SCRIPTURE: Deuteronomy 23
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you. [Deuteronomy 23:14] God hates sin, immorality, moral impurity and perversity. To reinforce God’s perfection and our sin, God through Moses commanded strict distinctions between clean and unclean. The intention was to drill the fear of God into those who did not understand or respect God. Years of religious confusion in Egypt made the Israelites ignorant of God.
That the Lord – the only God over all other ‘gods’ and ‘powers’ – lived and walked among them was radical. As radical then as it is today when we say we live in a close, personal relationship with God through Jesus. This is amazing, but we should never forget how amazing. God is still awesome, holy; He still hates immorality and perversity and greed and cruelty. His intent behind all these specific rules was not to raise up a people committed to religious and ritualistic purity, but a people committed to moral purity.
Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But give what is inside the dish to the poor, and everything will be clean for you. [Luke 11:39-41] Notice how Jesus ties justice and compassion to moral cleanness. Deuteronomy does the same. It lists examples of things that make people ‘unclean’: those who have been emasculated, those born of forbidden marriages, those belonging to the Ammonites or Moabites (interestingly, there is grace for the Edomites and Egyptians!). Also, those tainted by bodily emissions of all sorts – this was a hygiene issue. Also those engaged in prostitution, and even the money made that way. But then it goes on to talk about showing mercy to an abused slave, not charging interest of your own people, keeping vows to do good, and allowing people to snack from your grapes. These are specific situations that demonstrate compassion, mercy, kindness.
God is not just looking for ritualistic or religious purity. He wants our hearts transformed into loving, kind, moral and generous servants. If we allow God to clean our hearts in this way, then everyone else will be clean to us too. We live in personal fellowship with the God of the Universe; He desires that we be good and gracious just like Him – this is what makes us clean!
PRAYER:
Lord, help me not to be religious, help me to be good and gracious, to be like You. Change my heart, O Lord!
The continual struggle I have with the old testament regulations and stipulations is the sense of unforgiveness over people in their situations. Yes, the sin or the falling away from God’s order was done in the act of sin, but to the 10th generation? Or to never allow a Moabite or Ammorite to enter the congregation … ever! God’s justice is hard.
What holds strong to me though is the realization that God was not satisfied with this either and went to full measures to bring justice to sin by becoming a man himself and carrying the full law of old testament justice on himself. If we cringe at the ugliness and cruelness of the old testament justice system then we gain a glimpse at what God allowed himself to bear for our sins on the cross.
For the eunuch today, for the bastard today, for the alien today, for the prostitute today, they can enjoy entering into the congregation because Jesus meets them there and can bring His righteousness for cleansing and in God’s sight they are seen clean.
I stand amazed at the presence of your love O Lord!
Once again, rules for living in His presence. God’s people are a separate people because the Lord lived among them. Know Him and worship Him in all that you do. In order to live in His presence, requires choices in living. All of our lives need to serve the living God – from how we deal with people, to our use of money, or our crops – so that the Lord may bless whatever your hand does. And whatever words we speak. How we live each day must show the love of Christ in us. We are walking and talking and doing Christ – that is what the Lord wants from me this day and always as I live in His presence.
Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart, in my heart.
In my heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart, in my heart.
Lord, I want to be more loving in my heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be more loving in my heart, in my heart.
In my heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be more loving in my heart, in my heart.
Lord, I want to be more holy in my heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be more holy in my heart, in my heart.
In my heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be more holy in my heart, in my heart.
Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart, in my heart.
In my heart, in my heart,
Lord, I want to be like Jesus in my heart, in my heart.