THREE DIMENSIONAL

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Let's start with a few of the hundreds of examples of THREE, then we will move to the "secret within" and it application.

 

• There is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons. The Bible speaks of the Father as God (Philippians 1:2), Jesus as God (Titus 2:13), and the Holy Spirit as God (Acts 5:3–4).

• Noah had three sons (Gen 6:10)

• Job had three daughters (Job 1:2; cf. 42:13);

• The Ark of the Covenant contained three sacred objects ‘The gold jar of manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant” (Heb. 9:4).

• Solomon’s Palace of the Forest of Lebanon was designed with windows “placed high in sets of three facing each other. All the doorways had rectangular frames; they were in the front part in sets of three, facing each other” (1 Kgs 7:4-5).21

• John’s vision a triple entrance way marked all four sides of the city of the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:13).

• David “bowed down before Jonathan three times, with his face to the ground” (1 Sam 20:41) and

• Daniel regularly prayed three times a day giving thanks to God (Dan 6:10, 13).

• Israelite men were required to appear before the Lord three times in a year: “Three times a year all your men must appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles” (Deut 16:16).

• Jesus answered Satan’s threefold temptation by citing three scriptural passages Matt 4:1-11).

• Paul experienced three shipwrecks (2 Cor 11:28) and

• Paul prayed three times to the Lord for the removal of his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor 12:7-8).

 

The number three appears often in measurements of time as well. For example,

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• Moses and Aaron petitioned Pharaoh, “Now let us take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God” (Exod 5:3; cf. Exod 3:18; 8:27).22

• The fleeing Hebrews went three days without finding water in the Desert of Shur (Exod 15:22).

• The Hebrews had traveled from Mount Sinai for three days, the people began to complain (Num 10:33-11:1).

• When the Hebrews neared the Jordan River they were informed, “three days from now you will cross the Jordan here to go in and take possession of the land the LORD your God is giving you for your own” (Josh 1:11; cf. 3:1-4).

• The men of Timnah were stumped by Samson’s riddle for three days (Judg 14:14) and King Rehoboam gave Jeroboam and the delegation of Israelites a three day waiting period as he considered their petition for less stringent royal demands (1 Kgs 12:5; cf. 12:12).23

• In the New Testament Jesus told the Jewish populace at the Temple, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days” (John 2:16), a fact that his disciples later recalled (v. 22).

 

A three-month period also figures in some matters.

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• Moses’ mother was able to conceal her baby for three months (Exod 2:3; cf. Acts 7:20; Heb 11:23) and

• The ark remained at the house of Obed-Edom for three months (1 Chron 13:14).

 

In keeping with this the third month is often mentioned as one in which some significant action or event took place. Thus

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• three months after Judah visited the supposed shrine prostitute, he learned that she was really his daughter-in-law Tamar who was pregnant with his child (Gen 38:24).

• Asa’s reforms were celebrated in Jerusalem in the third month of his fifteenth year of reign (2 Chron 15:10).

• Support for the priests of Hezekiah’s day was gained by means of a tithe which began “in the third month and finished in the seventh month” (2 Chron 31:7).

• Ezekiel received a message from the Lord concerning the fate of Egypt in the third month of the eleventh year of his exile (Ezek 31:1) and

• The Lord revealed through Amos, “I also withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away” (Amos 4:7).

In the New Testament record

• Jesus’ mother Mary visited Elizabeth, Zechariah’s wife, and stayed for three months (Luke 1:56).

• Paul stayed in Ephesus for three months and “spoke boldly” in the synagogue there (Acts 19:8),

• and subsequently stayed three months in Greece (Acts 20:3).

• Still later after the ship that was carrying him to Rome to stand trial was wrecked in a storm, he and his captives stayed on the island of Malta for three months (Acts 28:11).

 

A period of three years can be noted in the accounts of several biblical texts. In fact, Beyse suggests that “three years … play a more important role” than a period of three months.

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• A three year period figures in the instructions to the Hebrews concerning their conduct after they enter the Promised Land: “When you enter the land and plant any kind of fruit tree, regards its fruit as forbidden. For three years you are to consider it forbidden; it must not be eaten” (Lev 19:23).

• As part of the Levitical stipulations with regard to the year of Jubilee the Hebrews were forbidden to sow or reap, to plant, reap or harvest in the fiftieth year for it was to be a holy year for them. In compensation the Lord promises “I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years” (Lev 25:21).

• After the slaying of his brother, “Absalom fled and went to Geshur, he stayed there three years” (2 Sam 13:38).

• During David’s reign a three-year famine caused the king to seek “the face of the LORD” (2 Sam 21:1).

• David’s adversary Shimei (2 Sam 16:5-14) was spared by Solomon on condition that he was permanently confined to the city of Jerusalem (1 Kgs 2:36-38). Shimei obeyed this restriction for three years, but when two of his slaves fled from him, he left the city to retrieve them, an action that was to cost him his life (vv. 39-46).

• Every three years King Solomon’s trading fleet returned “carrying gold, silver and ivory, and apes and baboons” (1 Kgs 10:22).

• Isaiah prophesied that “within three years … Moab’s splendor and all her many people will be despised, and her survivors will be very few and feeble” (Isa 16:14).

• Isaiah himself went “stripped and barefoot for three years, as a sign and portent against Egypt and Cush” (Isa 20:3).

• Daniel and his three friends were schooled for three years with regard to the language and literature of the Babylonians (Dan 1:3-5).

 

A three-year period appears in some of the accounts of the New Testament as well.

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• It figures in Jesus’ parable of the unproductive fig tree (Luke 13:7).

• The Apostle Paul spent three years in Arabia apparently to commune with the Lord and receive instruction from him before going to acquaint himself with Peter (Gal 1:18).

 

Appropriately, the third year is also singled out for special mention.

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• The third year was special in that it was the “year of the tithe” (Deut 14:28; cf. Amos 4:4), which was to be collected for the needs of the Levites and the underprivileged members of society such as the alien, the widow, and the poor (Deut 26:12).25

• During the reign of King Jehoshaphat of Judah because “his heart was devoted to the ways of the LORD,” in his third year of reign he sent officials to “teach in the towns of Judah” (2 Chron 17:6-7).

• The third year was also the year that Jehoshaphat went to meet King Ahab of Israel with regard to their joining forces in an effort to regain Ramoth Gilead from the Arameans (1 Kgs 22:1-5).

• Still later, during the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem God gave to Hezekiah a sign of deliverance and renewed activity (2 Kgs 19:29; cf. Isa 37:30). “For the third year … there was a direct divine command: ‘Sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat fruit.’ Here was direct assurance that the people might resume normal agricultural activities with full expectation of eating the fruits of their labor.

• When in the harvest of the third year the people ate in abundance, they would know assuredly that God had been in the entire crisis.”26

And there are more examples of THREE.  Many, many more.

(Go to Chapter 3)