There are rules that govern many situations, and if you are familiar with them you may not become discouraged when events do not unfold as you think they should.
A man drove by a little league game one day and, being a baseball fan, he decided to stop and watch for a while. He sat on the bleachers behind the fence and asked one of the players on the bench what the score was. "We're behind 24 to nothing," the boy answered with a smile. "Really?" the man said. "You don't look very discouraged." "Why should I be discouraged?" the boy asked with a puzzled look on his face. "We haven't been up to bat yet."
There are rules that govern many situations, including rules about how you make The Choice: Please Yourself or Please Your God.
God made clear from the beginning that He cares about quality. At the end of each day during the creation He assigned His imprimatur: "It was good" (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). That concern for quality is also evident in the expectations He has from His people when He tells them to "be holy," an expectation He links to His own character: "because I am holy" (Lev 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:26). This penchant for perfection extends also to the expectations He has for the offerings His people present to Him, and He issues guidelines for that.
I. God's rules dictate what to offer (Lev 22:20).1
...and these rules are not open to negotiation or modification.
A. Man's standards are imperfect.
What they present to Him is unacceptable. Pagans, for example, offer anything, even unclean things that God abhors, like "pig's blood" (Isa 66:3).2 Some pagans offer their own children, a practice God condemns repeatedly.3 Pagans think what someone presents does not matter, but it does matter, especially if the recipient is the Lord, because...
B. God's standards are perfect.
He decides what is acceptable or not.4 God told Moses in Leviticus that He has very exacting standards for whenever people bring an offering: "Do not bring anything with a defect,5 because it will not be accepted on your behalf" (Lev 22:20), and the point of any sacrifice is to present something God will accept.
There are also regulations about what is survivable for the minister. As God tells Aaron, "You and your sons are not to drink wine or other fermented drink whenever you go into the Tent of Meeting, or you will die" (10:9). Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu may have violated that regulation by becoming inebriated and offering "unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to His command"6 with the unfortunate result that "fire came out from the presence of the LORD...and they died before the LORD" (10:1-2).7 It is important that God's people not waste His time or jeopardize their own safety by ignoring His rules about what to offer!8
God has a standard9 that false deities do not have and that pagans do not have to meet. It is also a standard that did not result from weeks of negotiations between people and God, with people presenting what they are willing to offer and God's countering with what He is willing to accept. The 'talk' is completely unilateral, as Moses, God's spokesman, lays out the terms:
You must not accept [blemished] animals from the hand of a foreigner and offer them as the food of your God. They will [also] not be accepted on your behalf, because they are deformed and have defects. (Lev. 22:25)
That exacting standard is a requirement he repeats later:
"If an animal has a defect...you must not sacrifice it to the LORD" (Deut 15:21).
"Do not sacrifice to the LORD [an animal] that has any defect or flaw in it, for that would be detestable to Him" (Deut 17:1).
Man does not make the decision about what is acceptable to God, and these restrictions are not open for discussion or subject to revision. God's rules dictate what to offer.
Application: Some Christians think that what a person offers to God does not matter as long as one is sincere in its presentation.
- A choir's anthem need not be well-rehearsed: "We have most of the notes right."
- A minister's sermon need not be well-structured: "People prefer spontaneity."
- A congregant's attention need not be well-focused: "It's enough that I'm here."
What a person offers to God is important to God: "You must present as the LORD's portion the best... of everything" (Num 18:29). Do not think in terms of what God might consider acceptable from you but what He would recognize as exceptional by you.
In addition to what God's people should sacrifice, He indicates that they must make their presentation in a particular place.
II. God's rules dictate where to offer (Deut 12:13-14).
God requires that His people confine their sacrifices to a single altar—which moves around with the tabernacle—and eventually confine their sacrifices to a fixed place—the temple in Jerusalem.10 Again...
A. Man's standards are imperfect.
Pagans are not discriminating in this—any place will suffice. They worship their gods "on the hills and under every spreading tree" (Deut 12:2). The Lord tells His people that only the location He selects will suffice: "Offer them only at the place the LORD will choose in one of your tribes" (Deut 12:14). In fact, they are to "destroy completely all the places...where the nations [the Israelites] are dispossessing worship their gods (Deut 12:2)." God's people are to be more selective about where they worship, because....
B. God's standards are perfect.
Of all the things that could concern His people, where they sacrifice seems a minor consideration. After all, what difference does the location make as long as they are sacrificing to the Lord and not to some pagan deity? ...Yet God is concerned not merely that His people do certain things (like offer Him sacrifices) but that they do so a certain way, like in a certain place. A believer cannot present an offering as pagans do without regard for the significance of a particular location to God. Because false gods do not interact with man, an unbeliever must depend on his own understanding of a particular shrine's noteworthiness. A pagan 'high place' could be anywhere—even in his backyard just because it is convenient. But a whim is not a suitable basis to locate an altar for the Lord: "Be careful not to sacrifice.. .anywhere you please" (Deut 12:13). The site must be important to God not just to the worshipper, and be so according to His determination.
Prior to this point, where the Israelites made their offerings has not been an issue. They moved from place to place in the wilderness, but they were always near the tabernacle, so they were always near the altar. Conditions will be different after they enter the land. At that point, where the Israelites offer will depend on where the altar happens to be. The people will no longer move from place to place, so they will no longer always be near the tabernacle. At first, the tabernacle will continue to travel, and the people will make their offerings whenever the altar is nearby. Eventually, God will replace the mobile tabernacle with a fixed temple, and the people will travel to it periodically to make their offerings.11
Application: God's laws are not a series of precepts from which His people select the ones they want to keep. More than once He exhorts them to keep all the commands He issues. They are a package deal.12 As James says: "Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it" (James 2:10).13 God's laws are not a series of options from which you may choose; they are a series of obligations all which you must keep.14
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Obedience is not just what God's people do to avoid punishment. Obedience is a gauge by which God evaluates their devotion. When Israel was in the wilderness, God provided food for the people every day, but there was something that threw off the timing periodically. Every seven days, like clockwork, God wanted the people to stop and rest. He doubled the provision of food on the sixth day so they would not go hungry on the seventh day, but they were to cease from gathering it then. Apparently, gathering the food He provided was a time consuming task, one that kept the people quite busy—not that they had something else to do or had somewhere else to be. Still, stopping inserted a change in their otherwise very regular schedule. Why did God set it up that way? What reason did He give for the interruption in their daily routine?
Exod 16:4 The LORD said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days."
The purpose of this variation was to test their obedience. "Okay, abstaining from this activity is not difficult, not a hardship by any means." In fact, it is not something more to do but something less to do, something they need not do. How hard could that be— obeying God by doing nothing? Where is the difficulty in that? How is it a test?
As a student I took many tests, some more difficult than others, and I tried to develop a strategy for them, a means of approaching each one that would ensure my success. Usually it involved studying a certain way or memorizing certain material. In no instance, though, did preparing for the test require that I do nothing.15 What kind of test would that be? How would it evaluate my understanding of the subject matter? It would not. Apparently God's tests are different. They are not to determine your grasp of the material but the material's grasp of you? Often that is all obedience is...a test of your willingness to follow Him, to do things His way rather than your own way.
As in school so in life, some tests are more difficult than others. Some tests require more preparation. Some tests require you to sacrifice but not all do, and you should not make every test, every challenge to your faith an ordeal, as if your entire grade depends on one performance. That is rarely the case in school, and that is rarely the case in life. Little of what you do is that consequential. To be sure, there are wrong answers, and enough of those will get you into trouble. But no test is so determinative of the outcome for your life that you cannot alter the course of your life if you need or choose to do so.16
God tells the Israelites not to offer their sacrifices in any place.17 Why, what difference does it make?18 Is not the most important thing their attitude, whether they are doing it—whatever 'it' may be—for the right reason? After all, "the LORD looks at the heart" (1 Sam 16:7).19 ...God cares about people's actions as well as about their attitude.20
For some reason God does not explain, He wants His people to be different from the pagans around them and limit their offerings to a single place determined by where the ark is,21 and as the ark moves (e.g., to Gibeon) so does the altar.
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There is a commercial for Anoro, a COPD drug that claims to be different than similar drugs on the market and advocates that by taking it you are going "your own way," a riff on the Fleetwood Mac song by the same title ("Go Your Own Way" 1976). While that may be good advice when it concerns your taking this drug, it is bad advice when it concerns your following the Lord. Yet that choice is ever before you, and that was the choice the Israelites faced when they entered the Promised Land, to chart their own course or to follow God's course, such as His instruction about sacrifices.
Life presents a series of choices most of which are minor and require little thought. Some choices, though, are consequential and require guidance from God. There is a limit, of course, to the guidance you should expect from God. He will not micro-manage your life, such as dictating what color socks to wear—a minor choice. He will help, however, with other decisions, such as indicating who to marry—a major choice. In matters about which He has made His will clear, even if those matters appear insignificant to you, it is important—essential—that you heed His instruction. For the Israelites what and where to present their offerings constituted important matters, especially as they were surrounded by pagans with very different views about offerings. Similarly today, before every believer is The Choice: Please Yourself or Please Your God. Which will you do?
For the Bibliography and Endnotes see the pdf here.
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Jim Skaggs