Those who were to camp before the tabernacle on the east, before the tent of meeting toward the sunrise, were Moses and Aaron and his sons, guarding the sanctuary itself, to protect the people of Israel. And any outsider who came near was to be put to death.
In the Book of Numbers, as God lays out the way that the Israelite camp was to be set up, he placed guards around the sanctuary. Now, generally, when you place guards around the sanctuary, you would assume that the purpose would be to protect the sanctuary. Perhaps these guards were placed to prevent intruders from stealing some of the gold or silver that was used in the construction of the tabernacle? Perhaps the guards were posted simply to keep curious tourists from getting too close to the precious equipment?
But a look at the verse above tells us that the guard around the sanctuary was for a different reason than you might have thought. God placed guards around the sanctuary in order to protect the people. “Protect the people from what,” you ask. God placed guards to protect the people from, get this, God.
It might sound ridiculous to you to think that people would need God to post guards to protect them from God, but it is not. if you think that people, in their natural state need no protection from God, you do not have a grasp of the holiness of God and the consequences of his holiness.
God is holy. Part of what that means is that God is absolutely, without exception, perfectly pure, right, clean, faultless. Add to this fact that God is just, and you end up with a holiness that is deadly. If we, in our sinful state, were to trespass into the concentrated presence of God, his perfect holiness would consume us in an instant and we would die on the spot. Why? We would be consumed because God’s perfection cannot be tainted by our sinfulness. Since none of us are holy as God is holy, none of us could survive exposure to his glory.
The fact of the deadliness of God’s holiness is why he posted guards around the tabernacle to protect the people. Those guards kept foolish men and women from traipsing into the presence of God and losing their lives. Like a sign that warns people to keep away from high voltage wires, the guards warned the people that, in the tabernacle was the holy. The guards warned the people that they must not, under any circumstances, foolishly walk into the holiness of God, for to do so would mean immediate and certain death.
The concept of guarding the people against the holiness of God does much to open for us an understanding of the glorious kindness of Christ. Jesus Christ, the Holy God himself, came to earth to make a way for us to enter into God’s presence. He came to receive the punishment for our sin. HE also came to purify us, to make us holy, so that we might be able to stand in the presence of the divine without being consumed. Ponder the glory of this statement: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21). In Christ, God makes sinners clean, so clean that we might stand before him without being destroyed.
It is certain to me that Christians today have lost much of our grasp of the danger and deadliness of divine holiness. We have believed the false teaching of the world that depicts God as willing to tolerate anything, any sin. But we have forgotten that the only way that God can accept us into his presence is through the shed blood and imputed righteousness of his Son. Were we to attempt to enter his presence in any other way, we would rightly be destroyed, burned up like dross by the utter purity of God. It would be right for us to think this issue through, and to give Jesus Christ thanks for doing for us what we could never have done on our own. Jesus, God in flesh, came to, like the guard around the tabernacle, protect us from the deadliness of God’s holiness. What a wonderful and amazing Savior!
Schedules Devoted to God
Nehemiah 10:31
And if the peoples of the land bring in goods or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day. And we will forego the crops of the seventh year and the exaction of every debt.
God commanded in the Ten Commandments that his people would honor the Sabbath day. Later in the law, he gave laws about Sabbath years for the land and years of release of debts and slaves. Behind all this was a test of faith. God wanted the people to trust him enough to know that he would provide for them if they chose to obey him and to not work one day a week, to not plant crops one year out of seven, and to release slaves and debts according to his schedule.
The fact that the people are saying that they will follow this law tells you that they in fact had not been following it before. God’s people did not trust him enough to hold off of work, to give up crops, or to release their slaves. They said that they trusted God, but their trust had not yet gotten into the real areas of their lives.
Can you see how you might need to follow this command? We are not under the same sort of Sabbath system as were the people of Israel, but you know what, God still wants our lives to be marked by the same sorts of things. How committed are you to giving one full day of your week to not working, not fulfilling worldly pursuits, but instead to resting and to worshipping your God? Does your schedule reflect a commitment to worship?
Test yourself with one simple issue. Do you make weekly worship a priority? If you were out-of-town, on vacation or business, would you make it a priority to find a place to gather with like-minded believers to worship your Lord? It might actually cause you to have to take an extra 20 minutes to look at the Internet to find a church near where you are staying and to see if that church’s doctrine is biblical. It might actually cause you to have to give up a couple of hours to worship when you could be in the hotel swimming pool.
Let me ask you, what shows God as more glorious? Does it show God as more glorious when you sleep in, or when you come and sing his praise? Does it show God as more glorious when you arrange your schedule to be in worship, or when you say that you are too busy this week? Christians, it is time for many to repent.
Families Devoted to God (Nehemiah 10:30)
We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons.
In Nehemiah 10, we see a set of commitments on the part of the people of God. They had not been following the laws of God, but now they are committing themselves to obey the commands of the Lord. In the first clear declaration of repentance, the people of God declare that they will obey God by not intermarrying with the people of the land any longer. In Deuteronomy 7:3-4, God said, “You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.”
You can’t get much more simple than this command. God told the people never to allow their children to be married to the pagan people of the land. If this happened, God warned that the pagans would lead the believers astray, and this would bring the judgment of God down on the people. This was not a command about color of skin, but rather about hearts devoted to or twisted against the Lord. Thus, you would think this to be an easy command to get people to obey. But, the people did not obey this command, and they suffered for it. So, here in Nehemiah 10, they agree that they will start doing what God has said.
We have a parallel command in the New Testament that applies to all Christians. God said in 2 Corinthians 6:14, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” Thus, God strictly and clearly forbids Christians from marrying lost people. There is no exception listed, no excuse allowed. Christians are not to intermarry with the lost.
Now, I’m guessing that you are not deeply troubled by that command. Either you are a Christian who is already married, and thus you can’t change anything, or you are a Christian who is not married but is not really thinking about marrying a non-believer anyway. So, let’s take a step back at the larger principle at stake here.
God forbade the intermarriage of his people with pagans because he did not want his families to be led astray into idolatry and worldliness and pagan religion. So, even if your marriage is not the question today, what about your family life? Are you doing what you need to do in your family life to see to it that your household is a house of faith?
Dads and moms, grandmas and grandpas, are you directing the affairs of your homes in such a way that the children in the home are taught the ways of the Lord? Are you preventing your sons and daughters, perhaps even your grandchildren, from being corrupted by the influences of evil forms of music, books, TV, web sites, and video games? Are you protecting your children and grandchildren from the false beliefs of a world that does not know God, that declares it does not believe in God, yet which shows that it hates God? Are you making it plain that, in your home, there is no fellowship between light and darkness, between God and evil?
Christians, if we are going to repent of our sin just like Nehemiah’s people repented of theirs, we are going to have to make a move to show that our homes are places where God is honored. This may require you to make actual changes in what you do, how you schedule your lives, how you are entertained, what you allow, etc. Do what is necessary to have a household devoted to God.
A Ransom for Many (Matthew 20:28)
Matthew 20:28
“…even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Why did Jesus die? What did he accomplish with his death? These questions are absolutely critical for the Christian’s understanding of his or her faith. If you miss the answers to these questions, you will miss something crucial in your understanding of the cross.
Why did Jesus die? He told us in this verse that he died to give his life as a “ransom for many.” A ransom is a payment made in order to rescue someone or to spare them a punishment for something. IF Jesus died as a ransom, he died in order to have his death serve as a payment that would rescue others from someone and something.
From whom was Jesus ransoming many? While some theologians have posited that the devil was the one to whom Jesus paid the ransom, such a view cannot be sustained biblically. The devil has misled, deceived, and murdered, but he has never been the one into whose debt sinners fell. No, sinners are in the debt or under the wrath of God for their sin (Eph 2:3). It is God’s standards we have violated and God’s holy justice which must be satisfied (cf. Isa 53; Rom 3:20-26). What Jesus accomplished in his death was to lift from us the curse that we should have born because of our violation of the law of God (Gal 3:13; 2 Cor 5:21).
If the ransom was paid to God, the death of Christ was in order to rescue the children of God from the justice of God which we richly deserved. Did Jesus accomplish his mission? Was the ransom properly paid to the Lord? Without question, Jesus accomplished his mission. This truth is made clear by Christ’s cry of “It is finished” along with the ultimate divine stamp of approval, Christ’s resurrection. The price was fully paid and fully accepted by the Lord. The ransom was properly paid, and redemption was properly accomplished. Because of this, no further debt must be paid for the children of God to be forgiven. It was accomplished once and for all time when Jesus ransomed many (1 Peter3:18). Jesus did not fail in any way.
Are you a believer in Jesus Christ? IF so, you should grasp the facts of his life as your ransom. Jesus died to pay the proper price to rescue you from the judgment that you had earned. You had earned for yourself hell because of the way that you have sinned against God. Jesus, the infinitely perfect Son of God, took your infinite punishment upon himself to purchase your pardon. He paid it all, every bit. Thus, if you have entrusted your soul to Jesus, you can know that your sin was not forgotten by God or simply ignored. No, your sin was fully paid for, fully atoned for, fully punished in the suffering of the Son of God. You should cry, in the words of the hymn, “Hallelujah! What a Savior!”
If you are not a believer in Christ, and if you die without ever entrusting your soul to Jesus, here is what you must know from Scripture and from theology. Jesus did not ransom you. You will pay the full penalty for your sin. You will suffer the infinite wrath of an infinitely holy God for violating his perfect standards. You will never cry foul. You will not accuse God of wronging you. You will see him in his terrible holiness, and you will understand that you have merited his wrath. On that day, you will wish that you had asked Jesus for mercy, but then it will be too late. You will know that, in your lifetime, God commanded you as he commands all people to repent and believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins. You will know that you willingly refused this command, and that you are thus destined for an eternity apart from him because of your free rebellion.
If you are reading this post, it is not too late to run to Jesus for mercy. God made it plain that all who receive Jesus, who believe in his name, will be made the children of God (John 1:12-13). If you will run to Jesus, you will be one of those who have already been ransomed by his death on the cross. Thus, my call to you is that of the word of God, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).
True Evangelism Calls for Repentance (Acts 26:19-20)
Acts 26:19-20
19 “Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, 20 but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.
Right now in many circles, there is a great emphasis on evangelism. The SBC has recently released a report from its Great Commission Task Force which called the largest protestant denomination in the US to focus on the Great Commission—on evangelism and disciple-making. This focus is good, so long as the genuine gospel is at the heart of the evangelism.
If our evangelism is to match the evangelism of the New Testament, then our evangelism must have the same gospel. We know from Scripture that salvation is a gift of God, by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. That part of the gospel is generally pretty widely accepted. What is often missing, however, is an understanding that genuine salvation always—and I mean always—leads to a change in the life of the saved person.
Take a look at the verses above, which include Paul’s testimony of how he presented the gospel immediately after his conversion. Paul called people to repent and turn to God. There was repentance necessarily included in the process of having saving faith.
Not only was repentance present at the beginning of the faith that saved the people with whom Paul shared, Paul also called the people to perform deeds, works, right actions in keeping with their repentance. Paul was by no means calling the people to try to save themselves by their actions. However, Paul was by all means communicating with the people that a person who has no repentance in his or her life is not a saved person. True salvation always includes repentance.
Let’s put this in simple terms. If a person is saved, they must have already repented. They must have believed something about their sin that made them turn from it and turn to Jesus Christ for mercy. Also, for a person to be saved, their lives will be marked by a continuing repentance. Saved people live differently, not in order to gain or keep their salvation, but simply because their hearts and desires have been changed by the glorious, saving power of God.
Do you know someone who claims to be saved? Does that person’s life look different than before their claimed salvation experience? Does that person’s life look different than the lives of the lost around them?
What we want to do, as we talk to people about the gospel, is to call them to repent, turning from sin and turning to Christ. We also want to call those who claim Christ to perform deeds in keeping with repentance. We want them to live and think in such a way as to demonstrate to the world around them that something has changed and that they have a new Master, a new King, a new Lord. If that change is not there, something is very much wrong. And if that call is not in the gospel that one presents, something is wrong with the evangelism.
Panting for Worship (Psalm 42:1-4)
Psalm 42:1-4
1 As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival.
Have you ever had something prevent you from being able to worship God? Of course we know that people can worship God anytime and in any place. Because God is always present everywhere, we can perform acts of submission and homage to him whether we are driving in a car, shopping at Wal-Mart, or making breakfast. But those of us who are honest also know that such acts of private worship are different from gathering together with the people of God to corporately worship our Lord.
So, have you ever had something prevent you from being able to worship God in that corporate sense? Maybe it was a sickness. Maybe something came up and your job kept you from worship. Maybe it was your own laziness. Maybe it was travel. Have you ever had something keep you from being able to go and worship God together with the people of God?
Of course you have had this happen. All of us have been prevented from participating in worship services for one reason or another. So, perhaps a better question needs to be asked: How did failing to worship your God at that time make you feel?
Psalm 42 is one of those psalms that many Christians know, probably from the worship chorus of the 1980s. That opening line, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God,’ paints for us a picture of a person thirsting to be in the presence of his Lord. As thirst drives a wild animal, so the psalmist’s thirst for God drives him to desire to worship. Yet, something is wrong. Verse 3 shows us that something is preventing him from being able to worship God. Hardships have come upon this Old Testament saint, and he is prevented from going to the temple of God to offer proper sacrifices. And so the psalmist is left to fondly remember the joyful times when he led the procession of saints to the place of worship.
What God intends to stir in our hearts with this psalm is a longing to join with the people of God in gathering to offer him the praise and glory that he is so richly due. Here, of course, comes the rub. How many of us are totally willing to neglect or even entirely forsake the privilege of going to a place where the people of God have gathered to glorify their Lord? (I’m not aiming this at those who are truly prevented by health from being able to attend worship.) O I know life is busy. I understand kids get sick. I recognize that picnics and camping trips are loads of fun. But it seems that the biblical picture of a heart after God is the picture of a man panting after the opportunity to worship God as a deer pants for a flowing stream. Nothing, no family outing, no golf scramble, no soccer practice, no sleeping in will be able to quench that thirst. The only thing that will truly satisfy the child of God is when he or she stands in the presence of the Lord and experiences the genuine, soul-satisfying joy of the glory of God along with other saints of God.
Perhaps it would be good for us to examine our worship attendance, and the excuses that we are willing to allow to prevent us from attending worship. Are they many and various? Do we more easily dismiss worship than we do ballgames, career requirements, or family vacations? Speaking of vacations, do we seek the opportunity to worship when we are out of town, or just assume that being out of town is an excuse not to worship with others? If we are so lax in our worship attendance, what does that say about our hearts for God?
Christians, let us take this seriously. Where repentance is required, let us repent. Where life rearrangement is required, let us rearrange. Where attitude changes on our part are needed, let us change our attitudes. Whether the service is peppy or whether it is drier than we like, let us be certain that we do not neglect the call to worship the Lord our God with his people. As Psalm 42 shows us, this should be a big deal.
An Unbelievable Giving Request (Exodus 36:2-7)
2 And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the Lord had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work. 3 And they received from Moses all the contribution that the people of Israel had brought for doing the work on the sanctuary. They still kept bringing him freewill offerings every morning, 4 so that all the craftsmen who were doing every sort of task on the sanctuary came, each from the task that he was doing, 5 and said to Moses, “The people bring much more than enough for doing the work that the Lord has commanded us to do.” 6 So Moses gave command, and word was proclaimed throughout the camp, “Let no man or woman do anything more for the contribution for the sanctuary.” So the people were restrained from bringing, 7 for the material they had was sufficient to do all the work, and more.
Some of my best friends in the world are in a church that is currently working through a building project. The sanctuary in which they are meeting is too small to accommodate the people who would come to worship. Their parking lot is too small to hold the cars of the people who would come to worship. The leadership of the church simply knows that the size and location of their current building is a hindrance to the ministry that they are doing.
Thus, the church I’m speaking of is in the process of trying to get a new building started. They have a glorious location, much better than their present spot, with lots of land and room for building and parking and much more. They have a design all done. The people of the church have agreed that the new building is the direction that they should go. It sounds like everything is going wonderfully, except for one thing—money. The building that this church plans to build to expand their ability to reach people in their community will not be built until the people can give enough to get the project rolling.
Why bring this up today? I can assure you it is not because I want to build anything where I currently am. No, but it does bring to mind an interesting thing that is happening in churches all over the world. Because of difficult economic conditions and differing patterns of commitment, churches all over the globe are finding themselves in financial need. People just are not giving like they used to. People are frightened for their futures, and they are less open-handed. Even the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention has found itself unable to send as many missionaries as are willing and qualified to go simply because of a lack of funding.
Contrast this modern state to the time of the building of the tabernacle in Exodus. When it was time for the people to all chip in for the building of a portable temple of God to be carried with them through the desert, there was no begging required in the building campaign. No, the leadership put out the call to the people, and the people gave. They gave, and gave, and gave. In fact, the people gave so much toward the work of the Lord that we have what may be the strangest building campaign call we have ever heard. Moses and the leaders sent a message out to the people, saying, “OK, we have way more stuff than we can ever use. Please stop giving.”
Now, my heart in this post is not to make you feel guilty about your giving to your local church or mission agency (though if that happens, I won’t feel too bad either). My purpose is to ask, “What is the difference between the people of Israel and our people today as it regards giving?” Those people had the wealth to give, that is true. But they also were wandering through a desert with no visible means of provision. They had to rely on God from day to day in order to be fed. They may have been given some gold by God, but they were not so wealthy as to not have to worry about starving to death if God were to remove his hand of provision.
We have also been given provisions by God. God is taking care of us. It may seem like we are only living from day to day, but we are certainly still being taken care of by God. Here then is the question: Why do our hearts not move us to give as did the hearts of the people in the desert? Think carefully about the answers you might want to give.
· You might say, “They gave more freely because they saw the provision of God every day.” Are you, then, going to say that you do not see God’s provision daily?
· You might say, “They had a clear cause to give to in the tabernacle.” Are you then going to argue that you do not have a clear cause to give to in the giving of your tithes, your general offering, your special mission offerings, and the general maintenance of the church? Is obedience to the call of God and giving to the glory of God not enough of a cause for you?
· You might say, “We are having hard times and we just can’t afford to give at present.” Are you then going to argue that the God who fed the Israelites in the desert and who promised you that he knows and will meet your needs (cf. matt 6:33) cannot take care of you today?
· You might say that God moved the people’s hearts to give. Are you then going to say that God’s call for you to give freely, generously, regularly, and proportionately to the cause of Christ is not enough to move your heart?
We could go on and on here, and I would in fact start bordering on unfair, guilt inducing practices. I don’t’ want to do that. I do want us to see, however, that our giving is a reflection of our hearts. God has given his people enough to accomplish all the ministries he calls us to do—I totally believe that. The problem is not that there is not enough money to do what needs to be done, but that we are not trusting enough in our God to give as he has called us to give.
Lord, I see how you moved the hearts of your people to give with such joy and freedom. I pray that you will move my heart in just the same way. Help me to stop wasting my funds. Help me to stop trusting only in myself. Help me to give freely, cheerfully, faithfully, joyfully, sacrificially, proportionately, and for your glory. Where I am tempted to refuse to give freely, root out that sinful heart and replace it with one that is totally given to you.
Praise Befits the Upright (Psalm 33:1)
Psalm 33:1
Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous!
Praise befits the upright.
How do you feel about praise? Ok, I know that sounds like an odd question, but think about your own life. Do you actually enjoy praising God?
There are many aspects of the worship service in the church. Giving of offerings is a very right and God-honoring thing. Reading Scripture in a formal sense is commanded in the Bible. Listening to and responding to the preaching of the word is absolutely essential, central, to the worship of God. But, as is commonly understood, singing and speaking the praise of God is also an integral part of worship—it’s how we praise.
So, let’s return to the question: Do you like and actively take part in praise? Even if your voice is not quite tuned for public consumption, do you sing in such a way as to communicate to your Lord that he is worthy of your best attempt at music? When you hear right things said or sung about God, do you respond in a way that communicates your uplifting of the name of the Lord? Are you able to exclaim the glory of God? Can you do these things, not as a wrote exercise of discipline, but actually with joy?
For some who read this, you will have no difficulty at all with the concept of praise. You are just plain praisey people. You sing with a smile. Perhaps you have no problem shouting “Amen!” or “Praise God!” at appropriate times. I’m not worried that much about you in this post.
The fact is, not everybody is wired that way. Not everybody thinks of singing as a joyful thing. Not everybody finds it easy to declare the goodness and glory of God. It is to you such people (and that can be me sometimes too) that I want to apply the words of the above verse. “Praise is befitting the upright.” It fits for upright people, people who are walking in God’s ways, to praise him. It is simply natural and right. Maybe it is not easy given your particular bent, but it needs to become more of who you are. You need to become a better praiser. You need to become a more eager singer. You need to become a more willing shouter (perish the thought in many of our circles).
Lord, if praise befits the upright, I pray that you will make me upright and help me to offer fitting praise to you. There are times that I love the music, and times my mind is elsewhere. Help me to better praise in song. I’m quite emotionally conservative, so the idea of expressive, declarative praise can be tough for me. Please make me a better speaker and even shouter of your glory. Help me to praise you as your glory deserves.
Dining with the Divine (Exodus 24:9-11)
9 Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, 10 and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. 11 And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.
In the same scene where the people of God agreed to be his people, to join in covenant relationship with him, the leaders of the people were given an unimaginable privilege. After Moses gave the 10 commandments, and after God explained further the terms of the covenant with the Israelites, Two major events took place—two events that bear a striking resemblance to a New Testament reality.
At the beginning of Exodus 24, Moses purified the people and the book of the covenant with blood. Then, after that ceremony, the leadership of Israel ascended the mountain of God. There they beheld the glory of God, and by God’s grace they did not die. Instead of being punished for looking upon the holy with their unholy eyes, God allowed them to eat a meal in his presence. Such meals were common in the ratification of covenant relationships (cf. Gen 26:26-31; 31:44-46)
Can you imagine participating in a meal, eaten in the presence of the Lord, in which you affirm together your good intensions to be in covenant relationship together? If you are a Christian, such a meal ought not be so difficult to imagine. Every time you share in communion, you are doing that very thing.
Matthew 26:26-29
26 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” 27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
When Jesus and his disciples shared in the original Lord’s Supper, his disciples were in the presence of God the Son. At that meal, they ate and drank in consecration of the New Covenant that would be sealed by the blood of the Lord Jesus.
1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (ESV)
23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
As often as we now participate in the Lord’s Supper, we participate in the very covenant meal that Jesus shared with his disciples. We, in the presence of God, reaffirm our desire to be connected to God in covenant love that was made available through the shed blood of his Son. We look back at what Jesus did and look forward to the final consummation of the kingdom of God.
Too often, communion Sundays are not special enough to us. We get so caught up in the busyness of Sunday morning activities, and we tack the ceremony of communion onto the end of a service as empty ritual. But we need not think of this activity as empty. Christ himself has invited his followers to eat and drink in his presence as they remember and reaffirm their covenant relationship with him. This is an opportunity for genuine fellowship with our Lord, and need not be just one more thing we do.
How might this thought change how you view communion? Will you be able to see your time in the pew as dining with the Divine? Will it not make you treasure Lord’s Supper Sunday’s? Will it not make you want to take advantage of this beautiful event more than once a quarter or once every couple of months? Christians, let us learn to see the magnificent opportunity that we have been given in the communion celebration.
Taking God’s Name in Vain (Exodus 20:7)
Exodus 20:7
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
From my childhood, I have always known that there are some words or phrases that you just do not say. I have vivid memories of my mother enforcing a rule in our home about a particular swear word that my brothers were simply not allowed to utter. It involved a squared off meter stick and a good solid whack on a boney part of the body. (For you who are concerned here, my brothers were not being abused as they were well big enough and old enough that this correction was a sting, not a beating.)
Oddly, the particular phrase that could not be uttered in my parents’ home was not the one that tends to most get the hackles of Christians up. It was not a misuse of the word “God” that had my mom up in arms, but rather a dropping of a particular verbal bomb that mom simply would not tolerate from the guys.
But for many Christians I know, nothing is much more offensive than a swear word that involves using the word “God.” These believers understand this form of swearing as a violation of the third commandment, a dangerous thing to do indeed.
While I would agree that swearing with “God” in the phraseology is a sure cheapening of the understanding of who God is and what he is about, I would not say that cussing is the first way in which we should understand the prohibition given us in Exodus 20:7. While that may indeed be a way to take God’s name in vain, it is not the deepest or most primary way to do so.
Remember that this passage occurs at the point when the Hebrews were leaving Egypt and on their way to the promised land. God, in giving this command to the people. Told them not to play games with him or his name. It would not be acceptable for an Israelite to say that they were a follower of God while in truth not believing in him whatsoever. God made it very plain to the Hebrews that to wear his name meant something, and he would not be happy with a man who claimed to know him but who really didn’t. So, you see, this is far different than a simple swear word.
To do something in vain is to do it in a way that is empty, meaningless, or useless. Let me illustrate in a way that my Old Testament prof once illustrated for me. I have a friend, Lonnie, who has for years been a Chicago Cubs fan (poor, misguided soul). However, one day, as we went together to a ballgame, he wore an Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals jersey. What Lonnie did was to take the name of the Cardinals in vain. He wore the shirt, making a proclamation, but in a way that had no truth to it, no meaning to it.
When it came to going to the ballgame with Lonnie, it was funny to see him wearing the birds on the bat of the Cardinals, but putting on a name in an empty or meaningless—vain—way is not at all a laughing matter when the name of God is at stake. How do we put on or “take” the name of God? We claim to be followers of God. WE claim to be God’s children. In modern day, we claim to be Christian. That is how we put on and wear the name of God.
Here, then, is how many people today take the name of the Lord their God in vain. Today, there are people who live around us. Perhaps they are family members or neighbors, perhaps old friends or schoolmates. When we talk with them, they tell us that they are Christians, or at least they tell us they are Christians if we ask them. But, if they do not truly have a relationship with Jesus, if their lives do not match their testimony, they are taking the name of God in vain, in an empty, meaningless, useless way.
Without trying to come off as judgmental, I will share another couple of stories that I fairly vividly recall. While in New Orleans, I met a man who told me that he was a believer. He told me that he loved Jesus, and prayed all the time. However, this man was not the essence of sobriety. A few moments later, this man admitted that he was often drunk, occasionally smoked marijuana, and slept around on his wife. What had he done for the name of God that he had first “worn” as he told us that he was a Christian. This poor, drunken man I met in the French Quarter had taken the name of the Lord in vain.
But it’s not just men like this who have taken God’s name in vain. I remember being at a restaurant with a group of seminary students. The meal was a little slow in coming, and one among our group was a total jerk to the waitress. This, of course, was after she had seen us pray for our meal and talk theology. Without question, at that moment, my fellow Bible scholar was wearing the name of God in a very hollow way.
What about the religious charlatans on many TV programs. These guys are a great example of what it means to take God’s name in vain. They use the name of Jesus to make money for themselves and to increase their own fame. They use Christianity as a tool.
I can think back over my own life, especially at times when I was feeling sorry for myself over this or that issue, and I behaved in ways that truly did not honor God in any way. Often, to my chagrin, these instances would happen in front of friends or family members who know me to be the token Christian of the group. So, there I was, wearing the name of God, but acting like an idiot. Yep, that’s in vain too.
My goal here is not to cause a major debate on what is or is not taking God’s name in vain, but rather, it is to challenge all who would call themselves Christians to carry God’s name around with them in a way that is authentic. If you are going to claim Christ, live in such a way that proves your claims true. IF you’re not going to live as a believer, don’t pretend to be a believer. God is not pleased when his name is thrown around in a way that has no meaning, and we do not want to be guilty of that sin.
