BAMIDBAR

IN THE WILDERNESS

4 And they journeyed from mount Hor by the way of the Red sea, to compass the land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way.

When difficulty succeeds difficulty apparently without end, human strength and patience are likely to give way...Israels journey was long and trying; but under divine leadership, they persevered, and the end came at last. They found themselves at the end of the forty years, (and after a few years fighting), settled in peace and safety in the land of promise.

These things were types and examples. They serve their purpose if we learn from them to be patient under all the toils of the journey we are making through the present evil world. The journey will not last for ever.

But while we are here in conflict with the evil we need to be fortified < fortified to endure. To fortify the mind is to make it strong, and to make it strong is to fill it with ideas that give a joyful reason for action. There are ideas that have no power to influence the mind in this way, but contrariwise. This is why some books are profitable, and some not; some men helpful and some not. The ideas that inspire us to endure tribulation, and to deny ourselves are those that are connected with God. As David says, 'I saw the Lord always before me, therefore I shall not be moved'. In proportion as God is a vision before the mind, will we feel strong to sustain the part of waiting for Him.

We cannot in our day get this vision apart from the Bible. We cannot see God with the natural eye. We could even do this, if God permitted. We may hope to see and feel Him in the glorious ages, if we are permitted to have a place therein. But, meanwhile, our privilege is limited to knowledge and faith, and these we do not get as students of nature, but as students of the Scriptures. God has put it in our power to know Him by the abundant revelation He has made. Oh, how privileged we are to have this revelation.

It is communicated to us in a form so full of interest and so able to thoroughly furnish the man of God unto all good works. Those discover this who read methodically and daily. By this habit they open for themselves treasures of acquaintance and conviction that cannot be reached by the casual, desultory, or indifferent reader.

Exhort Bro Roberts - Fortified to endure.

8 And Yahweh said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.

Why was Christ made in Adam's nature?

Answer.—That he might die for those involved in the condemnation of that nature (1), being put to the proof of obedience under which Adam failed (2). If it had merely been a question of putting him to the proof of obedience, there would have been no reason for his being born of Mary.

It would have sufficed for such an object that he had been made out of the ground, direct, a full grown adult as Adam was. But the plan was to condemn sin in its own nature (3), after the type of the serpent in the wilderness. The bitten Israelites were asked to look at the biter impaled, as the condition of being healed. Jesus said this had to be fulfilled in him (4). Human nature as the sinner was the biter, and in him, it was lifted up in condemnation on the cross.

1. —1 Peter 4:1: "Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh; " 1 Peter 3:18: "Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God;" Romans 8:3: "God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and on account of sin condemned sin in the flesh."

2. —Romans 5:19: "By the obedience of one shall many be righteous." Heb. 5:8: "He learned obedience by the things that he suffered." Phil. 2:8: "He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

3. —Romans 8:3: "Condemned sin in the flesh."

4. —John 3:14: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up."

The Christadelphian, July 1873