"‘Listen and be witnesses against the family of Jacob,’ says the Lord God, the God All-Powerful. ‘When I punish Israel for their sins, I will also destroy the altars at Bethel. The corners of the altar will be cut off, and they will fall to the ground. I will tear down the winter house, together with the summer house. The houses decorated with ivory will be destroyed, and the great houses will come to an end,’ says the Lord."
"Make each of the four corners of the altar stick out like a horn, in such a way that the corners with their horns are all one piece. Then cover the whole altar with bronze." (Exodus 27:2 NCV).
Since the time of Solomon, the horns on the altar had culturally come to signify amnesty. This wasn’t something the Lord had established in their religious practices, but something that the people had concluded based on the fact that the horns of the altar were used in the sin sacrifice. In this prophesy, God recognizes that the Israelites have put more meaning into the horns than were originally intended and He uses that meaning (of amnesty) to drive home His point: Their sin has been so great, there will be no escape from judgment based on their false religious practices. You see, holding onto the horns to find escape from punishment was, in our terms, an urban legend. It had occurred once (1 Kings 1:50ff) and out of that incident this "tradition" had been established. But this wasn’t something God had established. There were practices the Lord had established for the forgiveness of sins, but this wasn’t one of them.
We often use our own ideas of what "should be" as ways to negotiate with God. We want to continue to embrace our sins, so we rationalize our behavior and then expect God to come along and agree with us. After all, He’s a God of love, right?
I have, most of my adult life, struggled with my weight. I still do. And, to be honest, there are some medical problems which don’t interfere with my life except that it makes it harder for me to lose weight than for some other people. (I’m grateful that at my age I’m still so healthy!) But I have to also admit that I am an emotional eater; I use food as a buffer between me and pain, both physical and emotional pain. When I hurt, I eat. And because my life has been more stressful than normal this past year, I ate myself into an additional 15 pounds. If I were brutally honest (and I try to be on occasion), I needed to lose 15 pounds, not gain them!
Added to this problem is the fact that my body needs protein. People’s bodies are different. Some are carb burners; some are protein burners. I need protein. But I used all of this as an excuse not to ever fast. I had tried fasting and every time given up on it because the experience was so debilitating. I felt that in fasting I basically couldn’t function. But this past week, early in the morning, I had an opportunity to read an article written by a dear saint (who’s now Home) about a 30+ day fast he did. This article so touched me because it was written very matter-of-factly, not like some of the articles I’ve read about fasting. I could hear the Lord saying to me, "Fast today. You’ll feel better." One of the problems I’d encountered this summer was that eating (didn’t matter what I ate) made me feel yucky. Now, you have to know, I was totally unconvinced that fasting was going to make me feel better. Remember, I’d tried it before with horrible results (headaches, migraines, exhaustion, etc.), but one of the things I’ve committed myself to these past months is obedience to His voice.
And so, I fasted for a day. I live alone and had no plans that day, so I didn’t have to worry about the temptations of what others in my life might want to do. I simply went hour to hour. There were two or three times that it got hard not to think about eating, but I would pray . . . and I drank a lot of water! And by the end of the day, I felt pretty good. Tired, but I’m always tired. But I felt better than I usually do even with the tiredness.
So, the second day, I asked the Lord, and He told me to fast for a while. Now, I was having company that day which meant I fixed lunch for them, but I didn’t eat. I drank a lot of water. It wasn’t hard to watch them eat. I really wasn’t concerned about it all (which is such an amazing thing for me). That night, the Lord told me I could eat and I fixed a "normal" dinner. I felt horrible and discovered that "normal" for me is way too much food. So God and I had another conversation and He showed me the size of portions I should have. Yesterday, I had a normal day with my new "normal" sized meals and felt wonderful! In addition, a lot of the desires I’ve had to eat are gone. Could my system have cleaned out this quickly? I have no idea, but I do know that obedience to the Father results in living a good life!
What does all this have to do with the study? Because I spent my life rationalizing my overeating. And eating became an obsession for me; it became one of my sins. I knew it was! And the Lord in three days has walked me through what I needed to overcome that sin. Do I still have to control my thoughts? Absolutely! But praise the Lord, every step we take with Him is one of victory.
The Israelites had come to rationalize their historical/cultural practice of grabbing hold of the horns of the altar to find amnesty for sin. Notice, they weren’t looking for forgiveness (that practice, in the way of a sin sacrifice, had already been established by the Lord); they were looking for amnesty, for tolerance. They had no intention of changing their lives. They simply didn’t want to have to suffer judgment.
Avoiding judgment is never about amnesty or tolerance, but is always about repentance and forgiveness. When we repent, the Lord forgives. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). If we confess our sins. Vine’s (G3670) tells us that this Greek word "homologeo" means "to confess by way of admitting oneself guilty of what one is accused of, the result of inward conviction, to declare openly by way of speaking out freely, such confession being the effect of deep conviction of facts." Repentance must start with a confession of sins and confession is only valid when we are convinced that we are guilty . . . when we are convinced we are guilty (not when others are convinced) . . . and when that guilt is so present that we freely admit our guilt; we have a deep conviction about our sin. In other words, we have to look at that sin in the light of the Throne of grace and see that we have deeply offended and acted against the Father. We have to first see our sin as sin before we can homolegeo it. And if we see our sin as sin, we aren’t going to want amnesty; we’re going to want forgiveness because we aren’t going to want to have anything to do with our sin. We are going to want it gone!
Today, we choose . . . amnesty or forgiveness. With amnesty, our sin and our sinfulness remain. With forgiveness, the Lord replaces our sin with righteousness. Today, as a Church and as individual believers, we choose.
© 2014 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. For permission to copy, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com
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