In the OT, we open with the Lord telling Moses that He has filled a man with His Holy Spirit to empower him to do the work that He called them to do. He graced them with the ability, intelligence, knowledge, and craftsmanship to worship Him.

God does not leave us to ourselves to figure out how to worship Him. He has given us a specific way (in Christ) and endows us with His Holy Spirit to do so.

Moses has been up on that mountain for quite some time getting instructions from Lord, and the Israelites get very impatient—so impatient that they convince Aaron to build them an idol god so that they could “worship” Him. The ink on the Ten Commandments hasn’t even dried yet, and they are already SERIOUSLY violating the first one! God’s sees this and gets angry enough to want to destroy them. However, Moses intercedes for them and God spares them from His wrath.

We must ALWAYS wait patiently on God and refuse to settle for a cheap idol to fill our desire for worship. Ours may not be a golden calf. Maybe it’s our car, gadgets, children, or spouse…Also, let us never downgrade the power of prayer—especially intercession. Because of Moses’ faithfulness to God and willingness to intercede for His people, Moses was able to see the glory of God—so will we. Chances are He’s not going to side-slide by you on a mountain while you hide in a rock, but His glory will be revealed in others ways, namely His Son and the fruit of your regenerated heart’s work for Him.

In our NT reading, the Sadducees have approached Jesus in an attempt to disprove Him, and He throws a wrench in their plans with one of His classic moves: the double entendre (ambiguity of meaning arising from language that lends itself to more than one interpretation). He tells them that they do not know the Scriptures or the power of God and that God is not the God of the dead but of the living.

The Sadducees could recite Scriptures but they didn’t know the Scriptures. Jesus counts that as not knowing God at all because if they did they would have understood the things He was trying to teach them. Jesus also tells them, “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” Jesus meant that literally to validate the resurrection, but He was also trying to convey that God is not the God of those who are spiritually dead and stuck in their religious traditions. He is the God of those who are alive IN CHRIST. Only those alive in Christ can rightfully say they belong to God and He to them. The spiritually dead are not in Christ; therefore, He is not their God.

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Today’s reading has us listening in to the conversation God had with Moses. God is giving details on how He is to be worshipped and not only that, who is allowed to approach Him. We have before us the purification of the priest, the instruments of worship, how God is to be approached and what must be offered to Him as acceptable. You see God gave CLEAR details and nothing else will be accepted. The result of approaching God wrong, offering something unacceptable, using the wrong instruments and even substituting something else for what HE has commanded resulted in only one thing. DEATH!

Today; however, many believe they can worship God however they please. You hear “come as you are” or even worse, many teachers in the body of Christ feel that anything and everything is acceptable. Others say “don’t judge”, this my friend is in a specific context and it is not that we don’t judge, we don’t judge wrongly or hypocritically. But we MUST make a judgment call on what God calls acceptable worship and what He does not. As ambassadors of His word we have no choice. And just in case we believe that God only kills in the Old Testament we only need to read Acts 5:1-11 and 1 Corinthians 11:27-32.

But why we must ask? Because God is Holy, Righteous, Just and Perfect and He is not to be played with. God is not a nice cosmic teddy bear that you can hug whenever you are feeling down, nor is He like Santa Claus, big jolly with a red suit bringing gifts and candy to good little boys and girls. Nor is He like a jolly ol’ grandpa who allows the children to behave unruly when they are with Him. God is not like us and any God who does not look like the God of Numbers 16:25-35 is a god of our imagination. However….

God has provided a way. We will see a High Priest who does not need to offer up atonement for Himself  (Hebrews 9:11-28). He will be the all sufficient, ram, lamb and bull. No need for bells to be tied to Him, no need for Him to kill a bull at the opening of the tent, no need for Him to slay a young ram and poor its blood on the alter, nope! He is all sufficient 100% God and 100% Man. We will see the blood of bulls and goats can never atone for the people. It will tell us in Romans that God only winked at our sin, but every year more bulls, more goats, more doves, more lambs had to die. More incense, more perfume, more anointing oil, had to be burned and poured. Thank God of Jesus Christ.

Finally in our NT reading we see this “come as you are” also being rejected. There is a parable about a great wedding. The original invitees not only rejected the invitiation but killed the King’s servants. You see what the response to that was right (Matthew 22:7). He then went out and called those who were not invited and many came; however, one “came as he was”. And the results were tragic for that fella.

God will only be worshipped on His terms. He is too Holy to negotiate with man. Do not be fooled that you can come as you are, you must come, covered with the blood of Christ or you will hear on that day “depart from me, I never knew you”. Don’t be numbered in that number friend. Trust wholly in the Lord Jesus, He has approached God on your behalf, you only need to be sprinkled in His blood.

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Today’s OT reading God is still giving out His very precise instruction of the pattern and layout of how He wants the tabernacle to be set up. So far God has explained and described very specifically how He wants the ark of the covenant, the showbread table, the lampstands of gold, curtains of linen, curtains of goats’ hair, the boards, and sockets, the veil and the screen the, bronze altar, the court of the tabernacle as well as the what the priest should wear. God is not quite finished with giving His instruction on the tabernacle layout, we will continue to follow.

This brings us to our new testament reading. Jesus is in the temple teaching and while teaching He is interuppted by the chief preists and the elders. They approached Jesus questioning his authority as if the authority was their’s to give. What’s incredible is that after they ask Jesus who gave Him the authority to teach, once He answers they are now under the very authority they question. The lesson plan has now been directed to them about them. In the parable of the two sons (Matt. 21:28-32) one of the sons says no to the father, later regrets it and does what the father asked of him. The other son says yes to the father and does nothing. Jesus tells these religious leaders that prostitutes and tax collectors will get into the kingdom of God before they do. He explains by saying that when John came and preached to them repentance the tax collectors and prostitute believed John, but the religious leaders did not. He then says that not only did you not receive John, but you didn’t feel remorse afterwards either and still didn’t believe him. My question is this: Have you really grabbed hold of the gospel? Have you allowed the gospel of Jesus Christ to come in change your life and renew your mind? Or  have you decided to reject the gospel and just “do church”? Are you just dressing up on Sunday, carrying your bible, rembering a scripture to impress those that we see?  If you have not allowed the gospel to change your life, no matter how righteous you may seem, Jesus was talking to you in this parable. Allow His words to penetrate your heart and change your life.

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