 |
Home | Mission Statement | Video Gallery | Audio Gallery | Photo Gallery | Daily Manna | Testimonies | | Links | Contact us |
 |
For I know the plans I have for you,declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jer 29:11 |
 |
| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Sunday, February 28, 2021
Today's Passage : Today's Passage :Ritual Preparation to Meet God Bible Verse:Exodus 19:9-15 (ESV) "When Moses told the words of the people to the Lord, the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. No hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot [with an arrow]; whether beast or man, he shall not live.’ When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain.” So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated the people; and they washed their garments. And he said to the people, “Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman.” " Message:
The first and third paragraphs command the Hebrews to consecrate themselves before hearing the voice of God. ("Consecrate" means, literally, to make something holy.) They must take considerable trouble in preparation, to show that their reverence is sufficiently sincere that God will communicate with them.
Washing their clothes in two days would have been a sizable undertaking. They are very dirty and have access to a limited supply of water: whatever size pool might have accumulated from the rock Moses had struck. They have no soap, no washtubs; and there are, perhaps, 30,000 people involved. They would have been hard-pressed to get the entire job done in two days. (It was a different time, indeed; today, preparation for church often involves less trouble than getting ready to go to work.)
prayer devout
But God, while not setting a perpetual commandment, wants to set a proper sense of reverence between the Hebrews and Himself. Human pride ever wants to bring the mighty down to one's own level. We are prideful by nature. Our minds naturally work to bring ourselves ever closer in stature to one above us, either by raising our own status (in reality or in our mind) or by lowering the status of the one above us. We want to call the boss by his first name. The President of the United States has his photograph taken carrying his own suitcase off a plane, to pander to this phenomenon.
But God will not stand for familiarity; His relationship with the Hebrews is going to be unmistakably hierarchical.
Even to set foot on the mountain where He will appear rates instant death, for man or beast; even more remarkably, the violation is so severe that the person committing it cannot be touched and must be killed by stoning or being shot. Nobody can "put the fear of God" into someone like God Himself!
It is both humbling and important to remember the degree of reverence that God demanded of the people He loved best. Is He trying to hurt the Hebrews? Is He jerking them around? No. He loves them greatly; they are special to Him. He sets such severe rules for their benefit, not His. We must take the message of this passage to heart, for it is the starting point of the salvation of mankind. Just so, it makes sense that it is also the starting point of our own salvation, and indeed, Proverbs tells us repeatedly that "fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom."
(An interesting side note on "do not go near a woman": the NIV, no doubt attempting to make the Old Testament more relevant to modern notions of gender equality, translates this passage — incorrectly — "abstain from sexual relations." There is, of course, a possible motive of abstinence from pleasure as a sacrifice, or to prevent a diversion of concentration, in the prohibition.
But the real problem is that a man's sexual fulfillment made him ritually unclean. Lev. 15:16-18 And here's the shocker: The man did not become "unclean" because sex was "dirty"; the man (and the woman, in most cases) became ritually unclean because it was sacred.
So, most likely, the closest meaning of this phrase is: "do not ejaculate"! The O.T. can get a bit earthy, sometimes.
Meditation : Prayer : Let the word of Christ richly dwell within me all this day; and whatever I do in word or deed, may I do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father......Amen |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
