The Four Spiritual Laws of Moses

Let’s talk about the four spiritual laws.

Not Bill Bright’s four spiritual laws.  He’s one of those people who are guilty of spiritualizing real issues people deal with every day.  No, I’m going to talk about Moses’ four spiritual laws. These spiritual laws are what forms the backbone of most of the Bible, including the teaching of Jesus.  So let’s get to them and you’ll see how they apply to what we have been talking about.

1. 1. God has a plan for your community to live in justice and peace— First of all, Moses isn’t talking about individuals, but peoples.  Perhaps an ethnicity, perhaps a community with a variety of ethnicities, but a people who sees them. And God’s plan isn’t to make us individually happy, but for us, as a community, to live in justice and peace with each other.
2. 2. Oppression separates us from justice and peace.— Not our individual sin, but people who have power, who use that power to keep us from meeting our own needs.  Oppressors could be governments, or wealthy people, or religious people, or families or many other people or groups with power. Groups of human beings have great power, no matter how that group is collected.  And if a powerful person or a group of people move the basket, or blame people for being unable to meet the standards they themselves create, then they are oppressors. For instance, to take a privilege, like having certain colored skin or being able to pay for electricity or running water, and establishing that as a standard to live or to have children, and they will take your right to have children or to live because of that standard, then that is oppression.
3. 3. We separate ourselves from oppression by crying out to God for deliverance, an act of grace.— The third spiritual law has to do with crying out to the highest judge.  The God of the Hebrews is the god of slaves, the god of the poor, the god of the oppressed. Not the god of one ethnicity, nor the god of one religion, but the god of the poor.  And God’s job is deliverance from oppression. God created the world and gave it to humans to rule. But if one group of humans force a second group to live and work for the benefit of the first because of their power, then God, as judge of the world steps in and brings salvation, deliverance, freedom from oppression.  God asks only that we cry out and ask, even demand, that deliverance. Because God will not step in to take over the sovereignty that God established us from the beginning. God delivers by request only.
4. 4. God requires that in receiving deliverance and grace, we also generously give it.  So God steps in and delivers the poor, the enslaved, the oppressed. God grants them freedom from their oppressors and grants them resources to live, to survive.  Some would say that this is unconditional, but Moses didn’t and neither did Jesus. There is one standard— that we are to live according to the deliverance we have received.  If we have obtained freedom from debt, we are to give freedom from debt. If we were immigrants in other people’s lands, we are to give place to immigrants. If we have had education granted to us for free, we are to give education for free.  If we have been healed, we are to heal others. Whatever we have received, we are to give. That is the payment. We will talk about this more another time.

For now, we need to see our place in Advent.  Advent is about the hope of release from deliverance.  It is a time of prayer, when we will cry out to God for deliverance.  It is a time of longing for peace and justice.

If we have what we need, if we can make the basket, then we need to be praying and working for others who are oppressed.  Because we live in a world of oppression. We live in a world where powerful people regularly take advantage of those without power and discard them when they are done.   And Jesus promised us all deliverance from those powers, and he only asks that we participate is people’s release from debt, slavery, landlessness and sickness. Here's a video of the teaching . (below the video is Moses' scriptures on the subject)

1. God has a plan of peace and justice for your community.
Exodus 3:7-8
Yahweh then said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying for help on account of their taskmasters. Yes, I am well aware of their sufferings. And I have come down to rescue them from the clutches of the Egyptians and bring them up out of that country, to a country rich and broad, to a country flowing with milk and honey.

Deuteronomy 7:7-8

Yahweh set his heart on you and chose you not because you were the most numerous of all peoples—for indeed you were the smallest of all— but because he loved you and meant to keep the oath which he swore to your ancestors: that was why Yahweh brought you out with his mighty hand and redeemed you from the place of slave-labour, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

2. Oppression keeps us from peace and justice.

Exodus 1:13-14
The Egyptians gave them no mercy in the demands they made, making their lives miserable with hard labour

Exodus 5:5-6, 9
And Pharaoh said, ‘Now that the people have grown to such numbers in the country, what do you mean by interrupting their forced labour?’  That very day, Pharaoh gave the order, ‘Give these people more work to do, and see they do it instead of listening to lying speeches.’ 

3. We cry out to God for deliverance and God will deliver.
Exodus 2:23-25

The Israelites, groaning in their slavery, cried out for help and from the depths of their slavery their cry came up to God.  God heard their groaning; God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  God saw the Israelites and took note. 

Exodus 14:13-14

Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid! Stand firm, and you will see what Yahweh will do to rescue you today: the Egyptians you see today you will never see again. Yahweh will do the fighting for you; all you need to do is to keep calm.’ 

4. We offer freedom as we were granted freedom

Exodus 22:20-23
‘You will not molest or oppress aliens, for you yourselves were once aliens in Egypt.  You will not ill-treat widows or orphans; if you ill-treat them in any way and they make an appeal to me for help, I shall certainly hear their appeal, my anger will be roused and I shall put you to the sword; then your own wives will be widows and your own children orphans. 

Deuteronomy 15:12-15
If any of your people sell themselves to you and serve you six years, in the seventh year you must let them go free. And when you release them, do not send them away empty-handed. Supply them liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress. Give to them as the Lord your God has blessed you. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command today.

Deuteronomy 16:10-12
Celebrate the Festival of Weeks to the Lord your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the Lord your God has given you. And rejoice before the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites in your towns, and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows living among you. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and follow carefully these decrees.

Deuteronomy 10:18-19

He it is who sees justice done for the orphan and the widow, who loves the stranger and gives him food and clothing. Love the stranger then, for you were once strangers in Egypt.