Monday, May 7, 2007

WOW Conference 2007 - He Gave Us His Word! Part 2 of 3

Looking through the eyes of the alien gives us a fresh glimpse into the beautiful message of God's Word...and that message is that we are truly sought after by the King of Kings. Sometimes that message is easy to see...remember Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well...many former husbands...living with a man she's not married to...and Jesus meets her and offers grace, forgiveness...living water. Sometimes the message is not easy to see at all.

I don't know about you...but it is easy to be overwhelmed by the Old Testament. The names...the rules...Leviticus...the bloody sacrifices...the battles...the prophesies...the warnings...the exile...the "wrath of God." Sometimes it can seem as if "the God of the Old Testament" is nothing like Jesus in the New Testament. I cannot tell you how far that is from the truth. As I have learned more and more about the ancient land of the Bible...and the culture of the people that lived there...I have been amazed at what has come to life for me on its pages. I have truly seen the mercy of God...not just once...but over and over and over again.

I participated in a wonderful Bible Study...maybe I should call it a Bible Adventure...from Focus on the Family..."That the World May Know." Through this forty-one week journey we learned about the land, the culture, and the communication style of the ancient Bible people...all through the "magic" of television. As we learned about the Bible's images of storms... we were "on" the sea of Galilee. As we learned about "Living Water" we were "standing by" the beautiful, gushing, waterfall of En-Gedi. As we learned about the image of the shepherd...we "wandered" through the wilderness with a flock of sheep and a few goats. When we finished the forty-one week journey, the women in our Bible Study voted to do it all over again...all forty-one weeks. I think that speaks a lot for the experience we all had.

The children of Israel knew all about the ancient world...after all...it wasn't ancient to them...but we do not. When God gave his Law, his Teaching, to Moses and the Israelites...they knew their culture, their land, and their people. What God wanted to communicate to them was who they truly were...who he truly was...and the awesome covenant...the unbelievable promise...that he was giving to them.

Over the last 150 years many archaeological digs have been made in the land of the Bible. The stones have truly "cried" out to us...as they tell us about the culture of that time. Each year more and more information is uncovered that confirms the truth of God's Word. Just this week archaeologists believe they have found the tomb of King Herod. The following passage is a quote from the website, "Follow the Rabbi - That the World May Know (http://www.followtherabbi.com/)." It gives us one of the "keys" to understanding the Bible and its message.

The language of the Bible is bound by culture and time. Therefore, understanding the Scriptures involves more than knowing what the words mean. We need to understand those words from the perspective of the people who used them. The people God chose as His instruments—the people to whom He revealed Himself—were Hebrews living in the Near East. These people described their world and themselves in concrete terms.

Their language was one of pictures, metaphors, and examples rather than ideas, definitions, and abstractions. Where we might describe God as omniscient or omnipresent (knowing everything and present everywhere), a Hebrew preferred: “The Lord is my Shepherd.” Thus, the Bible is filled with concrete images from Hebrew culture: God is our Father and we are His children. God is the Potter and we are the clay, Jesus is the Lamb killed on Passover; Heaven is an oasis in the desert, and hell is the city sewage dump...If we are to understand the language God chose for the people of the Bible and for the text itself we must be familiar with the everyday images it employs.

As archeology tells us more and more about the ancient people of the Bible...the more we see the true message of God's Word. God gave the first five books of the Bible...to Moses...for a reason. God's people had been slaves for 400 years. God had delivered them from Egypt and was bringing them into a new land. They needed to know their story...they needed to know who they were. They needed to know the story of the Canaanites...the Amorites...the Hittites...the Jebusites...all the "ites". If you are a Christian, you are a wild shoot that has been grafted into their olive tree. Their story is now your story.

Slaves for 400 years...can you imagine it? God sought them out...rescued them...and then gave them The Law that we read about in Part 1. But why did He then lead them out into the wilderness? Because, He wanted to teach them about Himself...He wanted to show them what He was like...He wanted them to realize that He was their Shepherd.

Did you have a Bible Story Book when you were growing up? I did. I had a picture of a Shepherd in my book. He was standing with his sheep in a beautiful, lush, green field. All my life I pictured the shepherd...just like that...surrounded by the green pastures. I never knew that sheep didn't graze in the fertile fields...as a matter of fact...the fertile land was used to grow crops. So where did sheep go to eat? You guessed it...the wilderness. Every day the shepherd would go out to find the grass for the sheep. He would lead them there...where they would graze on the small tufts of grass that grew up from under the rocks and stones. The sheep didn't worry about what they would eat tomorrow...the shepherd would find the grass for them...and lead them there.

The shepherd also found the water...the safe water...that is. The wilderness was full of canyons that were and are called wadis. They can be dry one moment and in a flash they can have a raging 3 foot wall of water come crashing through them. The sheep depended on the shepherd for everything. The Israelites truly were God's flock as He led them through the wilderness.

The land the Israelites had just left... and the land that they were entering was not wilderness land. As a matter of fact...both lands were fertile. Egypt got its abundant water from the river Nile. The water was then carried to irrigate the crops. Canaan got its water from the rain that fell from the sky. And with that fertility came Fertility Cult Worship. This worship was literally the driving force of the ancient world.

Why do we need to know about fertility cults you might ask. There are times...in the Old Testament when God can look like a God that is consumed with wrath...big...scary...mean...horrible...bloodthirsty. Some of the things that happen are very hard to understand. Knowing about the Fertility Cults helps us to understand God's response to His people ...and believe it or not...it helps us to truly see His grace.

There was nothing more important to the ancient Near Eastern world than water. If rain fell from the sky it would water the ground, seeds would sprout, crops would grow, food would be harvested...and people could eat. If rain did not fall...people starved and died. It was as simple as that. If the seeds were going to sprout they needed water.

Fertility was also very important to a man and woman...they wanted children...and lots of them. Their image of human fertility was simple. The man "sowed" his "seed" into the woman and her womb bore "fruit." It is not surprising that these two images came together in the fertility cults.

Things that were "very fertile" became common images in the ancient land. Fish, because they were full of eggs (which by the way...look like seeds)...pomegranates, because they were full of big juicy seeds...goats, because the male goat was very viral...and twin births were very common...pigs, because they had so many offspring. Bulls were considered very viral...and cattle were the tractors of the land...as they helped in the planting and in the processing of the harvested crops.

As autumn came...and the leaves began to fall off the trees... and the land turned into winter...the people believed that their god Baal...the god who brought fertility...rain...storms...to the earth...went to the underworld. As long as he stayed down there...no green...no crops...no growth. They wanted him to come back to life and bring fertility to the land.

So how did they think that would happen? The answer was found in Asherah. Although she was Baal's mother she was also his mistress. She and Baal would have sex and that sexual union would bring fertility to the land. The image of rain and the image of semen became closely linked together. Sexual fertility became linked with agricultural fertility. Asherah and Baal would come together...rain would fall to the earth.

So how did this involve the people. The people became involved in ritual sexual worship. They would build a high place...a raised platform. The Baal priest or another man would represent Baal...a woman would represent Asherah. These two people would then have sex on the platform as the community watched...and then the people would have sex with each other. Some of the sexual worship involved sex with animals and the drinking of blood. When God told his people not to worship idols...he was not talking about people just bowing and down and telling an idol..."I worship you." That would be bad enough. This was so far beyond just bowing down...this was sexual perversion of the most extreme kind...one big sick, twisted orgy.

Have you read Leviticus chapter 18 recently? It gives us a glimpse into the sick, sexually perverted worship of the fertility cult.

The LORD said to Moses, "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘I am the LORD your God. You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. Leviticus 18:1-3

After this statement the LORD goes on to describe what went on in the country they left...Egypt and what was going on in the country they were going into...Canaan. For the next 21 verses God describes some of the things that were part of fertility cult sexual worship. Men were having sex with their mothers, their sisters, their daughters, their granddaughters, their aunts, their sister-in-laws, their neighbors wives, with other men...and with animals. It was bad.

People would kill their own children as part of this sick worship. Babies and children would be burned as sacrificial offerings to Baal. The ancient world was literally built on the bodies of its own children. Some of them were, "Foundation Sacrifices." Their sacrificed bodies were placed under the foundations of homes, under the thresholds of doors, and in the cornerstones of buildings. Their bodies were also buried around the high places...the platforms used for Baal rituals. They were buried under city walls...and under city gates. How do we know this...the stones have cried out to us. Archaeologists have found their bodies...babies in earthen jars...half a teenage boy in a wall...an elderly woman in a cornerstone. It was horrible. It was beyond horrible.

And at the center of it all...was the need for rain and security.

I want you to think about manna for a minute. Now that you know a little about the Fertility Cult worship...think about manna. The people wanted Baal to send rain...so that grain would grow and could be made into bread. The true God not only sent rain to the earth...he literally made bread...manna...fall from the sky. WOW! The people people believed that the sea...was the abyss...the home of the underworld. They wanted to keep Baal happy so that bad storms would not come and the sea would be calm. The true God parted the "abyss" the sea...and his people walked through on dry ground. The people wanted Baal to supply their water. The true God could make water come from a rock. The people sacrificed their children to Baal. The true God provided a substitute to be sacrificed in the place of the child.

Read the Psalms...listen for who controls the storms...and rides the clouds. It is the true God...not the false Baal. Why do you think God had all his festivals at harvest time...because his people needed to know that he was not just a "wilderness" God...he was also LORD of the HARVEST! The people buried sacrificed children under their city walls to help make them strong. With just the sound of the trumpet and the shout of his people...the true God caused the walls of Jericho to crash to the ground.

He told them to trust HIM...follow his ways...he would lead them into a land flowing with milk and honey...a FERTILE land...that was a gift from HIM. He knew that they would end up following Baal...that they would prostitute themselves to the false idol. In the book of Ezekiel God compared his people to prostitutes...and then he went on with the comparison and said that they were not like regular prostitutes that got paid for sex...they were prostitutes that paid people to be with them. He knew all of this would happen...and he still made His promise...the covenant...that if they broke the covenant...he would pay with his life...with HIS life.

And He did...He did pay with His life. God made the promise way back in Genesis...when he had Abraham cut up some animals and make a bloodpath...and then God alone passed through it. Normally both people would walk through it. It was a way of saying if I break my promise you can do this (the blood dripping between the parts of the cut up animals) to me...in other words...I will pay with my life. But God had Abraham fall into a deep sleep...and God walked the blood path alone. If God broke the covenant...God would pay for it with His life. If Abraham or his descendants broke the covenant...God would pay for it with His life...and He did. Jesus walked the bloodpath alone...for you and for me...because God keeps His promises.

There is no way in just a few pages I can begin to tell you of the grace and love I have seen in the stories of the Bible. God reaches out....over and over and over again. He loves us. We are Sought After. Please join me for the conclusion of this lesson...Part 3. It is the story one who is on the outside...longing to be inside. It is a beautiful story of restoration. May God bless you all with the knowledge of how much he loves you!

Until next time,

Cynthia
If you want to dig deeper...
The Covenant (includes the bloodpath covenant) - http://www.followtherabbi.com/Brix?pageID=3343
Posted by Cynthia at 3:34 PM 2 comments
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