The Unfashioned Altar, Low to the Ground

An ancient, pagan temple -- Megiddo

"An altar of earth you shall make for Me, 
and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings 
and your peace offerings, 
your sheep and your oxen. 
In every place where I record My name I will come to you, 
and I will bless you. 
And if you make me an altar of stone, 
you shall not build it of hewn stone; 
for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it. 
Nor shall you go up by steps to My altar, 
that your nakedness may not be exposed on it."
~ Exodus 20:24-26

We have such a longing for our service to the Lord
to stand out as a work of art.
But He asks us to form His altar from dirt, or unfashioned stone.
It was a functional place of worship.
And its function was all about a bloody atonement.
About payment for sin, and peace at a cost.
It is not a place to be showing off our skills with a chisel.
This altar was a necessity because of a multitude of transgression.
Because our works are at enmity with His holiness,
and must be reconciled.
How wrong it would be to put our works into the altar.
But we would like them there -- distracting from the blood.
Drawing men's eyes away
from the reality of death making payment for our sins,
and toward the incredible artistry we possess --
the gifts God gave us.
We don't want earthen altars:
such dirty accommodations for worship.
Something more permanent --
a little flashier and more fashionable would please us better.
He'll allow stone, but not stone formed by us.
Just simple, earthy materials over which blood must run.
The sacrifice ought to be the central thing in our worship.
Our tools, our gifts, our expertise are a profanity to His altar.

He says He'll come and bless us
wherever He has caused His name to be remembered.
It's remembered at the altar of His sacrifice,
and not in the work of our hands.

And how we would like to build steps up to it.
Steps up to the blessings, steps to the atonement.
Stairs to climb to peace with God,
a way to ascend for the payment of sin.
Its height would hold the blood up high enough that others might not see it.
They might just see us standing a little higher than they are.
But the reality is that in climbing steps to the altar,
our nakedness is exposed.
We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
No man comes to the Father but by Me."
He is the sacrifice, and we cannot climb up to Him.
In our service to the Lord,
we ought to keep the blood right there at eye-level.
Visible to the lowly.
Not formed by human hands.

An Injustice

He was despised and rejected--
a man of sorrows, acquainted with the deepest grief.
We turned our backs on Him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.

Yet it was our weaknesses He carried;
It was our sorrows that weighed Him down.
And we thought His troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for His own sins!
But He was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God's paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on Him the sins of us all.
He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet He never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, He did not open His mouth.
Unjustly condemned, He was led away.
No one cared that He died without descendants,
that His life was cut short in midstream.
But He was struck down for the rebellion of my people. 
He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone.
But He was buried like a criminal;
He was put in a  rich man's grave.

But it was the Lord's good plan to crush Him
and cause Him grief.
Yet when His life is made an offering for sin,
He will have many descendants.
He will enjoy a long life,
and the Lord's good plan will prosper in His hands.
When He sees all that is accomplished by His anguish,
He will be satisfied.
And because of His experience,
My righteous servant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous,
for He will bear all their sins.
I will give Him the honors of a victorious soldier,
because He exposed Himself to death.
He was counted among the rebels.
He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.

And every time I read it, I am stunned all over again.
We looked the other way from Him,
turning our backs on His suffering--
but He was counted among us to intercede for us.
He is acquainted with the deepest sorrows... but they are our sorrows.
Our sin, our rebellion, our sickness,
our straying, our sorrow, our path.
His piercing, His crushing, His beating,
His whipping, His oppression, His slaughter,
His silence, His criminal burial.
The Lord's good plan.
Our righteousness: His work.
He is satisfied with the results of His anguish,
when He sees the accomplishment of it.
Our Hero -- better than a soldier.
His intercession saves us.

While I looked the other way, He did it.
While I turned my back, He interceded.
While I rebelled, He suffered.
While I strayed, He was crushed.
And doesn't it humble me?
And doesn't it exalt Him?
Shall He not have His reward?

He Waits At The Scene Of The Crime

 
This was a really interesting article. It talked about some of the descendents of top Nazis, how they grew up not knowing these horrendous secrets about their parents and grandparents. One brother and sister, so horrified at the history of their progenitor's sins, both had themselves sterilized, in order to prevent the family from ever having another heir. They have walked around with a burden of guilt. 

I couldn't help but ponder: what do we do with our sin? With our family history of sin? Do we run from the facts? Do we visit the scenes of the crimes? Do we mutilate ourselves to keep it from happening again? Do we pretend there is nothing wrong in our past -- even if our family's past remains as the world-wide definition of evil? One man went to Auschwitz, where his father was brought up in luxury, and wept when he saw 'the gate to hell' that he recognized as a backdrop to old family photos. He was approached by victims of his own family, who told him their stories. He was forgiven, and felt joy for the first time in his life.

These descendants feel guilt by blood association. It seems they consider themselves tainted, although they have had no hand in the wicked deeds. It brought to mind our kinsman redeemer. The One who came in our likeness -- the likeness of sinful man. He came as our relative. He came to save us from inside the family. But in a sense, He is also our victim. Jew and Gentile alike laid their hands on Him and crucified the Son of God -- the Son of Man. We beat Him. We cursed Him. We tore His beard and nailed Him there. And He waits, at the scene of the crime, to offer redemption in His blood. That scene of our guilt, of our family shame, is the place where He waits to welcome us as brothers.

Hidden in the Walls

Ruins of Beit Shean

The walls of Jericho bring to mind destruction.
Everybody knows the story of the battle.
"And the walls came tumbling down!"

Rahab, the harlot, had a house built in the walls.
It was in these very walls she hid the spies and joined her lot to Israel's.
She first lived her faith there, within the walls.
And it was in the walls, in her home, that the spies told her she would be saved.

Between 1929 and 1936, Jericho's ruins were excavated.
Its destruction was dated to roughly 1400 B.C.
The walls had fallen down flat.
They were double, with an outer wall 6 feet thick,
and an inner wall 12 feet thick --
both about 30 feet high.
They were 15 feet apart, linked by the houses built into the top. 

There, at the point of attack,
she huddled in her house with her family, awaiting her salvation.
The spies didn't tell her to hide in the center of town --
away from the crashing walls.
But right there in the chaos and destruction, she was safe.
They burned the city: the outer walls suffered the worst of the fire.
Houses alongside the wall were burned to the ground.
"The stratum generally was covered with a deep layer of black burnt debris,
under which were pockets of white ash,
overlaid with a layer of fallen reddish brick." (Haley's Bible Handbook)
But the scarlet cord she had hung out her window
marked her trust of the God who broke her walls down,
and took her out of that doomed city.

But the just shall live by faith. 

Good News!

Are you among those who are alienated from God?
An enemy in your mind because of wicked works? 

Your sins made the list of redeemable offences against God.

They were paid for by the blood of Jesus,
and faith in Him wipes out the list of charges against you.

Amnesty.
Reconciliation is offered through the body of His flesh through death.
You, too, Alienated Enemy, Worker of Wickedness,
can be presented holy and blameless and above reproach in His sight.

"And you,
being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
He has made alive together with Him,
having forgiven you all trespasses,
having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us,
which was contrary to us.
And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross."

Now wouldn't you like to shout?

And Who Is My Neighbor?

Yesterday at church we sang a song that included this:
"Praise to the lamb that was slain
Praise to the Father who gave His son away
The proof of love, the price of grace
You traded all to take my place
And died for me so I can be a child of God"

And I pondered Him.
That when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, He answered,
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and with all thy soul, 
and with all thy mind. 
This is the great and first commandment. 
And a second is like it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 
On these two commandments the whole law hangs, and the prophets."

And then of course, the question from our representative of mankind, "And who is my neighbor?"

Have you ever thought about how the Father saw His enemies?
That seeing our condition --
our blasphemous iniquity,
our adulterous fidelity,
and our religious hypocrisy --
that He gave His Son away in order that we might be saved.

The Father did not write the Law, so much as He is the Law.
The Law reveals His nature.
He gave His Son because He is the Law.
The Law demands justice, and the Law commands love.
And He is both.
He is the justice of God, and the love of God.

All His motivations in His dealings with men fulfill that which we cannot fulfill.
Love your enemies.
Do good to those who hate you.
Bless those who curse you.
Pray for those who despitefully use you.
Do unto others what you would have them do to you.
Give to those who ask of you.
If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him a drink.

Jesus said, "If you have seen me, you've seen the Father."
And consider what we see when we look at Him --
a man who was reviled without reviling again;
a man praying for his persecutors;
a man feeding hungry people;
giving to those who asked of Him;
touching the untouchables;
who forgives not seven times, but seventy times seven;
whose obedience to the Father was unto death;
whose love for His brethren was until the end.

The Father gave His Son.
His Beloved Son, in Whom He is well-pleased.
Would I give my son for my enemy?
Not likely.
I would sacrifice my enemy for my son.

But not Him.
He loves His neighbor, and His neighbor is His enemy.
And He valued His enemy with the same value as Himself --
giving up His most precious possession to buy back haters.
And I was His enemy.

When He Trusts

"Whosoever cometh unto Him, He will in no wise cast out.
Though dishonest as the thief,
though unchaste as the woman who was a sinner,
though fierce as Saul of Tarsus,
though cruel as Manasseh,
though rebellious as the prodigal,
the great heart of love will look upon the man who feels himself to have no soundness in him,
and will pronounce him clean,
when he trusts in Jesus crucified."
~C.H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, September 29

Something Jesus Would Never Want You To Do

When my husband and I were first married,
we were 'counseled' by Christians regarding the bearing of children:  
Yes, children are a blessing of the Lord, but God wants you to be wise.
As though receiving a blessing from the Lord could be unwise.

The problem, of course, is that those who give advice along these lines,
have made their wisdom the standard.
Setting our own opinions and preferences up
as the way to really honor God drives people from Him.

My son told me that years ago, a teacher told him,
"Tearing the papers off of crayons is something
Jesus would never want you to do."
Frankly, it made my heart hurt.
Because he said he believed her.
He thought he had sinned against God.
I wish I had known it sooner.

"If you really want to be a God-fearing person, 
you will wash your hands 
in the prescribed (but extra-biblical) manner 
before eating your food.
If you are truly a believer, you will keep a spotless house, 
so that others can see the cleanliness of Christ in your dust-free home.
If you are sold-out for Jesus, you will forfeit marriage 
in favor of communal living in an elder-dictated community.
Jesus would never walk with a cigarette-smoking sinner.
Give up your tobacco so Jesus will speak to you.
My preferences are God's preferences, 
and I can show you how to please Him."

Jesus said, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father."
And He didn't say a word against the tearing of crayon wrappers.
But He did have a few things to say against teaching men's opinions
in the place of God's requirements.

It causes a conflict when we read what God's word actually says.
We attribute evil to God when we see Him doing the things
men have told us are wrong to do.
But He is good, and He does good.
Or we hide ourselves from Him (and from our brothers and sisters in the Lord)
because we think He's angry.

And when it cost Him so much to give us access,
I don't think we're doing His work when we push others away from Him.
Furthermore, it trains the consciences of those we teach
to dismiss real evil as inconsequential
while carefully obeying worthless edicts.

That's not the Gospel.

Weightier

David's Tomb

#1 For shutting up the kingdom of heaven against men -- not going in or allowing anyone else to, either.

#2 For devouring widows' houses, and making long prayers for a pretense.

#3 For traveling long distances on mission trips and converting men into even worse sons of hell.

#4 For teaching others to swear by the gold of the temple, and counting the temple as nothing, and for valuing the gift on the altar and not the altar itself.

#5 For paying tithes on spices and neglecting the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.

#6 For washing the outside but being full of extortion and self-indulgence.

#7 For looking like beautiful tombs, all white and sparkling -- but being full of all uncleanness and dead bones. (Appearing righteous, but being full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.)

#8 For building monuments to righteous men when you are the sons of their murderers. 'How can you escape the condemnation of hell?'

Woe.

Then He said, "I send you prophets, and you kill them. All their blood will come on you."

And yet:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you persecuting murderer --
how I have wanted to gather you to Me.
But you were not willing.
You won't see me again
until you say,
'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!'

This is not a chapter I usually enjoy reading or thinking about. But a few things stood out to me from it this morning.

Jesus indicts the Pharisees.
I, too, have been indicted by the word of God.

We all fall short of the glory of God.
But pretending to be clothed in it is asking for woe.

They barred the gates of heaven
against men they deemed to be unworthy of it.
Refusing to enter by grace through faith,
they held back others who might enter
by grace through faith.
'Conform to our brand of holiness, first.
Wear our kind of clothes.
Eat our kind of food.
Drink only approved beverages.
Only dance our dances.
Listen to our music.'

But those things do not address holiness.
They are straining out gnats, but swallowing whole camels.
Being outwardly righteous by conformity does not wash the inside.
And the inside is what God looks at.

I think what I saw that I haven't seen before
is that Jesus was not barring the kingdom from the Pharisees.
His heart leaked out even in these woes.
'How can you escape the condemnation of hell?'
Seeing you won't enter by grace through faith,
how will you enter?
He reasons here with them.
You are guilty.
You.
You teacher of the law.
It judges you.
Justice. 
And until you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord,'
you won't see Me.
Faith.
There is no other name under heaven by which men can be saved.
Mercy.

It Was Necessary

"Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary
for the Christ to suffer
and to rise from the dead the third day,
and that repentance
and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations,
beginning at Jerusalem."

Without His suffering, all our repentance could never bring about remission of sins, because without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. 

But because of His suffering, remission of sins is free to the repentant. 

Thank You, Jesus.

A Meditation

"Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever.

Let Israel now say...
Let the house of Aaron now say...
Let those who fear the Lord now say,
'His mercy endures forever.'

I called on the Lord in my distress;
The Lord answered me and set me in a broad place.
The Lord is on my side: I will not fear.
What can man do to me?
The Lord is for me among those who help me;
...It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.
It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.

...You pushed me violently, that I might fall,
But the Lord helped me.
The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation.

The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents of the righteous;
The right hand of the Lord does valiantly.
The right hand of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the Lord does valiantly.
I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.
...He has not given me over to death.

Open to me the gates of righteousness;
I will go through them, and I will praise the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord, through which the righteous shall enter.

I will praise You, for You have answered me,
And have become my salvation.

The stone which the builders rejected  has become the chief cornerstone.
This was the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day the Lord has made; I will be glad and rejoice in it.

Save now, I pray, O Lord; O Lord, I pray, send now prosperity.
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!
We have blessed you from the house of the Lord.
God is the Lord, and He has given us light;
Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.
You are my God, and I will praise You.
You are my God, I will exalt You.

Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever."

~From Psalm 118

My attention was drawn to this psalm this morning as I read Acts 4 to my children. Peter quoted this in answer to the priests and Sadducees when they asked him in what power or by what name he healed a cripple.

Just a couple of verses above Peter's quoted verse, my eyes fell here: "This is the gate of the Lord, through which the righteous shall enter".
Jesus said: "I am the Door. No man comes to the Father but by Me."
The Good Shepherd.
The Door of the sheepfold.
The Way.
The Gate.

Just below that, it says: "I will praise You, for You have answered me, and have become my salvation." Jehovah's salvation.
Yehoshuah.
Y'shua.
Jesus.

Afterward, it says: "This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it."
The day of salvation.
The day of the rejected stone.
The gate by which the righteous enter.
This was the Lord's doing.

"Save now."
Hosanna.
They said that, didn't they?
"Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!"
Yehoshuah.
Jehovah is salvation.
He has become our salvation.
He came in the name of the Lord.

"God is the Lord, and He has given us light."
"I am the Light of the world."

"Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar."
"This is My body, which is broken for you..."
Behold, the Lamb of God, which takes away the sins of the world.

Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever.

The Lord is for us, among those who help us! In our distress, He answers us. He answered us with this salvation. I am set in a broad place. I am set in Christ. The Lord is on my side.

"It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man."
That is the central verse of the entire Bible. That is the central message of the entire Bible. Put your trust in the Lord. His right hand has done valiantly, and is exalted. Jesus Christ is at the right hand of  the Father.
He has done valiantly.
He has accomplished salvation.
He has become our salvation, and ever lives to make intercession for us.
That means He goes between us and God. He envelopes us in Himself, and stands for us.

We were pushed violently, that we might fall.
But the Lord helped us. He has become our salvation.

That's why the voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents of the righteous.
We shall not die, but live.
He has not given us over to death.
Walk through the gate of the Lord, the gate of righteousness.
He has become your salvation.

Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever.

Thank You, Jesus.