Chapter Six — A Wedding in the Desert
The Israelites were finally out of Egypt! They were praising God and singing a song that Moses wrote, about God being their rock. Little did they know that they were on probation. Being on probation means that somebody gives you a test to see whether you will pass or fail. God was testing the people.
God wanted the people to ask him for water to drink, but they grumbled instead. Fail!
Then he wanted them to ask for food, but they grumbled instead. Fail!
Do you think they passed any tests God gave them? Doesn’t look that way. But then God did something that was completely unheard of. He made a marriage contract with them in the desert! He wanted to marry Israel kind of like when a man marries a woman. He actually calls Israel a woman in lots of places in the Bible.
God wanted Israel to be his treasured possession, so he created legal documents with laws and decrees just like a lawyer, and he called it a covenant. God was not one of those lawyers that we make jokes about who are just trying to get rich from poor people who can’t defend themselves. God was the kind of lawyer who wanted to make his bride rich even though she had a bad reputation.
Did you get that? These were bad people who failed their tests when they were on probation and God wanted to make them rich!
IT’S OUTRAGEOUS!
IT’S SCANDALOUS!
IT’S…GRACE.
God gave Israel ten commandments that he wanted them to obey. They had to worship only him and could not make any images of other gods. They also had to be very careful with God’s name because his name is holy. They had to set aside one day a week for worship. They had to obey and honor their parents. They were not allowed to murder or be unfaithful to their wife or husband or steal from other people or tell lies about them or be envious of what other people had.
The Ten Commandments
Do you think the Israelites would obey all these commandments?
God also gave them plans for building a tabernacle where God would live. He wanted to be close to his people and dwell with them just he did in the Garden of Eden. So the tabernacle was patterned after Eden. It was just a copy of the dwelling place of God in heaven. How cool is that? The priests had special clothes to wear made of gold and blue and purple and scarlet yarn. They wore an ephod that had stones in it for knowing God’s will and a breastplate that had 12 beautiful stones in it representing the 12 tribes. They must have looked like kings! So God really was making them rich.
Aaron becomes a priest
God told the Israelites that if they obeyed him, he would bless them, but if they disobeyed him, he would curse them. And if they continued to disobey him there would be severe consequences. Like a divorce! Divorce is very sad and it makes people feel bad for a very long time. In the book of Leviticus God tells them how bad it will be: he says four times, “I will punish you sevenfold for your sins. Four times sevenfold. Whoa! That is like four sets of seven plagues—way more plagues than the Egyptians got. And there is a whole book in the Bible that describes what those plagues will be…but I digress.
Well, the Israelites failed their probation and God said they could not go to the promised land. They had to wander in the desert for forty years until all the adults were dead, and then only their children could go in. And Caleb. And Joshua. Because they were the only ones who were faithful to God.
There is a whole book in the Bible that tells about the Israelites forty years of wandering in the desert and the name of the book used to be In the Wilderness. But somewhere along the line, someone changed the name of that book to Numbers. Probably a math teacher did that. You know how they are.
One time when the Israelites sinned, serpents came out all over them and bit them. YIKES! God told Moses to to make a bronze serpent and put it up on a pole so that when the people looked at it, they would be healed.
Did you know that even today the medical profession uses serpents as a symbol for healing? Here is what it looks like:
Some day, God's own son would hang on a cross and all who look on him and believe in him will be saved.
Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible and the people used these books to homeschool their children. The books of Exodus and Leviticus especially had subjects like math and finances and figuring out interest as well as subjects on social relationships, business, medicine and of course, law. The priests also had to act as doctors for the Israelites, so that’s why they needed medical instructions. God pretty much thought of everything.
Homeschool
You would think after following God for about 120 years, that Moses would for sure get to enter the promised land, but there is a story there too. The Israelites had just driven Moses to distraction—you have probably done that to your parents, so you know what I am talking about. Anyway, Moses got really upset and he struck the rock with his rod. Now this may not seem like a big deal to you, but in the Old Testament, God stands on the rock and is identified with it. If you remember, Moses called God “the rock” in the song he wrote. So when Moses struck the rock with his rod, it was the same as if he struck God with his rod. YIKES! So God told Moses he could not enter the promised land. You would think that all the good Moses did in his life would outweigh the bad, but you would be wrong.
If you have any ideas in your head about how the good in your life outweighs the bad, get rid of those ideas now! God doesn’t weigh your good deeds against the bad. God is holy and he cannot tolerate any sin. You will not get into heaven by doing good things. But even if you are really bad—and you are—if you put your faith in Jesus, he will save you. He will take you to the promised land. I know.
IT’S OUTRAGEOUS!
IT’S SCANDALOUS!
IT’S…GRACE.
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