“40 Days and 40 Nights of God’s Word”

DAY 5: JULY 27

LEVITICUS 18 – NUMBERS 10:36

WHAT A GLORIOUS THING IT IS TO SERVE GOD AND TO HAVE THE PRIVILEGE OF READING HIS WORD! Thank God for all those who received his Word and wrote it down, and for all those who copied and recopied it over the centuries, and for all those who print and publish it today, and for all those who sell and buy it, and for all those who distribute it free of charge online, and for all those who read and teach it. So many hands have gone into the making of the Bible we hold in our hands today, but none of them would have borne any fruit without God moving in and through them. All people, whether believers or not, serve God, AND WHAT A GLORIOUS THING IT IS!

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• In Revelation, God warns us that lukewarm believers will be spewed out of his mouth. It’s a compelling image that sticks with you, as warnings should. In today’s reading, we see that the very land itself will VOMIT out those who commit abominations, will purge the ungodly for their moral filth. God warns the Israelites that the abominations committed by the people of the nations they will conquer are the very reason why those people will lose their land, and that they, the Israelites, will likewise lose their land if they commit the same abominations.

• I don’t know about you, but the first thing that came to my mind when reading this passage were the former Christian nations (like Canada) whose people are now being spewed off their land. It’s being bought up by foreigners and rented out from underneath them. This loss of land should not be surprising to us, since the abominations proscribed by God in this reading are an everyday reality in the Western world and have been enshrined into Western law; some abominations are even supported by so-called Christian churches. It should be no wonder, then, that the very same punishments meted out to those who committed abominations millennia ago are being meted out again today.

• God never changes. He warns, and if you don’t heed the warning, he punishes, and if you don’t heed either the warning or the punishment, he destroys. This is how the Israelites inherited the Promised Land – through the overspread of abominations and unrepentant sin of those who once lived in the land. The Great Displacement and Replacement of former Christians on former Christian lands is not only well-deserved but has Biblical precedent. Far from fighting it, we should acknowledge it as just.

• There are some very famous passages in this reading, including Aaron’s beautiful benediction (“The Lord bless thee and keep thee…”) and the final verse for today that includes a line later adapted by David as the opening for his 68^th Psalm. I read somewhere that that line scares the you-know-what out of unholy beings. They are terrified of God, and they know that that line is a powerful prayer that opens the door to God’s intervention.

• I admit to some skip-through in today’s reading, but not as much as yesterday’s. You have to watch out when you skip through, because some important nuggets are hidden within the lists of names and numbers, like the warning not to put any marks on you (I’m speaking to a tattooed Jesus-homie out there). When God says not to put any marks on you, you don’t put any marks on you. You don’t negotiate a mark; you just don’t do it. And if you’ve done it, you get rid of it. It’s an abomination in God’s eyes, even a tattoo of a heart or a fish or a cross or whatever. The only mark that should be on you is God’s invisible mark that claims you as his spiritual property.

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So what jumped out at you in today’s reading? Do you agree with God’s reasoning for booting the abominators off their land, or do you think God was being a Hebrew supremacist colonialist? 😀

God’s justice is perfect. Anything he permits, he permits for the ultimate good of his people. You want to eat the fat of the land flowing with milk and honey, get right with God. Love God, serve God, follow Jesus, and believe and teach the Gospel. Those who do the good get the good. I don’t see anything wrong with that. God doesn’t tolerate the sin of abominations, and neither should we.

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The schedule for the BIBLE READ-THROUGH on PDF is directly below: