Salty Zebra

  Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected.   Numbers 14:30-31  God tells you to do something and you don’t. You’re scared, or intimidated or ashamed. Whatever your reason, you decide not to do what God has told you to. Then comes God’s judgement, the correct response to your disobedience. You don’t want whatever the consequences are even more than whatever had kept you from obeying in the first place, but now it’s too late. Yes, God forgives, but that doesn’t mean He rewinds and makes everything the way it was. Because of your disobedience, you now have a new course, a new path to follow, and to not follow it would be further disobedience. That will not go well.   God had brought the people to the promised land. They were to send delegates to go scope i...

Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.  Exodus 40:34-35  During special seasons in the history of the world, God’s presence was visible among His people. The people of Israel were accompanied by God’s glory in the form of a pillar of cloud and of fire that traveled with them through the wilderness. Many centuries later, they were given the gift of God, Himself, walking among them in the person of Jesus Christ. But is this a gift relegated only to the past?  When God brought His people out of Egypt, He led them with His own presence and glory in the form of a cloud. This cloud is pictured as a pillar that moved to guide them from one place to the next and settled amongst them when they were to remain in one place. It went behind them at the Red Sea to separate them from their enemies, the E...

  and everyone who was willing and whose heart moved them came and brought an offering to the Lord for the work on the tent of meeting, for all its service, and for the sacred garments. Exodus 35:21  I’ve written about it before , but fiber arts are kind of my thing. I actually spent last weekend with dozens of my fiber arts people. Shepherds and spinners and dyers and weavers. It was at an event called the Shepherd’s Extravaganza. I got to help out with the fleece sale where shepherds brought in this year’s fleece, the wool freshly cut from their sheep (don’t worry, it’s like a hair cut – doesn’t hurt at all). A judge came and looked them all over, noting different qualities and deficiencies in them. She chose the best to receive fancy ribbons, and one among them received the judge’s choice award. In another area, craftspeople had brought things they had made with wool (and other fiber) to be displayed and judged. My Mom won the judge’s choice in that area, she’s super tale...

  And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” Exodus 34:6-7  Who is God? What is He like? There are thousands of different references in the Bible and we could compound them and break them down, but how much more accurate, more exact would it be to look at who God, Himself, says He is?   God starts out by introducing Himself as “The Lord, the Lord.” In other versions, this is represented as “Yahweh, Yahweh God.” He gives His Name, that by which He is to be known to all mankind for all generations. This is the name God gave to Moses at the burning bush when he asked for it. It literally means, “the existing one” ( Strong’s ). God is the...

  Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to their tent. The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.   Exodus 33:10-11  Have you ever heard the phrase, “Familiarity breeds contempt” or its counterpart, “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone”? Sometimes we become so used to a really special, wonderful thing, that we no longer see its special wonderfulness. It’s just regular, the way it is supposed to be. This morning, I’m considering this when it comes to prayer.   Moses had the privilege of speaking to God face to face as a man does with a friend. This was such a wonderful and amazing thing that, when Moses went to the tent of meeting to do this, all the people would come and stand at the entrance to their tents and worship God. Imagine if th...

“They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’ So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”  Exodus 32:23-24  In case you aren’t familiar with the story, let me catch you up. God used Moses to lead the people of Israel out of captivity in Egypt and through the Red Sea, bringing the sea back down upon their enemies and destroying them completely. Then, knowing that the people were not yet ready to be tested in battle, He led them into the wilderness where they were to learn from Him and grow to trust Him. And there was a lot of growing to do! At every turn, at every hiccup, they whined and complained about ever having left Egypt, where they were horribly treated and enslaved. Never did they come to God and humbly say, “We have a need and we trust that You will provide for us...

  The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant. Exodus 31:16  God has done a beautiful thing for us throughout history, He has led by example. He has done things that He did not need to do simply so that we would have an example to follow because we would need to do them. Today we look at one of these examples in the Sabbath.  Originally, in Genesis when we read about God creating the world, God demonstrated for us taking a rest on the seventh day. Was He tired? Had He hit His limit and needed a break? No. God doesn’t get tired, but He knew we would. He knew that if left to our own devices, we would run ourselves into the ground. In addition, He knew that when we got to working the ground and doing “jobs,” that we would get the mistaken impression that we were providing for ourselves. Even the Israelites who were being provided with their daily bread through manna in the wilderness might lose track of it...

  So I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar and will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve me as priests. Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. Exodus 29:44-45  In today’s text (Exodus 28-29) we focus on the consecration and role of the priests of Israel – Aaron and his sons. I was drawn into the illustration and correlation between this text and how we, as Christians are, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may proclaim the virtues of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9). Charles Spurgeon, in one of his many sermons, fleshed out this correlation and showed me some interesting insights.   The consecration of Aaron, and his descendants that followed him, began with a ceremonial cleansing . They would be washed fully outside of the entrance to the Tabernacle. In order to serve and minister before God, the priests needed to be cleansed from their s...

  There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the covenant law, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites.   Exodus 25:22  What do the tabernacle and its contents teach us? There is so much detail in Exodus 25-27 about how it was to be constructed, but even with that there was much left to the imagination. In Exodus 25:40, God told Moses, “Now be sure to make them according to the pattern you were shown on the mountain.” Moses was the only witness to what it was supposed to look like, and he needed to guide the craftsmen and artisans in recreating that. Some of it, the specific dimensions and materials, are written down here for us, but you know that if ten people looked at the golden lampstand and were asked to write out a description of it, you’d get ten completely different descriptions.   As you know, I’m a visual learner and thinker, and so I worked with AI (CoPilot and Gemini) to help me recreate as cl...

  “Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty.”   Exodus 23:6-7  Today’s reading, Exodus 21 -24, includes the beginning of the Mosaic Law. The Israelites had lived under Egyptian law for 430 years and before that, everyone pretty much had done what they thought to be right in their own eyes. Here, for the first time, God is clearly telling the people what He sees as right and wrong. He’s giving them guidelines and priorities. There are lots of details in this that are foreign to us and may be confusing, such as dealings with servants/slaves, but as we look at it, we can begin to see what God values and, in turn, what He wants us to value. As a reminder, as Christians we are no longer bound by the Law, but we can still very much learn from it and take those lessons to inform how we honor God and represent Him in a fallen world. ...

 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”  Exodus 20:2-3  In today’s passage ( Exodus 20 ) we read about the law that God gave to the Israelites. This was intended to teach them how to live rightly as well as to show them their sin ( Galatians 3:19 ). Until God told the Israelites that they were to observe the Sabbath, for example, they were not held accountable for it. But once they knew, they knew. Now they were aware that what they were doing was wrong in sleeping with another man’s wife, taking their neighbor’s tool, or not quite telling the truth when testifying. And alongside them, we too are now aware. The Law was given that we might see and know our sin for what it is. So that we could see our desperate need for Jesus and our hopelessness without Him.  Through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, when we believe in Him we, too, are dead to sin and alive in Ch...

  Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”  Exodus 19:5-6  I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the God of the universe, the Creator of heaven and earth. I have the privilege of speaking with Him from my home. I do not have to go to a special place. I do not have to be of a special genetic lineage. No, I have His Holy Spirit inside of me, and I may speak to Him as I’m making breakfast, as I’m folding laundry, as I’m sitting, quietly before Him. I can pray to God from inside an MRI machine, or on the road while we’re driving. But, does familiarity breed contempt? Am I too familiar with God?  I wonder this at times. I wonder if I should be kneeling when I pray like they do in the movies or in picture books, but Jesus didn’t always kneel ...

Moses’ father-in-law replied, “What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. Exodus 18:17-18  Have you ever gotten yourself so into your routine that you don’t even notice it anymore. You piled on one more thing and one more thing and before you know it your “simple” 17 step system is bogging you down far more than you realized. Perhaps it came from an, “I gotta do it” mentality. You come across a responsibility and feel like it’s yours, so you add it on. They even make sense in your mind. You gotta take a shower. You gotta fix breakfast. You gotta do the dishes and the laundry and clean the kitchen and the bathroom and balance the checkbook and pay the bills. You gotta lead the Bible study and serve as a greeter at church on Sunday and help out with the Women’s Tea and lead the kids’ class on Wednesday night. Before too long, these gottas will drown you! But, what are...

  As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up – one on one side, one on the other – so that his hands remained steady till sunset.   Exodus 17:11-12  The stage is set. The Israelites are deep in the wilderness. Their camp is set. The flocks and herds are watched over. But in the distance comes the sound of something different, something they weren’t expecting. The Amalekite army was approaching, and they were on the warpath! No one knows what caused the Amalekites to attack Israel. Maybe they had heard about what happened in Egypt and were intimidated by them. Maybe they knew that the Israelites saw Canaan as their promised land, and they believed the war was on its way to them. In any case, what we do know is that they took the initiative to come out to meet the Israel...

  Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”  Exodus 16:4-5  Manna wasn’t just provision for the Israelites, it was a test. Both the Israelites and God were being tested here. Let’s look at how.  God had led them out into the desert, why? He hadn’t taken them somewhere that they could easily access the things they needed, like flour for bread. There was no grocery store on the corner. He brought them out to the wilderness where they would be required to rely on Him. God’s provision and wisdom were being put to the test. Would He be able to provide food for a million people? Every day? History says that He did. He provided for them in a way that they had never expected,...