December 7, 2008
Scripture:
Leviticus 1:3 — Here we have the burnt offering, a voluntary offering.
Galatians 2:20
Scripture:
John 13:1
Galatians 1:3-4 “Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:” When I think of this passage and the one in chapter two, verse twenty, He gave His life not just for me, but to atone for my sins. I also think of the fact that He was the Creator of all. He owns all. Yet there was a purchase that He desired to make. He wanted us. But the price must not only buy us, but also atone for sin. Even though He was Lord of all, that wouldn’t do. He had to give himself. So He died, for “the wages of sin is death”. It’s precious to see. And not only did he die to save us from our sins, but He had found us in the grips of an evil world. So He didn’t just deliver us from our sin, but also from our environment. When Claudius Lysias sent Paul to Felix, he sent a letter that tells how he had to rescue Paul from the Jews. It’s the same Greek word. If we drive down to Niagara Falls, and go downstream from the falls, we will come to the whirlpool. If you’re in that vortex, you’ll just be sucked to the bottom. You’re only hope is to be rescued. We were in a vortex, where we had to either be rescued or perish. The Lord Jesus Christ, rather than see us perish, did that which was necessary to rescue us. He would rather die than be alone. What expressions of love we can see in how He gave Himself for us! And we’ve been reminded that He will love “unto the end”. That is an end that never ends. And may it be that, “we love Him, because He first loved us”.
Hymn 363 – Long ago a flood was coming,
Prayer
We have looked at the story of Creation, the beginnings of the world, and now we are looking at Noah. We know the story about how Noah and his family were saved from the flood. Last time, we saw how at creation, God said all the world was good. But then we saw how, when God looked down at the time of Noah, He said the world was corrupt.
Read Genesis 6:9. Noah walked with God; that means that he would have talked to God and God would have spoken to Him. Does anyone here live in a family where that happens? How good to know that we can talk to God in prayer, and hear from Him when we read the Bible.
In vv. 14 & 15, we find God’s instructions for building the ark. This was a huge boat: 450 feet by 75 feet by 45 feet. So Noah began to build the ark. Now, imagine with me that Shem comes along and says, “Dad, you’re strange; everyone thinks your crazy!” Noak was undertaking a big project, and he was telling everyone who would listen that it would rain and flood the earth. No one had ever seen rain before, and so they didn’t believe him. For 120 years, Noah built and preached.
You know, many people may think that we are strange because we remember the Lord’s death for us every Lord’s day; we may also do other things that they don’t understand. But in our story, who was blessed? It was Noah and his family. Did you ever wonder why your parents wouldn’t let you do certain things? Did you ever want to do something because it was the popular thing to do? When that happens, remember Noah; he and his family didn’t get caught up in the sinful pleasures of the world, and they were blessed for it.
This paper by Walter Scott is very relevant to what we are looking at right now. That is why the book of Ezra is so appropriate for us at this time: it pictures a remnant re-instituting the truth. We have seen how they gathered as one man in Jerusalem, how they built an altar and offered the burnt offering. They restored worship to the Lord, giving Him his portion. We saw how they celebrated the feast of trumpets, and offered sacrifices at the new moons, v. 4; this signifies how the Jews will return to Israel during the Millennium. The moon reflects the light of the Sun, just as the glory of the Lord ought to have been reflected by His people. This had disappeared, but now had begun to reappear. W. Scott mentioned the revival of the truth; the Reformation (which was a return of the truths of salvation) was followed by the return of the truths of the ground of gathering, which had been lost since the early church in Acts.
V. 7 talks about the timber they used; it came from Tyre and Sidon: that is the area of Lebanon. The Cedars of Lebanon are pictures of man’s loftiness, which needed to be cut down, humbled, before is was fit for use in God’s house.
In v. 8, they started to build the house of the Lord. We might wonder what that looked like. We can read a lot about the glory of Solomon’s temple; how much of that was left? What did they come back to? There might not have been anything left. Where did Solomon get the stones for his temple? History tells us that there are great quarries under Jerusalem and the surrounding area; they would carve out the massive stones and bring them out, shaping them to perfection; what a beautiful picture of salvation, taking us out of the darkness of sin and fitting us for God’s light.
In these first verses of this chapter, we have the establishment of worship, the celebration of the feasts, and the beginning of the building of the house of God. This relates to a certain order in our Christian lives as well: we begin with occupation with the Lord; then, we have joy in our new position in heavenly places in Christ. Finally, we can serve the Lord in helping build His house.
The group of people that went back to Jerusalem was quite small; read Zechariah 4:10. Even though we are small as well, we have the Lord in our midst.
Hymn 31 – Precious, precious blood of Jesus
Prayer