1478 - “The purpose of the Ceremonial law in the story of Redemption” Leviticus 23

Transcript

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Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Chris.

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Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1478. Today we're going to be in Torah again. We've been in the book of Deuteronomy as Moses rehearsed the great story of the redemption of Israel from Egyptian bondage. And as most of you know, the great hurdle was not just getting Israel out of Egypt, but perhaps a greater assignment for Moses was to be used by God to allow and urge Egypt out of the people. You see, when God delivered the people, he brought them into a desert, he brought them into a wilderness. That wilderness had purpose. It was to get them to Mount Sinai where he could present himself to them as the true and living God and constitute them as a nation. For the very first time they would not just be several tribes, but they would be a nation under God. But they longed for Egypt. From the very time they came out, they wanted to go back to what they had been indoctrinated in for over four hundred years. And so the people that came out of Egypt, save two, Caleb and Joshua, would never make it to the promised land. Because of lack of faith and trust in the God who brought them out of Egyptian bondage, they would never see the land that God so desired for them to have and to experience, what he had told them of, what he had promised them of. But their entering into the land was based upon their walk with God, and that was not sufficient, because they failed over and over again, and God warned them if you continue this, you're not going to see the land. But they continued in their disobedience, and they failed to enter into the great promised land that God had for them. Moses, when he brought them out of Egyptian bondage, by the hand of God, by the strong hand of God, he brought them to Mount Sinai. At Mount Sinai, God not only gave them the moral law, what we call the Ten Commandments, but he gave them the ceremonial law. And there was a reason for those ceremonies. There were reasons for all of the things that God does. He does not deal in triviality. He does not do things without purpose. And every ceremonial law that God gave, every ritual and routine that God gave had purpose. It was to teach them something about who He is, His holiness, His righteousness, His grace, His mercy, His goodness. What the Bible sums up in one word Hesed. That's right, it's translated twelve different ways in the King James Version of the Bible. Because Hesed is that untranslatable character of God. I believe it is the character that made David a man after God's own heart. Because Hesed was used by David twice over more than any other Bible writer. David displayed Hesed more than any other Bible character, and David more than any other received Hesid from God. And so he was experienced in knowing what it meant firsthand to experience the manifold grace of God that characterized itself in the Bible in twelve different facets love, kindness, mercy, loving kindness, goodness, and grace, mercy. On and on we could go. But I've dealt with those in the past in podcast and you can go back and listen to those. But what I want to do today is remind you that God gives what he gives on purpose, for a purpose, and he does it with intentionality. And you and I have to live our lives intentionally for God. You know, the Bible says in the book of Hebrews that we need to be careful to not harden our hearts and to obey God and to hold on to the things intentionally that God has shown us in the past through His workings with ancient Israel. Because He said we need to hold on to these things lest they drift away from us. You don't have to do anything to drift. As a matter of fact, if you do nothing you will drift. Because we're not on a sea that does not have a current. All the currents are drifting away from God, not toward him. This world is no friend to the child of God. Often I'm called in to help a church to go what they say to the next level. Almost always when I meet with leadership, I say, Well, why did you call me in? They said, Well, we want to go to the next level. And I always ask them, Well, what are the things that have kept you from going to that next level? And then after they tell me, I say to them, Do you want to go to the next level below where you are or above where you are? And they look at me puzzled and say, Well, of course, we want to go up, we want to go higher, we want to go more intense with God, then I share with them that they can never coast again. Because you see, the only way you coast is downhill, never uphill. There is no elevator that takes us to the next floor with God. We've got to walk step by step. And as we walk those steps, they get harder the more that we step, and that's why there are rest places in the greatest stairways. It's not just one way that you walk, no, it is back and forth, back and forth, landing after landing. Why do you need the landing? Because many times it's in those landings when it seems like that we're just there and we're turning around and going back up. Yes, we're going up, but it seems like we're going the way we came. No, it's ever upward and onward with God. But that takes intentionality, and God knew that if he did not put markers along the way we would soon forget, and we do. This is why every night that's when the day starts. So I want to encourage you before you go to sleep at night, thank God for the day that He's brought you through, and ask God to give you rest for the next day. As I read longevity studies as I get older, one of the keys is resting at night, experiencing sleep. Sleep is God's great method of recharging. This is when all of the brain cells clear out everything that's cluttered. That's when our bodies recharge. It's also when our soul and spirit recharge. And so every night we need to say, God, if I'm going to dream, help me to dream your thoughts. God, if I'm going to have a time to rest, it has to be tonight. So God, please grant me rest tonight, deep sleep, so that my body can recover, so I can serve you greater. You'll be amazed at what God does after a period of time. And then when you awake in the morning, and you say, Well, what if I don't awake? If you're a child of God, you will awake into the presence of Jesus. For to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord. But when you do awake, and you awake in your bed or you awake on this earth, just remember, God's given you another day to serve Him. It's not about you, it's not about me, it's always about Him. And so before you rise out of bed, would you just say this is the day the Lord has made, and I want to rejoice in it, God, I want to rejoice in you, I want to walk with you. Help me and give me grace for this day, for this next step, for this next mile of the journey, and God will be faithful to do that. But remember, He's got some markers along the way. The book of Psalms says I heard the Lord's voice saying, Come aside, come with me, come back to me, and you'll see that God is always there. So meet him in his word very early in your day. Set that as a priority and I would encourage you to set these rituals aside. And God's given his people, the Jews, days to remember. You say, Well, that's for the Jews. Well, it might help you, it might help me if we would observe some of those. Is the Shabbat just for the Jews? You say, Well, yeah, they do that for salvation. No, they don't. Those who are saved don't do that in order to be saved. They know they do that because they're children of God. And they have already trusted the Messiah and they trust God's word. They just know that God himself needed a day to rest, a day that was different than all others, a day when not common duties would be done what you do every other day, but you seek the face of God and remember that He is creator. And in Leviticus chapter twenty-three, you're going to see that God says to his people, The Lord said to Moses, notice that's the personal name for God, and Yah, Yahweh, Hashem. The Lord said to Moses, give the following instructions to the people of Israel. They are the Lord's appointed festivals. The word is Moada Moada M O Then you can put an apostrophe E as in they long A sound Moed or as some would say in plural Moedim. But the Moed are the days that God set aside as appointments. See the word Moed means appointment. God has an appointed time for us to meet him. Now we can meet him anytime we want to, but he says if you'll do it my way, I'll meet with you because I put this on my calendar to meet with you. Now is that the only time God is with us? No, he's with us all the time. He never leaves us nor forsake us. Because unlike the Israelites before the day of Pentecost, even those who followed God, he was with them, but he was not in them. After Pentecost, the Spirit of God lives in the life of every believer, Jew and Gentile. We can speak with Him, we can walk with Him and talk with Him. He's closer than our hands and our fingers, He's closer than our eyes and our nose. He lives in us. He indwells us. And He is a resident in our lives, and He wants to rule in our lives every day. But we have to set up markers. Everybody needs markers. Everyone needs a mile marker. Every culture has markers that they set up. And God wants us to set up some days where we remember something about his nature, and he did that with ancient Israel. And every week God had a day that he wanted his people to remember and to remember him as creator. You can listen to yesterday's podcast, Remembering for Purpose, on purpose. Deuteronomy is filled in chapter six and throughout the book with the word Zakah, remember. God doesn't want us to forget what he's done for us. And in the book of Leviticus, chapter 23, the first day that God says, I've got on my calendar and I'd love for you to meet with me is Shabbat. It's the seventh day, it's Saturday. All of the early disciples, remember, were Jewish. So they didn't disregard Shabbat when they became children of God through faith in Jesus. Oh no. They were already trusting the Lord, and when they came to know the Lord, they understood what Shabbat was really all about. It was not just about creation, it was about new creation. But they celebrated God as creator on Shabbat. And they kept that day holy and sacred to remember that particular aspect of God. It would do us good to do the same thing. And then they worshiped and celebrated Jesus rising from the dead on the first day of the week. That's what the Lord's Day is all about. The first day of the week, it's a new beginning. It's the eighth day in Scripture. It's the day of firstfruits. It's the offering up of the first fruits, saying there's more to come. You see, God wants us to get into the harvest and bring more to offer to Him. Every soul that's saved is a sacred offering unto God. And if we truly love Him, we need to be sharing the gospel. God will give the increase. Don't worry about it, it's above your pay grade and mine to get out here and say, Well, I got to make it happen. You don't have to make it happen. You can't make it happen. You don't have the power to make it happen. You can't change anybody's life. It's your job and my job to share the gospel, the good news, the message of Jesus and His love and salvation and his redemption with others and leave the results to God. That's right. Real success is obeying God to be a witness as he opens up the door to meet people and share with people. Why would you not share the most important thing in your life, the most important person in your life? It's not your spouse, it's not your children, it's Jesus to those who believe he is precious. Share Jesus with people and the power of the Holy Spirit of God and leave the results to him, and you'll be a whole lot happier, Pastor. If you think that you've not had a good service when you preach the word of God under the power and influence of the Holy Spirit, and you don't have people just flooding down to the front of the church in order to be saved, you say, Well, you know, that's an unfruitful day. How do you know that? As a matter of fact, that is saying, you know, unless I see this or that, God didn't move. Oh my goodness, be careful about making statements like that. Your job in mind is to preach the word of God. Let God take care of changing hearts. You can't do that. And by the way, if you can talk somebody into a decision, the devil himself can talk them out of it, his demons can, or somebody that gives a slick presentation. And so just be careful about all of that. So Shabbat was the time when the people remembered that God is the creator, he's the new creator. And then there were all kinds of events throughout the year Passover, unleavened bread, first fruits, the first harvest celebration. Then there was the full harvest celebration with the feast of weeks Shabuot or Pentecost. And then in the fall, after the summer was over, there was Rosh Hashanah. The Yom Turu is what it is in the scriptures. Rosh Hashanah means head of the year, but trumpets is Yom Turua, the day of the blowing or the blasting of the trumpets. And God talks about that in the book of Numbers, chapter 29. You can read about that. The day of atonement, Yom Kippur. And then Sukot, which is shelters, or the Feast of Tabernacles, as we would call it, because that's how it's usually translated in our English Bibles. Then there are those special days, the Moadim, that are not Levitical. You've got Purim out of Esther chapter 9. You've got John chapter 10, where the feast of Hanukkah, the special day of Hanukkah, the feast of dedication, that eight-day feast when we commemorate the days of the Maccabees. And Jesus was in Jerusalem celebrating that, remembering that, because it was a great victory. And it was during that period that God helped prepare for the coming of the Son of God. There is the new moon celebration. Most people don't even know about that, that are believers, that are followers of Jesus, that are non-Jewish. There was a reason for that new moon celebration. It was a new beginning. The sabbatical year, once every seventh year. There was a purpose for that. There's the year of Jubilee, the year of redemption, every 50th year. All of these things are incredibly important and mentioned over and over again in the New Testament. And so many are so lacking in knowing about these appointed times and what they mean that they're mentioned in the New Testament. We don't even know it. We'll talk about those in the days ahead as we study the story of the Crimson River together. For On the Way, this is Tony Crisp.

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Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org. Then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's Questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.