Wisdom International Devotionals

by Seth Davey

  Exodus 32:21-24 And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us …’ So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”   When Moses furiously calls Aaron forward and demands to know what these people did to him to turn his heart, it strikes me that Aaron can’t give a martyr-type horror story in response. He can’t break down in a flood of tears and say, “Oh Moses, it was horrific! They seized my wife and children, tied them up to the altar before my eyes, and started to light the fire till I relented!” Or “a horde of wicked men tore out my beard and blindfolded me and punched me in the face till I couldn’t think straight!” But wasn’t the fire blazing hot for Shadrach, Meshach, ...

  Sabbath Psalm 47 (Revised from John Peterson’ hymn ‘Jesus is Coming Again’)   Marvelous message we bring, Glorious carol we sing, Wonderful name of our King: Jesus is worthy, amen!   Forest and flower exclaim, Mountain and meadow the same, All nature joins the refrain: Jesus is worthy, amen!   Curtain call sounds at the last, History’s drama is past, Come take your bow with the cast: Jesus is worthy, amen!

  Come All Who Thirst! Exodus 32:19-20 And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.   There’s a world of difference between hearing about an evil and watching it unfold before your very eyes, isn’t there? God just told Moses exactly what these people were up to in the valley, expressing His own fiery anger at their unabashed betrayal, but Moses effectively responded, “Wait, Lord—give them the benefit of the doubt! You know how stiff-necked they are; don’t give up on them just yet!” But his demeanor rapidly changes the moment he hikes back down from Sinai’s summit, steps out into the clearing, and catches a glimpse of the abhorrent acts God just finished relaying. Just like that, all that med...

  A Reassuring Truth Exodus 32:9-11 a , 13 a , 14 And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.” But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, … Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven …” And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.   Could the very God Who knew all things before He ever spoke “Let there be light” into the unformed cosmos, the very God Who was slain before the foundation of the world, the very God Who prophesied His coming salvation not just in the earliest, most primitive pages of Holy Scripture but in every facet of the created world—through seeds that get buried in the earth, die, and rise again, to the ...

  Exodus 32:5-6 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.” And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.   Mark this, friend: the devil cannot deceive us against our will. He can tempt us all he likes, he can flash alluring ads before our eyes, he can whisper distracting words to draw our minds away from quiet prayer, but we as image-bearing human beings have to say ‘yes’ on our own volition. Temptation doesn’t snatch us away like a thief in the night. We meet it head on. We choose take the fateful step out the door. We willfully leave a light on and a window open and a packed bag by our bedside. See, friend, from the very first sin in Eden, from the moment Eve took the fruit and Adam likewise ate of it, a dark, unsettling fact of our human nature became apparent. That we can deceive...

  Choice and Consequence Exodus 32:2 & 4-5 So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” … And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”   We remember King David’s sin vividly, don’t we? The plot, the affair, the brutal murder of a friend. It’s the sort of crime that only a heartless, power-hungry tyrant can pull off. Yet, we remember his weeping, gut-wrenching confession in Psalm 51 as well, and it’s the sort of penitence that only a man after God’s own heart can utter. The same is true for people like Jacob and Samson and Esther and Nebuchadnezzar and Peter and Paul and John Mark and on and on. That’s why I love the words of that old hymn, “Grace is greater than all our sin,” because it’s the truth we discover over and over again t...

  What Have We Become? Exodus 32:1 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”   In Exodus 24, immediately following the Theophanous feast between Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy anonymous elders, the Lord called Moses to a private meeting on the summit that lasted forty days and forty nights, and these people have grown tired of waiting. Yet, they’ve just received the Ten Commandments. More than that, they’ve signed their names to the parchments as it were, committing their allegiance to God in the presence of Moses. So how on earth can they so quickly abandon their faith and commit this outrage? Even if Moses never comes back, why does that imply the death of God? After all, did Moses part the Red Sea by the word of his power...

  Sabbath Psalm 46 (Revision of John Bakewell’s hymn ‘Hail, Thou Once-Despised Jesus!’)   Hail, our once-rejected Jesus! Hail, our Galilean King! How You suffered to release us; we can barely watch the scene! Hail, our agonizing Savior! Bearer of our sin and shame!  By Your mercies we find favor; life is given through Your name.   Paschal Lamb, by God appointed—every sin on You was laid; By almighty Love anointed; You have full atonement made. Eden’s crime is now forgiven; Adam’s sin and mine beside; Peace I feel that knows no measure; cherubs lead me back inside!   Jesus, Hail! Enthroned in glory—Light of angels, Light of men! Ever radiate before me—burn away my hidden sin! Lead my spirit up Mount Zion, higher than my faith has climbed; There I’ll rest with lambs and lions in that Sabbath peace sublime. 

  When Adjectives Fail Exodus 31:18 And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.   It goes without saying that you don’t see treasure hunters travelling around the world today looking for mere rocks, do you? Plenty of them are digging   through   rocks to find the good stuff, like golden lampstands and an Ark of the Covenant, which is why I find our Lord’s choice of material here the most effervescent part of this entire project. To me, these rudimentary stones most distinguish this masterwork as uniquely His.      For four chapters now, God has given Moses elaborate blueprints that include acacia-wood tables, objects covered in pure gold, priestly attire arrayed with sapphires and onyx stones, and a scarlet, purple, and blue-threaded veil that shimmers in constant candlelight, sparing  no expense   in His design of this he...

  Epics and Epitaphs Exodus 31:12-14 a And the LORD said to Moses, “You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you. You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death.’”   Nothing can soften the severity of God’s penalty here in verse 14, but a familiar theme rises through this death sentence that feels especially pertinent in our profane day and age. Think of it, friend: no one can say exactly why God chose to create the world in six days and rest on the seventh, or why He wove the entire cosmos and the fabric of redemption around these two numbers. We’ve barely got a clue. Yet, what   is   clear is that if we as image-bearers don’t follow in our Father’s steps—we’re created to bear His likeness after all—then the result for us will be death, not life, whether...

  A Team Effort Exodus 31:6 “And behold, I have appointed with him Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. And I have given to all able men ability, that they may make all that I have commanded you.”   I’m in the middle of coaching my son’s soccer team for the fourth season running and it has been a privilege to watch him and many of his teammates grow over the past two years. If you’ve ever watched young kids play soccer, you’ve noticed that they tend to swarm around the ball like bees around a honeycomb. It takes the repetition of specific drills and constant reminders that soccer is a ‘team’ sport to help kids progress beyond that. What a pleasure it is for me as a coach to get to witness progress firsthand. Some of the kids who could barely kick a ball two years ago are now scoring great goals. Some who just dribbled endlessly now look up and pass to a teammate. Some who followed the ball wherever it went are now staying in their positions. Best of all: defende...

  What a Guy! Exodus 31:1-5 The LORD said to Moses, “See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, Son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft.”   The Name ‘Bezalel’ doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue as fluidly as ‘Joshua’ or ‘David’ or ‘John,’ but after reading Exodus 31 right now, I’m a little stunned that thousands of Judeo-Christian boys over the past two millennia haven’t been named after him. I’ve never even met one. As far as I know, there have only been a handful of so-called Renaissance Men in world history, men like Archimedes and Solomon and Leonardo Da Vinci and Goethe, who were prominent in a wide spectrum of artistic, scientific, and political fields; yet Bezalel might be at the top of that list. So prominent is he...

  A Holy Touch Exodus 30:25-29 “And you shall make of these a sacred anointing oil blended as by the perfumer; it shall be a holy anointing oil. With it you shall anoint the tent of meeting and the ark of the testimony, and the table and all its utensils, and the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar of incense, and the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils and the basin and its stand. You shall consecrate them, that they may be most holy. Whatever touches them will become holy.”   Spiritual consecration is as exhausting a work as it is exhaustive, right? Notice how God wants every crevice of this sacred embassy anointed for service. He wants every facet of this ceremonial enterprise drenched in the divine concentrate, every thread on the curtain, every leg of acacia furniture, every tooth on every fork exuding the fragrance and glistening with the reflective sheen of divine communion.    Friend, think of how tired you get just from washing a pile of dish...

  Sabbath Psalm 45  (Revision of Thomas Kelly’s hymn ‘Hark! Ten Thousand Harps and Voices’)   Hark! Ten thousand harps and voices sound the note of praise above; Jesus reigns! The choir rejoices—Prince of Peace and Lord of Love! Not a tyrant cruel and cold! He’s our Shepherd—we’re His fold!   Jesus, Hail! Whose glory brightens all above and gives it worth; Lord of life, Your smile enlightens, cheers and charms Your saints on earth! Here we live through faith by grace;  Till the day we see Your face!    Savior, hasten Your appearing; let our eyes see You today! Be through clouds of doubt, the Clearing! Be through all the fog, the Way! Show us through our earthly sense Heaven in the present tense! 

  Name Your Price Exodus 30:14-15 “Everyone who is numbered in the census, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the LORD’s offering. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when you give the LORD’s offering to make atonement for your lives.”   Think of the fact that the price of atonement here is too cheap for some and too rich for others.    The rich man thinks, “Come on—half a shekel? That’s  it ?! That’s all my life’s worth?! That’s far too cheap for my noble blood! No, I can do a lot better than that!” So he brings a hundred shekels to Aaron, maybe even a thousand just to prove the point, because the idea of his wealth meaning nothing is a thought he can’t stomach.   But the poor man thinks, “Come on—half a shekel? That’s way too much! I can’t pay that! I’d have to sacrifice dinner or a night out with friends or a weekend membership—no, can’t do it! I’ll bring a nickel or a dime, whatever I’ve got le...

  A Most Fulfilling Prophecy Exodus 29:45-46 “I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God.”   My son, Micah, has recently been struggling to understand why he never sees or hears God directly, and the great thing to me about his frustration is the sincerity in which he brings it. He’s too ignorant of others perceptions to try to save face, to just step in line, to hide in a crowd on a Sunday morning. For us adults—and I realize none of us are exactly alike—we’ve learned over time how to manage our emotions, how to turn on and off our guttural reactions like a faucet. We learn how to protect ourselves, how to hide, how to run, how to seem good when we’re anything but. But most kids haven’t learned that yet. So when something doesn’t make sense to my son, when he reads God’s promises to never leave us nor forsake us...

  Marked by the Blood Exodus 29:20 “… and you shall kill the ram and take part of its blood and put it on the tip of the right ear of Aaron and on the tips of the right ears of his sons, and on the thumbs of their right hands and on the great toes of their right feet, and throw the rest of the blood against the sides of the altar.”   If I were standing in this crowd with my son, Micah, watching wide-eyed as Moses dips his finger into the vat and proceeds to touch Aaron’s ear with the blood, I imagine I’d feel a sudden tug on my cloak and look down to see my bewildered boy ask in a panic, “Dad—dad! Why did he do  that ?! Why did he put blood on his ear? What does it mean?” I’d answer as calmly as I could: “Well son, he’s consecrating Aaron’s ear to the Lord; a priest is in the service of the Word of God, so he needs to listen to God at all times and heed all God’s instructions. This is just his way of saying, ‘Lord—I’m listening fully!’”   That would suffice for a mom...

  Dressing the Part Exodus 29:5-7 “Then you shall take the garments, and put on Aaron the coat and the robe of the ephod, and the ephod, and the breastpiece, and gird him with the skillfully woven band of the ephod. And you shall set the turban on his head and put the holy crown in the turban You shall take the anointing oil and pour it on his head and anoint him.”   Aaron’s spoken directly to Pharaoh, he’s aided Moses in the defeat of the Amalakites, and he’s been the mouthpiece for the greatest leader of his generation, yet I doubt he’ll ever felt so regal and prominent and godlike as he will when he puts on this wardrobe. Just think: Moses doesn’t get a shimmering, multi-colored robe to represent his authority. Moses doesn’t receive a diamond-studded crown to symbolize his headship over the people. Moses doesn’t wear an ephod filled with finely-cut gem stones to signify his uniqueness among the people. This costume, this anointing, this extravagant gift of divine raiment mu...

Sabbath Psalm 44 (Revision of John Peterson’s hymn ‘Open Wide, Ye Doors’)   Open wide, you everlasting doors, Let the King of Glory in; Now returning from His earthly wars, He the victory did win. See the crimson wounds He bears; scars of battle now He wears; He has wrested Satan’s throne! He must reign and He alone!   Choiring angels, come and wait before Him, He is worthy of your praise; With all heaven worship and adore Him, Holy hymns and anthems raise. He the Lamb who bled and died; on the cross was crucified;  Tasting death for sinful man: this the great redemptive plan!   One day soon—O thrilling thought to ponder— Christ is coming back again! Breaking thru the silent sky up yonder, Longing eyes will see Him then! Coming back in love to reign; heaven’s armies in His train; Till then, make your heart His throne!  His  the vict’ry—His alone!

  Facts and Feelings Exodus 28:30 “And in the breastpiece of judgement you shall put the Urim and the Thummim, and they shall be on Aaron’s heart, when he goes in before the LORD. Thus Aaron shall bear the judgement of the people of Israel on his heart before the LORD regularly.”   The dichotomy between mind and heart, or facts and feelings as some address it today, continues to be a contentious one in society, especially where justice is concerned. That is, facts and feelings—or the head and the heart—aren’t always calibrated correctly.    My wife and I used to lead a special needs class on Sunday mornings at church, and one of the girls in that class had an amazing obsession with fantasy worlds. Melissa was a wonderful artist and writer, and she’d come to class every Sunday with new pages in her ongoing epic to show off. Her imagination was truly incredible, but there was just one little problem with it: she was  lost   in her stories. Her identity was a ...

  Priesthood: A Balancing Act Exodus 28:9-12a “You shall take two onyx stones, and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel, six of their names on the one stone, and the names of the remaining six on the other stone, in order of their birth. As a jeweler engraves signets, so shall you engrave the two stones with the names of the sons of Israel. … And you shall set the two stones on the shoulder pieces of the ephod, as stones of remembrance for the sons of Israel. And Aaron shall bear their names before the LORD on his two shoulders for remembrance.”   Ancients like the Greeks and Romans understood that beauty is connected to symmetry, perceiving that the most beautiful human faces, like the most beautiful architectural buildings, are the ones with perfect symmetrical lines. Maybe that’s why our Designer fashioned us with two eyes, two ears, two arms, and two legs, because there’s something more beautiful to Him about harmony, about a pair, about two equal objects workin...

  Beautiful Glory—Glorious Beauty Exodus 28:2-3 “And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty. You shall speak to all the skillful, whom I have filled with a spirit of skill, that they make Aaron’s garments to consecrate him for my priesthood.”   We shouldn’t take for granted the wonderful truth that the glory of the Lord and the beauty of the Lord go hand in hand, especially in a corrupt world where glory and beauty are not synonymous.   Think of someone like Pharaoh, surrounded in power, fame, and fortune, sitting on his throne, worshipped by adoring citizens, reigning not just as a king among men but as a god among them. Yet, he beats his hapless captives if they fail to gather enough straw for bricks. He commands the genocide of thousands of babies in order to maintain power. He spends limitless resources on his own welfare while his own citizens dig for their lives along the bloody Nile. That’s a picture of ugly glory. A forced gl...

  Lamplighters Exodus 27:20-21 a “You shall command the people of Israel that they bring to you pure beaten olive oil for the light, that a lamp may regularly be set up to burn. In the tent of meeting, outside the veil that is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall tend it from evening to morning before the LORD.”   There are layers and layers to the divine symbolism in every crevice of this tabernacle environment—and I’ve barely even broken through just the first layer in my own feeble ruminations—but something immediately strikes me here in Exodus 27:20-21 regarding this ever-burning lamp. God created the sun that rises over our heads every single day, didn’t He? So we don’t necessarily need stories of God speaking to Moses through a burning bush or of God giving light to His people through a pillar of fire to know that He can make a fire that never goes out. We can just look up to the sky for proof. I say that to reiterate the point that this tabernacle endeavor is ...

  A Mobile Home Exodus 27:1 a  & 6-7 “You shall make the altar of acacia wood, five cubits long and five cubits broad. … And you shall make poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with bronze. And the poles shall be put through the rings, so that the poles are on the two sides of the altar when it is carried.”   In a world where ziggurats and pyramids climb to the heavens, boasting the wealth and affluence of the nations erecting them, God constructs a wilderness embassy that doesn’t tower over the earth like the others—or at least not in the same manner. In fact, God’s embassy isn’t even built on a permanent foundation—not on massive stones, that is. It’ll stand against the legions of hell, but not against the earthquakes and tornadoes and sands of time. It’s a mobile home—a temporary shelter—fashioned in all its ornate, resplendent, one-of-a-kind beauty with the unmistakable marks of portability. Rings on the Table of the Presence, rings on the A...

  Sabbath Psalm 43 (Revision of Giovanni P. Da Palestrina’s hymn ‘The Strife is Over’)   The strife is gone—the trauma done; The wolves have lost—the Shepherd’s won! The song of triumph has begun:  Allelujah!   The hellish hordes have done their worst; But Love proves stronger than the curse;  And rivers from God’s heart outburst! Allelujah!   Go sow the word and watch it spread: “Our Lord is risen as He said!” A Lamb has crushed the serpent’s head! Allelujah!   Lord, in that flood that poured from You, My sins are covered through and through; Today, I wake and drown anew! Allelujah!