Blog Archives

10 Sep 2023 Exodus (Program #45)

Exodus (Program #45) – Flowing the Water of Life

Exodus 17 is a chapter of the Old Testament that contains a seed of one of the great truths of the New Testament Christian experience. Listen to verse 3, “So the people thirsted there for water, and the people murmured against Moses…” but the Lord said to Moses in verse 6, “I will be standing before you there upon the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it so that the people may drink…” The Apostle Paul in the New Testament tells us that this rock and this drink are Christ. Drinking the living water is our focus today in this life study of the Bible.

Today we have a marvelous topic – Drinking the living water! We want to look again at this matter of drinking and flowing of the living water. We have some tremendous topic this week on drinking, today, we really want to see the counterpart of drinking which is the flowing out. There’s a wonderful verse in the gospel of John that brings both of these matters together. more…

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09 Sep 2023 Exodus (Program #44)

Exodus (Program #44) – Drinking the Water of Life (2)

Not all divine secrets in the Bible are revealed in a clear and evident way.  Sometimes God reveals His secrets in a hidden way.  The Bible contains many such hidden secrets that require the Lord’s shining to see clearly.  For example, the Bible commands man to believe in order to be saved, but where does it tell us how to believe?  The Bible also tells us to eat and drink of Christ, but how do we eat and how do we drink?  Don’t miss this classic presentation on this life study.

Yesterday, we saw very strikingly that eating and drinking in the Bible are not simply metaphors for us to contemplate.  They are genuine, crucial matters revealed in Scripture.  The Lord clearly said in John that if we don’t know how to eat and drink, we will not have the eternal life in us in a practical way.  It seems that all of us as Christians need to pay our full attention to these matters.

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08 Sep 2023 Exodus (Program #43)

Exodus (Program #43) – Drinking the Water of Life (1)

Sometimes the most obvious things in life are the easiest to overlook.  This is often also the case with the Bible.  Have you ever noticed it begins with man’s food and water and it ends the same way in Revelation.  Revelation 22, the last chapter of the Bible shows us a river of water of life and on this side and on that side of the river is the tree of life.  If we miss the matter of eating and drinking in the Bible, we miss a major portion of what God desires to reveal to man.

In a sense the Bible ends the way it began; a flowing river and the tree of life.  In fact what man takes in has a lot of implications.

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07 Sep 2023 Exodus (Program #42)

Exodus (Program #42) – The Water of Life in Resurrection

Every record in the Bible has a spiritual significance.  We shouldn’t try to understand any portion of the biblical record simply according to the black and white letter.  Let’s take Exodus 16 as an example.  This is a chapter revealing the giving of manna to the children of Israel.  Surely manna is something mysterious and spiritual.  Chapter 17 shows us how God provided water for the children of Israel as Moses struck or smote the rock in the wilderness and the water flow from the clefts.  Surely this also bears tremendous spiritual significance.  The spiritual reality of the water flowing from the smitten rock is our story today of this life study of the Bible.

We are going to pick up Witness Lee’s own speaking for our introduction today.  He make a very striking point about interpreting the Bible.  Of course, we do believe it literally word for word.  But we also don’t want to be blind to its spiritual and mysterious implication.

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06 Sep 2023 Exodus (Program #41)

Exodus (Program #41) – The Living Water Out of the Smitten Rock (2)

As Christians, from time to time we pass through stages of spiritual dryness.  We just can’t seen to find the flowing and satisfying water that previously has wonderfully quench our inner thirst.  Actually God will lead His people to such a dry place to test them.  For when we are short of this living water our real inner condition is surely exposed.  Such was the case with His people Israel as they journeyed in the wilderness following Jehovah God in Exodus 17.

Today we are going to join the children of Israel now some two months after their miraculous deliverance from Egypt.  They experienced many miracles by this time and they are being led day by day by this pillar of cloud and at night a pillar of fire into and through the wilderness.  They’ve come now to a place seemingly without any water to sustain them.

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05 Sep 2023 Exodus (Program #40)

Exodus (Program #40) – The Living Water Out of the Smitten Rock (1)

When the children of Israel were in bondage, they cried out and Jehovah God heard their cry and rescued them.  When they were hungry, He heard their cry and sent them manna, bread from heaven.  Exodus 17 shows us the story of God providing  another necessity of life; water, to sustain and satisfy.  Stay with us as we enjoy another marvelous view of our Savior God taking care of His people on today’s life study of the Bible.

We return to Moses and the children of Israel.  This time murmuring to God and murmuring to Moses because of their thirst.

We come to the rock that was sovereignly waiting for the children of Israel.  The Lord led them to this place to another great miracle that has very much to do with, as we are going to find out, our own experience.  Let’s read this portion that we are going to be talking about for several programs that are coming up in the days immediately ahead. more…

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04 Sep 2023 Exodus (Program #39)

Exodus (Program #39) -The Heavenly Diet—Manna (5)

When Moses was leading the children of Israel through the wilderness, what they have to eat became a major concern.  To sustain and nourish them, God provided a mysterious food called manna.  These small round wafers appear on the ground every morning and this was their sole diet for 40 years. 1600 years later, God brings manna back to His people in the book of Revelation.  But this, rather than being out in the open as it was in Exodus, is hidden in a golden pot, within the Ark, in the Holy of Holies.  What is this hidden manna?

We have seen a lot by now  regarding eating Christ as our manna.  We are talking today about manna  in little different aspect.  What is the hidden manna and where do we see it in Scripture?

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03 Sep 2023 Exodus (Program #38)

Exodus (Program #38) -The Heavenly Diet—Manna (4)

After the exodus out of Egypt, God’s people needed food.  In His sovereignty, He provided for them with manna, daily bread come down from heaven to be their supply.  But after they begin eating this manna, He commanded that they take a small portion and place it in a pot to be kept perpetually in the Ark of the Tabernacle.  This hidden manna shows up again in the New Testament book of Hebrews and Revelation.  What is all this mean for us?  There is a word for us in the living word of God on today’s life study of the Bible.

We are talking about manna today and the hidden manna and the new diet that God had in mind for His people.  We have been looking at the characteristics of this manna that Jehovah had provided for His people as they were journeying through the wilderness.  But today we come to the deeper aspect, the hidden manna.

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02 Sep 2023 Exodus (Program #37)

Exodus (Program #37) -The Heavenly Diet—Manna (3)

The food that man eats is the focus of the Bible from the first pages of Genesis to the final pages of Revelation.  Man’s eating represents what he takes into his being.  Manna, the heavenly bread given by the Lord for His people in Exodus is one of the Bible’s meaningful types of our Lord Jesus.  A careful consideration of the details and characteristics of manna can open up a great insight and appreciation of Christ.

The last couple of days we’ve been looking at the characteristics or details that are given in Scripture related to manna.  Yesterday in particularly we saw 3 items that first it came from heaven, second it came with the dew of the morning and third it came every morning.

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01 Sep 2023 Exodus (Program #36)

Exodus (Program #36) -The Heavenly Diet—Manna (2)

Manna was the food that God gave to the children of Israel to eat during their 40 year journey in the wilderness.  We know that it was small and white and round, but beyond that description we don’t know much else.  In another word, it was mysterious. Though numerous words have been written about the Lord Jesus Christ, He also remained in may ways a mystery.  It’s hard to say exactly what or who He is.  Yet like the manna of old, He can surely feed and sustain His people.

We began this topic of manna a few days ago and Witness Lee put chapter 16 of Exodus on the same plain as chapter 14 and chapter 12 where the Passover feast and the crossing of the Red Sea are all depicted.  It is quite remarkable that this chapter has the same kind of stature.  Manna is mentioned in two places at least in Scripture in the Old Testament; this portion in Exodus 16 that we’ve been looking at and also comes up in Numbers chapter 11.  more…

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