For forty years I led you through the desert … yet your sandals did not wear out." Duet. 29:5
“I will praise God’s name with singing, and I will honor him with thanksgiving. For this will please the LORD more than sacrificing cattle, more than presenting a bull with its horns and hooves”.
The sacrifices in the Old Testament were never about appeasing an angry God. If they had been, verses like this one would never have been penned.
The sacrifices in the Old Testament were more a foreshadowing of the Great Sacrifice that God himself would make for the sins of his people.
“I am not afraid of ten thousand enemies who surround me on every side.”
Ten, or ten thousand, or ten million. If God be for us…
“David walked up the road to the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went. His head was covered and his feet were bare as a sign of mourning. And the people who were with him covered their heads and wept as they climbed the hill.”
What a terribly sad scene this was. David, the king of Israel, fleeing the city before his own son, Absalom!
No doubt David’s heart was burdened all the more as he recalled the judgment of God prophesied against him by Nathan the prophet, “Your own household will rebel against you.”
“All of us must die eventually. Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God does not just sweep life away; instead, he devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from him.”
He could easily sweep us all away. What is man, that God is mindful of him anyway?
“But Amnon wouldn’t listen to her, and since he was stronger than she was, he raped her. Then suddenly Amnon’s love turned to hate, and he hated her even more than he had loved her. ‘Get out of here!’, he snarled at her.”
The Bible is a very real book. It does not try to gloss over the very real scourges of sin and death.
On the contrary, its pages painfully convey both a harsh reality and its glorious solution.
“Shout for joy, all you whose hearts are pure!”
A pure heart. Pursue it. Long for it.
“You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God. Look with favor on Zion and help her; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will be pleased with sacrifices offered in the right spirit—with burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings. Then bulls will again be sacrificed on your altar.”
Then David confessed to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.”
Nathan replied, “Yes, but the LORD has forgiven you.
The LORD is ready to forgive if we but ask Him. With a broken heart, David effectively asks for forgiveness when he says, “I have sinned against the LORD.” The prophet’s response is immediate.
“When the period of mourning was over, David sent for her and brought her to the palace, and she became one of his wives. Then she gave birth to a son. But the LORD was displeased with what David had done.”
King David slept with the wife of one of his soldiers and then arranged for him to be killed on the battlefield. When you are a king, you can do a lot to cover your tracks. But you can’t hide from the Lord of hosts.
“Be courageous! Let us fight bravely for our people and the cities of our God. May the LORD’s will be done.”
“May the LORD’s will be done.” There is something about that perspective that brings peace yet fosters courage at the same time.
