Passage of the Day: Reference of Today’s Chronological Bible Study: Numbers, Chapters 1-2 … To study these chapters, go to this link -
Numbers 1: 1-4; … 17-19 : … [God Calls His Children to Order] … 1 The LORD spoke to Moses in the tent of meeting in the Desert of Sinai on the first day of the second month of the second year after the Israelites came out of Egypt. He said: 2 “Take a census of the whole Israelite community by their clans and families, listing every man by name, one by one. 3 You and Aaron are to count according to their divisions all the men in Israel who are twenty years old or more and able to serve in the army. 4 One man from each tribe, each of them the head of his family, is to help you.
>>> 17 Moses and Aaron took these men whose names had been specified, 18 and they called the whole community together on the first day of the second month. The people registered their ancestry by their clans and families, and the men twenty years old or more were listed by name, one by one, 19 as the LORD commanded Moses.
Numbers 2: 1-2, 17 : … [God Readies His Tribes for the Journey] … 1 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron: 2 “The Israelites are to camp around the tent of meeting some distance from it, each of them under their standard and holding the banners of their family.”
>>> 17 Then the tent of meeting and the camp of the Levites will set out in the middle of the camps. They will set out in the same order as they encamp, each in their own place under their standard.
>>> 34 So the Israelites did everything the LORD commanded Moses; that is the way they encamped under their standards, and that is the way they set out, each of them with their clan and family.
My Journal for Today: Well, … the chronological reading plan moves out of all those rules in Leviticus into the Book of Numbers; and now we begin to see the monumental task ahead for Moses, Aaron, and God’s people to get packed and to journey TOGETHER through the wilderness to where God’s promise was taking His chosen people, the Israelites.
And if one studies and meditates, as I have this morning, on all of God’s organizational orders in Numbers, chapters 1-2, you have to be impressed with how God laid out the packing and pecking orders for the journey. From just in the passages which I’ve copied above, you see that the people had to be counted/documented, ordered into tribes, and placed strategically for the journey in a specific encampment order. And did you note that all of the tribes, which were ordered by family and tribal banner to help them identify and stay ordered for the journey, were placed carefully around the exterior of God’s ordering for the travels ahead. And note where God places the Tabernacle, the Ark where the Lord was to reside during the journey, as well as the leadership of the people; yes, … right in the center of the encampment. This, of course, placed all the people, in this social/geographical arrangement, where they all could see that God was at the center of everything, leading His children, under the guidance of Moses and the Levites. God had His Tabernacle where it could be prominent and protected and where everyone could see where God was leading His people … i.e., toward the promised land.
All of this, I believe is a picture of how God wants His New Covenant CHURCH to be at the center of our world as we sojourn to His promised land … and that is, of course, heaven. God wants His church, the physical representation of His tabernacle in the world today, to be at the center of His world as we journey in this land where we must travel through the trials of life. And we know and can see what God’s primary enemy, Satan (and his system, the world), is doing everything that can be done to tear down the walls of protection for God’s church in the world. In fact, Satan is doing all he can to infiltrate His church and get into the Holy of Holies, which has been implanted into the hearts of God’s people.
But God’s Tabernacle, in the Person of God’s Spirit, is still at the center of the encampment of His true sojourners as they trek to the Promised Land. He resides in the center of my Spiritual being, my heart; and as long as I keep my heart protected and at the center of my Spiritual well-being, I will be able to follow my God as He leads me to His promised land, which is my destination, just as was depicted by the organizations of Numbers 1-2.
My Prayer Today: … Lord, keep my heart of heart, Your Holy of Holies, protected and at the center of my being as I travel through life, following You. Amen
Showing posts with label God's chosen people. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God's chosen people. Show all posts
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
February 15, 2012 … God’s Priesthood – Plan B!
Passage of the Day: Reference of Today’s Chronological Bible Study: Leviticus, Chapters 8-10 … To study these chapters, go to this link -
Leviticus 8: 1-5 : … [Priests Set Aside for Holiness]… 1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 “Bring Aaron and his sons, their garments, the anointing oil, the bull for the sin offering,[a] the two rams and the basket containing bread made without yeast, 3 and gather the entire assembly at the entrance to the tent of meeting.” 4 Moses did as the LORD commanded him, and the assembly gathered at the entrance to the tent of meeting. … 5 Moses said to the assembly, “This is what the LORD has commanded to be done.”
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LEVITICUS 10; 1-2; 8-11; … : … [Aaron’s Disobedient Sons] … 1 Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command. 2 So fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD. …
8 Then the LORD said to Aaron, 9 “You and your sons are not to drink wine or other fermented drink whenever you go into the tent of meeting, or you will die. This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, 10 so that you can distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean, 11 and so you can teach the Israelites all the decrees the LORD has given them through Moses.”
My Journal for Today: Today in the passages of my chronological reading plan which stood out to me, God was teaching about the Priesthood, which was set aside – BY GOD – in a special way, to watch over the flock of God’s people. And in Leviticus, chapters 8-9, we read of the elaborate ordination scheme, in which God made plain that the priesthood was to represent God to man as well as man to God and the Priests were to be the picture of holiness to the people.
But actually this was God’s “Plan B” for the priesthood.
Earlier this year in Exodus 19: 5-6, I read about God’s “Plan A” for His Priesthood, which reads as follows, [God to Moses about His chosen people, the descendants of Joseph] 5 “ ‘ Now if you obey Me fully and keep My covenant, then out of all nations you [God’s chosen nation] will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is Mine, 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”
For you bible students, does that passage ring a bell of connection for you with the New Testament? What about 1st Peter 2: 9-10 [?], which reads … 9 But you [God’s church] are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Yes, my fellow disciples of Christ, we – you and me – are God’s PLAN A for His priesthood. And we are the fulfillment of God’s original plan for His chosen people to become a nation of priests, set aside for holiness, and sanctified for God’s glory. But in those OT days, after the establishment of God’s Tabernacle, as God’s sinful peoples were being prepared for their 40-year purging in the wilderness, God knew that He was going to have a Plan B for the Priesthood; and so we have the ordination of the Levites as Priests, set aside by this elaborate ordination ceremony in Leviticus to be God’s representatives to the people and their representatives to God.
But as you read in Chapter 10 of Leviticus, even the first of these ordained priests couldn’t hack it; and Aaron’s sons lapsed into selfishness and disobedience and away from God’s commission of holiness. And we read how God purified the priesthood by fire, consuming those who would not follow His commandments, as His Priesthood, and could not be God’s representative of holiness to others of God’s chosen as well as their representative to Him.
My dear ones, do we see the implication? WE are God’s royal priesthood now that Christ has come to be the Chief Priest. He has ordained and anointed any and all who are truly born-again believers to be His Royal Priesthood; and it is the shed blood of the Lamb of God which has purified us for this New Covenant Priesthood. And we, representing God to man and man to God, must be committed to living in obedience and holiness as God charged Aaron and his sons to be. And if we cannot, we are subject to the penalty experienced by Aaron’s sons and that is the death of our Spiritual life [i.e., our witness as God’s representatives] which is consumed in disobedience and sin. We won’t lose our promised eternal life because of our sinfulness; but we can – and would – lose our effectiveness and power as witnessing Priests if we cannot live up to God’s charge of grace empowered holiness.
BUT … we can be purified priests every day and in every situation of our lives, if we keep short accounts of cleansing with our God through confession/contrition (again see 1st John 1: 9). And when we do, also choosing to receive and use God’s purifying and enabling grace, we can be God’s Royal Priesthood, His PLAN A of holiness to the sin-ridden world, … letting God’s pure light of redemption shine through us to a world which desperately needs more chosen ones in His Priesthood.
My Prayer Today: … Oh, LORD, let me be Your Priest today as I’m cleansed and purified by my confession and Your forgiveness. Amen
Leviticus 8: 1-5 : … [Priests Set Aside for Holiness]… 1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 “Bring Aaron and his sons, their garments, the anointing oil, the bull for the sin offering,[a] the two rams and the basket containing bread made without yeast, 3 and gather the entire assembly at the entrance to the tent of meeting.” 4 Moses did as the LORD commanded him, and the assembly gathered at the entrance to the tent of meeting. … 5 Moses said to the assembly, “This is what the LORD has commanded to be done.”
============
LEVITICUS 10; 1-2; 8-11; … : … [Aaron’s Disobedient Sons] … 1 Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command. 2 So fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD. …
8 Then the LORD said to Aaron, 9 “You and your sons are not to drink wine or other fermented drink whenever you go into the tent of meeting, or you will die. This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, 10 so that you can distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean, 11 and so you can teach the Israelites all the decrees the LORD has given them through Moses.”
My Journal for Today: Today in the passages of my chronological reading plan which stood out to me, God was teaching about the Priesthood, which was set aside – BY GOD – in a special way, to watch over the flock of God’s people. And in Leviticus, chapters 8-9, we read of the elaborate ordination scheme, in which God made plain that the priesthood was to represent God to man as well as man to God and the Priests were to be the picture of holiness to the people.
But actually this was God’s “Plan B” for the priesthood.
Earlier this year in Exodus 19: 5-6, I read about God’s “Plan A” for His Priesthood, which reads as follows, [God to Moses about His chosen people, the descendants of Joseph] 5 “ ‘ Now if you obey Me fully and keep My covenant, then out of all nations you [God’s chosen nation] will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is Mine, 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”
For you bible students, does that passage ring a bell of connection for you with the New Testament? What about 1st Peter 2: 9-10 [?], which reads … 9 But you [God’s church] are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Yes, my fellow disciples of Christ, we – you and me – are God’s PLAN A for His priesthood. And we are the fulfillment of God’s original plan for His chosen people to become a nation of priests, set aside for holiness, and sanctified for God’s glory. But in those OT days, after the establishment of God’s Tabernacle, as God’s sinful peoples were being prepared for their 40-year purging in the wilderness, God knew that He was going to have a Plan B for the Priesthood; and so we have the ordination of the Levites as Priests, set aside by this elaborate ordination ceremony in Leviticus to be God’s representatives to the people and their representatives to God.
But as you read in Chapter 10 of Leviticus, even the first of these ordained priests couldn’t hack it; and Aaron’s sons lapsed into selfishness and disobedience and away from God’s commission of holiness. And we read how God purified the priesthood by fire, consuming those who would not follow His commandments, as His Priesthood, and could not be God’s representative of holiness to others of God’s chosen as well as their representative to Him.
My dear ones, do we see the implication? WE are God’s royal priesthood now that Christ has come to be the Chief Priest. He has ordained and anointed any and all who are truly born-again believers to be His Royal Priesthood; and it is the shed blood of the Lamb of God which has purified us for this New Covenant Priesthood. And we, representing God to man and man to God, must be committed to living in obedience and holiness as God charged Aaron and his sons to be. And if we cannot, we are subject to the penalty experienced by Aaron’s sons and that is the death of our Spiritual life [i.e., our witness as God’s representatives] which is consumed in disobedience and sin. We won’t lose our promised eternal life because of our sinfulness; but we can – and would – lose our effectiveness and power as witnessing Priests if we cannot live up to God’s charge of grace empowered holiness.
BUT … we can be purified priests every day and in every situation of our lives, if we keep short accounts of cleansing with our God through confession/contrition (again see 1st John 1: 9). And when we do, also choosing to receive and use God’s purifying and enabling grace, we can be God’s Royal Priesthood, His PLAN A of holiness to the sin-ridden world, … letting God’s pure light of redemption shine through us to a world which desperately needs more chosen ones in His Priesthood.
My Prayer Today: … Oh, LORD, let me be Your Priest today as I’m cleansed and purified by my confession and Your forgiveness. Amen
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
2010 – June 09 – Dysfunctional Gloating
Blogger’s Note: WARNING! If you have strong socio-political opinions/feelings that the USA should not be supporting Israel as stanchly as they have in the past, I do hope you read the blog God led me to study, read, and journal today. However, my warning is that you may not agree with the strong and opinionated stance I have taken in my writings, which I believe were led by God’s truth from the book of Obadiah, from which I was led to read this morning. But with this in mind, I do hope you’ll read – and maybe comment on what we can all glean from the “minor” Prophet Obadiah, writing some 700-800 years before Christ.
Study from God’s Word… Obadiah [only one Chapter to read] … Passage for Reflection: Obadiah 1: 12… NIV 12 You should not look down on your brother in the day of his misfortune, nor rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction, nor boast so much in the day of their trouble.
My Journal for Today: Obadiah; … who’s he? Well, a little study this morning yields only a little light on this man. Apparently his name means “servant of God;” and this book, which has been included in Hebrew and Christian Scripture, indicates that Obadiah was a Prophet from God. And apparently there are two possible time periods to which this book might be attributed. One is during the reign of Jehoram in the southern kingdom of Judah (from 853 – 841 BC), during the times I was writing about yesterday when the northern Hebrew tribes in Israel had separated from the southern tribes in Judah; and they were being harassed and affronted by the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, who lived in the hill country above Judah; and the Edomites did all they could to have Judah brought down.
But this Prophet might also, according to some scholars, have been writing a retrospective about the time of Jeremiah (sometime between 627 – 586 BC), the latter being the year Nebuchadnezzar took Judah into captivity). At any rate, reading through Obadiah today has some scary here-and-now overtones, … at least for me. In this book we read of God’s Prophet railing against a people, the Edomites, who were haughty enough to think that they could eradicate God’s chosen people from the face of the earth. And these descendants of Esau, carried out all kinds of plots [in various eras of history as mentioned above], thinking that they deserved to take back God’s birthright which had been foolishly lost by Esau to Jacob. And I’m sure you know that the descendants of Esau, the Arabs, still today aspire to eradicate the descendants of Jacob.
I’ll not go that much into this history; but when I read the one-chapter book of Obadiah today, it’s almost like I’m reading of some modern-day prophet of God publishing a blog warning Iran and their haughty President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is also a descendant of Esau. Because today we see Iran, who has a haughty hatred of Israel; and we read of Ahmadinejad declaring, openly and definantly, that Israel and all the Jews should be wiped from the face of the earth. And the modern day Iranians, who are descendants of the Edomites, to which Obadiah refers, are, like their ancestors, doing all they can to bring down the descendants of Jacob.
But I believe the prophesy of Obadiah is clear; and whether it was applied to the land of Judah in the two periods of history mentioned above or God’s prophetic words are applied to Iran today, any country who plots to destroy God’s chosen nation, Israel, and especially those who boast of doing such, will be ultimately laid low and will have called down God’s wrath on themselves.
Go ahead, … you go back and read beyond the one verse of warning in today’s highlighted passage. In fact, read the entire little book of Obadiah [it’s really short!]; and see if you don’t see a warning against any haughty people who might try to eradicate, or even plot against, Israel. My friends, this warning would apply to any people or nation, especially any who would become an ally of the modern day Edomites. And in today’s headlines, this observer sees America, the press and our government, undermining our former alliance with Israel, which plays into the hands of Iranian and Palestinian demands and their desires to war against Israel.
Our President says he is a “christian.” He has stated that he believes in the veracity of the Bible. But as he backs away from our strong historical alliance with Israel – God’s chosen, one can’t help but read the USA into the words of Obadiah and perhaps see God’s wrath being unleashed against any/all who would play into the ploys of those who still – even centuries after Jacob took the birthright and blessing from Esau – desire to obliterate the covenant God has made with His people. … Scary stuff – at least to this observer!!!
My Prayer for Today: Lord have mercy on the remnant who still believes that we must support Your chosen peoples. Help our leaders to clearly see that we cannot back away from our support of Israel. Amen
Study from God’s Word… Obadiah [only one Chapter to read] … Passage for Reflection: Obadiah 1: 12… NIV 12 You should not look down on your brother in the day of his misfortune, nor rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction, nor boast so much in the day of their trouble.
My Journal for Today: Obadiah; … who’s he? Well, a little study this morning yields only a little light on this man. Apparently his name means “servant of God;” and this book, which has been included in Hebrew and Christian Scripture, indicates that Obadiah was a Prophet from God. And apparently there are two possible time periods to which this book might be attributed. One is during the reign of Jehoram in the southern kingdom of Judah (from 853 – 841 BC), during the times I was writing about yesterday when the northern Hebrew tribes in Israel had separated from the southern tribes in Judah; and they were being harassed and affronted by the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, who lived in the hill country above Judah; and the Edomites did all they could to have Judah brought down.
But this Prophet might also, according to some scholars, have been writing a retrospective about the time of Jeremiah (sometime between 627 – 586 BC), the latter being the year Nebuchadnezzar took Judah into captivity). At any rate, reading through Obadiah today has some scary here-and-now overtones, … at least for me. In this book we read of God’s Prophet railing against a people, the Edomites, who were haughty enough to think that they could eradicate God’s chosen people from the face of the earth. And these descendants of Esau, carried out all kinds of plots [in various eras of history as mentioned above], thinking that they deserved to take back God’s birthright which had been foolishly lost by Esau to Jacob. And I’m sure you know that the descendants of Esau, the Arabs, still today aspire to eradicate the descendants of Jacob.
I’ll not go that much into this history; but when I read the one-chapter book of Obadiah today, it’s almost like I’m reading of some modern-day prophet of God publishing a blog warning Iran and their haughty President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is also a descendant of Esau. Because today we see Iran, who has a haughty hatred of Israel; and we read of Ahmadinejad declaring, openly and definantly, that Israel and all the Jews should be wiped from the face of the earth. And the modern day Iranians, who are descendants of the Edomites, to which Obadiah refers, are, like their ancestors, doing all they can to bring down the descendants of Jacob.
But I believe the prophesy of Obadiah is clear; and whether it was applied to the land of Judah in the two periods of history mentioned above or God’s prophetic words are applied to Iran today, any country who plots to destroy God’s chosen nation, Israel, and especially those who boast of doing such, will be ultimately laid low and will have called down God’s wrath on themselves.
Go ahead, … you go back and read beyond the one verse of warning in today’s highlighted passage. In fact, read the entire little book of Obadiah [it’s really short!]; and see if you don’t see a warning against any haughty people who might try to eradicate, or even plot against, Israel. My friends, this warning would apply to any people or nation, especially any who would become an ally of the modern day Edomites. And in today’s headlines, this observer sees America, the press and our government, undermining our former alliance with Israel, which plays into the hands of Iranian and Palestinian demands and their desires to war against Israel.
Our President says he is a “christian.” He has stated that he believes in the veracity of the Bible. But as he backs away from our strong historical alliance with Israel – God’s chosen, one can’t help but read the USA into the words of Obadiah and perhaps see God’s wrath being unleashed against any/all who would play into the ploys of those who still – even centuries after Jacob took the birthright and blessing from Esau – desire to obliterate the covenant God has made with His people. … Scary stuff – at least to this observer!!!
My Prayer for Today: Lord have mercy on the remnant who still believes that we must support Your chosen peoples. Help our leaders to clearly see that we cannot back away from our support of Israel. Amen
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