Moses said that if the people “listen to these rules and
keep and do them” they will enjoy the covenant blessings of peace and
prosperity in all things. Does that mean
that as soon as they fail to do these rules they will lose the covenant
blessing? In Genesis, Adam and Eve were
told that if they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
they would surely die and they did, just not immediately after eating it. The law had provision for transgression, it
was the sacrificial system, they could atone for sin by making the proper
sacrifice but the system wasn’t designed to be a way out of sin. The Lord didn’t give them the system in order
that, as Paul said, sin might abound to the extent you were able to afford the
sacrifice. The Lord speaks through the
prophets about that idea. What was
intended was that they would trust Him that this way of life was best and would
itself protect them from much pain and suffering. The law was itself a loving act of a loving
Father. The blessings promised were
simply icing on the cake.
Were these men really seeking to know where Jesus was
staying? It seems likely that was the
best they could come up with at the moment He asked them what they were
seeking. They went with Him and spent
the day there, listening to Him, and at the end of that first day were
convinced He was Messiah. As I mentioned
a couple of weeks ago, sometimes what happens in our walk with Jesus is that we
take Him for granted. We lose sight of
what it means that He is Messiah and we fail to exalt Him as we should. We do that in nearly all aspects of our
lives, we become so accustomed to people, jobs and things that once completely
delighted us that we fail to appreciate them as they deserve. Some things disappoint us and we become disenchanted
with them and others lose their luster because we like shiny new things. We are fickle that way, not faithful.
Perseverance in what we know and how we are to be is called
for. Another word for that could be faithfulness,
not allowing ourselves to be seduced by the world or other things. Self-control, which Paul commends here
several times, is largely a matter of direction of passion and its easiest
exercise is to control what we allow into our lives to begin with. I cannot be enticed by something I don’t
allow into my life. It is easier to say
no to temptation if it never comes up, if we don’t allow ourselves to be led to
the place we may be tempted. It all
begins with being satisfied, infatuated even, with the Lord. Seek first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness and all other good things will be added. It was the message of Moses, the message of
Jesus and the message of Paul.
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