Month: January 2021

78. Name and Blessing

Numbers 6:27 And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them.

With the Aaronic Benediction the Lord puts His name upon His people, and He promises to bless them. God promises that His name is on us and the Name goes with us. The “Name” is the Presence of God, the Character of God and the Authority of God. When we have the Name upon us we have God with us and we are blessed.

The Benediction is given in three parts, corresponding to the three Persons in the One God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now that you have the name of God upon do not bear it in vain. Take the name with you, but do not take it empty and for no purpose. Use the Name only for good, in prayer, praise and thanksgiving. Carry the Name with you to bless others. I am with you to bless, says the Lord God. Do not use the name of the Lord to curse, swear, use witchcraft, lie, or deceive. When we receive the Name, the Presence, and the Blessing of God with faith and thanks in the heart we will wear it well. We do not want to use it for bad purposes, nor will we want to use the name of God for no good purpose or just for nothing.

If we believe the promise in the Blessing we will be careful how we use the Name, for it has authority and power. The promise is real, the blessing is real, the name is real for us, and it is present with us. “The Name” is not empty, or neutral, or powerless. Therefore we pray, “Hallowed be Thy name.” We use the name that has been placed upon us a lot, in many good ways to bless our surroundings in prayer and praise. Yes, the Lord has blessed us with His Name, and He trusts us to use it often and use it well, and so we will not waste the power on frivolous things, and especially not for evil purposes. The promise is: the Name of Jesus blesses; but we are careful with it since it also curses. We ask God’s help to hallow it among us.

77. Smile and grant Peace

Numbers 6:26 The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

The Lord promises to smile upon you and give you peace. “To lift up one’s countenance” is to smile cheerily or grin broadly. The countenance is the face or the look of a person; to lift up the face is to smile. One smiles with the whole face: the lips curl, the eyes wrinkle and twinkle, and the face brightens up. What a blessing it is and what a promise is coming when God smiles upon us! The Lord smiles upon us when He is pleased with us, when we make Him happy, when He is proud of us, and when He just loves us. Gratefully, this is all the time. Even when we do something that grieves Him He is still well disposed toward us. He may not like the sins we do, but he still likes us, the persons we are. We cannot change His attitude toward us by what we do or don’t do. Because of Christ God loves us always, without fail. We can’t make Him love us more, and can’t make Him love us less. The Lord is always happy with us; He is always smiling at us; He always sees Jesus in us; He is always pleased with us. We receive the Benediction with faith so that we know how God feels about us: He will lift up His countenance.

And finally, He will give us peace, not the peace of the world, but the peace of God, which passes all understanding. Jesus does not only wish it for us, like people who say “Shalom” or “Have a good day.” He literally gives it to us, straight out; He places the peace of God in the heart to guard our hearts and minds. The peace of God is more than we can understand, explain, or put into words, but we know it when we feel it. We may not always feel the peace, but we always have it. And by faith peace settles over us and inside of us when we repent and believe the Gospel. And when we hear this Benediction spoken over us the Lord Jesus Christ gives us peace. This inner peace goes beyond emotions or outward feelings. He speaks it; He gives it: I believe it; I have it. Enjoy!

76. Shine and Be Gracious

Numbers 6:25 The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee.

Another promise assumed in the Aaronic Benediction is a shining face and graciousness. The Lord will make His face shine upon us. A shining face is a pleasant and beautiful sight to see. People with charm and a twinkle in their eye seem to shine and sparkle. Some faces light up a room. A shining face means that the shining person is pleased with us. And this is what the Lord promises. The Father states a couple of times that He is well pleased with His Son. And if we believe in the Son and identify with Him by faith, then God is well pleased with us. Nothing could please us more than to know that God the Father is well pleased with us. What could make us happier? We want, even need, our parents to be pleased with us. We long for our spouse to be pleased with us. We even want our children to be pleased with us. We please friends and neighbors so that they may be pleased with us.

But we desperately need God to be pleased with us, not just so that He would not be angry with us, but that He might be genuinely happy with us. Down deep, and in very truth, we desire and need God to be happy with us. If the Father is happy with me then I can be happy. The bold truth: God is always happy with us. The sad truth: we don’t always know that. For this reason the Lord wants to give us a blessing of a shining face. He shows us a face that expresses His inner feelings. Inwardly, He is kindly disposed toward us all the time, and sometimes He shows us his feelings outwardly in blessing. Can you see the twinkle in His eyes when the Father looks at you? This He does in the Benediction Blessing. Zephaniah 3:17: “He will rejoice over you with gladness.” Did you know you make God happy? That’s what the Blessing says.

The second part of this blessing is that the Lord will be gracious to us. He shows us His grace and favor. He blesses with grace. He is kind and good to us all the days of our lives. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me.” Graciousness is undeserved kindness and favor. We did nothing to deserve such a blessing, But because Jesus Christ earned grace for us, God bestows it extravagantly upon us. “Freely ye have received.” Freely means both “for free” and “in abundance.” There are times when we really miss and need such graciousness, kindness, blessing and favor from the Lord. We want to be touched with His Love. The Blessing gives such a touch. Receive the Blessing with a thankful heart.

75. Bless and Keep

Numbers 24:6 The Lord bless thee, and keep thee.

At the end of the Divine Service of ritual sacrifices at the Tabernacle Aaron is instructed to bless the assembled worshipers with this blessing. We still use the Aaronic Benediction at the close of our worship services today. During the Divine Service God has been doing something for the worshiper, giving forgiveness of sins, granting eternal life, and saving us from our Enemies for Himself in heaven. The Lord has blessed us, and now He sends us on our way home with His blessing to stay with us while we are away from the sanctuary.

Assumed within this Blessing, or Benediction, is a Promise. It is assumed and believed, that the Blessing of God has really been put upon us as something real and tangible. In the spiritual world and to the human spirit within something really did happen. God came with His Presence to bless us. God may bless us in physical and emotional ways, but that is not a guaranteed promise. However, what is guaranteed is that God does definitely bless us in a spiritual way in our human spirit, where the Holy Spirit dwells and rules. From that spirit deep within He will affect and influence the soul (mind, will and emotions), which in turn affects and influences the body to produce healing and wellbeing. The Lord does not always bless us materially the way we want, but He does always bless us spiritually the way He wants.

This is one of the things that happens to us when we leave the Divine Service: we go home with God’s Blessing in us. We may not feel like it lasts, so He gives us the second blessing; “Keep!” The Lord promises to go with us and guard us in our hearts and minds with His eternal peace. He will keep the blessing with us and He will guard and protect from all evil with the power of His Word and His Life living within. Don’t miss the Benediction. Believe that great things are happening when God is present with us to bless.

1. Remember Covenant

Leviticus 26:45 But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.

Once again God promises to remember the covenant He made with our patriarchs and ancestors. The Lord saved us and brought us out of the world so that He could take care of us by being our God. The Lord has remembered the promises He made, every one of them, and He looks at them Himself to make sure that they will be kept according to His word. God the Father made a covenant with us when Jesus died and rose again. He will look to that event and remember anew that He has bound Himself to that covenant promise of life and salvation.

We remember our baptism daily by repentance and faith as we visualize what the Lord did for us there. We participate in Holy Communion in remembrance of Jesus, making present, alive, active and fresh what happened once at the Cross and the Empty Tomb. We partake of the blood of the Covenant, the blood of Christ that established the covenantal loving relationship between God and us. God remembers and we are reminded. Remembering makes it real in the present moment. What happened once for our life needs to happen every moment. We have a short memory and memory lapses, but God has a long memory and remembers everything.

We can count on the Lord to meet us in our present need because of what He has done in the past and what He will surely do in the future. Every time we interact with the Lord in the Word and in prayer and in fellowship God remembers His covenant with us and reminds us of His promises. 

1. I will not Cast Away, Abhor, Destroy

Leviticus 26:44 And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God.

Because God is the Lord our God He will not break His covenant with us; He cannot, since is must be true to His character, which is faithful love. God will have to do what He promised; He will have to keep covenant. Therefore, the Lord says that He will not cast His people away, He will not abhor them, and He will not destroy them utterly. This sounds like a “damning with faint praise” promise, but it is really wonderful.

“Yet for all this” refers to the curses that came into effect because of idolatry, rebellion and disobedience. One of the main curses is that God’s people would be exiled from the Promised Land and live in the land of their enemies. In spite of the disobedience and the consequences of it, God is still good and full of love, whose mercy endures forever. Therefore, He made a way to restrain His Holy Wrath upon our sin by giving His own Son to bear the just punishment of the wrath of God, who by nature hates sin and must destroy sin, and the sinner. Because of this redemptive action in Christ, God won’t do the right thing. He will do the merciful and loving thing; He will forgive all sin and keep His promise for Christ’s sake.

In other words, we don’t get what we deserve. We get what Jesus Christ has deserved for us: forgiveness, life, salvation, holiness, and all the goodness of God. All this He does purely out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy without any merit or worthiness in me. And the redemption is total: we lose everything that is bad for us, and we gain everything that is good for us.

We are living in the land of our enemies. This earth and the people in it, under The Curse, belong legally to Sin, Satan and Death. These enemies would destroy us, but the Lord God will not. Instead of destroying us utterly, He will save us to the uttermost. It is His good pleasure to give us the kingdom. To which boss will you submit?

1. I Will Remember

Leviticus 26:42 Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.

God made many promises according to His Covenant with us; and He won’t neglect it or forget to keep the promises. The Lord had just listed all the curses that will come into effect when the people do not keep His Commandments. There are many curses, and there are severe consequences. And they all came true for the Old Testament people of God: they lost the Land.

But although the sinful people would break the covenant, God would remember the covenant and keep it. God made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and with their physical descendants. And more importantly, He made a spiritual and eternal covenant with their spiritual descendants, that is, those who have the same faith as the Patriarchs, a faith in the Promised Messiah.

Remembering the covenant also means that the Lord will remember the land. God drove them out of the land because of idolatry, rebellion and disobedience. Then He promises to remember that the Promised Land was a part of the Covenant. When Jesus came to earth He said, “The kingdom of God (the Land) is here.” You may enter it by repentance and faith in the Gospel. Actually, the Kingdom enters the believer. Jesus Christ kept our side of the covenant and so God can legally give us His righteousness, faithfulness, and obedience. God sees the blood of Jesus and He remembers the covenant promises and the kingdom promises. For Christ’s sake the Lord grants them all to us by grace. We “remember” what God has done in Christ, and now all the promises of God are “Yea and Amen” in Christ.

1. Walk Among You

Leviticus 26:12 AndI will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.

“To walk” in Biblical figurative language means “to live daily lives.” It means how we behave, how we think, and speak, and act. God promises to walk among us. He will live among us, be where we are, accompany us in our doings, be involved in our conversations, guide our thinking and decisions. In other words, God is Present among us. His glorious presence is not only in the tabernacle on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant, but He is also present when we sit, lie down, stand up, walk around, play, work and interact with people.

“Practicing the Presence of God” is a highly beneficial exercise; it is something we may do any time and anywhere. It is simply being aware that God is with us and in us always. This awareness helps to prevent giving in to temptations to sin; we know that He is doing it with us, and saying and thinking, and He won’t do that, whatever sin is tempting us.. It is much more than asking, “What would Jesus do?” It is more like, “What has Jesus done, and what is He doing now?” It is more like Jesus and me in a mysterious union “walking.”

When He is walking among us, He promises to be our God, and He promises that we will be His people. When our God is walking among us He is there for our good and for blessing. Being holy, the Lord is also there as a threat, a warning, and a prevention. God is there both to threaten and promise, to warn and comfort, to dissuade and encourage. Both the negative and positive side of God’s Presence with us is a positive benefit and blessing for us, and He uses us to bless others in what we do for them and say to them. It is awesome to think about and act accordingly. It is overwhelming to realize that such great power, holiness, love and mercy are actually so close to us as to be walking among us. And it is a wonderful privilege to live as His people. We can’t do it, but He does it in us.

1. Dwell Among You

Leviticus 26:11 And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you.

“And the word became flesh, and dwelt (tented, tabernacled) among us [John 1:14].” When God made this conditional promise for those who keep the Commandments He did not mean the Tabernacle structure, the Tent of Meeting. By the verb “tabernacle,” He meant that He would dwell in the midst of the faithful ones.

The Immanuel (God with us) promises to “be with us always, even unto the end of the age.” And since the Resurrection and Pentecost, the Holy Spirit dwells (lives, remains, stays, resides, abides, and even rules) in our hearts. God couldn’t be more “with” us. This is what it means when the Lord says He will “set His tabernacle” among us. The Tabernacle was the Tent of Meeting built by Moses under God’s instruction according to the heavenly pattern. Its purpose was to house the Presence of God on the earth. Then the Presence, or the “Glory,” moved to the permanent structure, the Temple in Jerusalem, when Solomon built it. Then it moved into Jesus of Nazareth, and finally into you and me, the body of Christ, or the temple of the Lord. The Lord God Almighty indeed keeps His promise: He dwells with us, and His presence is always where we are. If we were more mindful of this fact, we might be more careful about the things we do and say.

Through Jesus Christ, and by faith in Christ, He is always with us in Holiness and Love. Elaborate ritual instructions were given the people regarding how such sinful creatures may approach a Holy God. They knew where He lived, and they could approach such Holiness if they followed the rules for reaching Him. In the NT days of today we may approach the God who is nearby, even inside us, through the name of Jesus, and by faith in Christ.

And the promise continues: “My soul shall not abhor you.” This sounds like faint praise, but it really is awesome good news. God by nature abhors sin; He cannot be in its presence. If sin should touch God’s Holiness it is immediately destroyed. But God made a way through the blood of Jesus Christ. Now He says, “Come unto Me; I will accept you and not abhor you, for you are now without sin.” He even shares His Holiness with us, so He can live there.

1. Eat Old Store

Leviticus 26:10 And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old [Matthew 13:62].” When God gave us the kingdom He gave us for more than we realized at first. The treasures that come out of the kingdom of God just keep on coming, and we discover more and more of the treasures that are in the kingdom. Sometimes it is new insights that we never heard of before, and sometimes it is old treasures that we almost forgot about that the Spirit is now applying to a new situation. The old truths and promises of Scripture still have practical application to our modern day present needs.

The image pictures extravagant abundance, even more than it seems like we need, and the treasures of Scripture never run out and dry up. The waters of life keep on flowing in an inexhaustible supply. Daily bread is always there. The spiritual nourishment and sustenance the Spirit provides for the soul never ends. There is more treasure in the Bible than we will ever be able to mine in a lifetime, things new and old that keep coming. The Word does not let us down; it is storehouse of treasure.

There are physical, earthly and temporal blessings that are consequences of keeping the Law, but the primary blessings that come out of the store of Scripture are spiritual and eternal. This is the promise that we can be strengthened by. This promise motivates and encourages us to dig into the Scripture storehouse of old and new treasures. The promise is that we will be rewarded for time spent in the Word.