God asked Moses to lead his people out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. Moses was at first reluctant, thinking that the Israelites would not believe he had heard the word of God. God then gave Moses special powers and inspired by this, Moses returned to Egypt and demanded freedom for his people.
God had big plans and a big purpose for Moses- But WHY was Moses sent to the wilderness? What is the SYMBOLISM of this narrative? The Purpose of the Wilderness in the Lives of God’s People: If you are at a wilderness place in your life, you may find it to be more puzzle than purpose. You might be overwhelmed and confused. You might find yourself questioning God’s wisdom—or maybe even your own. I want you to think for a moment about being in the center of God’s will. What does that mean? What would it look like? Would it be a time of happiness and fulfillment? Is there ever a time that the center of God’s will might be a place of discouragement and difficulty? What about the children of Israel? God called Moses to bring them out of Egypt and into the center of His will. The center of His will for them would eventually be Canaan, but for a time, the center of God’s will was a great and terrible wilderness. Has God’s will for you included a period of time in the wilderness? Time in the wilderness means facing wilderness struggles, and wilderness hardships, and wilderness questions. It can be a place of problems, and at the same time, a place of purpose. The wilderness is a puzzle from our perspective, but from God’s perspective, it is His perfect plan for our lives. We have said enough about wilderness questions. What can we know for sure about the purpose of the wilderness in the lives of God’s people? The Wilderness is a Place of Separation God carried them into the wilderness so that they could be apart from the influences of Egypt. The uncertainties of the wilderness create a need for God and a dependence upon God. God lets you do without, so you can come to know Him as your provider. God lets you be lonely, so that you can come to know Him as your friend. God lets you be frightened and worried, so that you can come to know Him as your peace. God lets you be weak, so that you can know His strength. In the wilderness, God reveals Himself. In the darkness of the wilderness, He is your light. In the confusing maze of the wilderness, you learn to let Him be your guide. In the wilderness, He separates you from the influences of the world, as well as the things and people that you have learned to depend on, so that you will learn to depend on Him. God will be faithful to you in whatever wilderness you are facing, just as He was to the people He led out of Egypt. The Wilderness is a Place of Preparation. Looking back on those years in the wilderness, this is what God said to His people as they came to the Promised Land. 5“I have led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandal has not worn out on your foot. 6“You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or strong drink, in order that you might know that I am the LORD your God. Deuteronomy 29:5-6 What has been your God appointed wilderness? Are you there right now? What do you suppose God is trying to teach you? Are you learning the lessons that God wants you to learn? When God takes you to the wilderness, He withholds that which you have come to depend on other than Him. Maybe you came to depend on your job to provide. God removes the job for a time, so that you will learn to depend on Him. Maybe you came to depend on your own strength or stamina. Then God brings weakness into your life, so that you will learn that your strength is in Him. You see it as deprivation. God sees it as preparation. “You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3“He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD. 4“Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. 5“Thus you are to know in your heart that the LORD your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. 6“Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. Deuteronomy 8:2-6 The Wilderness is a Place of Revelation. In the third month after the sons of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. When they set out from Rephidim, they came to the wilderness of Sinai and camped in the wilderness; and there Israel camped in front of the mountain. Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel: You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and howI bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself. ‘Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Exodus 19:2-6 When the center of God’s will is the wilderness, what is God’s purpose? Did you see why God brought them to the wilderness? He brought them into the wilderness to bring them to Himself.Why do you suppose that God brings you to Himself? I read again today about Jesus calling the disciples. He called unto Him the twelve. And why did He call them? Did He call them to Him to give them an assignment? Yes? But the preparation for that assignment came out of being with Him. He called the twelve to Himself, that they might be with Him and that He might send them forth to preach. Mark 3:14 Part of the preparation for what God wants you to do will grow out of the revelation of Himself that He gives you. For most of us, the only place we can be readied to receive that revelation is in some wilderness, where God separates us from what we have learned to lean on, in order that He can show us that we need to lean on Him alone. Where are you right now? Do you find yourself in the midst of some God-Appointed wilderness struggling to know God’s will and God’s way? Do you feel alone there? Do you feel abandoned there? I know how you feel. I have been to the wilderness. I have lived in the wilderness. I felt alone. I felt discouraged. But I came to understand that the wilderness was the place of God’s presence. If you are in the wilderness, you might be angry at God. You may have considered abandoning God. In your discouragement, the wilderness can even become a place of sin. Where is God then? How will God respond to you when you have proved to yourself that you are not worthy of His love. Sometimes God takes us to the wilderness not only to show us Himself—but to show us ourselves. The truth about who we are and how we trust God surfaces in the wilderness. There, we are proved to be worse sinners than we knew ourselves to be. How does God respond then? Consider this passage from Nehemiah. “You came down on Mount Sinai; you spoke to them from heaven. You gave them regulations and laws that are just and right, and decrees and commands that are good. You made known to them your holy Sabbath and gave them commands, decrees and laws through your servant Moses. In their hunger you gave them bread from heaven and in their thirst you brought them water from the rock; you told them to go in and take possession of the land you had sworn with uplifted hand to give them. “But they, our ancestors, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and they did not obey your commands. They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt,’ or when they committed awful blasphemies. “Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud did not fail to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take. You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst. For forty years you sustained them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out nor did their feet become swollen. Nehemiah 9:13-21 The first few chapters of Exodus are a build up where we see Moses prepared for an impossible task: liberating the Hebrew slaves after 400 years in Egypt. He, of course, does not feel prepared at all. How could he? How could anyone? But he was. On the one hand, he was a fugitive on the run, encumbered with an embarrassing stutter. On the other, he had grown up in the royal palace. It’s true that the king he’d grown up with had died and another was in his stead (Ex 2:23), so a personal connection with the hard-hearted Pharaoh may not have been there, but still Moses, by God’s design, was part and parcel of Egyptian high society. He knew the lingo and the etiquette of Egyptian nobility and his way around the royal household. Like Esther, Moses was secretly Jewish, yet ended up providentially living in the palace of the king, for such a time as this. Moses was sent by God on one heck of a mission. His job—at least the first part of it—was to demand the immediate release of about a million Israelites from cruel bondage. To insist that Pharaoh should allow the Hebrew slaves, his free workforce, to just leave. It seems like Moses didn’t feel like he had that authority though. With his brother Aaron at his side for emotional support, Moses ventured back to the place he grew up to face the tyrannical ruler, Pharaoh, no doubt with some trepidation: Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” (Exodus 5:1) But that wasn’t quite the message God had told him to say, was it? Moses and Aaron appear to be asking for a temporary excursion for the Hebrew slaves. A short trip, a picnic in the Egyptian outback. God was demanding total release. “Come,” said God to Moses. “I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” (Exodus 3:10-12) God’s plan was to bring them completely out of Egypt in a very real and permanent manner—there would be no going back. And that they would meet Him over at Mount Sinai in the land of Midian, where He’d appeared in the burning bush. There He would establish His covenant with the whole house of Israel and make them a holy people with a holy calling. Then He would lead them on to the Promised Land. But Moses tries to soften the blow and paints it as a one-off religious event out in the desert. It was no such thing. It was a categorical extraction. An exodus. Fortunately, God was prepared for this, and knowing that it wouldn’t matter how nicely they asked Pharaoh would never agree, had a few tricks up His sleeve. With each plague, or blow, as it is in Hebrew, God’s demand intensified: “Let my people go!” which in Hebrew means, "Send the people of Israel into their Destiny." This throws interesting light on what was actually happening in the Exodus. God was killing multiple birds with one stone. He had waited for the sin of the Amorites to reach its full measure (Genesis 15:16) before executing justice on them and giving the land to the tribes of Israel. He rescued His covenant people from their living hell, and thew the Egyptians into the sea just as they had thrown countless Hebrew babies into the Nile. He was fulfilling His promises to the patriarchs to bring their descendants back to the Land of Promise, and establishing a faith community that would carry His word and His light to the whole world. They were not just being taken out of Egypt, they were being SENT out, with a mission: to be a light to the Gentiles. God often does both-and rather than either-or. He operates on multiple levels all the time. We often have no idea how many facets there are to God’s actions and decisions, and can foolishly interpret them to be all about us… our own life, family, community or nation. But God has a very wide-angle lens. His ways are perfect and nothing is ever wasted in His economy. God brought deliverance and blessing to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in fulfillment of His promises to them. They would receive their inheritance from His hand, along with blessings of spiritual nourishment, revelation, and life, which they were to pass on to all the nations of the world. The command to “Let my people go” forced Pharaoh to send Israel out of slavery and into their global calling, into their destiny. In a similar manner, we have been delivered from slavery and death by the blood of the sacrificial lamb, and brought through the waters of baptism. But God’s rescue mission wasn’t so we could sit around and eat cake—we are also sent into the world with a calling and a destiny! Whenever we thank God for His amazing salvation, His perfect plans, and the future He has prepared for us, let’s ask Him again: What is my part in Your plans and purposes? What are You sending me to do? Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isaiah 6:8) Why do you suppose God takes you into the wilderness to show you yourself so that you can see what a sinner you are? God takes you to the wilderness and shows you what a sinner you are so that He can show you what a Savior He is! In spite of the rebellion of His people, He remained faithful. He still gave them water for their thirst. He still gave them their daily bread. He still guided them on their journey. He never left them. God will be faithful to you in whatever wilderness you are facing, just as He was to the people He led out of Egypt. “In the wilderness … you saw how the LORD God carried you, just as a man carries his son, in all the way which you have walked until you came to this place. Deuteronomy 1:31 Do you suppose God might also be carrying you? I am sure you have asked God some of the same questions that I ask from time to time. “God, am I a castaway? Can you still use me?” “Do you still want me? Do you still love me?” "The very words I write were born in one of those moments in my life. I will never forget the day I was in my office working on this message. I was preparing it for me, because I keenly felt everything I have shared with you. I had allowed a deadline to pass that seemed to me to be critical to my future. I let it pass because I had no word from God. God was silent. As a result of His silence, I saw my future slip away. My despair grew deeper by the day. It reached a zenith on a Wednesday in December of 2006. I was preparing this message for my church, but I was really describing what was going on in my own life. God must have been watching as I paced around in my office that day. I was a desperately discouraged man. As I typed away at this message on my computer, the phone rang. Within an hour of that phone call, all my questions were answered. My future seemed to be restored. I had been called by God to the assignment I thought I had missed.' When that day started, I was convinced I missed God completely. I was lost in the wilderness. I felt abandoned and forgotten, and I felt I deserved to be. But that day, I met God in the wilderness, and it altered the direction of my life. Six months later, I shared the same message with my church on a Sunday night. The next day, I would be stepping through the door God had opened. This is what I said in closing: “Tomorrow I set foot on the road that God called me to travel. It may not lead out of the wilderness—but I am convinced that it will lead me to Him.” That is, after all, the purpose of the wilderness in the lives of God’s people. He brings us into some great and terrible wilderness, so that He might bring us to Himself." (-Story by Eddie Eshtaigi) John 7:38; “rivers of #living water will flow from within them.” The pineal(penuel,peniel) gland is located between our temples- (called *3rd eye). While the eyes perceive the physical world, the third eye sees the #true world—a #unified whole with an unyielding #connection to God. Pineal is a place of #meeting with God. Jacobs encounter with God at Peniel is very significant because it brought about a divine *shift in his life, thus, Peniel is a place of *divine shift. One of the oldest *visual depictions of Jacobs wrestling is in the illustrated manuscript the Vienna Genesis. Many #artists have #depicted the scene, considering it as a #paradigm of artistic #creation. In sculpture Jacob Wrestling with the Angel is the subject of a 1940 sculpture by Sir Jacob Epstein on display at the Tate Britain. Jacob wrestling with the angel is described in Genesis (32:22–32; Hosea 12:3–5). The "angel" in question is referred to as "man" (אִישׁ) and "God" in Genesis, while Hosea references an "angel" (מַלְאָךְ).[1] The account includes the renaming of Jacob as Israel (etymologized as "contends-with-God"). In the Genesis narrative, Jacob spent the night alone on a riverside during his journey back to Canaan. He encounters a "man" who proceeds to wrestle with him until daybreak. In the end, Jacob is given the name "#Israel" and #blessed, while the "man" refuses to give his own name. Jacob then names the -place- where they -wrestled- Penuel (פְּנוּאֵל "face of God" or "facing God"- The account contains several plays on Hebrew names—Peniel (or Penuel), Israel—as well as similarity to the #root of Jacob's name (which sounds like the Hebrew for "heel") and its compound. The limping of Jacob (Yaʿaqob ), may mirror the name of the #river, Jabbok (Yabbok יַבֹּק , sounds like "crooked" river), and Nahmanides (Deut. 2:10 of Jeshurun) gives the etymology "one who walks crookedly" for the name Jacob. The Hebrew text states that it is a "man" (אִישׁ, LXX ἄνθρωπος, Vulgate vir) with whom Jacob *wrestles, but later this —“man" is #identified with #God—- (Elohim) by Jacob. In #symbolism, pineal represents the true #temple of god- which dwells #within us when we open our *eyes to him. 🙏
YESHUA and the FALL Festivals: DIVINE Pictures of Things to COME! 👏🏻
The “good news”… Usually when people think of the term “sin,” they think of a list of wrong behaviors. But sin, at its core, is a decision on the part of #humanity to live -outside-of God’s #design; choosing to go your own way and in some sense be your “own god.” The #symbolism of Adam and Eve illustrates clearly- They lived in perfect harmony with God until they were tempted to go their own way by eating from the Tree of #Knowledge of Good and Evil. God placed that tree in the garden as a #symbol of -their need- to *trust His goodness and live according to his #design. The consequence of *choosing not to *follow God was that sin entered the *human *experience, and death came too as the inevitable consequence of living outside of God’s design. Everyone in human history, with the exception of Jesus, has sinned. If we were to be put on trial before God, we would all be found guilty. We are all guilty of the same core sin of rejecting God. The opposite of sin is what the Bible calls righteousness. Righteousness is doing and being right- without sin. We lack righteousness if we live apart from God. To be justified, we have to obtain that righteousness from somewhere or from someone. Without it, the death penalty of eternal separation from God awaits us; God, in His #grace, made a way for people to be #free of the penalty of sin. This comes through “justification.” If you trust him, Jesus will cover your sin with His righteousness. All your impurity will be made -perfect through #Christ- because He lived a sinless, blameless life. Jesus died a painful, humiliating death for the sin of -every- person [their separation from God]. We could never fully pay the penalty for our sin; No amount of effort on our part would ever clear the debt we owed to God. #Jesus #paid that debt Himself. Its crucial to understand that He did not just -cancel- the debt- He *paid* it. God allowed Jesus to die the death -we- deserve, clearing the debt owed, and paid the -ultimate- price by allowing His *only *Son to die -in our- place, then -return- to us in *his #spirit. Jesus satisfies the requirements of His #Holy-law. This is the #gospel message, the “#goodnews!!”
“Theme in genesis; Noah”
"If the heavens ever did speak, she's the last true mouth piece." 🎶 #ophelia #hoozier #liturgy #40daysoflent The gospel is a universal message of attaining UNDYING hope & Peace. There are many pathways to experience Gods PEACE. In christianity, Yahweh-Christ was the living way and example of service, acceptance, inclusion and unconditional love demonstrated by his teachings and #miracles. God(father)- In the manifested Jesus(son)- died and rose on Easter Sunday(7). The #7Th day represents perfect wholeness, completion, and fulfilled OT messaic prophecy🦋. God Yahweh is manifestation of flesh and spirit. The cross symbolizes #freedom of the Promise🌈land (place of peace 🕊️), the liberation from Metaphorical ⛓️ bondage of human 💔SUFFERAGE (darkness/separation). The Cross symbolizes hope in -New beginings- for everyone through the physical rise resurrection of the spirit. Let the church -spirit of humanity- always be a place of mercy and Hope where EVERYONE is welcomed, Loved and #forgiven. Gods LOVE is unbounded, it has NO limits and exceeds ALL human-understanding. For WE are ALL God’s masterpiece. He has created Us anew in CHRIST, so WE can do the good he planned for us. During #LENT, the Spirit drives us too, like Jesus, into the desert (40) Mk 1:12-15). Here, it is not a physical place but rather an existential dimension -spiritual realm. ..To bring us to the Light, peace, and hope. Christians recognize Christ in each human being, to see him crucified in the sufferings of the abandoned, lost and forgotten of our world, & metaphorically RISEN in Each who makes a New start. Salvation is not an ascent to glory, but a descent in a Reedemable Love that can't be earned, it's BEEN GIVEN and reconciled to ALL -through- the sacraficial saving grace of God #testified through his eyewhitness disciples. (Matt27:62; 28:1; Mark15:42; Luke23:54; John19:31, 42). TRUTH is eternal, everlasting, and for all! #Romans5:8 #Colossians1:12 #ephesians2:8 #Peter4:8 #popefrancis #symbolismrevealed The Bible was written by forty different authors- Mentioning 146 times, the number 40 generally symbolizes a period of -testing, trial or *probation. During Moses' life he lived forty years in Egypt and forty years in the desert before GOD-selected- him to lead his people -out- of slavery. Moses was also on Mount Sinai for 40 days/nights, on two separate occasions (Exodus 24:18, 34:1 - 28), receiving God's laws. He also sent spies, for forty days, to investigate the land God promised the Israelites as an inheritance (Numbers 13:25, 14:34). The prophet Jonah powerfully warned ancient Nineveh, for forty days, that its -destruction- would come because of its many sins. The prophet Ezekiel laid on His right side for 40 days to symbolize Judah's sins (Ezekiel 4:6). Elijah went 40 days without food or water at Mount Horeb. Jesus was tempted by the devil not just three times, but many times during the 40 days and nights he fasted just before his #ministry began. He also #appeared to his disciples and others for 40 days after his resurrection from the dead. The number forty can also represent a generation of man. Because of their sins after leaving Egypt, God swore that the generation of Israelites who left Egyptian -bondage- would not enter their inheritance in Canaan (Deuteronomy 1). The children of Israel were punished by -wandering the wilderness- for 40 years before a new generation was allowed to possess the promised land. Jesus, just days before his crucifixion, #prophesied the -total destruction- of Jerusalem (Matthew 24:1 - 2, Mark 13:1 - 2). Forty years after his *crucifixion in 30 A.D., the mighty Roman Empire destroyed the city and burned its beloved *temple to the ground. The book of Exodus, with its 40 chapters and 1,213 verses, is the seventh longest book. The first three human kings over the children of Israel, Saul, David and Solomon, each ruled for forty years (1050 to 930 B.C.). Abraham tried to bargain with God to not -destroy Sodom and Gomorrah- if forty righteous people were found (Genesis 18:29). God -flooded- the earth by having it rain for forty days and nights (Genesis 7:12). The gestation of human -life- is 40 weeks in the #womb.
Jesus uses the phrase “LIVING water” in two instances in the Bible. The first instance is FOUND in John chapter 4. Jesus was tired and sat at a well while His disciples went into town to buy food. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus asked her for a drink. The Samaritan woman was quite shocked because Jesus was a Jew, and Jews simply hated the Samaritans. Of course, she had no idea who Jesus was and asked Him how He could ask her for water since He was a Jew. ❤️☺️
In the Book of Ezekiel, New Jerusalem is Ezekiel's prophetic vision of a city centered on the rebuilt Holy Temple- the Third Temple, to be established in Jerusalem, which would be the capital of the Messianic Kingdom, the meeting place of the twelve tribes of Israel, during the Messianic era. Religious significance is placed on Jerusalem- site of the crucifixion of Jesus and other events central to Yeshua. In particular, the destruction of the Second Temple that took place in the year 70, a few decades after Christ followers began their split from Judaism, was seminal to the nascent Christian apocalypticism of that time. In the Olivet discourse of the Gospels, Jesus predicts the destruction of Herod's Temple, and promises that it will precede the return of the Son of Man, commonly called the Second Coming- or seemingly first for nonbelievers. This prophecy of the renewal of Jerusalem comes through God YAhwey, jewish MESSIAH- yeshua, Christ Jesus, prince of peace, alpha omega, first and last. Based on the Book of Revelation, premillennialism holds that, following the end times and the second creation of heaven and earth, the New Jerusalem will be the earthly location where all true believers will spend eternity with God. The New Jerusalem is not limited to eschatology, however, as the bible is layered in symbolism and unifying truths. Many Christians also view the New Jerusalem as a current reality, that the New Jerusalem is the consummation of the Body of Christ, the Church and that Christ followers already take part in membership of both the heavenly Jerusalem and the earthly Church in a kind of dual citizenship. In this way, the New Jerusalem represents to Christians the final and everlasting reconciliation of God and the Israelites- his chosen people, "the end of the Christian pilgrimage." The entire Hebrew bible illustrates Yeshua as God the messiah, a discovery to be uncovered. The city is interpreted as a physical and/or spiritual restoration or divine recreation of the city of Jerusalem. New Jerusalem is symbolizing the -dwelling place- of the -holy -spirit, in Christ the MESSIAH. As such, the New Jerusalem is a conception of Heaven. |
|