February 10, 2013
Scripture:
I was thinking of Romans 8:3a. The whole law was the ground in which Israel had a relationship with God. v.3b. We could paraphrase this, “What the law could not do, God has done through Jesus.”
Hymn 293 – A Little Ship was on the Sea
Prayer
You might be wondering why we sang, A little ship was on the sea , when we are going through the life of Elisha. While the disciples were in that storm, they cried to the Lord to save them. In today’s story, a woman cried to Elisha for help.
2 Kings 4:1-7
We are told that this woman was the wife a prophet’s son. Unfortunately, we are also told that her husband had died. One day, a man came to her house and asked her to pay the money that her husband had owed him. The historian Josephus says that this might be Obadiah’s wife. Obadiah hid many prophets from Queen Jezebel. It is quite possible that he borrowed money to feed these prophets.
The women went to Elisha because she didn’t have the money to pay; if she didn’t give this man the money soon, she would have to give her sons to him as slaves.
Read Psalm 120:1 and Psalm 121:1 & 2.
Just as this woman went to Elisha for help, David cried unto the Lord for help and He helped him. It is wonderful to know that Lord is willing to help us when we look to him.
Elisha asked the woman what she had in her home. She told Elisha that she had oil. Elisha told her to borrow pots from her neighbours and fill the pots with oil. She then was to sell the oil to make money to pay the debt. Amazingly, she ran out of pots before she ran out of oil. She was able to sell the oil and thankfully was able to pay her debt. This woman went to Elisha for help and we can go to the Lord for help.
There are a couple of ways we can apply this story to our own lives. First, this woman had some oil and she used it to save her sons. Each of us has an ability that the Lord has given to us and we need to use it for Him. Also, we each are born with a debt that we cannot pay. The Lord Jesus paid it for us and all we need to do is to trust in Him.
This story had a sad beginning but a happy ending. It is nice to know that the Lord is watching over us and that everything that happens to us is all in His plan.
Luke 20:19-38
Last week we looked at the pointed parable that Jesus gave to the chief priests and scribes. These men knew that He had spoken this parable against them, but they still tried to capture Him. That really exposes their hearts; but, as it shows in verse six, they didn’t fear God: they feared man.
So they tried another plan. They tried to catch Jesus in His words. Psalm 12:6. Luke 4:22. Of course, they couldn’t, but they tried. They sent out spies to set Jesus up and catch Him with crafty questions. These spies pretended to be just men, not knowing that the Lord could see their hearts. They wanted to deliver Him to the power and authority of the (foreign Roman) governor, not realizing that He had all power and authority!
Vv.21-22. These men pretended to be just. “We really want want to know the answer to this problem. Should we give taxes to Caesar?” God allowed it, though, to bring out truths that we can apply. Should we pay taxes? Where are we citizens of? We live here on Earth, but our citizenship is actually in heaven.
The question didn‘t fool our Lord. He said, “Show me a penny. Whose image and superscription is on this?” They answered, “Caesar’s.” Jesus then went on to answer, not just the question, but the questioner. V.25. There must be a balance in our lives. The penny was Caesar’s, but we must give God what belongs to Him. Where are the image and superscription of God, though? We were created in His image, and in II Corinthians 3:18 we learn that those of us that are saved are changed into His image by beholding His glory. His superscription is written on the fleshy tables of our hearts.
We are to be in the world, but not of the world. There are things that we must give to ‘Caesar‘. We must pay our taxes. The ‘Caesars’ in our lives aren’t always who we would choose; but God has set them in the position of leader. It’s our job to pray for them.
The chief priests and scribes couldn’t catch the Lord in His words, but they didn’t give up. Along come the Sadducees. These people didn’t believe in the resurrection (which is why they were sad you see). They told the Lord about a situation where a lady outlived the seven brothers to whom she was sequentially married, having no children with any of them. What the Sadducees wanted Jesus to tell them was whose wife she would be in the resurrection, since she was married to seven men. They were ridiculing the idea of resurrection, because they didn’t believe in it! Whose wife will this woman be, though? Vv.34-36. The Sadducees made the mistake of thinking that the spiritual world is like the natural world, when it’s not.
It’s precious to know that death is not the end for the believer. We also know that without the resurrection of our Lord, we have nothing! Jesus tells us in John 5:28 that there will be a resurrection. If you go to a cemetery, you realize that it’s really just a parking lot. Everyone there will be called out one day. When all Christians are raised, it will just be a resurrection of our bodies. When we die, our souls go to be with the Lord.
V. 29. When the dead are called out of their graves, there will be a division—a time division of one thousand years. People won’t be raised to the same position that they left. The Bible doesn’t tell us much about it; but it does say that those of us who are saved will be the children of God, equal to the angels.
Hymn 193 – There comes to my heart a sweet strain
Prayer