The Angel of the Lord: Part 6 :: By Randy Nettles

Published on: April 2, 2020 by RR7

Moses brought the children of Israel from the Red Sea into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. “Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people complained against Moses, saying, What shall we drink” (Exodus 15:23-24). This was the first of many murmurings against Moses by the people. Moses cried unto the Lord about this situation. The Lord told Moses to cast a certain tree into the water, which made the water good to drink.

They left Mariah and came to Elim where there were twelve wells of water, and they encamped there by the waters. They departed from Elim and came into the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the 15th day of the 2nd month after their departure from Egypt. Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.

“And the children of Israel said to them, Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not” (Exodus 16:2-4).

“Then Moses and Aaron said to all the children of Israel, At evening you shall know that the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt. And in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord; for He hears your complaints against the Lord. But what are we, that you complain against us? Also Moses said, This shall be seen when the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening, and in the morning bread to the full; for the Lord hears your complaints which you make against Him. And what are we? Your complaints are not against us but against the Lord.

“Then Moses spoke to Aaron, Say to all the congregation of the children of Israel, Come near before the Lord, for He has heard your complaints. Now it came to pass, as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud” (Exodus 16:6-10).

The “cloud” was a theophany of the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jehovah “appearing in a cloud” is similar to the “burning bush” event of Exodus 3:2-5, where two Persons of the Triune God are involved, Jehovah and the Holy Spirit. At this time, Moses did not want to look into the burning bush to see the Lord, for he was terribly afraid.

The Angel of the Lord (who was in the cloud) turned His Shekinah glory on and lit up the “cloud.” All the people could see was a bright form inside the cloud. No human can see the glory of the Lord face to face and live. The Lord told Moses that he heard the murmurings from the people and would take care of their needs. Then they would know He was the Lord their God.

“So it was that quail came up at evening and covered the camp, and in the morning the dew lay all around the camp. And when the layer of dew lifted, there, on the surface of the wilderness, was a small round substance, as fine as frost on the ground. So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, What is it? For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat” (Exodus 16:13-15).

The Lord gave instructions to Moses regarding the gathering of the manna. It appeared on the ground each day as thin flakes like frost. The people ground it like grain and cooked it like a pancake. They were to eat all they gathered and not save any for the next day, or else it would stink and breed worms. On the 6^th day, they were to gather twice as much manna, and were allowed to keep some for the next day.

Moses instructed the people about this allowance: “Then he said to them, This is what the Lord has said: Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake today, and boil what you will boil; and lay up for yourselves all that remains, to be kept until morning. So they laid it up till morning, as Moses commanded; and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it. Then Moses said, Eat that today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none” (Exodus 16:23-26).

Unfortunately, some of the murmurers disobeyed this commandment, so the Lord told Moses to make sure all the people obeyed and not gather any manna on the 7^th day (Sabbath). “And the house of Israel called its name manna. And it was like white coriander seed, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey” (Exodus 16:31). This commandment to rest and do no work on the 7^th day is reminiscent of the one God gave Moses (during the Passover event in Egypt) regarding the 7th day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The children of Israel ate manna for forty years until they came into the borders of the land of Canaan.

God rested on the seventh day of creation and blessed it. He made sure His chosen people, Israel, did the same on the Sabbath day. Resting on the Sabbath was not a suggestion; it was a commandment. For the Hebrews, it was a capital offense to work on this special day of the Lord.

The people journeyed to Rephidim, and there was no water for the people to drink. “Therefore the people contended with Moses, and said, Give us water, that we may drink. So Moses said to them, Why do you contend with me? Why do you tempt the Lord? And the people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses, and said, Why is it you have brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me!” (Exodus 17:2-4)

The Lord told Moses to gather the elders of Israel (and take his rod that he smote the Red Sea with) and go to where He would direct them. “Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. So he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the contention of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us or not?” (Exodus 17:6-7).

The Amaleks came and fought in Rephidim. Moses told Joshua, his lieutenant, to choose men and go out and fight them. Amalek was a descendant of Amalek, a grandson of Esau. Joshua obeyed Moses and fought with Amalek. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of a hill.

“And so it was, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands became heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. And Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. So Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword” (Exodus 17:11-13).

Moses gave thanks to the Lord. He built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah-nissis, for he said, “Because the Lord has sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”

The children of Israel came to Mount Sinai in the third month (Sivan), on the same calendar day as their departure from Egypt (14^th day of the month). The date would have been Sivan 14, 1446 B.C.

“And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel” (Exodus 19:3-6).

Moses relayed this message from the Lord to the Israelites. All the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” “Then the Lord said to Moses, Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes. And let them be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people” (Exodus 19:10-12). The Lord also told Moses to inform the people to keep a safe distance from the mountain and base. If they touched the mountain they would be killed.

“Then it came to pass on the third day [Sivan 17, 1446 BC], in the morning, that there were thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain; and the sound of the trumpet was very loud, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly” (Ezekiel 19:16-18). This is reminiscent of the theophany during the covenant between Abraham and God where “the smoking furnace” and the “burning lamp” passed between the pieces of the sacrifice.

This was a spectacular theophany of Jehovah in his glorious, Godly form. He was accompanied by the Holy Spirit in the form/s of a cloud and smoke (like a furnace). The children of Israel were looking from a safe distance because of their great fear. They couldn’t make out any details of God, but they saw the accompanying elements that surrounded Him… fire, dark clouds, lighting, thunder, and a loud sound of a trumpet. Trumpets were always played upon an arrival of the king in ancient times. This sound, however, was the sound of a trumpet played by a heavenly being and not by an earthly man.

“And when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by voice. Then the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. And the Lord said to Moses, Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to gaze at the Lord, and many of them perish. Also let the priests who come near the Lord consecrate themselves, lest the Lord break out against them” (Exodus 19:19-22).

Moses did as he was told and went down the mountain and warned the people once again. He then went back up the Mount again and talked with God. The Lord God verbally gave Moses the Ten Commandments, laws concerning people and property, and general laws for living as a people and nation of the Lord… He stressed the importance of the 4^th Commandment (no work on the Sabbath).

The Lord also informed Moses that the land should rest every 7 years. That meant the people and work animals were not to sow the land every 7^th year. If they obeyed God, He would make the 6^th year so bountiful that it would last for the next couple of years. The Lord instructed Moses that three times in a year all Hebrew adult males would gather and keep a feast unto the Lord. These three events were known as the feast of Unleavened Bread, feast of harvest (later called Pentecost), and the feast of ingathering (later called Tabernacles).

Jehovah told Moses, “Behold, I send an Angel (Angel of the Lord) before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him. But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.

“For My Angel will go before you and bring you in to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will cut them off. You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their works; but you shall utterly overthrow them and completely break down their sacred pillars. So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you. No one shall suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days” (Exodus 23:20-26).

Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all His laws and commandments. The people answered with one voice, and said, “All the words which the Lord has said, we will do.” Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and then built an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel. The children of Israel offered burnt offerings and sacrificed peace offerings to the Lord. “And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words” (Exodus 24:8).

After the blood covenant, Moses, Aaron and his two sons, and 70 of the elders of Israel went up the mountain. There they saw the God of Israel, “and there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity. But on the nobles of the children of Israel He did not lay His hand. So they saw God, and they ate and drank” (Exodus 24:10-11). Seventy four children of Israel saw a theophany of Jehovah on this day. This was probably the Angel of the Lord in an angelic body, but not the glorified Jehovah in His Shekinah glory.

“Then the Lord said to Moses, Come up to Me on the mountain and be there; and I will give you tablets of stone (the Ten Commandments), and the law and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them. So Moses arose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up to the mountain of God. And he said to the elders, Wait here for us until we come back to you. Indeed, Aaron and Hur are with you. If any man has a difficulty, let him go to them.

“Then Moses went up into the mountain, and a cloud covered the mountain. Now the glory (Shekinah) of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day He called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. The sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel. So Moses went into the midst of the cloud and went up into the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights” (Exodus 24:12-18). This time Moses wanted to see the full glory of the Lord, unlike when he was too afraid to look into the “burning bush.”

nettlesr@suddenlink.net

Study Through Romans: Lesson 13 :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: April 1, 2020 by RR7

Chapter 4: 14-25 (NKJV)
The Certainty of God’s Promises

“¹⁴ For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, ¹⁵ because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression.¹⁶ Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all ¹⁷ (as it is written, ‘I have made you a father of many nations’) in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; ¹⁸ who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, ‘So shall your descendants be.’

“¹⁹ And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. ²⁰ He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, ²¹ and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. ²² And therefore ‘it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ ²³ Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, ²⁴ but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, ²⁵ who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.“

I pray that you are well and that you and your families are safe from this virus that is circumventing the globe. Personally, I have been laid off my secular job for 2 weeks, to begin with, and I am at home with my family. My wife is in the Nursing Home business, and there is always work there.

Our study through Romans is not necessarily a prophetic one; and at a time like this, many are asking if we are looking at the end. I am going to spend a bit of time talking about what we have before us right now. And, then we will look at the idea of God’s promises and the security that we have in them.

I have a dear friend who works with me in prophecy stuff quite a bit, and a lot of the secular markers have been silent for some time. But this pandemic is the perfect tool for the New World Order (NWO) to advance their agenda. The NWO has been in work since Genesis 11: 1-4,

“Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. Then they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.‘ They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.‘”

The people who came out of the flood, 8 of them, had populated the earth; and in a short time, here we have rebellious man seeking to worship someone other than the God of Heaven. Some of these, if not all of these persons involved in the building of the Tower of Babel, would have either seen firsthand or been the children of persons who saw firsthand the Ark that survived the Great Flood. Yet in total defiance of the Lord, they built this tower to worship the stars of Heaven. We are still seeing the effects of this today in the Horoscope that is in our daily newspapers.

In 2020, we have the modern tower of Babel in the European Union parliament building that is deliberately designed to look like the unfinished tower of Genesis 11. Like the Kingdom of Light, the kingdom of darkness is progressing along, awaiting the arrival of their messiah, the Man of Sin as the Bible calls him. We, the Kingdom of Light, are awaiting the arrival of the true Messiah, Jesus the Christ. Over the years the NWO has looked for ways to advance their control over the masses, in particular tearing down the boundaries and trying to create the global entity that they need to be able to control all who are living on the planet once the Rapture takes place and the world is in need of a leader.

The Mainstream Media and they can shut down the world in a matter of weeks if they need to. No airplane flying, no commerce, no paper money and no work. We had a bit of this back in 9-11 when they shut down all of North America for commercial air travel for about a week. In 2013 at the Boston Marathon bombing, those in authority invented a new phrase ‘shelter in place,’ to replace the idea of martial law. The entire city of Boston shut down as they looked for the two young men that did the bombing. In November of 2015 in Paris France, after the mass shooting in Paris, the authorities were able to shut down the entire country of France with the same phrase ‘shelter in place.’ Now we have Italy and Spain shut down, the state of California and Michigan in the US, and many other places being shut down.

Here in Ontario, we have everything shut down except for essential services like groceries and the like. The government is spending billions of dollars to prop up the economy and keep companies afloat. In the USA, the President is about to sign a 2 Trillion-dollar spending bill to keep that economy afloat. The Bible says that the borrower is a slave to the lender, Proverbs 22:7, but a very famous banker put it this way, “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws.” ~ Mayer Amschel Rothschild. Right now, the central banks of the world are about to put the largest economies of the world into greater slavery.

As we speak, the world is simply at the mercy of her leaders. They speak in closed sessions on encrypted phones, and they make decisions that affect us, and we trust them. There is an end game. In Canada, the Prime Minister and his party tried to sneak in legislation that would have given them greater powers. The Democrats in the House and Senate tried to hold the US public as hostages until they were able to sneak in huge socialist steps that would have altered the US economy for a long time. Freethinkers like Trump in the US and Boris Johnston in the UK are understanding that if you allow the country to languish for too long, the economy may never recover. The hole will be so big that you could never fill it.

This is the goal for the NWO, to create a hole so big that the government will become the saviour of the world.

One more thing: I had my dear friend tell me to look at the website ID2020. This is a site for the Digital Identity Alliance; the site marvels that 1.1 billion people have no digital identity, and they are seeking to get them all on board. Well, here in Ontario many companies have little signs that they would prefer if you use debit or credit cards to pay for items as the Coronavirus can sit on surfaces and live for days. This is forcing more and more people to go to a digital footprint. The government that will be in place after the Rapture will need everyone to have a digital footprint to track them and bring in the numbers that are needed to buy and sell.

Revelation 13:16-17, “He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

When I first began to hear about the Mark of the Beast, we had a hard time wondering how the government of the Man of Sin would control the world. But we can see it playing out before us. The Chinese government used cellphones to track those that had to self-quarantine. According to Fox Business news, the Chinese government used an App to track persons who should have been quarantined. Anyone who watches FBI shows or CSI shows knows that anyone with a phone can be tracked. By forcing the non-digital world to get into the digital age, they can get more and more people registered. This makes the job of the NWO easier once the trouble hits after the Rapture.

I cannot tell you if the virus was deliberate, but I can tell you that the agenda is advanced for the NWO and that the time of our redemption draws near. Those of us that are Christians can see the end, and the rejoicing that we have inside of us, and the horror we have for those we love but they don’t know Jesus as Savior. If they think this is hard, they have not seen anything yet.

The Promises of the Lord God, Romans 4:19-20

God made Abraham a promise that he would have a son. In Genesis 12:1-3, God promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation. Abraham was about 75 years old when this promise was made, and Sarah, his wife, about 65 years old. In Genesis 21, some 25 years later, Isaac is born. Later in Genesis 22, God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and we are told that Abraham (Hebrews 11:17-19) believed God could raise Isaac from the dead since he had been born in his old age when he was not to be having children. Abraham was secure in the Lord’s promises and trusted Him. He knew that the Lord was faithful. We too have promises from the Lord; we have the promise of the rapture from the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

The Bible teaches that before the Tribulation begins, Daniel’s 70th week, we will be taken out by the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 5:9 says that we are not appointed to wrath but to obtain salvation – you see, we have this promise from the Lord. Those of us who are saved, those like Abraham who had faith in the Promise of God and that He trusted in God. We who trust in the Lord, that He would save us if we put our faith in Jesus and His death, burial and resurrection, are promised that we will be taken out of the world before the time of Jacob’s trouble, Jeremiah 30:7. The end of the church age will begin the return to God returning to working with the Jewish nation.

These promises keep us going in times of trouble. In Luke 12: 22-26 we are reminded not to worry about anything; God has everything under control, and He has promised to supply all of our needs. The Lord will take care of His own, and He is able to take care of His own, Psalm 50:10. You see, we can take a look at the life of Abraham and see that God is faithful and able to keep us and to fulfill all of His promises. Let us not lose heart in these times, but let us grow confident as we see the truths of the scriptures play out before us. God is in control.

The NWO may think that they are advancing their agenda, but in truth, they are advancing God’s agenda. They think they are in control, but God is in charge; and in Psalm 2:4 we are told that He will laugh at them. They think they can throw off God and remove him from office, but they are fools, idiots and simple pawns in the hand of the Almighty. We will take a longer look at the promises of the Lord next week.

Proverbs 3: 5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

God bless you,

Pastor Sean Gooding

Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca