How God cares for us, His unruly, sinful people

Tuesday, Jun 17, 2014 Devotions: Ps 78; Num 11:1-23; Ro 1:16-25; Mt 17:22-27 Asaph wrote: People, hear me; I will express dark ancient sayings, ancestral lore. We need to teach our children about our YHWH. He established His testimony and His Torah among the descendants of Jacob, the children of Israel. His intention, our mission, is to teach this truth to our children and grandchildren hereafter, so that they can avoid the sins and follies of their forebears—generations unfaithful to God. The Ephraimites turned back in the day of battle and did not obey God's commands or keep His covenant. They forgot what YHWH did for them in and after the exodus from bondage in Egypt. He opened the sea and let them pass, then drowned the hosts of Pharaoh pursuing them. He led them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. He opened rocks in the desert and poured forth enough water for the people and their herds and flocks. Nevertheless, the people recurrently sinned and disobeyed our God. They tested Him over and over, and though He fed them the manna of angels, succulent quail, they failed to believe and trust YHWH. So God was enraged with them and their lack of faith. While God's food was still in their mouths, God slew their strongest and laid low the picked men of Israel. And still they sinned; but when God brought death upon them, for a time, they repented and begged His forgiveness and favor; when God relented and blessed His people, they slid again into sin—flattering God with empty words, lying to God with their hearts and tongues. Yet compassionate God did not destroy the people; He remembered that they are only flesh, mortal, a passing breeze. They could not recall the miracles of power by which YHWH demoralized Pharaoh, defeated the gods of Egypt, and delivered Israel from slavery. At Passover, God killed the firstborn, human and livestock, among the Egyptians, and preserved the lives of the children of Israel. Like a shepherd, God led them forth. He brought them to His holy mountain; He drove out nations before them and settled them in the beautiful Land He had promised to Abraham. Again the people tested and rebelled against the Most High God. They joined the Canaanites in worshiping idols and demons and graven images. God rejected the ten tribes of Israel, and chose instead the descendants of Judah and Benjamin; He settled on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, and chose David as His servant-king; David went from shepherding Jesse's flocks to leading YHWH's people; and with an upright heart and skillful hand, David tended and guided God's people. Moses recorded that the people complained in the Lord's hearing about their misfortunes. Then YHWH's wrath burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the encampment. Alarmed, the people cried to Moses, and Moses prayed to YHWH, and God's fire abated. Next, the people cried out a craving for meat to supplement the manna they had from God morning by morning—despite its fresh taste and sustaining nourishment. This enraged God and angered Moses, too. Moses began to complain to YHWH about the unbearable burden of trying to lead and provide for the multitude and their livestock. Moses asked God: 'Where am I to get meat for all these people? I cannot; the burden is too much for me. Please, God, kill me now, and spare me this wretchedness.' But God said to Moses, 'Gather for me seventy elders of Israel; bring them before Me at the tent of meeting. I will confer with you there, and I will put some of My Spirit on them, so that they can help you bear this responsibility. And I will shower the people with meat—so much that it will sicken them—all this because this people has rejected Me and longed to return to Egypt.' Moses doubted God's capacity to feed so many in such a place, but God remonstrated with him: 'Is YHWH's hand shortened? Now you will see whether My word will come true for you, or not.' Paul wrote to the Romans: I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who has faith—Jews first, and also Gentiles. In the Gospel God's righteousness is revealed through faith for faith—as was written (in Habakkuk 2:4): 'Those who through faith are righteous shall live.' The scriptures reveal God's wrath from heaven against all mortal ungodliness and wickedness, by which humans suppress the truth. God has shown mortals all that can be known about Himself. Ever since the creation of the cosmos God's invisible nature—that is, His eternal power and deity—has been perceived in the things God made. Therefore, humans have no excuse; though they knew God, they neither honored nor thanked Him; instead, they became futile in thought and darkened in mind, senseless, stupid sinners. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal humans, birds, animals or reptiles. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, dishonoring their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged truth about God for lies, and they worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, the One Who Is blessed forever. Jesus had returned from the Mount of Transfiguration, and had delivered a demon-possessed boy with symptoms like epilepsy. As He and His disciples gathered in Galilee, Jesus said to His followers, 'The Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of mortals, and they will kill Him and He will be raised on the third day.' And His disciples were greatly distressed. When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the half-shekel temple tax approached Peter demanding to know if his Master Jesus paid the tax. Peter said that Jesus did so. When Peter returned to the house they all shared, Jesus spoke to him first: 'What do you think, Simon? Do earthly rulers take money from their sons or from others.' Peter replied, 'From others.' And Jesus said to him, 'Then the sons are free. However, in order not to offend them, go to the sea, cast a hook, and look in the mouth of the first fish you catch. You'll find a shekel there; take it to the tax collectors for Me and for yourself.'