THE LORD SPOKE (February 04)

Daily Reflections from Scripture:

Old Testament: Exodus 31-32

He should have at least hesitated. You’d think that, as a spiritual leader, Aaron would have tried to dissuade them. Not a word of that is mentioned. When the crowd whined about “this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt”, Aaron was a little too quick to offer a suggestion (Ex. 32:1-2).

And what a wicked suggestion. “Give me your gold and I’ll make you an idol.” His plural term “gods” may have been nothing more that the common plural reference to God (Elohim) but, still, everything he did was in flagrant violation of the second commandment just given. And what right did he have to call a festival to Jehovah (Ex. 32:5) without a word from Jehovah?

And then there was his stupid explanation to Moses, “they gave me their gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf” (Ex. 32:24). It’s utterly amazing that God had any use for Aaron thereafter.

But He did. It’s just an amazing example of God’s grace! It makes you wish we had more details of the story here. Did Aaron repent and confess his sin. He surely must have, for God told Moses that He would punish those who sinned and He did just that (Ex. 32:34-35). We have to conclude that Aaron repented off-stage and experienced God’s marvelous, amazing grace.

How is it with you? Is there some sin for which you’ve been forgiven and experienced the cleansing, liberating mercy of God? Or is there some current sin in your life that you need to confess right now in order to be loosed from that horrid bondage? “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I Jn. 1:9)

Come, every soul by sin oppressed;
There’s mercy with the Lord,
And He will surely give you rest
By trusting in His Word.

Only trust Him, only trust Him,
Only trust Him now;
He will save you, He will save you,
He will save you now.

For Jesus shed His precious blood
Rich blessings to bestow;
Plunge now into the crimson flood
That washes white as snow.

- John H. Stockton


New Testament: Mark 7

“Tradition is the living faith of those now dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of those still living.”
- Jaroslav Pelikan

We have many traditions - some good, some not so good, and some very bad. In most cases, these practices originally were born of a desire to honor God but somehow they have gotten lost in traditionalism. In the words of Isaiah: These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men. (Isaiah 29:13)

And Jesus adds: You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.... You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! (Mark 7:8-9)

You may not think of yourself as wrapped up in traditions. After all, it’s Tevya and the Jewish people that sing that song the best. But consider the following traditions that are quite common in many of our churches:

• Sunday School (the Church didn’t do this for the first 18 centuries of its existence)
• communion once a month (every evidence seems to point to a weekly observance)
• for that matter, how about Sunday observance itself (there’s no NT command to do so and only scant evidence to support it)
• standing throughout the song service while using songs on PowerPoint (or before that, singing from a hymnal and always skipping stanza three)
• prayer meeting on Wednesday night
• the Ladies’ Missionary Society (in the book of Acts it was the men who led this)
• robes for the choir and white robes for baptism candidates
• a Christmas tree in the foyer and a nativity scene on the front lawn, complete with wise men at the manger
• bunnies laying chocolate eggs on the church lawn

Okay, not everyone does all of the above. Some of those practices are perfectly good ones and came about for all the right reasons. Some are keepers!

But we better be sure we’re still doing them for the right reasons. Otherwise, we will fall into the trap of dead traditionalism. How about getting creative and starting some new traditions?