Written by: Simon Lumsdon
Exodus 23 v 8-9
“You must not accept money from a person who wants you to lie in court,
because such money will not let you see what is right. Such money makes good
people tell lies.”
“You must not mistreat a foreigner. You know how it feels to be a foreigner,
because you were foreigners in Egypt.”
Notes
This scripture is towards the end of the giving of the laws regarding slaves
and social justice and here we see a glimpse of God’s heart for the
poor, and it’s a massive heart he has for them. God is deeply concerned
about the poor of this world.
This opening sentence is a little nugget of golden truth revealing a few things that Jesus feels about wealth and what we do with it or in order to get it:
• Immediately scripture highlights the love of money will corrupt you. There is no middle ground in the passage ‘such money WILL NOT LET YOU see what is right.’ If we compromise our integrity for material wealth, it will have an effect on us.
• Money is a powerful temptation. The Bible even says that good people, if they succumb to this temptation and the love of money gets into their heart it will poison them and they will end up telling lies.
• We can take this principle anywhere! This doesn't have to be about money or restricted to a court. If you compromise yourself in order to gain wealth, position or favour, it’s the same thing.
Socrates said “The first key to greatness is to be who we appear to be”. He has a point, if we want to be great for Jesus we need to have our actions match what our mouth says. But don’t let this get you down if you don’t feel you’re like that yet, Romans 7 tells us we are released from the law and are no longer under it. Spend time with God and let this part of his heart rub off on to yours, pray about it and never judge yourself by the law, Jesus has been judged by it for us!
Prayer
Jesus, I remember how you were tempted by the devil to sin in the desert and
how you conquered those temptations. Thank you Jesus for such a great example,
Lord I want to follow you in that, help me to flee the temptations to sin.
Amen
Exodus 23 v 10-13
“For six years you are to plant and harvest crops on your land. Then during
the seventh year, do not plough or plant your land. If any food grows there,
allow the poor people to have it, and let the wild animals eat what is left.
You should do the same with your vineyards and your orchards of olive trees.”
“You should work six days a week, but on the seventh day you must rest.
This lets your ox and your donkey rest, and it also lets the slave born in your
house and the foreigner be refreshed.”
“Be sure to do all that I have said to you. You must not even say the names
of other gods; those names must not come out of your mouth.”
Notes
In the Bible every person’s name tells you something about them e.g.
Esau means hairy hunter, and he was a hairy hunter. God has lots of names,
a favourite of the Israelites was to call God, Jehovah Jireh, meaning God the
provider. Here we see God providing for the poor, by adding a sabbatical year
in the law for the poor to gather food. This was also to show how good the
land was God had given them and his nature as provider even when the land was
left unattended for a whole year there was still enough harvest for the poor.
The law was given before Israel reached the land God was to give them and upon receiving the land, Israel ignored this rule God given them (Leviticus 26 v 34-35 and 2 Chronicles 36 v 21). This disobedience was one of the many sins that lead to God removing Israel in a 70 year exile to Babylon. Interesting to note that the land was left unploughed for 70 years (during exile) the land had its due rest.
I love verse 13, it’s an echo of Exodus 20 and 34 upon the initial receiving of the 10 commandments and when Moses made the new tablets and right at the beginning of both we see that God is a jealous God, he is after you, he wants you, his eyes are only for you. He looks no where else, upon nothing else, you are his bride whom he loves and has made his commitment too. Understand he flirts with no one else, he loves his church with an undying unfading and everlasting love. He is committed to us, till death do us part. Beloved; let us fix our eyes and heart upon him and only him.
Prayer
Lord, it is great that you love all humans equally whether they are rich or
poor we are all made in your image and are deeply loved by you. Thank you
Jesus! Father I want to be like you, help me to love and have compassion
for all around me regardless of age, gender, background, race or wealth.
Amen
Exodus 23 v 14-19
“Three times each year you must hold a feast to honour me. You must celebrate
the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the way I commanded you. For seven days you
must eat bread that is made without yeast at the set time during the month of
Abib, the month when you came out of Egypt. No one is to come to worship me without
bringing an offering.”
“You must celebrate the Feast of Weeks. Offer to God the first things you
harvest from the crops you planted in your fields.”
“ You must celebrate the Feast of Shelters in the fall, when you gather
all the crops from your fields.”
“So three times during every year all your males must come to worship the
LORD God.”
“You must not offer animal blood along with anything that has yeast in
it.”
“ You must not save any of the fat from the sacrifice for the next day.”
“You must bring the best of the firstfruits of your land to the Holy Tent
of the LORD your God.”
“You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
Notes
I LOVE PARTIES…especially when everyone you know is there, mates, family,
colleagues, acquaintances and even people you have never met but get to befriend.
God loves a great party too, where’s one of the first places we see Jesus
as an adult….at a party!!!
Check it out, God writes 3 massive parties into the social calendar every year where everyone has to be and have a good time. The three parties or festivals mentioned are the feast of unleavened bread, the feast of weeks and the feats of shelters, more commonly known as Passover, Pentecost and the feast of Tabernacles respectively.
Although these are rooted in Old Testament events there are definite shadows of Christ in them and it is not wrong to read these with a new covenant overcoat.
Passover The blood of the slain lamb redeems the people of God from their bondage (Egypt). That’s exactly like Jesus and is why he is also known as the lamb of God. His blood saved us from bondage and death.
Pentecost This feast remembers the giving of the old covenant (the law) and thanking God that he gave it to them and that it was his word. We have a lot to be thankful for in our new covenant with Jesus and the Holy Spirit coming to live in us.
Tabernacles This feast was about God providing harvest, everyone
brought their first fruit to the festival and thanked God that this was the
first fruit and thank him in advance that there was a whole lot more coming.
This is a shadow of Christ’s resurrection, he is the first fruit going
to the Father, raised from the dead to live for eternity. Praise God he is
only the first fruit and there’s a whole lot more coming (that’s
us!!).
Prayer
Thank you Jesus for coming to die for me. I love you Lord and I’m happy
to know you, I’m happy to be adopted into your family. I’m happy
that I am going to have all eternity to praise you and see you and know you
as you really are!! Hallelujah! Amen
Exodus 23 v 20-26
“I am sending an angel ahead of you, who will protect you as you travel.
He will lead you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to the angel and
obey him. Do not turn against him; he will not forgive such turning against him
because my power is in him. If you listen carefully to all he says and do everything
that I tell you, I will be an enemy to your enemies. I will fight all who fight
against you. My angel will go ahead of you and take you into the land of the
Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and I will
destroy them.”
“You must not bow down to their gods or worship them. You must not live
the way those people live. You must destroy their idols, breaking into pieces
the stone pillars they use in worship. If you worship the LORD your God, I will
bless your bread and your water. I will take away sickness from you. None of
your women will have her baby die before it is born, and all women will have
children. I will allow you to live long lives.”
Notes
I think the angel mentioned here is actually Jesus; the similarities between
the angel and who we know Jesus to be are uncanny.
• Jesus goes ahead of us / protects us
• Jesus leads us to a place he personally has prepared for us
• We obey Jesus (Matthew 28 v20)
• Jesus has unity with the father
• Jesus leads us in to unreached peoples (the land God has promised his
church)
This promise of the angel leading the people into Judea draws a parallel to an encounter Joshua had with Jesus (see Joshua 5 v 13-15). We know Joshua meets Jesus and not an angel because the man appearing before Joshua accepts worship, if it were an angel it would not accept worship as only God is worthy of man’s worship. Therefore the person who leads Israel into the promised land is clearly Jesus. The passage here in Exodus mentions that the angel (Jesus) will be the person to send Israel into the Promised Land.
There are heavy similarities between the redemption of Israel in Exodus and our redemption as Christians. There are similarities between the commissioning of Israel to take the land promised to them and for us to take the whole world for Jesus as he commissioned to us.
Jesus is with us and he is on a mission to take the world for his glory and fame by building the local church. Let’s get with him in what he is doing. Commit to your church, get stuck into serving it, Jesus is fully committed to his church and his people. Look what happened last time he committed himself to a people (the Israelites)….they took the whole land and everyone knew the God of Israel was the true God and he was with his people.
Prayer
Thank you Jesus that you are close to me all the time. Lord I thank you that
you will never leave or forsake me, you are committed to me, as a husband
should love his bride so you love me. Thank you Jesus. Amen
Exodus 23 v 27-33
“I will make your enemies afraid of me. I will confuse any people you fight
against, and I will make all your enemies run away from you. I will send terror
ahead of you that will force the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites out of your
way. But I will not force all those people out in only one year. If I did, the
land would become a desert and the wild animals would become too many for you.
Instead, I will force those people out slowly, until there are enough of you
to take over the land.”
“I will give you the land from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and
from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will give you power over the people
who now live in the land, and you will force them out ahead of you. You must
not make an agreement with those people or with their gods. You must not let
them live in your land, or they will make you sin against me. If you worship
their gods, you will be caught in a trap.”
Notes
Wonderful promises. Take all the promises God makes here and put them over
your life.
You can draw a parallel between Israel taking the land and the church taking the land, it’s very similar. Check it out, “I will confuse any people you fight against”, “I will send terror ahead of you that will force the …(people of that land)… out of your way”, you can replace “people of that land” with the principalities of darkness and strongholds over your nearest town/city. Believe it! “I will give you the land” says the Lord. If the people of Israel had all those wonderful promises spoken over them and many more mentioned in other passages when they were under that old imperfect covenant, how much more does the favour of God and these promises rest upon you his chosen precious child now that you have been placed in his perfect son under a new and better perfect covenant. Hallelujah!! If God is for us who can be against us!
Do you know God brought you into your school, college or work to give it to you? He placed you exactly where you are with the people around you so you could win them for Jesus.
On a very serious note, look how the passage ends, with a call from God to remain in holiness. You see, God is more concerned with the holiness of his people than their success in mission. God will forfeit success in mission for the sake of purifying his people (Joshua 7). In summary God says, “Cut sin off at the root, don’t let even the thought of it into your head, if thinking about certain things cause you to sin… don’t think about them, stay as far away from any possible chance of sinning that you can”.
Prayer
You said you shall build your church and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. Lord keep building your church, build my local church I pray
into a strong vibrant church full of your life and spirit. Give us new converts
as well I pray, your word said that you would give us the land, Lord I pray
give us the city where I live. Amen
Psalm 52 v 1-4
Mighty warrior, why do you brag about the evil you do?
God’s love will continue forever.
You think up evil plans.
Your tongue is like a sharp razor, making up lies.
You love wrong more than right and lies more than truth.
You love words that bite and tongues that lie.
Notes
Sometimes you hit a Psalm like this and you’re like, “What’s
he on about? I thought you were supposed to love your enemies not pick out
all their bad points.” We all know that we are supposed to love our enemies
but sometimes it’s hard when people or situations can be so difficult
and trying. And I think the first thing we can draw from this passage is the
writer (David) is just being honest.
David is real with God, he doesn’t try and put on a mask or pretend everything is ok he comes to God as he really is and shares everything with him. We call this intimacy, and God loves it. He loves it when we open up ourselves to him and are just simply ourselves.
To get a brief overview on the context look at 1 Samuel 22. David and his army go to see Ahimelech (a priest and friends) to get food and a sword but one of Saul’s soldiers called Doeg sees David and tells Saul that Ahimelech is out to conspire against Saul. Saul is angry about this and makes Doeg kill 85 priests and many other people from Ahimelech’s home town. Only one of Ahimelech’s sons escape to tell David of this and it is at this point David writes Psalm 52.
David was going through a real tough time, lots of his friends had just been butchered and the king and his army were out after David.
What’s David do?
He is real with God but also that second sentence “God’s love will endure forever” is just thrown in there in the midst of all this anger against Doeg. In David’s hardests times it is his doctrine on the sovereignty and unchanging character of God that pulls him through.
Prayer
Jesus, I thank you that you know the depth of my heart and you love me. I just
want to take the next few minutes to tell you what’s on my mind and
to thank you for your unfading love for me and your plans to prosper me in
all I do, thank you Jesus. Amen
Psalm 52 v 5-9
But God will ruin you forever.
He will grab you and throw you out of your tent; he will tear you away from
the land of the living.
Those who do right will see this and fear God.
They will laugh at you and say,
“Look what happened to the man who did not depend on God but depended on
his money.
He grew strong by his evil plans.”
But I am like an olive tree growing in God’s Temple.
I trust God’s love forever and ever.
God, I will thank you forever for what you have done.
With those who worship you, I will trust you because you are good.
Notes
In order to fully appreciate this Psalm we must really read it as a whole and
not two sections as is split up for our devotionals.
The Psalm has two themes as do just about every other Psalm which are “how am I doing” versus “how is God doing”. And most Psalms operate like this tossing from how our lives are, how they are very up and down but then steadying on God’s unfailing love character and sovereignty.
This is a great way to live our lives, it is a real sign of Christian maturity if we can get this. What David is doing is expressing truly and actually how he feels right now at that moment. But then he lifts his focus from himself and on to God - what does he know about God in relation to how he is feeling? Well he knows God is just, and his focus shifts from himself to God and David fills his thoughts with trust for God to do right.
How can we apply this, I think the big thing is “Don’t let our feelings guide our judgement”. It’s not wrong to feel hurt, lonely or angry etc but it’s what we do then that counts. Bring it to God, if we feel as if things aren’t going how we want. Tell God that he is sovereign and king over all the world and his plans are to prosper us not harm us and he works all things to the good of those who love him.
It might not feel as he is working all things to your good but the Bible says it is true. Believe it!! Don’t go on how you feel, believe and act upon what you know to be true of God’s unfailing, ever faithful character.
Prayer
Jesus I want to thank you for your unchanging character and sovereignty over
my life. You call me to be a friend no longer a servant, but Jesus I gladly
bow the knee to you and worship you alone, through thick or thin you are
my God and I love you. Amen
word-on-the-web uses the Scripture text
taken from the Youth Bible, New Century Version (Anglicised Edition) copyright
1993 by Word Publishing Milton Keynes