Aaron’s rod that budded & bore fruit (almonds) points to Jesus’ Resurrection.
– Made clear to the children of Israel God’s choice for High Priest (to make atonement & intercession on behalf of the people)
– What was dead is brought to life and bears good fruit
– A tangible reminder to keep the complaints of the people from kindling God’s wrath
“It will come about that the rod of the man whom I choose will sprout. Thus I will lessen from upon Myself the grumblings of the sons of Israel, who are grumbling against you.”
Moses therefore spoke to the sons of Israel, and all their leaders gave him a rod apiece, for each leader according to their fathers’ households, twelve rods, with the rod of Aaron among their rods. So Moses deposited the rods before the Lord in the tent of the testimony.
Now on the next day Moses went into the tent of the testimony; and behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted and put forth buds and produced blossoms, and it bore ripe almonds.
Moses then brought out all the rods from the presence of the Lord to all the sons of Israel; and they looked, and each man took his rod. But the Lord said to Moses, “Put back the rod of Aaron before the testimony to be kept as a sign against the rebels, that you may put an end to their grumblings against Me, so that they will not die.”
Thus Moses did; just as the Lord had commanded him, so he did.” Numbers 17:5-11 NASB1995
Antisemites who say: “Christ is King” are being manipulated spiritually (demonically) to sow division & distrust between Jews & true Christians to open the wounds inflicted on Jews by religious antisemites since the 3rd (?) century A.D.
This is in direct violation of the Royal Law of Christ Jesus – Love God, Love Others (neighbors, strangers, enemies), and in direct violation of Romans 10-11.
Most people ignore the fact that we are all dying, and going to die.
And only God knows how soon that moment will happen.
Deep down, people are afraid to die because God has put it in our hearts and minds to know the truth.
We are all already condemned by our own sin nature, and the death of the body (1st death) seals our eternal fate. If we don’t acknowledge and face this fact before that 1st death, then consider God’s mercy & love in providing the only acceptable holy sacrifice for our guilt & condemnation in the form of His promised only begotten Son Jesus Christ the Lord from the tribe of Judah, and receive the transference of our sin onto Him at the cross & His righteousness to us at His resurrection, sealing us by His Holy Spirit, freeing us from the power of slavery to sin, beginning our transformation into Christlikeness, and resulting in eternal life in God’s kingdom….
If we don’t… then we will be judged righteously in our condemnation and suffer the 2nd death.
Eternal just punishment & torment in the lake of fire for rejecting the only means of salvation, Jesus Christ.
God is merciful & gives mercy to all who ask Him for it, then He gives overflowing lovingkindness on top of His mercy.
Today I was listening to the radio while driving. It was David Crowder singing:
“I’m only right where I am today because somebody prayed.”
On the surface, as a Christian, this is true. I would not be a Christian unless somebody (many in fact) prayed for God to have mercy on me, and for me to hear & respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
But for some of us, it goes so much further than that.
I would not even exist unless somebody prayed.
My story begins before I was born.
Somebody Prayed
After my sister was born, my parents were told that my mom would never be able to have any more children. By the time my sister was twelve years old, she had put her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and continually prayed for a baby brother. She also prayed for God to change my dad, who was a very bad person.
My dad had been active duty in the U.S. Air Force for 15 years, and by 1969 had requested multiple tours of duty in Vietnam & Thailand. In late 1969, while in Vietnam, an airman in his squadron approached him and told him flatly: “You need to give your life to the Lord Jesus Christ tonight, or you are going to die and go to hell.”
That airman took my dad to a Navigators meeting that night, where he heard the gospel & gave his life to Jesus Christ.
The next day, while my dad was working in a building on base, a Vietnamese child entered the building begging for candy, and was blown up by the Viet Cong. The blast killed my dad’s best friend and injured my dad and others. (I am convinced to this day, that my dad would have died in that blast also if he hadn’t given his life to Christ Jesus the night before).
The Air Force sent my dad home from his tour of duty. When my sister saw my dad when he got home, she knew God had answered one of her prayers.
A miraculous change had happened. In her words: “The Lord had taken the old dad and thrown him in the trash and replaced him with a brand new man.” He was not the same person! The transformation began the night he gave his life to Jesus Christ.
My sister’s other prayer would seem to be answered soon after my dad came home. Another miracle happened when in early 1970, my mom got pregnant. It was a baby boy!
But then something terrible happened…
That baby boy was stillborn in the bathroom at home, at five months old.
My twelve year old sister had to collect her stillborn brother, put him in a Tupperware container with lid, and give him to the doctors when my mom was rushed to the hospital.
That’s when a nurse who was caring for my mom discovered that the still born child had a twin brother… me.
Another miracle. I was alive and still in the womb. It turns out that my mom had a very rare condition called uterus didelphys. Two wombs.
I went full term and was born healthy four months later. God answered my sister’s prayer and she got her baby brother. Twice. (Our youngest brother was born 14 months later)!
So I can confidently say that I’m only here today because somebody prayed. My older sister!
Born then Born Again
I am also confident that I came to faith in Christ Jesus because she never stopped praying for me, even after I was born.
I thank God the Father and my Lord & Savior Jesus Christ for my older sister and her faithful perseverance in prayer.
Are you right where you’re at today because somebody prayed? I encourage you to share your story.
Most people ignore the fact that we are all dying, and going to die. And only God knows how soon that moment will happen. Romans 6:23, Romans 5:12, Hebrews 9:27.
Deep down, people are afraid to die because God has put it our hearts and minds to know the truth. We are all already condemned by our own sin nature and the death of the body (1st death) seals our eternal fate.
If we don’t acknowledge & face this before that 1st death, consider God’s mercy & love in providing the only acceptable holy sacrifice for our guilt & condemnation in the form of His promised only begotten Son Jesus Christ the Lord from the tribe of Judah & receive the transference of our sin onto Him at the cross & His righteousness to us at His resurrection, sealing us by His Holy Spirit, freeing us from the power of slavery to sin, beginning our transformation into Christlikeness, and resulting in eternal life in God’s kingdom…. John 3:16-17, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Hebrews 9:28, Ephesians 1:13, John 3:5-6, John 3:36, John 17:3.
If we don’t… then we will be judged righteously in our condemnation and suffer the 2nd death. Eternal just punishment & torment in the lake of fire for rejecting the only means of salvation. Revelation 20:12-15.
God is merciful & gives mercy to all who ask Him for it, then He gives overflowing lovingkindness on top of His mercy. Exodus 34:6, Psalms 41:4, Psalms 57:1, Hebrews 8:12, John 1:12.
It is the same as for the Ninevites. There were those in Nineveh, that wicked city, that didn’t know their right hand from their left… children.
As I saw the images of the horrible and inhuman spectacle of Hamas & the Gazans releasing the dead bodies of the Bibas mother & her babies over to Israel, I wrestled with my rage & desire for God to annihilate all of them versus the fact that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and is merciful & long-suffering so any that would turn from their wicked ways at the preaching of repentance, the gospel, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ would have that opportunity.
I saw the pictures of the babies & small children that the Gazans brought to watch & revel in their evil actions. That’s when I thought of Jonah & Nineveh.
“And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?”” Jonah 4:11 NKJV
For their sake, God sent Jonah to preach repentance.
“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.”” Jonah 1:1-2 NKJV
“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you.”” Jonah 3:1-2 NKJV
“The soul who sins shall die.”Ezekiel 18:4b NKJV
“For the wages of sin is death,”Romans 6:23a NKJV
“But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”” Revelation 21:8 NKJV
““Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: And these will go away into everlasting punishment,” Matthew 25:41, 46a NKJV
“And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, Revelation 14:11a NKJV
The Reason
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23 NKJV
“As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;” Romans 3:10 NKJV
“They have all turned aside, They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.” Psalms 14:3 NKJV
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” I John 1:8 NKJV
“If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him (God) a liar, and His word is not in us.” I John 1:10 NKJV
“If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” I John 1:6 NKJV
“He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.” Proverbs 28:13 NKJV
The Cure
“‘But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, with their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, and that they also have walked contrary to Me, and that I also have walked contrary to them and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if their uncircumcised hearts are humbled, and they accept their guilt— then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham I will remember; I will remember the land.” Leviticus 26:40-42 NKJV
“If we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I John 1:9 NKJV
“But if we walk in the light (truth) as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” I John 1:7 NKJV
The Confession
“We have sinned with our fathers, We have committed iniquity, We have done wickedly.” Psalms 106:6 NKJV
“We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness And the iniquity of our fathers, For we have sinned against You. Do not abhor us, for Your name’s sake; Do not disgrace the throne of Your glory. Remember, do not break Your covenant with us.” Jeremiah 14:20-21 NKJV
“Have mercy upon me, O God, According to Your lovingkindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, And my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight— That You may be found just when You speak, And blameless when You judge.” Psalms 51:1-4 NKJV
The Cleansing
“I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned and by which they have transgressed against Me.” Jeremiah 33:8 NKJV
“For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”” Hebrews 8:12 NKJV
“I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned and by which they have transgressed against Me.” Jeremiah 33:8 NKJV
The Reason
“For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Romans 5:6, 8-10 NKJV
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 3:16-18 NKJV
“He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked— But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.” Isaiah 53:3-10, 12 NKJV
The body; the flesh. Sin, the old nature. “He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Therefore:
Through the Holy Spirit, continually put to death the flesh & its sinful desires & replace them with Christ Jesus & His righteousness
“Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him,” Colossians 3:5, 8-10 NKJV
“For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”Romans 6:7-14 NKJV
You still have a choice, but your time is coming to an end. You have no control over your moment of death, your last breath on Earth…
The LORD God Almighty reigns in Heaven, and His only Begotten Son, Christ Jesus the Lord is coming to reign on the Earth.
He will fulfill what Adam failed to do. He is the second & Last Adam, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Prophet. Great High Priest. King.
You are either a citizen in His coming Kingdom through being second born into it (by the Holy Spirit) through faith & obedience to Him, or you are already condemned in your trespasses, sins, and iniquities against His Holiness and your future will be in outer darkness, the lake of fire, where the smoke of your torment will rise forever & ever along with Satan & the unholy angels, and the righteous will remember you no more forever.
It just occurred to me that the betrayer in Psalm 55 is not just Saul, and Judas, but from the beginning is Lucifer.
What a heartbreaking lament.
God the Father knows the pain of betrayal. Jesus Christ knows the pain of betrayal.
LORD help us to remain steadfast & faithful not to betray You or others, and comfort us in the searing pain of betrayal by those closest to us, and not be bitter but allow Your love to flow through us even more.
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