Fri.’s Devo - The Seeds and the Sower

Read: Deuteronomy 21:1-22:30; Luke 9:51-10:12; Psalm 74:1-23; Proverbs 12:11 There were so many laws but I will deal with the ones that stood out to me. Murder had to be atoned for or it would defile the community. If a body was found and there were no witnesses then the elders of the closest town had to select an untrained heifer that had never been yoked to a plow. He was to be led down to a valley that had never been plowed that had a stream running through it. There the his neck was to be broken and the priest of the town must step forward and begin the process of cleansing themselves from the sin. Then the people would wash their hands over the heifer that was beheaded and proclaim the they knew nothing or had nothing to do with the murder of the man. They would ask the Lord’s mercy and freedom from guilt. This is a picture of what Christ did for us on the cross. He died for the sins we didn’t know we had committed. He died for the sin of the community and the nation. He was the heifer who had never been trained as a priest or yoked with the laws of the Mishnah and the Talmud. His death washed us of our guilt and sin. In 21:15-17 the law dealt with the same thing that was going on in the lives of Leah and Rachel. Rachel was the wife that was loved, but Leah had the first born son, Reuben. Rachel’s firstborn was Joseph. It was not legal for Jacob to give Joseph the inheritance of the first born just because he loved his mother the most. Sadly, Rueben lost his inheritance when he went into his father’s concubines (Gen. 49:3) and Joseph was blessed with the blessing of a firstborn in Genesis 49:22-26. The laws of other’s property is just loving your neighbor as you love yourself. God wanted them to treat others like they would want to be treated. God hated polarity so when he told them to not yoke an ox and a donkey together he was talking about opposites. The ox is a hard worker and the donkey is a stubborn animal. They didn’t go together and would always work against each other. Hearts need to be unified to produce any fruit. God wanted sin purged from the land, but he wanted just and fair judgment. No one could judge without unquestionable evidence and more than one witness. In Luke, we see the prejudice of Jews and Samaritans. The Samaritans wouldn’t receive Jesus because they knew he was going to Jerusalem for the Passover. When his disciples wanted to call down fire to destroy the Samaritan town, Jesus rebuked them. It was not time for judgment but grace. Jesus met three different people which were pictures that represented the hearts in parable about the seed in Matthew 13. The first seed was the Samaritans that rejected the seed. The second was the man who said he would follow him wherever he went. We can tell by Jesus’ response that he was the seed that didn’t have deep roots so it quickly died. The third man first go bury his father. He was the seed that got choked out by the cares of the world. The last seed was the one that fell on fertile ground and that was the one that put his hand to the plow and never looked back. Jesus chose 70 of the later seeds and sent them ahead of him to all the towns he planned to visit. He told them to pray for helpers. He rid them of distractions: money that might have gotten stolen or tempted them to want to shop, extra sandals that might have changed their walk, and conversation that might have gotten them off their mission. Once they found a home where they were welcome, they were to just stay and enjoy their hospitality. God would reward that house. They were to do just what Jesus did when he came to a town: heal the sick and preach that the kingdom of God was near. If they didn’t received them, they were to wipe the dust off their feet and go to the next town. Lord, may we be the seed who sets our hands to the plow and don't look back.