"Meaty Message"

"He gave up their cattle also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts." (Psalms 78:48) Just in case you did not know this, Egypt represents the world and all of it's pleasures. In truth, it actually represents the old nature that the flesh did live for, which is the world; but without a doubt, it represents everything that the flesh lives for and more. As a matter of fact, there is typically nothing that we could place between us and God that does not have some sort of connection to what took place in the "exodus " of Israel out of Egypt; every sin you could think of, every vise, every idol, even every lack of dedication; it's all demonstrated in the beautiful picture of God's redemption of His people from the bondage of Egypt. As many of you ought to know, God is not done with Israel; in other words, the church has not replaced Israel, because Israel is still God's prize possession. What has actually happen, is that the church has been grafted into or onto God's chosen people. We have become the 'children of Abraham' or, if you will, 'the children of promise.' God made that perfectly clear throughout the entire Old Testament, Paul made that perfectly clear in several of his Epistles, and Jesus himself made it clear in the the Book of Revelation. It is good for us to know that, because God does keep His promise! If it were not so, and if God were willing to abandon His children over their lack of obedience, then where would we be, and what hope would we have as His adopted children? Are we to think that somehow God will have more favor over the adopted children than the children who are actually of the promise? Absolutely not! We have been grafted into that same promise by the mere fact of us being in Christ Jesus, who was the Offspring of that promise, fulfilled in the flesh. Don't you think that it's interesting how God used the flesh to defeat the flesh? Talk about fighting fire with fire; it must really just count on which fire is hottest, or Holiest...
"So he took me in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and he showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God and sparkled like a precious stone -like jasper as clear as crystal. The city wall was broad and high, with twelve gates guarded by twelve angels. And the names of the twelve tribes of Israel were written on the gates. There were three gates on each side -east, north, south, and west. The wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were written the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb." (Revelation 21:10-14) NLT