September 27, 2009
Scripture:
Scripture:
Revelation 5:9
I’d like to refer back to that verse our brother read in Revelation 5. V9. We’ve been thinking about redemption this morning. The word redemption has a couple of meanings. The first one is: to buy back. What was bought back? Way back in the Garden of Eden, when Adam sinned, all mankind received a sin nature. That made it impossible for man to enter heaven, without Divine intervention. We became slaves to sin. Something had to change. Think of all the sacrifices offered throughout the Old Testament. There were thousands, but they weren’t enough to save from sin. They only looked forward to the time when Jesus came to die. He had the power to cleanse sinners. His death redeemed us from our state of sin, and brought us into fellowship with God. That was a wonderful transformation. As a slave to sin, we had no value. But now we’re invited into a wonderful relationship with the Heavenly Father.
The other definition is: to set free. We’ve been set free from sin, and now are free to enjoy that relationship. Think of the Children of Israel when they killed that lamb at the Passover. It was their protection, as God saved them from the Egyptians. But then they had to follow God’s cloud through the Red Sea; a picture of our going through death with the Lord Jesus Christ. When we accept the Lord as our Saviour, we are set free immediately in God’s sight. However, in our personal experience, it may take longer. How long will it be till we are free from this world? How free are we to enjoy the Lord? May we be challenged to be more free to enjoy Him; till we are called Home, where we will be totally free to enjoy Him forever. Praise His Name!
Hymn 341 – Jesus bids us shine
Prayer
We sang about shining; I’ve drawn a picture of an oil lamp here; why? Today we’ll look at ch. 4 of I Samuel, which is a very sad chapter. Read the first sentence of the chapter. The word of Samuel is the prophecy that God gave him in the previous chapter: we’ll see it fulfilled in this chapter.
Read v. 2: the Israelites had a battle against the Philistines. They lost, and 4,000 men were killed. Notice ch. 3:3; this verse is probably talking about the actual lamp in the temple, but I think we can also look at it as the testimony of God in Israel. Israel is really falling away from God at this time, and we can see that He isn’t helping them in battle.
Read v. 3; the Jews decided that the Ark of the Covenant would help them win, and so they brought it to the next battle. When the Philistines heard them shout, vv. 4 – 6, they became concerned: they remembered what the Isrealites’ God had done to the Egyptians. They told each other to fight like men, vv 7 – 9.
V. 10: again, the Philistines beat the Israelites. This time, Israel lost 30,000 men. They also lost the Ark of the Covenant; the Philistines took it back with them, and they killed Hophni and Phinehas. We can see how the light of Israel was going out. They were getting further from God. They shouldn’t have taken the Ark out onto the battlefield.
Read Proverbs 24:20 and 13:9. We can think of the lamp as our closeness to the Lord. If we are living for the Lord, we will shine as a testimony for Him in this dark world. But if we don’t, them our light will go out.
Read vv. 12 – 18. A man ran from the battle to tell Eli what had happened; when Eli heard that his sons were dead and the Ark was taken, he fell off his chair, broke his neck, and died. This in vv. 19 – 22, his daughter-in-law died of grief and pain while giving birth to a son. She named him Ichabod, which means “the glory has departed from Israel.” She realized that Israel’s lamp had gone out. It was a sad day for Israel.
So we should live to let our light shine to those around us, to show them the glory of God. Who here wants to shine for God?
Most of this chapter is about the work of the enemy; but we do get the news that the work on the wall is done. We find that as the wall got closer to completion, the enemy got more intense with their wiles. In v. 10, we find that this is coming from a Jew; he should have been on the Lord’s side. He pretended to be concerned for Nehemiah; but Nehemiah was able to discern his true motive. How sad when the Lord’s people let themselves be used by Satan. Judas is another example of this. Nehemiah was close to the Lord, so he could see through the deception; we can see his faithfulness. We are all subject to temptations; let us not think we won’t fall to them. Nehemiah had a resource that we need to use: prayer, v. 14. He relied on God to take care of his enemies.
Read v. 15: the wall was finished in 52 days. That’s amazing speed, when you think of how big a project this was: the historian Millman said that it took 20 men to open or close the Eastern Gate of Jerusalem. Then, it had bars that could go deep down into the pavement to secure it. And that was just one small piece of the task; this was a huge task! But with Nehemiah’s leadership and God’s blessing, they completed it in 52 days. That’s why the enemies were so strongly against it; they wanted to destroy this great cause. Interesting, the end of v. 16 says they realized it was a work of God. They realized that only God could do that in so short a time. The enemies were depressed by this.
We’ve seen a lot of opposition in the last few chapters; but whether it was from inside, outside, or a combination of both, Nehemiah overcame it all. And it wasn’t over yet; read vv. 17 – 20. Tobiah had married a Jew, and so had his son. There was still conflict from an inside-outside alliance.
Each of us is in a similar situation to Nehemiah. Satan wants to hinder Gods’ work in our lives. We need to be vigilant, remembering that the Lord can come in for us as He did for Nehemiah.
Hymn 315 – Happy they who trust in Jesus
Prayer