Fear The Lord (Num. 15:30-36)

1/6/2009 10:53 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                                        Focus:  Fear the Lord

Bible Reading & Meditation                        Reference:  Numbers 15:30-36

            Message of the verses:  “30 ¶  ‘But the person who does anything defiantly, whether he is native or an alien, that one is blaspheming the LORD; and that person shall be cut off from among his people.  31  ‘Because he has despised the word of the LORD and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt will be on him.’"  32  Now while the sons of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering wood on the sabbath day.  33  Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation; 34  and they put him in custody because it had not been declared what should be done to him.  35  Then the LORD said to Moses, "The man shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp."  36  So all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.”

            This section is talking about presumptuous sins and this means to disobey God’s law deliberately and arrogantly, knowing full well the danger involved.  The Hebrew actually means “to sin with a high hand,” like a person who is shaking their hand at God telling Him to do something about his sin.

            Moses give an example of a person gathering sticks to keep his fire going on the Sabbath which was against the Law of God that all of the people knew because they had been taught.  The man is stoned by the entire congregation because he was deliberately doing something against the Law of God.  This was not done in ignorance as the last section was talking about.

            Dr. Wiersbe points out that it is a very dangerous thing for a believer to say that he will do something wrong, to sin, and then ask God to forgive his sin.  Sin is forgiven, however there are consequences for sin just as in the consequences of David’s sin with Bathsheba.  (2 Samuel 12:13-14)

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I would hope that I have never shaken my fist at God in order to say to Him that I was deliberately sinning, and yet I suppose that it is true that I sin every day, especially in my mind and I am so thankful for the grace of God and what it cost God to be gracious to me in the death of His only Son to pay for every time that I sin against Him.  Praise the Lord for His Wonderful Son!!

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1. To know God better.
2. To learn contentment.
3. To finish and deliver my letter to my neighbors and to pray that the Lord will give us six people to come to our end times study.
4. To trust the Lord to guide my path and my fingers and thoughts as I rewrite the letter to our neighbors.

Memory verses for the week:                                              Romans 6:16-19

16.      Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?

17.      But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,

18.      and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

19.      I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.  For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so not present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

1/6/2009 11:27 AM