R.P. Nettelhorst's Blog, page 51

Living on the Moon?

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Was That So Hard?

“Yet you have not called upon me, O Jacob,

you have not wearied yourselves for me, O Israel.

You have not brought me sheep for burnt offerings,

nor honored me with your sacrifices.

I have not burdened you with grain offerings

nor wearied you with demands for incense.

You have not bought any fragrant calamus for me,

or lavished on me the fat of your sacrifices.

But you have burdened me with your sins

and wearied me with your offenses.

“I, even I, am he who blots out

your transgressions, for my own sake,

and remembers your sins no more.

Review the past for me,

let us argue the matter together;

state the case for your innocence.

Your first father sinned;

your spokesmen rebelled against me.

So I will disgrace the dignitaries of your temple,

and I will consign Jacob to destruction

and Israel to scorn. (Isaiah 43:22-28)

Israel had ignored God. His people had worshipped other gods instead. There were no sacrifices being offered to Yahweh—or certainly no real sacrifices. What they claimed as sacrifices were meaningless because their hearts were not in it. They didn’t genuinely care about God. They did not care to know him or to learn what he wanted.

From the beginning of God’s relationship with them, they had sinned. It wasn’t even new behavior for them. God pointed out to his people that they had been piling up sins instead of piling up sacrifices. Nevertheless, he had forgiven them. He forgave them, not because of what they did—or didn’t do—but because that’s what he wanted to do. Their behavior, their sacrifices, were not what granted them forgiveness. They gained forgiveness because that’s just what God liked to do.

The mistake we make is to imagine that our behavior has anything to do with our relationship with God. It doesn’t. God has forgiven us and we remain his people regardless. In fact, it is because we are his people now that he disciplines us, just as he disciplined the ancient Israelites.

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Flattery

Then the Lord said,

“Because this people draw near with their words

And honor Me with their lip service,

But they remove their hearts far from Me,

And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote,

Therefore behold, I will once again deal marvelously with this people, wondrously marvelous;

And the wisdom of their wise men will perish,

And the discernment of their discerning men will be concealed.”

Woe to those who deeply hide their plans from the LORD,

And whose deeds are done in a dark place,

And they say, “Who sees us?” or “Who knows us?”

You turn things around!

Shall the potter be considered as equal with the clay,

That what is made would say to its maker, “He did not make me”;

Or what is formed say to him who formed it, “He has no understanding”? (Isaiah 29:13-16)

Flattery will get you nowhere. In the ancient world of which Israel was a part, the worship of gods consisted of ceremonies and rituals. In order to get the gods to perform as they wanted, the people believed that all that was needed were the right words, said just the right way, accompanied by just the right sacrifices, incense, and music. If everything was done just right by the priests, then the gods would be mollified and would answer them favorably.

But Israel’s God was not like that. He was not a force of nature to be manipulated as a man might manipulate an axe. God could tell the difference between the right words and the right motivation. In fact, he told the Israelites that he didn’t really care much about what they said. What mattered was what they did: how they lived. It was so easy to focus on the forms and ceremonies and rituals. Like lawyers, we become concerned that we say just the right words in just the right order and that they be exactly what has always been said so that no one is disturbed and no one can misunderstand. But words so easily can become empty, can be reduced to mere superstition, as if the right words can substitute for a right heart.

God is concerned with how we treat other people—and how we are when no one sees us but him. God made us; we do not make God. He cannot be manipulated with words any more than he can be carved from wood. He’s a person. He will do what he wants, when he wants, for the reasons he wants.

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Opressing

“Come down, virgin daughter of Babylon, and sit in the dust.

For your days of sitting on a throne have ended.

O daughter of Babylonia, never again will you be

the lovely princess, tender and delicate.

Take heavy millstones and grind flour.

Remove your veil, and strip off your robe.

Expose yourself to public view.

You will be naked and burdened with shame.

I will take vengeance against you without pity.”

Our Redeemer, whose name is the LORD of Heaven’s Armies,

is the Holy One of Israel.

“O beautiful Babylon, sit now in darkness and silence.

Never again will you be known as the queen of kingdoms.

For I was angry with my chosen people

and punished them by letting them fall into your hands.

But you, Babylon, showed them no mercy.

You oppressed even the elderly.

You said, ‘I will reign forever as queen of the world!’

You did not reflect on your actions

or think about their consequences.

“Listen to this, you pleasure-loving kingdom,

living at ease and feeling secure.

You say, ‘I am the only one, and there is no other.

I will never be a widow or lose my children.’

Well, both these things will come upon you in a moment:

widowhood and the loss of your children.

Yes, these calamities will come upon you,

despite all your witchcraft and magic. (Isaiah 47:1-9)

Arrogance is not a good look for anyone. God disciplined his people using other people. The Babylonians attacked and decimated the Promised Land and took captive many of its people. They destroyed Jerusalem and burned down God’s Temple. They acted as God’s instruments in his hands.

Nevertheless, they behaved arrogantly and cruelly. As a consequence, God pronounced his judgment against them. Although Nebuchadnezzar, the great king of Babylon who was responsible for the destruction of Jerusalem and the burning of the temple, turned to God, his nation and his descendents on his throne did not. And so, God’s judgment came upon the Babylonians. The Persians invaded and took it over completely, slaughtering Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson and destroying his army and his power. Never again would Babylon matter to the world. Following the Persian conquest, the city fell into decline and was ultimately swallowed by the desert. A few stone ruins are all that remain of what was once the most powerful and important city on the planet. God promised that those who oppressed or harmed his people would in turn be harmed. The city Babylon destroyed—Jerusalem—was rebuilt and prospers till this day, while Babylon, the mighty conqueror of the world, remains deserted and in ruins. Only God’s kingdom endures.

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Set Them Free

Thus says God the LORD,

Who created the heavens and stretched them out,

Who spread out the earth and its offspring,

Who gives breath to the people on it

And spirit to those who walk in it,

“I am the LORD, I have called You in righteousness,

I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You,

And I will appoint You as a covenant to the people,

As a light to the nations,

To open blind eyes,

To bring out prisoners from the dungeon

And those who dwell in darkness from the prison.

“I am the LORD, that is My name;

I will not give My glory to another,

Nor My praise to graven images.

“Behold, the former things have come to pass,

Now I declare new things;

Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.” (Isaiah 42:5-9)

When God sets us free, no human being can ever enslave us again. God identified himself as the creator and promised his captive people that in their captivity, he was still there with them. Better, he promised them that they would come out of their captivity. A day would arrive when they would be free.

Certainly he released the Israelites from their place of exile and they returned home to their land during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. Such physical freedom had been on the minds of those who had first heard Isaiah’s prophesy. But God was thinking of something far more precious than physical freedom. In fact, the nation of Israel was never again a free and independent people. When Cyrus allowed the captives to return to their homes, they were still part of his Persian Empire. When the Persians were conquered by Alexander the Great, the Israelites became part of a Greek Empire, and when the Romans took over, they remained part of the Roman Empire.

God’s goal was not to set them free from foreign domination—since that never happened. God hoped his people would understand what kind of freedom he meant when their physical situation remained unchanged. God intended to rescue them from their dungeon of sin: he intended to set them free from spiritual bondage, to set up his kingdom in their hearts. We’ve been set free from the real dungeon. We’ll stay free no matter what anyone does to us. No government, no problem, can ever take our real freedom away from us. The kingdom of Heaven is not of this world.

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Good to be the King

He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day.”

But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”

When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the LORD. The LORD answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.”

Then Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Everyone go back to his town.” (1 Samuel 8:19-22)

It’s good to be the king. It’s not so good to have one, however. The problems of the world cannot be solved just by having a government, or by changing the government, or by passing new legislation. Just adding another rule to the enormous stack of rules we already have does not fix the fundamental problem of human nature. People remain what they are: corrupt and corruptible, and putting some in charge of the others merely insures that they will take advantage of those they rule: they will take their money in taxes, their children as slaves, and their property as they see fit.

Samuel let the people know exactly what they would get if they got a king. He let them know that they would not be happy with him, that they would regret their demand, that they would wish that they could be freed from the tyranny. Despite all of that, they still insisted on having a king.

God was not surprised however. Just as God does not like divorce, he still gave Moses the rules to regulate it in the law. He didn’t like slavery, but he gave them the rules to regulate it. And he didn’t like monarchy, but he gave them the rules for how a king should reign, placing limits on his power. God worked hard to protect the less powerful from the more powerful: he sought to protect the weak: women, slaves, and ordinary citizens. People can never take the place of God and he won’t let them.

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Your Choice

As Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons to be judges over Israel. Joel and Abijah, his oldest sons, held court in Beersheba. But they were not like their father, for they were greedy for money. They accepted bribes and perverted justice.

Finally, all the elders of Israel met at Ramah to discuss the matter with Samuel. “Look,” they told him, “you are now old, and your sons are not like you. Give us a king to judge us like all the other nations have.”

Samuel was displeased with their request and went to the LORD for guidance. “Do everything they say to you,” the LORD replied, “for it is me they are rejecting, not you. They don’t want me to be their king any longer. Ever since I brought them from Egypt they have continually abandoned me and followed other gods. And now they are giving you the same treatment. Do as they ask, but solemnly warn them about the way a king will reign over them.”

So Samuel passed on the LORD’s warning to the people who were asking him for a king. (1 Samuel 8:1-10)

God has no grandkids. You can’t pass on your relationship with God to your children. Just because you were a good Christian, just because you had a good relationship with God, doesn’t necessarily mean that your kids will, too. They have to forge their own relationship. Conversely, just because your parents were missionaries, just because they were faithful church goers, just because they gave a fortune to the church, doesn’t mean that you’ll receive a get out of jail free card. God isn’t into nepotism. Each person stands before God alone; each person must live their own lives, develop their own relationship with God. You can’t depend on someone else and get by on account of what they did. There’s no spilling over, no coattails. You get elected on your own—or not.

Samuel had been raised by Eli, whose children had been corrupt and evil. Samuel did not have a good role model in Eli on how to raise children, and sadly, Samuel’s children turned out much as Eli’s had. The people of Israel had no complaint with Samuel, but Samuel’s children were clearly never going to be the spiritual leaders that he was. They could not become the next set of judges. And so they asked that Samuel would find someone to become king for them instead.

Samuel was reluctant and God warned them that a king would not fix things. After all, a monarchy is hereditary; the king’s children would take his place when he died. And if Samuel, as good as he was, produced children that they didn’t want ruling over them, what really made them think that getting a king, however good he might be, would solve that fundamental problem?

God compared their request for a new king with their continual problem with idolatry. Why? Because they kept looking to someone other than God to lead them and to fix their problems. They weren’t willing to follow God at all, and so Samuel wasn’t being rejected, even though their words had hurt him and made him think that maybe they thought his life had not been worthwhile. It was God who was being rejected. It wasn’t about Samuel at all. God can use people to solve problems. The mistake comes in thinking that people can take the place of God altogether.

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Free at Last

““Count off seven sabbaths of years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.

“In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to his own property.

“If you sell land to one of your countrymen or buy any from him, do not take advantage of each other.” (Leviticus 25:8-14)

God cares about those who have nothing left to give. In ancient Israel, people could sell their property or even themselves if they became impoverished. But every fifty years all those so enslaved were supposed to be freed during the year of Jubilee. Property was supposed to return to its original owner.

During the time of Moses and Joshua the land had been distributed to the tribes and families of Israel. It was supposed to remain with those tribes and families for all time. Unfortunately, though God told the Israelites to “proclaim liberty throughout the land” every year of Jubilee, the harsh reality of Israelite society was that Jubilee never came.

It was not only idolatry that led God to bring the Babylonians against the Israelites. God also sent them into captivity because the powerful had oppressed the weak. They never set anyone free. They had never returned a bit of land. So the Babylonians took only a minority of Israelites into captivity: the upper classes who had oppressed the poor by never giving them their Jubilees. Those they had oppressed were left behind. Freedom finally came as the oppressors were dragged away. God granted mercy with his judgment.

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Show Me the Way

Then Moses said to the LORD, “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people.’ But You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found grace in My sight.’ Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people.”

And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Then he said to Him, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth.”

So the LORD said to Moses, “I will also do this thing that you have spoken; for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name.”

And he said, “Please, show me Your glory.”

Then He said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” (Exodus 33:12-19)

There’s always room for worry. No matter how obvious God is, no matter how clearly God is working, human beings are still going to want more reassurance. Moses had been there for each of the ten plagues. He’d been there through the Red Sea. He’d gotten the ten commandments. He’d been leading the people for quite some while and even got to talk to God face to face on a regular basis. And yet, with all of that, he felt isolated and wondered who would be going with them to the Promised Land, and he wondered if he really knows for sure where they would be going and what they would be doing.

God did not berate Moses, did not criticize him, did not even ask him a pointed question. Instead, God quickly reassured Moses and told him—again—that he would be with him. Moses, who saw God in the burning bush, on Mt. Sinai, and even in the tent of meeting where he talked to God as a man might converse with a friend, then asked God if he could see his glory. As if everything up to then wasn’t glorious? Could he not discern God’s glory in the Exodus event, in the burning bush, in the plagues, in the pillar of fire by night and cloud by day? Every day, he picked up food—manna—from off the ground. How could he need more?

And yet, he did. As do we all, if we’re honest with ourselves. No matter how close we think we are to God, no matter how convinced we are by events that we can see the hand of God, when we keep on keeping on, it is very easy to start taking it all for granted. We need a bigger fix to just feel normal, to just know that God is still there. It is all too easy to get discouraged, no matter how many miracles are swirling around us. And God accommodated Moses. So don’t be afraid to let God know how you’re really feeling, the doubts and weariness you may be feeling. He knows anyhow and if Moses is any guide, God will be happy to do something about it.

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Slavery

“When you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for six years; then in the seventh he is to leave as a free man without paying anything. If he arrives alone, he is to leave alone; if he arrives with a wife, his wife is to leave with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children belong to her master, and the man must leave alone.

“But if the slave declares: ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I do not want to leave as a free man,’ his master is to bring him to the judges and then bring him to the door or doorpost. His master must pierce his ear with an awl, and he will serve his master for life.

“When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she is not to leave as the male slaves do. If she is displeasing to her master, who chose her for himself, then he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners because he has acted treacherously toward her. Or if he chooses her for his son, he must deal with her according to the customary treatment of daughters.” (Exodus 21:2-9)

Just because it’s evil, doesn’t mean God will get rid of it right away. Slavery has been a part of the human condition through all of recorded history. God liked slavery no more than he liked divorce. But he knows the fallen condition of human beings and so he set up in the law regulations for the weak in order to protect them from the strong. In most cultures, slaves were left with no more rights than a farm animal. In the Mosaic legislation, God required his people not to mistreat the slaves, but to treat them well: the need to love others extended to them too. Slavery was ordinarily a temporary status in Israel. As a person went into slavery, so they would leave slavery.

For those whose status changed—for instance in marriage—the slave could chose to make his condition permanent by means of a ceremony. Poking an awl through the slave’s ear to signify permanent slave status was not a punishment. An earring was inserted through the hole. Piercing of ears and noses was not uncommon in ancient Israel and was done for the same reason it happens today: for adornment.

A woman sold into slavery did not become a sex slave. If she was used sexually, then she had certain rights: the same rights as any other wife. If her husband married an additional wife, she retained her standing as his wife. And if she was divorced, then she had the same protections as any other divorced woman: and she could no longer be considered a slave, nor did she have to pay for her freedom. God always protects the powerless.

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