No Sweat

Ezekiel 44:18

God spoke to Ezekiel concerning the functions of the temple that should be enforced when Israel returned from their scattering. These instructions were to be followed by the Lord’s priests and they were inter-mingled with prophecies of the future millennial reign of our Lord Jesus.

The garments of the priesthood are given in vivid detail in Exodus 28 and this passage in Ezekiel gives us a greater insight into the specific fabric for the garments. When the priest entered into the gates of the inner court of the temple, they were to be wearing linen garments. This garment covered them from neck to toe, including the length of their arms. The linen was a representation of the righteousness of God, and it is also the garment that the soldiers did not tear at the cross when they gambled for Jesus’ clothes. By leaving it untorn, they were unwittingly leaving the priestly garment for Jesus to wear symbolically, for Caiaphas had just torn his the night before, leaving the office of High Priest vacant (Matthew 26:65). Jesus filled that office for us, becoming our High Priest (Hebrews 4:14).

No wool was to be on the body of the priests because it does not breathe well, and it tends to cause the body to sweat. Sweat was a part of the curse that God put upon man in the Garden when He told Adam, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground” (Genesis 3:19). Adam had chosen to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and by this disobedience; sin had entered into the family of man. Sweat was a result of the work that man had to do to survive, thus a symbol of his fallen state.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus sweat as it were great drops of blood (Luke 22:44) as He prayed about His upcoming death at the cross. His precious blood mingled with the sweat of man’s curse, thus paying for that curse to be lifted. Because of the work of Jesus in one Garden, the failure of man in the first Garden has been done away! We are free from working to survive as Jesus has finished the work on our behalf.

Jesus is our bread of heaven, and He requires no work on our part to receive that bread. Adam, which characterizes every man in a fallen, sinful state, had to eat his bread by his own sweat and efforts. You and I, as New Covenant believers, eat the bread of heaven with no effort of our own. We have the daily manna of Jesus and His finished work and we can partake of it freely.

You do not live by your efforts in the kingdom of God. You are no more righteous or holy at this moment by your religious activity than you were the moment that you said “Yes” to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. The finished work of Jesus has freed you from stressing about your job, your income, your children or your future. He bore the labor, so you can have the fruit. You have asked for a fish (blessing), do you think your heavenly Father will give you a serpent (curse)?

Fire in My Bones

Jeremiah 20:7-9

Jeremiah was a bold prophet with a tough message. Assigned by God to deliver harsh messages of God’s impending judgment and wrath, there is no record that Jeremiah ever had a single convert in his entire ministry. It must have been difficult to continue preaching to a people who seemed deaf to your message and unresponsive to your invitations of repentance.

Pashur, the son of Immer the priest, was the chief governor over the temple in the days of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20:1). He heard Jeremiah stand in the temple courtyard and deliver a message typical of Old Testament prophets, “Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words” (Jeremiah 19:15). Upon hearing this harsh message of God’s impending judgment, Pashur smote Jeremiah and threw him in the stockade next to the temple.

At some point in his incarceration, Jeremiah began to feel a bit sorry for himself. He had had nothing but “derision daily, every one mocks me” (20:7). His feeling of loneliness and isolation was personified by the prison bars and the stocks. He then made a decision that he was done with ministry, “I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay” (Jeremiahs 20:9).

Jeremiah may have decided that he was done with ministry, but ministry was not done with him! When persecutions become frequent and heavy, and our spiritual arms droop, we often wish that we could be somewhere else. The cares of this life cause us to want to lay down our sword from time to time, but the sheer force of the gospel power, which is the power of God unto salvation, picks us up again.

When you have consumed God’s grace and favor, and the loveliness of Jesus becomes your daily meat and drink, you are completely incapable of turning around and heading in the opposite direction. There is nothing about the finished work of Christ that causes the believer to want to run out and sin; in fact, grace creates the opposite desire. You simply cannot help yourself from loving Him and ministering of His goodness and grace. It is a fire shut up in your bones!

When closing his first letter to the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul commented on the first fruits of Achaia (meaning the first converts from Asia), that they had “addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints” (1 Corinthians 16:15). These saints had poured themselves in the service of ministry. They were not preaching and teaching the Word, but they were supporting those that did with both their efforts and their finances (Galatians 6:6). They had grown so accustomed to consuming the bread of heaven that comes from doing the right thing at the right time that they were considered addicted to such ministry. Oh that we would be as addicted to so great a cause as the presentation of the good news of Jesus Christ and the Father’s love.

Your Father is a fire, and that fire burns bright for you and in you. If it is shut up in your bones, let it out. It is a dark world without the light of the cross.

The Gates Are Broken

Isaiah 45:2-3

God promised to “break in pieces the gates of brass”, using His anointed one Cyrus. Cyrus was a Gentile king, and the first non-Jew to be referred to as anointed. The usage of this king to make crooked paths straight and cut bars of iron is the biblical “Law of Double Reference”, where one character is addressed, but a deeper meaning is implied.

The anointed one Cyrus is a type of the anointed one, Jesus. The Double Reference first occurs in Eden when God speaks to the serpent, cursing him to exist on his belly and promising that the woman’s seed will bruise his head (Genesis 3:14, 15). The serpent did not have his head bruised at Calvary but Satan did; thus God was speaking in part to the snake and in part to the devil. In Isaiah 44:28 and in the 45th chapter, God is doing the same thing in reference to Cyrus, while giving us promises that only Jesus could fulfill.

Why would we need gates to be broken in pieces? Jesus told Peter in Matthew 16:18 that the gates of hell would not prevail against the church. Common sense tells us that gates are not used as offensive weapons but rather are closed to keep invaders out. Referring to the gates of hell as being powerless to stop the church infers that we will be going against hell in some capacity and that hell itself will not be able to stop us because Jesus has broken the staying power of its gates.

Gates are not only used to keep invaders out, they are also used to keep people in. Hell has thrown various strongholds against the believer from the very beginning; intent on keeping God’s people down, depressed, miserable and defeated. What Satan has done is not so much throw things at the believer as much as he has hid awesome truths from the believer. These truths have been shut up by strongholds of the enemy so that saints never see the truths for themselves; and what the believer does not know certainly hurts him.

Paul said that if the good news is hid, “it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Corinthians 4:3, 4). Satan has worked for 2000 years to deny mankind the light of the good news. Every sermon that emphasizes man’s works or glorifies God’s law as the source of redemption takes the light off of the loveliness of Jesus. This traps the message of grace and favor behind the gates of hell, so that people cannot be exposed to the glory of the image of Jesus.

We are never changed by seeing how bad that we are and then working to improve. Instead, we are changed into His image as we behold His face, and this change is not by our works but from “glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Let’s not hold this glorious good news back one more day from one more person. Let that light shine to all who are in darkness.

There is a River

Psalms 46:1-4

As all of the songs of the Old Testament, this song speaks such great things about our God. From the very beginning, look at the awesome attribute of our Father as a “refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble” (Psalms 46:1). The word “refuge” here is rendered “a place of trust” in Hebrew, while the phrase “a very present help” is a reference to the fact that God has been found to be exceedingly helpful, more than we can imagine. In Him is our place of trust, to the point that it cannot even be described.

The physical descriptions of verse 2 and 3 can be likened to the civil world as well. We may not see the earth removed and mountains carried into the sea, but we will have earth-moving incidents happen around us; and we will see monumental, life-changing events. In spite of all of life’s curve balls, we have a place of trust in the Lord, that we are secure in Him and He is more than enough.

Even when men roar against us and there is trouble on every hand, we know who we serve. When there is “swelling” around us, which can be interpreted as men swelling themselves against our position, our doctrine, our faith or our family, we have a “very present help” in our Lord Jesus.

For the New Covenant saint, these promises are fulfilled in the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ. We not only have the Old Testament rendering of these words; we have the New Testament promise that they are ours because of Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20). Because we have our promises in Christ, we have the assurance of these promises inside of us. The more that we feed on the finished work of Christ, the more that our faith in all of His promises increases. We go from knowing that God can provide to EXPECTING God to provide due to His faithfulness to Jesus.

The river of verse 4 was a literal underground water conduit that provided fresh water to Jerusalem in the event of a military siege that shut the people in. They could survive indefinitely with their external water sources cut off because this river made “glad the city of God” (Psalms 46:4). The river is a type of the Holy Spirit within every believer. Though the outside world fall apart, we have a river inside of us that sustains us day to day. Our provision is supernatural, in the midst of a natural world.

Feel free to sing these psalms in your own daily walk with the Lord. I know that we do not know the melody that accompanied the words, but we do know that there was instrumentation (that is what the word “Selah” is conveying at the end of verse 3. It was a notation in the music for the vocalists to pause and allow the instruments to play). Since there is no melody for us to mess up, just make up your own! The wisdom of Christ dwells in you when you sing “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Colossians 3:16).

Spear Throwers

1 Samuel 18:8-11

David was loved by the people of Israel and Judah, not only for his exploits in defeating the giant Goliath, but because he was a man of the people, who dwelled among them (1 Samuel 18:16). The streets of the towns and villages all over Israel were filled with singing and dancing, praising the exploits of both King Saul and his trusted warrior David. They sang, “Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands”.

Saul heard the lyrics to the song, and saw the admiration in the eyes of the people toward the young man, and envy and anger began to rise in his heart. His fear grew to the point of paranoia, as he began to envision the very kingdom turning to David to be its king. He had no knowledge that the old prophet Samuel had already visited David a few years before and anointed to be the next king in place of Saul. The hand of God was obviously on this young man, and Saul was forced to respond.

We have many people cross our path; some to our pleasure and some we would rather forget! The story of Saul and David can be applied in our lives from both sides of the coin. From Saul’s standpoint, we may have encountered those who have an obvious touch and call of God on their life. Do we rise up in jealousy or envy that they are gifted or blessed or chosen in an area that we may not be? Saul took his jealousy to a whole new level; throwing a javelin at David in an attempt to kill him.

When we lash out at those around us with verbal attacks, or loft insults at them through the grapevine of gossip, we are throwing a javelin. These spears hurt to the core when they strike; doing damage to both the victim and to the one that throws it. Sometimes we even mask our spear-throwing with a form of Christian holiness and godliness, using scripture in our hurl. Saul could still prophesy even as he hurled the spear (1 Samuel 18:10), so having the touch of God on you does not ensure that your spear-throwing is of God.

Jesus told the accusers of the woman caught in the act of adultery to throw the first stone if they had kept the law perfectly (John 8:7). All men dropped their rocks, for no one had the authority to throw a stone under those conditions. Do we have that authority?

From David’s perspective, we have some options when spears of insult and hatred are thrown at us. We can continue on doing what we do, and act as if it never happened and then be on guard in the future. David chooses this action because he comes back into Saul’s presence after the first incident (1 Samuel 18:11). We can also decide to only take so much and then stay away from that individual if at all possible, which David obviously chooses to do eventually. Finally, we can do what David thankfully did not do; we can pull the spear out of the wall and throw it back. Returning fire with fire is us defending what only Christ and His glorious grace can defend.

Let the Holy Spirit be your rear-guard. It is His job to defend you and to shelter you. When accusations and attacks come against you, never lift a finger in retaliation. You are the righteousness of God in Christ, and you are better than becoming a spear-thrower.

When I See the Blood

Exodus 12:13

The blood of verse 13 is the blood of a spotless lamb that the Israelites were to mark on the doors of their homes so that the angel of death would pass over their house. This angel was coming through as the final plague of God against Egypt for its harsh treatment of His people. From this night forward, even until now, this moment is celebrated as Passover, for it is the night that God literally passed over all that were under the blood.

This is a perfect typology of Jesus, the spotless Lamb, shedding His blood for you and me. We deserve the death due to our sins, but a way has been provided that will not require our death, only the death of our surrogate Lamb. Jesus came to be that Lamb which would take away the sin of the world (John 1:29). By dying on Calvary, He affords the world the opportunity to mark the doorway of their heart with His blood. When we accept Him by faith, God is righteous in justifying all of us based upon that action alone (Romans 3:26). That blood thus spares us the wrath of God (Romans 5:9).

As long as the blood was on the door of the house, the inhabitants were safe. No amount of fear and doubt inside of the house could taint the mighty power of the blood that marked the entrance. On the other hand, no amount of fasting, singing, praising, giving or rejoicing could improve the blood’s ability to stay the hand of the angel. The blood was perfect, for it screamed to the angel, “Move on! Something has already died here”.

Your faith may rock and waver, and be shaken with the winds of this world, but the blood of Jesus stays firm on your heart. No storm of life can wash His blood away; no winds of difficulty can blow the bloodstain from the door. There is no action in the house that embarrasses the blood, causing it to jump off and go find a more worthy home; nor is there any righteousness that can be performed that will cause the blood to work with more strength and fervor. The blood is a finished work; and it is enough.

The Apostle Paul, who was the carrier of the glorious New Covenant message to the world, found the blood of Jesus to be the most powerful of all gospel themes. He told the young church that there was no more separation holding them back from the Holy of Holies, where God dwells, but that now they should have “boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus” (Hebrews 10:19). He called this a “new and living way” (verse 20); proving that Christianity is not dead but very much alive and that Jesus’ death on the cross was not to be relived over and over, for the work was “once for all” (Hebrews 10:10).

Believer, do not fear the angel of death; nor fear punishment for your sins. Jesus took your punishment and marked your heart with His blood. Any wrath that should go to you is stopped by His blood. Someone has already died here, so there is no more blood to be shed. Stay in the house and rest in His finished work.

You Got the Wrong Man!

Genesis 20:1-18
Abraham and his wife Sarah were perpetually on the move, heading toward God’s promise of an inheritance. Their journeys took them to Gerar which was a righteous nation, headed by King Abimelech. When they arrive, Abraham tells the king that Sarah is his sister, fearful that they would kill him and take her for their own if they thought that she was his wife. This rationale doesn’t make much sense. Wouldn’t her being his sister just free them to take her for themselves? This is precisely what happens as the king takes Sarah to join his harem.

During the night, the Lord visits Abimelech in a dream and warns him about laying a hand on Sarah. Abimelech is afraid and vows that he was innocent in the deed, thinking that Sarah was an available woman. I imagine that as the story of what happened was rehearsed in Abimelech’s mind he began to wonder if the Lord had come after the right man. Shouldn’t Abraham be visited by God for lying about his wife? Shouldn’t God have judgment and revenge on Abraham for loving his own life so much more than his wife’s?

It is not God that confronts Abraham either that night or the next morning; it is Abimelech. When he asks why Abraham would do such a thing, Abraham admits that he was scared for his own life. There is no deep spiritual answer, nor noble reason why he has lied. His sin is obvious, so surely his punishment will be swift.

This story is very important when it comes to understanding how God views covenant. God had cut covenant with Abraham back in chapter 15, but during that ceremony of covenant, God had put Abraham to sleep. By taking Abraham out of the ceremony, God Himself passed between the pieces of the covenant animals (Genesis 15:17), sealing the deal with Himself, so that Abraham would be incapable of breaking it. Now, there were no pre-conditions on Abraham’s part; God was obligated to make him the father of many nations, independent of his actions.

When Abraham lied to Abimelech about Sarah, he showed a lack of faith, a presence of self-love and a serious need for affection towards his wife; yet in all of these things, God never curses Abraham. Abimelech, who has done nothing wrong, faces the brunt of God’s wrath, while Abraham sleeps like a baby through the night. Is God condoning lying by not cursing Abraham? No way; instead He is honoring covenant by not cursing Abraham. You see, covenant is more important to God than anything else.

Jesus and the Father cut a covenant at Calvary, and you and I were asleep so to speak. Therefore, when we accept the price that Christ paid on the cross, we enter into the covenant free from our own works or efforts. When we fail, God does not punish or judge us because He honors covenant first and foremost, and the greatest clause of His covenant with Jesus is this glorious statement:

“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Hebrews 10:16, 17).

Hallelujah!