The Meaning Of Life

https://biblehub.com/nkjv/leviticus/17.htm

I don’t mean to sound like a broken record but I’ll say it again; some of these chapters are a hard read. Scriptures is extremely insightful, however sometimes, as in the case of how detailed God’s command on building the Tabernacle was, kind of redundant. But, everything in the Bible is there for a reason, we just have to trust it, and pray that God will enlighten us. As an example, I still find new things I missed before when reading scripture.

Chapters 17 through 19 detail more laws on what God allows and what He forbids, and finally in Chapter 20, the punishments for breaking these laws are detailed.

Now I read these chapters last evening and again today, and when I read them today, something came to me as a possibility.

Many violations of these laws, those about impurity, sexual immorality, the touching of dead animals, etc., states the penalty is that you are “unclean” until evening. Of course, evening starts a new day, so it makes sense that you would be considered unclean until evening.

But why would this be a punishment? In many instances the Bible says to wash yourself and wash your garments, then you are considered “unclean” until evening. When your unclean, you were not allowed to be around anything Holy, including the Tabernacle. Is it possible that being separated from God was the true punishment?

Today, many would be disappointed if they couldn’t attend church services, but would they be devastated by it? Would they be torn and ridden with guilt that they were not allowed into the church to be with God, because they had sinned?

Regardless of how wicked they might have been, is it possible that they were much, much closer to God than we are today?

And I’ve made it clear that I do not believe in an everlasting burning hell fire where you are tormented by flames forever; the penalty for sin is death, and realistically, that even isn’t the true penalty; the true penalty is that we do not get the reward of living in Heaven with God, or living in the New Jerusalem with Him forever. The true penalty is our separation from God.

So is this the true purpose of being “unclean” until evening, to separate you from your God? I know a lot of us today have been brought up in a material world. We may have Bible study on our list of things to do every day, but is it first? Is it a priority? There are still religions today where the first thing people do is bow down and worship. Jews and ironically Muslims all have payer rituals they go through, and I’m not talking about kneeling by your bed and saying a morning pray of thanks to God, I’m taking public prayer. The first thing in the morning at dawn before coffee, before breakfast, before the morning news, is morning worship, and publicly at that.

I know for a cold hard fact, there are millions of people more faithful than I (I’m working on it though). Perhaps in those days, God truly was a priority in their lives, and being separated for him, even for one day, was a true punishment.

I know this may sound elementary, but who knows? I still contend that the Bible isn’t a test. God isn’t giving us His word in code so that we have to figure out the meaning of life. It is right under our noses in plain sight, it may just be that we can’t see the forest because of the trees.

Read your Bible, pray for understanding, then make up your own mind based on what your conscience will allow you to do. If you read a scripture, and it is not to your liking, and you say to yourself, “Oh, that seems a little too strict. God would never make a law or command that strict, it must mean something else.”, perhaps that’s Satan trying to draw you away from God. Remember the serpent, “You will not surely die”.

And here’s how easily Satan can trick you. If someone says to you, if you do this you’ll die, and you do it and you don’t die, you might think, “They were wrong, I didn’t die.” But when God creased earth, he meant for it to be Heaven. This was our home, with God, forever and ever, until we sinned. So no, Adam and Eve didn’t immediately die from their sin, but they did die. Their lives eventually came to an end and they went to their graves.

So if a little voice in your head says, “Surely not”, think about where that voice may be coming from.

Sorry for rambling, I’m an old man. May God bless you.