How important is keeping covenant? Moses warns the people against not only
national apostasy but also the importance of each person within the nation
keeping covenant. The gist of his words
here is that one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. Why does God not deal with that one man whose
heart is going or has gone astray and remove him from the nation rather than
allowing his attitude and apostasy to infect the entirety. The community is to be such that it deals
with problems such as this as they arise.
Think of it as a garden and the gardener or gardeners allowing weeds to
grow without removing them. Sooner or
later they take over the entire plot of ground and choke out the garden plants
and ruin the garden. Communities are
intended to be closely-knit so as to know when one member begins to go
astray. That doesn’t mean all churches
have to be small, only that structures need to be in place where everyone is
accountable. What is truly shameful is
when denominations go astray because no one dared confront wrong teaching.
Jesus heals many on a mountain. These people had to work to get to him,
carrying those who could not walk themselves.
The people who experienced these healings gave glory to the God of
Israel, they got it, they knew that Jesus healed by the power of Yahweh. Afterwards, He had compassion on them for
their perseverance in remaining with Him three days without food. His compassion was action, he fed the four
thousand with seven loaves and a few small fish that He offered up to the
Father for blessing. God’s blessing
takes the little we offer in faith and makes it serve the purpose for which it
was intended, whether it seems sufficient to us or not. Here, abundance was the end result, where
there were seven loaves, now those seven loaves are seven baskets full of
remainder. Some have suggested that the
people had food with them and Jesus’ act of faith caused them to share. If that is so, where did this remainder come
from?
Whenever God prepares to do something new, this scene
repeats itself. We see a woman who is
prepared to give birth to a child and the dragon awaiting its birth in order to
destroy it at birth. That image could
apply to nearly every move of God in history.
It could apply to creation where, only three chapters into the
narrative, the serpent comes to spoil everything by destroying the relationship
between God and His image bearers. All
through Genesis, with Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, we see the
moments when all was vulnerable and satan came to destroy. The nation at Mt Sinai, Moses on the
mountain, the rest calling for creation of gods at the moment of the national
birth. On and on it goes, all the way
down to Herod attempting to destroy Israel’s king by killing the children and
then, the persecution of the church all the way down to today. Satan works on a micro scale as well, in
local churches and fellowships, to keep them from becoming what God intended. Don’t we believe in spiritual warfare? Why don’t we pray like we do?
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