Sermon: "Make Atonement Your Favorite Holy Day" by Brian Hoselton, Oct 12, 2016

thank you very much good afternoon everyone it's amazing no matter where you go in the Church of God you just feel at home and it's wonderful to be here with you today we were here a couple of years ago my wife and our kids and we visited Disney before we went to the feast and Panama City and so we're here again visiting and I provided a hurricane for us that we survived we stayed on the Disney Resort I figured there would be no better place to be than right in those Disney buildings which I assumed that they would build very strong so we stuck it out I'm sure everyone here was ok heard there was some damage on the coastline but God surely moved that hurricane away so we were all protected it's very good everyone's here today I am here with my wife Carol she's in the back and I have three children max Jack and faith and if we'd known about the kids choir we could have provided three more that would have been a wonderful addition I'm gonna tell you just briefly about our youngest daughter faith some of you may know her from prayer requests of course we were here a couple years ago you got to know her a little bit you'll see her zooming around here in her wheelchair little pink wheelchair she's she's the social butterfly of our group she doesn't seem to know an enemy she makes friends with everyone but some of you may know she was born with spina bifida about four and a half years ago it's just she doesn't have use of her of her legs that's why she's in the wheelchair but one of the side effects that came along with it when she started eating what she vomited all the time and so for the past four or so years she just vomits every day there there are some days where she doesn't and there's some meals that she won't but it's just a regular occurrence on currants so it's one of those things that we've asked on prayer requests that people would you know pray for we've been to Mayo Clinic been to Dallas st. Louis Kansas City all over the country it seems like trying to find out what the cause of this vomiting issue is and to date nothing has taken care of it she has gone more of a week or two I think without it when she comes out of the hospital after some of her surgeries so we thought maybe it was a hydration issue so we got her a feeding too and she has gained some weight from that feeding tube which is which is very good for her because she needed to gain the weight but it hasn't stopped the vomiting so I just want to give you that update so that you are aware of what's going on with her and I don't think we've had an update for at least a year on the prayer requests but just please keep her in your prayers so hopefully one day that God will decide you know enough is enough and he'll stop that yeah so there's a lot of stuff here on the day of atonement this is one of those festivals that I remember growing up in the church thinking there wasn't much to this day other than you just fast and you just suffer through the day and when you get to the evening then you can go eat and drink something but there's way more to it than that and the older I get the longer you know we in the church we see more and more of the depth of what God has planned for us through this day today is the next important step in the plan of God for the salvation of mankind in the coming Kingdom the day of atonement is a challenging holy day it's typically not our favorite if I asked you what your favorite holy day was you might say well it would be one that would possibly evoke the strongest emotion it would be one where you got to go somewhere special where you got to a chance to eat out some delectable food or you had some wonderful fellowship with some people or something that you did but on atonement while we do fellowship we tend to keep a little bit of a distance from each other because of the bad breath it tends to go along with it we usually don't go anywhere out of the ordinary and there's certainly no food or drink involved the fact is brethren on this day we do nothing we do nothing of all the holy days atonement is the one where we do nothing meaning that nothing brings attention to us and our pleasure nothing comes to it for us there's no pleasure in this for us we don't eat we don't drink and we afflict ourselves as it says in Leviticus we deny ourselves we deny ourselves the daily ration of food that sustains us we deny ourselves from our earthly pleasures that entertain us and that's why it's a challenge for us today because our fleshly selves want doesn't it just once our human bodies want and they want all the time and we want things and we want to do things we want to eat things we want to drink things we want to make money we want power we want to be right we want notoriety we want to be recognized we want to be the best we want we want and we want like you turn over to Isaiah chapter 58 if you would so he said there's so much to this day but what we're going to do is take just a sliver if we can and look to the depth of this day a little bit more using Isaiah chapter 58 as this Lynch pin scripture section and we'll branch out from there but on this day of atonement we have to forget all of our once and we have to cast them aside and see and do what God wants and what God desires instead of what we want and what we desire because when we do what God wants instead of what we want then we live the life of the new man in Jesus Christ that we all became upon baptism and this day really does serve as a springboard as it were for our spiritual life because even though we deny ourselves and our once today God is going to make a statement to us through Israel that we should be denying ourselves not just today but every day as we walk towards his kingdom in our spiritual walk Isaiah chapter 58 and verse 3 Israel's speaking to God when they say to him this is his real speaking why have we fasted they say and you have not seen it why have we humbled ourselves and you have not noticed see Israel here wanted notoriety from God didn't think they wanted acceptance but they wanted it in a whopper Kingdom they wanted it their own way they wanted it the way that they wanted it but God says no you can't have this in a whopper Kingdom and you can't even have it in a whopper jr. Kingdom you can't have it your way period because what it does is it brings about contention and it brings about strife and it brings about law breaking you see having it your way brings about a life that's really not worthy of my Colleen he says it brings about problems that oftentimes have far-reaching and long-lasting consequences when we do things our way again you can hold your place in those a chapter 58 we'll be coming back and forth to this area but I'd like you to turn over to First Samuel chapter 15 first hand with chapter 15 here in the book of Samuel we have a conversation of sorts between Samuel and Saul who we know was the first king of Israel here in 1st Samuel 15 it says this and Samuel said unto Saul the Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel now therefore listen to the words of the Lord thus says the Lord of Hosts I have noted that Amalek did to Israel and opposing them on the way when they came up to Egypt or out of Egypt now go and strike amalek and to devote to destruction all that they have don't spare them but kill both man and woman child and infant ox and sheep camel and donkey now this may seem like a rather cruel thing that God had ordered the destruction of every man woman child and animal and this is really a topic that comes up on if you've ever seen on blogs and posts and boards online this is actually something that comes up by atheist to say that gods are cruel monster we don't have time to debate the ethics here but let me just say this God's will is supreme God's will is supreme and he doesn't cast people aside with the wisp of his hand he just doesn't do that they will all be resurrected one day they all have their opportunity here all of these people here if a sparrow falls to the ground he knows what happens to these people here but it's always piraka God's per I should say what he does with our lives and with everyone else's as job said you know he gives life and he takes it away but blessed be the name of the Lord but notice what God Saul says here or where he says God gave instruction to saw and I want you to notice what salt did look at verse 9 but saw on the people spared a gag and the best of the sheep and the oxen and the fatted calves of the lambs and all that was good and would not utterly destroy them all that was despised and worthless they devoted to destruction and then God told Samuel what had happened and saw and told Saul to confront Samuel about this and so he was confronted about it and then look in verse 15 here's the justification of Saul Saul said they have brought them from the Amalekites from the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God and the rest we have devoted to destruction and then Samuel said to Saul stop I will tell you what the Lord said to me this night and he said to him speak Samuel said though you are little in your own eyes are you not the head of the tribes of Israel the Lord anointed you king over Israel and Lord sent you on a mission and said go devote to the destruction of the sinners the Amalekites and fight against them until they're consumed why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord why did you why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord now notice the disconnect and see how Saul has created in his own reality or he's created his own mind his own reality between what he was told and what he actually did and actually this is a glimpse brethren into the wavelength of the mind of Satan creating a false reality if we don't put on the mind of Jesus Christ this what this is what will happen the verse 20 Saul said to Samuel I've obeyed the voice of the Lord I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me I have brought Agag the king of Amalek and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction but the people took the spoils sheep and oxen the best of the things devoted to destruction to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal so saul was saying in dear you know look at all of these great things that I've done for the Lord look of all these animals now that I had to sacrifice to God that it didn't have before now I have all of these that I can sacrificed well he should be pleased with us why isn't he pleased he should bless us but Samuel said in verse 22 has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as an obeying the voice of the Lord behold to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of rams you see the first king of his room he wanted it his way he wanted it his way he didn't want to do what God wanted him to do he didn't want to do it God's Way he wanted it his way and then after he did that he wanted recognition from God for doing it his way and because Saul decided to do the things that he wanted to do his way instead of God's way the Jews then reaped the consequences of that some 500 years later when you remember the story of Esther when haman the agagite had attempted to destroy the Jews under King Xerxes and Esther came in to save the day Haman was a nagging aight he was a descendant of the king who Saul had allowed to live you see our daily choices that we make have long lasting and far-reaching consequences and effects so back in Isaiah chapter 58 god is saying that it's not your ways he's saying it's my ways my way is the way that brings peace it's the way that brings life your way it brings contention and strife and notice how God responds to Israel in verse 3 when they asked the question of why God does not notice when they fast I want to read here from the NIV first yet on the day of your fasting you do is you please and exploit all your workers in the King James Version it says behold in the day of your fast you find your own pleasure and exact all of your Labor's you know God calls the fast day of their own because they weren't fasting out of a desire to be close to God they weren't fasting out a desire to cast off this self seeking self-serving attitude and actions they were using God really as a type of an aisle to pay tribute so that they could get everything that they wanted fasting really just for a ritual to put on a show just for God if you ever known someone who just kind of goes through the motions of doing a job but doesn't really put the effort in the time of the work that a good job needs into it they're just kind of Bob I can't imagine going in to Disney World Park and saying you know this as you walk through the the gate a lot of times if you've ever been at Disney World I'm sure buddy or has they say have a magical day and it's always upbeat now can you imagine walking through that park and they're saying have a great day enjoy yourself I mean you said the words have a magical day but you don't mean it it doesn't there's nothing behind it how would you like to a doctor to examine you give you a prescription and kick you out the door some of them are just that way it's as fast in as fast as out you can get them running through as quick as you possibly can or do you want a doctor who really listens and has your best interest at heart and is very concerned about you there's clearly a difference parents have you ever asked your kids to clean your room their room I should say there's a difference you know if they put the effort into it you know it you can always tell there's a difference one is self-centered while the other is very other-centered the word Labor's here in Isaiah chapter 58 3 denotes unusually hard and painful labor toil or travail the Septuagint renders that this whey and goat all those who are under your control well the idea seems to be here at the time that they were oppressive in exacting all that was due to them and they remitted nothing and they forgave nothing how odd it is during time of fasting that they would be going out exacting labors getting people to pay what was owed to them on this vast day I think that's a strikingly odd thing to do on this vast day maybe they felt there was nothing else for them to do that day and there really shouldn't have been it was the day to do nothing but they decided to fill it up with fill up their time with filling their coffers full of money by oppressing those who were already being oppressed by them they want and they want and they want notice that in verse 4 the outcome of this insatiable cupidity verse for your fasting ends in quarreling and strife and in striking each other with wicked fists you cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high and this was the outcome of their fast he goes on to say is this the kind of fast that I have chosen God is saying only a day for a people to humble themselves is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying in the sack cloth and ashes is that what you call it fast a day acceptable to the Lord Wow there there there's a lot in that verse there's really a lot of information in that verse this section maybe more than any other in the Bible ought to expand our minds about what this fast day is all about it's fasting about humility and lowliness of mind and affliction brethren yes yes it is but if all you do today is put your time in on this fast and that's it then you will get nothing out of this day because all you have done is you focused on yourself and considered how do I make it through this day fast and when I say yourself I'm speaking of the old fleshly remin remnant that old man there is something that should be gained for the new man for that new man that is tuned into the wavelength of God the new man that God is molding and shaping and growing to be born into the family of God you see forsaking food and water as a gesture is really useless unless something is added to it God asked the question is this an acceptable day of the Lord I think we should all ask ourselves that same question is this as an acceptable day into the Lord under these circumstances that we're reading here the obvious answer is no it's not it's not an acceptable day to the Lord so if if it's not acceptable to just go through the motions then what is acceptable to the Lord I want you to look in verse 6 look at the fast that God desires there are four things we're going to go through here verse 6 is not this the kind of fasting that I have chosen number one is this to loose the bonds of wickedness this is what he wants to loose the bonds of wickedness God is using imagery here that the children of Israel should be very familiar with one of the great stories of their ancestors was told in the festival of the Passover each year how the children of Israel were saved from the bonds of wickedness and the sin in Egypt and today we understand this imagery as well from the example of Israel Egypt but also with a that was a that was a physical example I should say that pointed to a spiritual battle that we face you see for us brethren one of the most powerful things that holds us from spiritual progress is bondage that's one of the things that keeps us down in the scriptures there's a number of references that refers to that bondage as cords as bands as change there's also slavery yoke in captivity and all of these kinds of bondage can be seen in the old sinful patterns the owns old sinful actions and behaviors and addictive behaviors that we have and it's not surprising that when we feel the need to make a change in our lives and allow the Lord to lead us into new patterns behaviors or actions that is very difficult and challenging and it's often met with frustration and failure and then we find ourselves back again where we started we wanted to make those changes and we moved back into those old habits and those old behaviors you ever wondered why that is you ever wonder why it's so easy to go back and to not go forward I want you to consider the example of Israel as they were leaving Egypt we won't turn there just for sake of time although I do have a captive audience here you have nowhere to go but we're trying to break off captivity so I won't do that but do you remember the story in Egypt when the Israelites had left Rameses and they traveled by night and they reached that place called Pi ha heroes and they had between them MacDonald and the sea and they were kind of boxed in you remember that story and they were completely surrounded now and the armies of the Pharaoh became or came down upon them because he'd heard they were boxed in and they began to cry out saying why have you taken us away to the wilderness to die would have been better to serve for us to remain in Egypt and serve the Egyptians it's better to go back to Egypt you see waiting on the Lord and his time is not always an easy thing for us to do but at the last minute we know that God opened the way and he opened the red seeds so that they could be saved from that disaster you see for us today when we make changes that are for the good it's often difficult because it's uncomfortable for us it's very uncomfortable of course it's different and it's challenging and Satan's wavelength is always broadcasting his influence in this world and the old fleshly part that we have left is tuned in to that wavelength and the challenge then is overcoming that influence that pulls us back into that area of life that we are used to that area of life that those old man's clothes as I like to call it are accustomed to and we get pulled back into that and Satan knows that and this is the spiritual battle that we face and this is why we often find ourselves falling back into our old habits because the comforts of sin are deceptive and it draws us back when we face any challenges or difficulties in our lives the children of Israel wanted to go back to Egypt they wanted to go back to captivity you know there's a physiological truth to this as well the battle to break the bonds of wickedness is really being waged between the synapses in our brains it's a battle of the mind synapses are really just the connections of the neural of the nerve pathways or I should say the nerves that make up pathways so you have a nerve and a nerve and the synapses are just that space that allows that neurotransmitter to go from one nerve to the other and when you have a continuous succession of those you have a nerve pathway and this really is the activity in our minds that's crucial for biological computation of perception and thought you see when you were born brethren many of your pathways were already predetermined they were there you had what you had that's they were there not a lot of them die off when you're born immediately but there are genetic predetermined pathways that you have and it didn't come from outside influence it's really just what your mommy and your daddy gave you that's what you had but then there are things that happen to us in in in the environment and you begin to grow you know there's one stay I was just reading recently I think it was this week or last week and they had said in this study that the mother is the primary driver of intelligence in children they found the genes of their mother in the cortex this is where primary thought and behavioral actions take place for the man for the father's they found that the primary motifs of the gene was in the baser instincts things that had to do with food sex aggression but they found that the final product was about 60% genetic and 40% environment so you see environment has a very large part to play in this so many of the pathways in our brain that that make us what we are today in terms of our behavior our attitudes and our habits are learned absolutely learned it's the influences around us that can make new pathways and stop the old pathways from being fired up basically you see everything we do from movement to the havior x' to actions to habits are created from the repetitious use of neural pathways and the more that we use them the more engrained they become and the more worn they are the deeper that path and the deeper that ruts rut gets and the easier it is to activate and to use them let me give you a crude example if I can I mean my crude I mean it's just a sort of a base elementary example of this a couple of years ago I had decided you know what 50 is right around the corner I need to start doing something about my health wasn't particularly overweight but I was a little heavier than I like to be and one of the things that I loved to do was I love to get a 44 ounce soda at the convenience store down the road had to have it every day at around 1:30 because I just got ingrained in that habit and I craved that sweet fizzy taste of that coke and I just you know I go out and I go to the bank and I dropped the checks off and I go to the convenience store to come back and then I would suck on that coat the entire afternoon to get through work now I knew it was doing to my body though I knew I was getting an insulin rush I knew it was gonna be bad for me as far as maybe getting diabetes when they are pre-diabetic I knew it was bad for my belly fat as it was bad for my heart I just knew all of these things were not good for me so I decided I need to make a change and so I I did I said I'm I started working out more and I started saying you know I'm not gonna drink coke in the afternoon I'm gonna try and break that habit here's what I found I found at the beginning it was very challenging for me to stay at the office and to not go out and get that 44 ounce soda and I would just tug and I said sometimes they had to have co-workers tell me not just stay here you'll get over it so I had to have that help because I had that very deep and well-established pathway for getting coke at 1:30 in the afternoon I just had to have it after about 1 to 2 months that craving began to disappear as that new pathway was laid down and I started following that new pathway of not going to the convenience store but here's what I noticed that even a year later that when I would go to the bank and if I wasn't consciously thinking about going back to the office I would drive by the convenience store and I would almost pull in or I actually did pull in one day and I drove back out and it was almost an instinct that it just happened that way that old pattern was still there and it was still active but I had to make sure I had the new pattern that would suppress the old one until I had created another pathway for the bank and for home that was deeply rooted that was deeply engraved I couldn't break that old one you see the old pathways are still there folks motor pathways simply don't go away you haven't written the bike for 40 years you could jump on a bike and write it again that old pathway is still there you see you have to write a new one to use instead of the old one research suggests that it takes about 66 days to overcome old habits but the way that they're overcome is to create new ones in order to replace the old ones because the brain it loves love stimulation and if the brain is stimulated by a new route it will crave if it's not stimulated by the new route it's gonna create the old ones that's what will happen and Satan knows this he knows it and he uses it against us to do the things that we don't want to do Paul talked about that the Apostle Paul didn't just say to overcome evil he said to overcome evil with good and fasting is a tool that God has given us to break the bonds of wickedness that strangle us because it removes the shackling to sinful behaviors and can absolutely guarantee Liberty so if you're addicted to bad behavior or you know such as ungodly anger I'm sure everybody has I take that back I'm sure there's somebody that has a problem with anger out of all this this room at some point in your life or if it's foul speech or if it's rudeness or if it's unkindness or if it's sloth or gluttony or even drugs or adultery or pornography fasting can break the bonds of this wickedness and these are all the things that the natural man loves to do but the godly man in us issues doesn't want to do it there are prices to pay for the wickedness that we're steeped in and there are heavy burdens that come with it and that's why God says the second thing that fasting is for is to undo the heavy burdens undo the heavy burdens sin brings about great burdens in our lives there's a heavy mental toll that weighs on us and a burden brethren is simply a weight that's what a burden is it's just a weight that we have to carry around with us and while you and I may be able to carry a weight around for a period of time we cannot carry a heavy weight before too long before it just breaks us down and it takes its toll on us look at Psalm chapter 38 if you would this is a psalm that David had written so I'm chapter 38 David here gives a everything a really good description of how the burden of sin can affect us all Psalm chapter 38 and let's look at verse 1 a psalm of David to bring to remembrance Oh Lord rebuke me not in your wrath neither chasing me in your hot displeasure for your arrows stick fast to me and they hand presses me and your hand presses me sore there is no soundness in my flesh of thine anger neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin for my iniquities are gone over my head as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me because the burden of the weight of sin is so great you kind of get the image here of you know in verse 4 of the weight being so heavy that it's drowning him and he just simply cannot stay above water yes there's a great penalty that comes with sin of course we all run no Romans 6:23 that the wages of sin there's a wage for sin that's death those are the wages the burden is very very great the Septuagint renders the verse in Isaiah 58 we can go back there this way Isaiah 58 it says this dissolved the obligations of violent contracts now this could refer to the contracts they undertook at the time that were far too burdensome for them as they would have been dissolved at the time of jubilee on this day of atonement but in the far more important spiritual sense this shows the dissolving of the burden of death and the consequences that sin exacts on us spiritually through the acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Savior at baptism now there are physical consequences to sin that God didn't necessarily say that he would remove from us and sometimes those are things we have to carry but God says or Jesus said I will carry those for you I can do that you see fasting shows us the weakness in this human flesh and I'm sure we're all feeling some sort of weakness by this time some 18 to 19 hours into this fast it exposes how frail we are in this flesh and it caused us to cast our cares and concerns and guilt and the weight that does so easily beset us on Jesus that's what he said he wanted and wanted to do for us he bore our infirmities and weaknesses to the death of the cross look over in Matthew chapter 11 Matthew chapter 11 Jesus is calling on us to give up the burden that weighs us down and he says to cast it upon him Matthew chapter 11 and verse 28 he said frankly this is the way out that thankfully Jesus provided for us Matthew 11:28 come unto me all you that labor and are heavy-laden I will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest unto your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light you see the guilt of sin is a great thing to bear and so is the weight of caring for the things in this life as well and it might be the burden of caring for someone who can't care for themselves maybe you have a relative or a friend someone that is elderly someone that is sick someone's a relative that you care for that they cannot care for themselves it might be caring for the needs of a widow or a widower these are things that we absolutely should be doing all the while casting our burdens upon Jesus knowing that it is him who gives us the ability to care for them but knowing that ultimately it's God who has allowed this position to occur for them for you and believing that you can do and you will do your best to care for whoever it needs to be cared for but ultimately it's in God's hands whether that person lives or dies or thrives or flourishes or or doesn't and that is the burden that we have to to put onto him that he wants to care for us God doesn't want us to be overly anxious about things or the basic necessities of life but Matthew 6 tells us for instance what to put on what to eat what to drink those things we don't be concerned about when these burdens are removed when that happens then the oppressed can go free and that's the next thing he tells us he said let the oppressed go free let him go free but look over in Matthew I'm sorry in Leviticus look over in Leviticus chapter 23 the Day of Atonement is the time of Jubilee it's the year of release it was a time if at Israel actually followed it we have no evidence they actually follow the year of Jubilee here but it would release all peoples from their debts and land lost would go back to their families look in Leviticus chapter 23 and verse 9 then shall you cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month in the day of atonement shall you make the trumpet sound throughout all of your land and you shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof and it shall be a jubilee unto you and you shall return every man unto his possession and you shall return every man unto his family referring to indentured servants Jubilee fasting and atonement was a reminder to the children of Israel not to oppress others the way that sin is us yet when you consider the history of Israel what was it like it really was oppression it was oppressing the poor it was oppressing the widows it was not returning the land it was not granting Liberty Zechariah also mentions this in Zechariah chapter 7 but they had failed to learn the atonement lesson of letting the oppressed go free they didn't knew that hence we see what we see here in Isaiah chapter 58 another way that they and we two today can be oppressive is to be unmerciful unmerciful and unforgiving in fact mercy is one of the major themes of atonement one of the major themes of atonement turn over to Ezekiel I'm sorry Exodus sort of it Exodus chapter 32 here in Exodus chapter 32 we have the children of Israel wondering what was taking Moses so long to come down from the mountain from communing with God and God had just written the Ten Commandments on the tablets and now the children of Israel thought that well maybe he died maybe he left they didn't know what had come of him so they got together and they decided to have Aaron fashion them a golden calf and we see them falling back into that old pathway of sin again back into that usual way that which they were accustomed to and were so comfortable with and so they fashioned a golden calf and they had a naked orgy in there worshiping this golden idol debauchery and God's wrath became very hot as if to destroy them but instead he sent Moses down to deal with him and of course we know the story of how he broke the tablets in anger and he melted the golden calf down and he put it in the water and he made them drink the bitter water and then he called the people to choose sides 'lord side or you can pick your own side and of those that chose their own side they were killed by the sword and those who were left notice what Moses says in Exodus chapter 32 and verse 29 for Moses had said consecrate yourselves today to the Lord every man upon his son and upon his brother that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day and it shall come to pass on the morrow that Moses said unto the people you have sinned the great sin and now I will go up into the Lord prevent your I shall make an atonement for your sin because of what they did Moses said he was going up to make atonement for their sin and in Exodus chapter 34 just a couple of chapters over we see Moses again on the mountain and Moses is again with God receiving the new copy of the Ten Commandments and notice in verse 5 and the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord and the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed the Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth he didn't destroy him because he was so gracious as he said he was going to be to his people and verse 28 so he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights and he did not eat bread and he did not drink water and he wrote on the tablets the words of the Covenant the Ten Commandments and so this I believe was on atonement that the second set of the commandments were given to him and the end of the 40 days of fasting was on the day of atonement in this 40 day period that Moses fasted corresponds to the Hebrew calendar of l1 through Tishri 10 that's the 40 day period of what the Jews today called teshuva it is a time of repentance it is a time of turning back to God the way they look at it which i think is absolutely correct and it corresponds to the time that the children of Israel were supposed to be repenting of the sin that they had committed before and in the last 10 days from Tishri 1 to 10 is called the yameen or M which is the awesome days or the Days of Awe and you may have seen mr. Kubik had written something up on this recently but this was a time of deep introspection of looking at their sins they committed and and saying what can I do differently how do I change so these last 10 days we are within the Days of Awe this is the last day of the Days of Awe on this day of atonement this deep time of looking back and saying what can I do differently for next year so that our names can continue to be inscribed in the book of life but this whole idea of mercy we see here we see it throughout Scripture God passes before Moses he's not destroyed because of God's mercy the children of Israel are not consumed because of God's mercy the high priest went in the Holy of Holies on Atonement to sprinkle blood on the mercy seat for the sins of the children of Israel and of course we are told to be merciful to others as Matthew chapter 6 says he tells us in the Lord's Prayer to forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and again in Luke 6 he tells us to be merciful to others as our Father is merciful to us so yes being merciful forgiving and forbearing is letting the oppressed go free and the last 20 shows here is to break every yoke to break every yoke now if you're not familiar with a yoke it's not the yellow part of an egg it's not the yoke we're talking about here now a yoke is a board or a bone or something that's stiff and solid like that that would tie one ox to the other now if you're younger you may not know this as much as if you're older if you grew up on a farm you would know this very very well you would tie those two animals together so that they when they pulled they would move together in unison because two does more work than one the problem with a yoke here is that it ties us to sin and when sin moves it moves us as well it makes us act and we move with it and also almost makes it impossible to resist its tug and Satan then can control the yoke to move us wherever he once said his will and that's what happened with the yoke when they tied the oxen together if you moved one you move the other you move one you move the other you keep him going wherever you want him to go I want you to notice what fasting does for the body physically by breaking down the yoke in the body it breaks down the old it loosens the bonds and breaks the physical yoke on the body I want to read something from the Telegraph newspaper here this is from June 2014 written by Sarah Capp captain or Knapton Knapton and I'll read just a portion of this she writes this fasting for as little as three days can regenerate the entire immune system even in the elderly scientists have found in a breakthrough described as remarkable new research research suggests starving the body kickstart stem cells into producing new white blood cells which fight off infection scientists at the University of Southern California say the discovery could be particularly beneficial for people suffering from damaged immune systems such as cancer patients on chemotherapy it could also help the elderly Hughes immune system becomes less effective as they age making it harder for them to fight off even common diseases the research teachers say fasting flips a regenerative switch which prompts stem cells to create brand-new white blood cells essentially regenerating the entire immune system it gives the okay for stem cells to go ahead and begin proliferating and rebuild the entire system says Professor Valtor lingo professor of gerontology and biological sciences at the University of California and the good news is that the body got rid of the parts of the system that might be damaged or old the inefficient parts during the fasting now if you start with a system heavily damaged by chemotherapy or aging fasting cycles can generate literally a new immune system prolonged fasting forces the body to use stores of glucose and fat but also breaks down a significant portion of white blood cells during each cycle of fasting this depletion of white blood cells induces induces changes that trigger stem cell based regeneration of the new immune system cells in trials humans were asked to perform asked to regularly fast for between two and four days over a six-month period scientists found that prolonged fasting also reduces the enzyme PKA which is linked to aging and a hormone which increases cancer risk and tumor growth we could not predict that prolonged fasting would have such a remarkable effect in promoting stem cell based regeneration of the homi poetic system when you starve the system tries to save energy and one of the things that can do to save energy is to recycle a lot of the immune cells that are not needed especially those that may be damaged this is a remarkable thing you may have seen this a couple of years ago they also found the same thing in people with multiple sclerosis it was just an autoimmune disorder that it resets the immune system and helps them tremendously so from a physical perspective fasting renews the body as parts of the body die newness arises and gives life and protection from the ravages of the environment it breaks the physical yoke of what's keeping the body from being healthy spiritually fasting will do the same thing it can root out the pride the anger the self-importance and anything that is yoking us to sin and the yoke is broken when we seek God in it and take his yoke upon us as we unyoke to sin and yoke up to Jesus then we let him lead us and we let him move us and we let him pull us and we move wherever he wants us to move and it's not a burden he says his burden is light his yoke is easy and that is because his commandments bring about life-changing realities for us all of these ideas are life-changing brethren and God is saying listen you shouldn't fast and take from others it's not for what you can get you shouldn't fast just to receive credit from me God says this fast is to produce something there is there's a reason for it beyond the fact that God says to do it there's something very deep and profound that we need to learn from this day as we fast there are things that you receive from this this fast there are things that are essential for the new man it's the removal of the ideas and the attitudes and the habits so that they don't easily beset us and they don't drag us down so that we can get on to do something greater in the work of God so despite it looking like it this type of fast has nothing to do with what you want has nothing to do with that it has everything to do then with what we can do for others by following these instructions and what we can do for others by removing the hindrances from us so that we can then extend God's mercy and his kindness and all of those wonderful attributes that he bestows upon us to bestow upon others as well so stop focusing on how hungry you are and start thinking about all the other people in the world who go without food every day and there are millions of them there are millions of them who go hungry all the time what are the fruits that God says should result from this fast look at verse 7 is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter when you see the naked to clothe them and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood now contrary just to society back then we don't tend to see a lot of poor people wandering around the streets we don't send and see a lot of naked people wandering around the streets that need clothing but it doesn't mean there are not still those people that have those needs there are there are plenty of people that have those needs and there ways that you can go about to help them God never tells us to not be involved in helping people that need this help be involved do something are we hiding ourselves from the needs of others you know there's a circle of care that Paul talks about that begins with care for our nuclear family first then our extended family and it moves on out into the church and then into the world so it starts at the beginning here how do you take care of your family how do you take care of your extended family are you doing those things don't withhold yourself from them or from your church family your spiritual family don't withhold good things from them search out those who need help and help them and then look at what happens when we stop with all of our once and we focus on others needs look at verse 8 then your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear then your righteousness will go before you and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard then you will call and the Lord will answer you will cry for help and he will say here am i if you do away with the yoke of oppression and the pointing finger and malicious talk and if you spend your cell on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed then your light will rise in the darkness and your night will be like the noonday the Lord will guide you always he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame and you will be like a well watered garden like a spring that waters whose waters never fail notice that he will satisfy your needs you see the brethren the great paradox in life is that if you give yourself away you'll never lack for anything see the next step in the holiday plan is the Feast of Tabernacles it's the 1000 year millennial reign of Christ that will bring peace it'll bring joy it will bring abundance to the people of the earth but this peace and this joy and this abundance just doesn't happen through Fiat it just doesn't occur out of nothing there's a reason it doesn't even come from Christ's presence alone it comes from over good overcoming evil with good it comes from binding saying the day that this picture is the binding of Satan binding Satan in this world finding Satan in our lives and replacing him with a rule of Christ as we do today if you're baptized and as we look forward to in the kingdom of tomorrow Christ will rule and when that happens the people in this world will be happy because they follow the laws that brings about happiness that brings about the joy and brings about abundance because they follow the Ten Commandments they follow those laws and the natural outcome of following those laws are these things to loosen the bands of wickedness to undo the heavy burdens to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke you see this and I would like all of us to take a new step forward this year and stop thinking about the things that we want want want don't think about our hunger don't think about those things that are oppressing us and don't dwell on our burdens but consider what I can do for others how I can bear the burden of someone else what I can do for my family or my friends or my neighbors how can my light break forth to glorify God and his word how appropriate that we consider this before we leave for the feast a time that pictures this abundance because for that abundant living to occur we have to learn the lessons from this day on atonement so let's all ask ourselves what is it that I can do this year to make next year the best year to come for someone else and you just might find that atonement becomes your favorite holy day I hope you all have a wonderful feast

Channel: United Church of God Orlando

Views: 452

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: kfKAmRK3kmg

Length: 55min 59sec (3359 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 12 2016