Glad tidings of Good Things Part 2 – November 15, 2010

IMPACT SCHOOL OF MINISTRY NLRC PETALING JAYA

GLAD TIDING OF GOOD THINGS

Notes for November 15, 2010

JESUS IS THE HINGE OF HISTORY

HE IS “THE LAST” Revelation 1v17

1. The ‘last days’ began when He came two thousand years ago
2. He is the substance and key to all that has occurred since
3. He is also the key to all that occurred up to the point of His coming into the world
4. Everything in the Old Testament was pointing to Him and took place because His life to come streamed backwards through time

 

JESUS THE REASON FOR THE JEWISH NATION

THE GREAT PRIVILEGES AND LAVISH GIFTS GOD GAVE THE JEWS

EIGHT THINGS ROMANS 9v1-5

Paul rejoiced in being a Jew and understood the privileges.  They received

1. The Adoption.  God separated them to Himself
2. The Glory
3. The covenants
4. The giving of the law
5. The worship
6. The promises
7. To them belong the patriarchs
8. From them came Jesus

 

The Jews, because of all this were and are a unique people, distinct from all the nations around about them.  God adopted them to be “His son” people  (Exodus 4v22&23). This they failed to be.  They were a small nation; He chose them for that reason.  The church has always had difficulty that God always begins ‘small.’  He chooses the ‘weak’ things.  Abraham was ‘weak’ when Isaac came.  God chose him even though he had a barren wife.  Throughout the history of Israel God revealed His ways.  Moses had to be brought to weakness.  God chooses little things to make then into great things so that He gets the glory.  Beware adopting the ways of the world around about us in our day, to accomplish God’s ways.  We must remember the glory of Babylon, of Egypt for this all came to nothing and the children of God began to decline terribly when they asked for a king ‘like the nations around about them.’

 

God chose Israel so that His Son Jesus could be brought into the world with a long history of prophecies and promises documented concerning Him.  The devil knew that the Savior would come from Israel and so sought to annihilate the nation several times.  The drowning of the boy children in Exodus chapter one, the whole nation in the book of Esther and the killing of the boys by Herod are examples.  Neither the devil nor any person can ever say that God foisted His Son on the world unexpectedly, that they didn’t know.  He told it all beforehand, even down to the detail of where He would be born!

From the Jews came Jesus after the flesh.  But what is His flesh like now?  We must consider that now that He has His resurrection body lest we unwisely go beyond the scriptures and say that we worship a Jew in heaven and so re establish a distinction between Jew and Gentile that Jesus died to eradicate.

 

God gave covenants and promises to His people.  “I will,” He repeats over and over again, even in the midst of their failures.  He spoke to His key men like Abraham, Moses and David, “I will”.  The Jews were called to be a people living a life that manifested the nature and the ways of God.

 

God gave them the law of His Being expressed in the words written on tablets of stone.  His precepts were always sweet and wonderful to a faithful remnant in Israel. He regulated their lives through His law, brought order and beauty to the nation whilst the nations around about were moral wrecks, corrupt in worship and wretched in their relationships.  Alas, this sweet yoke of the law of God was mishandled and misapplied by many leaders, authoritarian Pharisees for example.  They made it a heavy yoke.  There was no compatibility between the voice of the words and the way these princes, leaders and kings and sometimes priests brought it to bear upon people’s lives.  There must be compatibility between the message and the messenger, the voice and the words, the music and the lyrics.  The remnant of the people said “O how I love Thy Law” in Old Testament days (Psalm 119).  Many of them rejected the law of their God choosing the idols of the nations around about them.

 

THE GOD OF GLORY IS THE GOD OF THE JEWS

FROM THE BEGINNING

1. It all started when the God of glory appeared to Abraham!  Acts 7v2
2. Paul and all the Jews were supposed to be the family of the God of glory.  Contrast the nations around about.  Their gods of shame were filthy and the nations were corrupted like them.
3. We become what we worship.  What we give ‘worth-ship’ to.
4. The beginnings of all God’s moves in Israel involved Him appearing in glory to His messengers.  Consider Isaiah in Chapter six, Ezekiel in the first chapter of his prophecy as examples.
5. God appeared to Moses in the glory of Mount Sinai
6. When the tabernacle was built according to the heavenly pattern God filled it with His glorious presence  (Exodus 40v34).  The Holy Glorious God among them to regulate their lives, their worship, displaying His Holiness in acts of purification and love.  For instance when He sent fire to deal with the casual Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10v1-3).
7. The kingdom was glorious (for a little while).  In the center of it was the Temple built by Solomon.  God filled it with His glorious presence  (1Kings 8v9&10)
8. At that time there was the worship of God in purity, great wisdom was given to Solomon to rule and care. Thus the kingdom was filled with glory until the king leader squandered it by getting involved with other gods, those of the nations around about.

 

THE GLORY IS DEPARTED!

1. These words first uttered when the holy priesthood became corrupted.  No more the glorious God in the midst.  The ark of His presence captured by pagan idolaters (I Samuel 4v12-22)
2. Even during the reign of Solomon the glory began to depart.  The dividing of the kingdom into two.  War destroyed the unity that was part of the glory of God in the midst of His people.  The decline goes on for hundreds of years with several revivals of limited depth.
3. Ezekiel saw the glory depart in his visions as Nebuchadnezzar and his army overthrew Jerusalem.  He tears the whole city apart and demolishes and burns the temple of God.  (Ezekiel 10)  The people of God were scattered exiles.  Truly Ichabod!  Yet even as the destruction was being accomplished God was promising a New Covenant.  A new heart was to be given to His people (Ezekiel 36 and Jeremiah 31).  Something better would come from the ruins.  Ezekiel was the temple rebuilt and God being there in glory.
4. Alas the people of God, His ‘son’ had become like the other nations, they loved their gods and were now people of shame.

 

BUT GOD!

All this failure was part of God’s plan.  It broke His heart and the hearts of His prophets who spoke warning, judgment and also promises!

1. Even when some returning exiles began to build an earthly temple God spoke that the glory of the latter temple would exceed the former  (Haggai 2v1-9)
2.  Was He referring to an earthly temple?
3.  Consider when Jesus His true Son came in contrast to His failed adopted son Israel.
4.  We beheld His glory, as of an only begotten with a Father. Full of grace and truth (John 1v 14).
5.  Jesus referred to Himself as the temple (John 2v19).  Jesus is the true temple of glory!
6.  The moral glory of the Lord Jesus shone through the veil of His flesh for a little while on the transfiguration mount (Matthew 17v1-8)
7.  Beware of commercializing the gospel, of building ‘temples’ of stone and making people commodities.  This temple of God is human, touchable, with a body through which something of the glory of God is able to shine.  Are we temples of God and of His Holy Spirit, through whom His moral glory shines, His unity is seen?
8.  Do we show forth the glory of a son working with our Father in His works?  Is there a recognizable family likeness?
9.  Jesus turned water into wine.  Study the ‘glory’ theme in John’s gospel.  He allowed another to take the glory for that miracle and so manifested the glory of His humility.

 

BRINGING MANY SONS TO GLORY THROUGH THE SON

 

1.  The heart of the New Covenant is expressed in this (Hebrews 2v10).
2.  The blood of bulls and goats could not purify the human race.  It must be the blood of a man- Jesus.  He was made perfect through sufferings.
3.  The veil of His flesh was torn at Calvary.  His glory and the glory of His Father fully seen.  His holiness and love are His glory.
4.  Now God is bringing many sons to share in His glory through His Son Jesus.
5.  There will be a final public adoption by our Father when He gathers all His creation to witness His approval of His sons.  He will clothe them in the robes of His house.  They will come into their ‘majority’ and serve with Him throughout eternity.  They will be seen to be glorious.  The veils will be no more and God the Father’s good work seen triumphant in His family of sons He has begotten through His Son (Romans 8v18-25).