What’s next? Volcano in the Northwest? Earthquake in California?

Lev 26:3-20  If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;  (4)  Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.  (5)  And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.  (6)  And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.  (7)  And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.  (8)  And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.  (9)  For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you.  (10)  And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new.  (11)  And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you.  (12)  And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.  (13)  I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.  (14)  But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments;  (15)  And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant:  (16)  I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.  (17)  And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.  (18)  And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.  (19)  And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:  (20)  And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.

We seem to be at level two. Five more to go before we hit bottom.

W: “Dear, what would you like to do for your birthday this year? Anything you want!”

H: “More than anything else, I’d like to spend some time with you. Let’s go camping for a week where we can really be together.”

W: “But it’s so uncomfortable out there sleeping on the ground. Mosquitoes, flies…yuck! And no air conditioning! I have a better idea. Why don’t we stay home and throw a party? We’ll put up lights and decorations, and we’ll give presents to everyone! I know how much you like the wilderness, so we’ll put a tree up in the living room and make it up all fancy with lights and silver and gold! Oh! Won’t it be beautiful?”

H: “I’m sure it would be, but that’s not what I want. Besides, didn’t you used to do all these things with one of your ex boyfriends?”

W: “I know you didn’t really ask for anything this fancy, but I know you’ll love it. It will give me and all our friends a chance to show you just how much we love you! We’ll even change the date to make sure it’s convenient for everyone. How does December 25th sound?”

H: “That’s your ex boyfriend’s birthday, not mine! Those are the things he wanted you to do!  How could you possibly think I would appreciate that?”

W: “I know, but we already have this tradition. We’ve been doing it every year for so long now. It will be so much easier if we just keep using that same date and holding the same party. We’ll change the name! It’s OK because everyone will know we’re doing it for you now, not for Sol. Nor for old Satty, even if that’s where I got most of my ideas. Nor for Mithras, because hardly anybody remembers him anyway. See? It’s OK because I’m doing it all for you!”

H: “I already told you what I want.”

W: “Thor and I used to have a fire every year on his birthday. Let’s do that too! Oh! One more thing. You’ll love this! Can you dress up like Odin? He looked so cute, and the children will love it!”

H: “I am not Odin!”

It gets worse. Here is another conversation at a later date.

H: “I want you to always remember how much I sacrificed to rescue you from the cruel bondage of your former lovers. I want you to remember how I bled and suffered for you.”

W: “Oh! I will. How could I ever forget? To commemorate what you’ve done for me and to show you how much I love you, I’m going to bake a ham and invite everyone over for dinner.”

H: “You know ham disgusts me! I told you to roast a lamb.”

W: “We’ll color eggs and decorate with cute little bunnies.”

H: “Isn’t that what your ex lesbian lover, the one who murdered your children, used to make you do?”

W: “Well, yes, but that doesn’t matter anymore. I’m doing it all for you, and you know how much I love you. We’ll celebrate this day in your honor every year, and we’ll call it Easter!”

H: “That’s your lover’s name!”

God specifically told us not to adopt the religious customs of pagans. He told us not to join in their feasts. Yet we do it anyway, year after year after year, and we say it’s all good because God knows our hearts. He does indeed. Do you? What would you think of a wife who continued to celebrate the birthdays and deeds of horribly abusive ex lovers while claiming she did it for her husband who told her not to? How pure can your heart be if you still pine after your slavery and fornication?

The name Esau comes from a root meaning “accomplished” or “complete,” and its characters share the same numerical value as the characters of the word shalom. Yet those things were not in his actual name. Esau was neither complete nor peaceful. Instead he was careless and angry. Red. Edom.

One take-away is the possibility that Esau could have become the man at which his name hinted. In trading the transcendent (his birthright) for the transient (a bowl of stew) he became a sort of reverse spiritual alchemist, turning potential gold into certain stubble. This is the inevitable end of the exceedingly passionate, to be wholly  consumed by their urges.

Passion is a good and powerful force when checked by the Spirit. When it is allowed to run free, it is crippling. Esau, in remaining enslaved to his passions, never approached the complete peace that he could have attained by submitting desire and passion to a higher calling in his father’s house.

But citizens of what?

“Ecclesia” is meaningless outside the national context of Israel. Although God’s people exist in two houses presently, there is really only one citizenship, one baptism, one body, one king, and one kingdom. If you are truly a member of the Congregation of the Messiah, then you are a citizen of Israel. But do not make the mistake of thinking that the Christian “church” has become or replaced Israel. Believing gentiles were grafted into a pre-existing nation. They did not replace her or create something new.

There has never been a church outside of national Israel and there never will be.

HT: Mark McLellan. Again.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

Psalm 111:10 The fear of YHWH is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding have all they that do thereafter. His praise endures forever.

Proverbs 3:18 Wisdom is a tree of life to those who lay hold upon her, and happy is everyone who keeps her.

God placed two distinct trees in the Garden of Eden and told Adam that he could eat of one–the Tree of Life–but not the other–the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. You know the story. Adam ate from the wrong tree and died spiritually, condemning all mankind with him. He was exiled from the Garden.

The Torah also is a tree of life. Moses said that those who keep it will live and those who do not will be cursed. In Deuteronomy 29:18-20, he described a man who chose the other tree, who said, “I know better than God what is good for me. I don’t need a book to tell me what is good and evil, and I will be blessed despite my flagrant disregard of Torah.” Moses said, “YHWH will not overlook his transgressions. YHWH’s anger and jealousy will smolder against him, and all the curses of the Torah will settle on him, and YHWH will blot out his name from under heaven.”

Proverbs 14:12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

Choosing to keep Torah is submitting to God, acknowledging his lordship and superior understanding. Rejecting Torah is claiming to be greater than God or, at the very least, to be equal. This was the same sin by which Satan tempted Eve in the Garden.

If obedience to Torah brings life, as God clearly stated several times, when then was Israel rejected? Why were they scattered and persecuted as if they had not obeyed?

Paul wrote that Israel followed after “a law of righteousness” in their Zeal for God, but they never attained it. (Romans 9:31) They didn’t really submit themselves to God because they didn’t really have faith in him. The had faith in themselves and submitted to a law mostly created by men. They said, in effect, “If obedience is good, greater obedience must be better,” and added a host of rules on top of God’s commands. The Jewish teachers rejected the essence of Torah, and chose love of knowledge and law over love of God and man. In trying to gain life, they rejected it in favor of self and lost both. They failed to see that, although Torah can enhance one’s life in the here and now, it’s ultimate end is the salvation of the soul. “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for everyone who believes.”

The story isn’t over, yet, though. We have all been redeemed from Adam’s sin if we repent. Just so, God promised to restore Israel and punish those who persecute her. As Israel repents and elevates her love and fear of YHWH over her love of law, she is even now being regathered from her long exile.

Deuteronomy 30:1-6  And it shall be when all these things have come on you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and when you shall call them to mind among all the nations where YHWH your God has driven you, and shall return to YHWH your God and shall obey His voice according to all that I command you today, you and your sons, with all your heart, and with all your soul, then YHWH your God will turn your captivity. And He will have compassion on you, and will return and gather you from all the nations where YHWH your God has scattered you….And YHWH your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed, to love YHWH your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.

HT Tony Robinson.

Matthew 5:17  Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to destroy but to fulfill.

When Jesus said that he came to fulfill the law, he meant that he would make it so we wouldn’t have to keep the law ourselves.

Romans 13:8-10  Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves another has fulfilled the Law.  (9)  For: “Do not commit adultery; do not murder; do not steal; do not bear false witness; do not lust;” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  (10)  Love works no ill to its neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the Law.

Galatians 5:13-14  For, brothers, you were called to liberty. Only do not use the liberty for an opening to the flesh, but by love serve one another.  (14)  For all the Law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

James 2:8  If you fulfill the royal Law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well.

When Paul and James said that we fulfill the law by loving one another, they meant we only need to love one another once because then the law will be fulfilled and we won’t need to keep it anymore. But they were really just wasting ink since Jesus already fulfilled the law once for everyone. We don’t have to love anyone even once now because that would be trying to keep the law and that’s legalism.

</sarcasm>

According to Maslow and common sense, a person needs some things more than others. Food and water are at the top of the list, and if you don’t have those, the rest won’t do you much good. A connection to God is important too, although it’s not as intellectually obvious to the natural man where in the hierarchy of needs that relationship should fall. As you will see, the mere existence of these needs for food and religion are not their only commonality.

When we don’t eat, we get hungry. When we don’t have the right balance of nutrients in our diet, we experience cravings or illness, and we fulfill those needs by eating more quantity and variety of foods. Our feelings of need are usually satisfied in the short term by just about anything we can stuff in our mouths that meets the minimum requirements. If our bodies need calories, then a candy bar will suffice. That’s not necessarily the best source of nutrition, however. Certainly, the sugar and fat will supply calories, but usually in the wrong proportions or in undesirable forms. An apple or handful of nuts would be better because it satisfies the immediate craving without overkill and provides for longer-term nutrition needs as well. Our understanding of nutrition and the body’s biosphere is still far from complete. As our science progresses, we will come to understand more of why the Designer’s instructions tell us to eat this and not that.

God didn’t say anything to Moses about candy bars because the ancient Israelites didn’t have access to them, but he wasn’t silent about diet. For example, he told us not to eat blood and he even told us why (because the life of an animal is in its blood) even if his reasoning is incomprehensible to many medicine. Contrary to some recent diet fads, he told us that bread is perfectly acceptable so long as it isn’t the only thing we eat. He told us that some animals are good to eat and others aren’t and that we shouldn’t eat certain parts of animals (e.g. the spleen and adrenal glands, aka the fatty lobe attached to the kidney). Those things might meet the body’s basic nutritional needs–in fact, they might be excellent sources of some nutrients–but, just as a nutritionist might say that many edible substances aren’t food, so does God. Pigs might be perfectly edible and provide perfectly usable nutrition, but there is something else about them that makes them non-food. Our Designer and theirs has said that we shouldn’t eat them whether we understand why or not.

Our need for spiritual connection with God is very similar. Voltaire wasn’t so far off when he said that “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” We have a deep need to worship and serve something greater than ourselves. Every human society throughout history has worshiped and theologized. Not even alcohol has been as widespread as religion. But for the most part, we follow our urges without knowledge. We know instinctively that prayer, singing, dancing, and offerings are all good and necessary, but like children in a grocery store, we don’t necessarily know to take more of the green stuff and less of the pink and gooey. Like candy, there are religious practices that sooth our cravings, but don’t provide good spiritual nutrition. With that in mind, it’s not too surprising to find McDonalds “restaurants” in churches. There is a right way and a wrong way to relate to God, to worship and serve him, and just as with food, he gave us some substantial direction in his Torah.

God linked food and religion, and Moses made that link clear. In this week’s Torah portion, Moses said, “You will not worship like the pagans do. You will destroy the places the pagans used for their worship, and you will wipe out the names of their gods. You will not offer sacrifices just anywhere you want, but only in that place that God chooses for his name. You will not eat blood, and you will only eat those animals that God has declared food. And, don’t forget, you will worship God in his way, not in your way nor in the ways of the pagans.” God left a lot to our tastes and aesthetics, but there are important ingredients to a healthy spiritual life that we ignore to our own detriment.

Failure to see the mitzvot as an expression of the totality of God’s will, and not as just disjointed commands, leads to the distortion of mitzvot themselves. One year I received an urgent call just before Yom Kippur from a woman in my congregation. Her husband had been told by his doctor that he was suffering from a condition which could prove life-threatening if he fasted. Nevertheless he was determined to fast. I spoke to his doctor and consulted another observant doctor to confirm the diagnosis. There was no doubt that fasting would endanger his life.

I called in the man and explained to him that he must eat on Yom Kippur. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Rabbi, you’re a young man and I’m about three times your age, well into my 70s. Since my bar mitzvah I have not eaten on Yom Kippur, and I do not intend to start now.” I replied that I could not force him to eat on Yom Kippur, but that as soon as he left my office, I would instruct the gabbai never to give him another honor in our shul. When he asked why he deserved such treatment for being strict with respect to Yom Kippur, I told him that we are prohibited from honoring idol worshipers.

“What idol worship am I guilty of?” he demanded to know. I explained, “The God of Israel has decreed that you must eat on Yom Kippur. If some other god has commanded you to fast, it is irrelevant to me if you call it Zeus, Kemosh or Yom Kippur – all idols are the same.”

Numbers 27:15-21. Then Moses spoke to the LORD, saying: 16 “Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation, 17 who may go out before them and go in before them, who may lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the LORD may not be like sheep which have no shepherd.” 18 And the LORD said to Moses: “Take Joshua the son of Nun with you, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him; 19 set him before Eleazar the priest and before all the congregation, and inaugurate him in their sight. 20 And you shall give some of your authority to him, that all the congregation of the children of Israel may be obedient. 21 He shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire before the LORD for him by the judgment of the Urim. At his word they shall go out, and at his word they shall come in, he and all the children of Israel with him—all the congregation.”

People were filled with the Holy Spirit thousands of years before Pentecost. And people knew and kept the Torah before it was given at Mt. Sinai.

Proverbs 26:2  As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.

There seems a discrepency between the idea that we are created in God’s image to the extent that our words have creative force, that there is power in our prayers, and the opposing idea that a curse has no power unless it is deserved and that a prophet can speak neither blessing nor curse unless God allows it. There is truth on both sides if properly understood.

We were created in God’s image, but we are not exact copies, the earthly tabernacle was a corruptible copy of the one in Heaven, the feast days are shadows of the reality that is the Messiah, and mankind is an imperfect, much scaled down replica of God. Unlike him, we cannot create something out of nothing by merely speaking. We need something on which to build. We are unable to get our own dirt, so we have to make do with what we can find.

When Balaam tried to curse Israel, he failed because, as a prophet, he could only prophecy what God told him. His patron, Balak, understood the principle of Proverbs 26:2, that a curse undeserved has no effect, so he took Balaam to first one place and then another, thinking that a different perspective might give Balaam the hook he needed to make the curse stick. But he misunderstood the nature of a real prophet: prophesy comes from God and no other. If a prophet speaks truth, then his words are the words of God, and God can no more curse the righteous than could Balaam. Hence Balaam’s statement that “[YHWH] has not seen iniquity in Jacob, neither has He seen perverseness in Israel.” It was not that Israel had no sin at all, but that God had chosen to forgive them. Like a husband who chooses to overlook his wife’s flaws, from God’s point of view, Israel had no sin to which a curse could attach.

Finding no fault in Israel, Balaam showed Balak how he might create one that God could not overlook by seducing them into idolatry. This is the “doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit fornication.” (Revelation 2:14) Eating “things sacrificed to idols” does not refer simply to eating meat from sacrificial animals, but to actively participating in the sacrifice. Those who teach God’s people that it is acceptable to engage in pagan rituals and abandon God’s law so long as their “hearts are in the right place” are today’s Balaam. They cause God’s people to commit sins that he cannot overlook, opening them to whatever curse the enemy might choose to throw.