February 7, 2010
Scripture:
Scritpture:
Isaiah 9:6
You feel very inadequate when you try to bring out all the truth that there is in this verse. When Satan caused Adam and Eve to sin in the Garden of Eden, he probably thought, “I’ve spoiled man for good”. But God had a plan and a purpose.
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” Who could know that His purpose was to send His Son down to Earth as a baby? He gave His Son, Who was always in the bosom of the Father, Who is all-powerful, and upholds all things.
“And the government shall be upon His shoulder.” You’ll notice that this is in the singular tense. In John, when it talks about the shepherd finding his lost sheep, it says that he put it on his shoulders, plural. That’s like us who are saved; we can feel secure. But the government only needs one shoulder. That shows God’s power.
“Wonderful.” This is what we’ve been thinking about this morning. His name is filled with wonder; but we can get so used to hearing it that it ceases to have that wonder to us. May that name ever be wonderful to us.
“Counsellor.” Now, you can go to a lot of counsellors here in this world, but how would you like to go to a counsellor that knows everything? Nothing is new to our Lord. He knows all, and we can go to Him for counsel.
“The Mighty God.” One of God’s greatest acts was the Resurrection. Satan brought sin into this world, and by doing so brought death. God reversed that at the Resurrection. God has all power and there is nothing that He can’t do.
“The Everlasting Father.” The Father is the One Who seeks worship, as we see in John 4. And since He is Everlasting, we can praise Him forever in Heaven.
“The Prince of Peace.” We, as Christians, can have peace in our hearts because our sins are forgiven. However, there is not peace in this world. There is sin, war and other things. When our Lord comes to reign, He will bring peace for He is the Prince of Peace. He will do away with everything that is not peaceful.
May these things cause us to be lifted to the Lord and ever to praise Him!
Hymn 330 - A message came from heaven
Prayer
We’ve been talking about Genesis 24 lately. Last time, I gave four headings for this chapter. 1. The Father’s Desire; 2. The Servant’s Diligence; 3. The Bride’s Decision; 4. The Son’s Devotion. We’ve talked about the Father’s Desire, so let’s move on to the Servant’s Diligence. Genesis 24:10 We sometimes talk about animal personalities; stubborn as a mule, strong as an ox, or proud as a peacock. How would you like to be compared to a camel? They’re not very pretty animals; all lumpy and out of proportion. Well, the first thing that the servant did was to get ten of his master’s camels ready. They would be used for carrying the things, like gold and silver, that the servant was bringing. So, in a way, the camels were the servant’s helpers.
V11. Now, we kneel down to pray. These camels knelt down at a well. A well is a place where you go to get water. In the Bible, water is a picture of the word of God, the Scriptures. It’s as if they were having a Bible reading and prayer.
As we’ve said before, this story is going on today. God the Father has sent the Holy Spirit into this world to win a Bride for His Son. In order to do this, the Holy Spirit needs those who are in prayer, and those that are in the Word. You’ll also notice that this well was outside the city. We need to go to a quiet place, away from all the noise and distraction to read and pray. That’s how the Bride will be won.
When I was young, my Father and Mother were camels. They gathered us children together to read the Bible and pray. I had an uncle and aunt who were camels, and grandparents who were camels. It may be a somewhat insulting comparison, but we want to be helpers like the camels in the story. I hope that you’re a helping camel.
Next time we’ll see what happened as a result of the reading and praying.
We’ve been looking at this rehearsal of Israel’s history; now, in v. 23, they are finally in the Promised Land. We can see how God blessed them; their numbers were increasing, as the Lord had promised to Abraham. This passage uses the analogy “the stars of heaven.” This analogy is a type of the church.
V. 24: The children of Israel didn’t take over the entire land of Canaan. However, God used them to judge the nations that inhabited Canaan. In Genesis 15, God told Abraham that his descendants would live in a foreign land for 400 years because “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” God gave these nations a chance to repent, but He finally had to judge their wickedness. When reading what the Children of Israel did in Joshua, we may think it is rather ruthless. Is that a good representation of Christianity? Well, we should be ruthless toward sin in the world.
V. 25: The Jews faced many dangers and battles when entering Canaan, but they received many blessings from doing so as well. Canaan was a very rich land. They enjoyed God’s goodness to them in abundance. There were to prohibitions. It reminds us of Isaiah 55:1 : “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” It all points to God’s generosity and willingness to bless us with good things. The Land of Canaan is a type of our enjoyment of heaven while here on earth. We will have no lack here as long as we defeat the enemy around us; we can’t make peace with it, as Israel did (I Samuel 7:14). They needed diligence and desire to get the land; we need those qualities in our Christian lives as well! We will see next week, Lord willing, how Israel rebelled against God even after receiving such blessing. In the meantime, may we delight ourselves in God’s great goodness.
Hymn 216 - How good is the God we adore
Prayer