Exodus 23:20-33

The angel of the Lord would go before them to prepare the way, and they were to obey Him. There are parallels here between the angel of the Lord and the Holy Spirit, maybe even between the instruction that they would not be forgiven if they did not obey the angel, and the warning about blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

The role of the angel was to lead them safely to the destination, so it is with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit bears witness to Christ and teaches us the ways of God. If we follow Him then we will find that God will defeat all obstacles in the way. Now we need to note that the role of the Spirit is to lead us to God's destination following God's chosen path for our life in God's chosen way. He is not there to do our bidding!

There are severe warnings about not adopting the ways of the nations. We too need to be careful about this. This is not to say that all the ways of the world are wrong, sometimes they do do things in a righteous manner, but we must not worship false idols.

There were many obstacles in the way, other nations that were inhabiting the Promised Land. So we too face many obstacles, but God will remove the obstacles "little by little". He does this step by step as we grow in character, so that we can safely occupy the land.

Exodus 23:1-19

Here there are various laws relating to justice, and some instructions on festivals. The laws on justice make very interesting reading and are just as relevant for society today as they were then.
A primary principle of justice is one of truth. Telling lies in court is an abomination to God, and doing so only helps evil people. We should also beware of crowds. Remember that on Palm Sunday the crowds were acclaiming Jesus, a few days later they were calling for Him to be crucified.
The poor are to be treated in the same way as everyone else. Testimony is not to be slanted in their favour (v3), nor is justice to be twisted against the poor (v6).
v4 and 5 are very interesting, and are a prime example of Jesus' teaching on the Sermon on the Mount being firmly found in the Old Testament as well. Jesus tells us to love our enemies, these verses are an example of how that would work out in practice.
While the death penalty was part of the law, it was only to be used as part of justice. Putting an innocent person to death is reprehensible. Again there is the instruction to treat foreigners properly.
Then there are instructions on the day of rest. Now I am by no means in favour of a legalistic interpretation of the Sabbath, but am whole heartedly in favour of the principle of rest. If we overwork, we wear ourselves out, we also wear others out as well! In fact you are a menace to other people. Nor am I an econut, but we must not over exploit the land. We need times of rest in order to be refreshed. This applies to societies as well. Some countries in Europe, such as Holland or Germany, still very much close down on a Sunday and this can make things very relaxing.
The three festivals celebrated the exodus, the first harvest and the last harvest. They were to always remember the exodus, just as we celebrate the Lord's Supper to continually remind ourselves of the cross and resurrection. Like Abel, they are to give the first fruits of the harvest. We should do likewise. We should make it a priority to give to God, not to see what is left over.

Exodus 22

We now come to dealing with protection of property. A thief had to make multiple reparation for any sheep or ox that he stole. By the way, the fact that these laws refer explicitly to sheep and ox (and other animals elsewhere) is illustrative of the fact that the details are specific to OT Israel, it is the spirit of the Law that we should focus on.

We see that a person is allowed to defend his home, but only with reasonable force. For if the act occurs in daylight, the defender who kills the thief will be judged to have known exactly what they were doing.

If a person could not pay the due fine, then they had to sell themselves as a slave to make good the damage.

Property is clearly considered to be important, and everyone is to have due concern for the effect of their actions on other people's property.

The second half of the chapter deals with various matters of social responsibility. A woman's well being was heavily dependent in those days on being married, this is why someone who seduced a virgin had to marry her.

They were not to mistreat foreigners, nor take advantage of the poor. It is a recurrent theme in the Bible that God hears the cry of the poor and oppressed, so if we are responsible for harming them we had better watch out.

In lending to the poor people were to make sure that did not deprive them of their livelihood.

Exodus 21

Moses is now given a whole series of laws for all sorts of situations. The details are primarily for application to Israel, but we can learn from the spirit behind the laws, as they reflect the heart of God.

We need to remember that they were given in a totally different context to the one that we live in, so the mention of servants and slaves, and buying of them, tends to shock us. This was the way things were then, but if we look at the laws we will see that the laws provide for a more humane treatment of people than was common at the time.

First, a Hebrew slave could only be bought for 6 years, then he was to be set free. People might hit hard times, and selling themselves as slaves could be the only way out, but no one was to permanently enslave someone against his will. However, a slave could decide to be permanently attached to his master.

All this stuff about selling daughters does jar with us, but if we look more carefully at the laws, we see that God was ensuring that the daughters actually had some rights and were not totally mistreated.

The laws on personal injuries made allowance for accidents. There is also financial compensation for injuries.

We see that the death penalty operates, as does the eye for an eye. Many Christians are dead against the death penalty (pun utterly intended), other seem to relish in it! The death penalty is NOT unchristian. This does not mean that it should be used in all possible cases, and it may even be right for pragmatic reasons to not have a death penalty, but it is not wrong to have the death penalty. The key thing is that it is enacted as a matter of God's justice, not as man's revenge. Now this of course raises practical problems because every society and judicial system is very imperfect. However, not having the death penalty raises equal problems. Take the current example of the Lockerbie bomber and his release. Now, assuming the court verdict was correct, he is responsible for killing hundreds of people, but we do not have a death penalty,so we keep him alive. Then he is released on humanitarian grounds and there is uproar. So what are we to do? Keep him alive but treat him inhumanely? If we had the death penalty the problem would not arise! I am not arguing passionately for the death penalty, only pointing out that there are at least as many moral problems with not having it as there are with having it. The decision whether or not to have the death penalty is a pragmatic one.

Psalm 41

This the last Psalm of the first book.

David starts by declaring that "blessed are those who have regard for the weak". Often people despise the weak. This is not just confined to those who are bullies or are tyrannical. When we feel vulnerable or weak ourselves there can be a natural, and unsightly, tendency to look down on someone we imagine to be weaker than ourselves, so providing some sore of illusory comfort for ourselves. We need to avoid this, and instead always have regard for the weak. If we do this then we will live under the protection of the Lord.

This does not mean that we will not have any trouble, but that the Lord will rescue and protect us when we do. The promise is not that we will not have any foes, but that the Lord will not give us over to the desire of our foes.

David is still wrestling with the problem of sin in his own life, and seeks mercy from the Lord. Enemies and friends alike seem to be against him. The solution in these situations is not to lash out at friends and enemies alike, but to look to the mercy of God.

Note that at the end David is still talking of the Lord being pleased with Him and having integrity. We so easily think we are either perfect or complete rubbish. The truth is that until the return of Christ we are a mixture of goodness and sin. If we know Christ then the goodness is increasing and the sin decreasing, but both are still there, and at different times we are more aware of one than the other, but both are always still there to some degree.

Psalm 40

David tells of how the Lord rescued him. He felt like he was in a slimy pit, and God lifted him out and placed him on a rock. That is what God does with our lives when He brings us to Christ, and it is what He does when after becoming Christians we encounter difficult situations. We can feel as if we are in a dirty hole with no way of clambering out, but God lifts us out and places us upon firm ground.

During the time in the pit our hearts can be full of woe, but after being rescued He puts a new song in our mouth. God is always doing new things in our lives and showing us new aspects of His glory, that is why we can sing new songs. There is always more of God's glory to discover. If you are in a pit just now, know this, it is God's purpose to reveal new things to you.

When in trouble our reaction can sometimes be to see if there is any sacrifice or religious act we can perform to persuade God to change things. David learnt that this is not what God desires. He then says that God opened his ears. God uses difficult times to teach us to listen to Him, to hear Him in new ways. Obedience is what God desires, and for us to tell of His glory.

Then at the end of the Psalm is seems that David is still in trouble and knows that he is utterly dependent upon the grace of God. Sometimes after being rescued we can become all self-confident in the wrong way, trusting in ourselves. We are always 100% dependent upon the goodness of God.

Psalm 39

As with Psalm 38 the precise details of the events surrounding this Psalm are not known, though it is thought that it was written around the same time.

The Psalm starts off with David wisely deciding to guard his tongue, but then finds that keeping totally silent is no good. Our tongue and our words are powerful and important. We should use words wisely and sparingly, but we need to speak. We are not to talk nonsense or destructive stuff, but we are to speak the truth and encouraging and affirming words, and especially words of praise to God.

David then meditates on the fleetingness of his life. We are here but for a short time, and time is the most precious commodity. So we need to use our days wisely.

David is still aware of his sin and is receiving discipline from the Lord, but in the midst of this he still hopes in the Lord. No one likes being disciplined (Hebrews 12:5-12) and we often feel pretty rotten in the midst of it, but in the midst of it we should still seek, praise, and call upon the Lord with confidence.