do you have a problem with Him…?

She said it Friday… at the table with sisters… Well… I have a problem with verse two…

We were journeying through some hard Word…

“No one who is emasculated or has his male organ cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord.

“No one of illegitimate birth shall enter the assembly of the Lord; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall enter the assembly of the Lord. …

Deuteronomy 23:1-2 NASB

These were the laws… God’s laws… for the Old Testament church gathering of the Israelites…

Not everyone could enter…

She had a problem with illegitimate children being left out… after all it wasn’t their fault… and even the emasculated men… most don’t choose to have these things happen to them…

But my first response to the sister… If you have a problem with verse two… you have a problem with God…

When we come to something hard in His teaching… something we don’t understand… we must remember who He is… Good… Right… Love…

All His law is love… even these laws…

The passage goes on to exclude whole groups of people based on sins they had committed against God’s people… Some could be included after three generations of living in the nation of Israel… following His way… but some were never to be allowed… no matter how many generations from the original sin…

And what I saw… was His grace… and the limitation of what we had to offer…

I believe God… in His grace… excluded these people from His presence because it would be dangerous for them to enter…

Remember the only sacrifice they had to atone for sin were animals… bulls… rams… goats… lambs… doves… these sacrifices were limited in their ability to cover sin…

Their limitation seen in the need to perform the sacrifices again… and again… and again…

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Hebrews 10:1-4 ESV

No matter what our first reaction is to what we read in His Word… we must always return to who He is… Love… Righteousness… Mercy…

Ultimately… He had a plan for the perfect sacrifice… the Lamb of God… Jesus… whom He sent to take a way the sins of the world… make all things new…

In Him… no one is excluded from coming… by faith in His grace and truth… all are made new… sins washed wholly away by His blood…

Some of old… both Israelites marred by sin and those of other nations… were waiting… for God’s promise… His faithfulness to be revealed… and really… so are we…

The plan is not yet complete… but one day it will be…

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. …

And all these though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

Hebrews 11:13-16, 39-40 ESV

God is always right… His law always the way of love…

What they had back in the day of animal sacrifices… was just not enough for everyone to come… some excluded… but He had a Way He was making…

His eternal timeline… causes us problems when we look solely from the earthly perspective…

He knew those then… who loved Him… who were marred by sin… whether their own or that of others… He knew their hearts… and protected them… loved them… by excluding them for a time…

But… when the Lamb came… He sent Him with the good news… to those of the past…

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared…

1Peter 3:18-20 ESV

Jesus…after His death… proclaimed the good news way back to those in the day of Noah… I’m assuming everyone in between too…

All who were waiting for the ultimate Ark… Jesus… to be prepared to rescue us from the crushing flood of sin… to bring us into His eternal presence…

And isn’t that what really matters… the eternal…? not the temporal…? the place of our forever home in His presence…?

Do you have a problem with Him…?

Bring it to Him… remember who He is… trust Him to be faithful…