Recording God’s move through the nation of Israel’s journeying and fighting to possess the good land, the book of Numbers presents a vivid type of our Lord Jesus Christ’s present move through His Body’s preaching, prophesying, and being disciplined to realize His kingdom on earth today (Matt. 28:19).
Awaiting our Lord Jesus Christ’s second coming, we practice living Christ and the kingdom church life for the Lord to gain His firstfruits. In the two recent crystallization studies of Numbers we saw that our awaiting by heeding the morning star’s shining (2 Pet. 1:19) is absolutely needed; it is real and practical.
In these messages, we enjoyed our Lord Jesus Christ’s direct speaking to nourish and sustain us for the growth and spread of His kingdom on earth (Heb. 1:2).
These messages supply us and train us to walk, act, move, speak, and have our being in our mingled spirit so that the church can increasingly manifest Him as a corporate miniature of the New Jerusalem, as portrayed by Israel encamping around the tabernacle, in order to express Him and to represent His governmental ruling and reigning in His kingdom on earth today.
Here are some of the things I enjoyed:
1. Our God’s eternal purpose is an eternal kingdom to express Him and to represent His eternal and unrivaled authority through His believers corporately. This is God’s economy.
The kingdom of God is a beautiful, harmonious, and miraculous structure of treasure worked out by our cooperating with Him and His deputy authorities intrinsically, under His ruling and reigning in us, and by His subduing our being inwardly.
This revelation as God’s covenant encourages us to live a life full of meaning, hope, and joy; it vitalizes our endeavor by enjoying grace upon grace and receiving strength upon strength.
2. It is impossible for us, in ourselves, to forgive or forget offenses.
As a result, the authority of darkness can rule over us for a long time in a particular matter. Even if we deny our inward reactions and exercise our faculties to maintain a clean, pure, and good conscience, we may still not be aware of the subtle dispositional anger hidden in the depth of our being.
However, just by looking at the bronze serpent, we are under the cross and are delivered out of the tyranny of our natural disposition. Thus, reaction is nullified. When we are crossed out, we are dead to offenses; the Spirit becomes our person; in this, we are Jesus living again.
The water for impurity in Numbers 19 further strengthens our faith in the Lord’s blood and enables us to effectively apply 1 John 1:7 and Rom. 5:10-17 by confessing our sin.
I thank the Lord for all of the recent speaking that has been released. The brothers who labor on these messages speak them forth in God, with God, and through God by exercising their mingled spirit for the whole Body of Christ to receive God’s blessing. This is the reality of Psalm 133.
In the past year, the Lord was able to break through two or three dispositional traits embedded in the fiber of my being through His speaking. I was washed from myriads of debts of sins and released from loads of burden in my conscience.
3. The type of Aaron’s budding rod in Numbers 17 reassures us that the Lord’s resurrection life is the vindication of God’s deputy and delegated authority. This resurrection life empowers us to overcome rebellion which originates from Satan and issues in death.
As soon as we turn to our mingled spirit, which is typified by the cities of refugee, and confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord and obey His vindication, resurrection life operates in our being to discern, pierce and divide our soul and spirit and to empower us to transcend into the heavenlies.
Sitting together with Christ in the heavenlies in His victory, we can boldly reject and rebuke Satan’s lies: he lies to us constantly that he as the indwelling sin is our person. When we are seated with Christ in His victory, we boldly proclaim His victory over sin, death, and Satan, and we remind Satan that he is already in the lake of fire.
By obeying God’s vindication through resurrection, we are empowered to deny the self and thus defeat Satan’s rebellion-instigating flaming darts inwardly. We can practice this individually and corporately anytime and anywhere: at home, at work, in school, in our neighborhood, and in the church life. Practicing this, more and more I am willing to accept and be subdued under God’s governmental arrangements.
This is the kingdom of God presently growing, expanding, increasing, and maturing in His believers to realize His kingdom on earth. “Arise, O LORD, and let Your enemies be scattered! Let them flee before You!”
The revelation in the book of Numbers is high, but the practice is simple. By constantly calling on the Lord, pray-reading His word, and praising and thanking God in singing and psalming in our mingled spirit (Eph. 5:19), we experience, enjoy, and possess our Triune God.
Consecrating ourselves as Nazarites, applying the Lord’s cross to our being, drinking the living water, eating the hidden manna, and serving together as a royal priesthood, we are a holy nation, the reality of God’s kingdom, and hasten the manifestation of the millennial kingdom. “Yes, I come quickly!” Amen, come, Lord Jesus!
Sharing by E. Y. from their enjoyment in the Crystallization Study of Numbers (part 1 and part 2).
Thank you. I am very blessed in your depth of relevant truth regarding the Kingdom of God within us.