Judges (Program #7) – The Abominable Chaos in their Worship

The life study of the books of Joshua and judges reveals not just the history of Israel with its’ successes and failures possessing the good land of Canaan, but also even more importantly it teaches us how we can gain and possess the all inclusive Christ as our full portion, our enjoyment and our inheritance. Israel in the good land typifies us, the New Testament believers in Christ and just as Israel allowed their departure from a close and intimate fellowship with Jehovah to impede their progress gaining the land we too can see our spiritual progress and our enjoyment of Christ impeded if we don’t take care of our day by day, even moment by moment fellowship with Him.  Listen to this verse in 1 John 1:3 “That which we have seen and heard we report also to you that you also may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.”

A very marvelous portion related to this matter of fellowship typified of course by the picture in the Old Testament of Israel gaining, possessing the land. We enter into the fellowship the moment we receive Christ and this fellowship is a fellowship that is life long.

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Deuteronomy (Program #10) – The Rehearsal of the Law (3)

To the assembled nation of Israel preparing to cross over the Jordan river and enter Canaan, Moses had this to say, “Hear, O Israel! You are about to cross over the Jordan this day in order to enter in and dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities that are big and fortified up to heaven, know therefore today that Jehovah your God is the One crossing over before you as a consuming fire; it is He who will destroy them, and it is He who will subdue them before you, so that you may dispossess them and destroy them quickly, as Jehovah has said to you.”

Surely these words must had filled the people with hope and expectation. but Moses also brought their earlier failures to remembrance, “Remember; do not forget that you made Jehovah your God furious in the wilderness; from the day that you came forth from the land of Egypt up until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Jehovah.”  Moses once again preparing this new generation to overcome, enter and possess the land.

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Deuteronomy (Program #5) -A Review of the Past (1)

Deuteronomy begins with Moses reviewing 40 years of history to the assembled children of Israel. Kadesh-barnea is at the gate of Canaan in the very place where they had arrived some 38 years before.

Deut 1: 19 And we set out from Horeb, and we went through all that great and awesome wilderness, which you saw, on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as Jehovah our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.  Verse 21 “See, Jehovah your God has set the land before you; go up, possess it, as Jehovah the God of your fathers has spoken to you. Do not fear, neither be dismayed”…. “Yet you would not go up. Rather you rebelled against the word of Jehovah your God;”

The unbelief and disobedience that the people showed on that day caused their father to falter and not going to possess the land.  As we see Moses now is preparing a new generation to overcome that past and to be strong to enter in and possess the good land.

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Numbers (Program #30) – Fighting (9)

After 40 years of experiences in the wilderness, God is ready to fulfill His promise to His people Israel to give them the good land.  But there are some requirements that He places upon them because this land has been occupied even polluted by various people apart from Israel; people with other gods and idols.  So before Israel can inherit the land, they must first drive out all these inhabitants, destroy their idols and tear down the high places.  If they don’t, they will be troubled by these things throughout their days.  Once again, the Old Testament provides us with a rich profound illustration of how we must possess our good land, the all-inclusive Christ.

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Numbers (Program #26) – Fighting (5)

Forty years of wandering, of fighting against enemies and of learning to live by depending on God are near an end.  God’s people Israel are about to enter the land that He has promised to their fathers.  By this time Jehovah God had prepared the people and everything they would need to go in and possess this land.  But it is here, at this critical juncture that He comes to them to remind them not of their need but of His need.  From His people, God requires something that He will not provide for Himself – food.   Hard to imagine isn’t it?  God needs to be fed.  He can only be fed by His people.  Quite a story we have before us.

Numbers (Program #23) – Fighting (4)

Numbers is a book that records many wonderful items related to God’s people Israel and their journey through the wilderness on their way to the good land.  But it also records some of their greatest failures.  Perhaps the greatest among these was that spoken of in chapter 25 where many among Israel committed fornication and adultery with some of the idolatrous and pagan people dwelling in the land.  This brought in God’s judgment as seen by the plague that fell upon Israel consuming 24,000.  But this judgment served as kind of purifying of the people and it enabled them eventually to go in and possess the land that they have been 40 years journeying toward.  The renumbering of God’s people for the possession of the good land is our topic today.

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Numbers (Program #20) – Fighting (1)

As the Old Testament is a book of pictures and types, what does Canaan signify?  Well, to many people it is synonymous with heaven.  Actually Canaan, one of the names for the good land that God brought His people Israel into in the Old Testament which is also a type of the all-inclusive Christ that we are possessing in the New Testament, was a name used to describe the land when it was filled with enemies, even giants that had to be fought against and overcome before the people can go in.  The warfare of God’s people against the authorities and rulers of Satan’s kingdom is the topic of our life study today in Numbers.

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Psalms (Program #32) – Christ versus Restoration of God’s People, Personal Salvation, and Release from Sufferings

God has purpose, an economy.  If we have ears to hear what the Spirit is speaking then we can see this plan is centered on Zion with Christ, love by God in Psalms 87.  Christ as God anointed to possess the entire earth in Psalms 89.

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1 John (Program #36) – The Virtues of the Divine Birth to Overcome the World, Death, Sin, the Devil, and the Idols (4)

The marvelous book of 1 John stresses the divine birth, the divine life and the fellowship all believers can experience and enjoy in the flow of this divine life.  It is not a book of great doctrine but rather it is a book as is John’s gospel  revealing the living and true God subjectively and experientially to mankind.

Finally in its concluding verses it tells us that above all we now possess the capacity to know Him not just know about Him.

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1 John (Program #23) – The Virtues of the Divine Birth to Practice the Divine Righteousness (1)

The book of 1 John though short in length is anything but short in its’ spiritual content.  This short epistle conveys some of the richest and deepest thought in all of the New Testament. Even its’ sequence is marvelous. Beginning with the divine life and the fellowship of the life which is our participation in God’s life. It then moves on to the teaching of the anointing. Which as we had already seen and is crucial to the experience and growth of every believer. Finally it come to the last main section that of the virtues of the divine life that we possess by the divine birth. And it is here that we see the progression brought to its’ consummation. That the children of God become His eternal expression and counterpart. All in this short book of 1 John.

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