Greatest. Pep-talk. Evah.

After wandering in the desert for 40 years, the book of Deuteronomy records an amazing speech given by Moses to the people as they are finally poised to enter the promised land.

Moses makes a Vince Lombardi speech seem in comparison like a speech class final presentation gone horribly wrong. This is especially remarkable because when God first called Moses at the burning bush, he thought at the most he was an ineloquent babbler (Exodus 4:10).

While Deuteronomy spans 34 chapters, the essence and heart of his speech is summed up in Deut 7:6-12. In fact, this is a great summary of practically God's entire dealing with Israel in the whole OT:

6 For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

7 The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. 10 But

those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction;
he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him.

11 Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today.

12 If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the LORD your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your ancestors.

The pep-talk was absolutely needed, because Israel had just come off a 40 year loosing streak wandering the desert. A season marked by rebellion, complaining, fear, faithlessness, smiting from God of various sorts, fumbles, interceptions, blow-outs, shut-outs, missed field goals, dropped passes, and sacks. Israel was "0-for". Deut chp 9 is the pathetic scouting report of Israel's 40 years, explicitly stating that taking possession of the promised land had nothing to do with the righteousness of Israel (Deut 9:4-6). To the contrary, Moses brings out the laundry list of their failures, and vs 7-29 reads like a rap sheet:

--provocation of the Lord (vs 7, 18)
--rebellion (vs 7, 23, 24)
--wrath-arousing (vs 8)
--idolatry (vs 12)
--sin (vs 16, 18, 21)
--evil deeds (18)
--wickedness (vs 27)
--stubbornness (vs 27)

Many times both Moses and God call them a stiff-necked people (vs 6, 13) which is a great quality for a linebacker, but not so much for the chosen people of God.

[An important aside: before we proudly say to ourselves, "Glad I'm not like them" remember that Jesus suffered and died for our sin and rebellion too. Our own necks can be stiffer than a Louisville Slugger.]

Nevertheless, Moses is pumping them up because now it's time to cross the river Jordan, enter the promised land, and conquer 7 nations that are "larger and stronger" than Israel (Deut 7:1). They have "large cities with walls up to the sky" and the people are Anakites (picture Mixed Martial Arts monsters jacked up on 'roids! Deut 9:1-2).

This is the Sedro-Woolley little league Pop Warner C Team taking on the Yankees. At Yankee Field.

Except for one thing, God Almighty is playing for Sedro. Check out Jehovah's Topps baseball card:

Batting average: 1.000
Pitching earned run average: 0.00
Fielding errors: 0
Missed games: 0
Strike outs: 0
Home runs: each swing of the bat
Years played in the majors: all eternity past, present and future.
Steroid allegations: 0

Moses knew that if the Israelites kept the Lord on their team, they would be undefeated. By being faithful to the commands and covenant with God, they would be wildly successful in battle (Deut 7:17-24), blessed with large families, fruitful in their crops and animals, free of disease, showered with material blessings, and soaked in God's love (vs 13-15).

Moses' battle cry to rouse the Israelites against their enemies rings out in Deut 7:21, 24

Do not be terrified by them, for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God... No one will be able to stand up against you. You will destroy them.

The same principle applies to Christians today. Our enemies, both the Prince of this world and our sin nature, are seemingly insurmountable. At times it appears we are greatly overmatched. But in Romans 8:31-39, Paul delivers an epic halftime locker room talk that mirrors the one by Moses. This just rocks:

31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[a]

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[b] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The key thing to remember is that we do not prevail by our own strength, effort, or work. Jesus is the one who gave 110%. Jesus left it all out on the field. By His blood, sweat and tears we earn the victory. At the end of the day, He gets handed the game ball and all the glory. In fact, he's already won. We just get taken along for the ride in the victory parade.

Alright, everybody huddle up, hands in together. On three....ONE, TWO, THREE! DO THIS THING!!!!!!

The Wood Gatherer (Part II)

In part 1 of looking at Numbers 15:32-36 I decided to dig into a very unsettling passage of the OT rather than deny it exists or somehow diminish it's message:

While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation. They put him in custody, because it had not been made clear what should be done to him. And the Lord said to Moses, "The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.". And all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, as the Lord commanded Moses.

[taking deep breath, spitting in hands, picking up shovel, beginning to dig...]

To begin with, I want to gather some facts... Wait, backup. To begin with I want to pray to the same God who thousands of years ago issued this judgement on a man to be killed for gathering wood.

Lord God Almighty, Father in heaven, I'm having a very difficult time looking at this passage and then looking at you. I'm frankly more comfortable right now with your Son who saved an adultress from being stoned to death. I'm more comfortable with the Spirit who softens hearts of stone. But you, Father, issued a death warrant to somebody doing light duty work on the Sabbath. Isn't this the type of thing your Son rebuked the Pharisees for? Father, please give me eyes to see and ears to hear. I love you and want to know you more, but I'm more than a bit uneasy with this snapshot of you in your word. Show me the Way, Guide me into the Truth, give me fullness of Life. In Jesus name. Amen.

Now to begin gathering facts from the passage:

The setting: Sinai desert, not far the Jordan River.

The time: An unspecified Sabbath day, soon after the nation of Israel was turned back from the promised for inciting rebellion. Within a few months or perhaps a few years after being set free from Egypt.

The players: 1) wood-gatherer; 2) God; 3) people who found the wood-gatherer; 4) Moses; 5) Aaron; 6) the assembly or congregation of the Israeilites.

The text doesn't give much info up about the wood-gatherer other than he's a man. We can safely assume a Hebrew. Moving beyond that, we need to play Sherlock Holmes with deduction. He most likely endured slavery in Egypt under the torment of the Pharoah. Was there ever blood on his hands from the slaughtered Passover Lamb? Did he peak his head out of the window to see the destroyer killing the Egyptian firstborn sons?

He might have stuck his hand into the wall of water that towered on either side of him as he crossed the Red Sea on dry ground. He likely sang the song of Moses when they reached safety and saw the destruction of Pharoah's army. Did this man also gather wood to melt the gold to make the golden calf idol when Moses was on the mountain? He probably saw the lightening, heard the deafening thunder of God on the mountain.

Did he mourn the deaths of Nadab and Abihu when they were killed by God in the temple for another seemingly minor infraction (Lev. 10)? Did he grumble about not having food in the desert, then grumble about the mana after a time, then grumble about the quail that God brought? He surely saw the pillar of fire and cloud as God led Israel in the desert. Did he tremble in fear when the scouts delivered a bad report of the promised land? Then pick up stones to kill Joshua and Caleb who delivered the good report of the promised land? Did God personally stay the hand of this man to keep Joshua from being stoned?

He heard the reading of the Law by Moses given by the Lord. He saw numerous miracles and knew God's awesome power firsthand. God's holy standards cannot be argued to be a surprise to the wood gatherer. Especially the command to rest on the Sabbath.

To bring these events into clearer focus, let's look at the passages immediately before and after for context.

In the passages before, God gives instructions for unintentional sins committed by the people (Num 15:22-29) and, more importantly, for intentional, defiant sins (vs 30-31):

“ ‘But anyone who sins defiantly, whether native-born or alien, blasphemes the Lord, and that person must be cut off from his people. Because he has despised the Lord's word and broken his commands, that person must surely be cut off; his guilt remains on him.’ ”

The wood-gatherer passage is followed immediately by another horrible episode where Korah leads a rebellion against Moses and Aaron, he gets torched, along with 250 other rebels, then 14,700 people get killed by a plague because they sided against Moses and Aaron and ultimately against God.

These before and after bookends shine interesting light and the author of Numbers is probably sending a message in the arrangement: the wood collector wasn't just some guy who forgot that it was Saturday, an absent minded bumbler who accidentally strayed. If it was unintentional then there would be atonement (vs 22-26).

But the Lord had such a strong reaction that we can conclude that this man was being defiant, knew exactly what he was doing, he's despising the Lord's word. This might have been a regular pattern or habit of breaking the Sabbath. Or perhaps the first time, but with an "in your face God!" attitude.

The man who sees the mighty power of God displayed countlessly, who knows first hand His righteous and holy law yet still spits in God's eye is indeed treading on thin ice. Was he a husband and father, setting a bad example and leading his family into sin? Was he an elder of his tribe and leading the community to despise the Lord's commands?

Is it too much of a stretch to say that what seems like a small, minor infraction (getting wood) was more likely a serious transgression (participating in a wider rebellion against the Holy Living God)? The context certainly draws this conclusion. And from this we can learn quite a lot about this simple wood gatherer. But the next question is what can we learn about God from His reaction to the wood gatherer?

In Part 3 I'd like to chew on what it means that the sovereign God would kill somebody for violating the Sabbath. What does that reveal about His character, His personality, His name? And how does this mesh with His more popular and "likable" qualities of being loving, forgiving, and gracious?

God's Carny (Numbers Chapter 8)

In Numbers 8, God claims the Levite tribe of Israel to be His own possession, dedicated wholly to Him as helpers in the work of the tabernacle and assistants to Aaron and his sons, the priests. These Levites didn't perform the actual offerings, or sacrifice the bulls, that was the job of the priests. But they did all of the hard work: setting up and taking down the tabernacle, herding animals, crowd control, dumping out the ashes from the incense bowls. We can safely say that a Levite was God's carny.

The analogy isn't stretched that much, they even set up and took down a giant tent in the desert!  If God wanted to have a Tilt O' Whirl or  Zany Zipper, the Levites would have operated the rides.

A carny is usually among the dregs of society, an outcast, somebody with a past more checkered than the Daytona 500, felons definitely encouraged to apply. Genesis 34:25-31 and 49:5-7 are all the resume that the Levites needed for the job position.

But the Levites were not any worse than the other tribes of Israel.  The entire nation of Israel was a bunch of misfits, grumblers, rebels, and whiners (to be blunt).  Randomly point your finger to any verse in Exodus and you're very lucky to not have somebody moaning that the porridge is both too hot and too cold at the same time.  Flip eyes-closed to any passage in the Old Testament and God is probably either about to bring Israel to the woodshed, or Israel is returning from the woodshed, backside smarting.

And before us Gentiles get too smug, sneering down our "holier than thou" noses, it is clear that the Israelites were not worse than the rest of the nations.  All of humanity is in the dregs, bottom of the barrel. We all are cast out from the garden, wanderers in an alien land, orphaned from our Father in Heaven.  Every one of us. Sure, we might not have teeth missing, tats, an original Iron Maiden jeans jacket,  and a mobile home in the Bellis Fair Mall parking lot 2 weeks out of the year.  But which one of us would like the innermost recesses of our minds broadcast 24/7 for the world to hear, or thought bubbles to appear over our heads for the world to see? Not me because sometimes it's uglier than the Bearded Lady.    If not outwardly, then at least in our inner man, all of us are carnies.  It's even appropriate that the apostle Paul urges us to avoid the sins of the flesh.  In the Greek it's the sins of the "sarkikos" the carnal nature.

Romans 7:14 "For I know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin."

Good news is that once we are saved, God justifies us and sanctifies us as we put off the old man, put to death the sins of the flesh,  and put on the new man in the likeness of Jesus.   But it is entirely by God's work and grace in us that we have any hope of renewal.

So for any human being to occupy even a cotton candy stand in the carnival of God's kingdom is a huge score.  Give me a push broom next to the eternal Fun House or Hall O' Mirrors and I'm good.   It's a promotion. Or, as Jesus put it in Matthew 11:11 "I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."  Anybody up for some bumper cars?