October 30, 2005
Scripture:
Scripture:
This morning we have had the privilege and blessing of being gathered together with the Lord in the midst. The Lord asks us to come here each first day of the week. There is something else the Lord asks us to do; the Lord knows each of our hearts, He knew the hearts of those who Him crucified and said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” Proverbs 23:26: “My son, give me thine heart.” This is what the Lord wants from each one of us. When we come here each Lord’s Day, He knows what is in our hearts. He will guide us in our steps when we are in the midst of the world.
EG Hymn 362–Two little eyes to look to God Prayer • The eye, from a side view: • Proverbs 20:12—The Lord made our eyes perfectly. The retina has 10 layers. The number 10 speaks of perfection. • Proverbs 28:27—This is what God thinks of a person who wants to get rich fast. They have a greater love for money than they do for God. Our eyes should be on the Lord and His Word, not money. • Matthew 6:22—The way that light gets into us is through our eyes. It means we should only have one focus: God. You may say, “but I have a job to do; I have to keep my eye on that.” You are right, but the main focus of our lives should be on God. • The eye of faith—we sometimes talk about the eye of faith. What is that eye looking for? One of the things is the coming of the Lord. • This should help us not only understand how God made the eye, but also how we should use it.
Hebrews 7:22–28 • We have been looking at the fact that the law made nothing perfect. It in itself was perfect, though; the weakness was in those who had to keep it in the flesh. Now we have this “better hope” (v. 19); we can draw nigh to God as those who had the law could not. • V. 22—“Testament” can also be translated as “covenant” (Darby). We could ask “Is the old law cancelled by our new better covenant?” There are many covenants in scripture. A covenant is an agreement between God and man, made to bring God’s blessing to man. Each covenant was made in a different dispensation. We are in the dispensation of grace; Israel was under the Mosaic covenant in the dispensation of law. We have a better covenant with a better Priest and a better hope. But this does not cancel the law; rather, it annuls it as the ground for our peace with God. • V. 23—There were many priests in the Old Testament. When one died, another took his place. But these high priests were all different; Aaron was a good high priest, Eli was not. The high priest was someone you could go to in distress for comfort and sympathy. You could go to the tabernacle one time and be comforted by a high priest. Later you could go back for more comfort and find that there was a new high priest and He didn’t know anything about your state and had no compassion. It would have been nice to have an eternal high priest; this was not possible because “the wages of sin is death,” and even the high priests were sinners. Jesus didn’t sin at all, though, and He could be a priest that “continueth ever”; His priesthood was everlasting and untransmissible. • V. 25—The ability of God is precious to review as it comes out in different places throughout the Bible. Here it says that he can save us completely. This is a verse about salvation; what is it the salvation of? This means the salvation of our lives. There are 3 salvations: