Uncut Stones

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "If you make an altar of stone for me, do not build it out of cut stones. If you use your chisel on it, you will defile it."

Exodus 20:25

"Moreover, you shall build there an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones; you shall not wield an iron tool on them. You shall build the altar of the Lord your God of uncut stones."

Deuteronomy 27:5-6

When God gave the Law of Moses to the Israelites, He gave them many instructions on when, where, why, and how to live and to worship Him. Many of the reasons behind these rules are evident to us today, while others, such as not cooking a young goat in its mother's milk, remain unclear. What we do know is that all of the rules were meant to keep the people of God separated from the customs of the other nations and to keep them close to God and away from false gods.

One such rule was for altars. God commanded His people that when they built an altar to worship Him, it must be made of "uncut stones." That is, the rocks piled up needed to be natural rocks, untouched by human tools. 

It is believed God made this commandment because of the tendency (then and now) for humans to take pride in their creations, their works, their buildings. Indeed shaping stones with tools was one way to make an idol or graven image, something forbidden in Yahweh worship. Instead, the stones were to be as God made them, an untouched part of His creation. 

We see Jesus bring up a similar issue in regards to prayer in Matthew's Gospel:

"And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." 

Matthew 6:5-8

Here we see God returning to a similar topic. Prayer to Yahweh must not be done for vanity. He speaks here of how pagans will use long speeches and fancy words in an attempt to impress their gods. But Jesus says the Father doesn't need or want that. He already knows what you need before you ask, the real reason He wants you to pray is to build a relationship with Him.

I've heard so many people tell me, "I don't know how to pray." They believe, because they have seen people praying in public using many words, that their prayer is not fit for God. But it is not so. God wants to talk to you - not a 17th century Puritan, and not a modern day evangelical. He wants your words that come from your heart - the heart He made Himself.

We often speak today of "wordsmithing", the art of making our words sound prettier, fancier, and more professional. I can't stop thinking about how "wordsmithing" implies that we take ordinary words and put a tool to them, shaping them into things we wouldn't normally or naturally say in conversation, because we have, for some reason, become ashamed of our natural conversation, especially in professional settings and especially to superiors.

And, because many see God as the ultimate boss, they believe they must "wordsmith" for Him, too, or their prayers will not be accepted, but this is not the case. In Hosea, God expresses His desire (and intention) for His people to see Him as a husband, and not a boss (master):

“In that day,” declares the Lord, “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.’

 

Hosea 2:16 

God wants you to speak to Him as the most intimate partner in your life - a spouse. We don't (or at least shouldn't!) have to wordsmith for our spouse. Our spouse should be able to accept raw words straight from our heart, untouched by tools.

So, when you pray, use uncut stones. Speak to Him plainly, as you would to your spouse, or most intimate friend. You will likely stumble, you will likely say things amiss, but it is alright. He loves you, and He already knows what you need. What He desires is an encounter with you, His beloved child. 

 

Like Those Who Dream

 When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
    we were like those who dreamed.
Our mouths were filled with laughter,
    our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
    “The Lord has done great things for them.”
The Lord has done great things for us,
    and we are filled with joy.

Restore our fortunes, Lord,
    like streams in the Negev.
Those who sow with tears
    will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
    carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
    carrying sheaves with them.
- Psalm 126

When God restored the people of Israel to their homeland after many decades of captivity in Babylon, the people said that it was so wonderful that they wondered if they were dreaming. It was too good to be true, and yet it was.

Such was this blessing that even the godless nations looked at Israel's comeback and said, "Their God has done great things for them." Even those who did not know Yahweh acknowledged that He had blessed them. Indeed many of these nations had tried to stop Israel's comeback and failed. They knew the power that lived in Jerusalem and they honored it, if only out of fear.

The people of Israel also acknowledge that yes, God has done great things for them, and they are glad. So glad they can't stop laughing and singing. When was the last time you were that happy?

Israel ends by continuing to ask God to restore them, because while Israel has enjoyed a kind of restoration in the physical sense, they knew they needed a spiritual revival as well. They pray for this with eager anticipation. That revival would eventually come, but it would not look like what they expected.

I share this Psalm with you today because I have dreams of restoration. I have lost many dreams - some I squandered, some were stolen. I pray for the restoration of those dreams. I also pray for the dreams of my brothers and sisters, whom I weep with, that their joy may also be restored. I pray for the Church, whose dream is to redeem the lost for her husband, Jesus - and I pray for the Lost, who dream of what they do not know - that they would find Him forevermore.

I know that you too have dreams. I pray for those dreams to become real in God's will and His timing.

Perhaps one day soon we will experience the blessing of the Lord, and we too will wonder, "am I dreaming?"

Be blessed in the name of the Lord.

God Buried Him

 

Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”

And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone. The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over.

Deuteronomy 34

Moses was one of God's greatest servants. He was set adrift in a basket to save him from Pharaoh's genocide of the Hebrews. He was taken in by Pharaoh's daughter and raised in the palace, but when he was old enough to understand, he rejected the riches of Pharaoh's court to live in poverty with his people.

When he was about 40 years old, he killed an Egyptian abusing one of the Hebrews and fled into the wilderness of Midian. There he met his wife Zipporah and his father-in-law, Jethro the High Priest. He became a humble shepherd there for many years.

Then one day the LORD appeared to him in a burning bush and commissioned him to be his emissary to Pharaoh. Moses was to order the most powerful man on earth to let the Hebrews go on God's authority. When the king of Egypt refused, Moses was given authority to do wonders and call down the plagues of God to terrify the Egyptians (and later, the world) into knowing there is a God more powerful than they or their gods.

God delivered his people out of Egypt with a mighty hand, led them through the Red Sea on dry land, and drowned the army of Egypt which had come after them.

God met with Moses on Mount Sinai, the mountain of fire, and across a crystal bridge delivered to him the twin tablets of stone containing the Ten Commandments written by God's own finger. God showed his "goodness" to Moses, a display so amazing that Moses' face was glowing when he came down from the mountain.

God kept Moses in charge of His people through many trials and many acts of disobedience on the part of the Hebrews during their wanderings. We are explicitly told that Moses and God were friends. Many times God sought to destroy the Hebrews for their disobedience, but Moses would always intercede for them. God listened to Moses, though ultimately God would be proven right about that generation, and they would die in the desert.

Moses remained the leader of their descendants, living to a very old age, until the time came for the people of God to enter the Promised Land.

But Moses stumbled as all humans do. He was ordered to go to a rock and speak to it, at which point God would cause it to open and give water to the Hebrews. However, when the rock did not immediately respond, and the people grumbled, Moses struck the rock in anger.

God could no longer allow Moses to lead his people after so publicly disobeying Him. It would shipwreck their faith. So when the time came, God took him up on a mountain to see the Promised Land from afar, but told him he could not enter it with the people. That task would fall to Joshua.

Then Moses, full of years, died on the mountaintop alone. No, not alone. God was with him. And then God did something unprecedented. He buried Moses.

We know well that God appeared in a human form to people in the Old Testament. We call this the pre-incarnate Christ. The God-Man Jesus did not begin at his birth in Bethlehem. The God-Man has always existed.

He appeared to Abraham and had dinner with him before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He appeared to Joshua as the Lord-of-angel-armies in the land of Canaan.

I believe that the God-Man, God the Son, appeared here also. To be with Moses, his good and faithful servant, as he died, because He was his friend. To watch one last sunset with him, to hold his wrinkled hand. When Moses breathed his last, the Creator of the universe lovingly wrapped his body, manually dug a grave in the sand, gently laid him to rest, and covered the body again. God told no one where his grave was, for it was a special place known only to Him.

God can do anything - He made the universe by speaking. But sometimes something is so special to Him that He comes down as the Son to do something with his own hands. When He created humans, He did not use words. He came down and took clay in his hands and fashioned the man. Then he leaned over him and personally breathed life into him. Here, with Moses, it is the same. He buried him. God the Son used his muscles and sweat to dig a grave and placed his friend in it. There can be no greater funeral, no greater honor, than to be buried by God.

God loves us. Not in some distant way. He loves us. When we cry, He cares. He catches our tears in a bottle. They are special to Him. When we pray, He listens to us. When we ask for help, He helps us and does not find fault. And when we die, He is there waiting to receive us.

No one who knows God dies alone.

The Same God

 

I was watching the amazing Prince of Egypt tonight with my church family and I was once again moved to tears seeing this dramatization of God's saving power to deliver his people from bondage.

I thought of how these things happened thousands of years ago in a distant part of the world I have never been, to people I had never met, in a culture that I would struggle to fully understand.

And I realized something amazing to me. While all of that is true, one thing remains the same: I know the same God.

The same God who created the Heavens and the Earth and all their fullness.

The same God who walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, and the same God who tearfully had to expel them from Paradise, but not without a Promise.

The same God who deluged the Earth to cleanse it of wicked humanity, but who also saved humanity through Noah and his family.

The same God who called Abraham, Issac, and Jacob - to whom He gave the Promises.

The same God who delivered Joseph and then through Him saved His people and the world of that time from famine.

The same God who later delivered His people from slavery with mighty wonders and an outstretched hand.

The same God who spoke from the mountain of fire and with His own finger wrote the Ten Commandments upon the stones.

The same God who led His people in the wilderness and was forced to allow those same people to fall in the wilderness due to their stubborn disobedience.

The same God who led their children into the Promised Land under Joshua and who delivered the Promised Land into their hands from the Canaanites.

The same God who had to take back that Promised Land when His people turned from Him to wickedness, and the same God who returned it when they repented.

The same God who raised up mighty King David and promised him the lineage of the Messiah.

The same God who sent mighty prophets to warn Israel to repent and who through them did mighty wonders.

The same God who condescended to become human like us in order to fulfill the Law and die for our sins to save us.

The same God who rose from the dead to gain victory over sin and death forever and to secure eternal life for those who believe and trust in Him.

The same God who appeared to many as Jesus and commissioned His Church and Bride to be His body in this world and to spread His good news to all the Earth.

The same God who would guide and protect His Church through her many victories and disobedience, always preserving a remnant to continue the work of salvation through the many centuries.

The same God who made sure a poor farming family in the late 1800s had a nickle for the ferry - enough to send their daughter to a Christian meeting where she would hear about His love and be saved.

The same God who worked in her to build a family of believers who would pass their faith down to the next generation, and the next, and the next.

The same God who knitted me in my mother's womb and who breathed life into me, willing me to become a living being.

The same God who called out my name at the age of 12 and said to me, "I know you and have called you by name. You are mine."

The same God who has walked with me ever since. Who has held my hand through disappointment, hardship, illness, injury, and the sorrow of divorce. The same God who willed me to walk again after I became paralyzed. The same God who has saved my life countless times. The same God who gave me two wonderful children and saw to their salvation as well.

The same God who lives today, tomorrow, and forever. The same God who helps me even now to see I have so much to be grateful for, and so much to look forward to in his Divine will.

The same God has cared for me since I was born. Yes, He carried me before I was born. He will be my God throughout my lifetime— until my hair is white with age. He made me, and He will care for me. He will carry me along and save me. (Isaiah 46:3-4)

The same God.

Stoning Children

 

Here's your daily dose of the Mosaic Law and why it is evidence that ancient Israel was being led by a loving God and not a wrathful lunatic, as some have claimed.

Let's look at Deuteronomy 21:18-21. This is a law stating that if a child is unruly towards their parents (implication is an older child, an adolescent) they may take the child/youth before the elders and make their case that the child is beyond discipline. If the elders agree, the youth is to be taken outside the city and stoned to death.

Many people today read this and flinch at this "obvious barbarity" of a law, but they fail to see it in the context of the Bronze Age. In ancient times…even as late as the Iron Age (and to a lesser extent even in the early Roman period), a father had property rights over his children. They were not people, they were his property until they came of age. He was legally entitled to do whatever he wanted with his own offspring. If they disobeyed him, he could sell them as slaves or even kill them at his pleasure.

In short, they were already stoning children before Yahweh gave this law to the people. The law did not tell the people to stone their children, but restricted the practice and put regulations around how it could be done.

Yahweh told his people, "No, you can't just kill your children for disobeying you. If you think your child is beyond discipline, you must take them to court and give them a fair trial before the judges, who will determine if their crimes rise to the level of execution or not."

The Law protected children in an age where children had NO such protections. Rather than reinforcing the Patriarchy of that age, this law placed boundaries and restrictions upon how far a father's will could go. It still went really far, compared to today, but it was not absolute. There is a higher authority, and that is God, who watches over the vulnerable, including children.

What is interesting is that historians have searched Jewish records and found that, as far as we know, no children were ever executed under this law. The law God created did its job - it protected the children from harm.

Today we have rights for children, and that's a great thing. But that is fairly new. Even 100 years ago children barely had any rights at all. Go back a few more hundred years and those rights start to disappear completely.

But the Law of Moses is one of the foundations of our modern understanding that children should have rights, and this is evident when we look at non-Western cultures, many of which have little to no Judaeo-Christian influences. Even today some cultures practice "honor killings" which is when a father decides one of his kids who has disobeyed him to the point of dishonoring the family must die. These "honor killings" are so part of those cultures that they even carry them out in countries like the US where they know it is illegal to do so.

This same logic can be applied to many of the so-called "barbaric" laws of the Old Testament. Any historian worth their salt will tell you that to properly understand something from the past you must understand it in the context of its Age. If you try to judge a thing by the circumstances of today, you will create what we call an anachronism which will distort the truth.

As God moved human civilization towards the Gospel and maturity (as the Apostle Paul would put it) He began to reveal a "more excellent way" to live through Christ. The Law of Love. To love your neighbors as you do yourself. This includes women, children, foreigners, and anyone else you might look down upon. God cares about everyone, especially the vulnerable.

And I would be remiss if I did not mention the fact that this royal Law of Love was already present in the Old Testament. "Love your neighbor" was in the Torah. This is why the New Testament calls it a "new commandment that is not really new." God had not hidden this "most excellent way" from the ancients, He just knew many of them would not be up to the task. But if you read the Old Testament carefully, you will see some, like Boaz, who did.