2010-07-30
Good Morning Cherished Ones,
So far, we’ve seen that there are two main covenants in mankind’s history-the Covenant of the Law and the Covenant of Grace. Sadly the Jewish people under their Covenant of the Law, have over the years become legalistic-that is more concerned with form than with understanding the content of God’s teachings. Furthermore, in true legal fashion, the Ten Commandments [often referred to with a capital “L”] were ballooned by human interpretation into 613 laws, which no one other than Christ Himself could keep to them all. The original written Torah [here meaning the entire 39 book OT] was joined with a human-crafted oral Torah, writings of commentary, discussion of the Law, and passing of Jewish culture, contained in the Talmud, Mishnah, and Midrash. These writings still go on with no end in sight. As with Christianity and other world religions, Judaism is splintered into denominations based on differences in interpretation of the Scriptures, differences in polity, and cultural differences. That is why there are four major denominations within Judaism: Reform [the most liberal], Conservative [some liberal and mostly less liberal practices], Orthodox [the most conservative and legalistic], and Chasidism [very legalistic form of Orthodoxy].
Judeo-Christianity is a unique belief system for two reasons: 1) the belief in one and only one God; 2) this God first reached down to the sin-filled people with His love and willingness to forgive them. Monotheism is the belief in one and only one God. Jews call the prayer about that the Shema. DT 6: 4-5, “Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” There is more to this prayer, which I hope you will read, in vs. 6-9. As for the second point, it’s clearest presentation comes in JN 15: 16, “You did not choose Me; I chose you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures. And so the Father will give you whatever you ask of Him in My name.” This point is inferred in the OT by the events which happened in Moses’ life in the Pentateuch-first five books of Moses [GN, EX, LV, NU, and DT] and God’s hand on them. Note, PS 81: 10, “I am your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth, and I will feed you.” We see this again in IS 55: 1, 3, God’s offer of mercy. “The Lord says, ‘Come, everyone who is thirsty-here is water! Come, you that have no money-buy grain and eat! Come! Buy grain and eat!...Listen now, My people, and come to Me; come to Me, and you will have life! I will make a lasting covenant with you and give you the blessings I promised to David.’” And finally, we shouldn’t miss the prophetic announcements of IS 53: 1-12, the Suffering Servant, and JER 31: 31-34, which let us know there will be a new covenant, later called the Covenant of Grace, which will replace the old Covenant of the Law.
It is on purpose that I haven’t discussed that new covenant much yet, and it’s because I want to lead up to it to emphasize the reasons why God deemed it much-needed. All of these things will be fleshed out as this series of messages continues. I lived under the Covenant of the Law for the first 25 years of my life, but spent most of that time being totally unaware of God’s presence and blessings in my life. To make matters worse, I wasn’t interested in them either. One could say, it was my sinful nature taking hold over my life, coupled with a very dysfunctional family life. In the last message, I left off when I was age 18. By this time, I had been “confirmed but not Bas Mitzvehed” in the traditional Jewish faith, basically by the compulsion of my parents. The “confirmation” ceremony had involved 92 confirmands, each of which was in the same position I was in, each of whom gave a speech in the long, drawn out ceremony and was presented with a copy of the Masoretic text of the OT. That ceremony was nothing more that a long-very long-exercise in futility. If I learned nothing more from it, it was that before anyone can make a commitment to anything, he must know what it is and desire from within to make that commitment. Neither was true here for me. In middle school I had been running around with the wrong crowd, was headed to jail for doing vandalism [an outgrowth of the anger and frustration I was feeling], and was removed by my father from that school to an all-academic high school far from where we lived to have my mind sufficiently-challenged. The latter turned out to be God using my father, but I had no way to know that at the time.
After spending some time initially in detention at the new school for wandering off campus [this was allowed for boys, but not for girls at the time], I began to “straighten out my act” as my father put it, and got interested in my studies again. From that time on until my graduation toward the top of my class, I developed better study habits and a real interest, which I still have today, in history, chemistry, and geography. With 20/20 hindsight, I realize God was blessing me by having me in a place where courses were offered that weren’t available in the other comprehensive and specialty high schools in the city. [The other specialty high schools were vocational and secretarial ones that emphasized preparation for these careers]. As far as my father was concerned, I was to follow the family in an academic or medical career-no discussion! Once I graduated high school, marriage to an Orthodox Jew [who my family didn’t know wasn’t really practicing his religion] would be arranged, with the promise that I would make a home for him, and in turn, he would allow me to finish my college schooling. This arranged marriage happened in my freshman year of undergraduate school. The wedding was to my mother’s specifications, and my parents’ friends, not mine, were invited to the wedding. This was the beginning of a fifteen year disaster, complicated by my new husband’s conscription into the Army, as it was 1962, the year of the Berlin wall and Cuban missile crises. Hitches were open-ended, meaning one didn’t know when they were ever end. While my ex-husband was away, his father, with whom I had a super relationship, suddenly died. The Red Cross helped in bringing him home, as he is an only child of a now-widowed mother-a “hardship case.” He came home from the Army seriously emotionally damaged, and our marriage began its long downhill slide. By the time, one of my older brothers married into a large Mormon family, it was beginning to dawn on me that traditional Judaism was leaving me on “spiritual empty.” More on my story next week. My journey of covenant discovery had begun.
PRAYER: O Lord, it’s often painful to examine the past, that time before I knew of Your love for and devotion to Your human creation. I recognize that my past life was a bitter disappointment to You, and that You still loved me and kept me in Your sights anyway. Grace is truly undeserved merit. With our limited human perception, we have a hard time understanding why You stand by us as You do. Let me personally and corporately say, “Thank You and I praise You for Your love and compassion.” PS 40 :1-2, “I waited patiently for the Lord’s help; then He listened to me and heard my cry. He pulled me out of a dangerous pit, out of the deadly quicksand. He set me safely on a Rock and made me secure.” It isn’t until we read and believe the teaching You have for us in the Scriptures that we truly can appreciate Your tolerance and love for us. In JN 6: 39-40 and EPH 1: 4-5, Your Son, Jesus Christ, and You, God the Father, give us Your mission statements. They both put the redemption of sinning mankind as a first agenda. In Your infinite wisdom, You make the devil work for You by allowing him to do a carefully measured amount of evil in our lives- just enough to give us a chance to want a change in the status quo and to recognize the blessings that come from repentance and faith in Your Son, Jesus Christ. Sadly, not every human sees what You are doing and takes advantage of this opportunity for salvation and peace. We are told in PS 37: 17, “…The Lord will take away the strength of the wicked, but protect those who are good.” You have never made a promise that You broke [PS 138: 8; PS 107: 43]. We are grateful for Who You are and what You do. In Christ’s holy and mighty name, we pray. Amen.
Next Week: We will look at a great example of a covenant of friendship and see what it can mean to our own lives. I’ll also continue my spiritual journey story too. In the meanwhile, we need to understand God’s ability to measure the evil that is allowed to enter the life of a believer. His incredible power to allow just enough to strengthen us without breaking our spirits [1 COR 10: 13]. The power God had to control this evil is seen in the story of Job, when God told the devil he could do anything he wanted to Job except to kill him [JOB 1: 12]. Later, in REV 12: 12, a very vivid illustration of this is seen. “And so be glad you heavens, and all you that live there! But how terrible for the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you and he is filled with rage, because he knows that he has only a little time left.” Yes, once again, God is placing limits on the source of evil. And there are plenty of examples in between these two books in the Scriptures. God’s love for each of us can’t be measured. It’s expressions and protection for us is richly depicted in the Scriptures, so we can have the confidence to know we can trust God and rely upon Him. Praise and thanks be to the One and only God, Who created us, loves us, and gives us faith for redemption and blessing!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15