December 12, 2010
Scripture:
Scripture:
Turn to Acts 2; what we see here is Peter’s talk on the day of Pentecost, right after the Holy Ghost had been given. Read vv. 32 - 42: *“This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, Until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the LORD our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.”* This day was long ago, but it is precious that we can still have the breaking of bread before us this morning.
Hymn 342 - Jesus came from heaven
Prayer
Genesis 28:12-22
Last time, we didn’t finish the story of Jacob. We didn’t look at Jacob dream, in which God talked to him; that’s what we are going to look at right know.
Vv. 13-15: this is God’s promise to Jacob. What is a promise? A promise is when a person says they will do something. Sometimes promises have conditions; an example of a promise with a condition is if your parents say, “If you make your bed every day, then at the end of the week, I’ll give you a score bar.”
V.13: Was this part of the promise good or bad? Does it have a condition? The promise that God gave Jacob was good and there were no conditions. What about Salvation; does it have a condition? It doesn’t; the Lord Jesus did all the work and we get all the blessings. God told Jacob that all the land of Canaan was going to be given to him and all his seed.
V.14: When it says “his seed,” it mean those who would be born of him. God told Jacob that all his seed would be like the dust of the earth. This promise has no conditions.
V.15: Next, God says He was going to be with Jacob wherever he went. Even if Esau came to fight, God would protect him.
Vv.16 &17: Then all of a sudden, the dream was over; Jacob awoke and said that God was in that place. Do you think that Jacob was afraid? Yes, he was. For people that are not saved, the presence of God is a fearful thing.
Vv. 18 & 19: Then Jacob took the stones that he had used for his pillow, made a pillar, and poured some oil on top of it. He called that place “Bethel.”
Vv. 20-22: Then Jacob said, “If God will be with me, give me bread to eat, and will bring me back to my fathers then I will serve Him.” Didn’t God just say that He would be Jacob? It doesn’t seem as though Jacob believed what God had said. So, instead of believing what God had promised, Jacob make a bargain with God.
Can I bargain about Salvation? God has promised, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” What if I make a bargain and say “I will work for my salvation.” It doesn’t work; God doesn’t accept bargains on salvation.
So we come to the end of the story of Jacob’s journey.
Well, we’ve just been talking about Jacob, who didn’t believe the promises in his vision. But in our chapter, Mary had many promises and did believe them.
Luke 1:30-56
Last time we saw the angel telling Mary that God had chosen her body to bring His Son into the world. Mary freely yielded herself, basically saying, “It’s all yours.” Romans tells us that we, too, need to yield our bodies as sacrifices to God.
In verses 32-33 we have a lot of “shalls” or “shalts”. These are promises that are being made to Mary; some seem almost beyond belief, but she believes them. She was a poor virgin in the town of Nazareth; and an angel comes and asks for her body, but promises the world. There were no “ifs” with Mary like there were with Jacob. It reminds us of Abraham in Romans 4:18-22, where it tells us that against all the evidence, he believed God’s promise. Both were promised babies; but Mary’s situation was harder to believe, because her baby was to have no earthly father. Her only question, once the angel was finished, was a technical one. The answer to that was the work of the Holy Ghost.
If this young woman from Nazareth was lifted to the place where she was going to have a baby that would be called the Son of the Highest, the Son David, and more; can you imagine what it must have been for the Lord to descend to this lowly state? It was all planned, and as verse 37 reminds us, nothing is impossible with God. Abraham had had experience with placing faith in God’s words, but Mary hadn’t had all that. Malachi tells us that there were those that feared the Lord, and I am sure that Zachariah, Elisabeth, Joseph and Mary were part of that group. If she was with the other faithful, then she might have been waiting for this.
A lot of the promises given here haven’t yet come to pass. Can you imagine Mary at the cross, wonderingd what had happened to them? We can see them all in perspective, but they couldn’t.
We get a couple “Son of” titles for the Lord in this chapter. There are seven “Son of” titles given in the Bible, and Mr Hayward writes that:
“Son of Mary” was His natural relationship,
“Son of Joseph” was His legal relationship,
“Son of David” was His royal relationship,
“Son of Abraham” was His Messianic relationship,
“Son of the Highest” was His preeminent relationship
“Son of man” was His human relationship,
and “Son of God” was His divine relationship.
“The Son of God” must have been hard to believe, Sarah laughed when she was told she would have a regular child, and Zachariah didn’t believe when he was told the same; but Mary believed, even though hers was the hardest to believe.
The whole incarnation, the Son of God becoming the Son of man, was so needed. Two distinct characters, intertwined so amazingly.
Hymn 330 - A message came from Heaven
Prayer