[Printable version]
[Also published in Nuggets for the Needy]
Mavis M. duCille
Omega Message – August 1987
The walk of life is like an obstacle course, mainly because God has set obstacles in the path of every human being to cause us to have the opportunity to turn from evil to good, therefore there is not excuse for any one to lose his soul. God was not even willing for the Devil to lose his soul as seen in:
Ezekiel 28:18 “Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick;”
It is amazing to think that God had put barriers in the way of Hillel which He called sanctuaries, so that there was a hindrance to his falling and becoming Satan. The psalmist says in:
Psalms 19:1-2 “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.”
No man can truthfully say he never heard from God, or that God did not reveal Himself to him, because the earth and the sky and the sun testifies of God. John 1:9 says:
“That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”
God’s voice speaks throughout the earth to restore man to his lost estate, in which ever language he can understand. It is appalling to see the devotion and dedication human beings can give to evil, compared to the devotion and dedication to God and good. A man devoted to a cause will put his life on the line and commit brutal crimes in the name of his cause, and die for it, and lose his soul for it, yet that kind of dedication is not very popular in standing for the cause of salvation. The Devil has been able to rob the strength of the church. Praise be to God however, there is a restoration taking place, and although Samson (type of Christ) was bound and grinding at the mill, his seven locks are not growing and very soon the power of God shall set in motion the deliverance of His people out of the bondage of slavery to a system.
God’s plan seems to be moving slowly, but it is because His plan includes man, and man has a free will which has to be brought into conformity with the will of God the Creator. In God’s patience he takes man through the paces, knowing that in time He will have a harvest.
The wilderness journey and the “Outer Court” of the Temple are typical; time of preparation when the old is discarded, as an old garment, for the new; the putting off of one and the taking up of the other. In the Outer Court everything that was not pertaining to, or lawful for the temple was exchanged or bought so that the proper offerings were made. In the same way the journey through the wilderness purged out the old and established the new. For forty years God made provision for Israel in the wilderness. He gave them food, shelter, water, and even chose their camping sites for them. He was the scout that went before them, sheltered them from the heat of the sun, gave them florescent light at night; – truly this was the mightiest manifestation of El Shaddai (God’s tender mothering) in all of the Bible history.
The Law of God is an expression of God’s nature, and must constitute a manifestation of the attributes of holiness, fundamental in God, which man must possess to be in harmony with Him. This, man can attain not by the natural, but the supernatural, if he accepts the terms of salvation through grace.
Seeing then, that the will of man is so involved in his own salvation, man’s will is free from law as enforced by power, but free under law as enforced by punishment. Man has a free choice, he can accept or reject; he can go the whole way with God or stop at any stage; rebel against God or make idols, or tabernacle with the gifts of the Spirit in the “Outer Court” of Christianity, or the wilderness, as discussed before; He could stop in Canaan, (the Holy Place) and deteriorate into a Canaanite, even after crossing Jordan, or PRESS INTO THE HOLY OF HOLIES, to our possession, having partaken of the three feasts:
- Passover which is Salvation,
- Pentecost which is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and
- Tabernacles which is the Fullness of Christ. “From glory to glory He’s changing me…“
This change is dependent on our willingness to let go of the old nature and the putting on of the new.
MOUNT HOREB:
Exodus 17:5-7 “And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest The river, take in thine hand, and go. Behold I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. ….He called the name of the place Massah and Meribah because ….chiding and tempted God.”
The same rod or authority of the Spirit by which Moses conquered Pharaoh, and destroyed the power of the mightiest nation on earth; the same rod which opened the Red Sea, is seen here being used to smite the rock, Christ Jesus, to bring water to the thirsty Israel. Moses is a type of the Lawgiver and his rod represents to us the authority of the Holy Spirit, not man’s authority over one another, through hierarchical position but by Divine appointment. It was the Law that struck Jesus. The law says “The wages of sin is death.” Jesus took our sins so he had to die; this then is the reason God told Moses to strike the rock, for out of it came the healing of the nations.
John 7:37 “……If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.”
MASSAH means testing:
After all the miracles of their deliverance from Egypt, and the crossing of the Red Sea, they had seen the goodness of God, now they came to the time of testing. God will take us through a testing after we have seen His glory. The testing seems either to make us ardent believers, or confirmed unbelievers.
MERIBAH means strife and contention:
They were tested, but they failed so they fell into strife and contention. They grumbled against Moses leadership, thus doubting God. This is so very true about our Christian lives. We reject God’s appointed ones, and accept the others.
Sonlight Devotional 