There was so much death and failure in the Wilderness, that there was a special sacrifice for it, the "red heifer". The ritual itself was not the burning, but what they did with the water mixture made with the ashes. All of it was carefully kept away from the altar. This "water of separation" was to cleanse from touching a dead body, bones, graves, or another unclean person. Anyone who refused to cleanse himself was "cut off" - an untimely death.
38 Years Later....Miriam (about 130-y-o) died at the beginning of this chapter, and Aaron died at the end of it. In-between, we have the failure of Moses in "rebelling" at God's command (v.24). (the Hebrew word is actually "Marah" which is "to be bitter"). Psa 106:32-33 says that it went bad for Moses because "he spoke unadvisedly" (spoke out in anger). His angry words disqualified Moses from the Land. Sin is always a forfeiture.
RESPONSE: I have blurted out some things that I wish I could take back. Sometimes I don't even know why I said them! Words come from our hearts and they are what defile us, not the stuff we put INTO our mouths. Sometimes there is no way to un-do those words, like with Moses. The cure is to "guard our hearts" - instead of trying to control my tongue (which James 3:8 says NEVER works) I must fill my heart with praise and thanksgiving to God. The word for "rebel" in Numbers is actually "bitter", which disqualified Naomi in the Book of Ruth also! Bitterness is a disqualifier and will always leak out of your mouth!
LUKE 1:1-25
Luke is the longest Gospel. He wrote of things that were "absolute immovable certainty" (v.4). His purpose in writing was to explain what the Kingdom of God was about, and that Jesus did not come to repair or fix the old order, but to establish a new one. We don't fix our culture, we have an alternate one. And so Jesus commanded men everywhere to "repent" - to change how we believe and live and adopt a new life that calls for a complete reassessment of our view of ourselves as connected to God. Life now revolves around God.
Jesus is shown as the revelation of Divine Mercy. He is a friend of sinners, drunks, women, the broken, and the outcast. He was a man of prayer, and He was/is the One who provokes great joy - there are five songs in the book of Luke! (Okay, I'll list them:) The Salute of Elizabeth: "Ave Maria"; the "Magnificat" of Mary; the "Benedictus" of Zacharias, the "Gloria in Excelsis" of the Angels; the "Nunc Dimittis" of Simeon.
RESPONSE: Luke shows a picture of Jesus as compassionate, human, sympathetic, and tender, which hints that maybe Luke himself was also warm and gentle. Luke is the only Gospel to repeatedly use the word "mercy" (I think 10 times). Luke has been declared by some to be the most beautiful book ever written. Let's keep these things in mind as we read and see what happens.
PSALM 56:1-13
(1 Sam 21:10-15) When David was afraid: Once again, praise to God brought David out of danger. V. 3 "When I am afraid, I will trust in You." When we get the focus off of ourselves, and onto the goodness and greatness of God, it puts things into perspective and you'll say, "What can man do to me?" We are the center of so much attention from God that He saves our tears in a bottle, and lists them in a book! Once again, David declares himself to be "immovable" like a huge mountain.
PROVERBS 11:8
The wicked often fall into the pits they dig for the righteous.
RESPONSE: When I am afraid, I trust God. It was a decision I made a long time ago, that I could either fear everything else, or fear God - but not both. Once I made that decision, each situation was already decided. I had a lot of phobias and was in terrible bondage for many years. One day I came across Psa 56:3 and that was it! I added Heb 2:14-15 to it and became fearless!
"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."You see, phobias find their power in the "fear of death" - and that is what holds us in bondage to fear. But Jesus DESTROYED the one who had the power of death - and as Believers in Jesus, WE NEVER DIE. Now those phobias have lost their power! AND SO HAVE INDIVIDUAL CIRCUMSTANCES.
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