20th January Morning
Exodus 34-35
I had handled the gist of chapter 34 in my earlier submissions, if you missed it I suggest you go through the chapters we handled earlier. But if am to draw a lesson from all this I would pick one of consistency. If we work with the assumption that the tablets were initially the work of God, then we see that God is never frustrated. What he intends to do in your life he will do regardless of how many times people break it into pieces. God will not always put the broken pieces of your life together but he will get new raw materials and make you a new life altogether. Some of us due to some people’s anger we have been crushed and throw down to break like Moses did to the first tablets, but God intends and plans to not even to pick up the pieces but to recreate you and all that you lost.
It is the message I have for you in the words recorded in the Bible about Moses carving new stones for God to write on again. I do not know what you lost in all that crisis, but to all the innocent victims, God has ordained a certain angelic Moses to cut new stones, for the restoration of whatever you lost.
In other developments in this chapter, we see God promising to give Israelites a land that is occupied. “Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. (Exodus 34:11 RSV). The obvious question here that people have always asked is: weren’t all these God’s people too? Does God play favoritism or is he a fan of survival for the fittest? Does God hate the other tribes or, like modern Zionism, wants us to believe does he really love Israel more than any other nation. Is Israel more than any other nation on earth, as the American propagandists want us to believe. Should Christians do pilgrimages to this land and carry all sorts of objects and blessed water?
The Bible is filled with what I call preferential texts and passages. And the Old Testament God is accused of killing all other people from other nations, and always the Bible justifies all the evil inflicted on other nations by telling us they were sinners. But we all know these nations were not more or less sinful than the Israelites themselves. So what exactly is this Theology about? Is it the same as modern terrorism or Muslim extremists who believe Allah is opposed to whoever does not believe in him?
The truth of the matter is that the killings and the battles in the Old Testament are not wars between people or even nations but instead, they are all wars of gods. When God told them he was going to give them the land that belonged to other people he explained and this is what he said:
Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither you go, lest it become a snare in the midst of you. You shall tear down their altars, and break their pillars, and cut down their Asherim (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they play the harlot after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and one invites you, you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters play the harlot after their gods and make your sons play the harlot after their gods. “You shall make for yourself no molten gods. For I will cast out nations before you, and enlarge your borders; neither shall any man desire your land, when you go up to appear before the LORD your God three times in the year. (Exodus 34:12-17, 24 RSV).
The constitution of the United States does not entertain negotiations with terrorists. God, like the Americans, warned his people not to covenant with the people who occupied the land. He feared that the deal would wind up with the Israelites as the losers. God does not want you and I to covenant with the devil. You do not have to come to terms of agreement with Satan. You do not negotiate with Satan or even sin, you just fight it. The taking of the Land is not about people but what they believe. That is why God insists that when you get in, the major thing to destroy in there is not there is not their Economic system, not their Military and Defense, not any other thing, but focus on the worship system.
Break down all the altars and let all the gods they trust and to whom they attribute every success of theirs be embarrassed and exposed to be helpless before the God of these new entrants known as the Israelites. Make sure you let them know, that their gods have not only failed but they have failed them too. This is the justification of the massacres in the Old Testament that has always resulted into debates surrounding on whether the god of the OT is the same loving and gracious god of the NT. Believe me, he is the same God, what differs is the level of understanding of both audiences and the modes of revelation that God has chosen to use. In these battles, God was revealing himself not to the Israelites but to all other established nations.
Because God was interested in the entire key world knowing him, he used these slaves to go around superpower nations and conquered all these just to make one point: ISRAELIS NOT GREAT, BUT THE GOD THAT ISRAEL WORSHIPS IS THE GREAT ONE. This is the theology of the leper Naaman, and his house cleaner. Joseph in Egypt, Daniel in Babylon etc. When God does something in our lives, it is not always about us but him.
The remaining question then becomes, was it worth it for all these people to lose their lives just because God wanted to make a point about himself? The answer to this is a straight YES. God does not kill anyone, it is just the consequences of the reality of sin on earth. He takes advantage of the events in nature as they unfold, and also influences the consequences of our choices to foster his mission. The wise are those see what he has been doing in the history of our existence and what his hand in any present event.
When the two-million slaves decided to fight an organized state, God to demonstrate who he is, he sided with the weak so that his might is exhibited in the victorious weaklings over the strong. This is why God stood with these slaves, he only wanted to appeal to the organized states that he made these slaves go through.
In chapter 35 we see people being fired up to support in the constitution of the worship system. It is not that everyone gave though the place was to be useful to everyone, some gave while others did not. It happens in life, not everyone gives, some support while others don’t even though everyone needs the services. We all must understand that the business of God is for public service. We must learn to serve God with our resources, it was these very resources that Pharaoh wanted them to leave in Egypt but God insisted that they leave with all their wealth. Now we are in the wilderness, and here is this project, but some were fired up to give all they had while others had right reasons not to do the right thing. Are you always fired to contribute to the work of God or you just grumble? Are you this kind of person with the right reasons not to do the right thing?
20th January Evening
Exodus 36-39
Truth and faithfulness are the two keys to success that I know. People were truthful and faithful and they contributed to the construction of this public utility. What they were constructing was of too much importance for it meant life and death. The world has many useful systems but they all operate based on the sobriety on one crucial system and that is: the worship system. The Israelites understood the meaning that sorting your belief system has upon the success in all other areas of your life.
The worst problems we suffer in life are connected to our belief system. We must be sensitive with our belief setting. What we believe and how we behave with it, has almost everything to do with everything in our lives. This why people were faithful and truthful to this project. They knew they were dealing with the project that has something to do with everything of their being. When we tell you to give to the work of God, we are reminding you that there is no single thing in your life that you need God excluded. God is everything about us to the extent that even we are doing something we know he is against we pray to him. Real thieves know they need God’s help. Never joke with your soul and never take for granted eternal issues.
Moses and the builders were also very faithful. It is difficult to find a church in our modern times where the pastor and the building committee will tell the truth that they have enough and stop people from collecting. They continue collecting even when they know the project is already done. This is not a matter of professional accountability that soothes public psychology, but this is a case of core truth and bold faithfulness. We need to emulate this as leaders and stop draining people on unending projects.
Moses and his team did their job and item per item is given account in chapters 38-39. We must learn to be faithful and always tell the truth. There are losses I have to warn you against in this world. When you tell the truth and you are faithful in a corrupt system, you seem to lose a lot. On the streets when you drive right, reckless drivers who know nothing or actually who do not mind what is right, will knock you off the road. Regardless of all these, we need to always tell the truth.
God bless you. I invoke TRUTH, KNOWLEDGE, and FAITH.
Am Pr. I.T.White. THE GOSPEL HAWKER
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