The law that this man was breaking reads: Ex. 32:14 Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it ia holy unto you: everyone that defileth it shall surely be put to death for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
Now I'm sure the man picking up the sticks to build himself a fire for warmth or cooking thought,"God didn"t mean I couldn't pick up sticks for warmth or cooking he knows I love him, and obey I his commandments usually, and besides this isn't really work, this is just a little bend, so it won't matter,"
No one can say for 100% sure where God will draw the line, that is not for us to say, and because of the examples in the OT that God gave us on how strictly he expected the Jews to follow his instructions, I believe he is telling us that he expects us to be as strict. So when He says straight, it's not the same as Paul saying straight. Even thought the law was very clear, Moses went to God and asked what to do with the guy, and God said you know what to do. So you see Moses was probably thinking like you and Regging thinking this is just a little bend, but God said uh uh. I said what I meant and I meant what I said.
I beleive you are living dangerously if you thing there are bends and curves in God's Word. IMO:)
Becky
Ex. 32:14 Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: everyone that defileth it shall surely be put to death for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people.
Israel had lost all semblance of God while in Egypt, in all respects they were now Egyptians, and the first thing God had to do was to teach them that they had to obey his laws, and if those laws had no teeth in them, they would have been disguarded within a matter of weeks.
Note the story.......
Nu 15:32 And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. 33. And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. 34. And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him. 35. And The Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp.
It was his own people, who grabbed him and ran to Moses and asked him what he intended to do with this man, and Moses asked God, and God told him exactly what he had told them he would do.
If the people had not wanted to see just what God would do, they could have taken him aside and talked to him, but no, they wanted to see how serious God really was, and they found out, and because of that, the Sabbath has become the hallmark of the Jewish religion.
Do you think God didn't know the man was testing him by gathering wood on the Sabbath even before the people saw him? He could have struck him dead at any time, but it wasn't personal, it was for Israel that he showed them how important keeping the Laws would be.
During this dispensation God dealt directly with man, and there was not much doubt as to what God wanted of them, but God did not require they have a right attitude, he wished they did, but he did not judge their hearts, just how well they kept the physical law.
Today God is not dealing directly with us, and we should be thankful he's not, but we will all have to answer one day. With the help of the Holy Spirit we are keeping the Spiritual law in our hearts, which was what the Commandments were all about in the first place, but first man had to understand what the letter of the law was before he could understand the Spiritual part of the law.
Our past also dictates what each of us might mean when one says a "Scenic trip," to some it could mean stopping off for a couple cold ones, and then going on to worse things from there, and still for others, especially we older folk, it could mean stopping to look in an antiques shop. Lol