Reading 1 – Gen 19:26

“But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt” (Gen 19:26).

One should remember Lot’s wife (Luk 17:32,33), whenever he or she is tempted to hang on to a comfortable lifestyle in a wicked world. Lot, himself, was a rather worldly-minded believer, but when he consented to flee the doomed city, his wife lagged “behind him,” and kept “looking back,” grieving over the imminent loss of her material comforts and high social position among her ungodly neighbors. Finally, the Lord’s longsuffering patience was ended, and her carnal desire to save her old life caused her to lose her whole life. “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own life?” (Mat 16:26).

Reading 2 – Psa 22:1

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psa 22:1).

These words are quoted by Jesus as he hung on the cross (Mat 27:46; Mar 15:34; Luk 24:44). But was this literally true? Was Jesus actually abandoned by his Father? The answer must be: “NO!”:

In quoting Psa 22, Jesus switched from the Heb “azavtani” (which means “forsaken me”) to the Aramaic “sabachthani” (which may mean “entangled me”: the same word occurs in Gen 22:13 for the “thicket” in which the sacrificial ram was found). So perhaps this should be read: ‘My God, my God, thou hast [an assertion, not a question!] ensnared and provided ME as the sacrificial victim!’ If Jesus were abandoned by his Father, then the vivid and twice-repeated type of Gen 22 — which is suggested by the above — is quite misleading! “They went both of them together (the Father and the Son)” (Gen 22:6,8). The Father went with the Son to the cross (cp Rom 8:31,32, which is citing Gen 22:12). The idea that God abandoned His Son is so important, if true, that it ought to be supported by more than one solitary verse. Psa 22:24 is explicit that Jesus was NOT left without divine help. The emphasis of such passages as Psa 18:4-17 is so strong as to require not desertion, but actually its very opposite. Other Messianic psalms speak of alarm or doubt such as is natural to human weakness (Psa 94:17-19, RV mg; Psa 71:9-12; 73:13,17,21,22; 42:5; 116:11). As lesser mortals experience a sense of loneliness and helplessness, so also must have Jesus. But in neither their case nor his was it true. “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee” was spoken to the first “Jesus” (Joshua: Jos 1:5), and applied to those in Christ (Heb 13:5). Then, is it conceivable that the servant is greater than his Lord? Psa 22:1 may carry the meaning: ‘Why does my God LET IT APPEAR to these my enemies that I am utterly forsaken?’ This is the very idea in Isa 49:14,15. Jesus cites “My God, my God, why have…” as simply a reference to the psalm itself, to call the attention of those nearby to the whole of the psalm that was being fulfilled before their eyes.

Reading 3 – Mat 12:36

“But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken” (Mat 12:36).

“It comes out the worst when a man is half conscious of having a weak case and is making desperate efforts to convince himself that he does well to be angry. If he believes in the Bible he needs then to remember that all who watch for iniquity and make a man an offender for a word shall be cut off (Isa 29:20). It is usually an easy matter to collect reports derogatory to any man or any body of men. There is quite a temptation to use these ‘make weights’ in time of controversy, especially if the original cause of dispute is slight. One on the defensive can be kept busy chasing the false reports and unfair interpretations, but never succeeding in catching one before the next is on the wing.

“In a court of law a litigant is tied down to the actual charge. It is useless for him to try to fatten out his suit by all sorts of complaints remote from the original accusation. We are free from any such legal restrictions now, but it is well to remember that we have to go before a judgment seat far more searching than any ever set up by man, and for ‘every idle word’ that we have spoken we shall have to give account. Do not let us watch for iniquity, then, either in those we accuse of specific errors or in those who accuse us. Such watching inevitably leads to countless idle and evil words” (Islip Collyer, “Principles and Proverbs”).

Reading 1 – Gen 28

“He [Jacob] had a dream in which he saw a stairway [or ladder] resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it” (Gen 28:12).

The ladder (or more properly, stairway) may signify the ages of time between Jacob’s day and Christ’s day. During these ages, the angels (God’s messengers and ministers: Heb 1:14; Psa 34:7) have been working with the saints and the world to achieve the Kingdom. This stairway joins heaven and earth. In the KIngdom Age, Jacob and saints will have “climbed” the stairway (or, to put it another way, Christ will have descended: Act 1:11), and Christ and his saints will have been united in Jerusalem…

The stairway also symbolizes Jacob’s seed, in generations to come, extending from Jacob himself all the way to the Messiah.

“Now the interval of time between the giving of the promise and the fulfilment of it was represented to Jacob by a ladder of extraordinary length, one end of which stood at Bethel, and the other end against the vault of heaven. Here were two points of contact, the land of Judah and heaven; and the connecting medium, the ladder, between them. This was a most expressive symbol, as will be perceived by considering the uses to which a ladder is applied. It is a contrivance to connect distant points, by which one at the lower end may reach a desired altitude. It is, then, a connecting medium between points of distance. Now if, instead of distant localities, distant epochs be substituted, the ages and generations which connect them will sustain a similar relation to the epochs as a ladder to the ground on which it rests, and the point of elevation against which it leans. The ladder, then, in Jacob’s vision was representative of his seed in their generations and appointed times. One end of it was in his loins; the other, in the Lord Jesus when he should sit upon his throne, reigning over the land upon which Jacob was asleep” (John Thomas, “Elpis Israel” 270).

John 1:51: “I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” That is, “UPON the son of man”; in other words, Christ IS the stairway, linking man to God, and vice versa.

__ “Alas, we make

____ a ladder of our thoughts,

______ where angels step —

________ but sleep ourselves at the foot.

__________ Our high resolves

____________ look down upon our slumbering acts”

______________ (CA Ladson, The Christadelphian 64:247).

Also, compare John 1:46: ” ‘Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?’ Nathanael asked. ‘Come and see,’ said Philip. When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, ‘Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false (or “no guile”).’ “

Nathanael — like Jacob before him — unburdened his heart to God, threw off his guile, and repented of his past sins. Coming face to face with his Savior, and seeing heaven opened, he became a man drawn to God.

Angels ascending and descending on the “ladder”: Possibly the phrase “ascending and descending” is used in that order to show Jacob that the angels had been with him all along, even though their care and guidance at times was unperceived. They, of course, had ready access to God and their going and coming pointed out that fact.

*****

“There above it stood the LORD, and he said: ‘I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying’ ” (Gen 28:13).

The Land of Canaan, promised to Abraham (Gen 13:14-17), to Isaac (Gen 26:1-4). Repeated in Gen 35:11,12.

*****

“Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (Gen 28:14,15).

The repeated ‘I AM’s and ‘I WILL’s recall the Name of Yahweh and are expressive of His Purposes. They convey the ideas of the Divine presence, the Divine protection, the Divine preservation, and the Divine promises.

“I am with you” is perhaps the most fundamental of these promises: compare Gen 15:1; 17:2,4,7,8; 26:3,24. Also, cp Jer 31:33; Heb 8:10; 2Co 6:16; Rev 21:3.

*****

“When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, ‘Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it’ ” (Gen 28:16).

“If God is present at every point in space, if we cannot go where He is not, cannot even conceive of a place where He is not, why then has not that Presence become the one universally celebrated fact of the world? The patriarch Jacob… gave the answer to that question. He saw a vision of God and cried out in wonder, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.’ Jacob had never been for one small division of a moment outside the circle of that all-pervading Presence. But he knew it not. That was his trouble, and it is ours. Men do not know that God is here. What a difference it would make if they knew” (AW Tozer).

Reading 2 – Psa 33:4,6

“For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does… By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth” (Psa 33:4,6).

“The grand assumption of Scripture is that behind all that you can know there is an eternal Mind whose Spirit fills the universe, and when the Mind of the Eternal is expressed, the power is without limit, and the result instant and infallible… Between the word and the work of God, therefore, the connection is so close that David can treat them as parallel” (LG Sargent).

Reading 3 – Mat 18:15-17

“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector” (Mat 18:15-17).

“We have, therefore, to accept it as an obligation from Christ that if we have done wrongfully to a brother, the recollection of his grievance against us should be a barrier to our approaches to God till the matter has been put right by reconciliation. There is, of course, such a thing as unjust accusation. The remedy in that case is in Mat 18:15, unless we prefer the other course, of silently and patiently taking wrong, which in some cases is the preferable one” (Robert Roberts, “Seasons of Comfort” 249).

“If your brother sins against you”, then you — being by Bible standard and precept “your brother’s keeper” (Gen 4:9) — are bound to warn the offender with the express purpose of turning him from his sin (Eze 3:17-21). Your love, actively manifested in an unpleasant task, may “cover a multitude of sins” (1Pe 4:8).

In such cases the offender should not be evilly thought of, or spoken of. His status and feelings will be as fully considered and respected as one’s own. Neither will he be confronted from motives and feelings personal to the visitor, but solely and purely for his own good who has transgressed.

With the object of gaining, not of sacrificing his brother, the careful brother should in the spirit of meekness strive to restore the faulty; and he should consider his own imperfections and weaknesses and consequent liability to fall into temptation (Gal 6:1). Every step which might lead to New Testament disfellowship (or withdrawal) was always intended to facilitate the repentance and reclamation of the offender. The Son of Man himself came into the world with the purpose of saving that which was lost (Mat 18:11) — and well might we be thankful that he did that very thing.

“Nothing tends more to the keeping or the restoring of peace than the observance of this law; and no law is more constantly broken. The universal impulse, when anything is supposed to be wrong, is to tell the matter to third persons. From them it spreads, with the results of causing much bad feeling which, perhaps, the original cause does not warrant and would not have produced if the aggrieved person had taken the course prescribed by Christ, and told the fault ‘between thee and him alone.’ If good men, or those who consider themselves such, would adopt the rule of refusing to listen to an evil report privately conveyed, until it had been dealt with to the last stage according to the rule prescribed by Christ, much evil would be prevented” (Robert Roberts).

Reading 1 – Gen 27

“God’s purpose succeeds, in spite of human weaknesses. The characters in this narrative are the four members of the patriarchal family. Two of them — Isaac and Esau — seek to frustrate the revealed purpose of God. Rebekah and Jacob seek to carry it out, but by wrong methods. Each of the four is rebuked and disappointed. Isaac is deceived and frightened. Esau loses all. Jacob has to flee. Rebekah loses her favorite son (Pro 19:21). So the record shows that the divine purpose is worked out through a tangled skein of human weakness and deception.

“In all these circumstances, Jacob was a timid man, dominated by a desire to serve God and obtain the divine blessing (Gen 28:17-34). His timidity seen in this incident reveals him as dominated by his mother, in awe of his father, and in fear of his brother. Divinely contrived circumstances purifies the character of Jacob, and strengthens it” (GE Mansfield).

Reading 2 – Psa 32

This is one of the penitential psalms (Psa 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143). These psalms probably refer to David’s sins with Bathsheba and Uriah, and the aftermath. The probable order of some of these psalms:

Psa 6: where David is weak, weary, and vexed by his disease. Psa 38: where he sees his sickness as a divine punishment, and more seriously prays to God. Psa 51: the sincerest and most abject confession and repentance. Psa 32: Finally, “Blessed in the man whose sins are covered.”

“Maschil” means Instruction. But there is nothing particularly academic here. What a man, a sinner, needs to learn is the facts of his relationship with God. And how often, as in David’s case here, does he learn not only by the counsel (v 8) of the searching wisdom of God’s Word, but also (and especially) in the harder school of experience. Vv 8,9 chime in with this “instruction” theme.

This is the first of the 13 Maschil psalms (Psa 32, 42, 44, 45, 52-55, 74, 78, 88, 89,142).

*****

“Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered” (Psa 32:1).

This word “blessed”, as in Psa 1:1, emphasizes more than the idea of receiving good things. It suggests happiness, even exhilaration — cp v 7: “songs of deliverance”. Such a “blessing” may be the possession of the man who is without sin (Christ only — Psa 1:1!) and the man whose sins have been pardoned (all the rest of us — Psa 32:1!).

“Forgiven” is the Heb “nasa”, signifying to be lifted up or away, as a burden being removed (cp Joh 1:29).

WHOSE SINS ARE COVERED: Men, aware of their sin, seek to hide it (cp v 3 with Gen 3:8), but God is willing that it be covered (cp v 5 with Gen 3:21; see Psa 51:2,3). The sins of God’s people are… “Covered” (Psa 32:1), “Removed” (Psa 103:12), “Cast behind God’s back” (Isa 38:17), “Blotted out” (Psa 51:1; Isa 44:22), “Washed away” (Psa 51:2,7), “Remembered no more” (Jer 31:34), “Sought for but not found” (Jer 50:20), “Cast into the depths of the sea” (Mic 7:19).

David is convicted and confesses and repents: ‘Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered’… It could be read like a cold theological declaration from a list of doctrines, but in fact it was a gasp of relief: ‘Oh the blessedness — the sheer joy, in fact — of realizing that your black sin is covered and forgiven.’

*****

“Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit” (v 2).

COUNT: Impute or reckon. A key word in Paul’s theology. Used in Rom 4:1-8 to establish that righteousness was reckoned to Abraham because of his faith (Gen 15:6) and to David apart from works (“I said, I will confess…”). The word does not mean a pretended absolution, but a very real removal of sin. The truth of the matter, in Bible expression, is that a man whose sins are forgiven is consequently sinless. Not only does God treat him as though he were sinless, but he IS sinless! “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us” (Psa 103:12).

IN WHOSE SPIRIT IS NO DECEIT: Psa 34:17,18. Not like Jacob the deceiver (Gen 27:36; Joh 1:47), but like Jesus (Isa 53:7; Rev 14:5). A spirit free from self-deception (‘If I don’t think about it, it will eventually go away’): v 11; Luk 11:34. (2) Cp Isa 53:7,9: Christ is the lamb brought to the slaughter, in whose lips there was no guile (1Pe 2:22,23). Contrast Zec 13:3, and — as for those in Christ — cp Zep 3:13 and Rev 14:5.

Reaching this state of sinlessness is conditional, upon being free of guile. That is something utterly crucial. David knew that his guile had been a barrier to pardon, an impediment to peace, an obstruction on the road to reformation. It keeps the prison shut — it is an iron bar, a lock with only one key. Strangely the key is in the hand of the prisoner. The key is this — quit the hypocrisy, stop the window dressing, open the heart and make the confession.

*****

“When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long” (v 3).

WHEN I KEPT SILENT: That is, concerning my sin. Compare the sinners in Eden hiding from the presence of the Lord (Gen 3:8). And compare David not wanting to see the point of Nathan’s parable until it was forced upon him: 2Sa 12:1-5. So here is the silence of deception, as David attempted to push out of his conscience the memory of his offences. But the joy of life and fellowship with God was gone. David found himself in the condition of his first parents, who had tried to hide in the garden from the Elohim. He had placed a heavy lid over his conscience; but beneath the lid, the caldron boiled. It was only a matter of time before his sins would “blow the lid off”!

MY BONES WASTED AWAY: Literal? Or deep-seated anguish idiomatically expressed as the consumer or breaker of bones (Psa 22:14; Job 30:17,30; Pro 12:4; Hab 3:16).

*****

“For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer” (v 4).

FOR DAY AND NIGHT YOUR HAND WAS HEAVY UPON ME: Psa 38:2,3 has the same background. The “hand of the Lord” often refers to an inflicted disease: Exo 9:3; Deu 2:15; Act 13:11.

MY STRENGTH WAS SAPPED AS IN THE HEAT OF SUMMER: When God’s hand was upon him, he wilted like a frail plant in the heat of summer. Contrast Psa 1:3. But the Hebrew here is obscure; the LXX has “while a thorn was fastened in me” — with possible reference to the crown of thorns in Mat 27:29 and Mar 15:17.

Reading 3 – Mat 17:20

“Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Mat 17:20).

“Faith is trust in God, and this implies knowledge of God’s will. A faith to achieve what is not in the will of God is both fruitless and futile. But living faith, in harmony with God’s will, is, Jesus teaches, charged with power of accomplishment. Jesus gave the same illustration of faith’s power when the disciples had expressed surprise that the fig tree had withered away (Mat 21:21). On another occasion (Luk 17:7) he used the rooting up of a sycamore tree instead of moving a mountain, as a figure of difficulty. He had been speaking of forgiveness to an unlimited number of occasions on repentance; and as the disciples regarded this as difficult to perform, they begged of him, ‘Lord, increase our faith.’ This was answered by the reference to faith as a grain of mustard seed. A living seed has power — that power is the expression of its life and is comparable to the power of faith in man. The spirit that forgives is the expression of the living faith of the disciples of Christ” (John Carter, “Parables of the Messiah” 124,125).

Reading 1 – Gen 38

There is an intended, and striking parallel, and contrast, between this chapter and the next. Where the elder brother, Judah, free and at ease, had sinned (Gen 38), the younger Joseph, in bondage, remained sinless (Gen 39). In this Joseph typifies Jesus, tempted in all points like his less righteous brethren, yet without sin (Heb 4:15).

Reading 2 – Psa 42; 43

David and Christ: A Meditation on Psalms 42 and 43

His tired eyes had seen more than their share of troubles. Now they stared into the depths of murky Jordan; he saw mirrored there the turmoil of his own life. It had come to this: his own son and an army of his own men in hot pursuit of him. “The sword shall not depart from your house,” Nathan had well said (2Sa 12:10). The young men were beside him now. “Arise and go quickly!” Must it always be so quick? He glimpsed the panorama of the years, the scenes tumbling over one another — a shepherd boy in the hills of Judea, a bear and a giant, a jealous king, a beautiful woman, intrigue and murder, a wrathful prophet, sorrow and tears… and now an old man by a dark river. “Then David arose, and all the people that were with him, and they crossed the Jordan” (2Sa 17:22).

“As a hart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God. I am as a hart, timid and fearful, as powerless as he to reach the pure underground streams of thy peace. When shall I return to your house, to behold your face again? Have I gone forth for the last time from ‘the city of the great king’?

“Before thee, O God, my life is poured out as the blood of a sacrifice. Yet I remember still, what painful memories! Dancing with the throng, in joyful procession, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude celebrating your festivals. With what merriment we brought the ark into the city of David (2Sa 6:12-18)!

“But now my very soul is cast down within me. I go mourning from one brief refuge to another, dogged by deceitful and unjust men. But worst of all, by far the worst, they say of me, ‘Where is his God?’ It is a deadly wound that penetrates my inmost parts. I am the same man; I am that David who slew his tens of thousands, and Yahweh was with him. I stood before that ‘behemoth’ of a Philistine in your Name! I fought your battles; I gathered the materials to build your house! Why have you forgotten me… me of all people? Why have you cast me off?

“But no, I don’t believe it can be. You are the God in whom I have taken refuge at every crisis of my life. You will defend my cause. I walk in darkness without you. O send forth your light and your truth; let them lead me. And I will come again to your holy hill… even to your altar. How false and baseless are my fears. My God, I cast myself upon you alone, waiting for the morning.”

* * * * *

His eyes strained through the darkness. Under the great trees some distance away, his friends were sleeping. It was very late and he was very tired, but it would not be long now; his time was measured in hours. It had finally come to this: there was no man to stand with him. Through the valley and up the hillside there came a procession of lights. “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Those had been his own words; now he would live them out. “Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.” Quickly it would go now, with no opportunity for quiet retrospect. The scenes rushed by: the child of Nazareth, the young carpenter, then the stirring proclamations, the outstretched hands — “Master, have mercy upon us!” The hands were outstretched again, but this time they held swords and shackles. “Then they seized him, and led him away.”

“As a hart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for you, O God. I am entrapped by ungodly men; they have encircled me like a pack of wild dogs. O Father, is it possible to see your face in this mad multitude?

“Once I went with the throng into the holy city, riding upon an ass. In joyful procession we went to the house of God, accompanied by loud Hosannahs and festive palm branches. With glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving they cried, ‘Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord’ (Mat 21:9).

“But now my very soul is cast down within me. Tears have been my meat and drink this night. The quietly flowing stream of pure communion with you has become a thundering cataract. I am plunged into its depths; your waves and your billows, as the sea, have gone over me. Now is my soul exceeding sorrowful.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It is the deadliest of wounds, that which my enemies inflict upon me: ‘This is the one that trusted in God! Let us see now if his God will deliver him!’ But I am the same man; I am your Beloved Son. All my life I have sought refuge in you alone. I know you will not leave me to the confusion of my face and the reproach of your Name.”

* * * * *

“Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.” And he prayed the more earnestly, “O send out your light and your truth, let them lead me.” The Father in heaven heard his prayer, and his last mortal moments were brightened by a divine light. He was the beginning of his Father’s new Creation, accompanied by the divine directive: “Let there be light.”

“May your light and your truth bring me to your holy hill, and to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy.” The last and greatest trial was faced successfully. Led by God’s light, his Son approached the altar of the Father’s presence and poured out his life-blood. The hill of death, Golgotha, was made forever holy by that blood. God at last had fashioned and perfected His mercy-seat, where He might dwell with man.

“It is finished.” The last words were a cry of triumph. The old creation of God was plunged into darkness, but on the horizon could be seen the dawn of a new day. God’s new creation was just beginning.

*****

Beneath the verdant, woodland roof,

        A small gazelle

With stately tread of cloven hoof,

        Paused by the well;

Deep down, unseen, the waters burst

        Across the shaft.

Oh! how it longed to slake its thirst,

        In one sweet draught.

The Psalmist felt like this ofttimes,

        Through toiling days,

In deep descents and upward climbs,

        Along life’s ways;

And in his thoughts he stood beside

        The panting hind.

Like him, to quench the thirst, he tried

        His God to find.

And when I’m weary, when I’m weak,

        I fain would go,

Like them that lovely place to seek,

        Where waters flow;

And take my fill at length within

        The water brooks,

And find eternal strength within

        The Book of Books.

                NP Holt

Reading 3 – Mat 25:30,40

“And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mat 25:30).

“Nothing we have ever experienced in this life will be one thousandth as terrible as rejection at the judgment seat of Christ. And that rejection is a looming possibility if we do not have the wisdom to give ourselves entirely to God in this present brief period of opportunity and probation. It’s not so much what we accomplish, but rather the totality of our love and dedication and effort to obey Him and please Him. For the rejected, there will be physical suffering, certainly, but — however severe — that will be but a minor aspect. Many can accept physical suffering with joy in the enthusiasm of a good cause. The real and dreadful depths of the suffering will be mental — the awful, gnawing, unremitting bitterness of hopeless remorse and regret and self-condemnation for the utter stupidity of playing and self-pleasing when God lovingly asks us to work full time in the Vineyard, and become an eternal part in His glorious Purpose. How mockingly meaningless will then seem the juvenile things we waste our time and interest on today while precious time slips away! What vain, anguished poundings then on the forever shut door of Joy and Hope! God loved us, and abundantly manifested that love, and sought the totality of ours in small return. Like a spoiled child, we accepted the benefits of His love, but did not reciprocate it in the fulness of devotion that true love must of its very nature bring forth. Our ‘love’ went not beyond self-interest, and now we reap as we have sown. Mercifully, this dreadful, hopeless anguish will sooner or later end in the then sought-for and at last welcomed relief of eternal death.

“The secret of total happiness and total contentment is total love of God. This is the whole meaning and purpose of life. This is that for which we were created and are divinely destined. This solves all problems and assuages all sorrows. This is peace” (GV Growcott).

*****

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me’ ” (v 40).

“Help the old and sick as much as you possibly can: especially those whom you think deserve it least, for they are likely to be the ones everyone neglects. Christ’s command to do it is not because of their merit, but because it is the will of our Lord and a test of our love and obedience to Him. Helping those who are in need of help is far more important to Christ than catering to our own comforts and desires, though somehow the latter seems quite important to us at the moment. The flesh is very self-centered, and serving the flesh will never give us life. We shall be asked about this matter at the judgment seat. It may be rather a sticky question, and it would pay to have a good answer ready. Better yet: to have a good record ready” (GVG).

Reading 1 – Gen 22

“Some time later God tested Abraham” (Gen 22:1).

“Tested” is “tempted” in AV, and “try” in RV and Heb 11:8,17. See Jam 1:12,13; 1Pe 1:6,7. God must have considered Abraham very righteous to put such a severe test on him.

“When a man contemplates buying a car he takes it out on the road to see how it behaves under normal conditions. He does not try driving it across a rough mountain side, nor does he deliberately crash it into a stone wall. By contrast, when an engineer wishes to know the quality of some metal, he subjects samples of it to various extreme tests, twisting or loading them to the point of destruction. It was the first kind of ‘temptation’ [‘testing’: NIV] which God now brought to bear on Abraham. But ‘Lead us not into temptation’ [Mat 6:13] means the second kind of experience: ‘Lord, do not bring us into such temptations as may prove too much for us.’ And James’s emphatic ‘neither tempteth he any man’ [Jam 1:13] clearly means: ‘God never tempts any man with the intention of working his downfall.’ ‘He will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way of escape (as for Israel at the Red Sea), that ye may be able to bear it’ [1Co 10:13]” (HAW, Abraham 95).

*****

” ‘Do not lay a hand on the boy,’ he said. ‘Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son’ ” (v 12).

“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8:32). We see here that Abraham, by his willingness to devote his well-beloved son in a supreme act of love, actually typified God Himself!

“Now I know that you fear God”: The doubt expressed here may be in remembrance of the incident in Gen 20 where Abraham for the second time said that Sarah was his sister, because he was afraid of what would happen to him. Or the angel might have meant simply, ‘You (Abraham) passed the test! I wasn’t sure whether or not you would, but you did!’ A number of verses indicate that even the angels had incomplete knowledge of future events (examples: Mar 13:32; 1Pe 1:12; etc).

“Because you have not withheld from me your son”: “Me” = God, although it is an angel who is speaking (vv 11,15). Cp Gen 32:24-30.

*****

“Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son” (v 13).

The ram entangled (Aramaic “sabachtani”) in the thicket (Hebrew “sebach”) may be the basis for the words of Jesus when citing Psa 22:1: “My God… why have You forsaken (azavtani) — or entangled (sabachtani) me?” In quoting Psa 22, Jesus seems to have switched from the Hebrew azavtani (which means “forsaken me”) to the Aramaic sabachtani (which may mean “entangled me”: the same word occurs in Gen 22:13 for the “thicket” (“sebach”) in which the sacrificial ram was found). So perhaps this should be read: ‘My God, my God, thou hast [an assertion, not a question!] ensnared and provided ME as the sacrificial victim!’

*****

“So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, ‘On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided’ ” (v 14).

THE LORD WILL PROVIDE: In AV, this is “Yahweh-jireh”. That is, “God will provide a sacrifice — ie Jesus”. Or, “in the mountain Yahweh will be seen”, as a Redeemer, in Christ, the perfect sacrifice — God manifest in the flesh (2Co 5:19-21; Joh 1:14; Heb 8:3; Gal 4:4) for the redemption of mankind.

“Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of SEEING my day; he saw it and was glad” (Joh 8:56). Cp also Jam 2:22: “You SEE that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.”

*****

“And thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies” (v 17).

In the East, even great cities had only one large gate; to possess this gate was to possess full power over the city. Christ was dead, now lives, and has power — the “keys” — of hell (the grave) and death (Rev 1:18; cp Rev 20:6; 1Co 15:26,55,56).

In Bible times cities were surrounded by walls with, of course, a gate to enter. Whoever conquered a city would have control over the gate and would therefore have the authority to let in or keep out whomever he wanted. Jesus, the seed of Abraham (Gal 3:16), through his death and resurrection gained the authority to possess the gate of his enemies — hell (the grave) and death (Rev 1:18). Therefore he alone can say who will stay in the grave for eternity or who will come forth to eternal life (Joh 5:22, 28,29; Act 17:31). Also, in the process of establishing the kingdom, Jesus will rule in the midst of his enemies (Psa 110:2). The seat of judgment also was in the city gate (Gen 19:1,9; Rth 4:1; etc).

*****

What follows is an extended commentary by the Christian (non-Christadelphian) writer, AW Tozer, on the spiritual meaning of Abraham’s offering of his son Isaac. It is reproduced here because, in my opinion, he has some powerful points to make, and he makes them very eloquently….

As is frequently true, this NT principle of spiritual life [Mat 16:24,25] finds its best illustration in the OT. In the story of Abraham and Isaac [Gen 22] we have a dramatic picture of the surrendered life as well as an excellent commentary on the first Beatitude [Mat 5:3].

Abraham was old when Isaac was born, old enough indeed to have been his grandfather, and the child became at once the delight and idol of his heart. From that moment when he first stooped to take the tiny form awkwardly in his arms he was an eager love slave of his son. God went out of His way to comment on the strength of this affection. And it is not hard to understand. The baby represented everything sacred to his father’s heart: the promises of God, the covenants, the hopes of the years and the long messianic dream. As he watched him grow from babyhood to young manhood the heart of the old man was knit closer and closer with the life of his son, till at last the relationship bordered upon the perilous. It was then that God stepped in to save both father and son from the consequences of an uncleansed love.

‘Take now thy son,’ said God to Abraham, ‘thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of’ (Gen 22:2). The sacred writer spares us a close-up of the agony that night on the slopes near Beersheba when the aged man had it out with his God, but respectful imagination may view in awe the bent form and convulsive wrestling alone under the stars. Possibly not again until a Greater than Abraham wrestled in the Garden of Gethsemane did such mortal pain visit a human soul. If only the man himself might have been allowed to die. That would have been easier a thousand times, for he was old now, and to die would have been no great ordeal for one who had walked so long with God. Besides, it would have been a last sweet pleasure to let his dimming vision rest upon the figure of his stalwart son who would live to carry on the Abrahamic line and fulfill in himself the promises of God made long before in Ur of the Chaldees.

How should he slay the lad! Even if he could get the consent of his wounded and protesting heart, how could he reconcile the act with the promise, ‘In Isaac shall thy seed be called’? This was Abraham’s trial by fire, and he did not fail in the crucible. While the stars still shone like sharp white points above the tent where the sleeping Isaac lay, and long before the gray dawn had begun to lighten the east, the old saint had made up his mind. He would offer his son as God had directed him to do, and then trust God to raise him from the dead [Heb 11:19]. This, says the writer to the Hebrews, was the solution his aching heart found sometime in the dark night, and he rose ‘early in the morning’ to carry out the plan. It is beautiful to see that, while he erred as to God’s method, he had correctly sensed the secret of His great heart. And the solution accords well with the NT Scripture, ‘Whosoever will lose… for my sake shall find…’

God let the suffering old man go through with it up to the point where He knew there would be no retreat, and then forbade him to lay a hand upon the boy. To the wondering patriarch He now says in effect, ‘It’s all right, Abraham. I never intended that you should actually slay the lad. I only wanted to remove him from the temple of your heart that I might reign unchallenged there. I wanted to correct the perversion that existed in your love. Now you may have the boy, sound and well. Take him and go back to your tent. Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me’ [cp Rom 8:32].

Then heaven opened and a voice was heard saying to him, ‘By myself I have sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.’

The old man of God lifted his head to respond to the Voice, and stood there on the mount strong and pure and grand, a man marked out by the Lord for special treatment, a friend and favorite of the Most High. Now he was a man wholly surrendered, a man utterly obedient, a man who possessed nothing. He had concentrated his all in the person of his dear son, and God had taken it from him. God could have begun out on the margin of Abraham’s life and worked inward to the center; He chose rather to cut quickly to the heart and have it over in one sharp act of separation. In dealing thus He practiced an economy of means and time. It hurt cruelly, but it was effective.

I have said that Abraham possessed nothing. Yet was not this poor man rich? Everything he had owned before was still his to enjoy: sheep, camels, herds, and goods of every sort. He had also his wife and his friends, and best of all he had his son Isaac safe by his side. He had everything, but he POSSESSED nothing. There is the spiritual secret. There is the sweet theology of the heart which can be learned only in the school of renunciation. The books on systematic theology overlook this, but the wise will understand.

After that bitter and blessed experience I think the words ‘my and ‘mine’ never had again the same meaning for Abraham. The sense of possession which they connote was gone from his heart. Things had been cast out forever. They had now become external to the man. His inner heart was free from them. The world said, ‘Abraham is rich,’ but the aged patriarch only smiled. He could not explain it to them, but he knew that he owned nothing, that his real treasures were inward and eternal…

The Christian who is alive enough to know himself even slightly will recognize the symptoms of this possession malady, and will grieve to find them in his own heart. If the longing after God is strong enough within him he will want to do something about the matter. Now, what should he do?

First of all he should put away all defense and make no attempt to excuse himself either in his own eyes or before the Lord. Whoever defends himself will have himself for his defense, and he will have no other; but let him come defenseless before the Lord and he will have for his defender no less than God Himself. Let the inquiring Christian trample under foot every slippery trick of his deceitful heart and insist upon frank and open relations with the Lord.

Then he should remember that this is holy business. No careless or casual dealings will suffice. Let him come to God in full determination to be heard. Let him insist that God accept his all, that He take things out of his heart and Himself reign there in power. It may be he will need to become specific, to name things and people by their names one by one. If he will become drastic enough he can shorten the time of his travail from years to minutes and enter the good land long before his slower brethren who coddle their feelings and insist upon caution in their dealings with God.

Let us never forget that such a truth as this cannot be learned by rote as one would learn the facts of physical science. They must be experienced before we can really know them. We must in our hearts live through Abraham’s harsh and bitter experiences if we would know the blessedness which follows them. The ancient curse will not go out painlessly; the tough old miser within us will not lie down and die obedient to our command. He must be torn out of our heart like a plant from the soil; he must be extracted in agony and blood like a tooth from the jaw. He must be expelled from our soul by violence as Christ expelled the money changers from the temple. And we shall need to steel ourselves against his piteous begging, and to recognize it as springing out of self-pity, one of the most reprehensible sins of the human heart.

If we would indeed know God in growing intimacy we must go this way of renunciation. And if we are set upon the pursuit of God He will sooner or later bring us to this test. Abraham’s testing was, at the time, not known to him as such, yet if he had taken some course other than the one he did, the whole history of the Old Testament would have been different. God would have found His man, no doubt, but the loss to Abraham would have been tragic beyond the telling. So we will be brought one by one to the testing place, and we may never know when we are there. At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices for us; just one and an alternative, but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make. (AWT)

Reading 2 – Psa 27:5

“For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock” (Psa 27:5).

And when he faced his greatest trouble, and the waves of death overflowed and engulfed him, then his prayer was truly answered. The Son of God was hidden in the special “shelter” hewn out of a rock (Mar 16:4,6), wherein man had never been laid (Joh 19:41). That special resting place became the secret “tabernacle” of God Himself, where His Son reclined upon a bed of rock (Song 2:14). And there he rested “until the day break, and the shadows flee away” (Song 2:17). “There is a place by me,” God told Moses, where “I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand” (Exo 33:21,22). Now a greater than Moses rested in the crevice of a rock, until the glory of his Father would pass before him.

Reading 3 – Mat 14:23,24,29

“After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it… Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus” (Mat 14:23,24,29).

“Life can present a picture of a dark and turbulent sea with Jesus afar off. It is the slow triumph of faith to see him on the heights above in communion and intercession with his Father. Sometimes he comes to us in the midst of the storms and darkness, in unfamiliar form which we must learn to recognize. We are quick to appreciate, if we are slow to learn, that when we walk over the waters to meet him, we must not be dismayed by the darkness, the wind or the waves; we must believe that his power is greater far; that he can save even unto the uttermost: that faith can only be sustained by keeping our eyes fixed lovingly and obediently upon him” (Melva Purkis, Life of Jesus 193).

Reading 1 – Exo 12:13

“The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt” (Exo 12:13).

As to the word for “passover”, compare the “remission”/passing over of sins: Rom 3:25. Literally, the Hebrew “pesach” means to “hover over”, to protect: the same word occurs in Isa 31:5; and the general idea comes in Psa 34:7; Heb 1:14.

“The term ‘pesach’ denotes the Passover offering and more generally the feast centering on that sacrifice, which was eaten at night… The word has been connected with a Hebrew verb meaning ‘protect’ (Isa 31:5) or ‘limp’ or ‘skip’ (2Sa 4:4; 1Ki 18:21,26)” (Anchor Bible Dictionary).

The Hebrew verb is a rare and tricky word, and “authorities” come up with several different possibilities… but the idea of “hovering over, or protecting” is supported by Isa 31:5, where the same verb occurs, and where the context explains its meaning: “As birds flying, so will the LORD of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also he will deliver it; and passing over (same verb!) he will preserve it.” (This is Jerusalem being defended from Sennacherib’s army.)

The “birds flying” connects with the Passover angel (or angels)… but the LORD is not “passing by” Jerusalem — He is “defending” and “delivering” and “preserving” it. It may be, in fact, that there were two very different “Angels of the LORD” at work on Passover night in Egypt — or better yet, two “legions” of Angels! One Angel (and his “merry band”!) was the “Destroying Angel”. The other Angel (and his company) was the “Passover or Hovering-Over Angel”, if you will. While Angel No. 1’s company went about killing all the firstborn, Angel No. 2’s company stood guard at the homes sprinkled with the blood of the Passover lambs, and said, “No, not here! we don’t want your business. Keep on going!”

It’s a little like the Persian laws in Esther: that is, the first law decrees death for all Jews, which cannot be undone… but the second decree gives them a way out! Here, in Exodus, the decree is: “Kill the firstborn… everywhere”… but God’s second law gives the way out: “… except those who are sprinkled with the blood”.

In the broader sense, this is really what mortality is all about: “Death passes upon all men”, BUT “… those who trust in the blood of Christ are delivered from the otherwise-universal death!” The Passover picture suggests the cherubim wings of God, as the One (through His angels?) who hovers over His children… like a mother bird flutters over and protects and nurtures her young.

The Psalms have some great passages along these lines: “under the shadow of God’s wings” — a half dozen or so — all employing the same figure of speech (Psa 17:8; 36:7; 57:1; 61:4; 63:7; 91:1). And Jesus employs the same figure of speech also when he says to Jerusalem: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Mat 23:37). Words spoken by our Savior on the very eve of Passover, and in the shadow of the cross!

Reading 2 – Psa 66:12

“We went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance” (Psa 66:12).

“Fire” is the pillar of fire in the wilderness, or the “burning bush” (Exo 3:2) — typifying Israel’s experience of trials. “Water” is the Red Sea and the Jordan River (v 6), the national “baptism” to which Israel was submitted (1Co 10:1,2). Through these testings and trials, God brings His people out of bondage and into a place of “abundance”, or possibly “freedom.” This pictures the release of the Jews from bondage from Egypt. The KJV translates “a wealthy place” — perhaps with reference to the plunder of Egypt, received as gifts by the Israelites, and the richness of the Land of Canaan — which God had prepared for them.

Reading 3 – Mark 1:1

“The Gospel of Mark opens with the words: ‘The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.’ We do not notice the concentrated wonder of the last three words, for we have heard them too often. Why does it not strike us as astounding that God should have a Son? It did those who first heard it. For the disciples of Jesus, it was the supreme confession of faith — ‘Thou art the Son of God, Thou are the King of Israel’, as another Gospel records from an early disciple; for His enemies, it was the culminating blasphemy, ‘and they all condemned him to be worthy of death.’

“The whole Book vibrates with high excitement, supreme hope, crashing despair, and sudden restoration. There is deep-rooted loyalty, black treachery, stirring devotion, and revolting murder. We must recapture the ability to respond to these movements if we would read the Bible as it is. We cannot close our hearts. We must try to live in the events through which we move” (Alfred Norris, “On Reading the Bible” 21,22).

Reading 1 – Gen 25:11

“After Abraham’s death, God blessed his son Isaac, who then lived near Beer Lahai Roi” (Gen 25:11).

The Hebrew name signifies “the well of the Living One who sees me”, or “the well of life and vision”. This was a fountain of water in the wilderness, between Kadesh and Bered on the road to Shur (the eastern line of Egypt’s border fortresses), where the Lord’s watchful care was revealed to Hagar (Gen 16:14). Also a place where Isaac “dwelt” (RSV) for some time. This site is not certain, but is possibly about 50 miles southwest of Beersheba.

Hagar had once found deliverance there and Ishmael had drunk from the water so graciously revealed by the God who liveth and seeth the sons of men; but this was a merely casual visit, the kind that worldly people pay to the Lord in times of need, when it serves their turn. They cry to Him in trouble, but forsake Him in prosperity. By contrast, Isaac dwelt there, and made the well of the living and all-seeing God his constant source of supply. The usual tenor of a man’s life, the place where his “soul” dwells, is the true test of his state.

Perhaps the providential visitation experienced by Hagar struck Isaac’s mind, and led him to revere the place; its poetic and mystical name endeared it to him; his frequent meditations by the well at evening made him familiar with its environs; and his meeting Rebekah (Gen 24:62) there had made his spirit feel at home near the spot. But best of all, the fact that he there enjoyed fellowship with the living God, had made him select that hallowed ground for his dwelling. Let us learn to live in the presence of the living God, and feel comfortable knowing His eyes are upon us.

Reading 2 – Psa 31

“But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, ‘You are my God’ ” (Psa 31:14).

“All our happiness and pleasure and satisfaction must be centered in God. Any seeming ‘happiness’ or ‘pleasure’ or ‘satisfaction’ that is not centered in God is a sham and a delusion that will turn to sorrow at last. God is the only reality. All things and all beings exist only as He will they exist. Whatever is built on God is real, and will last. Whatever is not built on God is not real, and will not last. Only a few learn this. Only a few find eternal happiness and peace” (GVG).

“Love the LORD, all his saints” (v 23).

“Contemplate your blessings: principally the eternal, spiritual, unchanging ones. Contemplate your unworthiness. Contemplate God’s greatness and holiness and marvelous condescending love. Get a constant sense of gratitude and desire to reciprocate that love which is almost painful in its pressing, overwhelming urgency. This is the power and the motive that creates a perpetual and irresistible yearning and striving for worthiness and holiness. It is the only power and motive that can resist and overcome and triumph over the fatal, unremitting, downward pull of the flesh. Love God enough — through study, meditation and realization — and you can do anything. There is no other way to life: no other power to overcome” (GVG).

Reading 3 – Mat 16:24

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mat 16:24).

“The sentiment that Christ’s righteousness alone is to be the basis of our acceptance, is one of the countless and pernicious corruptions of clerical theology. It doubtless originated in the misapplication of a certain element of apostolic truth, namely that which informs us that all are under sin, and that our salvation is not of works; but through the righteousness of faith that is in Christ. Men have long ceased to perceive that this principle applies only to unjustified sinners, and not to those who have been placed in a justified or forgiven position, through the obedience of faith. Christ is righteousness for sinners in this sense, that God offers to forgive them for Christ’s sake, and to grant them a co-heirship with Christ, of what Christ, as a manifestation of God, has achieved for himself. But when sinners become saints, they come into relation to a new principle. They are responsible to him as servants to a master, and he will judge them according to their works” (Robert Roberts, “Seasons of Comfort” 164).

*****

“The cross is the symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of the human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said goodbye to his friends. He was not coming back. He was not going out to have his life redirected. He was going out to have it ended. The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing. It slew all of the man completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. it struck swift and hard and when it had finished its work the man was no more. That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways of God and the ways of man is false to the Bible and cruel to the soul of the hearers. The faith of Christ does not parallel the world. It intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our life up on to a higher plane. We leave it at a cross. The grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die. That is the beginning of the gospel” (AW Tozer).

*****

“To give my life for Christ appears glorious. To pour myself out for others… to pay the ultimate price of martyrdom — ‘I’ll do it. I’m ready, Lord, to go out in a blaze of glory.’

“We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking a $1,000 bill and laying it on the table — ‘Here’s my life, Lord. I’m giving it all.’ But the reality for most of us is that he sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $1,000 for quarters. We go through life putting out 25 cents here and 50 cents there. Listen to the neighbor kid’s troubles instead of saying, ‘Get lost.’ Go to a committee meeting. Give a cup of water to a shaky old man in a nursing home.

“Usually giving our life to Christ isn’t glorious. It’s done in all those little acts of love, 25 cents at a time. It would be easy to go out in a flash of glory; it’s harder to live the Christian life little by little over the long haul” (F Craddock).

Reading 1 – Gen 35:18

“As she [Rachel] breathed her last — for she was dying — she named her son Ben-Oni. [Ben-Oni means son of my trouble.] But his father named him Benjamin [Benjamin means son of my right hand.]” (Gen 35:18).

In similar fashion, Adam named his wife “Eve” — “Life!” — although by natural appearances “Death” might have been more appropriate. This demonstrates an appreciation of the importance of God’s promises, even in the midst of suffering. “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2Co 4:17,18).

FOR SHE WAS DYING: Rachel symbolizes the nation of Israel — which dies politically at the coming of her “son” Jesus Christ: Isa 53:3; Luk 2:34,35; Rom 11:15.

BEN-ONI: “Son of my trouble, or my sorrow” (cp Mat 2:18). Jesus, at first coming, was a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief.

BENJAMIN: “Son of my right hand”. Jesus, the only son of his Father, after suffering in sorrow, was then elevated to power at God’s right hand: see Psa 80:17; 110:1,2; Mat 22:44; Phi 2:5-7.

“To every matter there is a bright as well as a dark side. Rachel was overwhelmed with the sorrow of her own travail and death; Jacob, though weeping the mother’s loss, could see the mercy of the child’s birth. It is well for us if, while the flesh mourns over trials, our faith triumphs in divine faithfulness. Samson’s lion yielded honey, and so will our adversities, if rightly considered.

“The stormy sea feeds multitudes with its fishes; the wild wood blooms with beauteous flowers; the stormy wind sweeps away the pestilence, and the biting frost loosens the soil. Dark clouds distil bright drops, and black earth grows gay flowers. A vein of good is to be found in every mine of evil. Sad hearts have peculiar skill in discovering the most disadvantageous point of view from which to gaze upon a trial; if there were only one swamp in the world, they would soon be up to their necks in it, and if there were only one lion in the desert they would hear it roar…

“Faith’s way of walking is to cast all care upon the Lord, and then to anticipate good results from the worst calamities. Like Gideon’s men, she does not fret over the broken pitcher, but rejoices that the lamp blazes forth the more. Out of the rough oyster-shell of difficulty she extracts the rare pearl of honor, and from the deep ocean-caves of distress she uplifts the priceless coral of experience. When her flood of prosperity ebbs, she finds treasures hid in the sands; and when her sun of delight goes down, she turns her telescope of hope to the starry promises of heaven. When death itself appears, faith points to the light of resurrection beyond the grave, thus making our dying Benoni to be our living Benjamin” (CH Spurgeon).

Reading 2 – Psa 37:20

“But the wicked will perish: The LORD’S enemies will be like the beauty of the fields, they will vanish — vanish like smoke” (Psa 37:20).

THE BEAUTY OF THE FIELDS: The alternate reading, “the fat of lambs”, (AV) conjures up the picture of a great column of smoke ascending up to heaven. The everlasting death of the unredeemable wicked is the only acceptable sacrifice they can offer (cp Psa 21:8,9; Eze 39:17; Isa 34:6; 66:15,16; Zep 1:7,8,17; Mal 4:1). The punishment of the wicked is death, not endless torment: Psa 104:35; 145:20; Pro 10:30; 11:31; 13:13; Job 20:7,8; 21:30; Eze 18:4; Mat 21:41; Luk 19:27; Rom 1:32; 6:23; 2Th 1:9; 2Pe 2:12; Heb 6:8.

THEY WILL VANISH — VANISH LIKE SMOKE: The wicked will vanish like the continual burnt offering, consumed into smoke, until there is nothing left: cp Eze 39:6,17-22. God’s judgment of the wicked is described as a “sacrifice”: Rev 20:9; Gen 19:24; 2Ki 1:10-14; Psa 37:20; Eze 39:6,17-22.

Reading 3 – Mat 22:37

“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’ ” (Mat 22:37).

“We cannot weaken the flesh: but we can, and we must, strengthen the spirit, so that it may subdue and control, the flesh. To begin with, we are all flesh: ‘fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind,’ like the beast of the field, knowing nothing better or higher. We build the strength of the spirit by the intense love of God. There is no other way. And love of God, in effective strength, comes by much study and meditation on His Word. The one great command of life is: ‘Love the Lord thy God with ALL thy heart, ALL thy mind, ALL thy life, and ALL thy strength.’ This is not a command in the ordinary sense of a requirement by someone else for their purposes and benefit. Rather it is divine loving advice on the only possible way of escape out of death into life. An intense, life-dominating love of God is the only power in the universe that can overcome the flesh, and the promise of God’s glorious eternal future is only to ‘him that overcometh’ ” (GV Growcott).

Reading 1 – Gen 31

“Jacob found himself being treated with the duplicity that he manifested in the matter of the family blessing granted by Isaac (Gen 27). A family council was held in the home of Laban, Jacob’s father in law. There had come a change in the heart of Laban towards Jacob, and jealousy in his sons brought about a crisis in the life of Jacob. There was a rising hostility toward him, and Jacob realised that as he had fled from the home of his family in Canaan, now he would have to flee from the home of his wives in Haran.

“As father, Laban had ignored his true responsibilities to his daughters. They gave expression to the mercenary meanness of their father (v 15), which rankled long in their minds, and had destroyed any love they once had for him. Family life is best when based upon the Word and Purpose of Yahweh. Yahweh presided over the whole scene between Laban (the man of sin) and Jacob (the man of faith), and ultimately delivered the man of faith, so that Jacob and his family could leave to journey home to the Land of Promise” (GE Mansfield).

Reading 2 – Psa 35:9

“Then my soul will rejoice in the LORD and delight in his salvation” (Psa 35:9).

“Let it not be thought that the course of wisdom is a joyless burden. Rather, it is the course of the only true joy and freedom from burden. We have seen full-grown, mentally-retarded adults sitting on the floor grinning and slobbering and playing with baby toys. It is a terribly sad and saddening spectacle: a potentially noble and intelligent creature, created in God’s image, never developing beyond uncomprehending infancy. Compared to the beauty that might be, this is the spiritual state that might be of all of natural mankind. And merely passing an elementary examination and being baptized does not automatically change it, though such can and should be a tremendous first step in the direction of growth and maturity and nobility and beauty. But it is only a first step. Continuous development must follow” (GV Growcott).

Reading 3 – Mat 20:16

“So the last will be first, and the first last” (Mat 20:16),

“Do not take your salvation for granted… At our baptism, we do not step onto a smooth, effortless moving sidewalk that will automatically carry us comfortably into the Kingdom, though many act as though they assume this is so. Rather we stand at the foot of a steep and rugged hill, and there is no ski-lift. That hill is our probation: the ‘working out of our salvation with fear and trembling.’ God knows the height and degree of difficulty of our hill, and He knows the lifespan before us that He has given us to climb it. We shall need ALL that time, and all the available help He has provided and promised in so many ways. How long is it since your baptism? How far up the hill of God have you faithfully climbed? There are tempting but fatal relaxing places along the way, among them that deceptive worldly conceit called ‘retirement.’ Are you in one of them? The day draws on, and the top is still above you” (GV Growcott).

Reading 1 – Gen 32:30,31

“So Jacob called the place Peniel [face of God] saying, ‘It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared’ ” (Gen 32:30).

Brethren, do we wrestle with God? How do we confront our “enemies”? Do we go through life dividing our time between praying and plotting? Do we ask for help and then scheme in unworthy ways to obtain our goals, giving the lie to all our worthier thoughts? Do we twist and turn and worry under every constraint to our own wills, never pausing to remind ourselves that God is in control of everything, and that what we “suffer” as well as what we “enjoy” contribute alike to His purpose?

It is so easy to forget the lesson of Shimei’s cursing of David, that God had sent the “enemy” — so who are we to ask “why”? (2Sa 16:10). Likewise, the reply of Jesus to Pilate: “Thou shouldst have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above” (John 19:11). For us the problem is the same as Jacob’s: how to remember in our troubled hours what we take for granted in our quieter moments; that “All things work together for good to them that love God” and, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” Assuredly we shall all come to times when our theoretical belief in such an idea will be put to the test of reality.

We should see ourselves in Jacob, and Jacob in ourselves. The experiences of this flesh-and-blood man have direct relevance to us. Do we fear and doubt? Do we vacillate between faith in God and scheming on our own account? So did he! But in his weakness he was drawn finally and completely to God. Let us have the humility and grace, and wisdom, to follow his path.

There is comfort in this thought, that Jacob never became perfect — that he never could bring himself to trust God absolutely, and yet God loved him. And so it may be with us. God has condescended to be known as the “God of Jacob” (the one who “wrestled”), not just the “God of Israel” (the “Prince with God”)!!

*****

“And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh” (Gen 32:31).

The “thorn in his flesh”, like Paul’s, was not removed. It remained with Jacob as proof and reminder of his encounter with God. And so we all “limp” through life, our failures and weaknesses witnessing eloquently to us of our need — our desperate need — to trust in God alone. We survey our lives, remembering the times when we, personally, failed… yet, in those failures found God.

As Jacob limped toward his meeting with Esau, the sun rose upon him! The doubts, the shadows, and the fears were gone with the night. He had seen “God” face to face, and through his weakness found a blessing. Now, when at last he saw Esau, he would still be seeing “God” (Gen 33:10). From now on, he would always God’s “face”, wherever he went.

***

Our Father,

Help us to see Thy “face” in all our experiences.

Cause the light of Thy truth to shine into our hearts,

so that — abandoning our own wills

and our own strength —

we come at last to trust in Thee alone.

In Christ we pray.

Amen.

Reading 2 – Psa 36:8

“They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights” (Psa 36:8).

“Sheba’s queen was amazed at the sumptuousness of Solomon’s table. She lost all heart when she saw the provision of a single day; and she marvelled equally at the company of servants who were feasted at the royal board. But what is this to the hospitalities of the God of grace? Ten thousand thousand of his people are daily fed; hungry and thirsty, they bring large appetites with them to the banquet, but not one of them returns unsatisfied; there is enough for each, enough for all, enough for evermore. Though the host that feed at Jehovah’s table is countless as the stars of heaven, yet each one has his portion of meat. Think how much grace one saint requires, so much that nothing but the Infinite could supply him for one day; and yet the Lord spreads His table, not for one, but many saints, not for one day, but for many years; not for many years only, but for generation after generation… the woman said, ‘The dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from the master’s table’; but no child of God is ever served with scraps and leavings; like Mephibosheth, they all eat from the king’s own table. In matters of grace, we all have Benjamin’s portion — we all have ten times more than we could have expected, and though our necessities are great, yet are we often amazed at the marvellous plenty of grace which God gives us experimentally to enjoy” (CH Spurgeon).

Reading 3 – Mat 21:21

“I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done” (Mat 21:21).

“Never worry. Worry has sent more people to the asylums and hospitals than anything else. Worry is stupid, juvenile, faithless, non-productive, round-and-round-in-a-circle thinking. If something calls for concern, be concerned. But be concerned in a constructive, productive way. Think in a straight line — from problem to solution. Or if there is no solution, to acceptance. If there is no solution, there is always prayer: though that should be the first resort, not the last. God can make anything happen or not happen. If He doesn’t choose to, then it is not to be; or we have not prayed long enough, or sincerely enough. Or we have something to learn that denying our prayers helps to teach us. Everything related to God’s affairs and God’s people has a good purpose. Folly frets and worries and rebels. Wisdom knows there is a reason, and accepts, and adjusts, and is thankful, whether God gives, or takes away” (GV Growcott).