January 25, 2009
Scripture
John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” We’re all familiar with this verse. God sent His Son, the dearest object of his heart, into the world. We can hardly imagine what a cost that was. When the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, He gave Himself on the cross. Wondrous gift of the Father; wondrous gift of the Son, that He gave Himself for you and me. In the future, when we have been raptured and have our glorified bodies, the Father will give us to the Son. We will be part of His Bride. This is beyond anything that we could ever imagine, or expect. We have been given to Him who gave Himself for us. We will have our glorified bodies, so that we will be a glorified gift. And what a gift we will have, to be able to behold His glory! Think of the Queen of Sheba, when she saw the wealth and wisdom of Solomon she said that the half was not told her. We can’t imagine what is in store for us. Behold, what manner of people ought we to be!
Hymn 283 – What cheering words are these
Prayer
Last time, we talked about the new Jerusalem. Today, we’ll look at what will happen at the end of the Millennium. Read Revelation 20:7. At the end of the thousand years, Satan will be loosed. V.8, he will go throughout the world and gather a huge army. With that army, v. 9, he will surround Jerusalem; this is Satan’s last chance to destroy God’s plans. However, God will burn the entire army with fire from Heaven. In v. 10, we find that Satan will be sent to the Lake of Fire, where the beast and the false prophet already are.
V. 11 : This is the Lord’s throne, where He will judge all the unbelievers who have died, from Cain until now. He will judge them from the books, which are records of all the things they did in their lives. Then, if their names are not in the Book of Life (which they won’t be), He will have to cast them all into the Lake of Fire, for not accepting His offer of salvation. The Lake of Fire will be a place of eternal torment, where they will never die, but be continually conscious. They will probably remember the time they rejected salvation, and realize why they are here. How good it is to know the Lord as your own Saviour!
Lord Willing, we will talk about the eternal state next time.
As we end ch. 6, we see the dedication of the temple and the celebrating of the passover and the feast of unleavened bread. Even though there were only a few of them there, the Jews still followed the law in holding the feasts. It’s similar for us today: though we be few, we can take part in the remembrance of the Lord. In doing so, we acknowledge all those who are part of the body of Christ.
V. 21 — This seems to imply that there were some Jews who had not been taken captive (Jeremiah was one of them). These Jews had probably been in idolatry, but they had at some point separated themselves from the heathen of the land. Both those who returned and those who were there kept the feast of unleavened bread. For us, this signifies our sanctification from the world. We, too, should have joy in being separated for God as these Jews did.
There is a significant time gap between chapters 6 and 7: roughly fifty years. (The story of Esther took place in this gap.) During this time, God worked to bring the next group back to Israel, under the leadership of Ezra. Surprizingly, this is the first mention of Him in the book. As we are introduced to him, we learn three things about him that make him stand out. First of all, he was a descendant of Aaron, which made him a priest. Secondly, we learn that he was a ready scribe. A scribe was one who would hand-write copies of the law and other documents. In ch 7:10, we find the most important thing about Ezra: he followed the law and taught it. God had a very special man here.
We should be able to identify with Ezra. We should be priests to God. We should spend time in His Word, meditating on it and even taking some notes. And we should apply what God teaches us in our lives; we need to put it into shoe-leather!
Hymn 201 – When we walk with the Lord
Prayer