August 8, 2010
Scripture:
Scripture:
Ministry
I’d just like to connect three verses, two of which have already been read.
Luke 22:14
Hebrews 1:3b-4
Hebrews 10:12-13
I was just thinking of the contrast between the night when the Lord sat down with His disciples in the shadow of the cross, and the day when He arrived in heaven after the Ascension and God offered Him the seat on His right hand side. He sat down there in priesthood, to take up our cause.
Someday He will sit down as king in His kingdom, and He will reign with His enemies as His footstool. It’s precious to think of the sitting of that Blessed One, and Ephesians reminds us that we are seated in heavenly places with Christ.
Hymn 26 - In rags and in ruins
Prayer
Today, instead of talking about one of God’s animals; I’d like to talk about one of God’s men: Gideon.
Judges 6:7-14, 34; 7:3-12,19
In our story today, God was allowing the Midianites to oppress Israel because they had followed other gods. God decided to use Gideon to deliver the Israelites. Even though Gideon was afraid of the Midianites, the angel that was sent to him called him a mighty man. He then told Gideon that he was to save Israel. This gave Gideon vision.
So he called together an army of 32,000 men. God told him, “Tell everybody that is afraid to go home.” So 22,000 people went home. God doesn’t have much use for fearful people. He needs people with valour.
But God told Gideon, “You still have too many people. Take them down to the water.” So they went down, and most of the people stuck their face in the water to drink. These people were no good, because they weren’t watchful for the enemy. 300 men, however, brought the water up to their mouths and lapped. These were vigilant, watching for the enemy. The Lord could use these.
It looked impossible to conquer all the many Midianites with just 300 men, but nothing is impossible with God; and God had given Gideon the Spirit of the Lord.
Now, you usually go to war with a sword or gun or something like that; but God sent Gideon and his men with trumpets and torches in pitchers. They surrounded the enemy, blew the trumpets, and broke the pitchers so that the lights shone. The Midainites heard the sound, saw the light, were frightened and ran.
The trumpets for us are like the sound of God’s love, and the torches are like His light. We have the two characteristics of God here. We can use these to draw people to the Saviour, instead of having them run like the Midianites. I hope that each one here is drawn to the Lord Jesus Christ.
We saw last week that all believers are priests to the Lord. The priests of Malachi’s day were supposed to “keep knowledge” and “seek the law,” but instead they were influencing the people to sin. We saw how each of us will influence others by our daily walk: we can either be a blessing or a stumbling-block.
I’m writing a gospel, a chapter each day, / In the things that I do and the words that I say
Men read what I write, whether faithless or true, / Say, what is the gospel according to you?
Vv. 5 - 7 tells us what the priests were supposed to be. V. 8 starts with “but”; they weren’t going on in the Lord’s way. “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Proverbs 14:12). At one point, they were in the right way, but then they left it. They had corrupted the covenant of Levi (in vv. 15 - 17).
Think about all that the Lord has done for us; are we neglecting the privilege of being holy priests? Or, worse, are pretending to do it, but really dishonouring God, as the priests of Malachi’s day were?
V. 9: Because of their actions, God had called these priests contemptible. They had been partial in the law; the new translation says they were having respect of persons: they were not treating all the people equally when it came to executing the law. In v. 10, Malachi says they were dealing “treacherously”; that means they weren’t dealing faithfully. Interestingly, the Hebrew root for the word “treacherously” means “to cover.” It’s one thing to act unfaithfully, but another to do so and try to hide it. That’s what they were doing, by pretending to be following the Lord.
Hymn 201 - When we walk with the Lord
Prayer