1 Corinthians 10:11 Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
Numbers 14:24 But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall inherit it.
Numbers 27:18 So the Lord said to Moses, “Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him.
For the past two weeks we’ve been building life lessons derived from the Exodus wanderings and from Paul’s exhortations to the church in Corinth. Notice carefully that Paul says, “these were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come”…
…that is, written for us today! – admonitions from Paul to learn lessons from the history of the children of Israel.
Much of what we can learn is how NOT to behave, and what NOT to do. Yet there are also the lessons from the few who were over-comers, Joshua and Caleb particularly. From them, we may grasp what a life of faith, courage, and victory looks like.
While people often say that history repeats itself – it doesn’t mean that people must repeat history. We do have the option of learning from it, and from those who were the over-comers. In the days of the Exodus, only two adult men actually entered the Promised land, out of the thousands that originally left Egypt – only Joshua and Caleb. What was different about them? They followed God fully – and were of a different spirit.
Enjoy your Shabbat rest – and take these lessons from Israel’s history to heart. By learning from their mistakes, and being encouraged by the faithful few, you may avoid repeating (sad) history – and rather, learning from it, enter your own inheritance in the “Promised Land”.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]When Moses sent out the 12 spies to report on the condition of the land of “milk and honey”, ten of the spies brought back a bad report. They focused on the giants, and the great obstacles in their way. They walked with eyes set on the physical realm and said within themselves, “We are but grasshoppers in the sight of these giants!
Living in Israel all these years, I often encounter amazing stories of God’s deliverance and grow increasingly fond of listening to the fascinating ways He shows His power. During our tour in England recently, we met a man whose family experienced a great miracle during WW1. He tells this incredible story…
In this world we will face all kinds of obstacles, trials and tribulations and we should be wary of any doctrines or teachings that say we shouldn’t have to face these things. Why? Because the Lord said we will have tribulations. So the encouragement He is giving is simply this: You’re going to face trials, but GOD is greater than any problem you will face in this world!
When the prophet Jonah entered Nineveh, he gave a message of hopelessness — in 40 days your city will be destroyed! He did not say, Nineveh will be destroyed “unless”, but emphatically prophesied destruction to the people of the city — seeming to say their situation was hopeless. Yet hearing this message …
If you were to visit Paris, you could see the statues of two men, both named Louis.
The first is of Louis XIV, France’s absolute monarch. He represents one of the supreme achievements of greatness through power. His philosophy of life was that the whole nation and the world, should serve him.
Knowing He was about to depart, Yeshua (Jesus) left His disciples with a final command: stay in Jerusalem, and wait…for the promise. Of the thousands who had witnessed His miraculous ministry and heard His amazing teaching, and the hundreds that had actually seen Him after the resurrection, we read in Acts that only 120 stayed and tarried until the promise arrived. But these 120 were steadfast. They waited the full term…
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