April 15, 2007
Scripture:
Prayer
EG Hymn 338 – I love my Saviour, my precious Prayer • Last time we read in Exodus 40 and saw how the tabernacle was built. We noticed that after every part, it said, “… as the Lord commanded Moses.” God gave them the directions and they couldn’t change things to suit themselves. So here we have a picture of the Israelites’ camp set- up. After they were done setting the tabernacle up, the cloud that they had been following came and dwelt over the tabernacle. No other people on earth had the presence of God in the midst of them, only the Israelites. Now, last week in children’s meeting, we learned about when the Holy Spirit came on the Christians—they had God’s presence too, not only with them but in them. Now God originally chose Israel, but they rejected Him when they killed the Lord. Then God gathered His people from all nations—“whosoever will.” But let’s say that the tribe of Naphtali decides that they want their own tabernacle. So they build one in their part of the camp. Do you think the cloud will go there too? Will God see the second tabernacle and decide to use both? Could the Naphtalites say, “As God commanded Naphtali”? No; but does this ever happen today? Just on your way here, you may pass any number of different churches. It happens all the time. But is the Lord in all these places? I’m afraid not. He will only come to a place built as He has commanded. For us, that doesn’t mean the law, but the guidelines in the New Testament. We don’t look at what the Lord commanded Moses, but what He has commanded us.
Hebrews 13:20–25 • As we come to the end of an epistle, it is sometimes valuable to ask, what has this added to the canon of scripture? What has Hebrews contributed to divine truth? One thing is that the various glories of the Lord are clearly brought out. We see His priesthood, which exceeds that of Aaron. That brings up another point: his superiority, whether it is to angels, Moses and Aaron, or prophets. We see a clear contrast between Judaism and Christianity; this is one of the books that links the Old and New Testaments together. We see how the Old Testament is a shadow of the New. Hebrews is a wilderness book, but it beautifully presents the Holy of Holies. It all makes us realize that this is a divine book; a look at all of scripture makes us realize that God was in every part of it. We find Jesus called the Great High Priest. Aaron was never called a great high priest. He was the high priest and had lower priests under him. But not only is the Lord the Great High Priest, He is also the Sacrifice—and the Altar. The sacrifice had to be one that would meet the requirements of God, and the altar was the means of the sacrifice. We have been reminded of His three appearances: 1) when He came to die, 2) when He will come to take us, and 3) when He will come as King. Some of this was prophesied in the Old Testament and is still future—it makes us realize that the best is yet to come. No other religion in the world has a leader that died and rose again, and no other religion has such a bright future prospect. Another thing we see is that Hebrews puts a big emphasis on faith; all of chapter 11 and most of 12 is about faith alone. Judaism was law and works, while Christianity is faith. Yet all the examples of faith—Abraham, Moses, and many more—came from the Old Testament. Hebrews also gives a great place to the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fact that the blood sacrifices in Judaism could never compare, just weren’t enough. Some have called Hebrews the fifth gospel: the first four give us the Lord’s ministry here on earth; Hebrews shows us the Lord’s ministry continued in Heaven. It ends with a salutation to the leaders, who were mentioned in v. 17. Typical of Paul (if he is the author), there is an “Amen” at the end of v. 21, and then again at the end of v. 25. Since we know that Paul was usually not the scribe of most of his epistles, it seems that after the letter was written, Paul would add a few closing remarks in his own writing to “authenticate” the epistle. May the Lord have blessed our time in the Epistle to the Hebrews. EG Hymn 268 – There is a stream of precious blood Prayer