Coming of a Deliverer
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“I shall see Him, but not now: I shall behold Him,
but
not nigh:
There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Scepter
shall rise out of Israel,
And shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all
the children of Sheth.”
Numbers 24:17
.
Through Moses, God’s purpose to send His Son as the Redeemer
of the fallen race, was kept before Israel. On one occasion, shortly
before his death, Moses declared, “The Lord thy God will raise up
unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto
me; unto Him ye shall hearken.” Plainly had Moses been instructed
for Israel concerning the work of the Messiah to come. “I will raise
them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee,” was
the word of Jehovah to His servant; “and will put My words in His
mouth; and He shall speak unto them all that I shall command Him.”
Deuteronomy 18:15, 18
.
In patriarchal times the sacrificial offerings connected with divine
worship constituted a perpetual reminder of the coming of a Saviour,
and thus it was with the entire ritual of the sanctuary services through-
out Israel’s history. In the ministration of the tabernacle, and of the
temple that afterward took its place, the people were taught each day,
by means of types and shadows, the great truths relative to the advent
of Christ as Redeemer, Priest, and King; and once each year their
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minds were carried forward to the closing events of the great contro-
versy between Christ and Satan, the final purification of the universe
from sin and sinners. The sacrifices and offerings of the Mosaic rit-
ual were ever pointing toward a better service, even a heavenly. The
earthly sanctuary was “a figure for the time then present,” in which
were offered both gifts and sacrifices; its two holy places were “pat-
terns of things in the heavens;” for Christ, our great High Priest, is
today “a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which
the Lord pitched, and not man.”
Hebrews 9:9, 23
;
8:2
.
From the day the Lord declared to the serpent in Eden, “I will
put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and