Numbers 28:4
“The one lamb you shall offer in the morning, the other lamb you shall offer in the evening”
As a nation, Israel was required to offer sacrifices to the Lord, daily. Each day started and finished with the sweet aroma of a burnt offering being dedicated to God. This is a pretty good pattern for every Christian to follow. Our walk with Christ will be richly enhanced if we start the day by offering ourselves to the Lord and finish by doing the same. The beauty of beginning our day with Jesus is that we receive both direction and strength for what the day holds. Those who spend their mornings in the Word of God can attest to how often they have found that the passage they read had a real life application in their day. In some cases, it actually led to ministry opportunities in the life of others. The beauty of ending the day with the Lord is we are able to enjoy His mercy and grace for the areas where we have slipped or fallen. We do not have to carry the guilt of sin into the night, nor do we have to continue with whatever ungodly attitude may have been developed in us, through the experiences we encountered that day. Our evening time becomes a time of confession and cleansing, and we can sleep the sleep of the righteous.
Let’s make a commitment to give the Lord our mornings and our evenings, and see what a beautiful transformation takes place in our walk with the Lord.
Pastor Jim
A few years ago, I was in Serbia speaking at a conference for some of the local churches. On the last day of our trip, we were invited by one of the pastors to visit a Gypsy village, where he had been ministering to the families for some time. Upon arriving, we broke up into groups, and began visiting some of the homes of the sick, and gathering with many of the children. After about an hour, a woman from a nearby town approached us. She stood out to us because she was wearing a beautiful purple dress with a purple overcoat. One of the other pastors approached her; she asked him who we were and what we were doing here. He responded that we were from America, and had come to Serbia to teach the Bible and share Christ. Her response was quite shocking. She said, “I meant what are you doing in the Gypsy’s village. No one cares about the Gypsies.” We were a little shocked by her statement, but began to share with her that Jesus loved all people, even those who were despised by the world. She made a decision to receive Christ that day because of His love for those whom no one else cared.
A dangerous and all too common cycle is exposed in these verses. Some of the men of Israel were drawn into unhealthy relationships, which led to ungodly practices. Their sin led them out from under the blessings of God and into a place where they were chastened by the Lord. Unhealthy relationships are one of the chief causes of sin throughout Israel’s history. Whenever they were drawn to the nations around them, it was not long before they were involved in the practices of those nations. After years of this cycle repeating itself, Solomon wrote,
The final prophecy from Balaam, regarding Israel, declares God will defeat all their enemies. The nations that surrounded Israel, as well as those who lived within its borders, would be brought under the mighty hand of the Lord.
The Moabites were descendants of Lot and ancient ancestors like Israel. They inhabited the land east of the Jordan and south of the Dead Sea. As a result, they were not under the same curse as the Canaanites, and they occupied an area of land that was not given to Israel. In God’s economy they were to be neighbors and allies with Israel. Isn’t it sad that they had established such a distorted view of what would happen to them if they submitted to the will of God and allowed Israel to pass through their land? They believed that submission to the Lord meant their lives would be ruined.
