June 28, 2009
Scripture :
We sang earlier “We praise we worship we adore, as round thyself we meet.” We just sang, “Within the Father’s house on high we soon shall sing thy praise, but here, where thou didst bleed and die, we learn that song to raise”. We look forward to that day when we will be with our Lord, but it is here that we have the wondrous privilege to remember Him. In Exodus we have the picture of the Passover presented to us; here we have the fulfillment of it. Luke 22:7-9 The disciples were directed to a room; not the temple, not some synagogue, but a room. V11. We know what a wonderful privilege the disciples had. “As round Thyself we meet.” We fulfilled the Lord’s desire this morning; “this do in remembrance of me”. When the Lord gave them that loaf and cup, He could tell them, “This is my body, broken for you. This is my blood, which is shed for you.” He told them that He would send them the Comforter to be with them and to dwell in them. The Holy Ghost was sent on Pentecost. Acts 2:42. They “continued steadfastly”; there were many more than just the disciples. They all continued steadfastly and answered the Lord’s request. Acts 20:7. This is twenty-five years later; they were still continuing steadfastly in the Breaking of Bread, fulfilling that desire of their Lord’s. 1 Corinthians 11:23 Going back, Paul reveals what the Lord revealed to him. We have the body and blood of Jesus re-presented in the loaf and the cup. Vv.25b-26 “As round thyself we meet”. Verse twenty-six tells us that we only have this privilege till the Lord comes. In Acts, twenty five years after the Lord ascended, they were still waiting, and still answering that request. About 2000 years later, that promise “I will come again” is still for us. We still have the privilege to meet around the Lord. His most precious example of love to us was His death on the cross. We will have the privilege of remembering Him and His love till He comes. It was precious for Him to have those who loved Him around Himself on that night. He was hated then, still is today and will be until He comes.
Hymn 341 - Jesus bids us shine
Prayer
We’ve been talking about the story of Noah; last time we saw how Noah built an altar to thank the Lord for saving him from the judgement. That offering sent up a sweet smelling savour to God, because it made Him think of what His Son would do so many years later.
Read Genesis 9:8 - 12. Do you ever lie awake at night and worry that a flood will destroy you? Well, you don’t have to worry about that, because we read here that God promised never to destroy the earth with a flood again; God made this promise to all men and animals. But He did more than that: He gave Noah (and us, too) a token, which is something that will remind you of a promise. Read vv. 13 & 14. Do you know what that token was? It was a bow in the clouds; we call it a rainbow. Do you know how many colours there are in a rainbow? There are seven: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. If we had time, we could look into the typical meanings of each of these colours. So, what do you need to make a rainbow? There are three things: clouds, rain, and sun. When a sunbeam hits a raindrop, the raindrop splits the light into seven rays of light, each a different colour. You see, we see white light from the sun, but white light is made up of those seven colours. Then, when those rays of light hit a cloud, we can see the rainbow. The cloud speaks to us of God’s judgement, and the rainbow speaks to us of God’s grace, which covers us from the judgement, because of what Jesus did at Calvary. God also wants us to be rainbows, to shine to others for God, sharing His grace with others.
We have been noticing a few special words used in this chapter. In v. 20, we have the word “earnestly,” describing how Baruch worked. How we need to be earnestly working on that which would protect us from the invasions of the enemy!
We are given all the names of those who were working on the wall, but often we are given the names of their fathers or grandfathers. Some of us can look back and remember the times we sat in meetings with our parents and grandparents. Now, time has passed, and we have the responsibility of passing on that heritage of truth. Now look at v. 21 : Meremoth had a godly heritage, and here we see him building “another” piece of the wall; it is one thing to work earnestly while you work, but to give more time to God’s work is notable indeed.
We have noticed that some of the Jews had their houses as part of the wall; we were reminded previously of how important it is to have a strong wall in our homes today, to guard against the onslaughts of Satan. If we do not hold fast to what we have, we are liable to lose it.
V. 26 : Now we see the Nethinims building the water gate. This speaks to us of cleansing. Two types of cleansings are spoken of in the Bible. First, there is the judicial cleansing by the blood, which cleanses us of our sin when we are saved. But then there is the cleansing that should take place regularly in the life of a Christian. This is typified by the water that came from the Lord’s side; usually, this cleansing is done through our reading the Word. Read Ephesians 5:25 - 27. The word of God may also be used to refresh our souls. How important it is to be continually occupied with the Word of God!
In v. 27, the Tekoites are mentioned again; actually, they are the descendants of Ira, one of David’s mighty men ( II Samuel 23:38).
V. 28 : Now we have the horse gate; the horse reminds us of power, and this gate speaks to us of warfare. We need to have our armour on, we need to be ready to preserve the truth that has been given to us.
Hymn 350 - I will make you fishers of men
Prayer