Tag: temple

An Acceptable Sacrifice

Psalm 50

The Acceptable Sacrifice

A Psalm of Asaph.

¹The mighty one, God the Lord,
    speaks and summons the earth
    from the rising of the sun to its setting.
²Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
    God shines forth.

³Our God comes and does not keep silence,
    before him is a devouring fire,
    and a mighty tempest all around him.
⁴He calls to the heavens above
    and to the earth, that he may judge his people:
⁵“Gather to me my faithful ones,
    who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”
⁶The heavens declare his righteousness,
    for God himself is judge. Selah

⁷“Hear, O my people, and I will speak,
    O Israel, I will testify against you.
    I am God, your God.
⁸Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;
    your burnt offerings are continually before me.

John 10: 17-18 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”

Though Israel understood the power of the Lord to deliver them from Egypt and potentially from Rome, they did not understand the power of the King of the Jews to deliver them from sin.

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Mark 11:

⁸And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. ⁹And those who went before and those who followed were shouting,“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! ¹⁰Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

¹¹And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

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The LORD does not establish His Kingdom on earth (as it is in heaven) in the same sinful ways as man!

Psalm 50:

¹⁶But to the wicked God says:
    “What right have you to recite my statutes
    or take my covenant on your lips?
¹⁷For you hate discipline,
    and you cast my words behind you.
¹⁸If you see a thief, you are pleased with him,
    and you keep company with adulterers.

¹⁹“You give your mouth free rein for evil,
    and your tongue frames deceit.
²⁰You sit and speak against your brother;
    you slander your own mother’s son.
²¹These things you have done, and I have been silent;
    you thought that I was one like yourself.
But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.

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Mark 11:

Jesus Cleanses the Temple

¹⁵And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. ¹⁶And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. ¹⁷And he was teaching them and saying to them,

“Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

¹⁸And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. ¹⁹And when evening came they went out of the city.

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Psalm 51:

¹³Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
    and sinners will return to you.
¹⁴Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
    O God of my salvation,
    and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness…

¹⁷The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Psalm 68:

¹⁹Blessed be the Lord,
    who daily bears us up;
    God is our salvation. Selah
²⁰Our God is a God of salvation,
    and to God, the Lord, belong deliverances from death…

²⁴Your procession is seen, O God,
    the procession of my God, my King, into the sanctuary—

Psalm 69:

⁹For zeal for your house has consumed me,
    and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.

¹⁹You know my reproach,
    and my shame and my dishonor;
    my foes are all known to you.
²⁰Reproaches have broken my heart,
    so that I am in despair.
I looked for pity, but there was none,
    and for comforters, but I found none.
²¹They gave me poison for food,
    and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.

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To be continued…

March 31, 2015

Reflections: Jerusalem – a city of Kings

[ Lament over Jerusalem ]

“O Jerusalem,Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! – words of Christ Jesus – Mathew 23:37

1 Chronicles 2:

A Genealogy of David

These are the sons of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, ²Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher.

³The sons of Judah: Er, Onan and Shelah; these three Bath-shua the Canaanite bore to him.

Now Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death.

⁴His daughter-in-law Tamar also bore him Perez and Zerah. Judah had five sons in all.

1 Chronicles 3

Descendants of David

These are the sons of David who were born to him in Hebron: the firstborn, Amnon, by Ahinoam the Jezreelite; the second, Daniel, by Abigail the Carmelite, ²the third, Absalom, whose mother was Maacah, the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur; the fourth, Adonijah, whose mother was Haggith; ³the fifth, Shephatiah, by Abital; the sixth, Ithream, by his wife Eglah; ⁴six were born to him in Hebron, where he reigned for seven years and six months.

And he reigned thirty-three years in Jerusalem.

⁵These were born to him in Jerusalem: Shimea, Shobab, Nathan and Solomon, four by Bath-shua, the daughter of Ammiel;

⁶then Ibhar, Elishama, Eliphelet, ⁷Nogah, Nepheg, Japhia,⁸Elishama, Eliada, and Eliphelet, nine. ⁹All these were David’s sons, besides the sons of the concubines, and Tamar was their sister.

Jews and Christians take joy in speaking of Abraham, faithful sojourner and father of nations. Jews and Christians speak well of Jacob, who God renamed Israel, and his favored wife Rachel. Jews and Christians proclaim the might and right of the heart of young David as he slew Goliath the Philistine [*Palestinian] by faith, while Saul was indecisive after he disobeyed the LORD.

Jews and Christians and the nations proclaim the wisdom and wealth of young Solomon, who asked the LORD for wisdom and received abundant blessing throughout His reign over a United Kingdom of Israel, feared and respected by the enemies of the LORD.

Yet Jews and Christians fail to warn the generations of the failures of compromise, failures of a price paid by David for alliances with kings and wives of other faiths.

Even more so, Solomon failed in wisdom as his years progressed: wives and concubines believing in everything but God! Sons and daughters believing in anything but God!

Generations of Kings and compromise for plans not from God and a future of generations who knew nothing of the God of Israel or the Law of the Promise.

WE THE PEOPLE depose the LORD our God.

Will we not reap the harvest of lawyers, Judges, Priests and Kings of unrighteousness?

Roger Harned – talkofJesus.com

How history fails to recall the failures of sin so evident from century to century; civilization to loss of civility; a time of promise to a time of judgment.

Jerusalem is a city captured, conquered, destroyed, deserted, re-inhabited, rebuilt, destroyed again, conquered again, rebuilt once more time and time again throughout the ages.

Jerusalem is the city of the Temple: built (by Solomon), destroyed, rebuilt (by Ezra and Nehemiah), destroyed again, rebuilt by its captors (Rome) on the ruins by the King who did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. (Herod, if you fail to understand the politics of Jesus’ Jerusalem of the first century.)

* The kingdom was divided during Ishbosheth’s reign;
David was king over the tribe of Judah.
Kings of the United Kingdom (c 1025-925 BC)
King	Relationship to Previous King	God’s Judgment
Saul	none	did evil
Ishbosheth*	son	(unknown)
David	none	did right
Solomon (AKA Jedidiah)	son	did right in youth, evil in old age

Israel first became divided.

Two countries: only Judah with Jerusalem as the place for its King.

As Prophets warned: Israel fell first. (The area north of Judah was later was known as Samaria.)

Yet true Prophets of the LORD also warned Judah of her faithlessness and whoredom. Judah and Jerusalem fell under the rule of Kings who did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD.

Kings of Judah (c 925-586 BC)			Kings of Israel (c 925-721 BC)
King	Relationship to Previous King	God’s Judgment	King	Relationship to Previous King	God’s Judgment
Rehoboam	son	did evil	Jeroboam	servant	did evil
Abijam (AKA Abijah)	son	did evil
Asa	son	did right

			Nadab	son	did evil
			Baasha	none	did evil
			Elah	son	did evil
			Zimri	captain	did evil
			Omri	captain	did evil
			Ahab	son	did evil

Jehoshaphat	son	did right

			Ahaziah	son	did evil
			Jehoram (AKA Joram)	son of Ahab	did evil

Jehoram (AKA Joram)	son	did evil
Ahaziah (AKA Azariah or Jehoahaz)	son	did evil
Athaliah	mother	did evil	Jehu	captain	mixed
Joash (AKA Jehoash)	son of Ahaziah	did right in youth, evil in old age

			Jehoahaz	son	did evil
			Joash (AKA Jehoash)	son	did evil

Amaziah	son	did right in youth, evil in old age

			Jeroboam II	son	did evil

Uzziah (AKA Azariah)	son	did right

			Zachariah	son	did evil
			Shallum	none	did evil (surmised)
			Menahem	none	did evil
			Pekahiah	son	did evil
			Pekah	captain	did evil

Jotham	son	did right
Ahaz	son	did evil

			Hoshea	none	did evil

Hezekiah	son	did right

			Assyrian captivity

Manasseh	son	did evil
Amon	son	did evil
Josiah	son	did right
Jehoahaz (AKA Shallum)	son	did evil
Jehoiakim (AKA Eliakim)	son of Josiah	did evil
Jehoiachin (AKA Coniah or Jeconiah)	son	did evil
Zedekiah (AKA Mattaniah)	son of Josiah	did evil
Babylonian captivity

Source: http://www.vtaide.com/gleanings/Kings-of-Israel/kings.html

To be continued…

March 27, 2015

… your heart turns away …
“But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and if you are drawn away to serve and worship other gods, 18 then I warn you now that you will certainly be destroyed. – Deuteronomy 30:17-18a NLT

Thus says the LORD:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the LORD. – Jeremiah 17:5

1 Kings 11:

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love…

4 For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. 5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 6 So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done…

9 And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice 10 and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded.

11 Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you.”

14 And the Lord raised up an adversary against Solomon, Hadad the Edomite. He was of the royal house in Edom.

23 God also raised up as an adversary to him, Rezon the son of Eliada…

25 He was an adversary of Israel all the days of Solomon, doing harm as Hadad did. And he loathed Israel and reigned over Syria.

26 Jeroboam the son of Nebat, an Ephraimite of Zeredah, a servant of Solomon, whose mother’s name was Zeruah, a widow, also lifted up his hand against the king.

29 And at that time, when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him on the road. Now Ahijah had dressed himself in a new garment, and the two of them were alone in the open country. 30 Then Ahijah laid hold of the new garment that was on him, and tore it into twelve pieces. 31 And he said to Jeroboam, “Take for yourself ten pieces, for thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I am about to tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon and will give you ten tribes 32 (but he shall have one tribe, for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city that I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel)…

I remind us that we are a rebellious people since the days of Moses. As Israel turned against the LORD under the leadership of Moses, so too did Israel turn against the LORD under the leadership of Solomon (and more-so under Jeroboam after the Kingdom was torn away).

As the crowds would later desert Christ Jesus when His teachings called for faithfulness in the shadow of the Cross, so has the church fallen away to worship the gods of the flesh and spirits of the age. You with ears to hear, hear the voice of the Lord.

For as God had warned Israel through Moses’ words — as God had warned in the days between the Temple of Solomon and the Temple of Herod — God had also warned Solomon and Israel BEFORE they turned away.

1 Kings 9

As soon as Solomon had finished building the house of the LORD and the king’s house and all that Solomon desired to build, the LORD appeared to Solomon a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon.

And the LORD said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house that you have built, by putting my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.

And as for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my rules, then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’

But if you turn aside from following me,

you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them,

then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

Did it not happen, as the LORD said He would do?

And this house will become a heap of ruins.

Everyone passing by it will be astonished and will hiss, and they will say,

‘Why has the LORD done thus to this land and to this house?’

Then they will say,

‘Because they abandoned the LORD their God who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them.

Therefore the LORD has brought all this disaster on them.’”

Do you wail and lament what the LORD has done?

Do you look to only to the salvation promised in the past and not to the redemption which the LORD has done?

Do you pray for a Savior you will not obey?

Do you long for this world and not the next?

What high broken wall of disbelief stands between you and Christ Jesus, the One Lord and Savior of your soul?

Matthew 23:

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples…
- 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.
- 9 And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.
- 10 Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ.
11 The greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say,

‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’

17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred?

18 And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’

19 You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred?

20 So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it.

21 And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it.

22 And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.

Christ Jesus IS Lord!

God accepted His Holy Sacrifice for your sins.

…but if,

your heart turns away…

Remember you are dust…

Remember the resurrection to the Judgment of all souls…
July 26, 2014