Why Can't I Own a Canadian?

One of my Facebook friends recently posted this letter from 2002 titled, "Why Can't I Own a Canadian?" Here's the link to the article: http://bit.ly/aqaCrk

The letter is rather funny in spots, yet also quite sad in a way, especially when we contemplate the necessity for God to even have to give people such laws in the first place. Looked at wrong and it can give one the impression that God is simply mean, vindictive, harsh, vengeful, arbitrary, exacting and capricious. Personally I think misunderstanding God makes God look bad.

For example from the letter is this: "I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?" Now that's funny if for the simple fact that footballs are made from cowhide and not pig skin! However it should not necessarily render such advice from God as being somehow arbitrary or severe. Pigs are after all fairly dirty animals, especially if we can imagine the conditions during the days of the Exodus. The way I see it God was simply dispensing good advice to the children of Israel.

It's the same principal as when a parent doesn't want their child to eat all the cookies in the cookie jar before dinner when we really think long and hard about it. Is it because the parent is trying to ruin junior's fun or is it because the parent knows what will happen to the child that eats nothing but cookies? You know, I always post this video when questions about God's guidance as to what to eat or what to touch come up because it illustrates just how good and true God's guidance really is : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJCh7bR1Nf0 - this video is quite informative and definitely insightful.

Another example might be, "...as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend)...." Hopefully we'll learn to know that garments, i.e. clothing, in the Bible are always a sign of Christ's righteousness...always. So there is actually some deep spiritual connotation to this advice that God dispensed.

Job 29: 14 I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.

Isaiah 59:17 For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak. (Eph. 6;15-17)

Gal 3:27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. The NIV changes "put on" to clothed.

Rev 3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.

Rev 7:14 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Interestingly the law of God dealt only with marrying flax and woolen garments together which, when we ponder them, are of themselves quite symbolic. I did a presentation at one of the prisons I go to for the inmates regarding this one time.

When we question the laws of God without seeking the meaning of them or attempting to understand the reasons why God felt it necessary to give them to the Children of Israel then we run a huge risk in misunderstanding God and His nature and character. Our Heavenly Father is a wonderful, loving, gracious and merciful God. He loved us all in spite of ourselves and all our faults, and demonstrated this most vividly and poignantly on the cross! Our God is the same today as He was yesterday, and yet when we misunderstand Him it is easy to characterize Him as vengeful, arbitrary, vindictive or severe.

As I have had it illustrated to me by Dr. Brad Cole of Heavenly Sanctuary in one of their Good News Tour events we as parents tell young kindergartners not to run with scissors in their hands but we don't tell grad school students to do this. Could you imagine a world where we had to? The children of Israel were equivalent to kindergartners, not grad students. God had to bring them along in the wilderness because He had to meet them at the level of understanding the could comprehend.

They Have Made Void Thy Law - Parts I & II

Professor Veith from the "Rekindling the Reformation" series. Great stuff as always.

The Connection of the Mercy Seat

I was telling a Messianic Jew that occasionally worships with us at our church how I thought the sabbath commandment - the 4th commandment, was actually a representation or type of the Mercy Seat. We are commonly taught in most Christian circles but especially Seventh-day Adventist teaching that the first 4 commandments of God's Moral law instruct us how to honor God, and the next 6 commandments instruct us how to honor our fellow man.

Now, here's the connection. The Mercy Seat covers the law inside the Ark of the Covenant which are on two tables of stone (Exodus 25:21-22, Deuteronomy 10:2). And yet, at the same time, it also bridges the gap as it also connects the law inside the Ark with the Shekinah Glory above the Mercy Seat. I have always equated the law inside the Ark of the Covenant as, prophetically or as a type, symbolic for the law being placed inside man's heart. Man's heart is to contain the Word of God represented by the manna, the Law of God as presented by the commandments and finally the Hope and Promises of God as represented by Aaron's Rod that budded.

There is only one commandment that bridges this gap and connects the responsibility of honoring God, which can be summed up with certainty in the first three commandments, and the responsibility of honoring our fellow man together and that is the 4th commandment. It is the only commandment where it can be seen that God is with us, communing amongst His people while we are also communing with Him, enjoying His time that He chooses to be with us and marveling at His creation. We are connected.

Just as the Mercy Seat connects and bridges the gap between the law and grace, so too does the 4th Commandment.