12/9/2008 8:44 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: Marital defilement
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Numbers 5:11-31
Message of the verses: “11 ¶
Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 12
"Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘If any man’s wife
goes astray and is unfaithful to him, 13
and a man has intercourse with her and it is hidden from the eyes of her
husband and she is undetected, although she has defiled herself, and there is no
witness against her and she has not been caught in the act, 14 if a spirit of jealousy comes over him and he
is jealous of his wife when she has defiled herself, or if a spirit of jealousy
comes over him and he is jealous of his wife when she has not defiled herself,
15 the man shall then bring his wife to
the priest, and shall bring as an offering for her one-tenth of an ephah of
barley meal; he shall not pour oil on it nor put frankincense on it, for it is
a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering of memorial, a reminder of
iniquity. 16 ‘Then the priest shall bring her near and
have her stand before the LORD, 17 and
the priest shall take holy water in an earthenware vessel; and he shall take
some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the
water. 18 ‘The priest shall then have the woman stand
before the LORD and let the hair of the woman’s head go loose, and place the
grain offering of memorial in her hands, which is the grain offering of
jealousy, and in the hand of the priest is to be the water of bitterness that
brings a curse. 19 ‘The priest shall have her take an oath and
shall say to the woman, "If no man has lain with you and if you have not
gone astray into uncleanness, being under the authority of your husband, be
immune to this water of bitterness that brings a curse; 20 if you, however, have gone astray, being
under the authority of your husband, and if you have defiled yourself and a man
other than your husband has had intercourse with you" 21 (then the priest shall have the woman swear
with the oath of the curse, and the priest shall say to the woman), "the
LORD make you a curse and an oath among your people by the LORD’S making your
thigh waste away and your abdomen swell; 22
and this water that brings a curse shall go into your stomach, and make
your abdomen swell and your thigh waste away." And the woman shall say,
"Amen. Amen." 23 ‘The priest shall then write these curses on
a scroll, and he shall wash them off into the water of bitterness. 24
‘Then he shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that brings
a curse, so that the water which brings a curse will go into her and cause
bitterness. 25 ‘The priest shall take the grain offering of
jealousy from the woman’s hand, and he shall wave the grain offering before the
LORD and bring it to the altar; 26 and
the priest shall take a handful of the grain offering as its memorial offering
and offer it up in smoke on the altar, and afterward he shall make the woman
drink the water. 27 ‘When he has made her drink the water, then
it shall come about, if she has defiled herself and has been unfaithful to her
husband, that the water which brings a curse will go into her and cause
bitterness, and her abdomen will swell and her thigh will waste away, and the
woman will become a curse among her people.
28 ‘But if the woman has not
defiled herself and is clean, she will then be free and conceive children. 29
‘This is the law of jealousy: when a wife, being under the authority of
her husband, goes astray and defiles herself, 30 or when a spirit of jealousy comes over a man
and he is jealous of his wife, he shall then make the woman stand before the
LORD, and the priest shall apply all this law to her. 31 ‘Moreover, the man will be free from
guilt, but that woman shall bear her guilt’”
This
section of Scripture is one of the most difficult passages that I have read,
and I have read this on different occasions on my journey through the
Bible. Dr. Wiersbe, in his comments on
this section writes over two pages on this section, as he details all of the
parts of this test, the test of whether a woman has committed adultery or not,
and the test is given to the Lord to decide.
As
I read through this test I understand the procedure of it and one of the things
that I learned, that I did not know before was what the curse of this test
would be. Since I use the NASB the
reading is somewhat different from the KJB that Dr. Wiersbe usually writes his
commentary from, however in the section about the curse he quotes the NIV,
which seems to be very similar to the NASB in the section of the curse. Dr. Wiersbe points out that the curse of
bitterness would be that the woman would have a miscarriage and then would not
be able to have children again after the miscarriage.
I
think that the most important part of this section is that God hates adultery
and therefore He may have given this “jealousy test” to detour adultery in the
camp of Israel, for when the marriage breaks down in a society it is not too
long before the society breaks down, as can be seen in our country at this
present time. It is pointed out in Dr.
Wiersbe’s commentary that there is never one time in the Scriptures that this
jealousy test had ever been preformed on anyone. Why would that be? Well for one thing the test was given in public,
at the very center of the camp, because it was done at the tabernacle and it
certainly would not be a wining situation for a husband to subject his wife,
whom he only suspected that his wife was unfaithful to him to such a
humiliating test in public. Perhaps
after reading about what could happen the people of Israel could understand
that God wanted His people to be holy, something that was stressed throughout
the book of Leviticus, and this would be one way of making that true in their
lives.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I am very happy that I understand this
section of Scripture a bit better than before, for I always though that this
may have been unfair for the woman to go through such a test since the man was
not subjected to something similar, but he was actually going through this test
because it was in such a public place and God knows the heart of him as well as
his wife, for God knows all things. In
the section of John’s Gospel it can be seen that God does certainly forgive
adultery.
What
I have been reminded here is of the seriousness of marriage, serious to God and
should be taken serious to all including me, and the vows that I took at our
marriage are very serious to God and therefore should be to me. I am also reminded that God can see all
things and is in all places and knows all things and I am comforted because of
that, for I would not want to worship a God that did not know all things.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
- Put on my spiritual armor.
- Give myself to the Lord today for worship, service and to be transformed by the renewing of my mind through Bible study, prayer and memorization of Scripture.
- Learn to be content, for contentment is a process.
- Ask the Lord to guide my path.
Memory verses for the week: Romans
6:1-11
- What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
- May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
- Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
- Therefore we have been buried with Him though baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too shall walk in newness of life.
- For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
- knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
- for he who has died is freed from sin.
- Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
- knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.
- For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
- Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12/9/2008 9:46 AM
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