My husband and I were invited to attend a formal dinner honoring the President of the company, who was retiring after many years of service. It was a formal and elaborate set up, a meal of several courses, with entertainment, and a fairly intimate gathering of friends and supporters. As we were milling about prior to the beginning of the meal, one of the guests began re-arranging the main dining room. He was moving the place cards around, seating people where he chose. He even changed the place settings, rearranging the silverware! The rest of us invited guests looked on with shock as this man disrupted the carefully arranged dinner which had been planned down to the minutest detail. To say that our host was appalled by this outrageous behavior is an understatement! 
Although the foregoing is a fictitious story, as dismayed as any of us would be by this man’s offensive behavior in the social setting described above, how much more dismayed should we be when we consider that we have taken the position of this disruptive guest when it comes to the protocol of dining with the King, our King!
The altar service, the Temple service is just this: an invitation extended by our most gracious King to us, his beloved subjects, to share a time of intimate fellowship with him in a quite heavenly setting. His desire is to fellowship with us, to sup with us! It has always been so, since he walked with Adam in the cool of the day.
Those of us who were taught in the church, as a general rule, were never taught this aspect of the altar service. We were told it was unimportant now and unnecessary, and therefore very little time, if any, was spent studying or understanding these instructions given to us by God himself through Moses.
Since we Christians, as a people group, have spent many, many hundreds of years discrediting, or at the very least, ignoring these teachings, it is a wonder to me that our God continues to reach out to us with an invitation to come and join him at his table. But he does, and I am sure it rejoices his heart to know that finally we are waking up to these beautiful truths and that we are returning to the ancient paths as outlined in the Torah.
The books of Moses, especially Exodus and Leviticus, outline the protocol whereby human beings can stand in the presence of Holy God and commune with him there in his House, without being consumed by his holiness. Although he wrote it down, this protocol was not Moses’ idea: this protocol is given to Moses by God himself. These are his words and his instructions regarding how we are to come to his House, bask in his presence, and survive to tell about it!
RESPECT…let me tell you what it means to me! As I read your comments the thing that came to my mind was this…most of us, I include myself in this, have forgotten the meaning of the this term, RESPECT! I remember as a child being taught things like: when we go to someones house, dont touch anything unless you are told to. Don’t talk back to adults! Treat others as you would want to be treated etc… My father was not a righteous man and had little respect for anything or anyone. So, I attribute this idea of respecting other persons and things to my mother, as well as to my great grandparents, with whom I spent a lot of time when I was young . However, I think that most of us to varying degrees have forgotten the real meaning of respect.
I suupose that respect does has to be earned to some degree. And I dont think a humble person would sulk about the lack of respect, given to him or herself, for very long. Undeniably, the amount of respect shown to us by others, along with the amount we give back, is directly related to the amount of intamacy we share with this person. Most of us would not want to disrespect someone with whom we share a close relationship. Although, without thinking we probably do from time to time. Why is respect so important to us?
I believe it’s because when we show respect for someone we are acknowledging that this person is relavent to us. That this persons life has meaning and that their existance has influence in our life. This respect is a form of worship, worthship if you will. A form of reverence. I know , I know, many will raise an eyebrow or two at that statement. However, if we look at the two great commandments, isn’t loving your neighbor as yourself exactly what we mean when we say we respect someone? If we are expected to revernce one another in such a way. How much more so the one that created all things.
Our creator, YESHUA (Jesus), is very involved in how we treat each other. I remember my grandmother talking about a time when people would stand up and acknoledge the fact that someone older had entered the room. Do you know that this is a commandment?
Lev 19:32 Thou shalt rise up before the hoary (white) head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the LORD.
This way of treating each other, respect, helps us to have a loving relationship with each other. This thing called respect causes us to treat each other as we would want to be treated. So, how does this relate to the post above?
If the one who created all things would put so much emphasis on how we treat each other…how much more so would he expect us to RESPECT, HONOR, and REVERE the very one to whom we owe our very existance? We seem to have lost our revernce for the ALMIGHTY! We don’t stand in awe of his name being pronounced. We go before him like we are talking to the guy next door. Don’t get me wrong! I do believe that our creator wants us to be able to talk to him as we would close friend. However, when it comes to formal worship, we don’t seem to stand in awe and acknowledge the almighty in a way that would show just and due respect! We don’t study the scriptures to see just how the ALMIGHTY wants us to worship HIM. We, for the most part, throw out what ever form of worship that we feel like throwing out and expect the Almighty Elohim (Mighty One) to just accept us as we are. I remember, singing this in church, as a child. Just as I am…I come. The emphasis is that no matter how terrible I have been, no matter how unclean I am, no matter how much I have trampled the HOLY COMMANDMENTS, I can just walk into the presence of the almighty and he will accept me just the way I am: But, is this the truth? Or do we have so little respect for our maker, the HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL, that we don’t even afford him the same respect we would to a good friend. Or even to someone like our boss if invited to a formal dinner. The Israelites certianly had it right when they stood afar off at Sinai. They saw just how awsome YHVH is, first hand. I for one don’t blame them for being afraid. What they saw and heard that day is beyond the imagination of us living today. And I am sure we would see the creator of all heaven and earth much differently if we would have been there that day. RESPECT…what does it mean to the ALMIGHTY?
Wow Bill, excellent post! And yes, we have lost sight of honor and majesty and respect, I think you hit the nail on the head. So how do you think we go about restoring this?
Blessings,
Ruchamah
PS Do u have a blog somewhere?
Thanks Ruh!
No, I do not as of this time have a blog. I may start one though.
As far as how do we go about restoring the peoples respect and honor of the Almighty. Well…I think ultimately he will do this himself when he returns. However, I think that the best way for us to show people what true respect is, is to make sure we live a life that shows just how much we honor the Almighty. We, respectfully, study and search his word ( a form of worship) frequently. Then we prayerfully consider what he has shown us in his WORD and apply what we have learned to our lives. We diligently teach what HE has shown us to our children. We teach our children through our own example of obedience. We teach our chilgren to first respect other human beings. We show them that we will be treated the way we treat others, that these two are directly related to each other. We teach them that in order to show the Almighty love, honor and due respect; we first have to learn to treat our fellow man with love and repect. How can we say we love the Almighty if we can not even love our fellow man.
Then as they get older we teach them how to worship the creator of all heaven and earth with all due reverence. One should never take coming before the ALMIGHTY lightly. We should never count this time, set apart for him, as common. He is not common…for indeed he is the most Holy(set apart ) being in the universe. I used to think that the traditions of the practicing religious Jewish people were silly and unnecessary. But, now I have learned that these traditions can be a good thing when done in the right way with a right attitude. They do not replace the commandments in any way…but things like the candle lighting at the beginning of shabbat and the whole erev shabbat service, which we do in our home each shabbat evening, only enhances our relationship with our creator. It helps me to set the shabbat apart from the other days of the week in my own mind. Our home becomes a santuary as we celebrate the creation, and show due respect to the creator by obeying his word and remembering the sabbath day and keeping it Holy!
Wether we like it or not. Most of us need tradition and ritual to help keep our minds and hearts in the right place. I believe that is what the Temple and all of its service was about. It was a physical reminder of what is not physical. A place the Israelites could go and see and touch and feel. It helped them to see the Almighty in a real sense. All the objects of the temple pointed to Yeshua…or to the plan that the Almighty has for mankind. It was a place for them to come together in a Holy gathering and formally pay respect and honor their creator. One day, very soon I hope, This form of worship will be instituted by Yeshua at his return. We will all keep his commandments and come before him on a daily basis and we will perform all that he commands. That is why I believe that the temple…with all its objects and ritual is very improtant for us today. We need to understand these things so as to prepare for the Kingdom to come…even so…come Adonai Yeshua!
Arline, I really enjoyed this blog and William, your comments, too! As one who spent most of her life in the Christian church and only about a year and a half becoming Torah observant, I haven’t really been able to appreciate the Sabbath rituals. I have always agreed that there isn’t enough reverence or proper fear of God in the Christian church but having been raised in CA, “tradition” and “ritual” were almost bad words.
My husband is joining me on this journey discovering our Hebrew roots and he has struggled with those things as well as the head coverings so I plan on forwarding this blog to him. For the record, we are both honoring…and loving…the true Sabbath…and we are grateful for all those who manage to say things that edify and speed us along on our journey so thank you both! Oh…and William…you definitely SHOULD blog!
Shalom!
Mrs.
Thank you so much for those good words, and mazel tov on the journey you and your husband have undertaken. For sure you will NOT be disappointed!
At some point, I would love to be able to talk to you about the issue of headcoverings. Maybe I can help some (rather, Abba can, since all true wisdom is his!).
Anyway, I am sure we can arrange to get together to talk, either on FaceBook or Paltalk…one of those. I would relish the fellowship too! And also, thanks for encouraging my friend Mr Screech to blog..he sure seems to have a way with words!
Blessings dear sis!
Arline/Ruchamah