Using Young's Literal Translation Bible Readings 365 for serious Bible students

We must remember, as we go forward with Yahweh, that we are to love Him, and obey His commands. We are to remember what He has won for us. Though we cannot see with our physical eyes our deliverance from Egypt, nor our escape from slavery which we were not aware we were trapped in, the spiritual oppression we lived under which is invisible to our mind's physical eye, we must know and remember that this is indeed what God has done for us and to rejoice in Him for our liberation.

The thief doth not come, except that he may steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life and have [it] abundantly. John 10:10Following our baptism, there will be threats to the abundant life that God promises us but God will dispossess them of any hold they have on what He wills to give to us, if we follow Him and do not go ahead of Him outside of His authority and command.God does not say that what stands before us is little and easy to overcome. He says: "Hear, Israel, thou art passing over today the Jordan, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself; cities great and fenced in the heavens, a people great and tall, sons of Anakim, whom thou - thou hast known". (Deut 9:1,2)But we are to know that Yahweh 'thy God is He who is passing over before thee - a fire consuming He doth destroy them."And we, we do not go forward with our eyes closed, but aware and prepared for battle, dressed in the full armour of God and knowing that God is the one who dispossesses and not us. We are to remain in God and with God, we are to engage in the spiritual battle ahead.What is the city? It is the gathering of people in spiritual agreement where they oppose God. What is the greatness and mightiness of the nations? It is their power over others, their control and dominance, their control over the minds and lives of the people, who consume the lie of greatness , - the powers and principalities of this dark world. What are the people who are great and tall, whom thou, thou has known (and thou hast heard Who doth station himself before the sons of Anak?) Are they not those who make a name for themselves, who make themselves god in their own eyes?But God laughs for He is the judge of all the earth and their time is short.We are to proclaim God's truth and stand for God's justice and do what is right in His eyes and not to be afraid nor daunted nor put off nor silenced by the opposition we may find ahead. The apostle Paul prays that he might speak as he ought."Through prayer and supplication praying at all time in the SPirit and in regard to this same, watching in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints - and in behalf of me, that to me may be given a word in the opening of my mouth, in freedom, to make known the secret of the good news, for which I am an ambassador in a chain, that in it I may speak freely - as it behoveth me to speak. " Ephesians 6:18-20When we have done all, we are to stand and see the deliverance of the Lord."I never said it would be easy. I said I would be with you always." This was the word spoken to me when I first turned back to God to walk with Him as my light and saviour, complaining in my soul that giving my life to Him had not taken away all the difficulties and deterrents I had been facing and was still facing. God spoke to me: "I never said it would be easy. I said I would be with you always"

When we have chosen to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength and we follow Jesus through baptism into the land which He brings us into which we are going in to possess, then God will cast out many nations from our presence.This is not a physical taking of land nor dispossessing of nations in the world, but is a spiritual truth. These are the lies, abominations, false worship and evil carried out in our world. There are those in our world who spiritually sacrifice their own children in their pursuit of the gods they have made to be gods in this life: which are not gods but idols and invented things which draw us away from the holiness of God.God will cast them out but we have to smite them: it has to be our determination to root out of ourselves everything that is not of God and to follow Him and Him only.Do not make any covenant nor favour those who follow a different way. Do not marry another of a different belief nor any person who follows a different god for they will draw you away from the God who created the heavens and the earth. Him only shall you serve."For a holy people [art] thou to Jehovah thy God; on thee hath Jehovah thy God fixed, to be to HIm for a peculiar (set apart) people, out of all the peoples who {are] on the face of the ground."This was not because we had any merit of ourselves but "because of God loving you, and because of His keeping the oath which He hath sworn to our fathers,"God brings us out with a strong hand and ransoms us "from a house of servants, from the hand of Pharoah king of Egypt."When we are baptised, a spiritual separation takes place which God alone carries out, with a strong hand and with a declaration to the powers of darkness, that the ransom of the life of Jesus, who is killed for our sake, has been paid so that the Pharoah, who represents Satan, the deceiver, the thief and the murderer, can no longer control us, nor command our lives, nor lord it over us, nor make us slaves with no right to choose for ourselves our path.For before we are baptised, we are controlled by invisible forces of evil, though we are unaware of it, and deceived, considering life to be sweet and under our control and consider ourselves free but we are not.In our baptism, we are cut off from this spiritual power over our lives and rise to new life in Christ.'What must we do?' the people cried out to the apostle Peter at the first Pentecost after Jesus had been crucified, being convicted by the Holy Spirit of sin, of righteousness and of judgment.Repent and be baptised. Turn from your wickedness and live.Do not make light of our sinfulness, thinking that we have not done any wrong in our lives, for our eyes are blinkered, blinded to the truth by the prince of this world, the deceiver, and only a willingness to know that there is One who is greater than you, who is the true judge, to humble ourselves before Him and throw ourselves on His mercy which He readily gives to us, and cry out to Him to deliver us from the control of the Pharoah, who is Satan.There is a better way to live. Choose life. Jesus gives you life in all its fullness. He gives you the promise that He is always with you and will never leave you nor forsake you.Baptiism is not optional. If we are to be freed, we must let Jesus lead us out of darkness and into His glorious light, we must let Him open the waters before us and go through in His death the separation from our former life and enter into resurrected life in Him."And thou has known that Jehovah thy God, He [is] God, the faithful God, keeping the covenant, and the kindness, to those loving Him and to those keeping His commands" Deuteronomy 7:9

When we have turned to following Jesus, we cannot take with us anything of our past life which will lead us away from Him and our obedience to His teaching.We have to be utterly ruthless to cut off every thing that is not of God and not of His teaching, every influence, every input, every teaching however appealing, however attractive and benign they might seem to us. Everything that is not of God and not of His teaching will draw us away from Him and from the fullness of life He wants to give us.The Bible is not a history book. It is a God-breathed, God-inspired, God given book.It is no good bringing our world taught thinking to the Scriptures: we must read with the help and wisdom of the Holy Spirit: "the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and fear of Jehovah"We must understand in the Spirit what God is teaching, otherwise we cannot understand.We must be born of the Spirit. Nicodemus could not understand this.Many of those who heard Jesus say that we must eat His flesh and drink His blood, left off following Him because "this is a hard saying".The disciples who heard Jesus say, "Beware the leaven of the Pharisees," understood this as being because they had not brought bread with them.The disciples asked Jesus to explain the meaning of the parable, the simile, of the sower of the seed.Jesus says: Do you still not understand?We must understand that "we have not the wrestling with blood and flesh, but with the principalities, with the authorities, with the world-rulers of the darkness of this age, with the spiritual things of the evil in the heavenly places" Ephesians 6: 12.Elisha prayed for his servant, "Jehovah, open, I pray thee, his eyes and he doth see""and Jehovah openeth the eyes of the young man and he seeth, and lo, the hill is full of horses and chariots of fire, round about Elisha."We are so unaware of our spiritual environment. We walk around with our eyes closed. But Jesus says, "Stay awake! Be alert!"The apostle Paul exhorts us to "Be on guard!""Be sober, be vigilant, because your opponent the devil, as a roaring lion, doth walk about, seeking whom he may swallow up." 1 Peter 5:8Be sure to put on the whole armour of God. Gird your emotions with the belt of truth. Read the Word, this is the only truth and the truth will set you free from fear, from false thinking, from deception, from lies, for even our imagination can lie to use to keep us trapped.Put on the breastplate of righteousness, by which you know that you are a forgiven child of God, no more in condemnation as the accuser of the brethren, the devil, would have you believe for he is a liar and a thief, a murderer and a false accuser.Put on the shoes of the preparation of the good-news of the peace,"above all, having taken up the the shield of the faith, in which ye shall be able all the fiery darts of the evil one to quench, and the helmet of salvation receive, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the saying of GodHow can you take the sword of the Spirit unless you know the Word?Be watchful. Be on guard. Do not be naive but aware."Because we have not the wrestling with blood and flesh, but with the principalities, with the authorities, with the world-rulers of the darkness of this age, with the spiritual things of the evil in the heavenly places,because of this, take ye up the whole armour of God that ye may be able to resist in the day of evil and all things having done - to stand." Ephesians 6:12-13

Those who do not believe in God, who have not received of His Spirit, who are determined to persevere in the thinking of their own minds, who are not open to hear, who harden their hearts against God and His truth and His Son and all that He has done for us, prevent the truth from setting them free. They are captured in a time warp, in a world of ignorance and foolishness, as Proverbs 12:8 says"According to his wisdom is a man praised: and the perverted of heart becometh despised"And what is foolishness to human beings is God's wisdom. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The understanding that we need is only given by the Holy Spirit and He will dwell in us as a gift from God if we will hold God's truth in our hearts. Those who do not believe cannot believe that what God can do is according to His power and not ours. He is the God who creates, the God who speaks, the God who hears, the God whose arm is not too short, whose power is not limited.It is not possible in such human thinking for God to create the heavens and the earth and everything in them, nor that Mary should conceive in her womb by the power of God for the messenger from God says: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, therefore also the holy begotten thing shall be called Son of God." We in our vanity and pride think that we are God, that we are wiser than He is, because we do not believe Him so we are the supreme being, the god we bow down to, the be all and the end all.But it is not so.God is God and there is no other and no amount of denying and thinking otherwise will make that change. And our place is to love the Lord our God. He is our God: not a foreign and remote God, one that does not love His creation and all humankind within it. But one who loves who created us, knit us in our mother's womb. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. And this God who is good and faithful and just and full of mercy and loving kindness, slow to anger and swift to bless is our God.Hear O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah; and thou hast loved Jehovah thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might Deuteronomy 6: 4,5

Deuteronomy begins: "These are the words which Moses hath spoken unto all Israel".No-one has an excuse for not hearing unless they do not have the opportunity to hear."How then shall they call upon Him in whom they did not believe? and how shall they believe on Him of whom they did not hear? and how shall they hear apart from one preaching?" Romans 10:14"So then faith is by a report and the report through a saying of God" Romans 10:17We are to communicate God's truth by speaking it. But we live in an age when writing is our usual means of communication and we choose to write more than to speak.By this omission to speak, many are kept from hearing the truth and from responding to the truth. It is encumbent upon us then that we should speak and also write. For the spoken word is fleeting but the written word is lasting. But the spoken word enters the heart while the written word confirms and consolidates the truth in our heart.The word written by Moses not only records the words of God which Moses spoke to the people of Israel but is filled out with detail which gives such evidence of accuracy and record keeping and precision and reason to believe it is authentic and true: it is a sound report, fixed and believable and rooted in real time and place.Here the details of the names of places in the wilderness beyond the Jordan establishes God's word as being real, in real geographical space, on the earth, with specific people many of whom are also named. This is the substance of reality."Faith is of things hoped for a confidence, of matters not seen a conviction" Hebrews 11:1

The huge number of Levites who will serve God are provided for by the sons of Israel. Their food is from the offerings to God and in Chapter 35 of Numbers God commands that they are provided with 48 cities, including 6 cities of refuge, and areas of grazing land around them of a specific measurement, two thousand cubits east, south, west and north of each city.Imagine that a nation was so served by those whom God calls His how great the influence of Godly people would be on the whole community of the nation!The provision of cities of refuge is unique among civilisations: that someone who has killed a person unawares, without enmity, hatred or lying in wait, may flee to and must remain there until he faces judgement by the company, as to whether he is a murderer or a manslayer. The one found to have killed without planning in advance, without hatred, without planning in advance, not using a weapon or killing in enmity must remain in the city of refuge until the council judges him and if found not to have murdered, must remain in the city of refuge until the chief priest at that time dies. There is no atonement possible for him. This is a limitation on their freedom for an unknown length of time, a form of imprisonment but also a safe place from the revenge which can be carried out by a manslayer for if he leaves the safety of the city, then they can justly be killed by the redeemer of blood who will not be guilty of their death because the limits of their imprisonment had been set and the manslayer ignored them.The one found to have murdered, as evidenced by using an instrument of metal or wood or stone against another, as also in killing in enmity or hatred, planning their death in advance, will lose his life. No single witness may testify against a person to die.How much more justice would be served if we took God's righteous and just laws as our own legal system. Note how the sanhedrim, the high priests, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the teachers of the law, hated Jesus, planned his death in advance with enmity, could not find two witnesses to agree in testifying against him to die, could not accuse him of murder deserving of death, nor did they meet their own conditions of a just trial, for it was conducted during the night, with no 24 hour interval which a person accused of a crime with a death penalty was entitled to under Jewish law, but was delivered over to the Roman governor before day started, for a death by iron nails through his body nailed to a wooden cross.Pilate rightly said that he found no fault in Jesus.Peter rightly told the people who gathered at Pentecost to hear him speak that they had murdered Jesus. "And ye profane not the land which ye are in for blood profaneth the land; as to the land it is not pardoned for blood which is shed in it except by the blood of him who sheddeth it, and ye defile not the land in which ye are dwelling, in the midst of which I do tabernacle, for I Jehovah do tabernacle in the midst of the sons of Israel." Numbers 35: 33,34No atonement was possible for the murderer or the manslayer. The city of refuge where the Sanhedrim remained in Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70. The blood of those shedding blood paid the price of pardon.

How astonishing it is that the journeys of the sons of Israel are recorded with such precision and extant now in the writings of the Bible - 'and Moses writeth their outgoings, by their journeys, by the command of Jehovah: 42 journeys and 40 years of journeying from the morrow of the first Passover to the border of the Jordan. It may take us many years to come to a knowledge of the truth, the truth that sets us free and we go through baptism through the river Jordan into the land over the Jordan where we must dispossess the inhabitants of the land before us - for there is work to be done to attain to the fulness of Christ which God intends us to live in. If we do not continue to defeat the enemy of our souls, "then it hath been, those whom you let remain of them, are for pricks in your eyes and for thorns in your sides and they have distressed you on the land in which ye are dwelling (Numbers 33:55)For the Scriptures are written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the age have come, the age since Christ, the age of the Holy Spirit, "For as many things as were written before, for our instruction were written before, that through the endurance and the exhortation of the Writings, we might have hope (Romans 15:4) And we do well to pay heed to the Scriptures for "we have more firm the prophetic word, to which we do well giving heed as to a lamp shining in a dark place, till day may dawn and a morning star may arise - in your hearts" 2 Peter 1:19"Every writing is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for setting aright, for instruction that is in righteousness" 2 Tim 3:16

Remembering that the Bible is written by the Holy Spirit by the hand of human beings who are filled with the Spirit, and is to be read with understanding given by the Holy Spirit and in no other way, we must know that the war that we are in, is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers of this dark world. Therefore, in our growing into maturity, into perfection in our Christian life, if we harbour or retain or cling to anything of our past life, anything that has led us into evil in our past, then we are in danger of returning to that life. Therefore in our baptism, we leave behind all spiritual opposition to our life in Christ and are raised into a new life in Christ. Behold! I am a new creation. No more in condemnation. Here in the grace of God I stand.When we are baptised into Christ, we leave what was behind and run the race ahead with our eyes fixed on Jesus, the redeemer and perfecter of our faith. "But I pursue, if also I may hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by the Christ Jesus; brethren, I do not reckon myself to have laid hold; and the one thing - the things behind indeed forgetting, and to the things before stretching forth - to the mark I pursue for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12-14Know this, that baptism is of the utmost importance spiritually. Through baptism we are separated from the power of this world, we die to it, and are raised into freedom and forgiveness in Christ. Jesus commanded in his last command as recorded by Matthew, that disciples should make disciples of all nations, 'baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you".In Hebrew 6: 1-2 one of the foundational teachings of Christ, is the doctrine of baptisms. It is essential we understand and take this to heart. We must be baptised to be freed from our past and to move into our life raised in Christ - this separation is complete, but we can turn back to that past: today's Old Testament passage about the Midianites (Numbers 31 ) demonstrates to us spiritually how determined and complete that separation must be.

Notice that the command from God regarding the rest that the people were to have on the first day of the month was from doing 'servile work'. The Jewish authorities over the years following had defined what kind of work this might mean, so that plucking heads of grain in order to eat and picking up your mat that had been your bed, because you were healed and could now walk, were forbidden, as also was healing on the Sabbath or freeing a person from demonic power, but if an ox had fallen into a pit, then the law allowed you to rescue it and animals that needed water could be led from the stall to water to drink.God defined servile work as trading, making money on the Sabbath or working with the intent to make money by producing goods to sell or working for harvest to sell, and these drew people away from God and from their Sabbath rest in Him, for we cannot serve both God and Mammon. "Hear this, you who are swallowing up the needy, to cause to cease the poor of the land, saying, When doth the new moon pass, And we sell ground corn? And the sabbath and we open out pure corn?" Amos 8: 4,5It is good to have a day of rest each week and we should ensure that we have one day set aside for entering into God's rest where we do His work, which is doing good, and serving him, enjoying being in His presence and delighting with others to do His will.When we fast, Jesus did not say 'if ye fast' but 'when ye fast', we are humbling our souls before God, and we offer sacrifices to God, which are to set aside those other things which take our time and effort and mind and strength, and give these instead to God to worship Him, to do His work in obedience and reverence and joy."For kindness I desired, and not sacrifice, And a knowledge of God above burnt-offerings." Hosea 6:6 Jesus taught the true meaning of the command, "Observe the sabbath day - to sanctify it, as Jehovah thy God hath commanded thee" Deut 5:12 Remember the day of the Sabbath, to consecrate it. Six days thou shalt work and do all thy service: and the seventh day the Sabbath to Jehovah thy God..." Exodus 20: 8-11"Which of you shall an ass or ox fall into a pit and he will not immediately draw it up on the sabbath-day?"Then the Lord answered him and said, 'Hypocrite, doees not each of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall and lead them to water and this one, being a daughter of Abraham, who the Adversary bound, lo, eighteen years, did it not behove to be loosed from this ond on the sabbath-day?'The ten commandments are to keep our hearts right, centred on love, to love the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength, and our neighbour as ourselves. "The sabbath for man was made and not man for the sabbath, so that the son of man is lord also of the sabbath" Mark 2:27,28.These special days are to bring us back into closeness to God, to remember Him, to listen to Him, to be taught by Him, to get back on track with Him for the day, for the week, for the month and for the year ahead, a sweet fragrance to God. But this is not to forget that every day we walk with God in close relationship to Him. "These ye prepare to Jehovah in your appointed seasons, apart from your vows, your free-will offerings, for your burnt-offerings, and for your presents and for your libations and for your peace-offerings." Numbers 29:39

When Moses is faced with a request or a question, his response, as ours should be, is to bring the cause before Jehovah. Jehovah alone is trustworthy to give the answer we need. No human reasoning can give us this. We do well to be humble before the Lord our God and express our need of Him. The daughters of Zelophehad, whose father had no sons, request to have a possession in the midst of the brethren of their father, Moses enquires of God and God replies:"Rightly are the daughters of Zelophehad speaking: thou dost certainly give them a possession of an inheritance in the midst of their father's brethren" and He further establishes rules of inheritance which we see working out much later in Boaz who redeemed the inheritance of Naomi's husband Ebimelech, as soon as a closer inheritor had decided not to redeem it himself. God is our wisdom in practical matters as also in guidance in our lives and choices. Our wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord, to stand in awe, reverence, humility and obedience before Him, desiring to know His truth and His ways. Moses also speaks to Jehovah to ask about a successor to him that the company of Jehovah is not as sheep which have no shepherd. Moses' love for his people, his care as a leader is rock solid. "God of the spirits of all flesh - appoint a man over the company, who goeth out before them and cometh in before them, and who taketh them out and who bringeth them in". To work for God as a leader should not be a matter of inheritance, by accident of birth, but as God chooses. God chooses a leader to be a judge not a King - to judge between right and wrong and to lead only in following God. Hebrews 6:1-2 gives the elementary teachings of Christ, the foundation to build on 'that unto the perfection we may advance.' The list of what these are is surprising:"Reformation from dead works and of faith on God, of the teaching of baptisms, of laying on also of hands, of rising again also of the dead and of judgment age-during."The laying on of hands is unusual as a foundational teaching, but God says it is a beginning teaching of the Christ. Jacob laid his right hand on Ephraim's head though he was the younger son, and his left hand on Manasseh's head, crossing his arms to do this while Joseph sought to correct him. Blessing and prophetic word to the sons of Joseph came through the laying on of hands. A person bringing a burnt offering of the herd is 'to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it hath been accepted for him to make atonement for him" Lev 1:4 "And Aaron hath laid his two hands on the head of the living goat and hath confessed over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in all their sins and hath put them on the head of the goat and hath sent it away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness." Lev. 16:21 Moses layeth his hands upon Joshua son of Nun as directed by God, "A man in whom is the Spirit and thou hast laid thine hand upon him and hast caused him to stand before Eleazar the priest, and before all the company and hast charged him before their eyes, and hast put thine honour upon him so that all the company of the sons of Israel do hearken." God appoints a successor through the laying on of hands. God speaks to Moses about the sons of Israel that they are to take heed to bring "My offering, My bread for the fire offerings, My sweet fragrance" Numbers 28: 2The daily offerings and the monthly offerings on the first day of the month remind us that every day and every new month we are to offer ourselves to God, continually, that we might always remember to be in His presence, to give to God in repentance, in thankfulness, in joy before the Lord. We are a forgiven people. Alleluia.

Balaam as a prophet of God must only say those words which God says to him. "Go with these men; and only the word which I speak unto thee - thou dost speak." Balak, the King of Arad, the Canaanite, thinks that God can be demanded of to do as Balak requires Him to do. All he has to do is give sacrifices as Balaam instructed him to do. He is used to bribing, or demanding what he wants from people. With Baal likewise. But surely he is led astray, as the Sadduccees had been told by Jesus, by his lack of knowledge of the Scriptures and the power of God, as is the case of many rulers on this earth.Balaam speaking in the Spirit declares that the true and living God is not " a ,man - and lieth - And a son of man - and repenteth! Hath he said - And doth not do it? And spoken - and doth He not confirm it?' (Numbers 23:19) God's word is truth.It is a characteristic of unredeemed human beings that we lie. Isaiah when confronted by the glory of God, confesses "I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips". The way of the world is the way of lying. Satan was a liar from the beginning and holds the world in his sway, but Jesus says, "Fear not! For I have overcome the world"We are to be discipled to know God and to have our minds renewed to think in line with God and not in opposition to Him. Can two go together except they agree? Then our speech should be as God intends if we give the throne of our hearts to His Holy Spirit that out of the fullness of the heart the mouth may speak, a fullness which is God not ourselves. Jesus also tells His disciples that when they are delivered up to to sanhedrims and synagogues and to governors and kings, they are not to be anxious beforehand what they "may speak, nor premeditate, but whatever may be given to you in that hour, that speak ye, for it is not ye who are speaking but the Holy Spirit."For the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophesy.Balaam says: "An affirmation of him who is hearing saying of God - And knowing knowledge of the Most High; a vision of the Almighty he seeth, Falling - and eyes uncovered: I see it, but not now; I behold it, but not near; A star hath proceeded from Jacob, And a sceptre hath risen from Israel, And hath smitten corners of Moab And hath destroyed the sons of Sheth." Numbers 24;17Much folly is spoken about God through lack of knowledge of the Scriptures and the power of God. It is said by many that God is in control of all that happens on the earth and those who dwell on the earth live in God's control, that everything that happens within a human life is according to God's will. God is in control, they say.In this philosophy, which is false thinking, God can be blamed for every evil thing that happens. Those who think like this, when a terrible event happens in our lives, must either say: 'It is God's mysterious will - we cannot understand His ways" or condemn God who did not intervene and prevent this happening, for, they say, 'God is in control and intends all things which happen to us.' Not so! God indeed acts within history to bring about His will but with human beings it is not so. While He has had a plan of redemption in place from before the creation of the earth, in Jesus to provide a way of rescue, " A star hath arisen from Jacob, and a sceptre has risen from Israel," in our individual lives we choose according to the choices before us and if we know God, we can be guided in those choices, but if not, then the choices will be wayward as we are wayward. Walk in the light as He is in the light. 1 John 1:7

The families of the sons of Israel are numbered by name. This astonishing record of people, 601,730, is a testament to God of how He knows and holds people in his heart, by name. "I have called you by name, you are mine" and also it is a marvel that such a record should be taken and kept: I know of no other from such a period of history, that has preserved records so precisely taken from such a large body of people. Surely God is awesome.David's song, having been delivered from the danger he was in with Achish King of Gath with whom he had sought refuge from King Saul but who had begun to suspect that David was not with him but against him and is about to act against David is witness to God's reality, that God is the only living, powerful and listening God and only He can deliver us from disaster even that brought on by ourselves and our own choices. He is God and there is no other." I sought Jehovah and He answered me and from all my fears did deliver me" and "This poor one called and Jehovah heard, And from all his distresses saved him" Psalm 34 vs 4 and 6How grateful we should be that God hears and God answers. He is not a deaf God nor a God whose arm is too short. Ascribe ye greatness to Jehovah with me, and we exalt HIs name together Psalm 34 v3. I have changed the word 'chosen' to the 'choice ones' in my reading of Mark 13, 21-37, because a misunderstanding has arisen among teachers of the Bible, false Christs, who have deceived many, that it is not our choice but God's which controls our destiny. This is a false teaching.The word that has been translated 'chosen' needs to be understood as describing a characteristic of the believer, a quality, a principled person who has chosen to follow Jesus - we are able to be chosen because we choose to follow, we choose to believe.To think otherwise is to remove all responsibility for our choices and also to deny our free will which God has freely given, because love cannot be made to happen, nor controlled, nor made mandatory in our lives. God does not control us. God offers us all good, life to the full, but we are free to reject him. Those who say God knows from the beginning, controls our destiny, has made His choice from the foundation of the world, are in error.If a man were to come upon a woman or a woman come upon a man that they do not know and say to them, "I know that you are going to marry me" would a reasonable person accept this as truth? It is a relationship in which love forms the bond that is the foundation of marriage, not a dictatorial announcement. God is a God of relationship and in no human relationship would coercion, a position of no choice whether for good or bad, be considered a blessing. God woos us to Himself with evidence of His goodness, His love, His faithfulness, for He says, "I will never leave you nor forsake you" It is this knowledge which causes us to break into songs of praise and joy. And I will praise you Lord, yes I will praise you Lord for all that You have done - a lightness in my spirit and joy that knows no limit, here in the grace of God I stand.This is the relationship we are invited into. LOVE a poem by George Herbert Love bade me welcome yet my soul drew back, guilty of dust and sin, but quick-eyed love, observing me grow slack from my first entrance in, drew nearer me, sweetly questioning if I lacked anything - 'A guest,' I answered, 'worthy to be here'. Love said, 'You shall be he.' 'I the unkind, the ungrateful? Ah my dear, I cannot look on Thee.' Love took my hand and smiling did reply, 'Who made the eyes but I?' 'Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them, let my shame go where it doth deserve.' ' And know you not' says Love, 'who bore the blame' 'My dear, then I will serve.' ' You must sit down,' says Love, ' and taste my meat.' So I did sit and eat.

God is a God who covenants with HIs people and is faithful to keep His promise. In Numbers 21, a vow is made by Israel with God " 'If Thou dost certainly give this people into my hand then I have devoted their cities.' and Jehovah hearkeneth to the voice of Israel and giveth up the Canaanite (Numbers 21 v 2, 3) The Bible is not a history book or a sociology book or an economics book. Nor is it a book written by various different men as some suppose, but it is a book written by the Holy Spirit of God at the hand of these writers who were in fact prophets, communicating what God had spoken to them. It is not possible to understand the Bible without the Holy Spirit for who has known the mind of God but the Spirit of God. I Cor 2:11 Jesus tells us that the Scriptures are written by the Holy Spirit. "And Jesus answering said, teaching in the temple, 'How say the scribes that the Christ is son of David? for David himself said in the Holy Spirit, Sit thou on My right hand, till I place thine enemies - thy footstool: therefore David himself saith of him Lord and whence is he his son?" (Mark 12: 36) Paul says: -"We do give thanks to God continually, that, having received the word of hearing from us of God, ye accepted, not the word of man, but as it is truly, the word of God, who also doth work in you who believe. 1 Thessalonians 2:13Jesus said to the Sadducees, when they were mockingly asking Him about the resurrection, "Are you not therefore mistaken because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God?" Mark 12:24"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Romans 12:2This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, saith the Lord, giving My laws into their mind, and upon their hearts I will write them, and I will be to them for a God and they shall be to Me for a people. Hebrews 8:10If we understand the destruction of Canaan in the Old Testament in the Spirit, we must see that we cannot make an alliance with the world and also follow God. We cannot leave part of our old life intact and follow Jesus. We must give it all up, discard it utterly, destroy it completely and become a new creation in Jesus. "so that if any one is in Christ - he is a new creature: the old things did pass away, lo, become new have the all things." 2 Cor 5:17

Forgiveness of sin is costly: it costs the life of a living being in our place, which gives all its blood, its life, for us.This is not some strange god which we invent that needs to be appeased and to which a sacrifice has to be made, the life even of a child, a son or daughter, in order to bring rain or good harvest or victory or whatever reason our evil hearts imagine in this invented duty to a false god which does not speak or hear.The evidence of young children sacrificed to the gods of the Aztecs have been found with the evidence of the unspeakable terror that the child went through. We are utterly depraved without God to teach us, lead us, to show us the way of righteousness and to cleave to Him throughout our lives, for sin is at the door, knocking, seeking whom it may devour, seeking who it can lord it over, if we choose to be ruled over as Cain did in rejection of God and against God's warning.Our wrong doing separates us from God for ever. It costs our life with God to one in estrangement from Him.If thy foot cause thee to stumble, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into the life lame, than having the two feet to be cast to the gehenna, to the fire - the unquenchable - where their worm is not dying and the fire is not being quenched. (Mark 9: 45-46)We need to know and remember that our sin is serious in how it severs us from God; that we cannot treat it lightly nor consider it a light matter. We need to face the unholiness in our mind, body and soul, in what we do which is evil and in what we fail to do which would be right to do, and we need to know that the only way to restore our close walk with God is through a saviour, to bring us back to our God and back into relationship with Him where there is peace and fulness of life.Our sin is costly. Another's life given in our place is the cost. May we never forget this or brush it aside or hold it as a slight matter. We need to face the full guilt and grief of the pain we have caused to another and to God and not harden our hearts against him and treat it as nought, of no significance or importance, as Cain did.The Holy Spirit is sent to convict of sin and of righteousness and of judgement. How easy it is to ignore Him and once we reject His conviction of us once, we make a callous and with more rejection our hearts become impregnable, hardened against our God and His voice.Do not harden your hearts as in the day of Meribah. Complaining against God, demanding of God, not trusting God, insulting God, scorning God, reviling God, not wanting to know or be with God, all these and the acts we do separate us from God, but I am convinced that there is nothing in heaven nor earth nor under the earth that is able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus - He continually pours His love towards us, but we are free to turn from it and from Him

It is vitally important that the way in which the Passover is carried out is exactly as God commanded, for in every detail Jesus will fulfil what happens in this event. Between the evening of the 14th day and the evening of the 15th day, "between the evenings" the sons of Israel prepare the passover, "according to all that Jehovah hath commanded Moses, so have the sons of Israel done." This obedience of the people, "according to all that Jehovah had commanded Moses" is so right and so good to read, but how quickly the people turn from obedience to doubt and murmuring and rebellion and opposition to Jehovah and to Moses. But at this time, the people listen to God speaking at the hand of Moses and when a problem arises they bring it to him. What should the person do who is unclean and cannot partake of the passover, but it is a command that they must, for if his offering is not brought near, then he bears his sin still and is cut off from his people - and Moses tells them: "Stand ye and I hear what Jehovah hath commanded concerning you." How wise it would be if a leader who knows the Lord, didn't try to answer from their own knowledge, experience or judgement but takes it before God to hear what God's answer is. Only God can say what is acceptable to Him in our actions. God gives His answer and Moses tells the people. The chain of command is in rightful order. So also with Jesus, who says, I do not speak on my own. What I hear the Father speak, I speak. How often a person under authority, when they do not know how they should deal with a situation, will take it upon themselves to act and not seek the advice or guidance of the one they are under, often leading to a need to rectify, remedy or retract what has been said or done by them.Notice also that there is to be "one statute is to you, even to a sojourner and to a native of the land." There is to be an equality of people when they dwell together with the children of Israel.In the wilderness, God leads His people by the going up of the cloud which is over the tabernacle by day, and in the place where the cloud tabernacles over the tabernacle, there they encamp. "By the command of Jehovah, they encamp and by the command of Jehovah they journey." Every day we should be seeking the Lord, to tell us when to speak and when to keep silent, when to interact with others and when to stand apart and pray, and always in the Spirit, the words that I speak are not my own but those of Him who sent me. The trumpets are to be blown to call God's people to assemble, and together with a shout when they are to journey, and "when ye go into battle in your land against the adversary who is distressing you, then ye have shouted with the trumpets and ye have been remembered before Jehovah your God and ye have been saved from your enemies."When we are distressed by adversity, remember to, as it were, shout to the Lord in prayer with loud declarations of His truth in our heart, that Jehovah our God will hear us and save us from our spiritual enemies, for they are many.Shout to the Lord all the earth, Let us sing power and majesty, praise to the King, mountains bow down and the seas will roar at the sound of your name.

Sin separates us from God. David says in Psalm 32: "Oh the happiness of a man, to whom Jehovah imputeth not iniquity. And in whose spirit there is no deceit.When I have kept silence, become old have my bones, Through my roaring all the day." When we roar against others, the plank in our own eye too great to see our own sin; when we are sharp to look for fault in an other, yet are silent about our own sin, then our bones become old. And the roaring is also in us, convicting us by the Holy Spirit of sin and of judgement and of righteousness, but as we keep silent before God, our bones become old, we dry up inside as in a summer drought when the land dries and cracks. No one is persuaded by roaring. But we do not have to live like this. We have a way to forgiveness.In times past, we could bring a sacrifice which we gave to the priest, recognising and acknowledging our sin openly and with sorrow, seeking God's forgiveness. " Oh the happiness of him whose transgression is forgiven , whose sin is covered."These sacrifices were fulfilled in Jesus, once and for all, for we have a great high priest, Jesus Christ the righteous, who, when we confess our sin, is righteous and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Through Him, we are forgiven by God, we have reconciliation and peace with God. We are in a restored relationship with Him and the roaring within us ceases and we do not roar at the world or at any other or at ourselves any more. We should not roar in telling others and ourselves our wrong - we must pray and persuade and reason and present truth to bring others and ourselves to a knowledge of the truth, so that we are convicted from within and call out, 'What must we do?' Korah, and the company of people who followed him, challenges Moses as the leader of God's people, accusing Moses of setting himself up and giving himself the position of prominence among the people of Israel, but Moses, as Paul and the disciples called by Jesus, and Jesus facing the same accusation, is one called, appointed and set apart by God to be an apostle, one sent by God to do as God commands. The accusers bring censers, the words which go up to God, which should be the sweet fragrance of prayer, but, as Aaron's eldest two sons, bearing this strange fire, which will not be accepted, they and the censers they bring are destroyed. There is terrible judgement, the earth opens up and takes Korah and all he has alive into Sheol, a place of permanent separation from God. The sacrifice we bring to God is a sweet fragrance to God, for our sin separates us from God but our acknowledging and being sorry for our sin, brings us into sweet friendship with Him once again. We can readily misunderstand why the sacrifice we bring should be a sweet fragrance to God, but restored friendship is sweet, to go forward together instead of apart, 'Can two go together except they agree ?' as Amos in the spirit says (Amos 3:3)Confess literally means to agree with someone. In the Greek 'homologeo' meaning literally 'same word". If God points out your sin to you, you can rail against this and keep silent and roar within against it, but when we accept that God is right, that we are in the wrong and can agree with God about that, then we can be sorry, agree with Him, come back to Him and do as He asks instead. "My sin I have caused you to know and mine iniquity I have not covered. I have said, 'I confess concerning my transgressions to Jehovah' and Thou - Thou hast taken away, the iniquity of my sin. Selah."

Numbers 13:1-14:45 When we read the Bible, the Holy Spirit will often highlight, or draw to our particular attention something we are reading. Moses was told to choose as the spies, princes, leaders of the people, "one man for the tribe of his fathers ye do send, every one a prince among them". They were not chosen for their skill in spying, for their age or ability, but as "every one a prince". This was task for those who were raised to leadership, because they were intended to bring a good report which would have authority in its being related to the people. They were to be in a position of honour and power for this task. Choice men, princes were to go.Each one is named. Marvel at the way that records have been kept and written down, at such a time, so long ago. And still with us now. Thus God protects His word and sustains it through the ages. Two contrasting understandings and knowledge of God are shown in the spies who return for spying out the land of Canaan: Caleb who is filled with energy and positivity and excitement in having seen the land and knowing that God has promised this land to His people; the ten other spies, while admiring the fruit and plentifulness of the land, surely it is a land of milk and honey, - the first fruits of the grapes is such a quantity that the cluster they cut down must be carried on a staff by two men, promising a prolific harvest, - but immediately overwhelmed by their thoughts of the people who dwell in the land, numerous and strong and men of stature, ' we are in our own eyes as grasshoppers and so we were in their eyes'Two points about distrusting God come from this episode: if we concentrate on what we see with our eyes and then what our minds tell us about what we see, including imagination for they could not know what the people who dwelt in the land thought of them, then we will be afraid - Peter saw the wind and was afraid, and beginning to sink, cried out to Jesus, save me - and Jesus immediately saved him and responded, ;oh ye of little faith why did you doubt?' What is the antithesis of this distrusting way of living? Caleb: "Let us certainly go up - and we have possessed it, for we are thoroughly able for it" Speak life, speak certainty, speak with commanding invitation to go with God into the future he holds for us" Psalm 31:19-24 David relates of himself: I have said in my haste, "I have been cut off from before Thine eyes." But Thou hast heard the voice of my supplications, in my crying unto Thee. Just as Peter cried out in his haste and Jesus immediately reached out and helped him, so we may also cry out before we remember that God is " keeping the faithful" and God will reach out to prove Himself our saviour and redeemer. In Mark: 10:32 The disciples were amazed that Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, and "following, they were afraid." Jesus continues with his face set like flint to make his way steadfastly towards Jerusalem, where he knows that he will be delivered to the chief priests and to the scribes and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the nations and they shall mock him and scourge him and spit on him and kill him and the third day he shall rise again. Three times he tells his disciples this in the gospel of Mark. He sets his face to go to Jerusalem in full knowledge of what is to come. If we are afraid, how do we face the future? We have to know that God will take us through it, whatever befalls us, and we can strengthen our hearts in that knowledge. We do as the Father commands us, for the joy set before us, that if we do His will, He is with us and we will not be overcome by our circumstances.

There is something about the identical repetitions of the giving by the 12 tribes to God for the Levites in their service of the tabernacle and their offerings for the dedication of the altar that is powerfully important. Repetition is always important in the Scriptures but the repetitions here underline that no tribe is different, that all are equally significant and important to God, that their identical giving doesn't put one ahead and another behind. Money or giving can so readily separate people and give status to the one who has much and a loss of status to the one who has little but Jesus clearly indicates that the measurement is according to our ability to give so that the woman who gave all that she had to live on gave much more than the rich who gave out of their surfeit. It is also remarkable that the Scriptures repeat the exact words 12 times rather than summarising or using an expression like ' the others gave likewise'. The effect of this is that the one that might be named in such a case would have precedence over the others who were not named, whereas by repeating for each tribe individually and identically there can be no differentiation. It is appropriate that the book called Numbers is concerned not with numbers so much as with individuals: even the census is to be about individuals who are all to be counted. Every hair on your head is counted. The seven lights of the candlestick are to light in front of the candlestick: for the light is not to benefit who follows or is behind but to be a light for our feet, for us to see the way ahead. The candlestick represents or symbolises our minds, our intellect, which is fed by the oil of the Holy Spirit, the wisdom from above, and enables us to see the right way to go. The Levites are cleansed and then waved before God "and thou hast brought near the Levites before Jehovah and the sons of Israel have laid their hands on the Levites and Aaron hath waved the Levites - a wave offering before Jehovah, from the sons of Israel, and they have been - for the doing the service of Jehovah" In turn the Levites lay their hands on the head of the bullocks and in the sin offering and the burnt offering to Jehovah are atoned for. The Levites are given to God in place of the first born of the tribes of Israel. God says " For they are certainly given to Me out of the midst of the sons of Israle, instead of him who openeth any womb - the first-born of all - from the sons of Israle I have taken them to Myself."Understand the significance of all this.The holiness of the priests, separated from the midst of the sons of Israel, points to the future time when those Jesus judges worthy at the judgement of believers, the first resurrection, will be given authority and power on earth under Him, "Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open the seals of it, because thou wast slain and didst redeem us to God in thy blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and and didst make us to our God kings and priests and we shall reign upon the earth" Rev 5:10Even in this life, all believers are to live as God's priests, serving Him and the seriousness and responsibility and holiness that is demanded must be known and lived by.

What can we do if we are married and our spouse suspects we are guilty of adultery? They can spy on us, they can watch over us with suspicion, they can stand away from us and hold their love away from us. Whatever is done, the closeness is gone, the intimacy is gone, the trust is gone. God gives a way to clear away such suspicion and restore the marriage. What does this mean spiritually, for all Scripture must be read with the help and the eyes and wisdom of the Holy Spirit. The Bible cannot be read as a secular book, as a book of history, or sociology or science or any other kind of worldly knowledge.All Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for teaching, for conviction, for setting aright, for instruction in righteousness. 2 Tim 3:16Where any relationship we have is marred and we do not know why, we can pray that God will reveal it to us. We may be convicted in our soul, and this is a bitter thing. Then when we experience this bitterness of soul, we can ask God, if we do not know what we have done wrong, to tell us what it is, that we may acknowledge it, face it and confess it before God with sorrow in our heart, that we might be forgiven and restored.Jesus said that if a person lusted in their heart for another person who is not their spouse then they were already guilty of adultery. What is inside us cannot be seen but God sees. Those who choose to follow Jesus will be convicted by the Holy Spirit who lives in us, of sin, of righteousness and of judgement, and will come to a knowledge of the truth. Then we can choose to be cleansed by Jesus who is willing that we should be clean, and we will be clean. Whom the Son has freed shall be free indeed. Then we are no longer outside of the community where God dwells among His people but together with them in a restored relationship.All things will be brought into the light and seen for what they are clearly. John 3:20 Luke 8:17Lord, cleanse us inside for, as you have said, it is not the outside of our bodies which needs washing but the inside, for from our heart comes all evil. Matt 15:19. And from our hearts also comes all good, when God has washed us and we are washed in the Word: for every good thing comes from God and is of God James 1;17 Luke 18:19

The precision of God's instructions for the work of the moving and setting up of the Tabernacle is that of a mighty adminstrator, a perfect Director, giving clarity and decisive commands of great authority to the leaders he has chosen to work under Him: Moses and Aaron and the princes who were heads over their tribes, also as chosen by God. When we follow God's commands, we are secure, we are well ordered, we are clear about our way, about how to proceed, day by day.What a personal approach this is that God has: everyone is in a right place and doing the task they are commanded to do. The ensuing peace and order is great. For us, our job is to listen to God and know that He will guide us throughout our day if we will listen to Him and keep checking in with Him as our day advances. Jesus said: I only do what I see the Father doing. "Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The sayings that I speak to you, from myself I speak not, and the Father who is abiding in me, Himself doth the works" John 14:10.We are to be so in tune and attuned to God that what we speak is what God chooses to speak through us, and to know that the Holy Spirit abiding in us will do the works that He chooses through us.How do we do this? How do we become attuned to the mind of God? Read God's word. "Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" Romans 12:2 Do not give your mind to other input than God's. Ask God if what you are choosing to do is what He wants you to do. If God says "No", then obey it. This is to be a servant of God. Mark's Gospel shows us Jesus as the perfect servant, the odedient servant, obedient unto death, the suffering servant, acquainted with grief, the son of the Father who always does what the Father commands, "Yet not my will but yours be done". Luke 22:42Moses too is the servant of God, a forerunner and signpost to Jesus: the commands go from God through Moses, "And the sons of Israel do according to all that Jehovah hath commanded Moses, so they have done": a perfect chain of command and resulting order. The repetition in the words of Numbers in so many places shows the consistency of these instructions, that no tribe is treated differently, they are all numbered in the same way according to God's command, except for the Levites whom God says are not to be numbered in their midst. "Appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of the testimony, and over all its vessels and over all tha tit hathr, they bear the tabernacle and all its vessels and they serve it and round about the tabernacle they encamp." (Numbers 1:50)Among all God's people there will be those called by God who minister to the people as the servants of God. "I Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, (1 Cor 1:1)Oh that we might learn this obedience to God. To be in His presence to hear his commands, as Moses did. Again and again in Numbers, we hear the words, "God spoke to Moses ..." We need to practise this listening, to fine tune our hearing to the voice of God coming from within us. O for a closer walk with Thee. "O most merciful redeemer, friend and brother, may I know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, walk with thee more nearly, day by day" Prayer of St Richard of Chichester

Numbers are not numbers to God: each one of us is individually named and each one of us is individually known and each is counted and each is precious to God. "I have called you by name, you are mine."How awesome it is, that the people of Israel were counted, by their families, by the house of their fathers, in the number of names, by their polls - that is individually - and there is order in the manner of their counting, that each of the sons of Israel had a prince who would work with Moses and Aaron to count the great number who had been born and grown up in the 40 years of being in the wilderness.How astonishing that this people had kept such records and each was named and organised by families, by the house of their fathers.How huge is the number of people who had been 70 in number when Jacob came to Egypt during the time of the famine when Joseph was second to the Pharoah in authority four hundred years previously, and who now numbered six hundred and three thousand and five hundred and fifty men over 20 years of age, everyone going out to the host, the army, in Israel - and this besides the tribe of Levi who were not to be counted, who were not going out to the army but were appointed over the tabernacle of the testimony, and over all its vessels and over all that it hath they bear the tabernacle and all its vessels and they serve it. And this besides all the women and those under the age of 20, the children.The age of 20 is God's choice of age for men to go out to God's army - this is maturity, and we cannot serve God until we have reached spiritual maturity - and Psalm 68:11 says: "The Lord doth give the saying, The female proclaimers are a numerous host (army)".Understand the Scriptures by the wisdom of the Spirit who dwells in us who believe the Gospel: "We have not the wrestling with blood and flesh but with the principalities, with the authorities, with the world-rulers of the darkness of this age, with the spiritual things of the evil in heavenly places."(Ephesians 6:12) We fight by our word and living according to God's commands.God is a God of order and discipline. These tribes were to camp in an order which God commanded, marked out by their ensigns, 3 tribes to the East, 3 to the South, 3 to the West and 3 to the North.It has been said that if someone were able to look down on the arrangement of the whole camp from a great height, they would see the shape of a cross with the tabernacle in its heart, its centre.The tribe of Judah were to leave first, to lead the way - the name Judah means praise. When we rise up our first thought shall be to praise God. "Be Thou my best thought by day and by night." (from 'Be thou my vision' hymn, translated from an Old Irish hymn, by Mary E. Byrne in 1905)

The Church, meaning all churches, has introduced many "traditions of men" which has in some cases led to excommunication from the church while ignoring the Word of God which contradicts those traditions or gives a different teaching to follow which is God's way."This people with the lips doth honour me, and their heart is far from me. and in vain do they worship Me, teaching teachings, commands of men, for having put away the command of God, ye hold to the tradition of men" In Leviticus, giving to God could mean devoting that gift to God, in which case it would not be redeemed. This is Korban and would not be given to the mother or father to honour them and care for them. In European law, the emphasis on interpretation of the law is on the purpose of the law: it is a purposive system of law. In England and Wales, the law is interpreted as the letter of the law, where each word in a law has significance and meaning that must be met in the application of judgement. In God's law, Jesus shows that it is a matter of the heart, and the judgement is based on whether the act was in love or against love, was in obedience to God's law, His word, or in disobedience to God's law, as in this case of Korban, where 'man's tradition' led to the setting aside of God's law.

God's plan for human beings day by day was that we should have a sabbath of rest every week: "six days shall you work and do all that you have to do and the seventh day you are to rest."Every week was to have a "sabbath of rest" at the end of the week: a day in which no work was done, "in all your dwellings". No servile work was to be done. If we had a weekly schedule like this, wouldn't we be healthier, better rested, less tired, less stressed, more relaxed in mind and body? Our priorities, our lifestyle, our lifestyle choices would have to change. Time with family and neighbours and community might prevail instead. Food and conversation and recreation. Home centred lives shared with others?We might not all have the same day as a Sabbath, as hospitals and carehomes and other places need to provide 7 days a week care, but there should always be one day of REST a week: the same day so that a rhythm of work and rest is set up, that can be relied on. We seem to be such a driven people, that a day of rest is anathema, a waste of time, or impossible for us as the pressure to get things done which we have added to our lives drives us on. It is interesting that it is not 2 days. We have now had to introduce a weekend to give more time to people to do the things they need to or choose to which is not paid work and a three day week has been set up in the past to cope with particular employment difficulties BUT one day holiday, holy day, a set aside day, a separate and different day a week should be the norm for productive work and good health. God declared that there would be festivals, holidays, every year - Young translates these as "appointed seasons": the Sabbath, the Passover, the Feast of First Fruits, the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles. These set aside days were to celebrate God, together as a community, to remember Him and His goodness, to thank him, to give offerings to Him, to be with Him without distraction - quality time we would call this. "I will be your God and you will be My people". How different our understanding of holidays is now.Yet Jesus fulfilled all the festivals, his death as the Passover lamb, a day of Atonement for us, his resurrection as the First Fruits from the dead, the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost which He gained the right for God to give to us by His life and death, and He came and dwelt, tabernacled, among us, announced by heaven's messengers, and will come again also, with the sound of the Trumpet (I Cor 15:52) . He worked tirelessly for us, obedient to the Father's will. He is our Sabbath.The Sabbath was a day in which to do good, as is every day. Working for God is Sabbath rest every day. We enter into His rest. Peace with God is rest. Every day of our life we give to God. Work for God while it is still day. In all we do, remember God. Be with God, our Emmanuel God, who dwells with us and in us. Listen to God, speak to God, read His word, be filled with His Spirit, do His will. "I will be your God and you will be My people"

I wonder how our land would be if we obeyed the command which God gave to give a year of Sabbath rest to it every seventh year when it would be neither sown nor harvested: "a year of rest it is to the land".Surely we wouldn't need to pump in so much artificial feeding for the earth to continue producing for us. And surely if we lived off the produce we already had for two years there would not be so much waste, mountains of butter and wheat? Surely what we saved in costs and work we could use instead to distribute food around the world. How precious is rest and how we ignore it and suffer the consequences. Our land has to be artificially fertilised every year with tons of fertiliser dug out of, raided from other areas of our earth and transported and sold in order to enable the land to cope with year after year of giving to the crops and fruit we grow.It is a miracle at work to see how the earth feeds the plants and trees growing in it. The tiny shoots that first appear feeding on that earth are astonishing, a wonder that they come up without us being able to make that growth happen.There is truth in the children's song: "Oats and beans and barley grow but not you nor I nor anyone knows how oats and beans and barley grow." Oh yes, we can describe scientifically what happens, we can give plants the conditions to grow, but what gives that life is only explicable as being the work of the Creator. How precious is the earth and all that grown in it. The land is seen as a faithful giving servant, enduring the polluting activities of those living on it and being polluted also.It swallows the blood that is shed by people on the earth who murder and wound others. It is polluted by the activities of people on the land, by their idolatry and their sin against God's commands. It opened at God's command to swallow up those who rebelled against Moses, God's servant.The land is precious to God and is to be loved and cherished and treated well. We need to have compassion on the land and look after it well, not demanding that it produce year after year without relief, as a woman producing a baby year after year must be worn down and exhausted by so much giving.We should not pillage the earth, nor rip it up, nor take continually from it, neither from the deep resources nor those at the surface. We need to view the earth as animate not inanimate as full of life and ability having its own right to continue doing what it does so well producing food for us and for all that live on it. It is not ours to abuse and demand from. We must love the land.And God saw all that He had made and it was very good.

Our uncleanness comes from within. When Jesus speaks to the Pharisees in response to them asking why He did not wash before eating as is the tradition of the Pharisees, he says that it is not the outside which needs cleaning but the inside, the evil within us comes from our hearts which need cleansing.There are examples of physical situations which are founded in the culture of the time which have spiritual truths that we need to understand. Even as Jesus spoke in similes so that only those who would seek Him and be enabled by the Holy Spirit to understand the teaching of God, so we also will not understand Scripture unless we have our eyes opened and our ears unstopped by a willingness and desire to know the truth that Jesus teaches.We need to ask Jesus to explain the Word to us that we might see with our eyes and hear with our ears and be healed from the hardness of heart that prevents God from entering in and being born in us by His Spirit today. In our uncleanness we need to be separated from others, because our lives can contaminate others, our uncleansed thinking, our wrong thinking, our wrong speaking, can affect others, to damage them. An angry person can by their constant anger being expressed cause the person they live with or share a work space with to also become angry. Only a person of peace and compassion and kindness can counter such anger. Choose not to sit "with vain men And with dissemblers I enter not. I have hated the assembly of evil doers And with the wicked I sit not." from yesterday's reading of Psalm 26: 4-5. Separate yourself from those who can influence you to wrong doing, and keep away from those who gather to speak or do evil. Get up and move away from those who speak evil of others, who gossip or criticise. Make good choices. "I, in my integrity I walk, redeem me and favour me. My foot hath stood in uprightness, in assemblies I bless Jehovah." Psalm 26:11-12There is only one verse from Proverbs in today's readings:"The wise in heart accepteth commands, And a talkative fool kicketh." Proverbs 10:8Even a person in authority will be under authority - the wise in heart accept commands, but a talkative fool resists commands and talks about it to others in their choice to resist, to kick out instead.

In Mark Chapter 1 we read: "and there doth come to him a leper, calling on him, and kneeling to him and saying to him - 'If thou mayest will, thou art able to cleanse me.' And Jesus having been moved with compassion, having stretched forth the hand, touched him and saith to him, 'I will; be thou cleansed' " v 40-41" And having sternly charged him, immediately he put him forth, and saith to him, 'See thou mayest say nothing to anyone but go away. thyself shew to the priest, and bring near for thy cleansing the things Moses directed, for a testimony to them.' " v44Here in Leviticus chapters 13 and 14, we see what Moses directed, as instructed by God in order to know what to do in this situation in the community of the Israelites. In Scripture, the spiritual meaning given to leprosy, is pride. The Holy Spirit teaches that to have pride is to oppose God, by supplanting Him in our mind with ourself. Lucifer, the angel of light, rose up against God in pride and was cast out of heaven. Isaiah 14:12-17 Ezekiel 28;12-19, John 8;44.The leper in human life endured a terrible experience of being cast out of the community, to the place outside the city which is where the unclean remaining elements from the sacrifices are cast, having to cover their head and shout 'unclean, unclean' not permitted to come near or be touched by anyone. The leper who comes to Jesus kneels before him and asks Jesus to be willing to cleanse him for he knows Jesus is able to. Jesus is filled with compassion and says 'I will'. He chooses to heal us, to restore us, to make us whole because he is good and he is able. Jesus is full of compassion towards us, when we come to him. Spiritually, for all Scripture must be read with the teaching of the Holy Spirit, we can come to Jesus and in humility kneel before him and ask him to cleanse us from our self-centred, selfishness and ambition. We are in reality unclean to be like this, if we could but see it with our spiritual eyes opened.

Our God is a God who separates, who says: Be holy as I am holy. HIs way is that we must always choose between right and wrong. This is freewill.If we are ignorant of God's commands or we do something without knowing it is wrong in God's eyes, when we know it, we have a way to forgiveness by being sorry, asking God's forgiveness and, because of Jesus, the ransom of his life paid for us, we are forgiven and in our continuing life, we show we are sorry by a reformed life. We can know our wrong doing without being told, by our conscience which is God given which gives warning if we stay soft hearted to hear that warning. With repetition of ignoring such awareness of wrong, our hearts become calloused and we do not notice the warning any more. Beware the state of our heart when it ignores the uncomfortable feeling of choosing a wrong action or words and pushes ahead regardless. Stop! and do not go that way.But if we deliberately disobey, knowing what God has said we should or should not do, then we need a saviour to save us from the judgment that God justly will bring to bear on us when we are judged. Adam and Eve did not express their contrition, instead justifying their action as Adam did, the woman whom You (God's bad judgment is implied and therefore His fault and His responsibility) didst place with me, gave me of the fruit of the tree and I did eat, or explaining it, as Eve did, "the serpent hath caused me to forget and I did eat" but neither expressed sorrow. God judges and God justly punishes. Without one to intercede, a saviour, we cannot escape God's righteous judgement.It is given for human beings to die once and then to face judgment. Neither blaming God nor our own weakness nor the circumstances we find ourselves in and which we may blame for our actions, can excuse us - we need a Saviour.If we do not throw ourselves upon the mercy of God through Jesus our saviour, we are lost - we have no other way to be reconciled with God. Nevertheless remember this, that Jesus did not come into the world to condemn it but to save it. He has made a way for every person in the world to be saved but we are tasked with responsibility for choosing to be saved.

Mark 1: 23-45 I am filled with wonder at Jesus. His authority is astonishing as the crowd are also amazed seeing him command the evil spirit, that had just shouted out uncontrollably and loudly that Jesus has come to destroy them, to be silent and to come forth out of the man. But I am even more moved by the leper coming in such abject hopelessness, rejected by society, an 'untouchable', asking Jesus if he is is willing to heal him, and Jesus, filled with compassion, saying 'I will'. He doesn't speak to the disease to command it to go, He touches the man, an experience that man would not have had in his whole adult life.How could anyone not love such a man as this? Surely His goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Leviticus 9.1-Leviticus 10.20 Aaron and his sons have to make atonement for themselves before they can minister to others. What a lesson this is for our church leaders to know that they must come before a holy God in humility and repentance before they can offer themselves in the service of God. 'Take a calf, a perfect one' - for Jesus has given himself as the sacrifice for our forgiveness, for once and for all. After the offerings Aaron has made for himself and for the people, then he can lift up his hand, now holy hands, set apart for thee my saviour, ready to do your will, to bless them and God's honour, his glory, appears unto all the people and fire from God consumes the burnt offering at which the people see and cry aloud and fall on their faces. How awesome is our God, we stand on holy ground, Be still for the presence of the Lord is moving in this place.Psalm 25: 1-7 Our prayer is that God will remember his mercies and his kindnesses, and according to His kindness 'do not remember sins of my youth and my transgressions.'. There is a story of a priest who had been guilty of doing wrong in his youth and he asked a woman in his church who claimed that she could hear God, to pray for him and ask God what the sin was that he had committed. The woman did so, and when she came to the priest and he asked her what God had said to her about his sin, she replied, "He said, "I don't remember". As far as the East is from the West, He has put our sins from us. We need to live in the forgiveness that God gives and not under the conviction of Satan, the accuser.Proverbs 9:13-18. Foolishness is noisy, simple and undiscerning. Those who are going straight on their paths can be diverted, to those who are simple and lack heart, 'stolen waters are sweet and hidden bread is pleasant' and, in listening to such words, the deep places of Sheol that are there are not discerned. Jesus offers bread and water freely and openly. Come to me all you who are thirsty. Eat bread for no cost. If we drink of the water and eat of the bread of Jesus's good words and good life, out of us will come likewise living waters to refresh others.

The colours of the holy garments of Aaron as priest to God, blue and purple and scarlet, remind me of the veins and arteries in the body and the twined linen of skin and the gold of God the creator who is entwined in our making. We are precious to God in all our being and inseparable from his life and love though we are free to reject Him and ignore HIm and even to hate Him because he is a just God and has given us free will, the right to choose freely. Some might say but God is not just because He has not been made known to everyone. God chose the church and the nation of the Israelites to make Him known but we have done very poorly in this mission. Nevertheless, God has made Himself known to all people through creation, the heavens and the earth and everything in them which he made, so no one has an excuse not to respond to Him. The ephod is made with the stones marked with the names of the sons of Israel set on the shoulders of the ephod, so that Aaron carries them as a shepherd carries a lamb on his shoulders and as all things in Scripture point to Jesus, we know that He is carrying us on His shoulders as our great High Priest continually before the face of God interceding for us and as he died on the cross, He carried us on his shoulders as he stretched out his arms for us. Notice that the ephod and the breastplate are joined together, "and they bind the breastplate by its rings unto the rings of the ephod, with a ribbon of blue, to be above the girdle of the ephod and the breastplate is not loosed from off the ephod,". They are inseparable.Note also that the wreathed chains of the breastplate, and the rings are made of pure gold, for it is God himself who carries us in His heart and on His shoulders, all our sins and griefs to bear, and to delight in us as a father delights in his child, twirling in a dance of joy over us. We are precious stones, even as the twelve sons of Israel were represented by individual precious stones each marked with their name, as we who respond to the call, who rise up and follow Him, are also. "I have called you by name. You are mine." Isaiah 43:1If we hold fast to Jesus to the end, in the strength of the Holy Spirit overcoming the evil we are confronted with, we will be given a new name, even as Jacob was, and be as a white stone engraved with a new name that no one knew except him who is receiving it. (Revelation 2:17) and as priests of God, be "Holy to Jehovah" (Exodus 39:30)

When reading the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit brings to our attention words or verses that we might pause and consider them more deeply. It struck me in reading how many times in these two chapters of Exodus the words, "as Jehovah commanded Moses" so it was done, firstly by Bezeleel and those making the garments of beauty and honour for Aaron and his sons and then by the sons of Israel for all the work of the tabernacle "according to all that Jehovah hath commanded Moses, so they have done"This unity of obedience, this complete obedience in accordance with what God had commanded Moses is pleasing to Moses, "Moses seeth all the work, and lo, they have done it as Jehovah hath commanded; so they have done. And Moses doth bless them". The chain of command has been followed from God, to Moses, to Bezeleel and the craftsmen and to the sons of Israel. And Moses saw that it was very good and blessed them. What a delight it is to us when those we are in authority over do as we command! The tabernacle was to be raised up on the first day of the month in the first month - so we also should start every day in the presence of our God who chooses to tabernacle in us and with us. Remember to bring everything into order before Him, our heart, our will, our emotions, our minds, our bodies and our prayers speaking to God from the heart. How beautiful the ark is, gold without and within and the mercy seat upon it all of gold and the two cherubs above it facing each other inwards and wings outstretched over the ark made of beaten gold all of one piece and the golden altar with the spice-perfume But surpassing it all this by far, the honour, the glory of Jehovah which fills the tabernacle when all is completed! And God's guidance is for us at all times. Do not journey until the cloud of God has gone up. In all our journeyings, do not go up ahead of the Lord, for the cloud of His honour is on us by day and fire is in us by night. For God says, I will never leave you not forsake you.Only one person who has ever lived and has chosen to follow God has been alone without God, and he is our saviour Jesus - My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me? - surrounded me have dogs, a company of evil doers have compassed me, piercing my hands and my feetJesus, the wisdom of God, "Jehovah possessed me - the beginning of his way" before all things were made, through whom all things were made: "Then I am near him, a workman, And I am a delight - day by day. Rejoicing before him at all times,"This is the Jesus condemned to be destroyed by human beings, silent before Pilate, handed over to be scourged and crucified,

The Tabernacle represents the human being in all its detail. The ark, made of shittim (acacia) wood, overlaid within and without with gold, represents the human heart, where the law of God will be written in our hearts. This is the most holy place, the holiest of holies, where God meets with us by His Holy Spirit. The mercy-seat is placed on top of the ark, for though our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart (I John 3:20) and His mercy and loving-kindness protects us, who give our lives to Him, from the judgement that leads to death. The cherubs with their wings covering the ark, are the covering spiritual beings who guard over our heart in the presence of God. God desires our heart to be the throne where he is enthroned. The table on which the bread of the presence is to be put before God continually, represents our strength, our will, the direction we go in which must be continually nurtured by the bread which God gives, for man doth not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God. Not my will but thine be done. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak (Matthew 26:41) The candlestick with its six branches represents the human mind, our thinking, our decision making, our reasoning, which Proverbs again and again urges us to nurture with wisdom and understanding, and teaches that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.We can see the six branches of the candlestick, one branch opposite another (Exodus 25:32) and fed by the central conduit of the Holy Spirit, in the prophesy of Isaiah :"Rested on him hath the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and fear of Jehovah" (Isaiah 11:2) "and thou hast made its seven lamps and hath caused its lights to go up and it hath given light over-against its front" for Thy word shall be a light to my path and a lamp to my feet.The golden altar of perfume, which Moses was commanded to put 'before the ark of the testimony with the veil over it', (Exodus 40:3) - that is the curtain to separate the holiest place where the ark rests, from the holy place, - represents our emotions which enable us to carry forth the thoughts of the mind and the strength of the will into action. The perfume which rises up to God is pleasing to Him if it is uniquely made as commanded for this purpose only: our prayers, taught by Jesus the Word of God, rise to God as sweet incense. for the censer is placed on the golden altar which is before the throne. (Revelation 8:3)Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy might. (Deuteronomy 6:5)

The details for making the tabernacle are so clear and precise, instructions that will not be deviated from. This is the perfect design of the human body also, with its amazing structure of bones and veins and arteries and flesh and skin. How can we not wonder at the brilliance of the human body and not worship the creator, our God, who has made heaven and earth and all things in them?Surely I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Thou knit me together in my mother's womb. The miracle of the growth of a baby in all its detail in the womb is astonishing. For such a work as the Tabernacle, God gave wisdom and understanding and knowledge to Bezeleel and Aholiab even as in Isaiah 11:2-3 in the prophesy about Jesus:Rested on him hath the Spirit of Jehovah, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and fear of Jehovah.Note also the willingness of the hearts of the people to give to the work of the God in the provision for all that was needed for the tabernacle. So also should it be with the church of God, that none should be in need. So much is given that those working to make the Tabernacle had to come to Moses and request that he command the people to stop bringing to the work as there was too much! Would that such generosity, such reverence of God, such a longing to give to Him would abound in the church today. Psalm 22 prophesies the suffering of Jesus at the crucifixion and in the synchronising of readings Jesus suffers in the garden at Gethsemene, the garden echoing the garden where Adam and Eve rejected God and disobeyed His clear command, but Jesus, the second Adam, praying that this cup might be taken from Him, says, Yet not my will, but yours be done.How terrible that Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss, a sign of the bond of love and honour, of worship - Serve ye Jehovah with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Chosen One, lest he be angry and ye lose the way, when His anger burneth but a little, O the happiness of all trusting in Him! (Psalm 2:11-12)Judas rejected every gesture of love towards him shown by Jesus, even dipping his hand in the same bowl as Jesus at the last Passover meal, a sign of intimacy and friendship, even knowing that Jesus knew that Judas would betray him but not turning from his decision to do so. For the sake of 30 silverlings? For his anger against Jesus and rejection of Him because Jesus was so different from him and spoke and acted with grace and truth. What happens to the human heart when it will not soften before the love of God? What causes us to close our minds to Him, to reject Him, to seek a life without Him? The fool says in his heart, there is no God. How terrible to go it alone. What can one give for the soul? What good is it if we gain the whole world but lose our soul? Trust in Him with all your heart and forget not all His benefits. He is worthy of your life, your soul, your all, To whom should we go? You have the words of eternal life. (John 6:68)

What a contrast between the woman who anointed Jesus with the very precious ointment, and Judas Iscariot who goes to the chief priests and asks what they will give him to deliver Jesus up to them, and accepts 30 silverlings. She will be remembered "wherever this good news may be proclaimed in the whole world, what this one did shall also be spoken of - for a memorial of her."Of Judas he says"Son of Man doth indeed go, as it hath been written concerning him but woe to that aman through whom the Son of Man is delivered up! good it were for him if that man had not been born."It would seem that the tipping point for Judas is the waste, as he perceives it, of this very expensive ointment, "which could have been sold for much and given to the poor" Matthew does not attribute these words to Judas, but John does in his gospel and adds that Judas didn't say this because he cared about the poor but because he held the common purse and stole from it.Thou cannot serve God and Mammon. Beware the hold that money can have on us and our decisions, indeed our very life.The chief priests and the scribes and the elders to the people gather together at the court of the chief priest called Caiaphas and they consulted together that they might take Jesus by guile and kill him and they said, "Not at the feast, that there may not be a tumult among the people" The time they plan to avoid is the very time in which it will happen for God does not follow man's plans but His own in working out his purposes within our history. Jesus will be the Passover lamb and will die at the time of the evening sacrifice.

God is a God of justice and of mercy. While his righteous anger against the people he had brought out of Egypt who, in the absence of Moses had pressed Aaron to make them gods to go before them, demanded that He consume them and make Moses become a great nation, yet Moses pleads with God to relent from harming His people. He reasons with God as an advocate for the people, that the Egyptians would think that He had brought the people out in order to slay them among the mountains. Moses reminds God of his promise to Abraham, Isaac and Israel, "thy servants", that he would multipy their seed as stars of the heavens and all this land, he would give to their seed. And God repenteth of the evil which he hath spoken of doing to His people.Those who say that God is immutable, that He does not change, are wrong. God is a God of relationship, and He changes His mind when persuaded by righteous argument, to repent from the evil he intended. This is a God of mercy who longs to do good for His people.While Jonah was a man of justice who wanted God to destroy the people of Nineveh because of their great evil, but God is love, and wants people everywhere to repent and to come to a knowledge of the truth, that He is God and there is no other. Moses so loves the people of God that while he knows of their evil, he pleads for them and asks God to take away their sin and if not, blot me out of Thy book which thou hast written. He is a man of mercy.How much we see of Jesus in this servant of God, Moses, who for the sake of the children of Israel, offers his own life in their place. What great love is this! Moses is angry and grinds the golden calf to dust and pours it on the water which he makes the people drink, yet he goes back to God to plead for them that God will not destroy them. Jesus fulfilled this mercy by offering HImself in our place, for God is not willing that any should perish. For God so loved the world that He gave His only son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.Jesus came into the world not to condemn it but to save it. In the New Testament reading, the people who say that we go to heaven when we die do not know the truth from the Scriptures.Jesus speaks of the time when he will separate the goats from the sheep and to those who lived righteously, looking after the hungry and thirsty, the stranger and those without clothes and the infirm and those in prison, he says: "Come ye, the blessed of my Father, inherit the reign which hath been prepared for you from the foundation of the world". All of Chapter 25 speaks of this future time when Christians are judged according to how they have lived during their time on the earth, and rewarded or punished in order that those who are rewarded will rule and reign with Jesus to establish God's rule upon the earth, when God will put the nations under Jesus' feet (psalm 2) and the earth will be brought into the order God planned for it from the foundation of the world, for which time "all creation groans for the revealing of the sons of God (Romans 8:9) Surely the god of this world has blinded the eyes, even of believers, so that this time when Satan is held chained for a thousand years and Jesus establishes his reign upon the earth (Revelation 20) is hidden from our knowledge, teaching and expectation. Pray that God will open our minds and hearts to read the Holy Scriptures with wisdom and understanding, for we now have the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth.

All chapter 29 of Exodus points to Jesus and what he has done for us before God.In order to hallow us, for being priests to God, there had to be a sacrifice of a bull from the herd and two perfect rams. Jesus, in order to hallow us for being priests to God, gave himself, a man in his prime and perfect being, We lay our hands on the head of Jesus as Aaron and his sons did on the head of the bull and it was slaughtered before Jehovah. The blood is put on the horns of the altar and the rest poured out at the foundation of the altar.Surely this is pointing to, foreshadowing, the death of Jesus when his blood was on the cross and fell at the foot of the cross. The innards and liver and kidneys symbolise the emotions, the pain of rejection by man and God as Jesus carried our sins in his own body, and experienced the loneliness and isolation and mockery of the crowd and soldiers and the grief of Mary his mother and John who stayed beside him in his dying. But for the joy set before him he endured the shame of the cross and God saw the obedience of his perfect son and it was as a perfume, a sweet fragrance, acceptable to God, It is easy to think of this sacrifice as being like the sacrifices made by the peoples who did not know God, who sacrificed burnt offerings to Baal and to foreign gods, and who sacrificed their sons in the fire, a thing which God did not command nor did it come into his mind, Jeremiah 19:5. But this command to sacrifice the bull and the two perfect rams in order to hallow the priests was a foreshadowing of the sacrifice to come and the Son who died on the altar of the cross who gave himself to die: the sons of the sacrifices to Baal did not choose to die. It is hideous and horrific and sickening to think of the worship of these foreign Gods being appeased by the sacrifice of human sons. The Aztecs did likewise - it was not a thing done only in the deep in the far distant past. The suffering Jesus experienced in his flesh was as a burnt offering, searing burning physical agony as a burning with fire, and outside of Jerusalem as the bull's flesh and skin were burned with fire at the outside of the camp. For such a Saviour as this, should we not give our life, our soul, our all?

The word "shittim" translated correctly by Young is a type of Acacia tree, the wood of which is known for its durability.The ark in the Holiest of Holies was made of this wood and in it was placed the ten commandments, the law of God. The ark represents our hearts and God says there will be a time when He will write His law in our hearts. In chapter 27, God gives His instructions for the altar, where the burnt sacrifices will be offered to God, also to be made of shittim wood. The altar of our lives where we give ourselves as a living sacrifice to the service of God, sacrifice which is obedience to His will and His laws. The outer court is our bodies which are visible in the world with the symbolic meaning of the hangings, pillars, pegs and sockets, the astonishing physical structure of our bodies, visible to the world and fearfully and wonderfully made.The children of Israel are to be commanded by Moses to bring pure beaten olive oil for the light to cause the lamp to go up continually, in the tent of meeting, at the outside of the veil, It is to be tended by Aaron and his sons, from evening to morning. This oil in the lamp is the light we need to make good decisions in life, to train our intellect to gain wisdom, to see the path we should walk on: for God's word is a light to our path and a lamp to our feet. In the day we see by the light of the sun, but in the night we need the light of God's Spirit to illumine our way. There will be times when we cannot see clearly what to do: we are surrounded in confusion and darkness and difficulty. But God says that we must keep the light burning continually so that even in the darkness we are not lost. Aaron and his sons are to have holy garments made: for honour and for beauty. We are called to bring honour to God and to be beautiful before him. As priests we should carry on our shoulders the names of the families we are part of, to remember them before God and on our hearts to bear the judgement of the sons of Israel before Jehovah continually. Our prayers for our families that God might bless and keep them, turn His face towards them and be gracious to them, to lift up His countenance upon them and grant them His peace. Our prayers for any sin or wrong doing that we may know of or not know of, we carry on our hearts and in prayer to God to be merciful to me a sinner and to those I pray for, in your justice remember mercy, Lord. And as priests we are to wear on our foreheads Holy to Jehovah that even the holy gifts we give to God, which are set apart for him, require us to remember before God that everything in heaven and earth is yours and of your own do we give you. May there be no pride or pomposity or showing off, as the Pharisees did who love to be seen, when we offer our gifts to God. "You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God and they will reign on the earth" (Revelation 5:10)"Ye yourselves, as living stones, are built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to bring up spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5)"...you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of HIm who has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. (I Peter 2:9) "You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." (Exodus 19:6) ,

God wants to live amongst His people. He commanded Moses to make the tabernacle so that He could tabernacle in the midst of the community of the Hebrews, the children of Israel.God's desire, repeated throughout Scripture, is that "they will be my people and I will be their God"The tabernacle may be seen as a symbol of the human being, the outer court is the body, the inner court, the holy place, is the soul, made up of our emotions, our will and our minds, and the holy of holies beyond the curtain is our heart. God says he will write His law in our hearts. In the Holy of Holies, in our heart, when we want to meet with God, he will fill us with his presence as with living water and from our hearts will flow this living water towards others. It is the living water of love which heals and restores and tenderly cares for and protects and does all good things on this earth.

The Holy Spirit convicts of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. Jesus in Matthew 23 confronts the Scribes and Pharisees and tells them directly their wrong doing. In Exodus 23, God tells the people how they must live in society with justice and righteousness and gives many examples of what the people must not do. Psalm 19 declares the honour of God, and that nothing is hid from His heat, His righteousness and his judgment are in His hands for he is the maker of heaven and earth and all that is in them. Proverbs 6 says that the thief who steals to fill his soul when he is hungry is not despised but judgment requires him to repay sevenfold.

When Jesus was asked why "Moses commanded to give a roll of divorce and to put her away", Jesus said, "Moses for your stiffness of heart did suffer you to put away your wives but from the beginning it hath not been so. "For just such a reason, these commands are given by Moses for situations which would not have arisen but for the hardness of our hearts.

Jesus says to the Sadducees, "Ye go astray, not knowing the writings, nor the power of God"This is a judgment which could fall on all of us. We need to know the writings, the Scriptures, with long and faithful study, and meditate on them and seek to understand with the help of the Holy Spirit, and we also need to seek to know the power of God. Then we will not go astray, we will not get things wrong in our understanding of the Scriptures and the power of God. The Sadducees did not believe that there will be the rising again . Jesus proves from the Scriptures that there is, for God is not the God of the dead but of the living. He is not the God of the dead Abraham, or the dead Isaac, or the dead Jacob. That would be a senseless, pointless, macabre, sinister person to be. But God is God of the living. Alleluia! The Sadducees were wrong in their mocking the idea of "the rising again", by giving a foolish question of how it might be for a woman who had married 7 different men. We see mocking as a reaction to the preaching of the gospel by Paul - it is one of the reactions people will have when they hear this gospel: Jesus died for our sins according to the Writings, and that he was buried, and that he hath risen again according to the Writings (1 Cor 15:3-4) But when people believe the gospel, they are saved from God's judgment of them, as mockers and scorners and disbelieving, rejecting, insulting and ignoring people will not avoid God's righteous judgment of them. Beware! Jesus gives the Sadducees a straight answer and one we can take note of, that in "the rising again" they do not marry nor are given in marriage, "but are as messengers of God in heaven." So our job, under God, in the rising again will be to take God's truth to every situation on earth during the reign of Jesus on the earth when he returns (I Thessalonians 4:14). Our time on earth is to prove our worth in doing this now that we may be rewarded in the age to come - well done good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord

"For many are called but few are choice" Few prove worthy. Few are quality. Few are choice people, committed in obedience to the service of Christ.The last four words are generally translated 'but few are chosen.' This is another example of where the object and the subject are reversed: the object is the one making the choice. God gives out the invitation and the invited make their choice, just as He had shown his wonders to the Pharoah but the result is Pharoah hardens his heart. It sounds from the translation that the calling person is also the one doing the choosing. But the words that follow show that the ones who are invited make the decision: theirs is the response to the invitationThe first of those who are called to his marriage feasts "were not willing to come". We can be called but refuse to be chosen, so we cannot be chosen. Our willingness is a necessity for our being chosen. In the second example of those called has an added detail about the feast which make it more attractive, inviting and enticing, "my dinner I prepared, my oxen and fatlings have been killed and all is ready" but they, "having disregarded, went away, the one to his own field and the other to his merchandise" . They disregard, they are not interested, they pay no attention, it has not appeal for them, they do not listen or bother to respond. They are busy getting on with the things they find more interesting - 'the one to his own field' and the other to his merchandise. You cannot serve both God and Mammon. The marriage feast has no appeal for those who want to make money, who are preoccupied with how to do that, or to indulge in to what they own, "his own field". If we are busy about the things of the world, we can have no time or interest in stopping in order to answer the invitation to God's marriage feast. And what of the rest who were called? The Scripture says: " having laid hold of his servants, did insult and slay them." These ones persecute, insult and kill those who interrupt them and make sure they will not waste any more off their time make and will not occur again by killing the servants of God. From God's point of view, these ones are not "choice". They are not worthy of the invitation. But if we read the words as 'few are chosen' it sounds like God is making the choice whereas it is us who make the choice . The sentence could be continued 'few are chosen because they are not willing to leave what they want to do in their lives and come to a marriage feast instead.

What an exultation is this Song of Moses which the children of Israel and Moses sing and speak. They tell of the wonder that God has done in rescuing them from the Pharoah, and of His judgment of Pharoah and all his force whom God covered in the depths of the sea as He commanded the waters to. We should sing this too when we understand the wonder of our salvation:"My strength and song is JAH, And He is become my salvation: this is my God and I glorify Him, God of my father and I exalt Him. Jehovah is a man of battle; Jehovah is His name. "Alleluia!God will cast Satan and his force which followed him in rebellion against God into the lake of fire: the destroyer, the liar, the accuser of the brethren, the murderer from the beginning, the one who rose up against God to seek to seize his throne, Lucifer, who had light and beauty given by God, but evil was found in him, who opposes all God does and works with death and destruction, with war and anger, goes out to deceive the whole world will be destroyed for ever. As Jesus saw Satan cast out of heaven, so we will see God cast him into the lake of fire.Alleluia! As David also sang in Psalm 18, God judges in righteous anger and takes us to Himself: "He sendeth from above - He taketh me, he draweth me out of many waters. He delivereth me from my strong enemy, and from those hating me. For they have been stronger than I. " (vs 15-16)As the hymn pronounces "I am weak but thou art mighty" (Guide me oh thou great redeemer)Give Him the glory great things he hath done!

Many times we hear God say to Moses that He has strengthened Pharoah's heart so that He might do mighty wonders and show that He is God. In English we typically understand things literally. We take each significant word and assign it equal value rather than understanding the whole. Thus English lawyers can be found nit-picking over individual words to prove or disprove a point but in European law there is a purposive approach, so that the intention of the law is looked for, not the meaning of the individual words the law is made up of, and judgment made accordingly.Thus we should be aware that the purpose of God is that, knowing the Pharoah's heart, He can demonstrate His sovereign power, because the Pharoah will not be changed by anything he sees or hears. If God used his power where someone could be open to change their position it would be to force that person to submit, it would be blackmail or an abuse of power, or exercising domination over another being who is much less powerful than himself, bullying or frightening them into submission. God will not do this. He will never overrule someone's right to decide freely, their moral right to choose.There is no way someone like this is going to change. We see this as we watch the Pharoah's reactions. Even when the final plague of the death of all the firstborn, human and beast, causes the Egyptian people to rise up and urge him to let the Hebrew people go, he does so out of reaction not decision and shortly afterwards he realises what he has done, forgets the cost to his nation and people, and pursues Moses and the people he has let go, seeing only that his workforce is gone and seeking to undo that 'mistake'.So what is the meaning when God says 'I have strengthened the Pharoah's heart.' It is Pharoah's reaction to God. The effect of God on Pharoah is that Pharoah becomes more entrenched in resisting any understanding that he, Pharoah, has One greatly superior in power and majesty to him. Nothing can dissuade him, move him, shake him or reason with him. God can rightly continue to demonstrate his power so that HIs own people will have the opportunity, taken justly by God, to experience the awesome power of God and to rightly fear him and to bring judgment on Egypt and its gods. For Pharoah, it is inconvenient when a plague hits but he only has to ask Moses and it will end. He even says that he has sinned, understanding, wrongly, that the plague is punishment but his reaction is to find the way to return to the status quo where he is in charge and any discomfiting thoughts are put aside. His servants see that it is the hand of God and he should stop trying to fight God but he has a heart that will not change. What is this condition of the heart that refuses to know God? The chief priests and the scribes see Jesus heal the blind and the lame in the Temple. The Scripture says that they saw "the wonderful things" that Jesus did , so they should have been filled with wonder and praise, but their reaction is to be displeased.What is going on in their heart and why? For both Pharoah and Pharisees we see that they had power and position. They had an understanding of their own position which was full of pride, and which they were determined not to lose. Though they saw "the wonderful things" they could not wonder at what God does and who He is because they alone were important; they would not listen or humble themselves to lose their position because one greater than them was before them. They had an immutable sense of their own rightness and rightfulness of their position to judge and act according to their own will, to keep what they assumed was theirs as their right. Beware of these characteristics in ourselves! If we judge from a position of superiority, beware! Humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. Be subject to Him and His will and He will bless you

The Passover in Exodus and Jesus telling his disciples that "the Son of Man shall be delivered to the chief priests and scribes and they shall condemn him to death and shall deliver him to the nations to mock and to scourge and to crucify and the third day he will rise again" reflect on one another. How good it is to read the Old Testament and after it follow with reading the New Testament! In doing so, we see the way that all Scripture points to Jesus foretelling what is to come and how God's "age-during" desire is to rescue His people from living in a place where He is not known or followed and to bring them out into a place of blessing and plenty, of security and safety. This was David's experience who continually prayed to and put his trust in God. As in today's reading from Psalm 18, David rejoices that his cry to God to save him from his enemies is heard and his life is saved. "I love Thee, O Jehovah, my strength. Jehovah is my rock and my bulwark, And my deliverer, My God is my rock, I trust in Him: My shield and a horn of my salvation, My high tower, The 'Praised One' I call Jehovah, and from my enemies I am saved."There is no better thing in life than for us to "rise up and follow HIm"

When things are going well for us, when we prosper, when our health is good, when where we live is blessed with a benign climate, when there is order in nature and damaging insects or disease do not destroy our crops and food, we are not driven into the arms of God to fear Him and honour HIm. Even here when a disaster ceases at the intercession of Moses, Moses knows that the Pharoah and His servants are "not yet afraid of the face of God". But when things do not go well for us, when illness or loss or grief hits us, then we may remember God and turn to Him in our hour of need. We may then spread our palms towards Jehovah, and pray that He will remove that which we feared which has come upon us. And whatever we go through, God will be with us, His rod and staff they comfort us. We will not be afraid under the wings of the Almighty. Some say that God is in control of everything so that anything that happens in our lives is the will and purpose of God. Not so! This is a monstrous doctrine and leads to terrible interpretations and explanations, that say that somehow this tragedy or loss in our lives is within the "mystery of God", that it was His purpose that our child should die in a car accident or our parents from a cruel illness, that people may starve in war or the rain does not come so that harvests fail, or storms or fires or earthquakes or volcanoes or tsunamis destroy all that we own. God has so established things that we have free will and this is freedom of choice, and He has purposefully withheld HIs own power and authority so that whatever happens in the world is according to human choices, and spiritual forces against God and His creation, for God is opposed in both the spiritual realm and on earth where the effect of these spiritual forces are worked out. For to have real choice there must be the possibility to choose good or evil.And in our ability to choose, His authority can be prayed for by us, to request that God bring His power to bear on the earth. We, who believe, and have the gift of the Holy Spirit, God's own life and power living within us, may also exercise His authority as servants under Him. Jesus tells the people, when the Pharisees have said that Jesus casts out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons, that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, "but if by the finger of God I cast forth demons, then come unawares upon you has the reign of God. (Luke 11:14-20) We cannot command the reign of God to come but as we live in obedience to the King, we find the power of his reign comes unawares. "we have not the wrestling with blood and flesh, but with the principalities, with the authorities, with the world-rulers of the darkness of this age, with the spiritual things of the evil in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12)

At first Pharoah's heart is ignorant, " Who is Jehovah, that I should hearken to His voice, to send Israel away? I have not known Jehovah and Israel also I do not send away" (Exodus 5:2)As he hears Moses tell that "the God of the Hebrews hath met with us", a revolutionary thought for a kingdom which worshipped remote gods which neither speak nor hear, the Pharoah's only understanding is that Moses is seeking to free the people from its works.As God continues to reveal himself to Pharoah through Moses' words and the extraordinary events that God brings as Moses holds out the rod of authority in accordance with God's words and commands, we see Pharoah's reaction is to harden his heart. It is one thing to be ignorant of God but when that ignorant heart is not open to learn, is not humble to listen, is full of its own judgement and prejudice, that is to block the way for God to soften our heart and to hear His voice call us to Himself. It is in this meaning that God says, "I will harden his heart". It is a result of encountering God, not of God acting upon him. For God does not override our moral choices, does not make us become anything but what we choose to be. There is always a choice. Pray that our hearts might be softened by God, that we might have hearts of flesh and His law will be written in our hearts that we might choose to do what is right and pleasing in His sight. "This is my beloved son. Listen to Him."Someone somewhere has explained the effect God has upon a person's heart in this way: God is like the sun which shines on butter and on clay; the first melts before Him in humility and recognition of our own sinfulness, as Peter said " Depart from me for I am a sinful man, oh Lord (Luke 5:8); the second dries and hardens and cracks before Him in pride and self-righteousness and superiority, thinking we are better and know better and judge better than God, "Who is Jehovah, that I should hearken to His voice".

If we do not forgive others, the result in us is that we are delivered to the inquisitors till we have paid to God all that was owing to him, We open the way for the accuser of the brethren, Satan, to have the right to release his inquisitors to question us continually about our wrong-doing. We do not have peace with God but a perpetual torment of accusation and guilt.We are to forgive each one his brother from our hearts their trespasses.This is so important a teaching, a principle we must live by, that Jesus in teaching his disciples how to pray tell us to pray: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us"Those people who have forgiven the perpetrators of great evil against them, even the murder of members of their family, are not then held under the additional pain of thoughts of anger and bitterness and revenge but are able to live and grieve and seek to turn to good what had been purposed for evil.We have seen this attitude of heart in Joseph in forgiving his brothers and seeing instead that God brought good out of what human beings intended as evil for God is in the business of reducing the harm to us when we put our trust and hope in him and do not live in hatred of those who have done us wrong. In his book, Beneath the Cross of Jesus, A. Leonard Griffith tell the story of a young Korean exchange student, a leader in Christian circles at the University of Pennysylvania, who was murdered by a gang of eleven teenage boys. All of Philadelphia cried out for revenge and the district attorney planned to seek the death penalty for the arrested youth. And then, the following letter arrived, singed by the boy's parents and twenty other relatives in Korea. "Our family has met together and we have decided to petition that the most generous treatment possible within the laws of your government be gien to those who have commited this criminal action ... In order to give evidence of our sincere hope contained in this petition, we have decided to save money to start a fund to be used for the religious, educational, vocational and social guidance of the boys when they are released ... We have dared to express our hope with a spirit received from the gospel of our Saviour Jeus Christ who died for our sins." When you forgive, you are no longer a victim but a victor. (quoted from God's Little Devotional Bible, published by Honor Books.

God's name is "I am". He always is. He is ever present. He is the living God who speaks and hears and acts and feels and chooses and responds and initiates - just as we do , for we are made in His image. But, unlike us, He is the creator of the heavens and the earth and everything in them. He is the great I AM. We live and die, but God is above and beyond and around all things. He is worthy of glory, and honour and praise, and also to receive our love and to be obeyed and the One we should desire to please and delight. We shall be His people and He will be our God.

What trouble our imaginations can make for us. The Pharoah who ruled Egypt many years after Joseph imagined that the Hebrews, who had become very numerous, could join with an enemy and attack Egypt where they were living. As a result he brought great suffering to the Hebrews, making them work as slaves harder and harder, and then killing the baby boys. In the time of Noah, God sees "that every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart (is) only evil all the day". Things are invented in the heart, imagining what we might do and imagining what others might do and these imaginings become forceful to action and if the imagining is evil then the action which follows it will be evil. Do not believe imagination; it is fiction not fact.