101 - Two Gifts: Rest and Residence

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, we've been reading the law from Exodus, but did you know it all points to Jesus? To Jesus?

Yeah, we're reading along, do this, don't do this, because I'm the Lord your God, and suddenly we're talking about Jesus. Jesus? In Exodus?

In Exodus. In law? Okay.

On More Than Ink. Well, good morning to you. I'm across the table from lovely Dorothy. And I'm across the table from sweet Jim.

Oh, that's nice. And we are doing what we love to do, which is sit around the table, drink our coffee, and more than that, read the Word of God. And we're glad that you're with us doing that. We find great encouragement as we read the Word. And I'm finding great encouragement in this section of Exodus, as we look at what most people consider a very dry section. I mean, the working out of the law. How does the law, the Ten Commandments, for instance, how do they find their fit in society? I mean, let's get real.

How do you apply this? And that's what we've been spending the last two times looking at, but it's encouraging. This is where conversation about the Word, with the Word open in front of you, can be very helpful. Because when you're reading what seems like the dry law, and then you begin talking about it, you stimulate one another to go, oh, wait, that might apply to this. That's a good idea. That might apply to that. So, you know, there is real power in the conversation of people who are reading the Word together.

Yeah, yeah. And we'd encourage you to do that rather than just reading by yourself, which is fine. Do that, too.

Do that, too. But sitting around and kind of chewing the fat on a lot of these things is really, it's really a blast. It brings out more ideas than you can remember, and then you can remember more ideas than you can anticipate. It stimulates your thinking. Exactly, yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. And I might add also that in this section where God is putting the rubber to the road in terms of how does the Ten Commandments apply to the nation, it's not only just to make a nation where you want to live.

That's what I said last time. But it also is a profound testimony to the world about the character and nature of God. Because these laws and the behavior of the people in the nation of Israel are meant to be a shining light to the rest of the world in contrast to the junk that they believe and the junk that they do in their justice systems and the value and worth for what we saw last week, in a couple weeks, women and slaves and the poor. I mean, it's so different from what the world does.

People will say, what's with you guys? And Israel could say, well, we have this God. And we can say that, too, as Christians. I wanted to read you this text really quick from Francis Schaeffer, who was a theologian many times back, many decades back. He says, our relationship with each other is the criterion the world uses to judge whether our message is truthful. Christian community is the final apologetic. So, indeed, this kind of behavior isn't just good for us.

It's a testimony to the world of who God is. And that's what we're working on. Amen. Yeah. Okay. Come home now. Let's do it.

Oh, we are home. Okay. We're in chapter 23. Let's read. Chapter 23.

Okay. So, and we're still talking about unpacking the meaning of the Ten Commandments that Moses has already delivered. So, now in verse 10, we're going to begin hearkening back to that fourth commandment about the Sabbath.

The Sabbath, yeah. For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, but the seventh year you shall let it rest in life fallow. Oh, that the poor of your people may eat, and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. So you shall do likewise with your vineyard and with your orchard. Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. And your ox and your donkey may have rest. And the son of your servant woman and the alien may be refreshed. Pay attention to all that I've said to you. Let's stop there. Yeah. Yeah. So, we're on Sabbath.

Isn't it interesting the Sabbath isn't just about one day in the week. It's not just for people. It's not just for people. But one year out of seven? A whole year. I mean, are you kidding me?

I looked this up. I don't know of any other nation in the history of the world that does this. That lets their crops lie fallow.

A year. Although, we recognize that it's good farming practice to let the land rest. Right. That is a known and established thing.

Yeah. But when you look at this and think, well, this is really unreasonable. I mean, how can the people live if they don't harvest for a year?

I mean, how does that work? And yet, that's the source of why they were in captivity in Babylon for 70 years. Because they did not do that.

They did not do this. They didn't let the land rest. And so, God counted on all his fingers and said, that was 70 years.

That's right. You should have let the land rest. So, I'm going to let you go into captivity for those 70 years until the land rests for those 70 years. So, we're not just talking about a symbolic thing here. In fact, was it Jeremiah who read it up and he said, basically, you can tell from this that we're going to be here 70 years because that's how long we did not do this in the land. Yeah. And Daniel, when he was in Babylon, said, oh. That's what it was. And he said in the scriptures, oh, the 70 years are up.

Let's pray toward that. Yeah. So, this is a big deal. But it's so unusual. It's so distinctive.

The world would say, what are you guys thinking? Well, and it's interesting that God says now, let it lie fallow so that the poor can eat, those who have no access to the land, so that the beasts of the field, the natural world can be fed and replenish itself. And everyone gets to rest. Yeah.

Yeah. Even the calves, even the animals, everyone observes the rest. Yeah, not just the land owners. So, God assigned humankind at the beginning of creation to cultivate and to keep the world, right?

The garden in which he placed them to live. And that needs to be done according to the character that God has created within them. And that means there needs to be rest. There needs to be rest. Rest is part of the design that God has put us into in creation. Because it refreshes you, right? That's what it says in verse 12. That you may be refreshed. The son of your servants and the aliens may be refreshed.

Rest is for everybody. And I might point out that when you get away from God, let's say in a secular society, you tend toward being a workaholic. You tend toward saying, I will have no security unless I work to my max and put away to my max. And God says, no.

Well, you remember that parable Jesus told about the guy who said, well, I'm so profitable, I'm going to need a bigger barn. Right. Right.

The story goes, you know, tonight your soul is required of you. And it's not a stretch to say that you've suddenly taken your material goods and turned them into your idol. Well, it's interesting that they've been growing grain and growing a vineyard, making wine and juice and an olive orchard making oil. So those are things that keep long. Yeah. So now it's time to just stop cultivating and eat what you've harvested.

Right. Enjoy the fruits. It's a remarkable luxury every time I read the Sabbath, especially when I see people who, in a very punitive way, they beat themselves up for doing the Sabbath or not doing the Sabbath. And I'm thinking, man, the Sabbath is a great luxury from God. Why don't you just go with it?

Just go with it. And the Sabbath was made for you, not you for the Sabbath. That's what Jesus said. Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, we need to press on. Yeah.

And we'll come back to the Sabbath. Oh, many times. More. More. Yeah. Well, first of all, pay attention to all that I've said to you and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips.

Well, first of all, there is no other God who gives you rest. Right. All they do is say more, more, more. Right. Right. Right. So yeah, the other gods in the old pagan cultures always demanded from their cultures. Right. And had to be fed in order to be good to you. Yeah.

Total opposite. So God says, okay, I'm only going to require this of you. Verse 14, three times in the year, you shall keep a feast to me. You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread, as I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it, you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty handed. Verse 16, you shall keep the feast of harvest of the first fruits of your labor of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the feast of in gathering at the end of the year when you gather in from the field, the fruit of your labor. Three times in the year shall all the males appear before the Lord God.

Okay. Well this is interesting. We're talking about what a great luxury not working one day out of the week or one year out of seven is.

I mean, it's a great gift from God, not a burdensome demand. And here he's saying, well, by the way, we're going to have three big gigantic nationwide parties every year. Well there were more than that. There were more. But these three are very important. These are the big ones. These are the big ones. And interestingly enough in the New Testament, they're all connected to God's saving actions in Messiah. Exactly. Yeah. That's really, really true.

So readers, listeners, you start tracking that down. Start looking for those feasts in the New Testament and see how they connect to what God has done for us in Jesus. But what a wonderful thing. We're going to all get together and we're going to celebrate what God has done for us.

You mean leave my fields at home and go and celebrate what God has done? Yeah. Because unleavened bread celebrates what?

Being delivered from Egypt. Right. Because Passover is right at the beginning of unleavened bread. Right. So again, if we're remembering what we've read in Exodus, listeners, you go back to Exodus 12 and reread what God's instructions were for the Passover and on into chapters 13 and 14 where he kind of examines that and amplifies it.

Go back and read that. He says, that's the important one. Men shall appear before me empty handed, which connects now to verse 18. You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened or let the fat of the feast remain until the morning, because those were stipulations connected to the Passover. Yeah. Remember in the Passover, you had to clean your house out of all leaven before you sacrificed before the blood came from the land. Right.

And then you're going to eat unleavened bread. Right. Right. Yeah. So those were connected together. By the way, this is what we're touching on right here.

These feasts will be amplified tremendously in Leviticus. Yes. Tremendously. So this is just the introduction of these whole ideas. Yeah.

So actually, listeners, Leviticus 23 gives us more details about all three of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So where did we stop?

Well, we're... 18? We need to just touch on the fact that the feast of the harvest is that first fruits. Right.

Yes. And then the feast of the ingathering, because the ESV puts it a little differently than some other translations do, is what we know as the Feast of Booths. Right. So again, go to Leviticus 23 and read about the details of those. Those are the only three times that everybody had to go to a central place.

Or you may know the Feast of Booths as Pentecost. Ah. Yes. Yes. No. Okay. We better check that.

We'll come back next week. No. No.

No. Because Booths happens in the fall. Sukkot is in the fall. Yeah. Sukkot's in the fall.

That's when they build the... Okay. We'll check. We'll check. Yeah. It's after Passover. We'll check.

We'll check. Yeah. It's after... Yeah.

It's actually 78. Come on. You know this.

That's true. Okay. It's 50 days after Passover. Well, I wrote my note down wrong then.

That's where the Pentecost comes. I'm going to check. And I'll do my mea culpa next time. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Anyway, so we're introducing these. So 19, the best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God. And this goes back again to honoring the true source of these things. You know, bring the best stuff out and give it back to God as a way of saying, God, you provided this for us. You're the one who started this and the harvest will go on.

I'm giving this back to you. And then we get to one of the most curious verses in the Old Testament. And it feels like it's just stuck in here like a random thought. So the end of 19, you shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk. What? Why is that here? What? Is this just saying you can't have a kosher cheeseburger?

I mean, what is this all about? Well, okay. So this actually is the source of the not eating meat and milk together in kosher food laws.

But it's not amplified at all. But it shows up in Deuteronomy 14, 21. It shows up again in Exodus 34, 26. So there must be something here that we need to understand. And if you think about, go back to what we talked about last week in chapter 22, I think it is.

Yeah. Where in verse 29, Moses says, now seven days, it shall be with your mother, right? You're going to sacrifice the first of your animals, your ox and your sheep and your lambs. Seven days, it shall be with its mother, and on the eighth day, you shall give it to me. Oh, so there's a clue, right? Seven days is a completion, an establishment of life.

This little animal has a life, right? And that is to be recognized. So I think that might be partly in view here, because God is telling him, now bring the best of the first fruits. And in a human way, we would think, well, the best is going to be the first, it's going to be the younger, the better.

God says, no, that little animal needs to have its full seven days, it's completely, it's life established. Yeah. So that's one way of understanding what this means here. Yeah. There's also, I was reading some time ago about the fact that there was a prevailing Canaanite magic spell.

So this could be quite aimed toward saying, don't fall away the Canaanites. In fact, I had never really heard that much before, but in old Canaanite writings, they talk about taking the lamb from a mother, boiling it in the mother's milk, and then taking that boiled milk and actually sprinkle it around their plants. So it was, you know. Well, it was a fertility, right?

It was a fertility, right. So yeah, there's maybe a lot packed in here, but it's really not about you shouldn't eat meat and milk together. Yeah.

But to let you know, to this very day, in Jewish kosher laws, you can't have dairy products and meat occupy not only the same plate, you can't eat them together, but your dinnerware has to always, and your cookware have to be separated by that. So and it all comes from this verse. So yeah. Okay. So press on. Let's press on. Now we're going to talk about not just so much ceremonial stuff and the Sabbath, we're going to talk about the coming conquest of Canaan.

What's going to happen looking forward. So he says in verse 20 of chapter 23, behold, I sent an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. So pay careful attention to him, obey his voice, don't rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression for my name is in him. Oh my goodness.

Dun, dun, dun. What? And then let me go on just a little bit. But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. Well, let's just stop right there.

Okay. So what will he not pardon? Your transgressions is what it says. Your rebellion.

Yeah, your rebellion. Do not rebel against him, but listen to his voice and respond to his voice. This is some angel. He carries, it seems like the authority of God himself. Well, and the word angel means literally messenger.

Messenger, yeah. So there's a lot of speculation that this is the pre-incarnate Jesus, because I mean, you deal with this angel like you would even Jesus. Well, in the Old Testament, we have that expression, the angel of the Lord, which very often is an appearance of the pre-incarnate Jesus. He is a mysterious being, this angel. And I might point out, I mean, are we talking about Michael or Gabriel, who actually both of them do have the name of God in their name? It's Michael El and Gabriel, El means God. But that's not what we're talking about here necessarily. We're talking about someone, when you say the name, the name always, God's name is his revealed nature.

And you're saying this angel carries that. His character and his reputation. Yeah, big, big deal. And the issue here is not rebelling against his word. He is the mouthpiece of God to you. Yep, he's my connection to you. If you reject my word to you, carried by this angel, there will be no pardon.

Yeah, it's a big deal. So that set me thinking about what Jesus said, that all sin will be forgiven except blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. That is the function of the Spirit to convict of sin, to reveal the things of God.

And if you reject the conviction of sin and reject the word of God as the truth about your need for salvation, there is no pardon for that. It's interesting, I got to go back and find it here, 22, but if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say. So it looks like everything this angel said is exactly everything God says. Well, and again, we see that with the angel of the Lord.

He speaks in the first person as God, but he's called the angel of the Lord. Well, boy, that just breaks our brain. Right. And Jesus himself said that everything I say is what God tells me to say. Exactly.

So there's a very tight, tight connection here. And also I find a connection with the fact that in John 14, he's telling the apostles, I go and prepare a place for you. Yes, the words are the same.

And it's exactly the same thing. So this is really, this is kind of cool. So when we say every word in the Old Testament points to Jesus, this is a passage worth camping on a little bit. You know, there are some serious, obvious pointers here to Jesus.

We just linger here and consider it before the Lord and see how he leads you in your understanding. Yeah. Yeah. And it's the Israelites who are now kind of in the middle of the desert. Right.

They have no inkling about Messiah yet. No. But what a wonderful comfort it is from God to know that I'm sending someone whose particular job is to get you to where I want you to be. To the place I've prepared for you. Yes.

I've already made it ready. Yes. And he's going to make you go there. What a great thing. Even in the face of the fact that, well, wait a second, God, aren't there bad people out here? I mean, aren't we going to do in a sense of conquest where there's already these established nations? Yes.

But I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. Well, that's good news. And now he's going to amplify that. Yeah. Look at the picture he gives them.

Yeah. Starting verse 23. When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I will blot them out.

Blot. You shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do. But you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces. You shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from among you.

None shall miscarry or be buried in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days. Okay. I want to stop there for a minute. Yeah.

That's a good place to stop. Because look at... We've suddenly moved from, he shall do this and that, to I will do this and that. And again, look at God says, and He will bless your bread and your water, those things that you need for provision. Essentials. And there in the wilderness, God had already given them those things. Right, essentials. Yeah. None shall miscarry or be barren.

God is a life giver. Yep. And I will fulfill the number of your days, or in essence, I will fill the number of your days. You'll live long and prosper. Exactly.

I'll maximize that. So here, it's an interesting blurring again. So who's doing this?

Angel or God? And the answer is yes. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. But it's a very clear statement of a restatement of the first commandment, right? You shall have no other gods before me because I'm overthrowing those pagan peoples. Right. Now, God had already told Abraham back in chapter 15 of Genesis, I will give you this land and he names all these same people. And he says, but not yet.

Because their iniquity is not complete. Yep. And he gave these peoples 400 years to abandon their idolatry and repent.

Yep. And there was a witness among them. And I'm not going to unpack that for you right now. But you go back and read in Genesis 15 and see that God had said, I'm going to do that. So when I displace them, when I conquer them, don't you serve their gods.

Don't. Because those gods did nothing for them. Well, and you can actually say that their gods, for the Canaanites and all these people, their gods was their undoing.

That's right. So watch out what you worship. Watch out what you worship. You shall serve the Lord your God, the I am. I am your God.

And why is it such a big deal? Because when you worship other gods, when you look to them, you're looking to them for the source of life. And God says, there's only one source of life and that's me. It's blasphemy to do that. To say that God does not exist, I'm going to look someplace else. So you can see why he's so severe about this.

Well, let's keep going on, 27. So I will send my terror before you. I mean the news of what's coming will terrify them. Well yeah, the news is going to terrify them ahead of time. And will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. They're going to run away.

They're running, yeah. And I will send hornets, hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivites and the Canaanites and the Hittites from before you. I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you until you have increased and possessed the land. Should we stop there? Sure.

Yeah. Look at all the I wills. I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will. And this, by the way, might tip you to a good study skill and that is take that word, those two words, I will, and look them up in your concordance. And when I did this earlier, I just limited it to just the New Testament and that is a fascinating read. But if you expand to the whole of scripture and kind of pick through those slowly and see, sort out the times where it's human beings saying, I will, and look for the voice of God. I will. What is God's pledging himself to do?

You will be so encouraged. Yeah. And in this very impossible task from a man's perspective of pushing out nations who are entrenched. Who are well established for hundreds of years.

I'll do this. He'll do it even starting in 27 with the terror campaign and the confusion and it reminds me of Rahab. Yes. Because Rahab says, our hearts melted when we heard what was going on. So clearly God did this. And even the murder hornets, I was curious, Joshua 24, the murder hornets show up there with the Amorites.

Two kings of the Amorites were routed by hornets and they didn't have to lift a sword against them. There you go. Yeah. So, okay. Running short, let's finish up here.

31. Set your border from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, that's the Mediterranean, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand and you shall derive them out before you. You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. They shall not dwell in your land lest they make you sin against me. For if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.

We're going to end there today. What do you think of that? Well, first of all, that is a huge area.

It's huge. In verse 31. Yeah. From the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines.

Okay. So that would be over on the coast. Over to the Mediterranean. Red Sea to the coast. Right. And from the wilderness, which would be to the south. South desert.

Up to the Euphrates, which is way north. Yep. Right. So I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand. That is a huge area. And actually it's an area that Israel did not actually occupy in their entire history. Now, some of those were tributaries under the kingdom of Solomon. They came close under Solomon, but not completely. But not completely.

Yeah. But that's what God's saying. It's a land you can't measure. It's a big area. It's a big area. And all those peoples that were in there, God says, I'm going to clean them out.

I'm going to clean them out. And don't you make any deals with them. And I remember back in Joshua, Joshua made the mistake of making a deal with some guys, and it was not a good idea. And it set them up for trouble for generations, actually. It was a horrible deal. Yeah.

So don't make any deals with these guys, and don't get involved with their gods. It'll be a snare to you. It's a trap. It's a trap.

Yeah. It'll be a snare to you. Just don't do it. Because they'll make you sin against me. And that's the whole deal. God's just not jealous of these other peoples and their gods. He's saying that you're dealing with these people will draw you away from me.

And that's the issue. God wants to have a place where they can dwell well, but primarily dwell with God in their center. And these people will draw you away from me. He says, I'm the Lord your God. I delivered you. I brought you out of Egypt. I called you my people. I am making you holy.

I am making you a kingdom of priests and a nation to represent me. Don't be making covenants with other people and their gods. Don't cut deals with them because it's not going to be good for you. You don't compromise with that kind of evil. And you know, again, when you go through Joshua, you'll find out that the degree to which they did not push people out of the land, it was constantly a snare to them. It was constantly a problem.

Well, a snare is an interesting picture because that's an invisible little sneaky little trap that you step in unawares. Yep. Yep. Well, we're at the end of our time. We finished chapter 23. We finished, at least for now, some of the outworking of the Ten Commandments. And next week, as we go into 24, we're going to reenter the narrative and we're going to have great drama at the top of the mountain. Oh, yes.

So you're not going to want to miss that as we pick up on that. So come back to us next time and we'll see the drama unfold on the top of Mount Sinai here on More Than Ink. More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City and is solely responsible for its content.

To contact us with your questions or comments, just go to our website, morethanink.org. That's pretty good. I like that. Yeah, I think maybe that's good. That's a, yeah.