January 22, 2006
Scripture:
Can we go back to Psalm 102; it reminded me of certain thoughts I have expressed before. I’m sure you noticed as we read this morning that there are three birds mentioned: “I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert. I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.” We can think of these as expressions of the Lord in deep anguish. If I were to speak to birders this morning, I would ask, “Do you look for pelicans in the wilderness?” We know that each bird can be found in its own habitat. Pelicans are found on the ocean coasts, looking for fish; you don’t find them in the wilderness. Would you go to the desert to find an owl? Probably not; you would go to the forest. We can see from this that the Lord is out of His preferred surroundings. He used to be in the presence of God, where all was perfect and bright and holy. But He came to the world; He brought light where all was darkness; He brought peace where there was no peace; He brought Holiness where all was sin. He was out of his habitat, like the pelican in the wilderness and the owl in the desert. And the sparrow; do you ever see them alone? No; we can see what the Lord did and how he felt to walk through a scene so contrary to his nature, alone. He came to take us out of the world. He would be the pelican; He would be the owl; He would be the sparrow, so He could call us to that place where sin can never come. Oh, precious Saviour!
EG Hymn 281–We wait for Thee, O Son of God, Prayer • Today’s passage does not have the word “see” in it, but seeing is involved. • I Thessalonians 4:15–18—The Thessalonians were perplexed about what was happening to the Christians who had died. Paul is telling them what will happen “by the word of the Lord.” He says that the living Christians will not prevent, an old English word for precede, the Christians that are asleep. The Lord will come Himself to get us, he won’t send an angel. Then there will be three sounds: the shout, the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God. These sounds will awaken the sleeping Christians. They will be resurrected and go to meet the Lord in the air, with us following right after them. Then we will see the Lord. When Paul saw the Lord on the road to Damascus, he was blinded by the sight. We will be able to see Him because we will be changed. We will look at our glorified bodies in a moment, but first turn to Matthew 24:48. It is a wicked thing to say that the Lord is delaying his coming. Since he went back to Heaven, there has not been a moment when we could not have expected him to come back; even the apostles expected Him in their time. Now turn to I Corinthians 15:51–53. All Christians, whether they are asleep or alive, will get a body that it like the Lord’s. It will not get sick, get hurt, die, etc. It will be perfect, and we will be able to see the Lord and not be blinded in it.
Hebrews 10:1–18 • This chapter starts by saying that the Israelites offered their sacrifices year by year. They did, but they were also offered hour by hour, day by day, month by month, the fire never going out. All this could never make them perfect. We can enjoy going back and looking at the law, given to Moses; for example, the tabernacle. It has many pictures of the Lord in it for us. But what would it be like if all you had was the shadow. Day after day, you have the grind of “What does the law say?” They would bring their sacrifices because the law said to. We can talk about it and revel in the beauty of it; but for them, it was drudgery. This is because we have the substance, they only had the shadow. You need a substance to have a shadow. Sometimes we can get details about the substance by looking at the shadow. For example, we can look at the Lord’s holiness and we can read that he was “without blemish and without spot,” and we can enjoy that. But we can go to the Old Testament and see the shadow of the burnt offering, which gives us so many wonderful details about His purity. We don’t throw out the shadows; they point us to the substance. The shadows were of the good things to come. All the different sacrifices are different aspects of our one prefect sacrifice. The shadows go right back to Sinai; we can follow them to the cross. What could have been an onerous thing to an Israelite is a gem of amazing beauty to us. These shadows not only didn’t make them perfect, they couldn’t make them perfect. In contrast, our sacrifice not only could make us perfect, it did! And He only had to do it once. If the sacrifices did make them perfect, they would have only sacrificed once. To repeat it would be a denial of the perfect one. We can see our perfect sacrifice; to try to repeat it or improve it would be a gross dishonour and error. Yet people have done this through history. Our perfect sacrifice has made us perfect. But we don’t always act perfectly. This is the difference between our state and our standing. The law did not give Israel a standing before God. Their state often was very cold. The first part of this chapter is doctrinal; it has to do with our standing. The second part is practical; it has to do with our standing. EG Hymn 91–On Christ’s salvation rest secure, Prayer STATE STANDING
In flesh InChrist
ConditionPosition
DefectivePerfection
FeelingsFaith
SubjectiveObjective