Category Devotional Moments

If our country were under God’s judgment because of decades of butchering of innocent babies, the approval of hetero, homo, bi, and trans – sexual promiscuity, and the distortion of the image of God through extreme tattooing, acceptance of transgenderism what would that look like? Perhaps we would see plagues of disease such as AIDS, herpes, gonorrhea, hepatitis, infertility, depression, suicide?

If our country were under God’s judgment because of our refusal to nurture our bodies according to God’s standards by overeating and gluttony, drugs, the eating of unclean animals, overdosing on sugar and not resting on the Sabbath and  feast days, what would it look like? Perhaps we would see cancer, swine flu, worms, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, ulcers, nervous breakdowns, going postal, mental disease, depression, obesity, psychosis, murder, and suicide?

If our country were under God’s judgment because of blood we have shed, the sexual filth we produce and distribute through movies and porn, our exploitation of children workers from other lands, and of the very land we live on, what would that look like? Perhaps we would see mass shootings in schools and in restaurants and in outdoor concerts? Perhaps  we would also see massive devastation of property (and life) from forest fires, floods, earthquakes, devastating tornadoes, and multiple hurricanes.

Perhaps this is what God already told us in Deut 28:22-68 (see below) – Our prayers go out to those individuals ravished by these many tragedies – yet we need to wake from our slumber – all of these things are the harvest of what we, as a nation, have sown for many decades. These judgments are not about the specific individuals – rather, these are about what we the USA have done.

So long as we continue to blame everyone else, we will not heal. We must take responsibility and we must repent, just as the Prophet Daniel repented for his people:

“We have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. “O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You. “To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him. “We have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets…therefore the curse and the oath written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against Him. “As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us; yet we have not made our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth. (Dan 9:5, 8-11, 13)

There is hope. We simply need to turn to God:

“if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (2Chr 7:14)

Deut 28:22-68: A list of the many plagues facing us today

“The LORD will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish. “And your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron. “The LORD will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. “The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. “Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away. “The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. “The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart. “And you shall grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save you. “You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes. “Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you, and shall not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to rescue them. “Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no strength in your hand. “A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually. “So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. “The LORD will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. “The LORD will bring you and the king whom you set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods–wood and stone. “And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the LORD will drive you. “You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall consume it. “You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. “You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. “You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. “Locusts shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land. “The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. “He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. “Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. “And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever. “Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, “therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you. “The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, “a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young. “And they shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil, or the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have destroyed you. “They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the LORD your God has given you. “You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you. “The sensitive and very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, “so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. “The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, will refuse to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter, “her placenta which comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. “If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD, “then the LORD will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues–great and prolonged plagues–and serious and prolonged sicknesses. “Moreover He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. “Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the LORD bring upon you until you are destroyed. “You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God. “And it shall be, that just as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess. “Then the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known–wood and stone. “And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. “Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life. “In the morning you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were morning!’ because of the fear which terrifies your heart, and because of the sight which your eyes see. “And the LORD will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again.’ And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

To understand God’s relationship with Israel and the pain that He felt, imagine that you fall in love with a young woman who later gets sold into slavery. You rescue her against all odds. You scale mighty mountains; you pass through dangerous dales, and even defeat dreadful dragons. You have rescued your love at great cost to yourself but it was all worth it to save your true love. You sweep her away from her chains and prison and you two wed.

At your wedding, you exchange vows covenanting to be faithful and to love only each other. You proudly declare that she is your chosen, your special treasure in all the earth and that there is none as precious as her. You also promise her riches, children, peace, and joy, all that she could ever want. As part of your vows, she promises not to have any other men in her life, but to be wholly set
apart for you! She promises to not to have any pictures, videos, or keepsakes of any other guys in her possession, via email or on Facebook; she is going to think about you and you alone. As husband and wife, your names and reputations are now mingled as one: your name and reputation becomes hers and hers becomes yours. Whatever either of you do from now one, whether good or evil, will directly reflect on the other. Hence, you promise to honor and exalt her name and she promises to honor and exalt your name.

Then you promise to set aside one day in seven that will be a special day for the two of you. You promise that you will make it special for her in that she won’t have to work…she can just relax, sleep in, lounge around, kick back without a care in the world because you have taken care of everything. It is to be a day where you can grow in your relation to one another. You can talk to each other and share your hearts in a way that is distinct from the rest of the week.

In addition to these vows, you share with her your recipe for how to treat others which will lead to a successful and abundant life. Your formula is revolutionary because it is outwardly focused and not inwardly focused. It is concerned with how to treat others in a way that you would want to be treated. It always seeks the other’s good and their highest. You tell her that if you follow this formula it will lead to life and blessings but if she doesn’t that it will lead to pain, sorrow, curses, and ultimately death. She eagerly agrees to follow your formula knowing that you have her highest in mind as well. You then kiss your bride.

A great feast is held to celebrate the momentous occasion. After some time, she disappears and you can’t find her. After searching with an anxious heart, you sadly discover that she was in the room of an old lover. You are crushed, brokenhearted, and distraught. How could you true love do this? You promised. She promised. In fact, her unfaithfulness was on your very wedding day! How could she? Your sadness turns to anger at her unfaithfulness. You consider leaving her that very moment…but then you have pity on her. It was her upbringing after all; her parents were very poor role models and they cheated on each other from day one. She literally has never seen a good relationship. So, you decide to forgive and forget. However, already your enemies have heard what happened. You know that they will use it someday to slander you.

You then move into your new house and begin making it your home. You have children, you share wonderful moments. You are providing abundantly as promised. She on the other hand, has never quite overcome the tendency to see other guys. There have been many times during your marriage that you have had to simply look away and pretend not to notice. Of course, each time, it breaks your heart. But you are kind and patient. You really want it to work out between you so you just put up with it. However, a day comes when you notice that money begins disappearing from the bank account. You ask her about it but she denies any knowledge. Eventually, you discover that not only is she seeing other men but she is actually paying her lovers to be with her! At this point you are beside yourself. How in the world did this happen? Adultery is bad enough. Her receiving money from others as a prostitute would be worse. But no! Your wife is actually paying others to sleep with her! You confront her about it and tell her that this activity has to stop. You have become the laughing stock of the town. Everyone knows what your wife is up to. When you walk by you can hear their snickering. “Nice wife you got there!” One person shouts. “Thanks for the money,” another shouts. You look at another of the jesters and you are dumbfounded when you see the one of a kind necklace that you bought your wife on your anniversary on the neck of another man’s wife; your wife has paid her lovers with the precious keepsakes that you bought her. It isn’t just the money, but that it was something that you gave especially to her. Not only that, but she has actually murdered many of the children that she had from these illicit relationships. Finally, you can take no more. You have been married for decades and she has not changed one bit but has actually grown more destitute. With great sorrow you decide that it is over though in your heart, you vow to find a way to restore the woman you once knew and loved.

So you file the divorce papers and excise her from your will. Neither she, nor the children that she birthed from her many lovers will have any part of you or your estate. They are cut off completely. Oh how your heart aches! The wife of your youth is gone. Your home is not the same.

After some time, you find a way to bring her back to you if she is willing to turn away from all of the evil that she committed. You find a way to annul the wickedness if she will just admit her fault and promise not to do it again. When you exchanged vows there were some stipulations that you both agreed to. In your covenant, you both agreed that if she were found guilty of adultery, then you had the right to divorce her. If she became another man’s wife and the same thing happened that he found her guilty of adultery and sent her away, then she could not remarry you because it would pollute the land and bring a curse. You grin because you have thought up an amazing plan that will allow her to remarry you and will cancel the blood oath you both made in your marriage covenant. You pause for a moment, because, while your plan will resolve everything, it will come at tremendous cost to you.

Your plan is to die and then come back to life. By dying, you will cancel all consequences and curses that she incurred by having committed adultery when you were married under your marriage covenant. If you die, you reason, she will no longer be considered an adulterer because the law of the marriage is until “death do us part.” Hence if you die, then she is free to remarry! The trouble is, you want her to be yourwife again and not another’s. So, the second part of your plan is to actually come back to life. The cool thing is that you found a way to do that. So, you then prepare for the big day. You die as planned and the curses that she was under, because she violated your marriage covenant, are cancelled! She is no longer legally an adulterer. All the penalties and curses of the law of marriage are cancelled through your death. Part one is finished. When you come back to life, you and she can now remarry! All that is required on her part is to acknowledge her former adultery and promise not to do it again. If she will do those two things, then you promise to take her back and return her to her former position as your bride. The handwriting that was against her is literally destroyed through your death.

So, rather than picture God as angry and wrathful; picture him in your mind as brokenhearted and disappointed because of the choices that we as a country are making. Homosexuality, adultery, murder, stealing, slander, lust, and so many other behaviours are the same behaviours that Judah was committing when God said, “I was crushed by their unfaithful heart which turned from me and by their eyes which lusted after their idols… [and] of all their abominable practices.” (Ezek 6:9) You see, God was brokenhearted by Judah because she (and her northern sister Israel) were committing adultery through the harmful, destructive, and yes, offensive things they were doing. Just like back then, He isn’t looking to throw down the hammer because He has anger management issues; rather He is genuinely hurt and sad over what we are doing. He wants us to turn from our destructive path. So rather than focus on having to change to avoid judgment, let’s do those things pleasing to God because we don’t want to break the heart of our Father any longer.

Imagine if every member of a symphony tuned their instrument according to what they believed to be the A (440 Hz) versus everyone tuning to an agreed upon standard (such as the oboe)? Every musician would be playing his part well but would be out of tune with the others in the symphony. And instead of the “symphony” which means “together sound” it would be a dissonant cacophony of individual instruments.

The same thing happens when we, as individuals, decide to tune the instruments of our lives to our own pitch and not according to God’s, who is the master musician. Let’s face it, God has perfect pitch. We need to adjust our pitch to His, and not His to ours. Unity with the Father is precisely what Jesus prayed for us in the Garden of Gethsemane. He prayed:

That they all may be ONE, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be ONE in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be ONE just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in ONE, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. (John 17:21-23)

If we desire to be one with God, that requires us changing our tune. God can’t change His tune because His tune, by definition, is perfect, (and you can’t change perfection). God told us what is in tune with Him (what is right) and what out of tune with Him (what is wrong) and those definitions cannot ever change. What is right will always be right and what is wrong will always be wrong.

Thus, when we think about keeping the commandments, it isn’t just a list of do’s and don’t’s but rather it is God’s instructions on how to be in harmony or as Jesus prayed, to be one with him. The more we practice the things he told us to do, the more in sync and in perfect pitch with God we will be. The question really is whether we want dissonance or consonance? When we violate the things God instructed us to do (or not to do) we are playing our instrument to our tune which results in dissonance. When we follow his instructions, we are in consonance with God.

J.R.R. Tolkien illustrates this theme in his book The Silmarillion where the archangel Melkor (akin to Satan) begins to play out of tune with the beautiful melody that Iluvatar (God) had begun which then begins to affect the music of the other angels.

Straightway discord arose about him, and many that sang nigh him grew despondent, and their thought was disturbed and their music faltered; but some began to attune their music to his rather than to the thought which they had at first. Then the discord of Melkor spread ever wider, and the melodies which had been heard before foundered in a sea of turbulent sound. (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, Houghton Mifflin Company Boston: 1977, p.16)

In conclusion, if our true goal is harmony with God, then we must tune our instruments to His. In other words, we must live according to the instructions He has given because they are perfect. To live contrary to them will bring discord and break the unity that we desire. On the other hand, when we live in accordance with His instructions, then our lives enjoy His peace, His rest, and His blessing; in essence we play our part in perfect harmony with His symphony.

In 1954 the Englishman, Roger Bannister was the first to cross the barrier of running the mile in four minutes. Up until that point, experts thought it was impossible to do…but once Bannister achieved the feat, many others have done so as well. In other words, Bannister was the first to fulfill it which paved the way for others to follow the example. So, too, God told Israel to put His Torah on their hearts (Deut 6:6, 10:12-13, 11:18). Unfortunately, they did not fulfill what God said to do.

Then Yeshua came and showed us how to fulfill the Torah. Unfortunately, many have gotten the wrong idea that because he didn’t, now I don’t have to. But that is erroneous thinking; just because Bannister ran the mile doesn’t mean that others don’t have to (to continue the analogy). Since we are all participating in the game of life, then we are naturally in the race. Yeshua’ fulfilling of the Torah doesn’t mean that I am now exempt from doing so! Rather he showed us how we too can do it, just as Bannister showed the world that it can be done.

People that say we don’t have to keep the (Old Testament) Torah any more because Yeshua did it for us are basing that on his words: “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill [lexical form: πληρόω plero’o]. (Matt 5:17) The idea is that Jesus did all that was required in the law and through his death has freed us from the ‘burden of the law’. This thinking is faulty for several reasons.

1. Yahweh, the law giver, said that if a man does them he will live through them. (Lev 18:5)
2. Yahweh gave them for our good. (Deut 10:13)
3. Yahweh gave the Torah and already put it “very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.” (Deut 30:14-15)
4. The notion that the O.T. commandments (Torah) were a burden is not true as we read in 1st John: “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.” (1John 5:3)

The word “fulfill” is the key word in this passage. It is also used in Galatians 6:2, where Paul uses the same word to tell us that when we “bear one another’s burdens,” we “fulfill [lexical form: πληρόω plero’o] the law of Christ.” (Gal 6:2) So we see that bearing one another’s burdens (an ongoing action) is the means by which we are following Yeshua’s example. This proves that Yeshua’s action of fulfilling the law does not mean that keeping the Torah has been set aside; it means that he did crossed the barrier (which no one had ever done) of living in complete harmony with heart of the Father as revealed in the Torah.

We are told to follow Yeshua’s example:

“He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.” (1John 2:6)

And we are to make disciples:

“teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you…”  (Matt 28:20)

We too have the opportunity to fulfill the law and be in harmony with the heart of the Father. In fact, we are expected to walk just as he walked. Yeshua did not do the Torah so we don’t have to (as it taught by many churches); rather, just like Bannister who “fulfilled”  the four-minute-mile, Yeshua crossed the “here’s-how-you-live-out-the-Torah barrier” showing us how to do it as well. If we fall on the race track of life, we simply need to get back up and keep running until we too fulfill it.

“For though a righteous man falls seven times, he will rise again…” (Prov 24:16a)