April 7, 2020
THE LAW LEADS BUT ONLY GRACE SAVES Moses was 120 years old when he passed the reins of leadership to Joshua. He was forty years a prince of Egypt, forty years a shepherd of Midian and forty years leading Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness. Now his job was finished. Moses, the Levite
April 3, 2020
GOD CARES ABOUT HOW YOU DO BUSINESS God told Moses to teach the people of Israel to establish and maintain a standard of weights and measures, so that their nation would endure. God said that those who used dishonest weights and measures were behaving unrighteously and were an abomination to Him. Having fair weights
April 1, 2020
WHEN FACING A BATTLE, KEEP YOUR FOCUS ON GOD In Deuteronomy chapter 20, Moses gave God’s instruction for Israel as they prepared to go into battle against their enemies in the Promised Land. God instructed them not to focus on the power of the enemy, nor to be afraid of them. Instead, they were to
March 26, 2020
MAKE PRAYER AND BIBLE READING A WAY OF LIFE In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses restated the wilderness stories and God’s law to encourage the Israelites to remember and keep their covenant with the Lord. He encouraged them to make God’s Word a daily part of their lives, so that they knew it in their
April 4, 2019
WHY WERE THE STONES TO BE NATURAL AND UNCUT? Moses instructed Israel to build an altar of “natural, uncut stones” after they crossed the Jordan River and entered the Promised Land. They were to offer burnt offerings on it to celebrate God’s law and provision for his people. But why did God insist that the
March 30, 2019
CAN POVERTY BE ELIMINATED? According to God’s Word, poverty will never be eliminated in this world. Yet, this fact is stated not to excuse our responsibility to the poor, but to encourage our ongoing generosity towards them. As the Israelites prepared to enter the Promised Land, God made provision for every person and tribe
March 27, 2019
OUR SUCCESS IS IN THE LORD’S HANDS The Lord encouraged the Israelites not to fear their enemies as they prepared to enter the Promised Land. He reminded them of how He had brought them out of Egypt. He promised that He would be with them in the same way to take the land from their
April 1, 2018
GOD HAS RAISED UP THE CHRIST JUST AS HE SAID
On this Easter morning let us remember that God promised the Israelites that He would “raise up” one from among them as the Messiah, the Christ. And now, some 2,000 years later, we look back on the fulfillment of this Mosaic prophecy, written 1,400 years before He came.
Jesus is the fulfillment of this Scripture. He was born into the tribe of Judah. He spoke all that the Father “commanded” Him to say (Deut. 18:18, John 12:49). And on occasion referred to Himself as a “Prophet” (Luke 13:33). Moses was a foreshadowing of the Christ. But Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the ultimate revelation of God (John 1:1-18, John 14:9). This is why the LORD instructed the disciples to “listen to Him” on the Mount of Transfiguration (Luke 9:35).
God has not only raised Jesus up from among His people, He has raised Him up from the grave. His empty tomb is proof of the promise that we too shall be raised up one day. As the Scripture says, “And God will raise us from the dead by his power, just as he raised our Lord from the dead” (1 Cor. 6:14).
April 7, 2017
Moses was 120 years old when he passed the reins of leadership to Joshua. He was forty years a prince of Egypt, forty years a shepherd of Midian and forty years leading Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness. Now his job was finished. Moses, the Lawgiver and the Levite, had led Israel to the Promised Land, but Joshua, the faithful servant of Moses, from the tribe of Judah, was the one to lead them into it.
Two spiritual types are seen in these two men. Moses represents God’s law. And Joshua, whose name means, “Jehovah’s salvation,” represents Jesus (essentially the same name in Hebrew: Joshua – “Yehoshua” and Jesus – “Yeshua”). The law can only lead one to salvation, but is powerless to save. Whereas, Jesus saves.
The apostle Paul described this relationship between law and Christ (i.e. “grace”). He said that the law was like a “tutor” leading us to our need for Christ (Gal. 3:24), but was “powerless” to save us. Therefore, God sent Jesus.
“For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering” (Rom. 8:3).
March 31, 2017
The month of Abib was the month that the Lord had delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt. It was therefore to be counted as the first month of the Hebrew year. Since the religious celebrations given by Moses were linked to certain times of the year, it became the role of the priests to certify the beginning of each new month based on the lunar cycle. The word “month” and “moon” are cognates in both the Hebrew and English language, and since the lunar cycle is 29.5 days, announcing the start of a new month was both science and art.
The word “Abib” means “fresh heads of grain,” or “green ears,” referring to the time of the year when crops of grain begin to come to a head. Today’s Jewish calendar no longer uses the name “Abib,” using the name “Nisan” in its place, which has been in use since the time when the Jews were released from Babylonian captivity (see Esther 3:7). The month of Abib corresponds to our months of March/April. Since the Jewish calendar is based on the lunar cycle and our calendar is based on the solar cycle, the date for Passover varies each year, and with it, the date for Easter does as well.
Passover was to be always celebrated in the month of Abib to remind Israel how the Lord had “passed-over” the homes whose doors were covered with the blood of the Passover lamb. This foreshadowed Jesus, the Lamb of God, who was given for the sins of the world.
So, the timing of the celebration for Jewish Passover and Christian Easter are linked. And their dates continue to move around in our modern calendar. This explains the 35-day span where Easter can occur (March 22 – April 25, inclusive).
It was in the month of Abib, meaning “new heads of grain,” that Jesus fulfilled His saying, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain” (John 12:23-24).