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• This post is NOT light.  If it is overwhelming you, don’t read it. 🤪

OK.  Ready?  If you flip back in your Bible to Chapter 5 (go ahead, I will wait), Moses gave the next generation the 10 commandments.  Now we are in the middle of the 2nd speech.  Moses is breaking them down for them.

Chapters 10 and 11 (go ahead, flip to them): Love and Obey the Lord (that chapter was for the First Commandment)

• ¹³ So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today—to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul

Now, look at Chapters 12 and 13,   Laws for proper worship. (these chapters are for the Second Commandment)

• 12:2 Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains…
• 12:4You must not worship the Lord your God in their way.
• 13:3“Let us follow other gods” 

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So now we are at Chapter 14: Taking the Lord’s name in vain.  Unfortunately, we have watered this commandment down to saying “OMG”.    The word vain can mean “empty,” “nothing,” “worthless,” or “to no good purpose.”  It is not just our speech, but in how we live too.

• Cut yourself/shave the front of your forehead
  • To make a long story short, in 1928 they began excavating tablets written in cuneiform text that described Baal cycles (false gods) in Syria, called the Ugaritic Text.  They found about 1500 fragments.  We have de-coded about 100 poems and 50 cult rituals.  Anyway, this practice of mutilating yourself or shaving your head was a cult practice of the dead and fertility rituals. (this will come up when we read Elijah)

Below is the decoder (who is old enough to remember the decoders found in cereal boxes??  The good ole days)

• • Clean/Unclean animals: (by the way what is a hyrax?) Some forbidden animals were eaten in pagan religious rituals (for example: Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk was a fertility ritual for women).  It amazes me that The Lord was also giving them a “medical degree” since he knew which animals carried illnesses to people.
  • Tithes-giving God 1/10 BACK to what he provided.  If I GIVE you $10 and then ask for $1 back… hmmmm think on that for a moment.

Chapters  15 and 16: break down the 4th Commandment concerning the use of our time. Sabbath day, the Sabbath year, and the Jubilee.   Remember how the Israelites collected double the day before the Sabbath so they would always have enough of God’s provisions:

Caring for the poor:  (ready to get punched in the stomach)

• • • ⁷ If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. ⁸ Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need. 
    • Freeing Servants: This is a big topic for me because you have to know one of the biggest arguments against God is the word “slavery” in the Bible.  I discussed this in Exodus that taking a servant Biblically is NOT what He intended for the “History” of slavery as we know it.
      • • To be a slave was not a horrible thing for the Israelites. Israelites had to respect their slaves. Slaves served other people in order to pay their debts (rather than become poor). When their owners freed them, the owners gave them generous gifts to help them in their new lives.  Sometimes a slave wanted to remain with his master. The master made a hole in the slave’s ear. To do that, he would push a piece of metal through the slave’s ear and into the door. That showed that the slave wanted to join the master’s home. We could talk about this FOREVER…blood, doorpost, “whose” they became….so may hidden messages.  Ever hear of the term “earmarked”.  (If my boss is reading this, I may come back from Spring Break with more piercings-it’s in the Bible!!) 😂

Chapter 16: Passover, Feast of Weeks, and Feast of Tabernacles. I know we have read about this several times BUT sit in awe that God has the whole timeline mapped out!  My mind explodes on the thought that Jesus IS the “Lamb that takes away the sins of the world” fulfilling the foreshadow of the Passover ON the day of the Passover!

Here is your recap AND taking it a little deeper 😁:  These are the 3 feasts the Lord commanded them to visit the Temple (when we build it in the book of Kings) to celebrate.  God will use these “pilgrimages” (the large crowds) to show the world the death, burial, resurrection, and the giving of the Holy Spirit!  (He has it ALL planned out)

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• Passover-foreshadow and fulfilled on Good Friday.  Passover commemorates the Exodus from Egypt and the Israelites’ freedom from slavery. The Feast of Passover, along with the Feast of Unleavened Bread (the week that follows Passover), was the first of the festivals to be commanded by God to observe (Exodus 12 if you need a refresh). Passover takes place in the spring, during the Hebrew month of Nisan. (Nisan is renamed ‘Abib’ after the Babylonian captivity, which we have not read yet)

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• 7 weeks later.  Do the Math!  Festival of Weeks (Pentecost). Pentecost is significant in both the Old and New Testaments. “Pentecost” is the Greek name for  Feast of Weeks.  The Greek word means “fifty” and refers to the fifty days that have elapsed since the offering of Passover. The Feast of Weeks celebrated the end of the grain harvest.  The Lord will orchestrate another “big crowd event” so people from all over witness the Holy Spirit given) If you want to look at something cool flip to Joel 2:28 for the prophecy::“And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
  • Now flip to Acts 1:8.  The Festival of Weeks is fulfilled marking the beginning of the Church Age!  ME AND YOU!!!!  So when you read today, know that YOU are in Deuteronomy 16!!
    • • ⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

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• Festival of Tabernacles–(NOT YET FULFILLED)  also known as the Feast of Booths. The feast begins five days after the Day of Atonement and at the time the fall harvest had just been completed. It was a time of celebration as the Israelites celebrated God’s continued provision for them in the current harvest and remembered His provision and protection during the 40 years in the wilderness (that is why it is also called “Booths”-the tents they lived in)
  • • We know a lot about the first 2 Feasts, but the 3rd one might be new to you.  Historically it is going to be a cool one to pay attention to.  As we read the Bible, on the Feast of Tabernacle:
      • • • Solomon’s Temple will be dedicated on it
          • When the Temple is rebuilt, Ezra will read from the Bible on this day (and the people will cry because they never even heard of this festival 😢)
          • It will be the Last and FINAL fulfillment in Revelation.

¹⁶ Three times a year all your men must appear before the Lord your God at the place he will choose: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks and the Festival of Tabernacles. No one should appear before the Lord empty-handed: ¹⁷ Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed you.

(I bet that will be a Trivia Question one day)

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• appoint Judges
• Do not worship other gods.