Truth or Tradition New Living Translation (NLT)

Transcription

1 Truth or Tradition New Living Translation (NLT) Deuteronomy 12:30-31 do not fall into the trap of following their customs and worshiping their gods. Do not inquire about their gods, saying, How do these nations worship their gods? I want to follow their example. 31 You must not worship the Lord your God the way the other nations worship their gods, for they perform for their gods every detestable act that the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices to their gods. Deuteronomy 12:4 Do not worship the Lord your God in the way these pagan peoples worship their gods. God does not like us to worship him in the same way that pagan gods are worshiped, God is a jealous God. Imagine that you realize that your husband/wife will love you in the same way that she/he love another lover? Would you feel good about that? It may be possible that you are worshiping God in the way that God does not want to be worshiped, because you are repeating traditions and forms adopted by religion that often displease God. If so, would you like to know? Would you like to do something about it? Romans 8:5-8 Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. 6 So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. 7 For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God s laws, and it never will. 8 That s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God. Many of us excuse ourselves to say, "God knows my heart, and I want to please Him, then what counts is the intention." But perhaps we are not being honest with yourself by seeking what pleases God to please Him In the way he wants and not in your way. An example of this is in Jesus Christ, who always turned to the Father's will because He knew that the Father is interested in the worship in His terms. John 4:23-24 But the time is coming indeed it s here now when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. 24 For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. Our worship should not only be based on our heart, on how we feel to give God worship, but rather we are told that it must be based on truth. Then we have a problem in what He wants from us and what we are giving Him. Could it be that things that we consider acceptable to God are not? Let's look at this Bible verse:

2 Luke 16:15 Then he said to them, You like to appear righteous in public, but God knows your hearts. What this world honors is detestable in the sight of God. An example of this is the offerings of Cain and Abel. Both presented offerings to God, but what made Abel's offering acceptable to God while Cain's was rejected? Cain's offering was in Cain's terms, and in the way that he believed it was right to please God, but Abel's offering was acceptable because he was obeying God s terms. How then do we know how to please God? How do we know the truth in which He expects us to worship Him? The first thing we must do is examine our beliefs in the light of the word of God. The word of God is true and is life, in it, we will find the perfect will of God and the way to please Him as He desires. In this study we will examine at the light of His word our religious beliefs and determine if they are true or tradition. 1 John 5:3 Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. Psalm 119:44-45 I will keep on obeying your instructions forever and ever. 45 I will walk in freedom, for I have devoted myself to your commandments. John 8:32 And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Many people will see us weird in changing our way of life, and many of them including our family and friends will call us fanatics and think we are tied to a religion. But in reality the word of God tells us the opposite, it tells us that walking in the commands of God and in the truth makes us free. The commandments of God are not designed to be a difficult burden but a joy of freedom when being passed from a lie in which we live in to truth and life. Let us then analyze the root of our problem as believers. The Bible tells us that the apostle Paul was a scholar, a man who knew the word of God in depth. It tells us that he study at the feet of a famous Torah master and member of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. His name was Gamaliel. By the age of 13, Paul had already memorized the Torah completely, as this was required for every Pharisee student as Paul was. How many of us have memorized at least 1 book of the Bible? A complete chapter? A complete verse? Maybe we have memorized the Beetles songs, we have memorized the name of all our favorite tv shows, etc. Well, anyway... Here we have the root of our problem. For us as Gentiles (non-jews) who have grown ignorant of the word of God, more identified with the world than with God, we have often lost our time trying to excuse ourselves in what we think God is, and pleases him than in seeking what is described in his word to please him. Ephesians 2:12 In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope.

3 We have to recognize that we were aliens to God, and that we still not know him as we should know him, that we are in search of Him, as a boyfriend who falls in love with a young woman because she looks beautiful but then, takes time to get to know her better, and love her more because he really finds who she is, what she likes and dislikes. This is the invitation of God, that we will know him! There are roots of religious beliefs that I would like to expose in the light of the word. And I have a very clear example for that. The people of Israel spent about 400 years in history, in which they were directly exposed to the worship of pagan gods. During the time of Egypt, the people of Israel associated themselves with the forms of worship of the pagan gods. Let's see it in the word: Exodus 32:1-6 When the people saw how long it was taking Moses to come back down the mountain, they gathered around Aaron. Come on, they said, make us some gods who can lead us. We don t know what happened to this fellow Moses, who brought us here from the land of Egypt. 2 So Aaron said, Take the gold rings from the ears of your wives and sons and daughters, and bring them to me. 3 All the people took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 Then Aaron took the gold, melted it down, and molded it into the shape of a calf. When the people saw it, they exclaimed, O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt! 5 Aaron saw how excited the people were, so he built an altar in front of the calf. Then he announced, Tomorrow will be a festival to the Lord! 6 The people got up early the next morning to sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings. After this, they celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry. You must ask yourself at this time: why did they forgot so soon who God was? The only true God, nothing compared to the pagan gods because God had brought them out of Egypt with great power. Why did they build a golden calf and call it the god who brought us out of Egypt? The explanation for this is that the Israelites intended to worship the one true God by means of the golden calf. We must understand that the Exodus tells us that Moses took a long time to return and that Moses was the only mediator between God and them, now we know that our only one mediator is Christ. Moses even prophesied about this in Deuteronomy 18:15 when he said that God would raise up a prophet like him among them. Now they did not know who to turn to, how to interact with God, and had observed the heathen customs of the Egyptians. In their understanding, they needed something physical to communicate with God. This sounds very much like many of the beliefs we were raised with, right? We grew up believing that we needed a mediator, called a priest, or saint, or virgin, or image, or amulet to communicate with God. This was what was happening here in the history of Israel, they did not know who God was and by trying to please Him they had looked for a way to communicate with God, they were looking for a mediator, remember what they asked Aron: make us gods that go before us That was the work of Moses! But what they sought for themselves was to anger God by this act. Now, why did they choose a calf? We know that they were trying to make an image that would help them identify God in a physical form. In which form would they model God?

4 Numbers 24: 8 "God brought them out of Egypt; For them he is as strong as a wild ox. "There are two Hebrew words translated as God, El and Elo'ah. The word El was originally written with two pictographic letters, one was the head of one ox and the other was a shepherd's staff. The shepherd's staff was also seen as a yoke on his shoulders. The ancient Hebrews saw God as an ox with a yoke. When someone was plowing a field two oxen were placed in a yoke, one was the oldest and had more experience, and the other smaller and less experienced learning from the elders. Then the Hebrews saw the Father as the older ox with more experience and saw themselves as the young ox that would learn from the greater. The plural form of Elo'ah is Elohim and is also translated as God, in Hebrew the plural form can also be interpret as quality and quantity. Something that is of great size as in stature can be written in the plural form and in this case, God as great strength and authority is often written in the plural form Elohim. Therefore we clearly understand that the Israelites were trying to strike a picture of the one true God and not of false (plural) gods. So Exodus 32: 4 can be translated as "Israel, these is your Elohim (are the gods), who brought you out of the land of Egypt!" For Elohim can mean "false gods" or the only true God." One more proof that they were actually trying to please God is this: Exodus 32:5-6 Aaron saw how excited the people were, so he built an altar in front of the calf. Then he announced, Tomorrow will be a festival to the Lord! 6 The people got up early the next morning to sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings. After this, they celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry. And here the word Lord is the translation to the Hebrew Yahveh, the name of God! Aaron was dedicating this feast to Yahweh. They truly believed that what they did in celebrating, giving offerings and in building an statue were ways of worshiping Yahweh (the only true God). But that rose before the presence of God in a detestable aroma, to the point of wanting to consume them with his anger. They believed that it was right for them to celebrate a feast to God and to worship Him in any way they wanted, just as Cain did. In present time, many of us Christians are in this same position without knowing it. Trying to please God in our own ways, in man-made forms, not looking for the way God wants to be worshiped. This may sound a little strong to many, but did you know that Christmas is a man-made holiday? Did you know that Christmas is linked to the worship of pagan gods? Did you know that the Bible does not tell us that God requires to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and that the feasts to celebrate God have already been established? Did you know that the Lord's feasts such as passover, the feast of unleavened bread, the first fruits, Pentecost, trumpets, atonement, tabernacles, and even Hannukka (the festival of lights) are ignored by Christians, while feasts Created by man take their place and we call them holy feasts "to God". Are we doing what the Israelites did to "worshiping Yahweh" in our own understanding, not taking into account the way in which He desires to be worshiped? Is this an abomination to Yahweh our God?

5 We will be studying this subject deeper, my desire is that you know the truth that is in the word of God, and that you can please God in everything. Before, we were separated from Christ, ignoring his promises and away from the citizenship of Israel. But now we are drawn to God through the blood of Christ. It is our responsibility not to despise this great salvation, but to respond in love to the love that has been shown to us. It is like that couple who are getting to know each other and loving each other, and as we know more, we fall in love even more, we do things to please each other even more. Like when you know that your girlfriend loves chocolates, or red roses, and since what you want is to please her and show her your love, you go and buy her and please her as she wants. In the same way we approach God in his terms, because we long to show him our love. Remember: Deuteronomy 12:30-31 do not fall into the trap of following their customs and worshiping their gods. Do not inquire about their gods, saying, How do these nations worship their gods? I want to follow their example. 31 You must not worship the Lord your God the way the other nations worship their gods, for they perform for their gods every detestable act that the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices to their gods. Deuteronomy 12:4 Do not worship the Lord your God in the way these pagan peoples worship their gods. Pastor Claudia Londono