31 posts tagged “mobile”

Of course, all the instructions given are full of symbolism and again I suggest some time with a good study Bible to help see how it all lines up. There are a couple things that jump out at me, though. First, you can dress up Aaron or any other man in beautiful garments of exquisite craftsmanship and put him through the paces of a complex system of animal sacrifice for atonement, but at the end of the day he's just a man like us. He must constantly make offerings to atone for his own sins and must be cleansed daily himself before he can approach the altar. Oh, and by the way, let's put bells on him so we can tell if he's still moving around in there or if he's been struck down while mediating for us by God for his iniquity. Maybe we should tie a rope around him so we can pull him out in case of his untimely demise. It is obvious that this entire system points by shadow to the real High Priest and Sacrifice, Jesus. In Him we can have confidence! The other thing I noticed is that God points out that He has given knowledge and ability to those whom he has called to carry out the work of building the tabernacle and making the garments. We should always remember that if God has called us to a task, it's not because we have a special ability to serve Him in that area. It's because He wants us to be willing to allow Him to equip us to do something we know we can't do on our own. That's where He gets His glory. Do you have a story about how God used you to do something you know you weren't capable of doing? Share it. That's part of your testimony. Love ya' Kent

I won't go into all the symbolism and all the meanings of the very specific instructions for the construction of the tabernacle, but consider this. Anytime God is ultra-specific about the way He wants something done, it behooves us to investigate why. I encourage you to get in a good study bible that really gets into the signifigance of each portion of the tabernacle itself as well as the specific materials used to build it. It's well worth your time. The one thing I will say is that I am so thankful for the fact that when Jesus gave up His life on that cross that the veil seperating the Holy of Holies was ripped apart. Praise the Lord for the fact that we no longer have to approach God through another man just like us. Because of Jesus, we can now approach the throne room for ourselves. May we never do what the priests who rejected Christ did and replace that veil that God did away with. Let us,rather, with all humility seek to draw near to the Almighty as he has promised we can. Praise God!!!!!!!!!! Love ya' Kent

Not a lot to comment on here. God graciously lays out specific scenarios of transgressions and how the Israelites as a society were to deal with them. It all makes perfect sense and is impossible to misunderstand. How we have taken these same concepts and turned them into a penal code that is overrun by confusion, loopholes, and just plain silliness is beyond me. That's what happens when you take scripture and add our "common sense" to it. "Common" is right!!! I love how God reassures them, also, that they are still headed for the home promised to them. He even gives them great detail as to how He will deal with the people they will encounter on the way so that their faith might be strengthened when they start seeing these things happen........or at least that was the idea, anyway! We'll see shortly how strong their "faith by miracles" is holding up. Love ya' Kent

There is a perfect example of "sharing your testimony" in 18:8. It's called "witnessing" for a reason. In court, a witness is simply asked to recount what they saw. It's that simple. If we are finding it awkward to share our testimony with others when it comes up naturally in our interaction with someone, chances are it's because we are trying to craft a clever story or interject a lot of explanation about theology. Keep it simple. Tell what happened, give God the glory, answer any questions that come up, and leave it at that. Now, as we get into the giving of the law, make note of the fact that God makes the point that He has already rescued the people from bondage before He gives the law. Adhering to the commandments is important for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that doing so gives glory to God, but doing so does not lead to salvation. The law, if we look at it honestly, points out what rules against God we have broken already and why we are in need of salvation in the first place. Salvation, however, is a gift. It's given by grace inspite of our actions, not as payment due us because of our actions. Only One has ever kept all these laws, and to think otherwise is to not be honest with yourself. If you are reading this as an unbeliever, please know that noone who breaks even one of these rules is allowed into the kingdom of Heaven unless they believe on the name of Jesus- that He took the punishment that was due us, and that we can only be forgiven if we confess these transgressions to Him, repent of them, and believe by faith that He alone is able to redeem us. If we do these things, God promises that He will forget that those sins ever took place, and will look at us as though we were faultless. It's the only way, guys. Anybody who tells you there is another way to escape Hell is lying to you. Be assured. Be faithful. Be thankful. Consider your way. Love ya' Kent

14:4 gives us a sumple explanation of why God does what He does. It's always to bring glory to Him so that those who are willing to be honest can't resist believing in Him and His power. He does this for the believer to strengthen our faith, and for the non-believer to convict them of their error that they might believe and be saved. In 14:31, we see the people believing in God because of His saving miracles and wonders. There is nothing inherantly wrong with this, but as we see shortly, this isn't as strong a bond as believing by faith. It does provide a great worship song, though. Fired up by what they had encountered, they sang a beautiful song that told the story and rightly gave all praise and glory to God. It's much better than some of the stuff that's passing for worship these days. Alas, though, even when full of praise and walking exactly in God's will, trouble can befall the believer as we see in 15:23. Sadly, but not surprisingly, the "faith by miracles" doesn't last through the trial and the folks are quick to profess doom and gloom. This sounds way too much like me sometimes. Even though I have encountered the power of Almighty God over and over, sometimes things of this world still scare me......amazing! How 'bout you? Do you, like me, ever miss opportunities to glorify God before a watching world by fretting over adverse circumstances instead of standing strong by faith in a God who has always provided for my every need?
Love ya' Kent

After a couple of crazy weeks where I just didn't have the ability to keep this thing running, things are finally getting back to normal (knock on wood). I'm excited about getting back into our conversations about God's Word and how it is impacting our lives. Let's get started!

These chapters contain all the symbolism we should ever need to understand the gospel. We are living in bondage in a foreign land. Someone wicked has control over our lives. God makes Himself known to us. God tells us how we are to be saved. God saves us and stays with us to lead us to the promised land. Case closed-end of story. Now, as for the specific symbolism of the Passover lamb to Jesus, it's very very specific. The lamb had to be without blemish, even brought into the house for a time so it could be tested on this, then it had to be killed, then it's blood was placed on the doorposts to be a sign that the home was to be overlooked when the wrath of God came. Also, in 12:46 is the order to make sure none of its bones are broken, just like Jesus. Here's the gospel. See how it lines up. Judgement is coming at some point, and we have no defense against it. We have no means by which we can appease an angry God, nothing to offer besides our faith and obedience. But, faith and obedience is what God wants from us, so He tells us that if we want to be saved we can believe on His Son as Savior and repent of our sin and be redeemed. How? Someone has to pay the price for our sin. Life must be lost . Enter the Lamb. Brought into this world for a time to be checked out and tested, the Lamb was found spotless and perfect-suitable for sacrifice. He was beaten, ridiculed, tortured, and nailed to a cross. Then, for me, He accepted the punishment due me, seperation from the Father, and gave up His life. Once the price was paid, He took His life back up again and returned to the Father, and now if I will accept by faith that His blood will protect me and rely on Him to do so, I am saved.......I am saved.........I AM SAVED!!!!!!!!!! If there's anything about salvation that you don't understand, please contact me or someone you trust to make sure you know that you know that you know that your sins have been covered by the blood of the Lamb. The stakes are too high to let unease, embarrassment, or pride keep you from being sure. Being a steady participant in church services is great, but that doesn,t save you. Just saying that you believe in Jesus won't save you. James points out that even the demons believe in Jesus. Think about it, please. Love ya' Kent

Plague after plague. Chance after chance. Pride after pride. Plague after plague. Pharoah is unbelievable. His pride simply will not allow him to say "uncle" for to do so would mean admitting defeat of not only himself but also of the myriad of gods that his people served. He reminds me of that poor guy who was the official spokesman for Iraq who had to go on camera and report that Baghdad was in no danger and that the Americans were being held totally at bay as you could see buildings being blown up behind him. Dude, open your eyes. Accept God's sovereignty and join up with the winners! I realize that God raised him up as leader just because he would be this arrogant, as stated in 9:16, but man, what an idiot. And through it all God just calmly repeats His command and the resulting discipline for disobeying. Moses has learned to stay out of the process and just do what God tells him to do, never being swayed to seek to fight God's battle for Him when confronted with the evil way Pharoah treated him and blasphemed God. This is a tough one for me sometimes, but as it says in James "The wrath of man doesn't produce the righteousness of God." God will judge in his own time, and if He hasn't yet then He has a reason. Here, the reason is to establish firmly in the hearts of any who would see that He is Lord of the earth, the waters, the animals, human flesh, and even of life itself. They are all His to raise up, strike down, or even take away. But there is protection and redemption for those who follow and trust Him, as He graciously shows by beginning to protect the Hebrews from the plagues. I hope that before the lost I can be seen as one protected by God from many of the things that toss men to and fro. I hope they ask me how I stay untouched. And I hope I always point to God so that they might come to know Him too. Lord, may we all finish well. Love ya' Kent

5:1 is a direct slander of Pharoah who was considered divine himself, so this would be an attack on his perceived sovereignty. To me, though, it's obvious that he has no divinity because all his actions and schemes are purely human logic. His attempt to hold down the Hebrews, for example, is text book divide and conquer. Keep them scattered about and keep them too busy to organize. Also, he does what every other ruler has ever done when faced with believers. Everything is okay so long as they are docile and just go with the flow, but as soon as they start uniting and talking about serving God Almighty persecution is the reaction. Not that I have ever experienced anything resembling true persecution, but I have learned that every time I make a firm commitment to following God's leading, like writing a daily blog about Scripture, some sort of attack comes to try and derail me. It worked for a bit this time, but I'm back now. Another lesson I have learned, though, is not to count every slight derailment as a failure. Like Moses, I cannot fathom God's plan because it doesn't always adhere to my logic. We see this in7:4 as what Moses saw as abject failure with Pharoah was actually just part of God's plan all along. It had it's own cause and effect scenario which God intended for His glory. 2nd chorus same as the first-just do what you're told and leave the planning and the outcome to God. Now we get to something skeptics try to use against us. How did the sorcerers copy the miracles? Well, I did some reading and the snake thing is something that still exists in Egyptian magic today. They have some way of putting a snake into a trance whereby it becomes totally rigid until something wakes it up. Something like, oh I don't know, slamming it against the ground maybe. then there's the blood thing. There were footnotes in one of my Bibles that explained this away as a natural occurence involving red clay and that God just made it a miracle by giving Aaron and Moses the proper timing to make their gesture so it would seem that they did it. In my humble opinion, though God can structure His miracles however He wants, this borders on blasphemy. For one thing, if this was something that the Egyptians had seen over and over again, how was it supposed to get their attention? Anyway, as for the sorcerers, the text clearly states that God caused every bit of water, even that in containers to turn to blood so I'm not sure where the magicians were supposed to have gotten the clear water that they turned to blood. I hate to cast aspersions, but I think maybe they just jumped on the bandwagon and said "Me too!!!"...............yeah, I don't think so. Love ya' Kent

Here comes some Jesus symbolism at ya'. Moses goes to Israel to save them but is rejected so he goes to the Gentiles. From them he seeks a bride and establishes his family, and then eventually returns to Israel. This time they accept him and he becomes the instrument of their deliverance. These O.T. histories almost always point to Jesus in one way or another. One important truth of these chapters is the fact that God is always fully aware of what's going on whether you see Him or not. He knew of and rewarded the actions of the midwives who were faithful submissive servants to Pharoah right up until he ordered them to do evil. When faced with a clear choice of whether or not to be true to my God, I must choose Him over any earthly authority. What really sticks out to me about Moses, though, is how beat down he is. According to Stephen in Acts 7, Moses was a highly trained scholar with great leadership qualities. Also, I think it's clear that Moses felt like he knew when he killed that Egyptian that he had been called to deliver his people and was just trying to get started. The problem was that this was a Moses mission not a God initiative. It was doomed to fail because he went out on his own. As we see the way God explains to Moses what is going to take place, He is clearly summing up what He intends to do through Moses - not what He would like Moses to try and accomplish. Moses, though, has trouble latching onto this because he's still gunshy from what happened when he stepped out and thought he was serving God the last time. It cost him every worldly thing he had and he wound up in the middle of nowhere tending someone else's flocks for 40 years. Graciously, God just keeps pushing him to do what he's told and by the end of the passage Moses is seeing the fulfillment of God's prophecy. My pride is always a problem in these kinds of situations. My desire to please God, and my desire to be able to do it on my own are in constant conflict with one another. When I'm honest, though. I can't think of a single instance where anything amazing ever happened because of anything that I brought to the table. ***warning***cliche alert*** " God wants our availability, not our ability. " It's all about giving Him glory and that's most commonly done by accomplishing something that we are clearly not able to do, 'cause that means He did it. Love ya' Kent