ELUL DAY 11 MEDITATIONS

ELUL DAY 11 MEDITATIONS

POINTS TO PONDER FROM ELUL DAY TEN

• What defines a pagan practice? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• How does God feel about pagan practices?______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• Are you doing anything pagan without realizing it?  Have your eyes been opened to put such things out of your life and set yourself aside to worship only the way God wants us to worship? ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• Define the word idol: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• Are there idols in your life that need to go away?  If so, how do you plan to make this happen?____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
• After we repent from idol worship, there is an empty space in our soul where that idol used to exist.  Have you asked God to fill that space in your heart with more of His Holy Spirit?  ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
• The key word for Elul is:  TURN.  Describe how you will remember to turn from idols and walk away from pagan practices during the next year:  ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

ELUL DAY 11 MEDITATION

AGAIN – NO PAGANISM!

OBEDIENCE, EVEN WHEN WE DON’T UNDERSTAND

The next meditation has a rather odd subject.

We’ve previously studied the section in the scriptures of Exodus where God tells Moses not to boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.

My first question is: would Moses ever really do such a thing in the first place?   

Perhaps some of the Hebrew people had done this in the past?

This is something unthinkable for most of us. Just the cruelty of the process would be enough to break most people’s hearts. The irony of such a thing is horrible.

All of that information aside, why do you think God actually brought this strange subject up?

SOME THINGS ARE HARD TO TALK ABOUT

Have you ever had to bring up a subject with your children which you really did not want to discuss?

There are just a few things that we don’t like to talk about with those that we love the most. I imagine maybe God was feeling this way about such a horrible subject. Perhaps that is why it was His last remark in this long, important conversation with Moses about coming out of paganism.

Some things are just not fun to discuss. However, they must be said all the same.

God clearly told Moses that the people should not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.

I suppose we are to take this literally. 

But why?

SOME THINGS CAN BE MISINTERPRETED AND EXAGGERATED

Ever notice how these hard to discuss subjects often get talked about by people who do not really understand them?

 Often these subjects are exaggerated. The truth is twisted. Some people give truth with their statements but much is blown all out of proportion.

This just seems to be human nature. When we don’t really understand a subject humans like to invent some logical sounding reason. Or they like to make the statement important in a different way than originally intended.

That seems to be what the Rabbi’s have done over the years with this one little statement from the scriptures.  Many of the honest ones will simply admit that they don’t understand this scripture.  Some of the more zealous ones have come up with a million different reasons why meat should not be boiled in milk and applied these things as if they were the law.

I’ll let you decide whether or not to pay attention to their rather far-fetched logic. In the meantime let’s try to stick to the subject and think about exactly what God told Moses

TRUST AND OBEDIENCE WORK WHEN WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND

Simply do not boil a young goat inside its mother’s milk.

It is okay to take God at His word. Simply follow His literal instructions.

One obvious lesson learned could be that this passage could be a little test to see whether or not we trust that God is smarter. Do we really believe the statement that His thoughts are higher than our thoughts?

We don’t actually have to know the reason for this instruction. As a matter of fact, we don’t have to know the reason for any other instruction of God. God doesn’t ask us to understand. He simply commands us to obey what He says to do (or NOT do.)

Funny how no one never looks at things that way. This is the human mind at its best. We always have to question the validity of things. All of us want to know the reason behind the processes of life.

There is only One who truly knows all answers. One has been given complete wisdom. So, why not just follow His instructions?

For some reason, God told us not to boil a young goat in his mother’s milk. We just can’t be intellectually satisfied with simply trusting God and going on with simple obedience to the truth.

Nope.

We have to ask that same old question we always ask. “Why?”

THEORIES

There are a lot of theories about the “why” of this commandment from God.

The one that seems to be most logical is the fact that the pagans used to do this very thing. It was known to be one of their superstitious rituals performed every spring.

They thought boiling a young goat alive in its own mother’s milk would make the land more fertile. The land was to be more fertile because, for some weird and twisted reason, they thought this act appeased their false gods.

So, the main reason for this last commandment is very similar to much of what we have already studied in Exodus.

It is simply a reminder to avoid pagan practices.

ANOTHER REMINDER NOT TO BE PAGAN

If I were to summarize the whole meaning of the book of Exodus into one short sentence, or if we had to pick one word to describe what God was saying the most and the loudest to the people through this book, the word would be “pagan.”  The sentence would be “Do not be pagan because God hates paganism.”

God abhors all things pagan. Practically the whole book of Exodus is a study on how not to act as the pagans do.

This was something God hammered home over and over again. We see this subject throughout all of the scriptures.  His people were to come out of the ways of the pagans who previously possessed the land. Perhaps all of this paganism was why God had no qualms about running these people out of the land.

All of God’s people were to enter the land living under God’s ways. There were to be no other ways. Nothing about their lives was to resemble any type of pagan practice or ritual.

Period.

End of subject.

A FIRST REMINDER AND A LAST REMINDER

It is interesting that this strange command is also the last warning God gives in the conversation with Moses about the covenant.

After God spoke of forbidding this practice, He was finished summarizing the things which make up the covenant with the people.

The very last thing God told Moses was similar to the very first thing He told Moses; no paganism!  “You shall have no other gods before me!”

The people of this Covenant with God were to worship God and God alone.

It could not be made any plainer or become any clearer than this. This commandment obviously could not be stated enough times. God went to great lengths to emphasize this particular hatred for all things pagan. Once more this particular passage is positive proof to us today that God meant what He said.

If we are going to follow God and keep His covenants, we are to be pure and true to God and only God.

No paganism!

VERSE

Exodus 20: 2-4, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath.…

BOOK

Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna – https://a.co/d/0c9ZkexZ.

SONG

No More Pagan Shadows HalleluYah Voice of Zion https://youtu.be/a3oThc1TSOQ?si=unjJ0jshSEDQC3BI