Exodus 33 – 36
God opens talking to Moses and in verse 33:3 he tells Moses to go so this alone:
Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”
I find it interesting God is upset at the people now, but not enough to not give them the Promised Land. Here He tells Moses of the problem they will encounter, and then says you’re on your own. How often do you feel like this is the way things are in life? Often times it feels as if God is distant and not around in our day to day lives.
I know I feel this way often, but could not imagine having so much direct help and then be left on my own. Think about it God has been with the people throughout the journey and they still drift. They make a golden calf and worship it, even though they have a mountain with God and Moses before them. I don’t get why the people acted this way after all they have been through. I know I believe and have strong faith, and I have not had the Red Sea part before me!
Whatever is up with the people, in verse 33:13 Moses intercedes for them:
Now therefore, if I have found favour in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favour in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.”
Moses is reminding God that his nation requires help and not to abandon them because of a few wrongs. God agrees, but as we see this is eventually why they end up losing a generation in the “wilderness”. I often wonder why God was so hard on the people. I know we get away with so much more today, granted we worship science and stuff, but it still is the same.
Verse 34:7 talks about “generational sin”:
keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
We see this happen with David, how his children are all messed up afterwards and even Solomon who has great wisdom suffers from scars of his father’s transgressions. The repercussions of David’s affair flow many generations. Not necessarily that God is punishing David’s offspring for what he did, but the consequences in what he did effected how his children were raised and so on through generations. That is what God is talking about here, we basically punish our generations, not God.
Verse 34:26 talks about first fruits and how to honor God:
The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
This is not because God is greedy, but so we don’t become that way. Greed is one of the main sins that separate us from our heavenly father. We become consumed with our stuff and not with God, to the point where we will actually blame God for not having what we want. We have to humble ourselves before God and realize he wants our attention. One of the ways cut the tie of “stuff” in our lives is giving up the “first fruits.” So before you decide not to tithe, realize it’s not about you but your relationship with God.