FBC Daily Devotional – May 20, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Thursday to you. We are nearing the end of the week and two -thirds of the way through almost the month of May and Marching forward through through this year.

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I trust the Lord is blessing you richly this week and Using you in some way

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Even if you don't even if you don't see it I I trust you realize and and are counting on the

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Lord that he is using you To to be a blessing to others and and to accomplish his purposes in your life and with your life

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So anyway, well, we read today in Numbers chapters 15 and 16 as well as Psalm 54 and there there's another example here of where some who don't like the quote

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God of the Old Testament get their fodder for their dislike that Thinking of him as being just an angry

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You know selfish God in the first place. They would claim he look look how selfish he is

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He requires the first of the dough that Comes from the harvest.

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I mean Come on. Why would he demand such a thing? Is he is he just is he hungry?

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Is he just being selfish? Well, no, of course not He's teaching something and he's wanting to teach his people to trust him

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That they can trust him that they can depend upon him and he will faithfully provide

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Through the rest of the harvest season, but then then there's this incident of another incident of capital punishment

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Somebody is out gathering sticks on the Sabbath What to do with such a lawbreaker?

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Oh It seemed like maybe an appropriate punishment is since and wasn't supposed to be picking up sticks on the

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Sabbath Not let him build a fire for a week or maybe take one of those sticks and give him a spanking on the you know

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On the bottom or you know something something silly but what the Lord says is

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Take him out and execute him Whoa? Whoa, that seems really harsh.

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That seems like no pun intended but overkill To put a man to death because he picked up sticks on the

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Sabbath day well again, I think this has to do with our lack of understanding of Of holiness for one thing we we do tend to be very victim oriented and sympathetic with a victim and We we do have a tendency to distrust the system and to You know not like laws and rules and so forth

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But here was a law that was clearly just it was given. It was very clear. It's very clear.

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It was unmistakable and Yet this person willingly knowingly defied it

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He defied it. God had said let there be no servile work done on the Sabbath No, nobody's to go out and do anything of this kind of nature on the

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Sabbath It's to be a day set aside for rest and for the Lord. And so this lawbreaker

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Wasn't just you know kind of Accidentally doing something he didn't think he didn't know he should do.

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No, he was a it was a defiant act of rebellion Against God now keep in mind the timing of this.

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This is at the this is at the the the start of something new if you will of the nation of Israel being established as a nation and they needed to learn the the significant

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Importance of Obeying God's Word of obeying his law. They didn't have it before they never had it before They were they just kind of did what tradition told him to do oral tradition told him to do but now they have written codified law that God wants them to follow and to to have someone just Flippantly defy it.

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So I'm gonna do what I want to do regardless of what God says. Well would result in nothing but social disorder anarchy decay

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Sort of like we saw in our own country last in the last year, right? So God takes it very seriously and in this son this beginning of something new he's wanting to communicate that the importance of Obedience and submission to his authority now we have a similar parallel thing in the

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New Testament at the very beginning of the church period Where you have these two individuals

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Ananias and Sapphira they conspire together to Sell a piece of property

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It's their property they could sell it they wanted to but their conspiracy is that they were going to pretend like they're giving all the money to the to the

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Lord When in reality, they were keeping half of it for themselves And so they they go before the disciple of the

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Apostles you're here. We're this is the these the proceeds from our land is this all of it, this is all of it, this is the proceeds from our land and Peter says why have you conspired to lie against the

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Holy Spirit and Ananias dies His wife comes in a little while later

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She didn't know that is her husband died and and Peter says did your husband did you guys sell this property for so?

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So much money. Yes. Yeah, we did flat -out lie. And again Peter says why why are you lying against the

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Holy Spirit the Your husband died and the guys took him out to bury him and they're gonna take you next and she dies again to our to our ears that sounds very severe, but again,

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God is establishing something new and it is vitally important that he's he's paid attention to he is a holy

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God and he is a righteous God and We don't have anything any precedent we don't that did not establish a precedent in other words

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God was teaching a lesson there have been Thousands and thousands and thousands of people since the guy picked up sticks and since Ananias and Sapphira lied to the

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Holy Spirit who did similar kinds of things and they weren't Executed for it. These were unusual circumstances that God was establishing his authority and Man's responsibility before that authority.

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So let's kind of keep that in mind that this isn't a

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Case of a harsh angry God who just wants to make life miserable for people. No, he is

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God and We are men. We are people and he we are his creation

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He's the one that's an authority. It's our responsibility to submit to that authority. That's the point

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Alright. Well, I hope you have a good rest of your Thursday Let's have a word of prayer and ask God to give us a spirit of humility and submission before him

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And so our father we do read these stories and they do they do make us uncomfortable they make us squirm

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But yet what they really need to do is humble us and help us to realize Just how merciful you are how gracious you are.

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How many times? Have we? ourselves knowingly willingly violated what your word

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Demands and commands and yet here we are we're still around Thank you for your mercy.

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Thank you for your grace. Help us to learn from this passage today to accept our responsibility of humble

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Submission to your authority and this we pray in Jesus name and for his sake All right.