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John 3:14-15
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For forty years the children of Israel wondered in the desert under God’s heavenly care. They were protected from wild beasts, snakes, they ate heavenly food and a rock of water followed them. The narrative even tells us that their shoes and garment did not even go thread bare. It would be easy for that new generation of Israelite to become self-righteous against their fathers, but as the old adage says, ‘the apple did not fall far from the tree’ and as is generally the case, the new generation met with failure the same tests that were presented to their fathers. As soon as Miriam died, the water failed which caused the Children of Israel to rebel against Moses. They complained so much that they wished to have met the same destiny as their fathers. They even questioned Moses about bringing them out of Egypt (Numbers 20:1-5). The dynamics of complaint are very strange. Being a generation born in the desert, they were complaining while wishing for something they never experienced; something they had no frame of reference for. After Moses provided the people with water, the Edomites refused passage to Israel which caused the people to complain again because of the difficulty of the way. We can certainly relate to their reactions. We, who are often carried on the Father’s wings of care, often omit to see the mighty miracles of provision and protection He does for us daily and are quick to complain about daily inconveniences, problems and setbacks. Because of their complaints, God allowed snakes to afflict the people. Whereas we may think that the appearance of snakes was a miracle, the real miracle is that this region is infested with snakes, but we don’t hear of snake problems before. Like the parent frustrated by the whining of his offspring wants to give them something real to complain about, the Father temporarily removed His protection (Numbers 21: 4-9). When the people repented from their complaining, they asked Moses to intercede for them. The Almighty then sayd to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live" (Numbers 21: 8).God was redirecting their vision upward. They were learning not to look at Moses for their daily needs and protection, but upward to God. The Hebrew word used for ‘pole’ is the word ‘nes’, meaning ‘miracle’. God certainly did a redemptive miracle on that day as the people looked at the bronze snake and were healed. Yeshua compared Himself to that snake on a pole and said, And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life (John 3:14-15). The symbol of as snake on a pole has now become an international symbol for pharmacies. As we read these stories of the true pioneers of the faith, let us remember that these things happened to them as an ensample for us upon whom the end of the world has come (1 Corinthians 10:6). May we then learn also to not look to man for direction protection and provision, but as Moses told the people on that day, ‘Look up, and live!’
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1 Corinthians 15:46
But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. We are told about the person who sprinkles the red heifer water for purification, And it shall be a statute forever for them. The one who sprinkles the water for impurity shall wash his clothes, and the one who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening(Numbers 19:21). In other words, the one who purifies others defiles himself in doing so. Blood is ritually unclean and the red heifer water is blood based. Therefore he that even touches that water is made impure by it but yet, while it is unclean, it purifies others, and while he who touches it defiles himself, he purifies others. How can an impure element purify? It may seem like a contradiction but is it really? To what can it be compared? When I clean my house I usually get dirty and I have to wash myself afterword; even the washing agents that I use are dangerous to me. When I do dishes (the old fashioned way) I put my hands in dirty dishwater to scrub plates and silverware then rinse the dishes clean onto a dish drainer. I dirty my hands to clean a dish. While this seems to be a contradiction, it is very consistent with the principles of God’s Kingdom. It is impossible for one to ascend unless he first was down, or descended from above. Before being first, we must hold the inferior position. Also in the same manner, serving precedes leading; lowliness comes before exaltation and poverty before wealth. The carnal is before before the spiritual, the corruptible before the eternal. Adam was the first, Yeshua the last, but in the end, the first becomes last and the last becomes first! Please Abba, may He who was first and made Himself last to take us back as firsts with Him return soon to establish a first-class kingdom on earth in these last days. 2Timothy 2:15
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. The Apostolic Scriptures join in the Hebrew text with the idea of purification by the waters of the red heifer. People came early to Jerusalem for the Passover in order to purify themselves (John 11:55), It is noted that Paul himself, after a long trip out of the Land purified himself in that manner along with four other believers from the Messianic congregation in Jerusalem. He even paid for the expense, which required the offering of animals (Acts 21:24, 26). Believers usually assume that Yeshua’s death on the cross replaced any and all form of offering, but there are no Scriptural grounds for that. The book of Acts (as well as other historical literature) tells us that the disciples continued attending the Jerusalem Temple’s regular morning and evening prayers which involved offerings (Acts 3:1), that they actually constantly hanged around the Temple (Acts 2:46). Records even show us that many of the priests were believers (Acts 6:7) and that believers were in control of the city (Acts 5:26; Acts 6:7).The only reason the believers stopped attending the Temple’s prayers and services was because of persecution. A few years before the Roman invasion an evil High-Priest martyred James the Just (the leader of the Hebrew believers and brother of Yeshua) and as a result as Yeshua predicted it, the believers were kicked out of the synagogues and of the Temple (John 16:2) which was eventually destroyed in 70 C.E. by the Roman General Titus. The book of Hebrew attests to the need of the red heifer‘s water purification in these words, For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Messiah, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Hebrews 9:13-14). Our author here validates the efficaciousness of the blood of Messiah to purify our conscience with the efficaciousness the waters of a red heifer to sanctify the flesh in order to enter Jerusalem and the Temple. The argument here is invalidated if the purification through the water of the red heifer has become obsolete. Offerings were never intended for the sanctification of the conscience; only for the flesh. Only God through the Messiah cleans the conscience and since the work of Messiah was completed before the foundation of the earth along with all the works of God, this principle has at work through people being justified even in the times that precede Yeshua’s manifestation on earth (Genesis 15:6; 1:Peter 1:20; John 14:6). May Messiah daily clean our soul form sin, iniquity and unrighteousness, but mostly from teachings that tend to invalidate and re-interpret the Word in a way He never intended it to be. 2 Corinthians 5:21
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. The Hebrew Scriptures tell us about the laws of the red heifer, the laws that provide ritual purification to those who have been contaminated by contact with a carcass of some sort (Numbers 19). These laws have a problem in themselves. The priest who slaughters the red heifer becomes himself ritually unclean, therefore unable to continue to perform the ritual unless he has by him remaining red heifer solution. After 2, 000 years of Diaspora we do not have any of that solution, so even if the Temple was rebuilt today, it would not be able to operate because along with the priesthood, it needs to be purified with the ashes of a red heifer. Whereas we may not fully understand the reasons for these laws, we must always remember that the psalmist said that the Law of God is perfect, pure and right altogether (Psalms 19: 7-8), so whether we can figure it in our own mind or not, whatever it teaches is right and beneficial for us. Here is something we can glean from the mystical rulings concerning the red heifer. Priests usually tried to avoid the state of ritual uncleanliness. In the days of the Master they had become obsessed by it. That is why the priest did not want to help the dying man on the road to Jericho (Luke 10:30-36). It is also why people could not conceive that a holy man like Yeshua would agree to go to the house of Matthew or even Zaccheus who, while being Jewish were people unparticular of these things. Because pagans often buried their dead in the walls or under their house, Rabbis declared it a sin to enter the house of a non-Jew. That is why Peter had to be given permission by Yeshua himself to go to Cornelius’ house (Acts 10). sexual relations provoked that same type of uncleanliness, so Moses who was to be ready to enter in the presence of God at any time forewent having sexual relations with his wife which caused those who did not understand the full scope of his actions to murmur against him (Numbers 12:1). Contrary to that attitude in the laws of the red heifer, just like in the procedures of Yom Kippur, the priest voluntarily made himself unclean by the slaughtering of the chosen animal, and this teaches us a great lesson. Yeshua also went contrary to the idea of ritual cleanliness held by the priests of His days. Instead of avoiding uncleanliness, He went right into it. Just like the priest performing the ritual slaughter voluntarily became unclean for the sake of purifying Israel Yeshua voluntarily put on the sinful cloak of humanity, became unclean for our sake so He could provide us with the cleansing needed to return us unto God. As we try to keep ourselves ‘clean’ from the world and its ‘death’, we should always remember that spiritual cleanliness is not an end in itself but a means to an end, and the end is service to our brothers and sisters, to those who have seen the light, but all the more to those who have not. Like Peter, the Master tells us to not be afraid to enter the house of the ungodly and bring him the message of God’s words. Hebrews 4:1
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. The writer of the Book of Hebrews uses the the Children of Israel refusing to enter the Land because of fear as a platform to encourage a disenfranchised first century community of Jewish believers in Israel (Numbers 14:1-4; Hebrews 3-4). The two situations are truly analogous. The Children of Israel hear about the giants in the Land so they refuse to fight for it. As a result, they die in the desert and never entered God’s rest, the rest of finding a home where to build and settle their families; the home where they can finally put down their travelling gear down, live, exist, and multiply in a place that is their own by right. They were at the borders of receiving the fulfillment of that promise but they turned back due to fear fomented by lies (Numbers 14:2-3). The first century Israeli believers were in the same predicament. They were ostracized by their brethren; excluded from Jewish communities, synagogues, and the Temple. They had lost all civic privileges because of their belief in Yeshua. All they had to do change their woeful predicament was to ‘turn back’ from that belief and they would be restored into Israeli society, which sadly some did. The Book of Hebrews then uses the story in Numbers as mentioned in Psalms 95 (vs. 95:7-11) to encourage these first century Jewish believers to not lose faith like their predecessors did. The Psalms says: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, … I swore in my wrath, "They shall not enter my rest." (vs. 7-11). Let’s go over that passage. ‘Today’ is a Talmudic way of talking about the Sabbath. In Hebrews, the Sabbath Rest of entering the Land is analogous to the idea of living in obedience to God through His Messiah. In essence a similar situation of obedience was presented to that new generation of fist century Jewish believers, and through the epistle, they were being warned of the dangers of turning their back on God’s promises because of fear just like their fathers did fourteen centuries before. This warning works for us today. So many hear the truth of Yeshua the living Jewish Messiah, but when they realize that kinds of havoc obeying Him will create in their lives, they refuse Him. They fear being ostracized from their families and their friends as their lifestyle changes. Obeying His Words in eating according to the Levitical diet and observing the Sabbath will certainly change their lives in many drastic ways socially and even financially, and some people do not want to go through that. Come to think of it is quite amazing because these are the things the early believers were faced with all over the Roman Empire. Their new faith in the God of Israel took them away from their idolatrous environment to obey God’s commandments and as a result they lost all civic privileges in Greek and Roman society. The days are coming and are already upon us when the Text of the Book of Hebrews will resound like a distant shofar: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts”. Hebrews 4:16
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Whereas our Almighty ever Beneficent Father loves to bless us with the most exquisite gifts, He also thrills at the idea that we can trust Him for them in spite of all that may seem to stand between us and them. As a result, He often hides His gifts behind seeming walls of difficulties, obstructions and impossibilities. Such was the case with our forefathers as they arrived in Kadesh and saw the Anakim, a race of people who were supposedly extinct from the earth by the Flood. The Torah doesn’t bother to explain how these people still existed after the flood. A fanciful; explanation in Jewish literature suggests that a fellow named Og clang to the roof of the ark. Along with their giant owners, the Children of Israel could also see the giant clusters of grapes of the area of Eshcol (meaning: cluster of grapes), a sign of the Land’s promising fertility. The clusters were so full with giant grapes that it took two people to carrying one on a pole between them. Jewish eschatology teaches that in the World to Come, the Land will give again grape clusters of that caliber. In the meantime, the giants stood between the people and the grapes. This is when the test of real faith comes. Those who see the giants feel dwarfed to locust’s size; Joshua and Caleb saw God instead which in their eyes dwarfed the giants. We know what happened next, ten spies discouraged the generation of Israelites which had to hen die in the desert waiting for their children, a generation raised under Moses and God’s care, to grow and conquer this Land. Will we ever know the blessings we may have inherited had we looked at God instead of sizing the difficulties? We often complain about the way things are but how many initiative for improvement go by un-attempted because we “count the cost’ forgetting to include the God factor. It seems that often our own faulty perspective is our personal giant; we downsize God to the dimensions of our fears. It must make Him feel insulted; what if your three-year old child downsized you to his level of trust and didn’t think you his father could protect him against an eight-year old? May we ponder on this sad chapter in the history of our fathers in the desert. Mostly, may we learn to recognize our unfounded fears and return God to Its proper perspective in our minds. Knowing that the time to favor Zion has come and that we live in a time of unprecedented fulfillment of the promises of the Father towards us His children, may we approach Him boldly with our requests knowing that He is more willing to grant them to us than we are willing to receive them. Matthew 6:33
Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. There are two main ways the Father uses our finances to teach us: He either withholds them or punishes us with abundance. On the second month of their exodus the children of Israel complained about their manna diet. They wanted fresh meat. Our fathers’ desire for meat made them complain about their blessed situation and look back at Egypt with nostalgia (Exodus 16:3). A year later they did it again (Numbers 11:4) and this time the Father from whom all blessings flow did not take too kindly to it and He addressed the issue by punishing them with abundance. Abundance is not always a sign of God’s blessing and approval. Abundance has a tendency to steal our hearts from God. In abundance we spend foolishly, become preoccupied with the things of the world, and find it difficult to dedicate to God in the same proportions as before. Avarice and greed are quick to follow and a society that has too much becomes fat, lazy, selfish, and insensitive to the needs of others. It seems easier to emanate godliness when things are lean. Maybe that is why many of God’s children are blessed with ‘leanness’. Whether we live in leanness or abundance, we should never complain. The apostle Paul was a good example of this. When addressing his own situation he said, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content (Philippians 4:11). He also taught his disciples to be content with the basics of food and raiment (1Timothy 1:6); housing is not even in the deal. James, the brother of the Master did not hold too much respect for wealth either (James 5:1-6) and the Master Himself encouraged us to not worry about our food and raiment but to busy ourselves with the affairs of the Kingdom (Matthew 6:31-34). May we learn from this lesson from our fathers in the desert and realize that abundance can be a punishment as much as poverty. Poverty usually drives us to desperation and to God; abundance steals our hearts away from He who is the Fountain of Everlasting Life. May we not grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer, but remember that these things happened to them as an example, that they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come (1Corinthians 10:10-11) . May we pray the wise prayer from King Solomon, Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, "Who is the LORD?" or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God (Proverbs 30:8-9). 1 Corinthians 10:11
These things happened to them as an example … were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. It seems that few things exacerbate the Father more than His people griping and complaining. He can freely set before us the best food ever concocted in the kitchens of Heaven, we will still complain and would rather have the dainties bought by slavery. And why do we complain? There is really nothing wrong with the food God gives us except that it is not what we want. Woe unto us and our evil nature! This tendency to complain and always wanting more is the basic lusting nature behind the sin in the Garden of Eden. We want what God in His goodness withholds from us, and like today’s manufacturers of goods, the devil is always happy to oblige. The worst of the story is that today’s worldly merchants know about our natural bend to whine and gripe and they constantly play on it in order to make a profit. They constantly tell people, “Aren’t you tired of this or that, behold I have the solution that will help you not to have work so hard, be more comfortable, or here is the food that will delight your palate. For only $...! How can you live without it?” They make a profit and feed on our complaining nature. It is so easy to look at the Children of Israel in the desert and wonder how they could complain so much, but in reality, we complain as much as they do and about the same things. Food, hard work, leadership, and the sometimes monotonous daily grind of life seem to be our main areas of complaint. We feel that the way God does things is not good enough. We must improve on His plan for us and make every decision in our lives from the color and consistency of our hair to whether or not to have children. We even want to decide the day of our death and call it ‘Death with Dignity’. We always think that we deserve more than the simple life our Father would have us live according to His will, so we enslave ourselves to another master: the Master Card! But Yeshua told that we cannot serve two masters; that we cannot serve God and Mammon (Matthew 6:24 KJV), and serving Mammon is where our complaining takes us. God knows it and He tried to reference the point through the Children of Israel in the desert. The area of complaint that seems the most destructive in the congregational body of Messiah seems to be each other. Whereas we complain about having to put up with others, we seem to forget that also others have to put up with us. We feel that people should have learned certain lessons by now so we show ourselves intolerant in impatient. We forget that in the Father’s eyes, we probably should be a bit more advanced ourselves in our spiritual growth and that we only exist by the mercy of His great compassion. May we learn from the lessons of the Children of Israel in the desert and realize that these things happened to them as an example … were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come (Corinthians 10:11). Matthew 18:21-22
"Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? … Yeshua said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. As they were leaving Egypt, God gave Israel commands concerning their lives in their Land. One of them was to celebrate the Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread (Exodus 12:19). If this command was already given in Exodus and in Leviticus twenty-three, why is it repeated in Numbers (Numbers 9:1-5)? The distance from Mount Horeb to the borders of Israel is not that great so technically at the times of Numbers, the Children of Israel should already have been in the Land. The problem was that they were delayed at least three months by the Golden Calf’s incident. The Bible is a Book of second chances. We may orchestrate the most elaborate fail-safe plans but life has a habit of throwing curve-balls at us. In spite of our loftiest dreams and ideals, at the end of the day, we have to deal with the reality on the ground, and it seems that God knows it. In Numbers nine we also have the case of a family who would miss the precious Passover celebration because of a death in their family. In that case the Father gives them the chance to celebrate Passover on the following month. This case foreshadowed Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. The two men cared for the Master’s body on the night of Passover 2,000 years ago so they were ritually unfit to celebrate the Holy day that year. It was a traditional belief with the early Jerusalem believers that the two men reclined at the Passover table this year on the second month of the year for what is called: Pesach Sheni: The Second Passover. It takes maturity and godliness to not be frustrated at the way things are compared to the way they should be. I have a good friend who when things do not work out the way he had dreamed always says, ‘It is what it is!” I think sometimes that our perfect Creator God looks at us with empathy and says, “It is what it is”, and then, tries to give us a second chance. He tells us that we can celebrate the Passover in the desert instead of in the Land, or that we can celebrate it on the second month if reality kept us from doing it on the first. The whole idea of redemption and atonement is in fact about second chances. Again we stand in awe at the perfect Almighty God Creator of the universe as He bends to the bare facts of our lives on earth. He proposes and offers the great ideals of His Torah with the full knowledge of our imperfectness towards it and says (in a manner of speech), ‘It is what it is’. How much more then should we be able to bear with each other’s imperfection. How much patience and forgiveness and bending ability the Father has for each one of us should be the standard of ours towards others. It is the novice who forgets about his own imperfections looks at others condescendingly wondering how come they don’t toe the line better. The seasoned mature elder knows life, that “It is what it is” and deals with it not according to his lofty dreams but according to the realities on the ground. May we learn from the great Father who loves us so and give second (and more) chances to people as He also gave us. Revelations 5:6
And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. As we read into Moses’ Tabernacle assignments, we must never forget that he was told to make an earthly replica of what he saw on the Mount (Exodus 26:30). Looking at the tabernacle tells us what God’s throne room looks like. It actually does correspond to the throne room vision of all the prophets including that of John in the Book of Revelation. We read in the Text of Aaron being in charge of the seven lights shining before the Almighty (Numbers 8:2; Exodus 25:37; 37:18-19, 23; 40:25). We are not directly told very much about the function and property of these lights, but studying Scriptures in a thematic manner sheds some lights (pun unintended) on the matter. These lamps are to burn continually before God (Leviticus 24:1-2) so In the Tabernacle, they are placed in the ante-room before the Holy of Holies. The apocryphal Book of Tobit tells us of the seven holy angels, which present the prayers of the saints, and which go in and out before the glory of the Holy One (Tobit 12:15). In Enoch, another apocryphal book early believers were familiar with, we are even given the names and functions of these angels (Enoch 20:1-8). These go in and go out Tobit says just like the seven eyes in Zechariah’s vision which run to and fro through the whole earth (Zechariah 4;10). In the Book of Hebrews it is revealed to us that He (The Creator) makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire (Hebrews 1:7). Finally, Zechariah tells us that these were like seven eyes in a stone (Zechariah 3:9). The stone, is Yeshua (Psalms 118:22), the heavenly High-Priest who tends to (has authority over) those light, function shadowed by Aaron in Leviticus (Hebrews 8-9; Leviticus 8:2). These angels/spirits/lights do roam the earth and bring our prayers to God. An ancient traditions tells us that on Friday evenings, angels enter the home of God’s people and see how much priority they have given to the Sabbath, thereby we sing the famous Sabbath song ‘Shalom Aleichem’ welcoming these angels. Whether that really happen or not I do not know, but I do know that these seven angels go in and out before the glory of the Holy One roaming the earth. They are like God’s little ‘spies’. They come and look upon us and tell God what they saw, how we react to each other, how we carry our responsibilities as members of His Kingdom, as husbands, and wives, and parents. They also report to Him on the priority that we give to the Study of His Word. Does this scare you? It shouldn’t unless you know in your heart that you have failed to prioritize your life according to God’s commandments. Maybe it is time to take stock of things and start living a life God can brag about even to the devil like He did Job (Job 1:8). We all could be older than we think; anyone of us could die tomorrow and miss a good chance at repentance in this realm! |
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