Shalom Aleichem...
Reflections is a weekly Christian Teaching Ministry. Each week we will talk about the Bible and lessons we can put to use in our daily life. We will try to, on a weekly basis, provide to you stories, thoughts, and just easy ways to live your life on a straight path.
THIS WEEK'S TEACHING....October 8, 2018
This is the third in our series on faith in our lives.....
Faith and Obedience keeps our faith focused on the future and the promises of God.
Hebrew 11:22 "By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones."
In the faith Hall of Fame one verse each is given to Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. It reminds us that there is something in common that links these three heros of faith in the mind of the writer of Hebrew. By faith each of these three was able to face the future courage and optimism.
Genuine faith enables a person to look forward and to see the future as under the government of God and blessed with the presence of God.
Isaac pronounced his blesssing upon Jacob shortly after he had said, "Behold now, I am old, I know not the day of my death." (Gen 48:21)
Because of this faith that enabled him to visualize the future, Jacob blessed Joseph and his sons with the following words:
"God, before whom my father Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst fo the earth." (Gen 48:15-16)
His faith was like a telescope by which he could look into the future and see the protential of the decisions and the actions of the moment.
When Joseph, the Prime Minister of Egypt, near death, he required of the Israelites an oath that they would not leave his bones in Egypt. They promised that they would take his bones with them when they returned to the Promised Land. They were faithful to this oath, and four hundred years later took his coffin back to the land God has promised. (Exodus 24:32)
In Joshua 24:32, we find that when the children of Israel got to the promised land they took the coffin case that contains Joseph’s bones and buried it in Shechem. This was the ground that Jacob his father bought from the sons of Hamor for 100 pieces of silver.
All these men died with their face to the future.
THEY TRUSTED GOD, THEY WALKED WITH GOD, THEY TALKED WITH GOD and THEY OBEYED GOD.
Even though they have these blessed experiences, they never fully entered into the inheritance that God had promised, yet their faith kept them looking to the future.
By the oath that Joseph required of the children of Israel and by the presences of his mummy case, he continued to bear witness concerning his optimistic, forward-looking faith. As Able’s life continued to speak after his death, so Joseph continue to speak to the people by means of his mummy case.
1. Joseph’s Mummy Case Reminded them that they were THE PEOPLE OF GOD.
a) Joseph could have had a splendid monument among the Egyptians.
Like no other people in the ancient world, the Egyptians believed in magnificent monuments and burial chambers for the departed great. Because of the unique contribution that Joseph had made, he could have aasumed that he would be enshrined among the greatest in Egypt.
b) Joseph desired to be identified with the people of God even in his death.
He had no desire for Egypt to be the final resting place for his bones. He wanted to accompany his people in their return to and entrance into the land that was to be their inheritance. By means of this wish he gave expression to his faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He deliberately chose to disassociate himself from Egypt, its rules, its gods, and its customs even beyond death.
With all of their faults, the Israelites were the people of God, and Joseph wanted to remind them of this relationship constantly. Joseph believed that as the people of God, they should be different from the Egyptians. For them to become a people that God wanted them to be, they would need to be reminded of their relationship with Him and for the application that accompanied that privilege.
Today as in few instances in the past, the church as the people of God is under attack. It is being criticized and maligned. While much of this criticism is deserved, it might be encouraging if we will recognize that God’s people have never been perfect. They are always journeying toward becoming God’s ideal people. By means of his mummy case, Joseph would not only have his bones returned, but he would remind the people that they are of God in a very special way.
2. Joseph’s mummy case is a constant reminder of the PROMISES OF GOD.
a) God had made some great promises to Abraham and his descendants.
Gen 12:1-3, records one of those promises that God made with Abraham. These promises had been repeated to Isaac and Jacob. The people of Israel had responded to these promises and walked by faith, though weakly at times, and expected the fulfillment of these promises.
b) Today the church constitude the children of Abraham
The New Testament teaches that those whotrusted Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour are the spiritual descendants of Abraham. As such we are the recipients of the promises, and we also are responsible for assuming the obligations that accompany this position of privilege.
1 Peter 2:9-10 makes this very clear; "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light: Which in the past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which has not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy."
Our Lord has promised to be with us if we engage in redemptive activity even as God promised to be with Abraham (Matt 28:20).
By faith we need to respond to this promise and obey His commandment to bear and continuing witness.
God has made many precious promise to Hs children in connection with the privilege of prayer. He has promised His children the Divine power they needed for accomplishing His work in the world. He has promised us victory over death and an endless fellowship with God and His saints when this life is over.
As Joseph’s mummy case reminded the children of Israel of God’s precious promises, we should look at the Cross and allow the Bible with the help of the Holy Spirit to transformed lives of faithful believers. Only when we do so will we be encouraged to work by faith.
3. Joseph’s mummy case was a loud reminder of the PRESENCE OF GOD
a) In the house of Potiphar, Joseph had experienced the presence of his Lord.
God blessed Joseph’s efforts, and even Potiphar obsevered that the blessing of God was upon him. "And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all that he did prosper in his hand." (Gen 39:3).
That Joseph lived in an awareness of the abiding presence of God is dramatically illustrated by his reaction to the wife of Potiphar in her effort to sedduce him into immoral relations. Joseph responded as one who was aware that his life was lived in the presence of God. He was eager to please God. and we find that in his respond to this lustful woman’s request; "How then can i do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" (Gen 29:21)
b) God was with Joseph in Prison
Perhaps there is no fury like that of a woman scorned. Joseph found himself falsely accused and unjustly imprisoned. God never forsakes those who trust Him and obey Him as we read in the Bible’s record; "But the Lord was with Joseph, and shewed him mercy, and gave him favour in the sight of the keeper of prison." (Gen 39:21)
c) God was with Joseph in his first contact with Pharaoh.
Joseph’s faith in prison was what eventually led him by a providential course into the presence of Pharaoh, where he was requested to interpret a dream that was disturbing the ruler. At no time previous was Joseph more aware of God’s presence in his response to Pharaoh’s request for the interpretation of his dream. Joseph’s said, "It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace." (Gen 41:16)
As God had been with Joseph through his varied and exciting career, by the presence of his mummy case, Joseph wanted to bear a witness to the abiding presense of God with Israel.
By means of a mummy case, Joseph spoke to the people. By means of a cross and an empty tomb, the gracious God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ offers to you the gift of forgiveness, the joy of eternal life, and the fruits of a blessed fellowship if you will trust Him and follow Him as Joseph.
DID YOU EVER WONDER???
"He didn't look like much at first. He was too fat and his head was so big his mother feared it was misshapen or damaged. He didn't speak until he was well past 2, and even then with a strange echolalia that reinforced his parents' fears. He threw a small bowling ball at his little sister and chased his first violin teacher from the house by throwing a chair at her.
There was in short, no sign, other than the patience to build card houses 14 stories high, that little child would grow up to be 'the new Copernicus,' proclaiming a new theory of nature, in which matter and energy swapped faces, light beams bent, the stars danced and space and time were as flexible and elastic as bubblegum. No clue to suggest that he would help send humanity lurching down the road to the atomic age, with all its promise and dread, with the stroke of his pen on a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939, certainly no reason to suspect that his image would be on T‑shirts, coffee mugs, posters and dolls..... Albert Einstein!"
BOOKS OF THE BIBLE...A TEACHING
This week we continue to look at the Books of the Bible, showing you important insights into the Holy Scripture...This week, the Book of Ezra...
Who wrote the book?
Jewish tradition has long attributed authorship of this historical book to the scribe and scholar Ezra, who led the second group of Jews returning from Babylon to Jerusalem (Ezra 7:11–26). Ezra 8 includes a first-person reference, implying the author’s participation in the events. He plays a major role in the second half of the book, as well as in the book of Nehemiah, its sequel. In the Hebrew Bible, the two books were considered one work, though some internal evidence suggests they were written separately and joined together in the Hebrew canon (and separated again in English translations).
Ezra was a direct descendant of Aaron the chief priest (7:1–5), thus he was a priest and scribe in his own right. His zeal for God and God’s Law spurred Ezra to lead a group of Jews back to Israel during King Artaxerxes’s reign over the Persian Empire (which had since replaced the Babylonian Empire that originally exiled the people of Judah).
Where are we?
The book of Ezra records two separate time periods directly following the seventy years of Babylonian captivity. Ezra 1–6 covers the first return of Jews from captivity, led by Zerubbabel—a period of twenty-three years beginning with the edict of Cyrus of Persia and ending at the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem (538–515 BC). Ezra 7–10 picks up the story more than sixty years later, when Ezra led the second group of exiles to Israel (458 BC). The book could not have been completed earlier than about 450 BC (the date of the events recorded in 10:17–44).
The events in Ezra are set in Jerusalem and the surrounding area. The returning exiles were able to populate only a tiny portion of their former homeland.
Why is Ezra so important?
The book of Ezra provides a much-needed link in the historical record of the Israelite people. When their king was dethroned and captured and the people exiled to Babylon, Judah as an independent nation ceased to exist. The book of Ezra provides an account of the Jews’ regathering, of their struggle to survive and to rebuild what had been destroyed. Through his narrative, Ezra declared that they were still God’s people and that God had not forgotten them.
In the book of Ezra we witness the rebuilding of the new temple, the unification of the returning tribes as they shared common struggles and were challenged to work together. Later, after the original remnant had stopped work on the city walls and spiritual apathy ruled, Ezra arrived with another two thousand people and sparked a spiritual revival. By the end of the book, Israel had renewed its covenant with God and had begun acting in obedience to Him.
Ezra also contains one of the great intercessory prayers of the Bible (Ezra 9:5–15; see Daniel 9 and Nehemiah 9 for others). His leadership proved crucial to the Jews’ spiritual advancement.
What's the big idea?
Ezra’s narrative reveals two main issues faced by the returning exiles: (1) the struggle to restore the temple (Ezra 1:1–6:22) and (2) the need for spiritual reformation (7:1–10:44). Both were necessary in order for the people to renew their fellowship with the Lord.
A broader theological purpose is also revealed: God keeps His promises. Through the prophets, God had ordained that His chosen people would return to their land after a seventy-year exile. Ezra’s account proclaims that God kept His word, and it shows that when God’s people remained faithful to Him, He would continue to bless them. Hence, the book emphasizes the temple and proper worship, similar to Chronicles (which was also written during these days).
How do I apply this?
God moved the hearts of secular rulers (Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes) to allow, even encourage and help, the Jewish people to return home. He used these unlikely allies to fulfill His promises of restoration for His chosen people. Have you encountered unlikely sources of blessing? Have you wondered how God can really work all things together for the good of those who are called by His name (Romans 8:28)? Take time today to acknowledge God’s sovereignty and mercy in your life. Recommit to Him your trust, your love, and your obedience.
HAVE A SAFE AND BLESSED WEEK:)
Ho'omaikaʻi ka Pua iā kākou