Monday, June 15, 2015

OT DAY 231 - The Consequence of Disobedience Is Death (Please click here for English podcast)

Please click the link below to my new 40 days Break.Build site any time you like to having a 40 days "Break.Build" daily devotion with one to two people as a discipler to help those Jesus prepares for you to disciple. You need to know that the call and purpose of my Break.Build and this Discipler123 blog/podcast is for you to become a discipler to help more people to have a daily intimate relationship with Jesus and then they can become disciplers too:
http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/

Please click these links to the app. Andy Ng wrote if you have an Android cel.:
Break.Build: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ideal.bb.app


Silence

1.   Put on your “brakes” and stop for a moment of silence
2.   Wait for God. Breathe deep for God's peace. Exhale your worries.

Praise and Thanksgiving

1.   Think through your day, all the times that made you smile
2.   Thank God for all those moments, and for all those people
3.   Open your heart to praise the Lord

        
           How lovely is your dwelling place,
                        O Lord of hosts!
2           My soul longs, yes, faints
                                       for the courts of the Lord;
                 my heart and flesh sing for joy
                                           to the living God.
                             Psalm 84:1-2

Confession and Repentance

1.  Pray for the Holy Spirit to work in you:

     “Dear Holy Spirit, shine your light into the places of darkness in my life. Show me my sins, everything that blocks me from encountering God. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.”

2.  Through the Holy Spirit, examine yourself for a short silence and then pray:

     "Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross for our sins and being victorious over death and sin. I confess my sin to you(pause, to tell Jesus what the Holy Spirit has shown you). Forgive my sins by your blood and help me follow you. Holy Spirit, fill me that I may be able to receive your gift to love God and His people. In Jesus Name I pray, Amen."

The Word (Numbers 26:52-65)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers 26&version=ESV


44 These are those who were listed, whom Moses and Aaron listed with the help of the chiefs of Israel, twelve men, each representing his fathers' house. 45 So all those listed of the people of Israel, by their fathers' houses, from twenty years old and upward, every man able to go to war in Israel— 46 all those listed were 603,550.
                                                                               Number 1: 44-46        

51 This was the list of the people of Israel, 601,730.  

63 These were those listed by Moses and Eleazar the priest, who listed the people of Israelin the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho. 64 But among these there was not one of those listed by Moses and Aaron the priest, who had listed the people of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai. 65 For the Lord had said of them, “They shall die in the wilderness.” Not one of them was left, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.                                                              Numbers 26:63-65

Let's have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage of scripture we have just read. Offer this time up to Jesus as you listen to him, while listening to "Gabriel's Oboe"


My Listening
     This passage shows a terrible message that you may not prepare to receive and do not expect to receive. Because if you do not compare with the number of total people in Number 1 and here Number 26 and with a time span of approximately 39 years you won't get it. 

 Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us: 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Goldingay) :
    
     There is a reason that the book of Numbers is called Numbers. It starts with God's commissioning Moses to count the Israelites by their clans, and as it draws toward its end, God repeats that commission. The total for the individual clans very from the figures in chapter 1; some have shrunk, and some have grown, but the total number is virtually the same as the earlier total. A generation has passed, and God has watched a whole generation die out, which might seem to harbinger the death of the community, but it does not do so. The story thus repeats a point it has made before. Back at Sinai, God first handled the problem caused by acknowledging two obligations. God made a commitment to be Israel's God and to stay in permanent relationship with this people through whom blessing is to come to the world, and thus from now on God has had to do right by this people; God cannot simply ignore the people's wrongdoing as if it did not matter. One way God squares the circle is through chastening the people even by having a whole generation die out, so that only the next generation will see the promised land. The count recorded in chapter 26 affirms that despite the way death has run through Numbers, God has stayed faithful. Israel's population has not grown but neither has it shrunk. It has stood still; that is enough. 

John Goldingay. Numbers & Deuteronomy for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p.67-68.

       Wow! The total number of Israelites 39 years ago and 39 years later are the same, but they were different people. Everyone died, except Moses(he died later), Joshua and Caleb! 
       Yes, as the yesterday's title "You are ready for war now", do you know what does that really means? Do you want to follow God's way or your own way? That's your choice!
       Now I understand why Joshua, after the Israelites entered into the Promised Land at last, he said:
       But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  Joshua 24:15

        Joshua knew it well that sooner or later most of them are going back to the route of rebellion and stiff-neck. How sad!

Dear Lord Jesus, 
Open our eyes to see what you want us to see in this passage. Help us to follow you so that we do not have to suffer the consequence of disobedience. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.



Reflect on these questions:

1. Do you feel the weigh of this passage? What has it to do with you? 

2. How can you deliver the message of this passage to those who God prepares for you to deliver so that they won't suffer the consequence of disobedience?

Praise and Thanksgiving

Let's give thanks for God with us. Let us praise Him:

10,000 Reasons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXDGE_lRI0E



You may choose to follow my other daily blog:
Daily Devotion on Fire:
http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/

Break.Build: http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/
-

大能的勇士啊，耶和華與你同在!

  楊平忠大主教領受 "使命113"異象之見證 Archbishop Yong’s MISSION 113 videos, October 16, 2022: https://youtu.be/Mp0-JPx4Vac https://youtu.be/MyO6...