Join Beth Tikkun as Grant Luton brings insights from portions Korach and Chukat.
[Music] one other thing before we get started I’m going to ask because we’re going to be covering some things from last week’s tour portion when we did not have Services as well as things from this week’s I want to ask you if you don’t mind is it okay if we hold questions and comments and if we have some time at the end we’ll we’ll do it then okay I hate to do that but once in a while because of time constraints it is necessary so if you’ll just resist that urge to raise your hand today we’ll be back to asking questions and sharing comments next week but our tour portion last week was called korak or Kora uh a man’s name it begins in number 16 I want to look at a few items in that tour portion and then bring it on up into this week’s tourah portion which is uh Kat in chapter 16 of Numbers verse one it says Kora son of isar son of koho son of Ley separated himself with Dayan and abam Sons of elob and own son of pth The Offspring of Reuben they stood before Moses with 250 men from the children of Israel now what kind of men were these leaders of the assembly those summoned for meeting men of name or men of renown this is the cream of the cream of the crop 250 with Kora at their head they gathered together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them it is too much for you for the entire assembly all of them are holy and adoni is among them why do you exalt yourselves over the congregation of adoni Moses heard and fell on his face now I want to give cor a fair Shake here I want us to to stand in his shoes if we can and try to see things from his point of view because as you begin to really look at things from A Chorus point of view you might begin to think yeah what’s wrong with what he said what is wrong with what he did I mean let’s think about this for a moment Kora is of the tribe of Levi just as Moses and Aaron are and not only are they part of the tribe of Levi they are one of the they are the sons of kth they are in charge of carrying the things that are inside the Tabernacle the Ark of the Covenant and the the manora and the the altar of incense and so on they have very very high and holy holy responsibilities in the Tabernacle and all this time from the time they’ve left Egypt until this point they’ve been watching what’s going on with Moses and Aaron and they’ve seen some things that are really inconsistent some things there that just do not make sense here’s the biggie while Moses was up on top of Mount SII for 40 days and nights some of the Rabel Rises up and says let’s make gods and lead us back to Egypt and so who gives instructions for removing their earrings and giving them to Levi Le Aaron does Aaron says give me the Rings gold earrings it says Aaron takes an engraving tool and he casts this thing and he makes a golden calf Aaron does the high priest Moses brother and a bunch of the men begin to worship this thing and start to get party and and get involved in sin and they’re all involved in it except for the Levites though Aaron himself is a levite and when Moses comes down from the mountain with Joshua he says who’s on the Lord’s Side and all the Levites gathered to Moses because they weren’t involved in this and Moses tells them okay you put your swords on your hips and you go through the camp and the people who are actively worshiping this thing you kill them and the tribe of Levi did did but Aaron didn’t get killed and then there’s a plague that comes through and kills a bunch more who apparently had hearts that lean towards worship though they may not have been actively involved but Aaron doesn’t get killed and because of Levites faithfulness Levi becomes the Priestly tribe and yet it was Moses brother Aaron who made the golden calf how come he gets off scott free he’s the one who started this whole thing and yet the Levites his brothers kill the ones involved in it but Aaron not only does he not get punished he gets promoted he’s now the high priest do you know what the word nepotism means nepotism means giving favor and promotion to people you are related to maybe you’ve seen this at work or at uh maybe in schools or whatever where uh or in churches where the pastor’s family they get the promotions they get the positions boy there’s ever a case of it this would be an apparent case because here’s Moses the leader and here’s Aaron who started this whole thing that brought death to so many he gets promoted to be high priest and then not only that but Moses gives laws that say that we have have to give the best cuts of the sacrifices to Aaron and his sons and we pay tithes to Levi but the Levites pay tithes to Aaron and his sons and two of Aaron’s sons didn’t work out too well because we know what happened to naab andu and they tried to take some incense in and did things did did aot’s job and it cost them their lives this isn’t looking too good yeah here’s cth here here’s Kora he’s a leader among leaders he’s a man among men and he’s the one who loves God he loves God he loves the people of Israel he is highly qualified to come alongside or maybe even to replace Aaron and he’s he’s had enough and when you look at things through kora’s eyes through his logic through his reasoning it’s pretty Flawless oh here’s another thing how are we getting all these laws Moses tells us and Moses tells us that God tells him but do we know that God tells him all these laws we all heard God speak at Mount SII that one day but all this other stuff coming down the pike Moses says God told him how do we know that how do we know God told Moses to appoint his brother high priest you begin to see things through kora’s eyes a little bit but what’s the thing that Kora is totally missing what’s the thing that goes completely outside of his logic well if we go on down to chap chapter 16 verse 5 just go down to the next verse Moses spoke to Kora and to his entire assembly saying in the morning adoni not me but Adonai the Lord will make known the one who is his own and the Holy One and He will draw him close to himself and whomever he will choose He will draw close to himself here’s the thing that Kora missed God’s choice Kora may have been much more qualified to be high priest much more qualified than Aaron it’s just one problem God didn’t choose Kora he chose Aaron makes no sense it’s a paradox and you see as long as Kora does kora’s job it’s fine but the moment he steps over the line of what God has given Kora to do he’s now fighting against God go down to verse 11 therefore Moses says therefore you and your entire assembly that are joining together are against the Lord and this for Aaron what is he do you protest against him in other words it’s not about you Kora it’s not about Aaron it’s not about me it’s all about God and his choices and he makes choices we don’t make his ways aren’t our ways and for some reason he picks terribly unqualified men to do his work you ever think about some of the unqualified men God has chosen to do his work I mean I I me I was just thinking through real quick I JW down with you how about Samson here’s a guy who couldn’t get anything right the whole time he lived he was empowered by God with tremendous strength and every decision he made was dead wrong the only time he ever accomplished anything good was in his death but he continued to follow after sin and that sin made him weak it made him blind and it made him stupid and then eventually it made him dead and in his death he accomplished more he ever did in his life how about get here’s a man totally unqualified to lead an army he’s hiding in a hole winnowing his wheat and God just kind of shows up and and greets him as Gideon you mighty man of the Lord Mighty Man of the Lord he’s he’s a frightened farmer is all he is but God chooses him how about David when Samuel shows up at at Jesse’s house because God’s told him one of Jesse’s Sons will be the next king of Israel Jesse didn’t even bring bring in David he was totally unqualified now my other Sons they are imminently qualified to be king just pick one look at them but none of them were God’s choice David was God’s choice how about Yeshua what in the world qualified him to be the Messiah of Israel I mean his birth didn’t look all that that that right Born of a Virgin Mary’s pregnant before she’s married and um he’s a son of a carpenter from Nazareth can any good thing come out of Nazareth and a lot of people had a real hard time accepting the fact that he was indeed the anointed One of Israel but he was God’s choice we go on with Peter Paul and you know it was a funny thing Adam Haynes was over this this week a couple nights ago we got to talk and and I hadn’t thought about it until then to include it but you know um some of you a lot of the couples here have gone through a marriage class that we’ve hosted in our home Rob and I we’ve done it a few times and and we we go through some videos it’s a great time and we’ll be doing it again but the couples who come through we do these things called flag Pages it’s this thing that takes about five minutes you do it on the internet then it prints out this total uh personality picture of who you are it’s pretty amazing and everybody comes in and does this is very skeptical but when they read it it’s powerful we do it with uh cple couples when we do premarital counseling and it’s a powerful powerful tool and it’s uh amazingly accurate and um and so i’ had forgotten about mine and here about few months ago I dug it up and looked at it again because we were talking about flag pages and and and the flag page measures five major areas it me measures your your comfort in front of people talking to people you know your Showmanship or what you to call it and your creativity and your work ethic and your leadership skills and your people skills guess what my people skills are zero and my leadership skills zero again I did pretty well in the other three but I have no leadership skills and I have no people skills which doesn’t take some of you by surprise at all but uh but it’s like when I look at that I am absolutely totally unqualified to be sitting up here I have no business being up here and being a congre congregational leader of this place so why am I here it’s God’s Paradox God works in paradoxical ways I I brought some illustrations I shared some of you I look back on my notes it’s about five years ago that I I shared some of these I’ve added a couple more to the list just to give you an idea a a picture of how Paradox works now you know what a paradox is let me give you a definition yeah Paradox a couple definitions it’s a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth another definition is any person thing or situation exhibiting an apparently contradictory nature something is totally contradictory I mean let’s think about something a human being is a paradox because here we are bodies of Flesh animal bodies ape bodies and yet the Breath of God the nshama of God dwells within us so there’s this part of us that is totally physical and involved in the Physical Realm another part that is utterly spiritual totally contradictory but dwelling together in this Tabernacle called the human body so let me just give you some illustrations some pictures up here and uh some of you may have seen these before and if you have it it’s still fine because it still illustrates the point first one is like a little profile of a man’s face see the eyes you see the nose the mouth the chin a bit of the neck just look at this picture would you trust this guy would you trust him I wouldn’t because you see he’s a liar all right nothing changes in the picture but the picture says two things but we tend to only see one thing you know in the Psalms David writes two things one thing have you spoken two things have I heard and everything God speaks everything he does is very paradoxical now the person who can only see the face people who in other words who cannot see Paradox you know what we call them we call them religious but people who can see two things it what God speaks and what God does what God creates we call them spiritual let’s give another one okay here’s some numbers 3,414 3 340 there’s a line and then 437 this is a math problem do you see how they derive 437 from those first two numbers makes no sense does it until you flip it over then you see that 9 + 1 equal 10 oh and here’s a picture of a horse all right there’s a horse horse’s head in the stable you see the other animal there’s a frog sitting down at the bottom of the St now this little thing you know you know I hear you laughing that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do because this is something that’s incongruent frogs and horses have nothing to do with each other yet this same picture is a picture of a frog and it’s a picture of a horse and there’s something inside of us that delights at that because this illustrates optically something that’s very spiritual because that little thing inside of you that flipped over when I turned the picture you saw the horse become a frog that little experience that little tiny switch that flipped over from horse to frog that little switch should be flipping over you all the time as especially when you experience something very negative in your life because you see God does only good in our lives but we tend to to equate pleasure with good and pain with bad God only gives us good sometimes it’s Pleasant and sometimes it’s unpleasant but it’s always always always good and so the next time you come to a place where there’s pressure there’s tension there’s stress there’s pain learn how to rotate the picture learn how to look at the situation differently and be patient and that little switch will flip and then you’ll see the light in the darkness you’ll see the good inside the pain and then there’ll be this joy that Wells up here’s another one I love this one I’m going to show you half of the picture there you see it looks like a block of wood or something and there’s a little ledge sticking out of it and there’s a marble up on top of the wood and then two marbles on the the little shelf sticking out right nothing complicated let’s look at the other half of the picture now we see that there’s two shelves sticking out of the block of wood three marbles on the top and one on the bottom right there’s a picture of spirituality right there you look at the left you see one thing you look at the right you see another and as we know in scripture and God even made our bodies this way we have a left and a right and all through the scriptures the left side is the physical the right side is the spiritual they do not contradict one another they work in harmony with one another in ways that are absolutely unbelievable and the scriptures tell us that the heart of the wise is to the right and the Heart of the fool is to the left it doesn’t mean the physical is bad just means the wise man looks to the spiritual first he always stresses the spiritual because out of it flows the physical all right now before I put this one up I’ll give you a little little uh heads up all right there’s going to be a picture of three girls here two of them are sitting on a ball and the other one is not can you figure out which one is not [Music] okay oh I’m going to hear about this at home all right but look you’re getting good at this you you notice it right away didn’t you see you’re growing I saved this one for last I really don’t need to comment on it but there’re obviously two pictures here there is a picture of a a tree and another tree and there’s some buildings in the back and a woman here with a dress kind of walking from right to left but it’s also a man’s head with the eyes the nose the mouth if only we could always do in life daily what you can do optically with these slides because if you have eyes to see you will always see the hand of God in everything that happens in your life in your circumstances consistently constantly always he says I will never leave you nor forsake you but do you have eyes to see just how close he is or you just kind of go around with a patch over one eye you only look at the eye through the through at the world through the physical and you’re always moaning and complaining and whining because things aren’t going right oh Fally we could we could see the spiritual my my definition of spirituality is this the spiritual purse is one who sees God everywhere and in everything and remains quiet about it not silent just quiet that kind of person is always happy okay because they see what’s going on behind the scenes they see God’s hand at work all the time now I bring up these paradoxes because because Moses to a great degree is unqualified to be a leader of Israel and Aaron by all means was unqualified to be high priest and Kora was imminently qualified to be a high priest one problem God chose Aaron God did not choose Kora end the story you see when it comes to Spiritual Authority God does not accept volunteers he’ll accept volunteers for service and for obedience but for positions of Spiritual Authority he does not accept volunteers yet let me show you another another Paradox in this you know what happens to Kora God makes a new thing happened the Earth just opens up and swallows up Cor and his household and his property and then the Earth just like he never existed Kora wanted to be elevated spiritually and in Authority instead he just ascended alive right into the ground yet when you go over to chapter 17 look at this verse one Adonai spoke to Moses saying say to elazar son of Aaron the Cohen and let him pick up the fire pans from mid the fire you see here’s how the test was going to work um God had Moses tell Kora or have Kora fill his firan with coals and incense and all his 250 men they’ll bring their incense before the Lord hoping they’d remember what happened to naab and Abu when they tried this and died so these 250 men bring their fire pans and God does not accept it and then the Earth opens up swallows up Kora and these other 250 men die so what do you do with these fire pans say to elazar son of Aaron the Cohen and let him pick up the fire pans from amid the fire and he should throw away the flame for they have become holy what Kora the rebel and his 250 rebellious friends their fire pans are now holy you’d think the Earth had just opened up swallow them up as well but even though Kora and his men were reels they were actually against God the fire pans that they brought God says but they’re holy as for the fire pans of the Sinners against their souls they shall make them hammered out sheets as a covering for the Altar for they offered them before the Lord so they became holy you know in this in the same Torah portion if you go on a little bit further to chapter 20 we see another little mini Rebellion This Time by Moses himself after mariam’s death the rock that had been following them for 40 years quit giving water and so God tells Moses go to the Rock speak to it it’ll give water again in verse 9 it says Moses took the staff from before adoni as he had commanded him Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation before the Rock and he said to them listen now you rebels shall we bring forth water for you from this rock and Moses raised his arm and struck the rock with his staff twice instead of speaking to it he struck it it says abundant water came forth and the assembly in their animals drink Moses disobeyed God out of anger he disobeyed him but God still provided water and a miraculous way from The Rock so what are the consequences Adan I said to Moses into Aaron verse 12 because you did not believe in me to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel therefore you will not bring this congregation to the land that I have given them they are the Waters of strife where the children of Israel contended with the Lord and he was Sanctified through them what’s the them he’s referring to the waters compare these two cor is a rebel and the Earth swallows him up but the fire panss he and his friends brought become holy and they travel with the uh the altar they become a covering for the Altar for the rest of the the duration of of that Tabernacle Moses he sins says speak to the Rock and anger he strikes it and because of that he and Aaron were not permitted to enter the land of Canaan but God says but I will be made holy By the Waters that came out of the rock let me let me share an important insight and a principle here Kora was dead wrong and his 250 followers and then Moses was dead wrong here and yet these dead wrong men were used by God to bring about something holy don’t ever think for a moment that because God works a miracle through an individual that therefore that individual is his man or that individual is a holy person or a righteous person or as an obedient person or in God’s will I think one of the things the enemy has done these days and weever not on our guard we can fall prey to this is that he will use ungodly men and yet God will still work a miracle through them but it’s not an endorsement of the man you understand I mean in next week’s tour portion we’re going to see God speaking through a donkey that doesn’t mean we should put donkeys behind the pull pit you see so make sure you you get hold of that principle it’s a paradox how can God use a rebel like core and these 250 Rebels are follow them and their fire become holy how could God take this fit of anger in which Moses speaks in this rebellion in this anger and this Disobedience but he still brings the water from the rock he’s going to be Sanctified by the waters if not by Moses do you get it our God only has imperfect equipment and tools to use but he uses them in Mighty ways you know even even where Moses speaks there when he says hereo rebels in Hebrew it’s uh shamun listen up you rebels do you know the word morim Rebels the exact same identical word as Miriam Moses sister you’ll find in Hebrew this this amazing thing about the Hebrew language it’s just absolutely mindboggling it can be very confusing and frustrating at first but then you kind of flow with it you begin to see the Wonders and what God does because there’s so many words in Hebrew that mean one thing and then also mean the exact opposite of that thing and you look at the context to see which it is Miriam is one example um you could take the word katat which means sin butat also means to be purified from sin the word panim which is translated face could mean the external but panim is also used to refer to the internal how about the word kadosh Kadesh Kadesh they different ways to pronounce the same word kadosh means holy and yet you know what a temple prostitute was called among the Pagan religions same word exact same word yet couldn’t be more Unholy I mean more unrighteous how about the word shakar which means black and yet the morning prayers are called shakaris comes from the word shakar it means the morning the dawning of the light how can the same word which means dark and black mean the dawning of the light but it does God is a god of paradoxes you can’t deal with that you can be religious you can never be spiritual um I mean after all do you really want to guide like you I’ll think that as a no and yet people who worship idols what do they do they make Idols in their own image or worse they make them the image of an animal and what we tend to do is we read the word about the God the creator of the universe but we want to somehow mold him into our image at least where he works the way we think he should work we want him to be tame and controllable he we want a God we can manipulate so when we say certain words and certain prayers if we had in Jesus name the of a prayer then God’s held hostage he’s got to do what we say now do we really want a God in our image no and what kind of God would that be worth we’re Made In His Image and we should be growing to be more like him and we have a paradoxical God he’s a God who says he even dwells in the thick Darkness even the darkest to him is light God is a God who can take the greatest sin in the world the crucifixion of his son and turn that into the greatest blessing in human history in fact that’s what our next door portion is about go now to kukat which begins in Numbers Chapter uh 19 Kat kukat comes from the word Koch which means a commandment which has absolutely no foundation in human logic and they call this commandment about the red heer as the prime example of a hoke something that totally defies logic let’s read a little bit about what the red Huffer is all about uh we’ll read the first 10 verses numbers 19 starting with verse one Adon I spoke to Moses and to Aaron saying this is the Coke or the kukat of the Torah kukat means decree of which adoniah is commanded saying speak to the children of Israel and they shall take to you a completely Red Cow a heer is a female cow um I think I shared this a long time ago but uh in my parents are from Tennessee and for the longest time as a kid I thought a heer was a bad driver from my dad I mean that’s how my dad used the term I I was month later I realized it was a cow but anyways it’s a cow and this is a a par aduma it’s a red cow which is without blemish and upon which a yoke has not come you shall give it to elazar the Cohen he shall take it to the outside of the camp and someone shall Slaughter it in his presence now already this is bizarre because this is the only sacrifice that would be sacrificed outside of the Tabernacle outside of the camp and it’s not done by the priest it can be done by anybody as long as the priest is watching elazar the Cohen shall take some of its blood with his forefinger and sprinkle it some of its blood toward the tent of meeting seven times all the other times blood is sprinkled it’s in the tent of meeting before the curtain or onto the altar itself but this is way outside the camp and he just sees the Tabernacle in the camp way off the distance he just sprinkles the finger with the blood on it that direction someone shall burn the cow before his eyes its hide and its flesh and its blood with its dung shall he burn he’s burned the entire thing the Coen shall take cedar wood hsip and crom thread he shall throw them into the burning of the cow now what’s the purpose of this here it is the Cohen shall immerse his clothing and immerse himself in water and afterwards he may enter the camp and the Coen shall remain contaminated until evening the one who burns it shall immerse his clothing immerse himself in water he shall remain contaminated until evening a pure man Shall Gather the ash of the cow and place it outside the camp and a pure place for the Assembly of Israel it shall remain as a safekeeping for water of purification the one who gathered the ash of the cow shall immerse his clothing and remain contaminated until evening it shall be for the children of Israel and for the proelite or the uh the Sojourner who dwells among them as an eternal decree the purpose of the ashes of the sepher that they would be mixed with Waters take a little bit with a large amount of water and they these containers of water with the ashes would there’ be several containers and they would be spread out all over Israel so when someone was contaminated by coming in contact with a dead body they would go to the local priest he would sprinkle them with this water with the ashes of the red Huffer and they would be made pure that’s the purpose of these ashes but here’s the thing that nobody could quite get if the ashes of this cow makes the Imp pure pure then why is it that Those Who Kill The Cow burn the cow gather the ashes of the cow are all made impure by their involvement I mean in the Tabernacle in the priest sacrifice an animal sacrificing the animal did not make the priest impure but in this case for this sacrifice any involvement any involvement whatsoever with this sacrifice makes that person impure but the ashes of this sacrifice make the impure pure let me read a little bit of what the sages say about this it says that the midrash to this chapter focuses primarily on one Paradox and the laws of the red cow it’s ashes purify people who had become contaminated yet those who engage in its preparation become contaminated it was regarding this aspect of its laws that King Solomon exclaimed quote I said I would be wise but it is far from me unquote that’s from Ecclesiastes 7:23 he said this dumps Solomon he could not figure this out on this theme the midrash cites the verse Job 14:4 who can draw a pure thing out of an impure one no one job said who can draw an impure thing out who can draw a pure thing out of an impure one no one but that that phrase in Hebrew where it says load not one can also be translated this way who can draw a pure thing out of an impure one is it not the one one is there not one who can and there is now anyone who knows the gospel story understands the red Heffer the red Heuer is a picture of Messiah everyone involved in his death committed a terrible crime a terrible sin and they were tainted by that because here was the purest person who ever lived sinless the Son of God the Torah made flesh and they murdered him those who tried him were guilty of passing a false sentence those who beat him were guilty of beating an innocent man those who drove the nails into his hands and feet were guilty of murdering an innocent man everyone from the priest to pilate to the Roman soldiers and everyone in between every contact they had with Messiah as they participated in his death they all committed tremendous sin it was a greatest sin ever committed and yet it was his death that brings forgiveness and Purity to the entire world you see talk about a paradox there’s a paradox if there ever was one Messiah himself is a paradox it’s one of the things that makes him the Messiah do you really want a messiah who thinks and acts like you no I don’t think so there’s another great Paradox in this chapter there are two animals in this chapter and we have to learn to to think paradoxically because the manora itself and always talk about the manora pattern right the manora is a is is an embodiment of a paradox because you’ve got this Central stock and then you’ve got branches that go off to the left and for every Branch to left you’ve got one that’s totally opposite goes off to the right but that’s where the balance is you see that the pair the manure itself is the embodiment a physical embodiment of paradox of opposites that come together in perfect balance to provide great light so in this Torah portion of kukat we have two animals first one’s the red he what’s the other animal snake I think a horse and a Frog are opposite so how about a red cow and then a poisonous snake but you go over to chapter uh 21 chapter 21 verse four they journeyed from the mount by way of the Sea of reeds to go around the land of Edom and the spirit of the people grew short on the way the people spoke against God and Moses why did you why did you bring us I have to put my whiny voice on why did you bring us up from Egypt to D this I mean does that ever get old if there’s any part of the Bible I find boring it’s the whining that these people do it’s like I just want go on to the next verse verse six God sent the fiery serpents fiery um it’s the word sah which means you know we have seraphim which are the fire Angels the angels of fire but serah means to burn with fire and I would imagine it was not because these these serpents were on fire but their bites felt like fire I’ve been told that uh well have you ever been stung by a bee or hornet it that burning sensation well I’ve heard that the Venom of a snake is the same thing just multiply it by 100 so these are called fiery serpents because their I believe because their bite caused such a sensation of fire and burning God sent the fiery serpents against the people and they bit the people a large multitude of Israel died the people came to Moses and said we have sinned finally finally they figured it out we have sinned for we have spoken against the Lord and against you pray to adoni that he remove from us the serpent Moses prayed for the people now here’s the Paradox Adon said to Moses make a fiery doesn’t say serpent there that’s a implied but make a fiery make a fiery serpent well wait a minute stop the music serpents are the problem we don’t need another serpent we want to get rid of the serpents the prayers make the serpents go away and you want me to make another one let’s go on and place it on a pole you know I always thought Common Sense human logic is say what you should make is a a fiery Mongoose and put it on a pole cuz Mongo’s eat is monges monges eat snake we were in Jamaica on our our cruise and uh and the uh we took a little bus tour and they took us up in the rainforest and everything and the lady was saying we used to have a terrible snake problem in Jamaica up until 150 years ago uh or something like that and the British brought in all these mongooses and just turn them loose on the island and there are no snakes in Jamaica anymore but they said we’re overrun by mongooses and later on in the bus we saw one go across the road she oh there’s a mongoose right there and uh you’d think a mongoose would be the solution but no God says make another Serpent and put it on a pole and it will be that anyone who is bitten will look at it and live Moses made a serpent of copper or yours might say bronze uh we don’t know how to translate that word net in Hebrew but he made one out of copper bronze bronze is mostly made out of copper anyway bronze and I think a little tin and placed it on the pole so it was that if the serpent bet a man he would stare the copper Serpent and live what in the world is this a picture of it’s a picture of the same thing that the red heer is a picture of what did Yeshua become he who knew no sin became sin that’s a powerful Insight sin was the problem and so the Messiah comes and he becomes sin for us he’s just like just took sin just just soaked it right up out of the world out of us out of our souls because you see when you look at the sacrifices never ever was the animal to be tortured to death it was never to be beaten never to have nails driven through it never be mocked and spit on it was to be killed as painlessly as possible so the animal would have the sensation of just falling asleep that wasn’t the case with Messiah though why because God God was displaying for us what he has done to our sin he’s taken the hands of our sin and nailed them down to where they can’t they’re ineffective they’re powerless he’s taken the feet of our sin they can’t take it can’t take us where we want to go where it wants to take us anymore they’re nailed down it took the heart of our sin drove a spear into it he took the thoughts sinful thoughts and impaled them with a crown of Thorns he took the mouth of sin let it dry up so much to where Messiah said I thirst you get the idea don’t ever buy the stuff where God poured out his wrath on Yeshua on the cross I hear preachers preach that once in a while God poured out his wrath on Messiah he had no wrath towards Messiah it was his son for Pete’s sake if God ever wept that was when he wept right there that wasn’t God pouring out his Wrath of Messiah that was the enemy pouring out his wrath on him and he was doing it through the priest through the through the Romans through all those involved in his death and we all had a hand in in ourselves when you look in your mind at what happened to Messiah there on the cross that’s a picture of what God’s done to your sin and if you’re continue to sin you have no excuse you’re sinning because you choose to not because you have to to we’re all weak our problem is our weakness our our inability it seems like to say no but you can say no and if we walk in his word and and we feed upon his word we’ll have strength to walk out of that slavery and and to walk as free people there’s a powerful Insight in um the Hebrew here and I know many of you are familiar with this but we’ll close with this if you look in the Hebrew you can find it over you have a a Hebrew Bible look over at the Hebrew side you will see there in that verse the word nakash nakash is the word for Serpent and there it is as spelled in the Hebrew ninash all right everybody got that now in the Hebrew alphabet the last letter of the alphabet the letter t means cross and that is not a Christian uh interpretation I discovered this as I’ve told you before in a uh a Jewish Hebrew grammar book and since then I found it if you know where to look in the Hebrew books published by Jewish publishing companies they all will say say that the last letter of the alphabet represents a cross and you may think well that doesn’t look like a cross well the crosses you’re used to seeing are shaped like a tea but when Yeshua was crucified it it doesn’t appear he was crucified on a t-shaped structure you know you you see in the movies where they dig a hole and they put him on the cross they drop it down the hole and make it very dramatic it didn’t happen like that face it the Romans want to make it as easy on themselves as possible and there’s a place of public crucifixion they’re going to leave the post in the holes all the time they’re not going to dig new holes every time they crucified anybody or they’d be digging holes every day they left the uprights in the holes all the time so when Yeshua carried his cross he carried the Cross Beam the horizontal part on his shoulders that’s what he carried and when they nailed him down they nailed his hands to the Cross Beam they put it up in place and they hung it on the verticals so it was shaped like that more or less so his hands were crucified nailed out this way and his feet would have been crucified in a spread eagal position like an ex and what’s interesting is that there’s another way of writing Hebrew letters the Paleo Hebrew and when you make the letter T and paleo Hebrew it’s shaped like an X all right but regardless we’ll all find out exactly how it all work later on but needless to say the fact remains the last letter of the alphabet the letter t means cross nakash a serpent Tu is cross and Moses made a nakash naket look at the word for brass you see it there’s nakash n Shin but this time it’s attached to T the cross this is how it appears in the Bible Brazen serpent is nakash naket nakash is serpent but the word for brass is naket that is no accident see what’s being portrayed here see what’s being pictured here’s the serpent attached to the Cross here’s our sin attached to the cross and when you they looked at this they were healed they lived now there’s a paradox paradox is the very nature of our God loving Paradox wise paradox always keeping us guessing because he’s always doing two things at a time at least never just one but do we have the eyes to see beyond the physical what a wonderful God we have what an Incredible God how wise i title this Slide the problem is the solution that’s one of my favorite sayings because Robin and I since we discovered this principle for years now every time a problem comes along we almost race to see who’s the first one to say the problem is the solution it’s always always always proven true if you look at the problem look at it closely let it play out you’ll see that in the problem it contains the solution itself to something much broader than what you thought the problem was this is how our God works this is how he hides himself and uh you know what as much as I long to see him face to face and someday every one of us will in the meantime in this world under the conditions we live in now I wouldn’t change a thing if it was better for him for us to be able just to see him clearly without any obstruction without any fog between us and the truth he would do that but for right now the very best place we could possibly be is where we’re at right this moment in the conditions we’re living right now but let’s do it with both eyes open now I hope this teaching that’s on my heart just gives you at least a desire to see things better and to realize there is more to see than what you’re seeing look for more than what just appears in the eye remember the illustrations we put up here on the overhead and begin to practice this every day of your life and look for God’s hand and everything it’s always there he promises that it is and if it’s not then he lied to us it’s incap he’s incapable of lying he speaks the truth and like uh Rabbi David Aaron says if you have trouble seeing God it’s not because he’s so far away it’s because he’s so close that’s why we have trouble seeing him sometimes well let’s close in prayer father thank you so much for being exactly the way you are you don’t need to change you’re perfect and forgive us for the times we wish you were different and Messiah himself said blessed is the man whosoever is not offended in me so Lord forgive us if we’ve ever been offended because you didn’t do things our way but lord it’s not you who needs to change we do we need to grow up we need to mature we need to be become the people you want us to be so father I pray you give us a Clear Vision of reality help us to see the Physical Realm and how it works and and get a good education and understanding and knowledge to the best of our abilities but father with that give us spiritual insight as to what’s going on behind the scenes so we recognize your hand in everything that takes place for you are there for the very creation that conceals you also reveals you but con see him so father I pray you’d give us the ability to see you better and as a result to be more like you and in the time we have left here in this Flesh on this Earth may be continued to grow and reach the goal of full stature and that we might appear before you as Faithful Servants as the men and the women as the sons and the daughters you desire us to be and this we’ll do with your help we ask in yeshua’s name amen [Music]