CITIES OF REFUGE

12 November 2017

Dear Phyllis,

Paul's wife, Marisa, recently opened a new restaurant. It is just awful. She has some of the best food I have ever eaten at a give- way price. The problem is that I can only eat one meal at a time. That means that I have to postpone the rest of the menu until a later date. It is a grief to know that there is such delicious food waiting but I can't eat it right now. I had a Marisa Eden Garden restaurant meeting with Jesus last week.

The Word was exploding with such delicacies as I seldom see and there was little I could do to handle them. I felt like Jesus gave me a bushel basket of apples but no sack to carry them in. What a frustration! There were apples all around me but I only had two hands and could only carry two apples at a time. I don't know what to say. There is so much I would like to share with you but I am incapable of sorting all this material out to present it in any coherent manner.

One thought is the cities of refuge. I have known for many years that the Lord commanded Moses to set aside six cities in the promised land for a sanctuary for a man who had accidentally killed another. Justice demands retribution. The law demands that the land can only be cleansed by the man who shed (caused) the blood (Num. 35:33). That is one of the most reasonable laws of God. You kill a man – you die. Who can argue with that? God has put it in the heart of man that there should be an avenger of blood. If a man murders a child there is something intense in the heart of the father that says, “If I get my hands on that bird I will kill him!”. It is not immoral for a man to say to another, “You hurt my brother you will have me to deal with.” That is the spirit of the avenger of blood. That is a God-given instinct. But in the case where the killing was not intentional God made a provision for deliverance. This is not to be confused with intentional murder. In that case God says the murder should be killed.

There is no excuse for sin. God has given to every man a free will and he is 100% responsible for what he does. In this, we have the same option that Adam had in the Garden – to obey God or violate His law. And yet there is one basic difference between us and Adam. Adam was created perfect. He had no sin nature. We are born with two strikes against us before we get to bat. It is guaranteed that we will sin. Last week I was talking to Sangha about original sin. He protested that not all men are bad. I showed him Rom.3:23 - “ALL have sinned...”. I asked, “Are your boys sinners? Do they do bad things?” “Yes. Of course.” “Why? Did you teach them to lie and steal?” “No” “Why are they bad?'' Silence. Then I said, “Because they have a bad father. They got it from you” In that sense we are not totally responsible. David, in self-defense, said, “I was born in sin. In sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps. 51:5). When we see a man with an ugly face we can say, “Poor thing. But it really isn't his fault. It is his fathers fault”. Considering the fact that we sin because we are born with the nature to do so we are like the man who accidentally kills another. Law demands justice but God has provided a city of refuge for us. We can flee to Jesus and be safe. I have known this ever since I have been saved. If a man doesn't like to flee to a city of refuge he will pay the price and get killed. But I never understood what the death of the high priest had to do with it. The killer could flee to a city of refuge and be safe, but he couldn't go home until the high priest died (Num. 35:25,28). Last week the Lord explained that to me.

There is a bewildering passage in Hebrews 9:16. Hebrews 7, 8, 9, and 10 all talk about the New Covenant. Tragically very few people understand what the New Covenant is that God has provided for us. Basically it is God has placed us in Christ so that, we are saved by our identification with Him, and He has placed Christ in us giving us a new nature that doesn't want to sin. And Jesus is our High Priest to represent us before God. But Heb. 9:16 says that the Covenant is not enforced until the priest dies. The answer to that mystery is linguistic. In our English language there is a basic difference between a contract and a last will and testament. In English, the contract is only good as long as both parties are alive. And a last will and testament is only valid after the rich man dies. You might have fortune coming but you can't get your hands on the money until Uncle Herbert dies. But in Greek the word COVENANT applies to both the contract and a last will and testament. Most of the provision of the New Covenant applies to a contact, but the the writer of Hebrews drops back to also insert the function of a last will and testament, that is only applicable after the author dies.

In the city of refuge the man who has fled there is really not free to go home until the High Priest dies. This tells us two things about our relationship with Christ. One is that the function of the New Covenant doesn't really take hold until death takes place. I cannot go into detail about this here other than to say this is Romans 6 – our death with Christ. The power of sin will still keep us captive until we learn that when Jesus died we died with Him and His death delivers us from the power of sin. But there is another wonderful aspect about the death of our High Priest. This is the last will and testament function (Heb. 9:16).

After Rosemary left I was really in bad shape. I lost everything. At one point I was building a house for my friend Rody. I had no home but he let me stay in a shack that he used for a mono oki (storage shed). It was filled with mattresses and junk, and had no heat or running water. It was about an 8x10 foot shack. There was a place for me to sleep like a rats nest but no drawers or any luxuries. It was freezing cold. One night I was feeling sorry for myself. I thought, “Man howdy, I am kawai so (pitiful)”. Suddenly the Holy Spirit spoke to me in almost an audible voice; “Son, thou art always with Me and all that I have is thine”. When it dawned on me where that was I was stunned. That is what the father said to the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son (Lk. 15:31). I thought, “That poor turkey was in worse than me. He had everything but wasn't enjoying it”. I wondered; is it true that God could say to me “All that I have is thine.”? Then the Holy Spirit showed me that the Father has given heaven to His Son. It is a fact that God has given to Jesus everything. And God emptied heaven when He gave us Jesus. When Jesus died we inherited everything that was His. This is the second half of what Heb. 9:16 is telling us. We are the inheritors of Jesus wealth when He died. Oh my goodness, is that true?

There is another way of looking at it. By the law of God a man and a woman become ONE by marriage. When God placed us in Christ we literally became one with Him. It is an undeniable fact that we are joined by marriage to Jesus. That means we are coheirs with Him. All that He has is ours.

Oh my goodness, I can't begin to tell you what it was like when God gave me a bushel of apples and I didn't know which one to eat first. Gomen nasai. I wish I could tell you how wonderful Jesus is but I only have two hands. I guess you will just have to get some for yourself. All I can say is Jesus apples sure are oishi (tasty) (S. of S. 2:3).

                                               bill