Saturday, March 24, 2012

As For Me And My House



                                                                   Joshua 24:15
       But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.

      First let us establish that Joshua and Jesus are the same name. Jesus is translated from the Greek, and Joshua is translated from Hebrew. That's why in the book of Acts we see a reference to Joshua but his name is translated as Jesus. Acts 7:45 KJV. Joshua's name means "Jehovah Saved". Joshua during his long life never turned to the left or the right, but stayed on the straight path, with his eyes fixed on God. But there weren't many like Joshua in Israel, and there aren't many Christians like him today. Most of us have wondered off the path from time to time. And some of us are on the path, but we are carrying things that we should have put away from us years ago. And some of us have put these things away from us, but not so far away that we can't go and get them from time to time. What we need to do is bury these things like they are dung, and never dig them up again.
                                                                Deuteronomy 23
 12 Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself. 13 As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement. 14 For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.
 
     This has a spiritual as well as a practical side to it. To see how a Jew would comply with this under religious law, we need to look at something Josephus, a Jewish historian of the first century, wrote about the Essene. This is the Jewish sect that is responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls. Josephus describes how each new member of the sect is given a small hatchet.

                                                      Josephus, Book II, Chapter 8.
7. But now if any one hath a mind to come over to their sect, he is not immediately admitted, but he is prescribed the same method of living which they use for a year, while he continues excluded'; and they give him also a small hatchet, and the fore-mentioned girdle, and the white garment.

     He goes on to describe one of the uses of this hatchet.

 9. Moreover, they are stricter than any other of the Jews in resting from their labors on the seventh day; for they not only get their food ready the day before, that they may not be obliged to kindle a fire on that day, but they will not remove any vessel out of its place, nor go to stool thereon. Nay, on other days they dig a small pit, a foot deep, with a paddle (which kind of hatchet is given them when they are first admitted among them); and covering themselves round with their garment, that they may not affront the Divine rays of light, they ease themselves into that pit, after which they put the earth that was dug out again into the pit; and even this they do only in the more lonely places, which they choose out for this purpose; and although this easement of the body be natural, yet it is a rule with them to wash themselves after it, as if it were a defilement to them.

     Here we see the Essene putting away excrement from them into a pit and burying it. In this way they kept the command of Moses and remained ceremonially clean. But Jesus said to the Pharisees, another Jewish sect, "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." Matthew 15:11. Explaining this to his disciples Jesus said; "Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught?" Matthew 15:17.  So to be ceremonially clean on the outside, doesn't mean that they're not full of dead mens bones on the inside.

     If your pastor came to visit, do you have things in your house that you wouldn't want him to see. Do you go around your house and hide these things before he comes. Jesus sees these things. Think on that for a minute. Now take those things out and bury them like dung, (I'm speaking metaphorically)  and ask God to deliver you from them, and never go and dig them up again. God will bless you and protect you, and deliver your enemies (the things that vex your soul and cause God to turn away from you) into your hands.


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