New blog post - Christ the spotless Nazarite (2b)

I have been enjoying this mini study so much recently, so I have decided to add some more thoughts to this subject - remember we were looking at the Nazarite condition that stipulated that he must abstain from touching that which came from the vine. Wine and the fruit of the vine speaks primarily in the scriptures of joy.

You may recall that last time in my blog post here in early February we were thinking about how there is very little said about the Lord Jesus in relation to joy in the scriptures. This is for good reason as it was prophesied that he would be characterised by sorrow and grief whilst down here, and not by joy. Let me balance my comments however by making it clear that I don't believe the Lord appeared to be down-hearted or unhappy, no that's not what I am saying. I am simply looking at what the scriptures tell us prophetically regarding his character and drawing some thoughts from this. Let's be clear that his character was of course wonderfully and perfectly balanced and even, of course we believe that. However his earthly service down here was not for pleasure or enjoyment or marked by levity, the scriptures tell us so! We can think of how he brought so much joy to others though, at all stages of his life, and we do praise God afresh that he was wiling to be the "man of sorrows" and "bear our griefs and carry our sorrows" so that our "joy might be full"!

However, I have been thinking recently that there are three things I believe spoken of in the scriptures that bring joy to the heart of the Lord Jesus, and I share them here for our mutual encouragement and to warm our hearts towards the Saviour.

When a sinner repents (Luke 15:7-10)

"there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth"

How wonderful to think that when we repented of our sin and trusted Christ as our Saviour there was joy in the very presence of God and his angels in heaven! Something that undoubtedly also brought joy to the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ!

A life of faithful and fruitful service (Matthew 25:21-23)

"thou hast been faithful over a few things... enter thou into the joy of thy Lord"

Again, we marvel that ever our contribution and service down here should ever bring joy to the Lord! But this is the truth of it, there is joy for Him at the end of a life of faithful and loyal service and surely this should encourage us in our lives for Him, no matter how meagre or paltry our service may seem to us, it brings pleasure, glory and joy to the heart of God!

My third and final example comes from Hebrews 12:2

"Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame." (NLT)

I have quoted the New Living Translation here as it seems to more accurately convey the meaning here but the Amplified also says "he for the joy (of obtaining the prize...)" so we must ask ourselves; what is the prize he endured to obtain? What is the joy that awaits him?

Fellow believers, I believe that this is you and I. We are the prize and the joy for which he was prepared to endure the cross of Calvary, wonderful thought! I refer you to Isaiah 53:11 "he shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied" or as the New Living Translation puts it; "when he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied."

I thought of the lovely words of that great hymn;

He and I in that bright glory,

One deep joy shall share,

Mine to be forever with him,

His that I am there.

Surely this should move our hearts to give thanks and worship Him? Consider that there is joy for the Saviour the day we came to know him as Saviour; he has joy as a life of faithful service for him is reviewed; and as he looks over the countless myriads of souls in heaven in his presence, ransomed and bought by his precious blood at Calvary, yes there is joy too and satisfaction for his soul! The soul that was poured out unto death, the man of sorrows who was acquainted with grief in his life on earth obtains much joy from the sinner that repents and believes on Him, this is a wonder indeed!

I trust these simple thoughts will compliment and complete the previous post and that we will all enjoy them and be encouraged as we continue to worship and serve our great Saviour.

Yours in Christ, Mark

Christ the spotless Nazarite (2)

Following on from our previous look at the Lord Jesus as the spotless Nazarite in relation to the touching of dead things, I wanted to look this time at that other feature of the Nazarite life: "he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink" (Numbers 6:3). I am looking at these Nazarite features purely with our blessed Saviour in view, so this is a devotional rather than a practical look at these things.

Throughout the Bible, wine and the fruit of the vine are typically a picture of earthly energy and joy, but we will come onto that in more detail later. Wine is also often linked to the Holy Spirit, I am thinking now in particular of Ephesians 5:18 "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit" The idea here is that believers should not be filled with the excess and recklessness of wine which speaks of this earth but that we should be driven and controlled by the Holy Spirit as befits the believer. With this in mind I looked at a few scriptures from the beginning of the Lord's earthly ministry to see what it said about his relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 4:1 says on that occasion that he was LED by the Spirit into the wilderness. The idea is to be led up or guided, and how lovely it is to think that the Saviour was guided by the Holy Spirit, his steps were always in sync with the Spirit and the Father, those 3 persons of the godhead!

Mark 1:12 records the same incident but says that he was DRIVEN by the Spirit into the wilderness. The word really means "cast out" so it carries with it a forceful and decisive act. An alternative rendering indicates to us that He was driven from within, so we have now the idea of the Saviour moving decisively, with passion and purpose driven from within by the Holy Spirit.

Luke 4:1 again records this but here the language is"Jesus being FULL OF the Holy Ghost" The word means "full up" and the verse also carries with it the idea of being "controlled by". Here we learn that Christ was filled by and controlled by the Holy Spirit! It filled and controlled Him and directed His every thought, word and deed.

We recall that in OT times the Spirit of God would come upon men and enable and empower them to accomplish some might deed for God, but these men were always marked by failure or sin in some area of their life. Not so with our Lord of course, as we said last time - He was the perfect, spotless example of the Nazarite, ultimately separated to God for his service and glory!

Let us return to the idea of wine speaking of earthly joy, what does it say about the Lord Jesus and joy? Well, I was interested to see that in the gospels the references to joy are almost always in relation to other people:

• There was Joy at his Birth - Matt 2:10, Luke 2:10


• There was Joy in his Life - Luke 13:17


• There was Joy at his Death - John 16:20 (these are sad and solemn words indeed...)


• There was Joy at his Resurrection though - Matt 28:8, Luke 24:41


• There will be Joy at his coming again - John 16:20 and 22 (praise God!)

Of the Saviour himself though, we remember that it was prophesied of him that he would be "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief", this was the portion of our Saviour own here! Lamentations 1:12 also ultimately speaks of Christ "look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow", there was no sorrow like that which the Lord Jesus experienced at the cross of Calvary for you and for me. Isaiah goes on to say "surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows", how this should humble us and affect us in our lives. Let us lift our hearts and offer up thanks and praise to our God for his beloved Son and our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ.

I trust these simple thoughts will have warmed our hearts towards the Lord Jesus Christ and that they will be of enjoyment and benefit to God's people.

Yours in Christ, Mark

Hannah - A godly woman

We mentioned in our previous post that Hannah is a lovely Bible character and as we move into chapter two of Samuel there are some lovely observations we can make...

We finished our thoughts last time by looking at Hannah's thankfulness and praise for answered prayer concerning a child, and this continues into chapter two. The first 10 verses are Hannah's praise and thanksgiving to God and these verses stand in stark contrast to the bitterness and sorrow of chapter one. I think this is important, as life can be just like that; elation and happiness one minute, when you feel indestructible and that nothing can go wrong, and then everything can go wrong and events can combine to leave us feeling helpless, worried and in despair!

What I think this sequence of events in 1 Samuel shows us is to get into a routine of bringing things before the Lord, and when we see answer to prayer or experience blessing, to immediately give thanks to God and acknowledge his goodness and guidance in our lives. Unfortunately I find I am very quick to bring something before God in time of need, but a lot less quick to give thanks when he answers prayer and I see his hand in my life!

Hannah shows a tremendous knowledge of God in her prayer, so much so that it was a challenge to me. The way she prayed bore the hallmarks of a woman that lived close to God and obviously communicated regularly with God, so that her prayers expressed a knowledge of the character and attributes of God! Surely we who have the full scriptures and have been saved by the grace of God and indwelled by the Spirit should also be able to pray in the same way? A case in point is her acknowledgement of the sovereignty of God in verses 6 and 7. She confesses that it is God that controls life and death, and God can make men poor and rich as he wills, just as he can exalt or humble a man. What a lesson this is, and what grace to accept Gods will in these matters!

v19 is lovely. Every year Hannah came up with her husband and would bring Samuel a new coat. I had never given this much thought before, but I realise now that this must surely have been very difficult for her, as it seems as if this yearly visit was the only time she got to see her soon whom she had given to the Lord. Each year the coat would have been made a little bigger, and as she made and prepared it in the home ready for the yearly journey it would have been a constant reminder of her noble sacrifice, but also the great blessing she had been given from God. I think therefore it is lovely that God saw fit to further bless Hannah and give her 3 sons and 2 daughters, as I think this godly woman would have been an excellent mother from what I can see in these chapters. She was a spiritual woman who put God first in her life, and experienced great blessing as a result. It put me in mind of the scripture:

"Them that honour me, I will honour"

 

 

Nehemiah - parting shots

Our final post from the book of Nehemiah for the time being is going to be from the second part of the book which is concerned with the rebuilding of the people, following the reconstruction and repair of the walls of Jerusalem.

We can see in chapter 8 the reading of the Word of God and the results that followed. There are lots of relevant and practical lessons to be learned here and perhaps the most important lesson is that if we are going to accomplish anything for God, if we are looking to rebuild ourselves as a people then it must all start with a resolve to learn the truth from Gods Word!

Lets make a fe observations from the preparation and attitude of the people as they approached God's Word under the leadership of Nehemiah and Ezra the scribe.

"The people gathered themselves together as one man"

The people were united in this great exercise and so they gathered themselves together to hear what the Word of God had to say. They had experienced unity in the building work, now they were experiencing unity in the reading and enjoyment of the Word of God. Later on they would have unity in worship as they lifted their hearts and voices to God in praise."Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" We would draw a challenge from this; if we want to serve, learn and worship God as a local assembly of believers then we need to be in unity and 'gathered together'. One of the implications of this is that we need to be present at the gatherings of the people of God! All too often we can slip into bad habits and find ourselves enjoying the things of the world rather than the things of God. We must be at the gatherings of the Lord's people if we are able!

They gathered at the Water Gate

This is poignant as flowing water is almost always a picture of the Holy Spirit! When we read the scriptures as believers we do so with the help of the Holy Spirit, of whom the Lord said;  "he will guide you into all truth"



"And Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose"

Note that Ezra stood upon a pulpit of wood. This was a raised platform that had been built for the purpose, teaching us that thought and preparation had gone into this exercise! We too should strive to create conditions that are conducive to the reading and study of the Word of God whether collectively or privately in our own lives.

"And the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law"

This should be a real challenge to ourselves who are privileged enough to possess the full canon of scripture, just how attentive are we to it? Have we grown too familiar to the Word of God so we just let it wash over us without any impact or giving it due attention? These people only had the first 5 books of the Old Testament possibly, yet they gave their full attention to it!

Note the reverence to Gods Word as well. When Ezra opened the book the people stood up, a mark of reverence and expectancy as they waited on the Lord.

"...caused the people to understand the law... So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading"

It is interesting to see that there were specific men that made sure that the people understood the reading. What a valuable service they performed! I would take this opportunity to fully endorse the scriptural pattern and example of gifted men expounding and teaching the Word of God to believers. There is no substitute or better way of teaching a group of believers than using god given gift to do so. If we want to learn and grow then consecutive teaching from the word by gifted men is fundamental.

Let's have a look at the results of the reading

It was clearly a profitable exercise for they return for a second day! Surely this testimony to the spirit and desire of the people and the effect the Word of God was having in their lives. This should be a challenge to our hearts.

God rewards the people by giving them more, they learn about the Feast of Tabernacles. This teaches me that God rewards us for our diligence in the study of his Word. If we invest time and effort in our study and show willingness to apply it to our lives, God will keep on giving and increase our profit. The Saviour himself said: "with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given"

What was the result of the peoples obedience to God's Word?

"And there was very great gladness" There is a lesson for us here - obedience to God's Word brings joy! We probably already associate joy with obtaining salvation: "joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth" However there is also joy in our Christian lives when we heed God's Word and obey it. God will bless us when we honour him: "them that honour me I will honour"

We trust that we too will seek to emulate the exercise and spirit of the people in Nehemiah's day! This is a lovely, positive book and it documents a great period of revival amongst the Lord's people. Surely we should seek to learn from it therefore and apply these lessons to our lives.

Yours in Christ, Mark

"Sorrow"

It has been an interesting study recently to look at the subject of sorrow in the scriptures. Don't worry, it's not too depressing! In fact the opposite is true, it has been a thrill to look into the scriptures and see a nice little study there to build some thoughts around. I've referred to 3 main references, but I am sure that you can develop these thoughts and refer to other different scriptures if you care to.

The Origin of Sorrow - Genesis 3:16,17

"Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow... And unto Adam he said... cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life"

Here we have the first mention of sorrow in the Bible, and it is here that we read of it's origin. It is inextricably linked with sin! Here we read about the fall, when man brought sin into the world and death by sin. But Adam also brought something else into the world - sorrow. God had created the world free from sorrow, it was never meant to be here! But now God addresses both man and the woman and informs them that sorrow will mark their lives from now on, because they had sinned. The word sorrow means "worry, labour, pain" what an awful combination! I am sure we can all testify to the awful nature of sorrow, I am sure that we have all felt it touch our lives at some point, some of us more than most. If only Adam could have known the awful ramifications of his actions, not just for himself but for the generations to come - the affliction of sin, the burden of sorrow, and the end result for all - death. Of course death itself brings sorrow, and we will lose loved ones, those that are dear to us and we feel the pain and sorrow and loss that this brings. For the believer we lift ourselves with the fresh reminder of 1 Thessalonians 4, that we sorrow not as others which have no hope, for we know that they are absent from the body, present with the Lord. Praise God!

The Man of Sorrows - Isaiah 53:3

"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief"

Of course we can't think about sorrow without thinking about the Lord Jesus as the man of sorrows. Here in the Old Testament the word sorrow means, "anguish, grief and pain". Remember that the Saviour came to where we were - lost in ruin and in sin. He came to save us, to deal with the question of sin and to provide for us a way of salvation. We remember that in his life he was marked by sorrow, bearing the hatred and mocking of men. In order to save us he must be despised and rejected - the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief! But more than this, the next verse in Isaiah 53 would tell us that he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows - here we must surely picture Calvary specifically! We remember that in death too he was associated with sorrow, for he bore our sorrows and sin on that cross. The scriptures would tell us that he bore our sin in his own body on the tree, and the waves and billows of divine judgement passed over his holy soul at that place. Is it any wonder that we can apply the words of Jeremiah in Lamentations 1:12 "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow" What sorrow was his! Surely there has been none like it before or since. Surely this encourages us as we pass through this world bearing the sorrows of our experience, that the Lord Jesus has been here and knew what it was to feel such great sorrow:

"For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." (Hebrews 4:15)

The End of Sorrow - Revelation 21:4

"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away"

How wonderful to learn that there is a place where there will be no more sorrow! Even greater to learn that it is also the place where we are going to be one day as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. He has been preparing a place for us that will be completely free from sorrow, sin and suffering - all those things that were brought into the world by sin! How lovely that the Lord sees fit to reverse those awful effects of the fall, and gives us a place of eternal rest completely opposite to our experience upon this sin blighted earth - Heaven will be a haven, free of sorrow!

But also consider this, that it must be a joyous place for the Saviour as well. He was received up into heaven when he left this earth, he passed into the glory and perfect bliss of heaven where there is no more sorrow and suffering for the man of sorrows, only glory, praise and honour! What an awesome prospect awaits us all when we go to be with him... we recall the words of the Psalmist "in thy presence is fullness of joy..."

" 'Midst the darkness, storm, and sorrow,
One bright gleam I see;
Well I know the blessed morrow
Christ will come for me...

He and I, in that bright glory,
One deep joy shall share—
Mine, to be forever with Him;
His, that I am there."

Yours in Christ, Mark