Day 28: My Name Is Hypocrisy

2 Kings 17:37-41

New Living Translation (NLT)

Hellenistic Tower of Samaria
V. Gilbert and Arlisle F. Beers

³⁷ Be careful at all times to obey the decrees, regulations, instructions, and commands that he wrote for you. You must not worship other gods. ³⁸ Do not forget the covenant I made with you, and do not worship other gods. ³⁹ You must worship only the Lord your God. He is the one who will rescue you from all your enemies.” ⁴⁰ But the people would not listen and continued to follow their former practices. ⁴¹ So while these new residents worshiped the Lord, they also worshiped their idols. And to this day their descendants do the same.

Back in the days when King Ahaz was over Judah, and Hoshea was king over Israel, God got fed up with the disobedience of His people. Because of the idolatry going on, God decided it was time to make good on His warning, and Assyria went to war with Israel, taking captive all who lived in Samaria. So the Israelites were moved out , and people from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, Hamath and Sepharvaim moved in and re-populated the whole area.

The newcomers knew nothing about God, but God knew plenty about them. He sent lions into the area, and a lot of the settlers were mauled to death. Finally someone went to the king of Assyria and said 'Hey! The new people in Samaria don't know how to please the God of this land! Will you send back one of the Israeli priests so he can teach everyone what to do?" So one of the priests went back to live in Bethel.

So now all the newcomers got to hear about the God of the Israelites, and how to serve Him. The problem was, that even as they learned to worship God, they didn't let go of their old lifestyles. They developed a fear for God, maybe even an abstract fear of God, but they just couldn't let go of their own idols, their traditions, their customs. Even though they appointed priests and made the right sacrifices to God, they never surrendered to Him, never lived their lives for Him. Even to this day.

So is this really about Samaria and its inhabitants? You bet. Historically, that's exactly who this story is about. But is that all it's about? Look around you. Heck, look in your closest mirror. Have we surrendered our own lives to God, completely? Or do we just give Him lip service?

Consider our society. The majority, a whopping 78% (as of 2009) of Americans claim to be "Christian". They post "Like if you love Jesus" on their FaceBook walls. They promise to pray for everyone who scrapes a knee. Heck, they might even attend church on Easter Sunday. But look beyond the social network news feeds for a moment and really look at what's going on around you. More than 70% of all young people will shack up before marriage. Slightly more than 40% of all births are to unmarried women. According to the latest statistics, about as many abortions take place every year as do births to single mothers. Supposedly only 4% of Americans claim to be gay, although I'm sure that the numbers are significantly higher if you count those who experiment with bi-sexuality. Support for gays and lesbians is through the roof. Well over half of all men and women have admitted to being unfaithful during a committed relationship. One quarter of all internet searches are for pornography, and it is estimated that 90% of children will view porn online before their 17th birthday. 

Is America really any better than Samaria was?

Maybe you or I don't fall into any of those statistics above, but does that really make us blameless before God? Consider for a moment... How often do you go have a drink or two at the bar? Or skip church on Sunday because there's a Nascar race or football game going on? Are we too busy with work to make time for our kids? Are we eating our meals in front of the TV instead of sharing the time with our family? Is there anything wrong with any of those things?

Well it depends. When is the last time you spent time really, really communicating with God through prayer or worship, or listening to what He has to say by reading His word?

Maybe we're no better than the Samarians after all.

Sorry I didn't link to the sources of my statistics. I googled them. You can too, and probably should, since statistics are constantly changing from year to year, and from poll to poll.

Day 20: Have It YOUR Way, But...

1 Samuel 12:12-13

New Living Translation (NLT)

Samuel anoints Saul as king.
Copyright Cook Communications Ministries

¹² “But when you were afraid of Nahash, the king of Ammon, you came to me and said that you wanted a king to reign over you, even though the Lord your God was already your king. ¹³ All right, here is the king you have chosen. You asked for him, and the Lord has granted your request.
***
²⁵ But if you continue to sin, you and your king will be swept away.”

Ever have those moments when you want what you want, even though you know it's not what God wants for you? I do, frequently. Sometimes I have to really work hard to accept His will, and not try to justify my own will.

Yeah, the Israelites were having one of those moments when they demanded that they be given a king, so they could be like everybody else. All the other nations had a king, why couldn't they have one? It seemed to escape them that they already had a King to do exactly what they wanted a human to do. They had God as their King, God, who went before them in battle, who provided for them, who loved them! But that wasn't enough. The Israelites were just like most of us mere mortals... They wanted a King they could actually see with their own two eyes. It was just too difficult to keep focused on the invisible between miracles.

So God gave them what they asked for, but He put stipulations on it. He knew they wouldn't continue to keep His commands, which is probably why He chose a Benjamite to be their king in the first place. God had already chosen Judah to be the kingly line in the family. Still, what God gives, God anoints. And God most certainly anointed Saul. 

But the condition was that they had to straighten up and fly right or God would make sure to "sweep away" both they and their king.

Sometimes, when we're acting like pouty children throwing a tantrum for what we want, God will give in to our whining and let us have it. That doesn't mean that it was His will. It just means He's going to teach us a very valuable lesson from it. We can choose which lesson we're going to learn. We can thank God and make sure we serve Him faithfully in response to His acquiescence, in which we've learned a lesson of God's unfailing love despite our foolishness. Or, we can learn a much harder lesson... the lesson that we really aren't smarter than God, we really don't know what's best for us, and that if we'd quit being brats and TRUST Him, we'd be a whole lot better off.

After all, Father does know best.

Day 15: Truth or Consequences

Deuteronomy 28:1

New Living Translation (NLT)

At The Entrance To The Temple Mount,  Gustav Bauernfiend 

Blessings for Obedience

¹ “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world.

Deuteronomy 28:15

New Living Translation (NLT)Curses for Disobedience

¹⁵ “But if you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and do not obey all the commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you:

These verses, and the ones that follow them, are the essence of the Palestinian Covenant that God made with Israel. In this covenant, God has reaffirmed the promise that He made regarding the land which He would give to His people. That part is unconditional. But there is a conditional aspect to the covenant. That's what these verses are referring to. The "grace" aspect. The aspect where the Israelites write their own story, so to speak... or create their own (figurative) hell. Either obey and be blessed, or disobey and be cursed and scattered.

Sadly, the Israelites were, and are, only human. They mess up just like the rest of us do. They didn't keep God's commands, and so far, God has not set them high above all nations. Instead, Israel was, and continues to be, disobedient to God. They've been living the curses for thousands of years.

The good news is the unconditional aspects of the covenant. Israel will, eventually, turn back to God and keep His commands, at which point God will gather them from all over the world where they have been scattered, and will establish them in them where He promised their forefathers. In that day, nothing will thwart God's promise. 

Now that I've summarized what my study Bible explains at length, I have some questions. Maybe someone can help me out. A lot of God's commands include sacrifices and such. As I understand it, the Jewish people have been trying to breed and raise a perfect red heifer for a long time, and thought they had one back in 2002, but it was disqualified for some imperfection or other. But...

This covenant and the commands were made prior to the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God. Doesn't He supersede the heifer? Why must there still be an animal sacrifice?

Day 11: Careful What You Ask For

Numbers 14:40-44

New Living Translation (NLT)

⁴⁰ Then they got up early the next morning and went to the top of the range of hills. “Let’s go,” they said. “We realize that we have sinned, but now we are ready to enter the land the Lordhas promised us.”
⁴¹ But Moses said, “Why are you now disobeying the Lord’s orders to return to the wilderness? It won’t work. ⁴² Do not go up into the land now. You will only be crushed by your enemies because the Lord is not with you.⁴³ When you face the Amalekites and Canaanites in battle, you will be slaughtered. The Lord will abandon you because you have abandoned the Lord.”
⁴⁴ But the people defiantly pushed ahead toward the hill country, even though neither Moses nor the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant left the camp.


I should back up just enough to paint the picture of what's taking place here. Moses had sent 12 men, one from each tribe, to spy out the Promised Land. It was everything they could hope for, of course, and they brought back some of the most amazing fruit to show off! But they were great big weenies when it came to wanting to go fight for the land God had given them. Despite the strength and numbers of their armies, and even worse, in spite of all that God had done for them, the spies chickened out. At least, most of them did.


They gave bad report of the land, convincing everyone that there is no way they could go to battle and win against the inhabitants. The cities were fortified, the warriors too strong, and of all things, the giants were in the land. I guess they thought the giants were bigger than God.


Caleb and Joshua were the only two who didn't want to turn tail and run. They tried to undo the damage that the reports from the other spies had done, and almost got stoned by the people for it. God appreciated their effort though. He was so angry that He decided all of that generation would wander in the desert til they died. That "generation" included everyone over the age of 20, with two exceptions. Caleb and Joshua.


When Moses told the people that they were doomed to wander and die like desert rats, they changed their minds. Just like we do today, really... When we realize how undesirable the consequences of our actions are going to be, we get apologetic real quick! It was too little, too late, in their case. Moses told them not to be any more foolish than they had been... The Lord had moved on. If the Israelites wanted to stay and fight, they'd be doing it all on their own. And without God, they'd fail. And that's exactly what happened. Those who went to battle anyway were slaughtered.


Oh, man, aren't we still like that all these thousands of years later? We want what God promises, then get scared because it looks so hard! Sometimes God says to us, "Fine, have it your way, then" and He takes away the blessing He had wanted to give.


And then we get a case of the guilts, we run back and say "ok, ok, let's go do this! You promised it, I can achieve it!" But God's already removed His hand from the situation, and we're running head-long into a hornet's nest without His protection. 


It doesn't work out so well, does it? If only we'd trusted God in the first place, our life would have been so much easier!