[TruthTalk] (Slade) God's Way and Man's Way

[Judy Taylor]

Good Morning Slade: Thank you for posting these passages, because there are some very important lessons for us here. Yes, God did speak of a nation of kings and priests in Exodus 19:5,6 but your paraphrase does what certain other fellows on TT have been doing which is to omit the "IF, AND, 7 BUT"  (Cause and effect was around way before the 'enlightenment') and here God says "IF you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, THEN you shall be a special treasure to me above all people.. AND you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation"  Obviously Israel were not there yet because first of all they did not know as yet what His voice and His covenant would involve and in spite of the fact that they obeyed His voice through Moses in cleansing themselves by washings and abstaining from some things only Moses was permitted to ascend Mount Sinai and approach God's presence (Exodus 19:18). He went there alone.   In murmuring against and accusing Moses and Aaron Korah and his friends were inciting rebellion against God's authority through his chosen vessel.  They did not know God's ways; He made known His ways to Moses and His acts to the children of Israel Psalm 103:7.  So Korah and his friends accused Moses of making himself a prince over them and trying to kill them in the wilderness (Numbers 16:13) - Moses did what was his custom when challenged, he got on his face before the Lord reminding the Lord that he hadn't hurt any of them or taken anything from them (Vs.15)  God wanted to kill all of them (V.21) so Moses and Aaron intercede for the people (V.22); After Moses told the people that God would do a new thing they were warned to get away from the tents of Korah and his cohorts and in (Vs.32) the ground opens and these men, their families, and their goods descend alive to the pit.  After which judgment by fire from the Lord descends and kills the 250 men who were standing with Korah in the rebellion and in (Vs.38) we see that these men sinned against their own souls.  But apparently this was not enough, the insurrection had spread to the rest of the ppl and they began to murmur against Moses and Aaron accusing them of killing God's people until judgment came on them also in the form of a plague (Vs.41-45).  Aaron had to make atonement and intercede until the plague was stopped but still they lost 14,700 people along with Korah, his family and the other three families and the 250 that were judged by fire; a total of probably 15,000 people.   It was after the above incident that God instructed Moses to take a rod for each tribe to the tabernacle and He caused Aaron's rod to bud for the house of Levi and under the old covenant these were the priests.  This priesthood was nailed to the cross.  Now Jesus is prophet, priest, and king; the Church He is building is to be the nation prophesied in Exodus 19:5,6 with the same conditions.   IF YOU WILL INDEED OBEY MY VOICE AND KEEP MY COVENANT..... Hebrews 3:10 tells us of the fate of Israel "Therefore I was angry with that generation and said 'They always go astray in their heart and they have not known My ways, so I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest.'  Beware brethren lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God, but exhort one another daily, while it is called "today" lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin [......] "Today if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion"     Slade Henson wrote:  Hello all.  I was wondering if you could critique this little bit I drew up this evening/morning. I give a hearty [and hopeful] "thank you" to those who participate.  -- slade   Within Jewish circles, the portion of Torah read over this Shabbat/Sabbath is Numbers 16:1-18:32. This portion of Scripture is called Korach (???). It�s followed with a reading from the prophets: I Samuel 11:14�12:22.   What I find interesting is that there's a man (Korach) with three cohorts (Datan, Aviram, and On) who stand against Moshe/Moses and incite rebellion. In the process of this rebellion, On leaves the rebellion, apparently realizing his error. At the end of the day, Datan and Aviram, the descendants and wives of these two men, and Korach, are swallowed by the Earth. On escapes with his life and family and departs into obscurity.   While it�s easy to see that Korach had a selfish objective, he did base his rebellion on the very words of YHVH: And you shall become a kingdom of priests for Me, a holy nation. You shall speak these words to the sons of Israel. (Exodus 19:6) Korach was able to bring these words to remembrance, twist them to his advantage, and convince many of his brethren that all of Israel should be fulfilling the role Aaron currently held. However, this cannot work because we need must worship YHVH the way He specifically denotes, otherwise we run the risk of allowing �religious ecstasy� to pollute our judgment in much the same way as Aaron�s two eldest sons when they presented �strange fire� (fire nor prescribed in Torah) before YHVH in the 10th chapter of Leviticus.   Moshe provided a way for the people to understand how things would work in the Tabernacle. Until that day, Aaron and his sons were the ones who burned incense before YHVH, but now, the 250 elders who stood with Korach (and against Moshe and Aaron) would present their fire pans of red-hot charcoal and sprinkle some incense. If the God of Israel accepted this method, the free-for-all on the Tabernacle�s Holy Place was open. All of Israel would assume the role of Priest just as Korach suggests.   Thankfully, YHVH had other plans. He did not design worship to function in this manner, so the perpetrators of a �new-and-wonderful way� were killed. YHVH verified that Aaron was the man to fill the function and his seed would inherit the role after his death. What of Korach�s original argument that all of Israel was to be priests?  As salt and light, Israel was to provoke the nations to jealousy because they had a God who was near � a God who gave them wise rules and council (Deuteronomy 4:5-8). Because of persecution from outside (and sometimes inside the camp), the Hebrew culture tended toward introspection (or even a sense of agoraphobia). (There was a time of forced conversion during the Hasmonean period � which created Herod � but that appears to be a unique event in history). Also, with most of Jewry congregating in three spots during the Second Temple period (Babylon, Alexandria, and Jerusalem), it was difficult for the Israelite/Jewish person to fulfill that intermediary role demanded from a �nation of priests.� After all, how can a city be given a chance of survival unless a righteous man exists there (cf. Genesis 18:23-32) to pray and intercede for it, declaring the praises of Him Who called us out of darkness into His wonderful Light (I Peter 2:5-9)?   Therefore, after Rome destroyed the Temple and most of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the God of Israel, once again, demonstrated the vitality of His everlasting covenant with the Children of Israel. He turned a terrible historical event into something good � something that eventually had a profound effect on all of us. By dispersing the Jewish people to every reachable corner of the globe, the Jewish people introduced the ancestors of every non-Jewish believer to the monotheistic foundation of the Judeo-Christian faith. Everyone who is not pantheistic owes the Jewish nation a debt of gratitude �this was a direct result of the dispersion of the Jewish people in 70 and 135 CE.   It�s too bad Korach and the [small but vocal] rebellious Israelite element didn�t understand the task given them in Exodus 19:6. I pray that all those who follow Messiah today realize they must fulfill the same task� or they, too, risk dispersion.