Spiritual Training

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February 9 - Evening

"But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, then I will do this to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you." - Leviticus 26:14-17

The Curses from the Lord for Disobedience to the Covenant


The curses for disobedience are divided into five spiraling waves of judgment that intensify with each passage until the nation is destroyed.
  1. Leviticus 26:14-17 – general curses including sickness, famine, defeat
  2. Leviticus 26:1-20 -  drought and crop failure
  3. Leviticus 26:21-22 – wild animals  (see 2 Kings 17:25-26; Ezekiel 5:17; 14:15; 14:21)
  4. Leviticus 26:23-26 – war, plague, famine
  5. Leviticus 26:27-39 – military invasion in homeland, cannibalism, destruction, deportation from Israel
Yet, since Israel has the Abrahamic Covenant they will be brought back after a period of discipline. Israel will be restored in order that the Abrahamic Covenant can be fulfilled. The promise of restoration is given in Leviticus 26:40-46.

(The following is an excerpt from Galyn Wiemers' book "Hope for America's Last Generation," p75-76)
We can see from these verses that as nations move into the first generation of rebellion toward God, he sends out a warning, such as the plague seen here. The purpose is to remind men of their humble condition before an all-powerful God. During this time, many people will cry out to God and start to make better choices. Others will become hopeless, and, consumed in their self-pity, they will curse God.
Nations that, on a whole, repent and change their ways will recover. But if a nation continues in sin and that depravity is picked up by the second generation, God will step up his warnings out of love for mankind. If men were allowed to live as they please, the world would be a miserable place of sin. This is why God put laws into place. He gave us free will from the very beginning when he told Adam, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden." He also warned Adam that eating from one tree in particular would kill him. God wants us to follow our desires, which is why he gave us free will. But we must bring our desires subject to his limits. God has standards already set in place, and because he is love, he will try to stop us in every way he can from acting against his word.
If the first generation does not repent, the second generation will experience a great famine. This should again cause them to realize how weak they are, (they can't do something as simple as gathering food). They will be given forty more years to reconsider the path they're on and decide whether or not to change course.
The third generation will face a dramatic increase in crime. God says this crime will rob them of their children and possessions and create deserted streets. Anarchy will begin to set in. The very corruptness of the culture has become a punishment in itself.
The fourth generation will experience some type of military attack on their land, giving them a taste of what is coming if their disobedience continues into the next generation. This fourth generation will deal with mounting discipline as they draw closer and closer to the end of God's patience.
At the end of the fourth generation, God will remove the disobedient nation from his plan. After 160 years of loving discipline, the nation will finally experience the wrath of God. Since the people of that nation rebelled, living in an unnatural state of immorality, so their punishment will be unnatural. Portrayals of the fifth cycle of judgment are some of the most hideous descriptions in history. You can see the details of the fifth cycle in the scripture list below. In a few chapters, we will look at some historical examples of the fifth cycle—examples that would be beyond belief, were not for the fact that God told us to expect it in Leviticus and historians recorded the events when they occurred.
Consider this a warning, a loving appeal to our nation that we not go any further. All God asks is that we return to what is right and good. We must change now, before it's too late.
'Ebed (Hb) – Servant (Eng) – 'ebed is the Hebrew word that means "servant" or "slave." This word originates from the verb 'abad which means "to work" and "to serve."
Do I trust God's provisions for my needs such as finances, friendship, health, ministry, safety?
I will seek the Lord's ways and his wisdom, and I will trust the Lord will provide for me and for those who I offer prayers of intercession.



Bible Reading Descriptions Here

Narrative

(morning only)

Complete Text

General Text




Personal

Ask God to show you habits and practices and values that need to change.

Church

Submission to God’s Plan and Direction
Equal rights
Afghanistan



The remains of a structure in the Palace of David above the Stepped Stone Structure.
Details of the excavation at En Gedi near the Dead Sea.




Someone to Quote

“You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”  ― G.K. Chesterton

Something to Ponder

“The remains of the ark (of Noah) can be seen to this day in the Arabian mountains.”  – Theophilus, 180 AD

Here’s a Fact

Nehemiah's Wall - a portion of a wall and tower built in the days of Nehemiah and the Hasmoneans has been identified in Jerusalem next to the Stepped Stone Structure.

Proverb

(Wisdom says,)
"Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways and you will live; walk in the way of understanding."
- Proverbs 9:5-6

Coach’s Corner

Season grace and truth with joy and perspective.

Exodus 12
New International Version (NIV)
The Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread
12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the head, legs and internal organs. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.
12 “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.
14 “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat; that is all you may do.
17 “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. 18 In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. 19 For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel. 20 Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.”
21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. 23 When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.
24 “Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. 25 When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. 26 And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ 27 then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’” Then the people bowed down and worshiped. 28 The Israelites did just what the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron.
29 At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. 30 Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.
The Exodus
31 During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested. 32 Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.”
33 The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. “For otherwise,” they said, “we will all die!” 34 So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. 35 The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. 36 The Lord had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.
37 The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. 38 Many other people went up with them, and also large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds. 39 With the dough the Israelites had brought from Egypt, they baked loaves of unleavened bread. The dough was without yeast because they had been driven out of Egypt and did not have time to prepare food for themselves.
40 Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years. 41 At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the Lord’s divisions left Egypt. 42 Because the Lord kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt, on this night all the Israelites are to keep vigil to honor the Lord for the generations to come.
Passover Restrictions
43 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “These are the regulations for the Passover meal:
“No foreigner may eat it.
44 Any slave you have bought may eat it after you have circumcised him, 45 but a temporary resident or a hired worker may not eat it.
46 “It must be eaten inside the house; take none of the meat outside the house. Do not break any of the bones. 47 The whole community of Israel must celebrate it.
48 “A foreigner residing among you who wants to celebrate the Lord’s Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised; then he may take part like one born in the land. No uncircumcised male may eat it. 49 The same law applies both to the native-born and to the foreigner residing among you.”
50 All the Israelites did just what the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron. 51 And on that very day the Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions.
Exodus 32
New International Version (NIV)
The Golden Calf
32 When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”
Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’
“I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
11 But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” 14 Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.
15 Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. 16 The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war in the camp.”
18 Moses replied:
“It is not the sound of victory,     it is not the sound of defeat;     it is the sound of singing that I hear.”
19 When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. 20 And he took the calf the people had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.
21 He said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?”
22 “Do not be angry, my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil. 23 They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’ 24 So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”
25 Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies. 26 So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him.
27 Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’” 28 The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. 29 Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.”
30 The next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”
31 So Moses went back to the Lord and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. 32 But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.”
33 The Lord replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book. 34 Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you. However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.”
35 And the Lord struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.


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