May 30, 2010
Scripture:
Our last hymn brought before me Psalm 16:11. We sang, “What can full joy and blessing be but being where Thou art?“.
We are in the Lord’s presence as we meet here in accordance with the word of God. This should give us joy.
The world tries to find joy in pleasures but all they get is happiness. What’s the difference? Happiness comes and goes; but joy stays no matter what happens. Happiness doesn’t satisfy.
Jesus came and suffered on the cross, so that we could have joy; a joy that overflows, a joy that loves to worship Him. May we be found in this joy.
Hymn 335 - I am so glad that our Father in Heaven
Prayer
We’ll continue with Genesis 24. Today we come to the last section; The Son’s Devotion.
V.62. For most of the story, we’ve been out in Mesopotamia with Abraham’s servant. Now the scene changes and we see Isaac for the first time since chapter 22, when he was about to be offered as a sacrifice. Abraham had given his servant strict instructions not to bring Isaac back to Mesopotamia. The girl had to come to Canaan.
V63. Isaac’s probably out there, walking back and forth, thinking; what is my father’s servant doing? How long will he be? What is the girl going to be like? All of a sudden, he looks up and sees the camels coming.
V64. Isaac and Rebekah are both doing the same thing, lifting up their eyes. They want to see each other. This is a picture of the Lord’s coming. He is looking forward to it, and we should be as well.
V65. There is no record of any discussion between the servant and Rebekah while on the journey home, but she probably asked a lot of questions about Isaac. We can ask God to let the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ to us.
V66 & 67. So they finally came together as Bride and Groom. I was thinking of our flow-charts, and I had to come up with a symbol to illustrate something:
Isaac ♥ Rebekah. But, as we’ve been saying, this is a type. So we could also have:
Christ ♥ Church
Or, to make it more personal, we could have:
Jesus ♥ Me
How precious it is to know that Jesus loves us!
So we finally have the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah, and in a future day we know that Christ will marry the Church, His Bride. So that’s the story of Genesis 24.
We noticed how Nehemiah went back to Babylon for a spell; during this time, there was some declension. We spoke last time about the mixed multitude and how they had to separate.
The next thing Nehemiah dealt with was Tobiah. Eliashib, the high priest, had given him residence in the temple, vv. 4, 5, & 7. Nehemiah didn’t handle this matter delicately: he threw Tobiah and all his belongings out of the temple, vv 8 & 9. He had a sense of the holiness of God; he saw the importance of getting rid of the evil. We must be careful to do the same: when evil comes in, we must remove it and restore the right conditions.
V. 10: letting Tobiah into the temple had other ramifications. Because of him, the priests and Levites had moved back out to their farms; they were not being given the portions they needed and they needed to provide for themselves. The results of the high priest’s actions were far-reaching. We find that the people had forsaken the house of God, v.
The house of God is a very important idea in Scripture. We read about it first in Exodus 15, when the children of Israel have crossed the Red Sea: “he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation” (v. 2). We hear about it all the way through the Bible, right into Revelation. From the wilderness until the time of Solomon, the house of God was the tabernacle; then, Solomon built the temple. The house of God was where God dwelt among men. However, we find in Ezekiel that God left his house. However, He did return: one day, as a man, he walked into the temple and found it to be a den of thieves. He returned to His house, but His people rejected Him. Now, He has another habitation (Ephesians 2: 21 & 22), formed by all believers. Read Hebrews 10:25; we shouldn’t forsake the house of God as the Jews did; we should want to be there.
This chapter that we’re looking at in Nehemiah is in the closing days of the Old Testament. We can see the weakness. Nehemiah now restores the house of God once again. vv. 11 & 12. Again, the people bring their tithes. To manage this, Nehemiah sets up treasurers, v. 13. When choosing them, he looked for faithful men. We are treasurers too: our treasure is the Word, and what we get out of meditating on it. If we are faithful, we will store that and share it with others.
Hymn 312 - Jesus loves me, this I know
Prayer