Sunday 15th September

Read Psalm 74

If you don’t have a bible at home you can find the readings on a website such as www.biblegateway.com or an app such as YouVersion

The contents of this Psalm give every indication that it was written at the time of the assault and capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar.  Its lament can apply to any time of defeat although verses 6&7 describe the temple being vandalised and destroyed which would indicate the beginning of the exile of the Jews to Babylon.

The Psalm is one of lament with the Psalmist starting, “O God why have you rejected us forever?”  In truth it looked like it.  The promised land was overrun, the city of Jerusalem sacked, the temple destroyed and people being marched away into exile.  Of course the reason why was long years of apostasy, turning away from God, ignoring his law, and paying no heed to opportunities for repentance.

The Bible doesn’t say, “I told you so”, but it gives plenty examples for us to see what happens in Churches, communities of nations when God’s Word is ignored.  The Psalm does show cries for help.  There is no time when such cries are worthless.  God heard and told the people to settle down in Babylon but that he knew the plans he had for them and that their future would show that they were for the good (Jeremiah 29:11)

READINGS FOR THE WEEK AHEAD

Monday Numbers 28:1-15

To many people this chapter seems to portray God acting like a person telling others what they must do for him and give him as presents.  Is God being selfish then, not thinking of others?  He seems very self absorbed and doesn’t this seem contrary to the way the Bible would have us live?  Is it one rule for him and a different one for us?

If we know the Lord we will probably say, no, it can’t be that.  Let’s consider a marriage in which one partner is rather dull and hasn’t really clinched a loving relationship with his/her spouse.  The spouse can help bring his/her partner into a much better bonded relationship if the tell the other what to do to express love and devotion.  They may learn!  Intrinsic to our understanding of God is relationship – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – frequently in the gospels we hear of Jesus telling his disciple of his love for the Father and vice-versa and he wants them too to be part of this relationship.  He shows his love of the Father by going to the cross and dying and he tells his disciples that if they are to follow him that is the way they are to go also.

In the Old Testament we haven’t reached the time of Jesus but the people are given sacrifices which bring them into a preparatory grasp of how they are to relate to God, something that they will eventually see Jesus doing by the giving of his own body not that of bulls and goats.

These verse introduce a regular way of living for all the people throughout the weeks and the months.

Tuesday Numbers 28:16-29:40

Here we come to the Passover, the regular remembrance of how it was that God delivered the people from the bondage of Egypt.

The festival of weeks is so called because it happened seven weeks and a day after Passover and is sometimes called Pentecost.  It is a celebration of the first fruits of harvest.

The festival of trumpets occurred on the first day of the seventh month or around our September/ October.  This led into the Day of Atonement (or Yom Kippur) and it led into

The Festival of Tabernacles during which the people all gathered and lived in temporary dwellings, tabernacles or tents for the seven days mentioned.   It reminded the people of the times when they had no settled place to live but dwelt in tents during their wanderings before entering the promised land.  Various sacrifices are mentioned for all the days of the week.

Just as all these things were given so that the Israelites would remember what God had done for them and how they should live so Christians need regular habits and patterns to do the same – having a regular personal prayer time, attending Church, celebrating Communion.  A good structure always makes for a good building.

Tuesday Numbers 30:1-16

This chapter is about vows and the importance of keeping them.  It is the principle of what we say and what we do being matched, word and deed are to be held together.  The opposite of this is lies or untruth where word and fact are separated but with God his Word and his Being are together. 

There are exceptions to this general rule when it comes to those who live under the authority of another.  In v3-5 a daughters vows are to be kept if her father hears the vow and allows it to stand but if he forbids it then she is excused from keeping the vow.  In the following verses the same ruling applies to a woman who is married but in this case it is her husband whose approval is needed instead of her father.  A vow taken by a widow or divorced woman will be binding on them personally.

The general teaching of the Bible always sees the father or the husband having authority over the female members of his household.  This traces back the image of God which is not the individual but the couple.  When God created man Genesis says, “let us make man in our own image, male and female created he them”.  It is the ‘them’ which is the image of God and to have no segregation one is the head and the other the heart, together in love they manifest the nature of God.

Wednesday Numbers 31:1-24

This chapter is one which gives rise to great moral horror on the part of modern people.  How can we understand this in comparison to our own time?  First of all, when we speak of modern scruples, we need to pause and reflect on humanity in present as well as in past time.  Is it true to speak of the scruples of 20th and 21st Century people?   Is it unknown for barbarity, sexual licentiousness, law breaking, and whatever else we might see in these pages to be seen in these more recent times?  If we are honest we know that, as the Bible says, and not just about a particular age, that “The heart of man is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things, who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9), and that we can see terrible things happening across the ages.

The chapter says that God told Moses to “Take vengeance on the Midianites for Israel” and after that he would be gathered to his people.  What vengeance is this ?  It is linked with the immorality which the Israelite men were drawn into in Shittim by the women who invited them to sacrifice to their gods, the Baals of Peor. (Num 25)  At the time the Israelite men who engaged in this apostacy were executed according to the word of God (Num 25:5.  In Ch 25 the Lord said to Moses, “Treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them.  They treated you as enemies when they deceived you in the Peor incident” (Ch 25:18).  This chapter picks up on that although adds that all the women were to be killed as well (apart from any virgins).

It is obvious from the story of the Midianites that, like the Amalekites, they were a major threat to the continuing existence of the Israelite people.  Despite the details of this time they were not wiped out but continued to be a threat right into the time of the Judges – e.g Gideon and his battles with them (Judges 6).  Any attempt to snuff out the people meant the cancelling of the arrival of Christ.  Difficult and problematic though this is, the defence of the people was crucial.  In the New testament the Church is not given the role of avenger of evil in the world, that is given to the governing powers at the time – Romans 13:1-5  “the one in authority is God’s servant for your good  …. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath, to bring punishment on the wrongdoer”.

Perhaps we need to see after the hardness of these stories that the modern secular view that the worst thing that can happen to anybody is death is not the way the big picture in the Bible sees things.  It views the eternal destiny of the soul as the main thing, as Jesus said, “what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?” (Matt 16:26)   We pass from these things with faith that says “shall not the judge of all the earth do right” (Genesis 1823-25).

Thursday Numbers 31:25-53

After the battle comes the division of the spoils and Moses and Eleazar and the family heads count the spoils and set the division and use of them among the people.  The officers of the army bring the gold articles they acquired to make atonement for themselves before the Lord, indicating that the fact that they had been obeying the command of the Lord through Moses did not make them pure.   It is similar to the parable Jesus told of the servants whodid their duty for their master but when it was done said, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ ” (Luke 17:10).

The gold was brought into the Tent of Meeting as a memorial after the battle.

If there is a lesson for us it is that given good things by God we should remember to bring them before God for his use not ours.

Friday Numbers 32:1-42

The promised land the Israelites were to settle was on the west side of the Jordan river, between the river and the Mediterranean sea.  Soon they would cross over the Jordan to engage the inhabitants however the Reubenites and Gadites had large flocks and herds and found that the land they had already conquered was very suitable for their animals and wanted to stay there.

They made their request known to Moses who was angry and troubled because it would indicate a break up of the 12 tribes (v6).  Moses reminded them of the earlier spies who had tried to dissuade the earlier Israelites from moving ahead and the outcome was the 40 years wandering in the wilderness. (v14)

The tribes who wanted to stay made a promise that they wouldn’t desert their fellow tribesmen but would cross over the Jordan with them after settling their families and flocks on the East side.  They would be beside them in the battles and aid them in conquering the land.  With that promise being made – and Moses was firm on it being kept (v23,24) – the arrangement was allowed and the land captured from the Amorites of Sihon and Og became part of the Israelite land.

Saturday Numbers 33:1-56

People often like to keep a track of a journey often on an extended holiday or perhaps of a historical journey like that of Bonnie Prince Charlie on his escape from the Hanoverian troops.  In chapter 33 at God’s command Moses recorded all the stages of the journey the Israelites made after leaving Egypt.

Their journeying life was going to come to an end but it was written down so that they would be able to go back over it and the importance of parts of to their relationship with God.  Perhaps it might be a useful thing for us to do the same about our lives.

As they were going to cross over the Jordan to invade the land God gives them a command to drive out the inhabitants of the land, to take possession of it and to destroy all their carved idols and their places of worship.  The land was then to be settled according to the guidelines God had given them.  A warning was given that if they did not drive out the inhabitants then they would become a plague in the future life of the people.

The spiritual lesson of this for us is of course that if the Holy Spirit is to inhabit us we need to drive out all things in our lives that would be hindrances to our peace and settlement.