The worst fears of the people from the time they stood
between Pharaoh's army and the Red Sea are realized and they have no one to
blame but themselves, they will die in this wilderness. The Lord is fed up with the murmuring and
grumbling of the people against Him.
Their failure to believe and enter the Land He was giving them, the
promise from five hundred plus years before, was the final straw. The punishment will be in proportion to the
sin. They spied out the land forty days
and forty years they will spend here in the wilderness. It may seem harsh but it is a colossal
failure. There is another instance when
there is a proportional punishment as well, in the exile in the time of
Jeremiah. They will be out of the Land
for seventy years because they have failed to observe that many Sabbath
years. I recognize that idea that I have
sinned but I will make it right now by doing what I was afraid to do before
that gripped them in going up after the Lord had already pronounced against
them and experiencing failure. I have
certainly been guilty of doing exactly that.
Jesus has already been baptized in water but He speaks of a
baptism to come and of casting fire on the earth. That language hearkens to John the Baptist
and his prophecy concerning the one who was to come. Jesus says that He has come to bring division
and certainly within the Jewish community He has done so to this day. The cost of believing in Him can be great for
many people and we, in the west, often don't see that cost because we have
grown up in a "Christian" country and time. Culturally there is a greater price to pay
for unbelief than belief. Where we might
see some measure of this is when someone walks away from the American dream to
pursue Him wholeheartedly. Have we truly
understood the claims of the Gospel in and on our lives?
The controversy over what was required of a Gentile convert
was critical for the early church leaders to decide. The Spirit was moving among these foreigners
in such a way that it was undeniable that they were equally Christian. They were receiving the same gifts and the
Spirit was manifesting among them in the same way He had done at Pentecost
among the Jews. This decision required
the leaders to determine if this were a sect of Judaism or something entirely
different. If it were a sect of Judaism
then there were certainly things that had to be required for inclusion in the
covenant like circumcision and subscription to the Law. They decided that inclusion was done by the
Spirit alone, no externalities were necessary and there were only a few things
that were required of converts with respect to the Law. Those few things included sexual ethics,
something some parts of the church aren't sure about today. Christianity was decidedly distinct from
Judaism after this time although the battle was certainly not over as the
remainder of the book of the Acts and Paul's letters will attest. There were always legalists who wanted to add
to the Council's decisions.
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