A Whole Burnt Offering

The practice called “Corban” refers to a gift the Jews offered to God. Corban was a law that an offering must not be stopped even if the thing was needed to support one’s parents; later the Jews came to abuse this law.

In Mark 7:11 Jesus told them that when they did not want to care for their parents, they made the excuse that they had nothing to give their parents because they had declared it Corban, and that this was not right. Anyone who says they have given an offering to God thinks of themselves as released from their responsibility toward their parents, but such behavior, he was saying, is an evil sin that does not agree with God’s will. Jesus was rebuking the hearts of those who abused God’s law. Not fully understanding the meaning of the law, they abused the law God had made to enrich the relationship between God and people, and between people and people, and to give life; and so they showed a greed that would not even care for their own parents.

Even now, among church members, there are people who give offerings in order to receive blessings from God. Though they can afford to share, such people say they have nothing to give the poor because they have given their offering to God. Sharing shows true love when you save from what you yourself need and give it away. True love means the one who receives must come to feel thankful, and only when the one who receives grows is the love you gave real love.

But because they think of sharing out of the gifts offered to God rather than out of their own, they have nothing to spare for giving. When they want to do good, they try to use the offering or tithe that should be given to God, and so whatever they do brings them no joy. Saving on the money you and your family would spend, and sharing that, is how God’s true love is practiced, and that is God’s deep intent.

From the outside, you cannot tell apart the faith of someone who understands the true meaning God intends and acts on it and the faith of someone who acts out of religious habit, because both take part eagerly, even in formal worship and rituals. But the outcomes for someone who understands the truth and strives to live by the Word, and for those who have only zeal without the Word, are life and death respectively. The Pharisees pursued only outward show and in the end committed the sin of rejecting Jesus. That is why knowing the truth and living by faith matters so much.

Until now, churches have led people by making them cling to the forms of worship rather than to the Word, putting the weight on an outward faith. People who have lived their church life this way have ended up indifferent to the truth, sitting in ignorance of the Word. Over time, outward faith has hardened people, and they no longer even know what the spiritual freedom enjoyed through the truth is. And to avoid stepping outside the framework of faith they have learned and known until now, they are committing the sin of persecuting believers who live by the truth. The more zeal such people show, the more hollow and empty their hearts would feel.

When we fully understand God’s will within the truth, we can feel true freedom and endure any suffering through the Word. We must know that if anyone shuts God’s law and Word up inside human thinking and turns them into formal acts, in the end nothing will come back to them but death.

Living in this world, whether by our own will or another’s, we meet both suffering and prosperity. But even when they go through the same suffering and live the same prosperous life, people of mature faith easily leap over suffering by faith when it comes, and grow humbler when prosperity comes. That is why the life of such a believer never changes. Just as Abinadab understood the deep purpose of God, who had the ark of the covenant made, and set Eleazar apart as holy, only those who know God’s will can receive life. Keeping for twenty years the ark that everyone was afraid to come near, they enjoyed not God’s wrath but his grace.

In 1 Samuel 7:3, Samuel told all the house of Israel that if they wanted to return to Yahweh with all their heart, they should first put away the foreign gods from among them and serve God alone, and he would deliver them out of the hand of the Philistines. Samuel knew clearly what kind of children God loves. His point was that the first thing was to put away the foreign gods from among them and direct their hearts to Yahweh, and then, if they served Yahweh only, they could receive God’s help. He taught that if Israel only lived by this word, God would treat the Philistines who tormented them as his enemy and drive them back. I hope you too, even if it is hard to resolve, will cast away by faith the idols you have been serving, knowingly or unknowingly, and serve God alone. If you look at the world only through faith, you will gain the strength to overcome problems that were locked tight like iron bars, and the people who tormented you.

Samuel told Israel to cast away their idols. From this it seems he labored long and patiently to show the way of faith to a people who had left God and were heading toward the world. But the people had no interest in what Samuel said, and when it differed from what they were after, they did not follow him. That is how hard it is for people to give up their own thinking, pride and righteousness. For even though it was the Word Samuel heard directly from God and passed on, they moved only according to their own needs and did not fully obey.

The ark of the covenant was in Abinadab’s house for twenty years, and only when Israel saw that his household received not disaster but blessing did they want to return to Yahweh. Samuel told that Israel to gather, all of them, at Mizpah. The people who gathered at Mizpah drew water and poured it out before Yahweh, fasted, and repented, saying that they had sinned against Yahweh. Only after Israel repented did they come to obey Samuel’s words, and Samuel could judge them. Even Samuel, who knew God’s will fully, could do nothing by preaching the Word if the people who needed to hear it closed their ears. That is why, with the Word, the one who preaches matters, but so does the one who hears.

John 7:37-38

37Now on the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink! 38He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, from within him will flow rivers of living water.”

The rivers of living water are the Holy Spirit, whom believers who have received Jesus will receive. Jesus said this while watching people go to the pool of Siloam at the Feast of Booths, draw water, and pour it out at the temple. So his point is that keeping the feast by outward acts means nothing. He is saying that only by holding, through the meaning of the Feast of Booths and the understanding it gives, to the hope of the kingdom Christ will complete, and by being filled with the Holy Spirit, can one realize who has the authority to forgive sins.

Because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit who knows even the deep things of God, if we only strive to live by the Word, we can receive the great help of the Holy Spirit. Israel tried to turn back by fasting and repenting, but we cannot walk the right path unless we rely on the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 9:14-15

14Then John’s disciples came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples don’t fast?” 15Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

John’s disciples came to Jesus and asked why, when they and the Pharisees fasted, his disciples did not fast. Jesus answered that while the bridegroom’s friends are with the bridegroom it is a joyful occasion, so they have no need to fast, but that when the bridegroom is taken away they will naturally fast. With these words he answered spiritually people who cared only for the flesh. The words that Jesus the bridegroom proclaims are food for the spirit, and now is the time to eat eagerly, so this is no time for fasting. But once Jesus had borne the cross, he would ascend, and they could no longer hear the word of truth directly, so naturally they would fast, he said. He was showing them what true fasting means.

But the people of Israel fasted because they wanted worldly wealth and glory that had nothing to do with God, and their fasting had no truth in it. That is why Jesus told them how wrong their fasting was. If believers fast for worldly possessions, they will grow weak spiritually. Because their own righteousness grows strong as a result, the word of truth will not be engraved on the tablet of their hearts, and they will not be able to live wisely. It is a misfortune for a believer not to stand on the rock. A person whose heart has been branded as with a hot iron will end up boasting of fasting done for the flesh, so however much such fasting is done, God will not accept it.

Jesus’ disciples, who fasted from the world and ate the word of truth while they were with him, and John’s disciples, who ate the food of the flesh and fasted from the truth, were spiritually at opposite extremes. John’s disciples did not even know to whom they were offering their fasting, yet they challenged Jesus, asking why his disciples did not fast. This scene shows well how foolish human beings are. Jesus spoke here using a wedding feast as a parable, but those whose spiritual eyes and ears are closed do not understand the truth even when they hear it. I hope you will fast when the flesh tries to rule over the spirit. For only when you fast rightly does God fill you with spiritual authority.

When the Philistines heard that the people were gathered with Samuel at Mizpah, they attacked Mizpah. Hearing that the Philistines were coming, the people begged Samuel not to stop crying to Yahweh their God for them, to save them out of the hand of the Philistines. The first thing Samuel did then was offer a lamb to Yahweh as a whole burnt offering and pray earnestly. God, who accepted the lamb as a burnt offering, dealt the Philistines a great defeat. God surely accepts the repentance and prayer of believers. But he accepts repentance and prayer only through the sacrifice of the lamb. However much a sinner repents and prays, all of it is nothing but an empty act of beating the air. That is why all of us pray in the name of the Lord.

Having seen God drive back the Philistines, Israel took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen, said that God had helped them until now, and called it “Ebenezer.” Once Israel stood firm in faith, the Philistines never attacked Israel again, and Yahweh’s hand kept all the cities at peace all the days of Samuel. Look at this battle. The people of Israel had nothing at all that would give them victory, but they could win because Yahweh accepted their hearts as they poured out water, fasted and repented, and because he accepted the lamb Samuel offered. This is exactly the faith you must hold on to. You can win the battles of the world only when Yahweh works, and you can receive God’s help only when you first offer the lamb. The lamb you are to offer to God is none other than Jesus Christ.

Israel would have come to know how vain, how utterly vain, it is to leave God and live for the world. Casting away idols and serving Yahweh alone means casting away human righteousness, the way we have lived until now by our own thinking, pride and ability rather than by God. Not only people in general but even believers do not trust God completely. Of course, when there is trouble they submit unconditionally, like the people of Israel, but as soon as they can breathe a little, they show their own righteousness again. It is the evil human heart that always lets God play only a supporting role in one’s life and never gives up the master’s seat. Such evil thinking is an idol. So we must throw it all away and obey God with complete faith. Filled with the Holy Spirit and held by God, we must fast from all the righteousness of the world and eat the truth.

For the people who were striving like this to cast off the world, Samuel took a lamb, offered a burnt offering, and prayed earnestly. Now all Israel’s enemies had become God’s enemies. Every enemy too huge to handle, like the Philistines, God would take on, and God himself would declare war. When Israel repented, God recovered all the land they had lost and gave it back to Israel. He let them make peace with the Amorites and live in peace, and Samuel went in a circuit to Bethel, Gilgal and Mizpah and judged all Israel.

Do you see clearly what kind of faith receives God’s help? As “Ebenezer” means “he has helped us until now,” it was because Yahweh was with them that they could drive back an enemy like the Philistines. God is your Ebenezer. Had Israel lived by the law, the nation called Philistia might not have existed for them at all. It was evil human greed and pride that made them leave God and made them thirst like a dry land.

I hope you will serve the Lord alone, wholly, as Samuel urged. I hope you will rely on God with all you have, so that your children can follow in faith in every step you take.

May you always live within God’s grace, repenting, praying and praising. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.

1 Samuel 8:1-3, 18-22

1When Samuel was old, he made his sons judges over Israel. 2Now the name of his firstborn was Joel; and the name of his second, Abijah. They were judges in Beersheba. 3His sons didn’t walk in his ways, but turned away after dishonest gain, took bribes, and perverted justice. 18You will cry out in that day because of your king whom you will have chosen for yourselves; and Yahweh will not answer you in that day.” 19But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; and they said, “No; but we will have a king over us, 20that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.” 21Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of Yahweh. 22Yahweh said to Samuel, “Listen to their voice, and make them a king.” Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Everyone go to your own city.”