--- Note ---
To stay alive,
Gaze on Christ - crucified!
[1 Cor 2:2]
If you have visited this website before, you know it talks a lot about the tribulation and destruction befalling our generation. Just like Jesus promised it would be, the tribulation is like nothing the world has ever seen, and, it seems to get worse every day. [Mat 24:21-22] What this site is really for, however, is to direct you to the hope and protection available in Jesus Christ. Mankind has been rebelling in going their own way since Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden about 6000 years ago. During the time since, God has worked out and put in place the fix for the death and suffering Adam brought to us all. Time was needed to settle important issues.
Another thing God did is record that solution in the Bible. As He dealt with mankind, God recorded many lessons to help us understand what He has done, and why. One of those lessons involves a copper serpent hung on a pole or stake, but, understanding requires knowing a little about the ancient nation of Israel; and about their reason for being.
Before God created that nation to become his nation of people, rebellious mankind was left largely to their rebellion. We can learn from their example before Noah, that left unchecked, [Judges 17:6] humanity went so wicked in only about 1600 years out of the Garden, the majority of them had to be destroyed in the flood. While the flood destroyed the wicked, it also preserved Noah and his family alive, and protected them from the wickedness that had overwhelmed the earth. [Gen 6:9-14; Luke 17:26-30] So much for their attempt to self govern. About 400 years after the flood, and 2000 years after Creation, God selected a man named Abraham to help keep the world from again going so bad so fast. Abraham would become (or produce) a nation of people to represent God in the earth. [Gen 22:15-18] Steering that nation using the Law Code He gave them, God preserved and protected true worship among righteous men and women who chose to serve him. More importantly, God used the Israelites to produced the Messiah [Gen 3:15; Gen 22:15-18] who would restore paradise to the earth. [Isaiah 11:1-12; 1 Cor 15:20-28] People of all nations of the earth could be blessed by learning from the Jews how to serve God, and could even become Jewish proselytes if they wanted. God was helping everyone who wanted his help! The Messiah was for everyone. [Gen 18:18] While humankind's Messiah was descended directly from Abraham, God drew attention to at least 2 outstanding non-Jewish women in Jesus's ancestry. [Mat 1:1 & 5]
When Christ was born into the Jewish nation to tell what God had sent him to teach, [John 12:49] it meant that nation had largely served it's purpose. [Gal 3:26-29; Gal 3:23-25] Since Jesus appeared as Messiah, the promises made to Abraham have been available to each and every person, Jew or Gentile, who chooses to put faith in the Christ (the anointed one) as God's son. [Rom 9:8] God provided a grand lesson using his dealings with the ancient Jewish nation during their 40 year trek in the wilderness. (The nation rebelled and was forced to suffer a tribulation of wandering 40 years in the wilderness; while the rebellious generation died off. [Num 13:17-14:35] The new nation could then enter the promised land along with only a few righteous individuals; those who had not rebelled and so had been preserved alive by God to go in.) Even while wandering in the wilderness, the Jew's rebelled once again. God then sent poison serpents among them as punishment. Everyone bitten died. Members of the nation prayed to God and He instructed Moses to construct a fiery (copper) serpent and to hang it on an upright pole. When any person was bitten, they should simply gaze at the serpent on the stake and they would be preserved alive (saved). [Num 21:4-9] (This drama was a prefigure of Christ being crucified. It was given nearly 1500 years before Jesus was born.)
I don't know about you, but current world conditions including the coronavirus pandemic, world weather and seismic activity, drug gang violence, race war, famine, and opinionization along with all the other problems, leaves me feeling like the Jews must have felt when the serpents were among them in the wilderness. Something is apt to rise up to "bite" any one of us at any time. To keep yourself alive through this tribulation, you need to Gaze on Christ even as the Jews needed to gaze at Moses's serpent on the stake. A serpent was killing the Jews. Their faith, faith that God would heal them if they gazed at the serpent on the stake, did heal them. The man Adam is killing us all. [1 Cor 15:22] We must gaze in faith on the "son of man," or the man Jesus Christ, the one hung upon a stake so we can be healed. [Mat 9:6; Acts 10:39] How, though, can we do that? We gaze upon Christ simply by sitting at his feed and listening to what he taught. The only way we can do that today is by reading the accounts of his life and teachings recorded by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It is a simple thing God has requested you to do: Gaze upon his son, who was hung on a tree, so you don't have to die. [Heb 9:11-14; Job 33:18 & 24-25 & 28-30; John 11:25-26] Every single religious group (and most political ones) wants to assure you they have the "sayings of life" [John 6:68] and you must listen to and follow them. Jesus said, however, beware of teachers among men. [Mat 7:15; Acts 20:29-30; Mat 23:1-15] If you want to live, obey God's simple command: Listen to Jesus. [Mat 17:5; John 8:31-32; Mark 3:31-35]
Reading the Gospels of Christ equates with Noah's entering the ark. [Mat 24:37-38] As you read the words of Christ from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, imagine yourself sitting in the ark. As you sit there listening to Christ, with the rains of destruction falling on the world around you, have faith in receiving all the promises of Christ; just as you hear him say them... [Mark 11:24]
Available at:
JustBibleTruth.com\Observations\ANote_GazeUponChrist.html
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