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John 16:5-7 But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
John 16:12-14 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, [that] shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew [it] unto you.
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There were things that could not be borne by the disciples before Jesus left.
Things He wanted to tell them but could not.
Jesus would soon die on the cross after these words.
The Holy Ghost would soon be poured out after He died and resurrected.
It would lead them into all truth.
They would begin to bear truths that they could not at the time of this discussion.
Truths that now the ministry can preach and teach about since the Holy Ghost came and filled them, that will guide us into all truth.
When Israel left Egypt, they saw Moses lift up a rod and hold it over the Red Sea to divide it.
But upon entering Canaan, we read of the ark of the covenant being borne upon the shoulders of the priests.
They bore something they were not able to bear earlier at the Red Sea.
Jesus was speaking about dying and leaving them.
He said He wanted to speak truths to them but they could not bear them.
But the Spirit would come and lead them into all truth.
They needed to Comforter to be able to bear these truths.
And the comforter would lead them into the fullness.
All truth.
And the way in which the Spirit would lead them is by speaking to them.
We read:
John 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, [that] shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
So the leading involves a speaking to us.
A preaching.
A teaching.
And everything the Spirit would speak about would point back to Jesus.
John 16:14 He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew [it] unto you.
What was the most important things about Jesus?
Death, burial and resurrection.
They would later "bear" something about the death, burial and resurrection they could not bear before.
And it would take them into all truth.
I want to go into all truth.
I want to go into the fullness.
I am in Christ, but I want to go into the fullness of Christ.
We read the account of the day Israel entered Canaan in Joshua 5.
Josh 3:1-7 And Joshua rose early in the morning; and they removed from Shittim, and came to Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over. And it came to pass after three days, that the officers went through the host; And they commanded the people, saying, When ye see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place, and go after it.Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure: come not near unto it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go: for ye have not passed [this] way heretofore. And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves: for to morrow the LORD will do wonders among you. And Joshua spake unto the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass over before the people. And they took up the ark of the covenant, and went before the people. And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, [so] I will be with thee.
Josh 3:9-17 And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of the LORD your God. And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God [is] among you, and [that] he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan. Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man. And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of Jordan, [that] the waters of Jordan shall be cut off [from] the waters that come down from above; and they shall stand upon an heap. And it came to pass, when the people removed from their tents, to pass over Jordan, and the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people; And as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, (for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest,) That the waters which came down from above stood [and] rose up upon an heap very far from the city Adam, that [is] beside Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, [even] the salt sea, failed, [and] were cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho. And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan.
Three days that point ahead to the death burial and resurrection of Jesus, were spent looking at the land of Canaan.
Folks there is a land of fullness for us to enter.
The officers went to the people and instructed them about entering the land.
Priests would bear something they could not bear before at the Red Sea.
These were young people.
Forty years ago the elders doubted and disbelieved they could enter Canaan.
That is because there were things they could not bear back then.
But we are facing it again today.
We are bearing some truths we did not really understand before.
God said the waters of Jordan would be cut off from the waters from above.
And when it happened, we read that the waters were cut off far away from them at the city called ADAM.
God is showing us that the truth of the cross of Jesus Christ, works way back to the day of Adam.
The "Dying Flow of Humanity" was cut off by Christ.
All the way back to where Adam first ate the forbidden fruit and threw unborn mankind into sin.
In order to redeem mankind, Jesus had to die for the entire human race as far back as Adam himself, to the one who started this entire need of salvation.
One man’s transgression made many people sinners.
That one man was Adam.
The ark they held aloft had blood on it and that opened up the waters.
The blood represents Jesus’ death on the cross.
It reached far away into the past to Adam, himself.
God was starting all over again with a new creation of sons of God.
So He went far back to Adam.
The city Adam was beside ZARETAN.
Zaretan actually means "THEIR DISTRESS".
And it comes from the Hebrew word meaning "PIERCED".
Our distress was taken care of by Jesus Christ.
Sin stung us.
Sin pierced its fangs into our souls and the sting of sin is death.
But Jesus’ death reached far back to Adam where "our" distress is found to have originated.
Adam is where we were stung by death since Adam’s disobedience made all men sinners.
Since we were made sinners, sin had stung us, and the sting of sin is death.
But Jesus took that sting for us.
He became sin who knew no sin that we might be made free and righteous.
He was PIERCED in our places.
That is found in JOSHUA 3:16
(You need to look at all the references to the 3:16’s of the Bible!)
(It will excite you!)
And this water that was coming down from Adam was on its way through Jordan to the sea of the plain, even the salt sea (Jos. 3:16).
This is actually the DEAD SEA in modern geography.
This body of water was flowing down from Adam to the Dead Sin.
The PIERCING of our distress occurred at Adam’s time.
And it led through the Jordan River to nowhere other than the DEAD SEA.
Like a River of Humanity, the waters headed from Adam to a place of death.
But something happened at the point called JORDAN.
JORDAN means "DESCENDER"
What is baptism a type of?
The death of Jesus Christ.
We are baptized into Jesus’ death.
Where was Jesus baptized?
Jordan.
THE DESCENDER.
Jesus descended from His throne in Heaven and became like us in the form of a servant.
He became such a servant that He was obedient to the death of the cross.
He DESCENDED into the River Jordan and was baptized to show us how He would save us.
He would be obedient to death.
And THAT DEATH would cut off a flow of humanity that was on its way from Adam to the DEAD SEA.
A dead SEA OF HUMANITY.
And all the sins since Adam were held up in a great heap.
God cut it off from us.
The Dead Sea is so dead that nothing lives in it.
It is said that the salt from the Dead Sea and the very existence of the Dead Sea itself stood in the region that was formerly SODOM AND GOMORRAH.
There God rained fire and brimstone on the sinners and Lot’s wife turned to SALT.
We read this of Sodom.
Jude 1:7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
To put it plainly, it speaks of those who find their end in hell.
I am glad God cut off the life I lived that was on its way to eternal fire.
Twelve men were chosen just like they were 40 years earlier.
But the men forty years earlier doubted as they entered the land.
And their doubt that spread throughout the older people, was the reason God kept them in the wilderness until the older element died off.
These YOUTH took to the task of taking stones from the bottom of Jordan WHERE THE PRIESTS STOOD and putting them on the other side
Josh 4:3 And command ye them, saying, Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests’ feet stood firm, twelve stones, and ye shall carry them over with you, and leave them in the lodging place, where ye shall lodge this night.
This is a picture of taking the same foundation that the priests stood firm upon and placing them as a memorial in the land of Canaan.
Look to it, children.
They were "a world" away from they first started.
A New Earth away from it all
They took the stones and took them to the place where they LODGED that night.
The place of REST.
At the place of REST had a memorial for all to see.
The foundation of the Gospel of the 12 Apostles.
From where the priests stood and held the message aloft for the waters to be cut off.
The stones point back to where the priests stood.
Back to what cut off the waters from Adam that were on their way to death.
Back to the message of the BLOOD OF JESUS AND HIS BAPTISM INTO DEATH.
That was the foundation of their REST.
Josh 4:6-7 That this may be a sign among you, [that] when your children ask [their fathers] in time to come, saying, What [mean] ye by these stones? Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever.
Josh 4:9-10 And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests which bare the ark of the covenant stood: and they are there unto this day. For the priests which bare the ark stood in the midst of Jordan, until every thing was finished that the LORD commanded Joshua to speak unto the people, according to all that Moses commanded Joshua: and the people hasted and passed over.
Twelve men took the stones from the place where the priests held up the ark.
But JOSHUA put stones in the place of the twelve stones removed from where the priests stood.
Jesus is JOSHUA in Hebrew.
Jesus took the old lives and put them in the place where the waters of Jordan would wash over once again and bury the ground the Hebrews went through into Canaan.
Twelve men took from that place the stones.
The twelve apostles preached the apostolic Message of the DEATH, BURIAL AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS being applied to everyone of us through obedience to Acts 2:38.
And there is place of Rest that we need to come to where twelve stones stand as a reminder of what makes REST possible.
THE DEATH OF YOURSELF WITH CHRIST.
THE BURIAL OF YOURSELF WITH CHRIST.
THE RESURRECTION OF YOURSELF WITH CHRIST.
He "descended" in death for us and as us.
It went far back to Adam and made a heap of all our sins.
Your sins and my sins.
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