Old Testament Archives - Page 65 of 143

The Laws of Warfare (Christendom 2.0)

Christ Church on August 23, 2020

THE TEXT: Deut. 20:1–20

DO NOT BE AFRAID

When you go out to battle against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and people more numerous than you, do not be afraid of them; for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. ²So it shall be, when you are on the verge of battle, that the priest shall approach and speak to the people. ³And he shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel: Today you are on the verge of battle with your enemies. Do not let your heart faint, do not be afraid, and do not tremble or be terrified because of them; ⁴for the Lord your God is He who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.’

EXEMPTIONS FROM WARFARE

⁵“Then the officers shall speak to the people, saying: ‘What man is there who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it. ⁶Also what man is there who has planted a vineyard and has not eaten of it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man eat of it. ⁷And what man is there who is betrothed to a woman and has not married her? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man marry her.’ ⁸“The officers shall speak further to the people, and say, ‘What man is there who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return to his house, lest the heart of his brethren faint like his heart.’ ⁹And so it shall be, when the officers have finished speaking to the people, that they shall make captains of the armies to lead the people.

PEACE, PLUNDER, AND THE PRESERVATION OF LIFE

¹⁰“When you go near a city to fight against it, then proclaim an offer of peace to it. ¹¹And it shall be that if they accept your offer of peace, and open to you, then all the people who are found in it shall be placed under tribute to you, and serve you.

¹²Now if the city will not make peace with you, but war against you, then you shall besiege it. ¹³And when the Lord your God delivers it into your hands, you shall strike every male in it with the edge of the sword. ¹⁴But the women, the little ones, the livestock, and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall plunder for yourself; and you shall eat the enemies’ plunder which the Lord your God gives you. ¹⁵Thus you shall do to all the cities which are very far from you, which are not of the cities of these nations.

CITIES DEVOTED TO DESTRUCTION (“HEREM” WARFARE)

¹⁶“But of the cities of these peoples which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, ¹⁷but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the Lord your God has commanded you, ¹⁸lest they teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, and you sin against the Lord your God.

TREE LIVES MATTER

¹⁹“When you besiege a city for a long time, while making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them; if you can eat of them, do not cut them down to use in the siege, for the tree of the field is man’s food. ²⁰Only the trees which you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down, to build siegeworks against the city that makes war with you, until it is subdued.

The Winker

Christ Church on July 22, 2020

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THE TEXT

A worthless person, a wicked man,
    goes about with crooked speech,
¹³winks with his eyes, signals with his feet,
    points with his finger,
¹⁴with perverted heart devises evil,
    continually sowing discord;
¹⁵therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly;
    in a moment he will be broken beyond healing (Prov. 6:12-15).

The Law of Kings (Christendom 2.0)

Christ Church on June 21, 2020

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The Text

“When you come to the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me,’ ¹⁵you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses; one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not set a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. ¹⁶But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall not return that way again.’ ¹⁷Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself.

¹⁸“Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites. ¹⁹And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, ²⁰that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel” (Deut. 17:14–20).

Worship Like You’re Told

Christ Church on June 14, 2020

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Introduction

People, being at root self-idolaters, think they can worship God on their terms, rather than worshipping Him as He has instructed us to. The difference between right worship and wrong worship is the difference between smoked brisket and burnt hair. If you don’t believe me just ask Cain, or Nadab and Abihu, or Ananias and Saphira.

The Text

Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness (1 Chronicles 16:29).

Worship Faux Pas

Worship in modern evangelical parlance has come to mean, almost exclusively, music. To be more exact, the sort of music that consists of three chords and the truth, give or take a chord, and give or take the truth. While we ought not to disparage the musicality which has come to pervade much of Protestant worship, we shouldn’t think of worship as confined to the musical aspects of our service. I just used the word service and it would be good for us if we began to think of worship and service as synonyms (Rom. 12:1). In other words, our worship service contains music, but music is too small a thing to contain our worship.

King David, in our text, is consecrating the restoration of the Ark of Covenant to the Tabernacle. He does so by way of “burnt sacrifices and peace offerings (1 Chr. 16:1).” But of great import is the offering of another type: a psalm (16:. In this song of thanks, we are summoned to give glory to the Lord, bring an offering, and come before Him. We are not only told what to do (i.e. bring glory), but how to do it: worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. We must worship not in common garments tailored to current fashion, but in garments of holy beauty.

The way we worship shapes what we believe. Ugly worship results in ugly faith. As an example, a deep bond of love and loyalty is formed in a family as they share meals together, go on walks together, laughing and talking. They might not realize how those routine elements of their family liturgy are shaping and fortifying their view of family. If a family becomes a bubble or two out of level, oftentimes a deliberate return to those basic “rituals” help to dispel some of the relational funk.

An important adjective for our weekly Lord’s Day worship should be familiar. In one way, we shouldn’t notice our liturgy. When you first learn the guitar every placement of every finger is a painful labor. But once you are well-practiced, those fundamentals fade. Not because they’re unimportant, but their purpose is to provide the framework for glorious strums, progressions, and scales. If we don’t deliberately look at what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it, we can grow flabby in our execution of what we’ve been told to bring: glory.

Call

Leviticus 1:1

And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation.

The book of Leviticus begins with God calling unto Moses with instructions as to how the Israelites were to bring their worship to Him. Worship begins and ends with God and at His initiation. We aren’t Aborigines with rain sticks hoping to make a loud enough clamor to get the gods’ attention. God calls, we answer. God initiates, we respond.

In the OT, God is continually coming to and calling to those whom He has set apart for His redemptive purpose. When He initiates His covenant there is a distinct pattern. But Man doesn’t summon God, rather it is He who calls to us, and invites us into His covenant life. He invites us to a meal.

Confession

Psalm 51:16-17

For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Before you can enjoy communion with Him, something must be done about the black tar of sin that is caked on you three inches thick. Though David invites us to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, outside of Christ, the most beautiful thing we can offer is the rasping of dead bones, ornately decked out in soiled grave-cloths. God summons us, and the first thing we realize is that we’re wretched, blind, and filthy. Unless our sins are covered, we cannot come. So we confess not only the vile truth about ourselves, but also the new creation which God has begun in Christ.

Consecration

John 15:3

Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

But in being cleansed by the blood we are set apart for service. When the priests were consecrated, they were adorned in such a way as to tell the world that they were busy with sacred work (Cf. 1 Pt. 1:15). Their uniform declared their occupation. So we are consecrated to go about the work which God has called us to which is to hear the Word of Christ, in hearing we are renewed by that Word, to keep that Word (Deu. 6:17). Now our prayers and offerings of praise ascend to Him and are accepted by Him, because they are offered in the person of His Son (Heb. 13:15-16).

Communion

Psalm 63:5

My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips.

God calls us, cleanses us, and consecrates us in order to commune with us. The Peace Offering followed the Sin Offering and Ascension Offering (Cf. Lev. 9). This sacrifice was a shared meal: the LORD has his portion (Lev. 3:9-11), the priest/mediator received a portion (Lev. 7:31-32), and finally the worshipper partook of this offering (Lev. 7:15).

It’s no small wonder that Christ took the Passover seder (the pinnacle of the entire sacrificial system), and renovated it into a simple meal of bread and wine. Jesus didn’t disconnect it from what came before. The final sacrifice would be Himself. Thus the Peace Offering He offered on our behalf, ensured that we might partake with the Father and the Great High Priest of that covenant meal.

Commission

Mark 16:15

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

We’re commissioned because we have been equipped and filled for the task for which we’ve been set apart. Arrangement is always made for the successful completion of the covenant. In the instance of the New Covenant, we are assured that Christ will give us His very Spirit to guide and comfort us. He will be with us. Our practice of weekly Covenant Renewal service isn’t because we’re worried the Covenant will fail week to week.

Glory Upon Glory

The long and short is this: order and ardor are not at loggerheads. We worship with joy unspeakable and full of glory, but we do so with reverent fear. Your worship and service will only be accepted if it is offered in Jesus.

If we think we’re confined by an orderly liturgy, we are likely in danger of indulging ourselves in worshipping the way we want to, rather than the way in which God has commanded us to worship Him. The OT order didn’t become irrelevant because of the fulfilling work of Christ, any less than an acorn becomes irrelevant because it turns into an oak.

The Politics of Sin Forgiven

Christ Church on June 7, 2020

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Introduction

What do Christians do when the world around them seems to be coming apart? We wait on God, our salvation, and we think and live in light of His promises. And in particular, we think and live in light of His promises to forgive our sins and the sins of the world.

The prophet Micah ministered in the southern kingdom of Judah towards the end of the 8^th Century B.C. He ministered during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (Mic. 1:1) when the northern kingdom of Israel/Samaria fell to the Assyrians in 722 BC (2 Kings 17). In other words, Micah was watching the disintegration of his nation. Despite the deep darkness in his day, his prophecy is full of light and hope for us.

The Text

“Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grapegleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat: my soul desired the firstripe fruit. The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net… He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea…” (Mic. 1-9, 18-20)

Summary of the Text

Our passage opens with Micah’s cry of woe. The previous chapter has just finished God’s declaration of severe judgment (6:10-16), and here Micah cries out for the sin of his people (7:1). All the good men are gone, and everyone hunts one another with nets and takes bribes (7:2-3). The best men are briars and thorn hedges, and no one can trust anyone, not even friends, spouses, or family (7:4-6). But Micah’s response is a striking confidence: “Therefore, I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me” (7:7). Micah warns his enemy not to rejoice when he falls because he will surely rise, and even in the darkness God will be his light (7:8). Micah acknowledges that there will be consequences for his personal sin, but God will plead for him and deliver him and bring him back out into the light (7:9). Micah goes on to describe how God will judge the nations and care for his people through all the turmoil (7:10-17). The prophet closes asking who is like our God, and it’s striking that he is particularly astonished by His mercy, the way He pardons sin and passes by the transgression of His people (7:18). Despite all the turmoil, Micah is sure that God will turn again and have compassion on His people; He will defeat our sin and cast it into the depths of the sea (7:19). This is certain because God promised this mercy to Abraham (7:20).

Is There A God?

Is Micah’s response to the evil of his day reasonable? Is it reasonable and rational to respond to such pervasive corruption by saying you will wait on God (Mic. 7:7)? The answer to these questions illustrates why the existence of God really is a watershed issue. If there is no God, then eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. If there is no God, then morality is just a construct, and might makes right. Everything is survival of the fittest, grab what you can get. And morals are just temporary, utilitarian tactics for the cowardly. If there is such a thing as justice, then there must of necessity be a standard of justice. And for it to be real justice, that standard must be fixed from day to day, from generation to generation, and apply to everyone the same. Whenever anyone says something is “wrong,” they are making a claim to morality. This is why we must be constantly asking a most crucial question: By what standard? Why? You cannot claim that something is good, right, wrong, evil, or unjust if you have banished all absolute standards. If there is a God, there is a fixed standard. If not, to Hell with morality.

The Real Problem

The reason we don’t want a standard, an eternal, fixed law is because every man knows that the same law that will condemn evil out there in the world will also ultimately point its sharp end back at us. “Now we know that what things soever the law saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Rom. 3:19). This is what Micah acknowledges having rehearsed the wickedness of his nation: “I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me” (7:9). So what will it be? Do we want justice or not?

The Politics of the Accuser

The city of man functions on the power of accusation. The best peace and community man can muster on his own is the “fellowship” of the standoff. We take hostages in the form of dirt on one another, and have guns pointed at one another with silent agreements (or not so silent) not to fire, if the others won’t. This happens in families, marriages, businesses, and nations. But this isn’t peace, this isn’t fellowship, this is a cold war, with every move scrutinized and studied. But the power of accusation is guilt and fear. People know they are guilty, they know they have dirt, and they are paralyzed by the fear of exposure, blame, and shame, so they play along. Satan is the Accuser, and this is the power he uses over the guilty (Heb. 2:14-15).

Conclusion

This is why when Jesus began His healing ministry He identified the deeper, more fundamental problem as sin. When the men let down their paralyzed friend through the roof, the first thing Jesus said was, “Son, your sins are forgiven” (Mk. 2:5, Lk. 5:20), which may have seemed a bit anticlimactic at first. And when Jesus finally did heal the man, it was to prove that He had the authority to forgive sins (Mk. 2:10-11, Lk. 5:24). To the extent that individuals, families, and nations are paralyzed with fear, violence, hatred, the answer is the same. They need their sins forgiven. If our sins are forgiven then the Satanic hostage game of accusation is over.

And what is the one thing our God is known for? Despite all the cries of misogyny and injustice and cruelty, everyone knows that our God is known for His mercy. From the beginning, He has covered the sins of people with grace. He pardons iniquity; He passes by our transgressions. He delights in mercy. So this is the message that we need to hear, the message proclaimed to our families and neighbors and nation: Jesus Christ the Righteous is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world (1 Jn. 2:1-2). He has defeated our sins, trampling them underfoot, by the blood of His cross, and they have been cast to the bottom of the sea (Mic. 7:19). This is the only path to peace in our lives or in our land. This is our light even when we sit in darkness, and it is our sure hope that the Lord will bring us out into the light.