Deuteronomy 18:15-20: Trying to Negotiate a Lesser Truth

The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”

The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.” - Deuteronomy 18:15-20

I guess this is a case of be careful what you ask for. Sometimes God can be too much. Moses had to go around veiled after speaking with God because his face shone so brightly. That is a tough way to live your everyday life: no one can look you in the eye. The people were even surprised that Moses survived.

So they asked and God said he would provide a prophet--essentially a second Moses--to stand as an intermediary between God and man and convey God's words to his people. The people all gave God and Moses the thumbs up. Some were thinking that this was great supernatural high, a mountaintop experience and now things could return to normal and they would return to their daily lives unmolested by sudden inbreakings of the supernatural.

But when God agreed to their request, he gave an alternative the ramifications of which they did not fully consider. Sure, they didn't have fire from heaven. but that was never the point. The point was the commandments. By making God's words come through Jesus as the prophet made them easier to hear but also easier to forgot. The words weren't going to be any less powerful or any less demanding. Note what God sayd: "I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name."  Sometimes we think we can negotiate a lesser settlement with God-a plea bargain. 

John said, "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." (John 1:17) Essentially saying, those words that were given on Sinai were the simple part. The complicated part is the grace and truth that come through Jesus.

Acts 19:1-7: Living in the Landscape of Grace

While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”

They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?”

“John’s baptism,” they replied.

Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. There were about twelve men in all. - Acts 19:1-7

It would be a sad salvation if we only had repentance. Yes, we would truly recognize how had the things we had done were. It is like the hunger without the feast. Repentance is good for showing you how good God is and make you realize how much you long for the holiness of God and how much you lack that holiness. It can lead to life change, making you strive to attain that holiness with the strength within you, fueled by that sense of longing and that sense of guilt and opportunity lost. But it seems like a kind of losing cause, like you are pushing a giant boulder up a hill, trying to reach the very top but knowing realistically that at some point you will grow tired and your footing will slip and that boulder will roll right over you back down to the foot of the hill and then you must start over again, only this time with less strength--a strength that will eventually fade until it is overcome by death. 

But repentance isn't the end of the gospel story--instead it is just the beginning. The fresh wind of the Spirit and the rescue by the Messiah Jesus are for the life post-repentance. It is the life full of new opportunities, not based on avoiding regret but rather based on running fueled by gratitude. It is the new life, not just a grueling extension of the old life.  Repentance is key, because no recognition of the grace of God can fully come until we are willing to relinquish the past and accept that God's way is better. But repentance is not sufficient, because we must learn to live in the landscape of grace.

Psalm 29: There is the Storm and Then There is God

Ascribe to the Lord, you heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.

The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord thunders over the mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is majestic.  The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon leap like a calf, Sirion like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning. The voice of the Lord shakes the desert; the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forests bare. And in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord is enthroned as King forever. The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace. - Psalm 29

There were nights when we sat under our skylights and listened to the sound of rain in torrents pounding on the roof and the roar of the wind in fits and gusts assaulting the shade cloth on our patio with a high pitched whirring. In the Philippines, sheet metal roofing reverberated like a steel drum and you dare not look outside for fear of flying nails, branches and coconuts and rushing water invades the street, through rice fields and through the cement first floors of homes and offices.  

You imagine the raging typhoon force of the storm. But for every ounce of storm, there is a pound of power of the Lord. I join the people who, strengthened by the Lord and at peace in the storm, cry 'Glory!' There is the storm and then there is God.

Genesis 1:1-5: The Author of Beautiful

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. - Genesis 1:1-5

What was God thinking back there in the beginning? There wasn't light. There wasn't darkness.  The Spirit was just hovering there over a vast roiling mass of nothing--no, not even nothing because that would allow me to measure its height, color, temperature and more, but it had none of that. It was the ultimate blank canvas--not just to paint and sculpt but fundamentally to speak. What brought order to the formless and substance to the empty and meaning to the meaningless were the words, "Let there be..." because they brought is to the is not. 

I have an unexpected emotional response to that phrase here in these few verses. How powerful are God's words! From the one who is and was and always will be--from the great "I am"  comes the verb "to be"--"let there be" That is uniquely God and uniquely beautiful. He spoke light and he took a moment to look at it and he had delight in it and he called it good. Why? Because God is good.  Sometimes just thinking about that moment when there was not and then there was and what was was good--makes me admire God because he is the author of beautiful.