Tuesday, April 9, 2019

The children of Israel followed Christ in the wilderness. What does this mean?


Joan Boney … apostle/prophet

The apostle Paul said:

I Corinthians 10:1-4   Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;  And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;  And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.

I've often wondered what this meant.  How was Christ the "rock" that was with them in the wilderness?"

Then God opened my understanding to see the "rock" (Jesus Christ) is The Word which God spoke to Moses as HE lead the children of Israel in the path out of Egypt.  

Exodus 2:23-25   And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.

And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.

(Doesn't this give us faith to believe God will honor all HIS promises throughout the Bible.  For example:  Isaiah 54:17  No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.       Is this a valid promise for the NT church today?  Of course it is.  This promise is heritage to those children of God who serve God which we are today and do now.)

***

Jesus Christ, The Word, came to Moses in the wilderness.  Thus Moses followed Jesus.

Exodus 3:6-9  God gave The Word to Moses:   I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.

And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;

And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them.



 Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.

(The call of God is on Moses' life.)



***

God speaks "The Word" to Moses over and over.  Thus Christ, the rock, the Word is that rock that was with Moses in the wilderness.

Often that Word put Moses in an impossible situation.

Exodus 14:1-14   And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn and encamp before Pihahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baalzephon: before it shall ye encamp by the sea.

(God's ways are not our ways.  God is going to put the children of Israel with their backs to the Red Sea.   Pharaoh will charge with all his men and chariots.  There will be no way out for the Children of Israel … who could have forseen God would use the Red Sea to save HIS people and also to destroy Pharaoh and his chariots?)

For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in. And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will be honoured upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord. And they did so.

(By doing what God said, Moses and the children of Israel follow Christ, The Word, The Rock.)

This is the same Jesus, The Rock, the Word that we follow today when we serve God.

***

Here is an amazing deliverance story.

Pam Padgett says:

My older sister had been at college two years when I started attending the same school.  She dated a man who was a member of a fraternity, and she had become a member of the fraternity's "women's auxiliary", assisting with fraternity social functions.  She was very excited for me to join the social circles she was in, and especially wanted me to meet members of the fraternity.

The first week of school my sister invited me to go to a student bar where many of the fraternity guys gathered on Thursday nights.  I went, but found what was going on there to be so bad (lewdness, drunkenness, etc.) that I was unable to stay and I walked back to the dormitory.

A week or so later my sister asked if I'd go to an outdoor luau with one of the freshmen "pledges" at the fraternity.  The luau site was about 20 miles away near a river, and there would be a campfire.  The setting was very appealing to me, plus I was excited about having a date, and I agreed to go.

Then, a few days before the luau, my sister told me that arrangements had been made for one of the other fraternity guys to take me to the luau because my date would be spending the day at the luau site building a hut for us ... a young man I had never even met was building a hut "for us"!

Suddenly the reality of this luau became very clear to me.  This was not going to be people sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows.  The lewdness and drunkenness I had seen at the student bar was probably mild compared to what would be going on at this luau ... and I wouldn't be able to walk home.

I told my sister that I couldn't go along with this and did not want to go, but she kept insisting that it was too late for me to back out, that it was too late for this guy to find another date. 

I turned very strongly to God, asking Him to somehow get me out of this situationThere seemed no way out.  At one point I asked God to let me have appendicitis, preferring to be in a hospital having surgery than to go to this luau.

The morning of the luau I woke up and checked to see if I might have any pain that would indicate appendicitis, and was disappointed that I felt fine.  I kept praying for God to somehow work this out.  Time was really running out!  When I looked outside, it was raining a little, but not much. However, the rain became heavier and heavier as the day went on.

Around 2 pm I received a call from the fraternity guy who planned to take me to the luau site.  He told me how sorry he was to have to tell me this, but the luau had to be cancelled.  The luau site had been totally flooded, washing away all the huts that had been built, which would include the hut my date had built for us.    He told me how long the luau had been held at this same site (many years) and, although there had been rain at times in the past, nothing like this had ever happened before, flooding and causing the luau to be cancelled.

I rejoiced, knowing that God had delivered me.


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Hymn:  HE LEADETH ME





(Click forward arrow > to play music:) 


1. He leadeth me! O blessed thought, 
O words with heav’nly comfort fraught;
Whate’er I do, where’er I be,
Still ’tis Christ’s WORD that leadeth me.


Chorus:

He leadeth me! He leadeth me!
By His own WORD He leadeth me;

His faithful follower I would be,
For by His WORD He leadeth me. 

2.  Sometimes ’mid scenes of deepest gloom,
Sometimes where Eden’s bowers bloom,
By waters still, o’er troubled sea,
Still ’tis His WORD that leadeth me.
 

3.  Lord, I would clasp Thy hand in mine (by reaching out and grabbing HIS Word and doing it),

Nor ever murmur or repine; *
 

Content, whatever lot I see,
Since it is Thou that leadest me.
 

4.  And when my task on earth is done,
When, by Thy grace, the vict’ry’s won,
E’en death’s cold wave I will not flee,
 

Since Thou in triumph leadest me.

***

Consider these definitions for the words "murmur" and "repine" in verse 3.

Nor ever murmur or repine;


murmur:  complain about the instruction of the Word of God

repine:  to look back with intense longing for what one once had...
             to be fretfully discontented...
             to mope, to languish, to feel upset about, to be despondent over ... to brood, lament, grieve, mourn, sorrow


(Click pause symbol,  "  ... at beginning of hymn, to stop music)


***** 

Scriptures pertaining to this hymn:

Romans 8:11    But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, HE that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you. 

God, by HIS Spirit, brings thoughts to our minds to comfort us, to show us what to do, to stabilize us in times of trial.  Sometimes God will give us a dream to help us.  And God uses angels from time to time to deliver messages to us.  

John 14:26    But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

John 16:13   Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

***

I Corinthians 2:1-5   And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.

For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.

And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:  That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

***

John 5:30   Jesus said:   I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear (from God), I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

***

I Corinthians 2:10-12    But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

13 Which things also we speak

***

Romans 8:14   For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.


*****