinds of things. Fortunes are made by spending life blood and profitably using the seconds that tick by on the clock. Even among those who do not make much money, there is a hope of a time nearing the last quarter of life that they may live without the daily grind of going to a job. It may never happen, but the hope still lives within us. God directed His people to the “break times” of life, so that they would walk through the years with Him. As this is the second part of the lesson, we should remind ourselves what the point of our study has been and the point of the record of the Annual Calendar law truly was…

Key Principle: God communicated through the offerings His desire to walk the daily road of life with His people. When a community recognizes the value of following appointed times with God – it secures deep values in the hearts of its people.

When God structured the calendar for Israel, He outlined a daily, weekly and monthly calendar of offerings and “appointments”, just as we pointed out in our last lesson. At the same time, He delineated a series of appointed feasts for the annual national observance of His people.

• First, we looked at the day, week and month portion found in Numbers 28:1-15.

• Next, we followed the annual “daytimer” calendar through the twelve months – and even into a thirteenth one periodically added to correct the calendar! In Numbers 28:16-31 the Moedim (appointed times) of the Spring are explained.

• Today’s lesson encompasses the Fall Moedim – the final three of seven feast times (Num. 29).

The Annual Feast Calendar

The seven feasts are each given specific reference in Leviticus 23 and in Numbers 28-29, and are listed in the order they were celebrated in the calendar year. The spring festivals include the first four mentioned, the autumn festivals are the last three:

Spring Festivals

1. Passover (or Pesach, Nisan 14th, the first day of Unleavened Bread) Lev. 23:4,5; Numbers 28:16.
2. Unleavened Bread (the week of Chag Hamatzot) Lev. 23:6-8; Numbers 28:17-25).
3. First Fruits (or Bukkurim on Nisan 16th, the second day of unleavened bread) Lev. 23:9-14; Numbers 28:26).
4. Weeks (also called Shavuot or Pentecost) Lev. 23:15-22; Numbers 28:26-31).

Autumn Festivals

5. Trumpets (also called Yom T’ruach or Rosh Hashanah) Lev. 23:23-35; Numbers 29:1-6.
6. Day of Atonement (or Yom Kippor) Lev. 23:26-32; Number 29:7-11.
7. Tabernacles (or Sukkot) Lev. 23:34-44; Numbers 29:12-38.

Look back at the Lessons of the Spring Festivals (the first four moedim):

First, the Principle from Passover:

God offered Passover to remind His people that they needed to PERSONALLY APPROPRIATE the means He provided for atonement – and that is true of all of us as well.

In our lesson, we briefly followed the progression of the sacrifice for redemption that unfolded – and how it was to be appropriated into each person’s life. In Exodus 12:3-5, God gave careful instruction about the preparation of the home before the Lord executed judgment on the Egyptian firstborn. Each man was instructed to take “A LAMB” (12:3) for his house. If “THE LAMB” (12:4) was too much for the small household, the man was to share with his neighbor and not waste. The lamb was to be spotless, sacrificed that its blood may be used as a marker. It was to be killed and personally applied as “YOUR LAMB” (12:5). Individuals would have to use the blood, nothing else would suffice. People needed to personally believe and act upon the message of God and follow the instruction of God to be saved from calamity and set free from bondage.

Second, the Principle from the Feast of Unleavened Bread:

God told them to “get the leaven out” for a week to remind them that SALVATION belongs to the Lord, but INTENTIONAL LIVING is the domain of God’s people – and that is something we must constantly recall.

Leaven in the Bible was normally prohibited by God in connection with offerings and sacrifices. (Lev. 2:11). From the instruction came the Chametz cleansing that became the background for “Spring cleaning”. Jews remove all leaven from their homes, and destroy it or sell it. As the feast approaches each year, the message is clear: Get the leaven out. Though Passover was all about God’s provision to save – something theologians called “justification”, Unleavened Bread was all about a man’s work of intentional removal of corrupting influences. This is termed by theologians as “sanctification”- a term that means “set apart for a specific use, often a holy use.” The usable vessel before God was to be free of leaven, and recall God’s purposes were to make a new and clean people to serve Him.

Third, the Principle in the Feast of First Fruits:

Tucked in the middle, God gave a promise in the form of another practice called First Fruits – that HE was going to provide something beyond their understanding – the provision of a NEW LIFE through the resurrection of the dead. Physical death isn’t our end. It isn’t even the end of this body. It will be reconstituted for a future – a renewed body based on the current model, but with all the new technology of Heaven.

The most interesting thing about the Feast of Firstfruits is the fact that it was NOT commanded to be on a counted date, as in the case of Passover – Lev. 23:5. Rather this was the to ALWAYS be celebrated on the same day of the week – Sunday, rather than a calculated DATE (Lev. 23:4,15,24,27,34). Paul argued in 1 Corinthians 15, the feast for that Sunday following Passover was a “shadow” of Messiah’s resurrection (and eventually OUR resurrection!). The point of John 20:1 “On the first day of the week” was to REMIND EARLY FOLLOWERS OF THE SPECIAL DAY on which Messiah was raised. It was the Feast of First Fruits! This was the lesson of Paul to Corinth (1 Cor. 15:20-32), that the resurrection of Jesus was the CLEAR answer to the shadowy symbol of the waving of the sheaf commanded so long before!

Fourth, the Principle in the Shavuot Offerings (Feast of Weeks):

Fifty days after the festival of first fruits, the festival of Shavuot or “weeks” began. The Greek word for “fifty days” is Pentecost, and the festival received this name in ancient Jewish sources from the Second Temple Period. This was the time that recalled the “Giving of the Law” in Exodus, a time when many synagogues still have an all-night reading of Scripture as part of the celebration of the Torah.

This Moed had a strange instruction. In contrast to the feast of “unleavened bread” where all leaven was to be purged from the sacrifice and it was to be clean of fermenting corruption, the feast of weeks includes two loaves of meal baked with leaven (Lev. 23:17). The leaven was prescribed as part of the ceremony, and obedient faithful could do nothing less than obey. Why include the leaven in the loaves? What was God’s intention in this “shadowy symbol”? For the answer, we move to a much later time in the Bible, in the Book of Acts. Acts 2:1 reminds us that the Spirit of God came upon the first followers of Jesus at Pentecost. The disciples were gathered together to recall the giving of the Law at Sinai that occurred fifty days after Pesach in Exodus, and the Spirit came upon them and began to write the Law on their hearts. In front of them on the table was a simple symbol – leavened bread. God was forming something that would be a part of His plan – His church. It would not replace Israel, but it would carry the message of His love while a darkness and blindness descended for a time over the Jewish people. Thirty-five hundred years ago, God already announced the plan of a second group of people to carry His name that were not one nation – and He did it through a feast.

The Four Spring Moedim offer me these four truths:

• If I want salvation, I need to listen to what God provided and receive it.
• If I want to become what He intends, I need to get some things out of my life.
• If I really listen to Him – He is offering me more than “a saved NOW” – He is offering me “a RISEN THEN”!
• When God began His special work on Israel’s redemption, He started by creating time of veiled darkness where He offered the world an opportunity for relationship.

The long, hot, dry summer rolled through Israel each year. As the Autumn neared, the season for “Moedim” again drew near, and the last three lessons of the calendar were offered:

Autumn Festivals:

In Jerusalem, you can feel the festival season coming the way you can feel the opening of schools in North American each school year. This calendar year, Rosh Hashanah will occur on the night of September 5-6, 2013, as the Jewish “New Year” is marked. Immediately after the beginning of the year, a period called the “ten awesome days” ensues, in which Jewish people introspectively consider their lives before Yom Kippur or the “Day of Atonement”, which will be celebrated on September 14, 2013. Five days later, the Appointment of God to recall the time in the wilderness journey comes upon the people at Sukkot or the “Feast of Tabernacles” takes place between September 19-20, 2013.

Rosh Hashanah Offerings (Yom T’ruach or Feast of Trumpets):

Numbers 29:1 Now in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall also have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work. It will be to you a day for blowing trumpets. 2 You shall offer a burnt offering as a soothing aroma to the LORD: one bull, one ram, [and] seven male lambs one year old without defect; 3 also their grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil: three-tenths [of an] [ephah] for the bull, two-tenths for the ram, 4 and one-tenth for each of the seven lambs. 5 [Offer] one male goat for a sin offering, to make atonement for you, 6 besides the burnt offering of the new moon and its grain offering, and the continual burnt offering and its grain offering, and their drink offerings, according to their ordinance, for a soothing aroma, an offering by fire to the LORD.

When you read the passage in Numbers 29, it is hard to see the simple truth about the day that has become the “opening” of the Jewish sacred year. The new year celebration in most cultures is a “secular” event. Here God commanded a burnt, grain and drink additional offering set, along with a special “day of blowing trumpets” to mark the occasion. Before fireworks, people had trumpets to blast away at special occasions – and this was a special day. This marked the beginning of the new call to God to bring the rains and provide a harvest. It was a cry to God to renew the economy – and nothing could sound to the modern ear more SECULAR than dollars and cents (or shekels and agorot!).

God wanted Israel to know that to separate the “sacred” from the “secular” violated the very spirit of the Torah. Because of the combination of calendars in ancient Israel, there are literally several “New Year’s Days” in the calendar. In rabbinic tradition, there is even a new year beginning for trees, a new year for animals, a new sacred year and a new civil year for administration. The “Day of Trumpet Blowing” (Yom T’ruach) was prescribed by God as the beginning of the civil year, or “secular” year. It was prescribed as the beginning date for financial transactions, for market purposes, and for military services. It also introduced the highest holy days of the month Tishri, the sacred seventh month (by religious calendar reckoning) that contained the highest holy days. It was simply the “ringing in” of a new civil calendar year. Why would God include this in His list of sacred observances (Lev. 23:23-25)?

God knew that His children are tempted to compartmentalize their faith into only one part of their lives, but God was to be Lord of all parts of the lives of the people under the covenant. He wanted every aspect of their lives to be attached to their Divine relationship. Even the wearing of the royal blue ribbon in the prayer shawl (tallith) and tassels (tsit-tsiot) was to help remind them of the special relationship (Num. 15:38ff). Their “faith” must not be separate from the functions of life. Sacred and secular were to be one, all under the leadership of the Lord God.

Is this still a temptation for the people of God? Yes, it is, and it is growing. A Jewish friend of mine in Jerusalem used to carefully observe his faith, but cheated in his business. I called it to his attention one day, and he said this: “Business is business and Moshe is Moshe!” The implication was clear: My faith and my business practices are not related. That is a violation of the Torah principle found in this feast.

Today educators are becoming more brazen, separating morality and honest history from what we are training our young people to believe. Listen to an excerpt from Marvin Olasky of World Magazine:

“Two days before the summer solstice, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences with great fanfare released “The Heart of the Matter,” a blue-ribbon-panel document emphasizing the need to beef up teaching of the humanities. …the AAAS commission in 92 pages came out in support of “full literacy … cohesive curricula … new partnerships.” Why should we love the humanities? …The AAAS tells us, “We live in a nation that has been built … on a foundation of humanistic and social science scholarship, from our Founding rooted in Enlightenment philosophy to a future informed by the compilation and analysis of Big Data.” The author says… “Really? I thought our nation grew in the belief that we are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights. America’s founders quoted the Bible a lot more than any Enlightenment text. They treasured life and liberty, not Big Data. Why should we love the humanities? “Humanists and social scientists are particularly well suited to address … the ethical questions attending the adoption of new technologies; the social conditions that provide context for international policy decisions regarding the environment, global health, and human rights; and the cultural differences that aid or hinder global security.” Really? Houston Baptist professor Micah Mattix put it well: “Does anyone who has taken a humanities course at a secular college or university in the past 10 years doubt that instead of teaching us who we are, many humanities courses teach that identity is constructed; that instead of teaching the classical and cardinal virtues, they recommend the self-serving virtues of moral relativism and egalitarianism; and that instead of helping students to become better husbands, wives, and citizens, the real focus is on making them more autonomous?”… The writer continued: “Instead of plowing through the AAAS report, I’d suggest reading a piece now on the internet that’s only eight pages long, John Milton’s “Of Education” (1644). Milton opposed the leading humanities teachers of his day, the “monsieurs of Paris [who] take our hopeful youth into their slight and prodigal custodies and send them over back again transformed into mimics, apes, and kickshaws.” …”The goal of education”, Milton wrote, should be “to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him.”

We are training people to distance faith and moral understanding from “real thinking” and “real living”, and the end of this system will bring nothing but relativism that paralyzes our workforce and endangers our local communities. Raise children that don’t connect GOD to MONEY and then stand back and watch how MONEY BECOMES THEIR GOD. Teach children that INTEGRITY is not as important as SUCCESS and you have launched the next generation of Wall Street tycoons and Harvard cutthroat plagiarizers. Sacred is secular, and secular sacred. God is either the foundation, or there is no foundation – and the building we are attempting to build will fall when the storms blow against it. One thing my years of life on the planet has told me is this: “Count on storms coming!”

Yom Kippor (Day of Atonement) Offerings:

Most everyone is familiar with the term “Yom Kippor” which simply means in Hebrew: “day of covering”. The covering refers back to the atonement blood poured on the mercy seat to cover the sins of the priest and the people in ancient Israel. Here are a few words:

Numbers 29:7 Then on the tenth day of this seventh month you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall humble yourselves; you shall not do any work. 8 You shall present a burnt offering to the LORD [as] a soothing aroma: one bull, one ram, seven male lambs one year old, having them without defect; 9 and their grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil: three-tenths [of an] [ephah] for the bull, two-tenths for the one ram, 10 a tenth for each of the seven lambs; 11 one male goat for a sin offering, besides the sin offering of atonement and the continual burnt offering and its grain offering, and their drink offerings.

Look at the blood tally: ONE BULL, ONE RAM, SEVEN MALE LAMBS. That is ON TOP OF the daily sacrifice – and in addition to the grain and drink accompanying offerings. The point is: MANY ANIMALS DIED IN REPLACEMENT OF PEOPLE’S SIN. There is an incredible high price for sin, and God required death as a penalty – just as He told Adam and Eve that He would. The command was given with serious tone, that each of the children of Israel would be impressed the seriousness of the day (Lev. 23:29) or they would be cut off from the house of Israel.

Shepherds from all throughout the land of Israel understood the significance of the sacrifice to Israel. For months, they cared for and cautiously groomed the livestock that would be used for atonement sacrifices. The price of sin was paid by the animal suited for sacrifice. The solemn Sabbath was observed by the High Priest of the nation, as he adorned the priestly garb and made a sin sacrifice at the Temple (Lev. 16:29-34ff). The sin offerings were prescribed to include a sacrifice for the sin of his family, then an offering for the cleansing of the sanctuary, and finally an offering for the sin of the people of Israel. The sin was to be atoned by the sprinkling of the blood of the spotless sacrifice on the Mercy Seat of the Holy of Holies. The price of sin had to be paid in the atoning sacrifice that included blood.

We cannot, we must not, as believers, forget the importance of the price of sin and the power of the blood that saves us even today. Do not mute the bloodiness in our message:

Hebrews 9:11 “But when Christ appeared [as] a high priest …12… through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”

Blood and death aren’t a pretty part of our message – but they are the essence of it – that Jesus paid for the sins of men, and the power of the blood is unstoppable! Forty-three times in the writings of the early Christian Scriptures we read of the blood of Jesus that was shed to wash away sin. The very last time, in Revelation 12, John wrote: “And they overcame Him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” This is the overcoming blood with the power to SAVE, but also the power to ENABLE believers in dark days to withstand the deceptions and accusations of Satan. Judas betrayed “innocent blood” (Matthew 27:4). Peter called it “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:9). It is called the “cleansing blood” in 1 John 1:7 and the “washing blood” in Rev. 1:5. Over and over the blood is mentioned – always powerful, always encountering the dirty and leaving it sin cleaned. The wages of sin is death, but the blood of the sacrifice can wash away the stain – so said the God of Yom Kippor.

Sukkot Offerings:

A very long “shopping list” like section of Numbers 29 invited the people to count off the sacrifices, day by day, of the seven day feast of Tabernacles. It begins in Numbers 29:12 “Then on the fifteenth day of the seventh month you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work, and you shall observe a feast to the LORD for seven days.”

Next, for the week-long feast God commanded daily grain and drink offerings paired off by a long but decreasing tally of bulls, with two rams and fourteen male lambs daily as follows:

• On the first day… thirteen bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs (13-15).
• Then on the second day: twelve bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs (17-19).
• Then on the third day: eleven bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs (20-22).
• Then on the fourth day: ten bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs (23-25).
• Then on the fifth day: nine bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs (26-28).
• Then on the sixth day: eight bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs (29-31).
• Then on the seventh day: seven bulls, two rams, fourteen male lambs (32-34).
• On the eighth day you shall have a solemn assembly; you shall do no laborious work. 36 …one bull, one ram, seven male lambs one year old without defect; (35-38).

The time of Sukkot in Israel was originally the “end of harvest” feast (cp. Ex. 23:17), also called the “in gathering”. The autumn harvest was now nearly completed. After the long and hot summer months in Judea, God had again shown His faithfulness to Israel in bringing in the “miracle crop” of grapes. The olives and grain harvests now all stored, the celebration of God’s faithfulness to the children of Israel completed the calendar of sacred observances. At the same time, the “BOOTHS” were not simply a reference to the agricultural harvest shelters – it was an image that hearkened back to the tents in the wilderness as God led Israel from Egypt, and made a nation from an extended family.

The feast of Booths, Tabernacles or Sukkot reminded the children of Israel of God’s great work of salvation from the bondage of the Egyptian Pharaohs. The children of Israel were commanded to live in huts (Lev. 23:42) or booths during the week of the festival (see also Neh. 8:14-18), to remind them of the travel through the wilderness. Sacrifices during this time were prescribed to include 189 animals (Num. 29:12-38), and the week was full of reminders of the faithfulness of God in the wilderness journey (Lev. 23:43). The faithfulness of God was taught to each generation of Israel as they sat in their booths, recalling the wilderness journey.

God had shown Himself merciful and faithful to the children of Israel in the desert wilderness. The dividing of the Sea, the manna of the wilderness, the cloud of guidance, and the pillar of fire were all images to be recalled to each new generation of Israelite children from within the sukkah, that they might remember and understand their Father in Heaven. At the end of the journey was their promised home, a land that was theirs by Divine covenant. God had freed the people, lead them, and finally gave them cities “that they did not build” with “wells they did not dig” (Dt.6). Israel was never to forget. Israel was to always teach their generations that the God of Abraham keeps His covenants. He is faithful to bring His people home.

We talk in our day about faithfulness, but on the level of the daily grind, we don’t seem to treasure it. We like the quick fix over the long and arduous process that brings lasting success. It seems we don’t say enough about those who stick by the stuff over the long haul, but that is becoming rarer. I am speaking of the mom and dad that work hard at their marriage and stay together through thick and thin. I am speaking of the teacher who quietly pictures Jesus in a classroom as each year brings more compromised curriculum and hostility toward God and His Word. I am speaking of the many who make ministry happen in a local body. Max Lucado wrote of this idea of faithfulness, when he said:

Norman Geisler, as a child, went to a DVBS because he was invited by some neighbor children. He went back to the same church for Sunday School classes for 400 Sundays. Each week he was faithfully picked up by a bus driver. Week after week he attended church, but never made a commitment to Christ. Finally, during his senior year in High School, after being picked up for church over 400 times, he did commit his life to Christ. What if that bus driver had given up on Geisler at 395? What if the bus driver had said, “This kid is going nowhere spiritually, why waste any more time on him?” – Max Lucado, God Came Near, Multnomah Press, 1987, p. 133.

Don’t forget, not only did a church stay faithful – so did GOD. How many years did he wait for YOU to open your heart to Him? How many blasphemies came from your lips while God was patiently wooing you to Jesus? How many nights were spent in beds you didn’t belong, or grasping a bottle that didn’t hold the real answers – but God was patient with you? The message of Sukkot was patience and faithfulness – attributes of God that have made all the difference in our lives.

The passage closes with the reinforcing truth that all the observances were to be observed strictly according to the command of God: Numbers 29:39 You shall present these to the LORD at your appointed times, besides your votive offerings and your freewill offerings, for your burnt offerings and for your grain offerings and for your drink offerings and for your peace offerings.'” 40 Moses spoke to the sons of Israel in accordance with all that the LORD had commanded Moses.

Let’s say it clearly, before we turn the page of this text to another lesson:

• God made an offering available for our salvation, but we have to personally appropriate it.
• God planned that after we were HIS, there would be some “cleaning house” in our lives.
• God had a plan from long ago that would conquer death and offer a new life in resurrection!
• God’s plan for Israel’s rejection of Him also included drawing others to Him on the way to turning His face back to Israel – and He called the His “church” – his “called out ones”.
• God refuses to see Himself segmented and secluded from all parts of our life.
• Sin has a terrible price, and death and blood were dragged in by our mutiny against God.
• God has been ever faithful to provide all that He has promised to people who deserve exactly none of it.

That is the message of God’s appointed times.

About a year ago, I was searching for some information to help someone with a loved one that was living in the nightmare of a food disorder. I didn’t have any background in the subject, since “Near East Archaeology” and “Rabbinic Judaism” – the subjects that captured the majority of my education – offered little help on the subject. Searching through the libraries of information, I found a new book, published the month I began my search. Because it was a novel, I found only a little help there, but I recall the book in part because the story line struck me as the right kind of plot for the journey of self-understanding. It is called A Year to Remember by author Shelly Bell. The story was all about a woman named Sara Friedman. The publisher advertised the book this way:

“When her younger brother marries on her twenty-ninth birthday, food addict Sara Friedman drunkenly vows to three hundred wedding guests to find and marry her soul mate within the year. After her humiliating toast becomes a YouTube sensation, she permits a national morning show to chronicle her search. With the help of best friend, Missy, she plunges head first into the shallow end of the dating pool. Her journey leads her to question the true meaning of soul mates, as she decides between fulfilling her vow to marry before her thirtieth birthday and following her heart’s desire. But before she can make the biggest decision of her life, Sara must begin to take her first steps toward recovery from her addiction to food.”

From the opening, it was way too girly for me, so I didn’t read it – but the title stuck in my mind. We are not going to explore food addictions in this lesson, though the Bible does have words about taking care of the body that Jesus gave us and paid for at the Cross of Calvary. Instead, I want to focus on the title of that novel: “A Year to Remember”.

When God structured the calendar for Israel, He outlined a daily, weekly and monthly calendar of offerings and “appointments”, just as we pointed out in our last lesson. At the same time, He delineated a series of appointed feasts for the annual national observance of His people. Last time we looked at the day, week and month portion found in Numbers 28:1-15. In this lesson we will follow the annual “daytimer” calendar through the twelve months – and even into a thirteenth one periodically added to correct the calendar!

Key Principle: God communicated through the offerings His desire to walk the daily road of life with His people. When a community recognizes the value of following appointed times with God – it secures deep values in the hearts of its people.

God knew what He was doing when He instructed the observance of seven holidays called “Ha Moedim” (or appointments). These weren’t man made remembrances, they were “appointments with God”, directly mandated by God for the people of Israel. Remember: though the Law was not something we as Christians from the nations are called to observe, its principles (given to our older brother Israel), still clearly help us understand our Father’s cares and desires. It is always the principle that should drive our study of the Word – not the prescription – since we aren’t the people to whom the text was written. Each Moed has guiding principles and truths about our Father that are not only worth the time, but were included in His Word to teach us, correct us and comfort us.

There are too many of them for us to do this in ONE LESSON. Instead, let’s break it the way the chapters of Numbers are today. This lesson will be about the SPRING FESTIVALS in Numbers 29:16-31; the next lesson will embrace the Autumn festivals of Numbers 29.

Don’t forget – holidays are about INDIVIDUAL recognition, but also about COMMUNITY and FAMILY observance. They strengthen both – individuals and communities, families, towns and churches. They aren’t just something you do yourself, they are communal efforts. When we as a church acknowledge a special appointment with God, we demonstrate our value system, and help people understand what we truly believe. Let me illustrate how that works in looking back to the history of the Moedim.

The Annual Feast Calendar

The seven feasts are each given specific reference in Leviticus 23 and in Numbers 28-29, and are listed in the order they were celebrated in the calendar year. The spring festivals include the first four mentioned, the autumn festivals are the last three:

Spring Festivals

1. Passover (or Pesach, Nisan 14th, the first day of Unleavened Bread) Lev. 23:4,5; Numbers 28:16.
2. Unleavened Bread (the week of Chag Hamatzot) Lev. 23:6-8; Numbers 28:17-25).
3. First Fruits (or Bukkurim on Nisan 16th, the second day of unleavened bread) Lev. 23:9-14; Numbers 28:26).
4. Weeks (also called Shavuot or Pentecost) Lev. 23:15-22; Numbers 28:26-31).

Autumn Festivals

5. Trumpets (also called Yom T’ruach or Rosh Hashanah) Lev. 23:23-35; Numbers 29:1-6.
6. Day of Atonement (or Yom Kippor) Lev. 23:26-32; Number 29:7-11.
7. Tabernacles (or Sukkot) Lev. 23:34-44; Numbers 29:12-38.

Spring Festivals:

The Principle from Passover:

Numbers 28:16 Then on the fourteenth day of the first month shall be the LORD’S Passover.

There are not many words that describe the occasion in Numbers 28, because it was like describing Christmas to most of you – it was all very well explained elsewhere.

Passover, was the time that recalled in Exodus 12 the move of the hand of God on the firstborn of the Egyptians that did not mark their doorposts or tent posts with the blood of a spotless lamb. The deal was simple: mark the door with blood, and the Lord will turn His face away and not exercise His wrath. It was an important exercise to help Israel clearly understand that God wanted each generation of Israelites to recall the need for individual, personal belief that played out in actions – in order for the people to be saved from the wrath of God that they deserved. Man mutinied against God, and the wrath of God was the consequence. Don’t forget, the wrath of God was His consistency – not just an angry response. It is the “cause and effect” nature of God that has left His fingerprints on our world.

The Hebrew term for “wrath” is from the three letter ALEPH-BET-RESH or A-V-R, the very root word from which the name of the Hebrews comes. They are a symbol of God’s consistency. Here is what He told them to do that first Pesach:

Israel found itself in bondage for ten generations. After serving Egyptian Pharaohs, the cries of the children of Israel went up before the Lord God, and He sent a deliverer to release His captive children. He sent a series of plagues designed to press on fickle Pharaoh as well as teach His people of Himself until God finally pronounced that He would send a plague that would be forever remembered. Exodus 12 records that the power of God would strike down the firstborn of every home in Egypt not protected by the mark of lamb’s blood on the door or tent post.

If we had time, we would follow the progression of the great story of redemption that unfolded. If you mark your Bible and check Exodus 12:3-5, you will see that God gave careful instruction about the preparation of the home before the Lord executed judgment on the Egyptian firstborn. Each man was instructed to take “A LAMB” (12:3) for his house. If “THE LAMB” (12:4) was too much for the small household, the man was to share with his neighbor and not waste. The lamb was to be spotless, sacrificed that its blood may be used as a marker. It was to be killed and personally applied as “YOUR LAMB” (12:5). Individuals would have to use the blood, nothing else would suffice. God set the standard of atonement and the people needed to trust that God would keep His word. They would have to silently wait and trust that the blood was enough to protect them from the judgment of God, when it came.

Don’t get caught up in the tents, the flocks and the Egyptian sand. God made some simple points:

1. God alone sets the standard of what pleases Him. No amount of service in replacement of the lamb would keep people from the wrath of God – period.
2. People needed to personally believe the message of God and follow the instruction of God to be saved from calamity and set free from bondage.
3. God took no time to explain why that payment was suitable – He set a standard of obedience, and did not ask our opinion.

It is so very important that we understand this in a time when our rulers are all chosen by our populace. God is an absolute Sovereign. He has no need to politic to gain our favor. He is God, and His Word is absolute. If we ignore it, we face the penalty, and we have only ourselves to blame.

Don’t die thinking God will put a scale before you and balance your good and evil deeds. That isn’t what He said He would accept. He wants the blood covering of a sacrifice. That is the reason believers celebrate the death of Jesus before the Resurrection of Jesus. God outlined that a lamb had to die, and blood needed to be shed – or that judicial payment for mutiny was not fulfilled. Good people that helped their neighbors and paid their taxes on time died in the wrath of God if they didn’t use the blood covering as He instructed. That should tell us something about our own efforts to please God apart from His standards.

The Principle from the Feast of Unleavened Bread:

Immediately following the Passover, God added to the original holy day a week long observance called the “Feast of Unleavened Bread”. He described it in Numbers 28:17-25. Look at the beginning, and I will summarize the other verses:

Numbers 28:17 On the fifteenth day of this month [shall be] a feast, unleavened bread [shall be] eaten for seven days.

On the first day, verses 18 and 19 describe the burnt offering. Verses 20-22 describe the grain offering measured against the appropriate animal, and verse 23 describes that these offerings are IN ADDITION to the regular daily offerings. Verse 24 reminded the people to do it every day for the whole seven day stretch, and verse 25 told them to take the seventh day off work and meet in worship.

Many believers are familiar with the pictures and stories of leaven in the Bible, but some may not recall the imagery. Leaven was normally prohibited by God in connection with offerings and sacrifices. Lev. 2:11 excluded its use in most of the sacrifices claiming it was a corruption of the sacrifice. God made a standard that leaven was corrupt and unusable in this context – though fermented beverages were allowed. The issue may have been to limit the time and assure freshness in the offering, we simply cannot say. We do know that a festival of one week with unraised bread was a CHANGE from the norm, and many rabbis suggested the symbol would remind them of the journey, where they could not remain in a place for a long time. That sounds right, because the Biblical argument was simply the reminder that between two Sabbath rests, this week long observance was intended to remind them that “the Lord brought the children of Israel out of Egypt” (Ex. 12:17).

From the instruction came the Chametz cleansing that became the background for “Spring cleaning”. Jews remove all leaven from their homes, and destroy it or sell it. It is a fascinating part of Jewish life in Jerusalem. As the feast approaches each year, the message is clear: Get the leaven out. The day after the Passover sacrifice and meal, a week-long festival ensues (Lev. 23:6). Instruction on the festival is given in Exodus 12:15-20 (cp. Lev. 2:11 for leaven) and today supermarkets quarantine all leavened materials and sell them to off shore companies. On my old street in Jerusalem, little piles of dust were burned from the cleaning of my neighbor’s homes.

The principle behind the cleaning out of the leaven was well illustrated by the teaching of an old fisherman. The fisherman took his small boat out to sea early each morning to catch the fish for the market. He moved along the surface of the water with great ease, for the boat was well designed for fishing. On one occasion, the old fisherman took his son with him to the sea. His son was unaccustomed to the boat and began to tip the small craft as he walked around inside it. The older fisherman raised his voice and exclaimed, “Sit down! The boat is fine in the sea, but we don’t want the sea inside the boat!” That same “keep the sea out of the boat” principle is the message of the feast of Unleavened Bread, a message of a clean walk.

What is the deal with keeping leaven out of the house, and out of the bread? The yeasts that were used in making bread came with them out of Egypt. Most people had very few implement to make up a kitchen, but the “starter dough” with its infused leaven was something they took on any journey. There were no fast food restaurants in Sinai, and if they wanted to make any bread by-product, the starter dough was essential. How they used it with manna is not at all clear, but the truth behind the festival was – they were to set aside using leaven – and eat bread WITHOUT IT. In this way, Egypt and its corrupting influence needed to be set aside by the people. The principle of cleansing the house from leaven (chametz cleansing) was an illustration of the need to live a life that was intentional about separation from corruption and sin.

Passover was about God’s provision to save – something theologians called “justification”. Unleavened Bread was all about a man’s work of intentional removal of corrupting influences, termed by theologians as “sanctification”- a term that means “set apart for a specific use, often a holy use.” The usable vessel before God was to be free of leaven, and recall God’s purposes were to make a new and clean people to serve Him.

This concept constantly needs to be reaffirmed, especially in the American “Bible belt”, where cultural Christianity can easily replace an intentional walk of obedience to Jesus Christ. It isn’t enough to go to a Billy Graham Crusade, pray a prayer and walk an aisle. God didn’t just call you from the world so that you could live as you choose and then retire to Heaven when you die. That isn’t a new idea that came with televangelists; it has always been a deception of the enemy. All the way back in the beginning of the church, Paul wrote of this, reminding the early believers in Jesus that God had bigger plans for their lives:

Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, [it is] the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

In salvation, a follower of Jesus DOES get the promise of Heaven, but in Ephesians 2, God wanted them to recall that He had a bigger purpose – to create through each of their lives of intentional yielding, a picture of God’s handiwork done in a life interrupted by His grace. The message of the church cannot be ONLY about JUSTIFICATION or it becomes utterly imbalanced. John 3:16 is a wellspring of life – but it is not the only truth in the book. We must not forget the story is not one only of personal benefits apart from personal commitments. That idea may sell well today, but it is only PART of the story of God’s grace. His story was never intended to be a license for selfish living followed by retirement in Heavenly bliss. We are saved by grace, but the reason we are saved is not only for ourselves. We are to become a living display of His workmanship. If that were not true, the Scriptures would be much shorter on instructions of life, and there would be no need to “strive against sin”. Our call is to preach BOTH – God’s undeserved favor that saves, and the intentional active pursuit of our walk with God once He offers us new life.

The Principle in the Feast of First Fruits:

Numbers 28:26 Also on the day of the first fruits, when you present a new grain offering to the LORD.

There is but a small half verse on the Feast of First Fruits in our passage, so we will but mention the principle that is clear if one takes the time to study Leviticus 23:9-14. The Sabbath had given the children of Israel the necessary understanding that a close of cycle and rest was necessary. What the Sabbath did for the end of one’s work, the feast of First Fruits outlined for the “beginnings” of life. The beginning of the harvest was the setting for this important lesson. God wanted the children of Israel to understand that He had provided for them, and they were to respond to His gracious giving. All they possessed was undeserved blessing (Dt. 6), and all they had belonged to God (even their children, see Ex. 13:2).

Frankly, on payday it is easy to think we earned the money, and it is ours. For a farmer, the harvest is the beginning of the payday. Hours of plowing, planting, watering and waiting begin to show FRUIT for the labor, pun intended. THAT was the very time Israel was to make an offering of thanksgiving, an offering of anticipation of continued blessing (“first” fruits implies later fruits), and an offering of acknowledgment.

Yet, tucked within the TIMING of the “Feast of First Fruits” the Apostle Paul also reminded early believers that God had a picture waiting –Jewish believers could clearly see it in the first century – but it may not be as obvious to us today. Tucked between the command for Jews to celebrate Pesach (Passover) and Shavuot (Pentecost) was a “Feast of First Fruits”. This feast involved taking the un-ripened grain THE SUNDAY AFTER PASSOVER and bringing it to the priest at the Tabernacle (and later the Temple) to wave it before the Lord, make a lamb offering. The offering included a meal offering, a wine offering and special dietary commands for the day (Lev. 23:9-14).

The most interesting thing about the Feast of Firstfruits is the fact that it was NOT commanded to be on a counted date, as in the case of Passover – Lev. 23:5. Rather this is the only feast in the chapter to ALWAYS be celebrated on the same day of the week – Sunday! Remarkably, all of the other feasts are all based on a calculated DATE (Lev. 23:4,15,24,27,34). Paul argued in 1 Corinthians 15, the feast for that Sunday following Passover was a “shadow” of Messiah’s resurrection (and eventually OUR resurrection!).

The point of John 20:1 “On the first day of the week” was to REMIND EARLY FOLLOWERS OF THE SPECIAL DAY on which Messiah was raised. It was the Feast of First Fruits! This was the beginning of the “countdown” to Pentecost (Lev. 23:15), but it was much more. This was the day they celebrated the COMING OF A GREAT HARVEST! What a spiritual picture! This was the lesson of Paul to Corinth (1 Cor. 15:20-32), that the resurrection of Jesus was the CLEAR answer to the shadowy symbol of the waving of the sheaf commanded so long before!

Don’t forget that in the Hebrew mind, harvest and judgment were indelibly linked together. One is usually expressed in the terms of the other. This is true in the terms of the prophets as they express God “treading out the grapes of wrath”, in the same way Jesus used it (Mt. 13 “reapers” that were angels). To the Hebrew mind, God does not judge man. Man grows his fruit, and God harvests that which man grows. What YOU sow, YOU reap! It is man’s own doing that causes his rotten fruit in the end. It is this same connection that evoked the link between the Jezreel Valley (the largest growth and harvest area in the country) and the “Valley of Armageddon” (Rev. 16:16- the valley of God’s judgment of the nations).

In the Feast of the First Fruits, God intended that Israel would understand the offering to be about things to come. Paul argued:

• Jesus has been raised! (15:20)
• As a man he conquered death, for the actions of a man brought death! (15:21-22)
• Jesus was raised as the first fruits offering (15:23), then the end comes, eventually destroying even death! (15:24-26)
• God has subjected everything to Him, and will bring it all to pass! (15:27-28)
• If Jesus wasn’t raised, the rest of the harvest could not be certain, and we may be lost! (15:29-32)

The early church celebrated the Sunday of the First Fruits, and began early to understand that this was the great symbolic show that God would bring about our resurrection as sure as the spring harvest follows the winter rains! The resurrected Jesus is the “first fruits” of our own eternal life, and His life is promised to us after our physical death (cp. 1 Cor. 15:35-58)

We are moving quickly, so let’s review:

• God offered Passover to remind His people that they needed to PERSONALLY APPROPRIATE the means He provided for atonement – and that is true of all of us as well.

• God told them to “get the leaven out” for a week to remind them that SALVATION belongs to the Lord, but INTENTIONAL LIVING is the domain of God’s people – and that is something we must constantly recall.

• Tucked in the middle, God gave a promise in the form of another practice called First Fruits – that HE was going to provide something beyond their understanding – the provision of a NEW LIFE through the resurrection of the dead. Physical death isn’t our end. It isn’t even the end of this body. It will be reconstituted for a future – a renewed body based on the current model, but with all the new technology of Heaven.

If I want salvation, I need to listen to what God provided and receive it. If I want to become what He intends, I need to get some things out of my life. If I really listen to Him – He is offering me more than “a saved NOW” – He is offering me “a RISEN THEN”! Death has lost its sting, because it is no longer a mystery, nor a one way door.

Each Spring, there is one more festival that we need to consider…

The Principle in the Shavuot Offerings (Feast of Weeks):

Numbers 28:26b …In your [Feast of] Weeks, you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work. 27 You shall offer a burnt offering for a soothing aroma to the LORD: two young bulls, one ram, seven male lambs one year old; 28 and their grain offering, fine flour mixed with oil: three-tenths [of an] [ephah] for each bull, two-tenths for the one ram, 29 a tenth for each of the seven lambs; 30 [also] one male goat to make atonement for you. 31 Besides the continual burnt offering and its grain offering, you shall present [them] with their drink offerings. They shall be without defect.

In Israel, the summer months are long, hot and dry for most of the land. The spring grass is withered and brown. The flowers that dotted the Galilee landscape give way to the dark rocks and dry weeds that cover every uncultivated field. The time of the long awaited first rains of Autumn usually produce celebration, as children go outside in the rain and dance for joy (even some of us as adults join them)! The rains awaken the land to new life, and the promise of another harvest! The harvest is the life blood of any agricultural people, and the children of Israel awaited the harvest with great anticipation.

Fifty days after the festival of first fruits, the major part (if not all) of the harvest was completed. The festival of Shavuot or “weeks” began. The Greek word for “fifty days” is Pentecost, and the festival received this name in ancient Jewish sources from the Second Temple Period. Regardless of which name was used, the timing of the feast, and the peculiar instructions for the observance of the feast give the clearest indications of the meaning and purpose of this holy festival.

This feast was truly a celebration of the harvest (it is called the “harvest feast”, see Ex. 23:16). It expressed God’s gracious provision to His people for yet another year. In contrast to the feast of “unleavened bread” where all leaven was to be purged from the sacrifice and it was to be clean of fermenting corruption, the feast of weeks includes two loaves of meal baked with leaven (Lev. 23:17). The leaven was prescribed as part of the ceremony, and obedient faithful could do nothing less than obey. Why include the leaven in the loaves? What was God’s intention in this “shadowy symbol”? Why allow a corrupting influence in an observance characterized by His holy worship?

God had a plan… and we are a part of it. Don’t forget, the leaven in the loaves at Shavuot wasn’t the only corruption was found in the festival…there were people there. In addition to understanding the need to intentionally get some things out of our lives, God showed that He was planning to bond people once outside of His family into it. God was going, at the time of Pentecost, to move in people that were once strangers to His promise.

Acts 2:1 reminds us that the Spirit of God came upon the first followers of Jesus at Pentecost. The disciples were gathered together to recall the giving of the Law at Sinai that occurred fifty days after Pesach in Exodus, and the Spirit came upon them and began to write the Law on their hearts. In front of them on the table was a simple symbol – leavened bread. God was forming something that would be a part of His plan – His church. It would not replace Israel, but it would carry the message of His love while a darkness and blindness descended for a time over the Jewish people.

Do you recall that passage in Ephesians 2 were looked at earlier? Keep reading:

Ephesians 2:11 “Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” [which is] performed in the flesh by human hands—12 [remember] that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Thirty-five hundred years ago, God already announced the plan to provide a lamb, require a standard, reveal the new life of resurrection and draw in a second group of people to carry His name that were not one nation – and He did it through a series of feasts.

God communicated through the offerings His desire to walk the daily road of life with His people. When a community recognizes the value of following appointed times with God – it secures deep values in the hearts of its people.

I heard a Pastor make an observation not long ago. He said: “One of the surprising things about the Bible is that it never says that Jesus rushed anywhere. He was busy, but He found time to pray and accomplished discipleship training and WORLD REDEMPTION in three short years. While doing that, he played with children and guiltlessly took an occasional nap during boat rides. He went to weddings and even stuck around at the reception. The Bible doesn’t say, “If you hurry, you can catch up with God.” It says, “Cease striving and know that I am God.” (Psalms 46:10) Jesus’ promise was “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28). Time isn’t supposed to be an enemy – just a chance to steward life.”