October 18, 2009
Scripture:
Scriptures:
Ephesians 2:12-13
One of the things that I like to think about is the extreme opposites in Scripture. The holy, spotless, Lamb of God lived in a perfect Heaven; but was sent by His Father down to this unholy, wicked world for you and me. That’s an extreme opposite. While He was down here on earth He went to the cross, and bore the punishment for our sins. He took our sins upon Himself! That’s another extreme opposite, because Jesus was sinless. But He didn’t stop there. He went on and died; but rose three days later, breaking the bonds of death. And He not only ascended out of the grave, but He also ascended back to Heaven. So He now had his essential and acquired glory. So more extreme opposites. He took you and I - sinful, wicked creatures - and as a result of His work on the cross, has cleansed us and made like Himself. The way God sees us, we are as holy as His own son. That’s an extreme opposite!!
This is wonderful, but how much do we enter into this and live it? Now we are associated with the Holy Spirit, and Christ will soon come to claim His bride - us. We will behold His glory, and be in awe. We will be His Beloved. Let us enjoy and relish the extreme opposite of what He has brought us from and to. May we live in the joy and power of it. We can enjoy it now, before we get to heaven.
Hymn 306 - Like a little wandering lamb
Prayer
1 Samuel 5
Chapter 4 was a sad chapter. The arch was captured, Eli died, and the Israelites lost the battle. Now, the Arch of the Covenant resided in the Holy of Holies. It represented God’s presence, but was now gone from Israel and was with the Philistines.
Vv. 1-2. Dagon was one of the Philistine’s gods. He had the head a chest of a man, but the tail of a fish. They brought the arch into his temple like a trophy of their victory. When they first heard that the arch was in the Israeli camp they were afraid, because they remembered all the wonderful works that this God had done. Now they’ve brought the arch to their idol as a trophy. If we go to Psalm 135 we are told what an idol is like. Vv. 15-18. So we see that an idol is the work of man’s hands, it’s not alive.
Vv. 3-6. God smites the people of Ashdod, because of the arch. They got these very painful tumors because they were meddling with the holy arch. Vv. 7-8. They want to get rid of the arch, so they send it to Gath. Goliath came from Gath, so maybe they thought the people were bigger and stronger there and would be able to handle the arch better. But God struck Gath as well, (V.9) and the men of Gath want to get rid of it as well. So they send it to Ekron. (V10.) Now Ekron was the home of another god, Beelzebub. He was a healing god, so perhaps they thought that he would protect the Ekronites from the emerods. But it wasn’t so. (Vv. 11-12)
God had allowed the Israelites to lose the battle for a reason; but He still showed the Philistines that He was powerful. The Philistines had idols, but they had no power. People still worship idols today. Mark 12:29-30, 32. There is only one God. We are to love Him with all our soul mind and strength. Anything that gets between us and God is like an idol. God showed His power and brought judgement on the Philistines when they put their idols before Him. May we seek to go on without idols in our lives.
We mentioned last week that most of chapter 7 is repeated from Ezra. We were remarking last week that the Jews we are reading about were from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin; however, there were Levites here as well. Where did they come from? Read II Chronicles 11: 1 & 13. They actually were dispersed throughout Israel, since they did not have an inheritance. When the kingdom was divided, they gathered to Judah.
Nehemiah 8 – 10 are a kind of parentheses. They switch the focus from the building of the wall to worship. They were re-establishing God’s Word. We can see in this that until they got everything in place, they weren’t ready to get back into God’s work and follow it. They needed to be in Jerusalem, and have the altar and temple build before they could worship God properly. It’s also interesting to notice that although they didn’t all live in Jerusalem (ch. 7:73), the wall did not divide them. It was only to keep out the enemy.
So we see here that they come together to re-establish God’s order; they were returning to the way things were done in the time of David or Solomon. Although the glory of God was not there in the same way it had been, they wanted to be in accordance with God’s word.
This took place near the end of the Old Testament period. We are now near the end of the day of grace. There are many parallels between their time and ours. There were the days of glory: the time of David, or the book of Acts. Then there was a serious falling away, followed by a time of revival, which is the Reformation or the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. Today, we are in a time of small things, as it was in Malachi’s day.
Now, the Jews bring out God’s Word. Although Nehemiah is the leader, it is not he who reads. This is not a Nehemiah operation: Ezra takes his appropriate position, as do the other Levites. God has given every Christian a gift, and it is important that these gifts are exercised.
V. 1: the water gate reminds us of the water of the Word. And notice that it wasn’t Ezra’s or Nehemiah’s idea to read the law; the people came to them and requested it.
V. 2: notice who is listening here: the men, the women, and all who could understand. No one could say, “One day, when I’m older … ” God has a word for all of us, no matter our age.
Hymn 381 – I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold
Prayer