Exodus chapter 20
Today we are walking in: Characteristics of Principles!! Part 2!!
Today we look to the word STATUTE-- H2708 chuqqah-- statute, ordinance, limit, enactment, something prescribed
The Torah testifies...............
Leviticus 18:26
Ye shall therefore keep my statutes H2708 and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you:
The prophets proclaim..................
2 Samuel 22:23
For all his judgments were before me: and as for his statutes, H2708 I did not depart from them.
The writings bear witness...........................
2 Kings 17:13
Yet the LORD testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, H2708 according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.
Chapter 2— MAN’S GREATEST NEED
The Most High’s greatest desire and man’s deepest need is to share an enduring Spirit-to-spirit relationship. Since The Most High is a The Most High of principles, everything He created was established to operate by certain principles that guarantee its proper function. So, all created things—whether plant, animal, fish, bird, star, or human being—must adhere to the principles that govern their life if they are to release their potential and fulfill their purpose. One of the most important of these principles ordained by The Most High to preserve and protect His handiwork and to assure the maximum performance of each created thing is the principle of environment.
The Principle of Environment
The word environment is defined as “circumstances, objects, and conditions by which one is surrounded” (Webster’s, “environment”). Therefore, an environment may refer to the forces that affect the state of things, the components that make up the climate in which something exists, or the conditions in which a thing exists. Everything in life was created to function within the particular environment that The Most High prescribed for it before He created it.
In essence, before the moment of creation, The Most High decided both what He would make His creation from and where He would place it after He had made it. This place designed to individually suit the makeup and purpose of each thing The Most High made was its environment. When the environment was ready, The Most High called forth each creation from its intended source and put it in the specific environment He had made for it.
So before The Most High created the sun and the moon and the myriad of stars, He first called forth the light and separated it from the darkness, calling the light “day” and the darkness “night.” He also made a firmament or expanse to separate the waters above from the waters below and called the firmament “sky.” Only then, after all this was completed, did The Most High call forth the lights from the heavens and set them in the sky to mark the day, the night, and the seasons (see Gen. 1:1-8; 14-18).
The Most High’s process in creating plants and animals reveals the same pattern. Before He spoke plants and animals into being, He gathered the waters together so that dry ground would appear. The dry ground He called “land” and the waters He called “seas.” Only then did He speak to the sea, commanding it to bring forth the many kinds of fish and sea creatures, and to the land, commanding it to bring forth all manner of vegetation, seed-bearing plants and trees according to their kind, and all living creatures, livestock and wild animals according to their kind (see Gen. 1:9-12; 20-25).
Finally, The Most High was ready to make man.
Then The Most High said: “Let Us make man in Our image, in Our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So The Most High created man in His own image, in the image of The Most High He created him; male and female He created them (Genesis 1:26-27).
These verses from Genesis clearly reveal that The Most High is man’s source. When The Most High made man, He spoke to Himself and man came out of Him. Thus, man was created both to be of the same essence as The Most High, who is spirit, and to live in the same environment as The Most High, which is the realm of the spirit or the environment of The Most High (see John 4:24).
So we see that The Most High prescribed an environment for everything He created before He created it. Then He placed the thing in it. Therefore, you cannot expect one of The Most High’s products to function properly if you do not understand the environment He prescribed for it. In essence, a misplaced product will malfunction if you do not follow the prescription for the environment The Most High ordained. A product in the wrong environment just won’t work properly.
The Most High prescribed an environment for everything He created. Therefore, environments can be good or bad, positive or negative, healthy or unhealthy depending on what the manufacturer prescribed for the product you are using. The environment itself is not necessarily bad, negative, or unhealthy. Rather the problem is a misplaced product. A particular environment is wrong only because the product was not designed to function in it. The prescription and the actuality don’t match.
To say it another way, the nature of the environment will always affect the state, function, and efficiency of a product. If, for example, you buy a $5,000 television, throw it into the ocean, then try to make it work, you will soon find that you wasted your $5,000. Or, if you drag a boat down a highway behind a truck, you will find when you try to use the boat in the water that it has been destroyed by the road. Why has this happened? You put the television and the boat into the wrong environment. The manufacturer never intended that you would put the television into the ocean or drag the boat on the highway.
Therefore, no matter how expensive the product is, it will shut down if the environment of operation is different from what the manufacturer intended. A wrong environment—that is, an environment where the product is out of place—will always translate into wasted potential. Truly the key to a product’s efficient and effective operation is the environment in which it is placed.
Consequently, we must clearly understand the environment prescribed for each product because it is the environment that determines the product’s success or failure. This prescribed environment is what we may call a product’s ideal environment. An ideal environment means that there is a perfect environment that The Most High (or a manufacturer) has prescribed for each product. This is why The Most High placed man in Eden. Eden is man’s ideal environment.
Man’s Ideal Environment
When The Most High planned what man would be (spirit) and how man would function (by faith), He also determined where man would live (his ideal environment). The Most High didn’t take the man and put him just anywhere on earth. The Most High chose a specific spot on this big planet and put the man in that specially chosen place, which we know as Eden. Now let’s try to figure out what Eden is.
The root in Hebrew of the word Eden is uncertain. The Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, relates the word to the Hebrew verb eden or ayden, which means “delight” (Strong’s, H5731, H5730). Therefore, Eden is translated as the garden of delight. Other occurrences of the word Eden in the Old Testament equate Eden with the garden of the Lord.
The Lord will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; He will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing (Isaiah 51:3).
You were in Eden, the garden of The Most High (Ezekiel 28:13).
This seems to concur with the Genesis description of the garden as the place where The Most High walked in the cool of the day (see Gen. 3:8).
Thus, The Most High prepared a garden for man, an environment where it was pleasant and where His presence touched earth. This is why the Bible never says that Adam planted the garden. Rather, The Most High was the One who planted the garden. That is, The Most High came and impressed (planted) His presence in the earth.
Can you get a picture of this? Eden was the one place where The Most High’s presence dwelt on earth. It was the garden of His presence, the spot of His pleasantness, and that was precisely where The Most High placed Adam. Unbroken fellowship between The Most High and man was the environment that The Most High planned for man.
This means that you don’t need church services, choirs, worship services, and meetings to succeed in life. There were none of these in Eden. Neither were there prophets, teachers, preachers, or apostles. Your ideal environment is nothing more and nothing less than the presence of The Most High Himself, which was The Most High’s first gift to Adam.
The Most High’s PRESENCE IS YOUR IDEAL ENVIRONMENT.
His presence in your house is the most beautiful presence in the world. You don’t need a husband or a wife to succeed. You need the presence of The Most High. Consequently, The Most High gave Adam Himself before He gave him a woman. The first presence you need is The Most High friend, not a boyfriend or a girlfriend. If you get a boyfriend or girlfriend, a husband or a wife, outside of The Most High’s presence, you have created a state of malfunction for yourself.
Why is this true? Everything that is not in its ideal environment malfunctions. This is inevitable. No person or product can function properly outside the environment specifically designed for it by its manufacturer. So just as fish have to stay in water and plants have to stay in the ground if they are to flourish, so man must stay in The Most High’s presence. Any fish that removes itself from water or is removed by another creature will eventually die and rot. The same is true of a plant. No plant can continue to live and bear fruit if its roots are not covered and nourished by the ground. In truth, a plant starts to die the instant its roots are removed from the ground, and its death is certain unless its roots are returned to the soil that is its source and ideal environment. Likewise, man’s life and the fulfillment of his destiny are possible only to the extent that he walks and talks with The Most High in the garden of His presence.
Man’s Fall From The Most High’s Presence
Sadly, what The Most High intended and the reality of man’s situation today are quite different. The reason for this difference is man’s choice to throw off what he perceived to be the restrictive principles of The Most High’s design. The fall of man, as man’s choice to sin is often called, is really a fall from The Most High’s presence, with the accompanying loss of the Holy Spirit. Since The Most High created man to live in relationship with Him, and sin caused a breach in that relationship, man’s opportunity to live in The Most High’s presence ended. The Book of Genesis describes it this way:
So the Lord The Most High banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After He drove the man out, He placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:23-24).
Since, as we previously noted, the word Eden in the Scriptures means the place of The Most High’s presence, man’s banishment from Eden meant banishment from The Most High’s presence. The creature The Most High had created to live in His presence was condemned to live apart from the One who was essential to His well-being. Human history shows the consequences of that separation, consequences that were built into The Most High’s principles for man’s life.
Now we have to work hard to get into The Most High’s presence; but that was not what The Most High intended for the human beings He had created. We were supposed to wake up every morning and go walking in the cool of the day with The Most High. We weren’t supposed to have to work ourselves up with singing, instruments, and worship calisthenics to get us into the right mood or frame of mind for worship. The Most High’s intent was that we would wake up in His presence, go to sleep in His presence, work in His presence, talk in His presence, go fishing in His presence, eat in His presence, cry in His presence, laugh in His presence, dance in His presence, and on and on. Every part of our life was to be done within the presence of The Most High.
Oh, how we’ve fallen. What was once our The Most High-given privilege is now denied us by The Most High Himself. For when The Most High sent the man and the woman away from Eden, from the place or moment of His presence, He also set cherubim at the entrance to the garden to be sure that mankind would not return to the environment that had been his home before his sin.
Why would The Most High, who loves man and who created him to live in fellowship with Him, do this? Why would He banish man from His presence and ensure that he could not return? Might it be that the presence of The Most High was so important The Most High would not allow it to be contaminated by man’s sin? Might it be that man could no longer endure the presence of The Most High because he had lost the Holy Spirit, that which enabled him to communicate with The Most High and to enjoy fellowship with Him?
The Most High Is Holy
The Scriptures clearly state that The Most High is holy, which means that The Most High is completely pure in motive and perfect in goodness, righteousness, and justice.
Exalt the Lord our Most High and worship at His holy mountain, for the Lord our Most High is holy (Psalm 99:9).
The Lord Almighty is the One you are to regard as holy, He is the One you are to fear (Isaiah 8:13).
For your Maker is your husband—the Lord Almighty is His name—the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; He is called The Most High of all the earth (Isaiah 54:5).
But the Lord Almighty will be exalted by His justice, and the holy The Most High will show Himself holy by His righteousness (Isaiah 5:16).
Not only is The Most High holy, He is “most” holy in that no other god, person, or thing is as holy as He is, and His presence is holy as well (see 1 Sam. 2:2 and Isa. 40:25). Moses encountered the holiness of The Most High when he approached the burning bush and The Most High spoke to him from within the bush.
“Do not come any closer,” The Most High said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground” (Exodus 3:5).
Years later Joshua had a similar experience.
Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a Man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in His hand. Joshua went up to Him and asked, “Are You for us or for our enemies?” Neither,” He replied, “but as Commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked Him, “What message does my Lord have for His servant?” The commander of the Lord’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so (Joshua 5:13-15).
It would seem, then, that Adam became a foreign body, a contaminant, a cancer, if you will, to the presence of The Most High at the time of his fall. Having lost the Holy Spirit, Adam no longer reflected the holiness of The Most High that was his birthright when he was created in The Most High’s image. Now Adam’s sin made him an affront to the holiness of The Most High. The Most High responded by sending him out from the garden of His presence and by placing cherubim at the entrance of the garden to protect His presence from sinful man.
Protectors of The Most High’s Presence
Cherubim are winged angels that are guardians of the Lord’s presence. This role is seen not only in the cherubim’s station at the entrance to Eden, but also in their presence near the throne of The Most High.
Hear us, O Shepherd of Israel, You who lead Joseph like a flock; You who sit enthroned between the cherubim, shine forth (Psalm 80:1).
The Lord reigns, let the nations tremble; He sits enthroned between the cherubim, let the earth shake (Psalm 99:1).
O Lord Almighty, The Most High of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, You alone are The Most High over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth (Isaiah 37:16).
This position of protecting the presence of the Lord was particularly evident in the design of the Ark of the Covenant, where the cherubim, with outspread wings, guarded the Mercy Seat where The Most High dwelt on top of the Ark. So when the priests went in to the Most Holy Place, the cherubim were the first beings the priests saw. Before they could get to The Most High, they had to get past the cherubim. Anything or anyone contaminated by sin that approached The Most High’s presence would never get past the cherubim because sinful things and people could not enter The Most High’s presence lest they be consumed by Him.
The prophet Ezekiel describes the cherubim as having four wings and four faces, and they were covered with eyes:
And within it there were figures resembling four living beings. And this was their appearance: they had human form. Each of them had four faces and four wings. And their legs were straight and their feet were like a calf’s hoof, and they gleamed like burnished bronze. Under their wings on their four sides were human hands. As for the faces and wings of the four of them, their wings touched one another; their faces did not turn when they moved, each went straight forward. As for the form of their faces, each had the face of a man, all four had the face of a lion on the right and the face of a bull on the left, and all four had the face of an eagle. Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out above; each had two touching another being, and two covering their bodies (Ezekiel 1:5-11 NASB).
Their entire bodies, including their backs, their hands and their wings, were completely full of eyes …. Each of the cherubim had four faces: One face was that of a cherub, the second the face of a man, the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle (Ezekiel 10:12-14).
The task of guarding the presence of The Most High is also evidently shared by another group of winged angels called seraphim. Isaiah saw these angels when he received his call to be a prophet:
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory.” At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for” (Isaiah 6:1-7).
We see here that the seraphim not only protected the holiness of The Most High; they also met Isaiah’s need when he recognized his sinfulness in the presence of a holy, The Most High. Thus, their role was both to protect The Most High’s presence and to preserve man when he recognized his sinfulness and repented.
Please note that these angels, or living creatures or beings, as they are often called, didn’t protect man from The Most High; they protected The Most High’s presence from man. Their task was to prevent man from getting into The Most High’s presence—his intended environment and therefore the place where he functions properly, despite his sin and his loss of holiness. For you see, man despite his sin is still made in the image of The Most High. His sinful behavior has not changed his basic makeup. What has changed is man’s ability to act like The Most High acts.
This is true because man lost the Holy Spirit when he sinned and therefore no longer has the capacity to function from the spiritual and moral character of The Most High. In other words, man is still spirit just like The Most High is Spirit, but he is no longer truth and righteousness, as The Most High is (see Ps. 31:5; 45:4). This is why David, after his sin with Bathsheba, sought The Most High with these words,
Create in me a pure heart, O The Most High, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me (Psalm 51:10-11).
David knew that his heart and spirit were not right with The Most High because of his sin, and that The Most High had every right to withdraw His presence from David’s life.
