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In my devotions, I spend time in the New Testament as well as the Old. In the Old Testament, I have been following Moses and Aaron as they have been called to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt to the promised land. It has been quite the journey. Moses really didn’t want this gig to begin with, but the Lord was very convincing, and Moses and His brother Aaron finally were obedient and did what the Lord commanded.

Even though Moses and Aaron were on board it did not mean that all the people were buying what Moses was selling. On their journey, they had a horrible habit of rebelling against Moses and in doing so were rebelling against God Himself.

As time went on the rebellion kept getting worse and at one point the people decided to appoint new leaders to take them back to Egypt. It came to a head when the 12 spies came back from Canaan and brought back pomegranates, figs, and large clusters of grapes. The people were excited until they heard that the Nephilim lived there, giants lived in the land. The people decided that they could not take the land and wanted to go back, in fact, they got together and decided to stone Moses and Aaron. The Lord intervened and wanted to wipe the Hebrew people out. Moses cried out on their behalf and God relented, but the Lord decided that none over the age of twenty would enter the land that was promised, and they would have to wander in the wilderness for another 40 years.

Then a man by the name of Korah rose and tried to take over as leader. The Lord took him and all those who followed him out.
When the people began to complain and once again overthrow Moses, the Lord was done. He sent out a plague to kill all the people. Let’s look at how Moses handled this in Numbers 16:46, “Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer and put in it fire from the altar, and lay incense on it; then bring it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, for wrath has gone forth from the Lord, the plague has begun!” But here is the verse that caught my attention, in verse 48, “He took his stand between the dead and the living, so that the plague was checked.”

Aaron did what all Christians are called to do. We are to stand in the gap between the living God and the spiritually dead and plead for their souls. Moses and Aaron could have just stepped back and let the people be lost forever, but they knew they were confused about God and His plan for them. Amazingly, nothing has changed over these thousands of years. People are still confused and in need of someone to stand in the gap on their behalf. The question is, will you and I be one of those people?