April 2, 2006
I just had a brief thought, centered in Genesis 37. This is a part of the story of Joseph; starting at verse 5, “And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more. And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: for, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words. And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?” This morning we have had the privilege of remembering the Lord on the cross. We have sung and contemplated the burdens He bore, the burden of our sin. We saw how God dealt with Him in the hours of darkness. And when that was over, he said, “It is finished.” There is a line in one of our hymns that says, “Onward and back to Thee.” In the remembrance this morning, we looked back. In our last hymn, number 5, it says, “Be the kingdom and dominion, and the glory.” I believe Joseph’s dreams show something future that will happen to God’s people. It will take place in the Millennium; the sheaves are a type of the earth, and in that day all the earth will bow down to the Lord. In Philippians we read, “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.” But what about the second dream? It is so marvelous and precious; it shows us that Christ’s work on the cross affects not only earth, but also the vast heavens. Joseph is a picture of Jesus. We know the story well, that in the end his brothers and father bow down to him. After the week of Daniel, the tribulation, when the Millennium comes, all earth and heaven will own Him as Lord; and during this time, we as the Lord’s bride will be revealed to the world. The work of the Lord is so precious and can be seen in these dreams. I just wanted to bring that out. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus said, “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things?” Well might we praise him.
EG Hymn 330– A message came from Heaven Prayer Jonah 3 • Last time we looked at Jonah, we ended with him being vomited onto dry land. As a note of interest, we can see numerous times in scripture how God uses animals to accomplish His goals (e.g., Balaam’s donkey, Peter’s fish with the money). When Jonah was once again on land, God spoke to him a second time, telling him to go to the Ninevites. This time, Jonah obeyed God’s command. Psalm 199:67 explains Jonah’ situation quite well. Nineveh was a large city; it took three days to walk around the perimeter. So Jonah went about one day’s journey into the city and started preaching, and his message was very short: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” When the Ninevites heard that, they proclaimed a fast; not a person or an animal was to eat. They wore sackcloth and the king even sat in ashes. Everyone cried to the Lord, hoping that when He heard them, He would see their repentance and forgive them. And that’s what happened—when we saw they repented of their evil, he had mercy. We were born sinners, just like the Ninevites. I John 1:9 tells us that if we turn from our sins, God will forgive us.
Hebrews 10:22–25 • We continue on in the practical part of our chapter. We have been speaking of drawing near to God. To do this, we must have a purged conscience, something made possible only through Christ’s work. So now our next exhortation is to hold fast, v. 23. We need to have a good handhold and a good foothold on the truth that the Lord ministers to us, I Corinthians 15:58. “Buy the truth and sell it not” (Proverbs 23:23). The Darby translation puts “confession of the hope” instead of “profession of our faith.” Here we see three main fruits of the Christian life: “full assurance of faith” (v. 22), “confession of the hope” (v. 23), and “provoke unto love” (v. 24). To show these, we need to draw near and hold fast. Jonathan is an example of not holding fast. He had a very good start, loving and holding to David as he did his own souls. But then when David fled to the cave of Adullum, Jonathan stayed at the palace; he didn’t go with David, he didn’t hold fast. Note that the verse does not tell us to hold fast to our salvation; the Lord is holding onto that and we cannot lose it. We only must hold the confession of our hope. So what is the confession of our hope? It can be telling others about the hope that is in us. Hope is an important thing. Think of people who live without hope; when you lose all hope of something, you stop trying to reach it. In health matters, people who lose hope of living, die. We have a hope that no one can take away: the hope that one day we will be with the Lord. No matter what happens that hope is always there. Our hope is an incomparable hope. If you read church history, you can read of how people went into the flames, not as if it were the end, but as if it were the beginning. Our hope is a reality; it is founded on the Will of God, the Work of Christ, and the Witness of the Spirit. Because of this we can hope without wavering. The assurance of our hope comes at the end of verse 23: “He is faithful that promised.” This is what scripture tells us. When God promises something, he does it. Abraham believed that, as shown us in Romans 4:18, 20, & 21. He could have said it was hopeless, but he believed; he said “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.” We only have to be strong in faith and the time will come when God performs what he promised. In chapter 11, we will see all the people who had the faith to wait for God’s promises. So in verse 22 we have our condition for the present, in v. 23 we have our confession for the future, and because of this we can reach out to others, v. 24. One definition of provoke is to stimulate in a good way. What would that look like in the assembly? EG Hymn 140– Will your anchor hold in the storms of life, Prayer