The poem today is from the King James Version of the Bible, Psalm 23, "The Lord Is My Shephard." The music accompanying it is by Kevin Macleod entitled, Nomadic Sunset MMXIX and is found at Incompetech.com. This can be, if you'll allow it, an emotional production that will touch your heart. The song is "And I Believe It" followed by the teaching from my book, A Holy Hodgepodge, entitled, "Confessions" which you can read below.
Confessions
In the days of Moses, the process of correction of sins (atoning for them), was quite elaborate and generally involved sacrificing a specific kind of animal or animals (depending upon what the sin was). God was very demanding, and He had a huge selection of sins which were not to be committed. If, however, a sin was either inadvertently or intentionally committed, offerings of animals could be brought to the priest who followed his instructions very carefully so that the sin or sins would be properly forgiven by God.
With the coming of the Messiah, our Lord and Savior, Jesus, all these old, highly specific sacrificial ceremonies involving animals and their blood, were no longer needed for our atonement for our sins. Jesus, Himself, became the sacrificial lamb as He shed His blood on the cross for all our sins. Now, instead of us going to a priest and confessing our sins to him, we can go to Jesus in prayer, confess our sins to Him and be totally forgiven.
In the days of Moses, there was another way to handle all the sins that were committed by the people that is discussed in Chapter 16 of Leviticus. Here we learn of the first scapegoat. A goat was saddled with all the sins of the people and, following a very specific ceremony, sent driven into the woods, never to return.
Leviticus 16:20-24 (NIV2011)
20 “When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat.
21 He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task.
22 The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness.
23 “Then Aaron is to go into the tent of meeting and take off the linen garments he put on before he entered the Most Holy Place, and he is to leave them there.
24 He shall bathe himself with water in the sanctuary area and put on his regular garments. Then he shall come out and sacrifice the burnt offering for himself and the burnt offering for the people, to make atonement for himself and for the people.
Initially there were only Ten Commandments given by God to Moses on the stone tablets but, after much thought, those Ten Commandments turned into hundreds of specific rules and regulations that had to be followed. If they weren’t followed, then it was a sin and restitution needed to be paid to God for forgiveness of those sins.
Move ahead many years to the time of Jesus. The Pharisees and Scribes became knowledgeable of all these laws derived from the Ten Commandments. They enjoyed and gloated in the respect people gave them because of their knowledge. Jesus saw through their arrogance and confronted them many times about it while He was teaching on earth. Jesus, a Jew Himself, told of simpler rules like “love your neighbors” and He told of and demonstrated the immense love God has for us, and that we were to have for each other. He told us that if we saw Him, we were looking at the Father. So, God
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