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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