Beauty of Holiness

“And it shall be on the day when ye shall pass over Jordan unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaister them with plaister: And thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law, when thou art passed over, that thou mayest go in unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, a land that floweth with milk and honey; as the LORD God of thy fathers hath promised thee.” (De 27:2-3 AV)

Joshua’s altar had to be something to behold!  It was recently discovered.  Built like the letter ‘E’ laying on the ground, the priest would ascend the middle ramp while the penitent would climb the first ramp.  The animal would be killed, and the blood would run over the face of the altar.  The animal was sacrificed at the center, and being reconciled to God, the penitent would leave from the opposite direction from which he came.  This entire altar was plaistered with a substance made from bleached animal bone and pitch.  It dried like hardened cement, and when it did, it was as white as anything one could imagine.  The law was chiseled into the face of the altar so the people of Isael saw the record of the law written on a bone-white altar when entering the land of Canaan.  What a picture of perfection that must have been.

I have gone to our nation’s capital a couple of times.  There are many sights to see there.  There are a few monuments that strike at the heart of the visitor.  The war memorial is perhaps the most moving of all.  There are the Washington and Lincoln monuments.  The Capital build looms large.  And of course, there is the White House.  Upon these monuments, there are words etched for all time.  There are scripture verses.  There are patriotic quotes.  What is not on the monuments is a copy of the entire law of our land.  I don’t think it would fit.  These buildings are impressive.  They attempt to give praise to God, but in reality, they are erected to recognize great men of our past.  There is nothing inherently wrong with that.  It is just that compared to the law written on alabaster white walls of an altar doesn’t even come close.

I have a message regarding this altar.  It is a perfect picture of salvation in Christ.  But that is not what strikes the heart this morning.  It is the picture of perfection that someone entering the promised land witnessed as they passed by.  It is not just the altar which could be seen from Jerusalem, laying 17 miles away.  That bone-white altar could be seen from miles.  It wasn’t the absence of flaws or the fact that it was built with materials God had supplied beforehand that fit together like a puzzle without one chisel or hammer used.  No.  What impresses the mind this morning is the beauty that is the law.  Perfection on a road sign, so to speak.  What made this altar one of a kind was not the shape or color.  It was not the activity that occurred there.  Rather, it was the law written on its face.  I could not help but think of heaven.  Heaven is a place of absolute perfection and holiness.  There will be no need for law as we understand it because all the inhabitants will have no desire to break it.  The beauty of holiness is what the Hebrew saw when he entered God’s land, and it will be the beauty of holiness which the saint will see as well.

In Principle

“When thou dost lend thy brother any thing, thou shalt not go into his house to fetch his pledge. Thou shalt stand abroad, and the man to whom thou dost lend shall bring out the pledge abroad unto thee. And if the man [be] poor, thou shalt not sleep with his pledge: In any case thou shalt deliver him the pledge again when the sun goeth down, that he may sleep in his own raiment, and bless thee: and it shall be righteousness unto thee before the LORD thy God.” (De 24:10-13 AV)

Reading this passage, one might be curious as to exactly what the pledge was.  The pledge spoken above is a garment used for protection against the cold while one slept.  That is pretty detailed.  If we didn’t understand the principle of the law, we might pass right over it.  The law is specific here, but it teaches a broader principle.  If a temporary loan of a necessary possession is needed to be returned, the creditor is not to keep that which the debtor needs.  It is to be returned on a temporary status and then retrieved until the loan is paid.  The Bible may use specifics, but it uses specifics to teach broader principles.  Some believe the bible is antiquated and outdated and does not answer today’s issues.  Yet Peter says, “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that [pertain] unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:” (2Pe 1:3 AV)  The Bible is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice.  No matter the culture, time, or place, the Bible has the last word.

My wife is a master game player.  If there is a loophole to exploit, she will find it.  A case in point concerns a game called Worst Case Scenario.  Gameplay involves one player to rank in order from least appalling to most appalling five different scenarios.  The rest of the players try to guess the rank of possibilities.  The spirit of the rules is to judge each possibility as an equal scenario.  Hence the name of the game.  However, when my wife plays, she ranks them according to the likelihood of occurrence.  Thus, she ranks losing all her photos on her phone as far more fearful than being mauled by a bear.  The directions do not specifically state that the player is to treat all scenarios as equally possible.  So, she stretched the spirit of the game because the letter of the law does not state the obvious.

The Bible isn’t a detailed rule book that covers all scenarios.  If it was, then there would be no end to it.  Rather, the Bible speaks of principles illustrated by examples but not necessarily constrained by them.  The Bible is filled with principles that guide our choices in every possible scenario.  It is a guide manual.  What follows chapter 24 of Deuteronomy are laws of separation.  The law speaks of keeping separate crops, types of linen, etc.  The principle is separation and distinction.  Not every possible distinction is mentioned.  But the principle remains.  God created things distinct and with particular purpose.  We are not to confuse them.  The point is this.  If we treat the word of God as a mere rule book with all relevant detailed laws enumerated within, we will fail to live a godly life.  It is, and always has been, the principles.

God Is Bigger

“When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, [and] a people more than thou, be not afraid of them: for the LORD thy God [is] with thee, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” (De 20:1 AV)

We are not Israel.  Our battles are not physical in the sense that we are building a physical kingdom.  There are no cities to conquer.  There are no governments to topple.  Our warfare is a spiritual one.  Our enemies are the Devil, the world’s system of unbelief and sin, and the flesh.  The picture above is one of contrast.  Israel is contrasted against the ability of a formidable enemy.  This might be a reference to Israel’s first response when confronted with an adversary.  As twelve spies returned, ten of them reported the enemy ahead was too large for even God to conquer.  Two; Joshua and Caleb; spoke with faith and declared that no matter the size of the enemy, God was greater.  The assumption above is that Israel will be faced with many different adversaries that on paper are larger, stronger, and better equipped than they are.  This has been their history throughout human history.  Yet, the LORD seems to carry them through, and they survive the impossible.  This is the point here.  No battle is too big for God.  Yes, it is way too big for us.  But never too big for God.

In the heat of the moment, we often forget the battles of the past.  The LORD makes reference to the Exodus many times.  He does so above.  His point is this.  If He miraculously brought Israel out of Egypt with plagues and wonders, how much more difficult is the present threat?  Jehovah does this frequently because Israel forgot too many times the wonders that God wrought.  Jehovah references something they can relate to so that the present becomes doable.  The only difference here is Israel’s participation.  When leaving Egypt, all they had to do was leave.  There was no battle to fight.  There was no active participation on their part.  All they needed to do was to trust the LORD and leave.  There were no swords, bows, or arrows.  No shields.  No battlefield.  It was the LORD and only the LORD.  There were no boats to assemble.  No guards were on duty.  There were no watchmen necessary.  All was in the hands of God.  Now that they were free, the LORD required Israel to participate in their own deliverance.  The first time it was all God.  Now it was them and God.  This is what troubled Israel so.

How soon do we forget the miracle of salvation?  We walk with the LORD for so long that we forget the miracle that deliverance from sin and hell truly was.  We forget what it was like to live in wickedness and bondage.  We forget how hopeless our souls truly were.  So, when faced with an ongoing battle over sin or doubt, we think God is not able.  Or, if He is, that we are not able.  Both are incorrect.  God will not deliver us from our old natures without our participation in the process.  At least as long as we are on this side of glory.  God expects His children to wield the sword of truth, bend the knee of prayer, and face the foe in the strength of the Spirit.  He has given the tools and the strength.  If we cower at the threat of our enemies, then we have forgotten what God has done in the past.  Victory is only as far as effort and faith will take us.  God is not going to do it all for us.  He takes over where we cannot continue.  Israel forgot the great things God had done.  Now, the LORD is commanding them to remember and believe.

Pass Right On By

“He that passeth by, [and] meddleth with strife [belonging] not to him, [is like] one that taketh a dog by the ears.” (Pr 26:17 AV)

There is wisdom in staying out of things.  There is also a balance between being a peacemaker and a meddler.  Perhaps Solomon is referring to a battle in which the peacemaker has no standing, credibility, ability, or is simply not welcomed.  Two sides at odds must come to a place where a peacemaker is welcomed before a peacemaker can become involved.  The picture above is a good one.  If you have ever witnessed two dogs that in the throes of a fight, breaking it up often results in a bite or two.  Passing by here is the key to understanding the situation.  The strife existed prior to the meddler’s observation.  It was ongoing.  It was fierce.  It was escalated.  The meddler was not planning on a fight.  He doesn’t look for one to settle.  He simply passes by and notices two who are at great odds.  His pride causes him to think that he can be the bigger person in the room and invites himself into something that is none of his business.  He thinks he alone has the solution to the problem.  He believes that if the two would simply pause and listen to his wonderful wisdom, it can all be worked out.  The reaction is like a dog who has his ears pinched.  He we turn on the pincher and forget the fight he was just in.  The better part of wisdom says that if we are not invited into a problem, maybe it is best to pass on by.

I am a hockey fan.  I love watching a sport where the final score is not the motivation for watching.  Hockey can be a violent sport.  The hits and checks are rather robust.  An open ice check is one of the greatest sports events of all time.  When one player sends another flying through the air because the second was not paying attention is wonderful.  Then there is the on-ice justice.  The game moves so fast that the officials cannot see all that goes on.  There are cheap shots that need a response.  Perhaps someone was boarded after a play was over.  Or perhaps a player was pushed headfirst into the boards.  Maybe the goalie was slashed, or a player was sandwiched.  These plays cannot go unanswered.  If they do, the offending team believes they can intimidate their opponent into a loss.  So, from time to time, a fight breaks out.  Usually, two face off and no one else gets involved.  But if a third person does get involved, he usually does so at the earliest onset of the altercation.  Being the third person in, he draws a lot of attention.  Often, he gets the bigger penalty or even worse, hurt by the response of the other team that intervention, although noble, was not the wisest move.

Knowing when and how to get involved is the point here.  If passing by one notices strife between two, it is probably wise not to insert oneself unless asked to.  This doesn’t mean the authorities should be ignored.  By all means, call or notify an agent of authority who can step in and stop the strife.  But if we have no standing and are not asked to resolve a problem, it is not our to solve.  Trying to do so will cause more harm to us than it may cause the two combatants.  Being a peacemaker does not mean we have to be pro-active.  Meddling will get us bit.  Letting those who have authority and standing resolve the conflict is the wisest of choices. 

Praise His Word

“In God will I praise [his] word: in the LORD will I praise [his] word.” (Ps 56:10 AV)

The phraseology of this verse is intriguing.  One would think the order would be reversed.  Because of God’s word, we will praise Him.  This makes complete sense.  Yet, David makes an important theological argument that God and His word are to be seen as one and the same.  As another Psalmist states, “I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.” (Ps 138:2 AV)  When one thinks of how God brought the material world into existence, He spake it and it was done.  All that God created was done by speaking.  Why?  The preeminence of the word of God is a universal doctrine upon which the veracity of the written word stands.  I don’t think David is praising the word of God as separate and apart from the person of God and is worthy of praise because of it.  Rather, he is acknowledging that the written word of God and the person of God should be held in the same regard.

The word of God is a miracle.  By its very existence, it testifies to the might and power of God.  Existing eternally, yet inspired by God through man over a period of four thousand years it has remained perfect to every joy and tittle.  Only since the modern age of reason has doubt been cast on the reliability and perfection of God’s word.  Man, who is never as smart as he thinks he is, chooses to believe his senses rather than the supernatural acts of God.  It does not dawn on the philosopher that if God created all things from nothing, then surely He can inspire and preserve His word, perfect, throughout the existence of man.  In disputing the eternal and sovereign might of God, the philosopher has shown himself to be of shallow intellect and vacant of all reasonable truth.  The intellectual theologian will dispute God’s ability to provide His word perfect, even in the translation process when translation occurs in the narrative of the word of God itself.  Joseph speaks Egyptian to his brothers and is translated into Hebrew for his brothers.  Paul speaks Hebrew to his audience in Acts 22, yet it is inspired in Greek.  A good portion of the dialogue of both the old and new testaments was not spoken in the languages of the inspired word of God.  In assuming perfection is lost in the translation process, the intelligent become simpletons.   It really boils down to faith.  If God exists; if God created; if God created to know; if God created to know He also created to be known; if God created to been known, the way by which He is known must be as perfect as He is.  Thus, providing His word perfect and without error so that we can know a God who is perfect and without error is the only reasonable conclusion to be made.

I think David is praising the word of God because it is the extension of God to man by which man may know Him!  In praising the word of God, David is grateful for the word of God that is perfect and without error.  It is the means by which the sinner can know his or her creator.  It is the means by which we can learn why God created us and how we are to live according to the Creator’s design.  Those who would argue for no perfect word of God are shorting themselves.  The life of those who do not believe the word of God is praiseworthy can only live to the degree they disbelieve in the perfection of the word of God.  I am with David!  I praise the word of God because it exists.  It exists perfectly and without error.  In a world that is constantly changing and nothing can be taken for granted, the word of God is an anchor for the soul.  No wonder the troubles of man only mount.  We stray further and further from God and His word.  Rather than praise the word of God, we critique it.  Rather than trust every single word without requiring it to subject itself to our intelligence, we stammer along in our own value system and crash because of it.  I praise God’s word.  I praise God for His word!

The gods Are Future

“Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them;” (De 11:16 AV)

Other gods were future.  When the LORD warned Israel, He was making the obvious statement that temptation is future.  The false gods they knew were destroyed by ten plagues.  They knew no other God but Jehovah.  That wouldn’t last very long.  Once the land of promise was invaded and settled, there would be a fresh batch of false gods with which to contend.  Just because God had given victory against the greatest of all false gods of the ancient world did not mean He preemptively gave victory over all.  If one is a bit pragmatic, why give victory over gods they may never know of?  There is no victory needed where a threat does not exist.  What struck me is the reality that temptations come no matter what.  Often, we know nothing of them until they arrive.  The LORD if giving Israel a heads up.  There will be temptation.  The specifics may not be known.  But it is coming.  Beware of it.  Be not deceived by it.  Turn away from it.

Grocery stores of the same franchise tend to be laid out the same way.  If you enter a Walmart that you’ve never been in before, generally speaking, it is laid out the same as your regular store.  We shop at Pick N Save, Aldi's, and Meijer's.  They are similar in many ways.  This means if there are certain foods the shopper is supposed to avoid, he or she knows ahead of time which way to go.  I avoid the baked goods section, the highly processed sections, and the liquor section.  Not a hard thing to do.  Yet, there is a tradition here in Milwaukee.  Because there is a high concentration of Polish, there is a baked good that is common during the Easter season.  These are laid out on a specialty aisle that is usually in one spot every year.  However, sometimes it moves.  Sometimes it is in a space that one would not normally find such a thing.  Not fair at all!  Stores know this.  End-caps and checkout lines are filled with impulse items.  One store we shop at has chocolate or other candies at one end of the check-out area.  It is that dark chocolate that gets me every time.  Temptation can be predicted.  But sometimes it cannot.  It is the discipline to turn aside that determines our holiness or depravity.

I hate the battle.  There isn’t a day that goes by that I ask the LORD for deliverance.  I hate having to live as though there could be a stumbling block around every corner.  But how else can I be motivated to retain God in my knowledge at all times?  It is temptation that drives me to God.  It is the fear of falling that stretches out my arms of prayer to a Father who will hold me up.  It is the gods that I don’t know about that cause me to seek the face of my God because I just don’t know if I can fight them all.  The LORD kept some enemies of Israel in the land.  Why?  Why not give them complete and total victory all at once so that they could enjoy the land free from paganism?  Because if He did, they would have forgotten God a lot quicker.  Perhaps we dislike the spiritual battle required of us.  We wish it would end.  And for good reason.  But if God took it all away, unless we resided in glory, we would forget about Him.  Remember, temptation is future.  It is coming.  The gods are hastening our way.  It is best to turn aside.  Lest we forget God, we need to flee every appearance of evil.

Suffering Need Provides a Need

“And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every [word] that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.” (De 8:3 AV)

Sometimes, the necessities of life are not as necessary as we might think.  Israel was never as desperate as they thought they were.  Egypt, in a manner of speaking, spoiled them.  In exchange for hard labor, Egypt provided Israel with their basic needs.  They had food and shelter.  No matter what, they had a roof over their heads and food to eat.  According to their complaints, it wasn’t scraps, either.  They yearned for the garlic and leeks of Egypt.  They were not fed pig slop.  Egypt provided the average diet anyone would enjoy.  Now that they were free, the finer things of life were not provided.  In some cases, it appeared as though the necessities of life were not apparent.  Twice they lacked water.  The reference above is to Israel’s immediate needs for bread.  They had animals they could slaughter, but they had no crops or fields in which they could plant crops.  They were not dying of hunger, but they did suffer need.  God deliberately allowed them to suffer these needs so they could learn a very valuable principle.  The most needful of all needs is spiritual; not physical. 

Note in particular that God does not say it is one or the other.  He does not.  By using the word ‘only’, the LORD is establishing priority of the spiritual over the physical.  We are very physically minded.  Our temporal needs and goals seem to be the most important.  The flesh screams for attention.  If we miss a meal, we feel it.  If we are thirsty, we know it.  If we have pain, we will do what it takes to be rid of it.  The body is that part of our being which demands the most attention.  But the body is temporary.  The body will perish and rot away.  Our souls and spirits are eternal.  The body is in a constant state of decline.  The soul and spirit are in a constant state of growth.  Our bodies scream the most.  Our souls and spirits often take a back seat.  One thing I have noticed is the serious consequences of ignoring the soul and spirit because the body is the most demanding.  Emotional collapse is around the corner.  The will to live diminishes.  There is little concern for that which lasts.  Ignoring the soul and spirit often ends with the destruction of the flesh.  Therefore, one of the greatest lessons we can learn is to deny the flesh so we can experience growth of the soul and spirit.

This is not new.  Paul states, “But I keep under my body, and bring [it] into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” (1Co 9:27 AV).  He also states, “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” (Ro 8:13 AV).  This does not come naturally.  So, the LORD introduces circumstances of life wherein we learn that the flesh can be denied so the spirit and soul can grow.  This is what the LORD was trying to teach the Jewish people.  By denying some of life’s basic needs, they learned the soul and spirit are also important.  By temporarily withholding what the body needed, the word of God became far more important.  We may not like suffering needs.  But I have noticed that those who plan life well and suffer no needs are often the least spiritual of all.  Not all the time, but it is a pattern.  Only when the body is denied what it thinks it needs can the soul and spirit walk after the God who Created all things.