OT DAY 172 - How God Punished The Rebels (Please click here for English podcast)

I guess you must have completed Break.Build 40 days daily devotion not long ago. And now you are back to Discipler 123. It would be a waste if you do not use the 40 days Break.Build to help someone to have 40 days daily devotion from now on! 

You can 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 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 become disciplers too:
http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/

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

     As a deer pants for flowing streams,
                  so pants my soul for you, O God.

                                                         Psalm 42:1

                                                                       

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

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+32&version=ESV

Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. 16 The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. 17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” 18 But he said, “It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.” 19 And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. 20 He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.

21 And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” 22 And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. 23 For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ 24 So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”

25 And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies), 26 then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord's side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. 27 And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.’” 28 And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell.29 And Moses said, “Today you have been ordained for the service of the Lord, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day.”                                       Exodus 32:15-29

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"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmax47l2hLU

My Listening
      This is a passage not easy to understand. Why God allowed those who came to Moses' side killed 3,000 rebels? But, you need to know that God's first thought was to kill all the Israelites, there should be two millions Israelites there.

Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us: 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Goldingay) :

    

       When God announces a determination to bless us, there is no way you can get God to have a change of mind about that, as Balaam points out to Balak in Numbers 23.  But when God announces a determination to punish, it is always worth a try, as Abraham assumed about Sodom, and as prophets such as Amos and Jeremiah will assume. 
       

John Goldingay. Exodus and Leviticus for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p.116.

      3,000 rebels were being killed rather than two million people destroyed just like Sodom and Gomorrah. You may never understand what does it means by God is a righteous God and also a merciful God. May be the message we need to receive is that God has a bottom line. No one knows His bottom line, but when that bottom line being reached, no one can turn back God's severe punishment. We really need to be very careful of our daily behaviour and action. 

Dear Lord Jesus,

      Help us to know that you are righteous and merciful and that we need to be very careful of our daily behaviour and action. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Reflect on these questions:

1.  How do you understand God is righteous and mercy?

2.  Do you think God has a bottom line? How do you understand God's bottom line more in this passage? How can that kind of understanding help us not live our everyday's life in fear that God would punish us but to live everyday's life worshiping God as our Lord and King?

  

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

Please click this link to the app. Andy Ng wrote. You really need to use that if you have an Android cel. Andy said he is going to do the App. for iPhone later:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ideal.rec.app

You may choose to follow my other daily blog:

Daily Devotion on Fire: http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/

Daily Devotion on Fire 2: http://bishopsilas2.blogspot.ca/

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