IT'S  SAbbath
 The Laws Concerning

THE GOSPEL MESSAGE THAT Paul preached

 Blessed art thou, L-rd our G-d,
King of the Universe, who has sanctified
Us with Thy commandments, and
Commanded us to study the Torah
 

Chapter16

1 Then they set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the sons of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt. 2 The whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 The sons of Israel said to them, "Would that we had died by the LORD'S hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full ; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." 4 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction. 5 "On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily." 6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the sons of Israel, "At evening you will know that the LORD has brought you out of the land of Egypt ; 7 and in the morning you will see the glory of the LORD, for He hears your grumblings against the LORD ; and what are we, that you grumble against us?" 8 Moses said, "This will happen when the LORD gives you meat to eat in the evening, and bread to the full in the morning; for the LORD hears your grumblings which you grumble against Him. And what are we? Your grumblings are not against us but against the LORD." 9 Then Moses said to Aaron, "Say to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, 'Come near before the LORD, for He has heard your grumblings.'" 10 It came about as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud.

If the stories contained within Torah reflect anything, they certainly reflect human nature! They’re hardly finished celebrating that they got through that Red Sea and have just been singing about how all those chariots were bogged down in the mud, when they came upon some pretty brackish (or salty or bitter) water and the kvetching began. To move that many people in one body through the wilderness must have been a feat in itself. They had to follow Moshe because they didn’t know where else to go if they split off so they might have felt safer in the numbers but at the same time they would register their upset at the first apparent snag along the way. I’m positive that there were some optimistic folks in there somewhere—that they looked at the problem and made the connection, “Yes, perhaps this is so that we will trust in the God of our Fathers! He dispatched Egypt in the Red Sea, so what is revealing to us a source of good water for Him?” But unfortunately, they were the great minority in this huge crowd. And for them all, Yah showed Moses a tree.

25 Then he cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a tree; and he threw it into the waters, and the waters became sweet. There He made for them a statute and regulation, and there He tested them. 26 And He said, "If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the LORD, am your healer."

They passed through Elim, where the locale was wonderful for both water and shade from the daily relentless sun. But taking up the march again, they became faint with hunger—and faint with complaint! Now the kvetch of the matter was hunger. The stores of food that they had carried out with them from Egypt were now gone after about a month on the journey. It caused them to have that “halo” effect regarding Egypt—“Oh it wasn’t so bad being in slavery in Egypt after all—at lease we ate well!” Now how like human nature is that? And then they come to another huge lesson in trust. There had to be some in the mixt multitude who had enough faith to gather themselves together and say, “Let’s ask The Father to provide food.” Or at the very least there had to be some who said, “Let’s hear from Moshe what The Father God says”. But they were in the greatly overwhelmed minority and for the sake of those who had little faith, and for those who would read the accounts in the passage of time (like us), Yah allowed the hunger and the unrest for the purpose of the lesson to be taught. But, sadly, whether that lesson, like the other, would be truly integrated and learned is a whole other story again. As remnant believers we may well have to experience this same sort of basic trust regarding the basic necessities. Up until now, our water and our bread have been so easily attainable. But as we remember from my “rant” yesterday regarding the situation in the food industry with the permeation and promulgation of these GMO products in our society we are facing similar problems. Our water is tainted with fluoride 2 and now our bread is tainted with grains that have been altered in their DNA to kill insects after the insects ingest some of the plant. As the whole point of the lesson in the days of Moses, so is the point of the lesson for us. Trusting Him for the very basic needs of our lives are the building blocks of the ability to trust Him for every other thing in our lives. We want to trust the government (“Oh the government has our best interests in mind”, some say. I beg to differ.) We want to trust ourselves and then when we lose our job or become incapacitated, and there is no money with which to buy our bread what then? Out of mankind’s wonderful whimsical bag of proverbial wisdom comes the saying that “God helps those who help themselves”. Who said that? Does anyone here know where this originated? I’m guessing it came right from the pit of hell because it’s so totally opposite to the message that Father God gave to Israel in the desert and what we read in The Word.

1 “Scripture quotations taken from the NASB." www.lockman.org Unless otherwise stated all Scriptures quoted from New American Standard Bible2 http://www.fluoridealert.org/
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~hubbca/fluoride.htm

Blessed art thou, L-rd our G-d,
King of the universe, who has chosen
us from all peoples and given us thy Torah.
Blessed art thou, O L-rd, Giver of the Torah.

ferretcentral@sympatico.ca                                                Anchor-Church@comcast.net
 

From the Computer Desk of Gaylen

Still at work on my computer's, Microsoft Word that trips my e-mail to send out a bunch of e-mails.

Torah Re-discovered

Time Period Between: 639 to 608 BC
By
Ariel and D’vorah Berkowitz

Chapter Seven

Misconceptions of Torah Meanings

"The LORD will bless you and keep you;
The LORD will make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you;
The LORD will lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.