The fast is a blessing. Let’s pray for our nations to repent and return to God.
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Yom Kippur preparation
Read Leviticus 16.
Slide 2 But the sons of Israel acted unfaithfully in regard to the things under the ban, for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, from the tribe of Judah, took some of the things under the ban, therefore the anger of YHVH burned against the sons of Israel. (Jos 7:1)
At the culmination of the 40 years in the wilderness, the Israelites crossed the Jordan. During the wandering, they did not keep the High Days. This is evidenced by them not being circumcised, which was a requisite for keeping Pesach. They also didn’t have the land or economy to support the annual high days, which were centered around agriculture, particularly the spring days. When we read the Torah and see the phrase “when you enter the land”, we need to take that literally. When they entered the land was literally the beginning of a lot of Torah observance.
After the crossing, the campaign to take Canaan by force commenced at the walled city of Jericho. The city walls came down miraculously and the defeat was comprehensive. They only had one rule – nobody was to enrich themselves from this battle. All the spoils belonged to YHVH. One man broke the ban and brought destruction on Israel. They lost their next battle and 36 men died. Because of the sin of one man. YHVH even told Joshua that Israel had sinned, not “one guy in Israel” sinned. The breaking of the ban by one was to be accountable by all.
Slide 3 “Then Aaron shall lay both of his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who stands in readiness.” (Lev 16:21)
Once the nation entered the land, they began to keep the national festivals. The day Atonement, Yom Kippur is perhaps the most unique of these days. Each day has a purpose, and some of them are hard to figure out. But not this one. This day was the annual day for the entire nation’s sins to be accounted for. National sins. A day for the entire nation to cease any activity whatsoever and the High Priest was to acknowledge all the sins of the nation and of himself. Everybody is a sinner was not a new concept in the New Testament.
This day is unique and special for many reasons. My favorite is the leveling of the playing field. Each person in the nation had to do exactly the same thing for this day to be perfect. Anybody who did any work on this day would be destroyed by YHVH. The commandment for rich or poor, male or female, tall or short, was exactly the same: do nothing. And then comes in the humbling of ourselves. This is equated to a complete fast for 24 hours. No food or water for those who can do that for 24 hours. And while fasting, the High Priest had very specific stuff to do, which we won’t get into today.
The foreshadowing here of Yeshua’s death on the cross is immense. The believers had to look on helpless as Yeshua bore our transgressions innocently. They could do nothing to stop it or help. He had to die, alone and helpless, at the hands of both Jews and Gentiles, to convict the entire world of sin and give us the mechanism for reconciliation. He paid the penalty for the sins of all who will accept Him as Messiah.
The doing nothing and fasting is what we’ll be doing Tuesday night through Wednesday night. Preparing for this is pretty simple. If you drink coffee or caffein daily, you should be stepping that down now. Most people never go without food and or water in their lives, except for some blood test fasting which is just 12 hours. Going without for 24 hours sounds daunting at first, but it’s not that hard at all. What I find to be very hard is the doing nothing. The doing nothing is really “no work” but it’s kind of the same thing. Many will shut off their electronics for 24 hours and only read printed material. But it’s really hard to not do stuff.
We will get together at the end of the fast, when we are the most vulnerable. And then we will break the fast together at the park at sunset with some simple foods, prepared well in advance, so nobody does any work at all.
Do you all ever wonder how many times ancient Israel actually kept Yom Kippur properly? After the conquest of Canaan, they became very disobedient very quickly. The book of Maccabees records Judah keeping a Sabbatical year once, but I don’t know of any record of them keeping a Jubilee in scripture. That means it’s not recorded that they were continuously faithful for 50 straight years. However, after the Maccabean restoration of Judea, we assume there were many years of obedience leading up to the New Testament. I believe these are called the years of silence because there isn’t much of anything recorded for this time period with respect to Israel.
Slide 4 When considerable time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous, since even the fast was already over, Paul began to admonish them, and said to them, “Men, I perceive that the voyage will certainly be with damage and great loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives.” (Act 27:9-10)
“The fast” is Yom Kippur. Earlier when I pondered if the ancient Israelites kept the fast reliably I was talking about the very ancient Israelites. We know the Jews kept this faithfully before the first century and until this day because of the records of other nations and how the gentile leaders of Christianity purposely worked to stamp true worship practices out of the faith once delivered.
The fast, or Yom Kippur, is a wonderful observance while being a commandment. It shows us that we are all sinners and we are all connected and on the same plane of existence. When we all do what Yahweh proscribed simultaneously, there is power and there is holiness. When we stray, and each does their own thing, is when we become divided and profaned. Yom Kippur is a day for individual sins that comprise the sins of a nation. Today, in the west, there is very little concept of sin or repentance. And this is where I want to shift gears now.
When I mentioned the sin Israel committed at Jericho earlier, I want you to remember that it was just one guy who sinned. That sin was imputed on the entire nation. How many people invaded Jericho when the wall came down? Fifty thousand? A hundred thousand? Hundreds of thousands? And one guy sinned. That means a whole lot of people did not sin. This is an enormous contrast to today. Today, our society either has lost or is losing the concept of sin at all. I listened to a show on Fox the other day where they were lamenting the incredible rise of violence in the US. They were attributing it to people being mentally ill and not getting treatment. While true, the rise of violence against our neighbors is rooted in this nation turning away from God at all. While the people lamenting this problem were all conservatives, and I’m pretty sure Christians of some stripe, they never made the connection of the rise in violent crime to a radical decrease in the fear of God and the universal concept of loving one’s neighbor as oneself. It is written that lawlessness will increase before the end and whether this is the end or not, lawlessness is definitely on the rise.
Our popular music, television shows, movies, and video games have been increasingly violent and irreverent over the decades. Our media only cares about sensational ideas because if it bleeds, it leads. This week we had a horrific hurricane in Florida. The FL governor is a republican and our president is a democrat and for the first time in many, many years they were united on the crisis and complimentary to each other. And then the media tried to get them to fight each other. Can you imagine covering hundreds of billions of dollars of damage, the potential for immense loss of life, and the “reporter’s” mindset being to create political discord. This is shocking behavior that illustrates a depraved mind. The country stopped keeping track of the divorce rate because it became higher than the not-divorced rate and now people live in any sort of relationship at all and nobody thinks a thing of it. What’s one big cause of this? Prosperity. When a nation is prosperous and at rest is when temptation kicks in. We’ve been on this march toward lawlessness for many decades because we lack adversity.
Slide 5 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which YHVH had said to the sons of Israel, “You shall not associate with them, nor shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods.” Solomon held fast to these in love. He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart away. For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to YHVH his God, as the heart of David his father had been. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites. Solomon did what was evil in the sight of YHVH, and did not follow YHVH fully, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable idol of Moab, on the mountain which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon. Thus also he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods. (1Ki 11:1-8)
This is a vicious cycle that runs through all societies. King David was a warrior king. He was not allowed to build the temple because he had shed so much blood in battle. It was passed to his heir, Solomon. David had defeated everybody and made Israel enormously wealthy. David had the one slipup that he paid for, but was a faithful man until death, leaving Israel safe, secure, and wealthy. Solomon had to manage that wealth and build the temple. But the wealth brought in temptation. Solomon married women he was forbidden to marry through the Torah because they would lead to follow false gods and, sure enough, they did. Israel’s prosperity led to its accepting of sin and it’s ultimate demise. When the sin comes from the top, what happens to the people? They follow suit and those who don’t become increasingly marginalized. When those idols went up, how often do you think the nation kept Yom Kippur at all? Or properly? The temple was awesome and new, and the people fell astray before those who built it even died.
While this cycle tends to be the cause, or a cause, of the demise of most civilizations, it happened very rapidly to Israel. They fell almost every time they had peace. Our nation is so wealthy and powerful that we can have peace here at home while fighting multiple wars abroad, as we have been doing for more than 20 years now. Much like the Roman Empire and the British Empire, both of which collapsed under their own weight.
Slide 6 Who gave Jacob up for spoil, and Israel to plunderers? Was it not YHVH, against whom we have sinned, And in whose ways they were not willing to walk, And whose law they did not obey? So He poured out on him the heat of His anger And the fierceness of battle; And it set him aflame all around, Yet he did not recognize it; And it burned him, but he paid no attention.(Isa 42:24-25)
Isaiah saying “we” even though he was not guilty. Expand. Everybody is a sinner but even those of us striving for righteousness bear responsibility for our nation’s sins. Just like the guy who took the stuff at Jericho, we all pay for the sins of our nation.
In the olam ha ba, there will be no more sin. This cycle will be over. But until then, we will still watch the scenario play out. Our nation is in steep decline. Most would say it’s because we don’t have the right policies. But the truth is that it’s because we don’t have the right heart. We as a nation don’t fear Yahweh anymore. We as a nation disregard the sacrifice of His Son and don’t even think of sin much anymore. But at sunset Tuesday this week, those of us who do think of these things will begin the observance of Yom Kippur. We will cease from all our works and fast for 24 hours. We’ll meet sometime during that time period for our holy convocation. And lets remember our nation, and the world, during this time, and pray for all to come to repentance.