OUR FATHER WHO LED US OUT OF BONDAGE
From Psalm 77
Your ways are holy
What god is great as You are?
You are the God of wonders
You are the God of power
With your mighty arm you redeemed your people,
You led them out of bondage to be free
Thunder was heard Your lightening lit up the world
As your chosen people crossed the sea
OUR FATHER WHO IS STEADFASTLY GOOD TO US
Psalm 13 says this;
How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death, and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.
The Psalmist records a time of anguish as he struggles with God's silence.
He feels abandoned and his mind torments him with sorrow as he struggles with feelings of rejection.
At the same time, he is losing battles against his enemy and so he asks the Lord to fill him with light lest he succumbs to the sleep of death and his enemy gloats over him and delights when he falls.
In the end, even though he goes through heart-rending trials in his life, he continues to trust in God's steadfast love and he praises the Lord because he is unfailingly good to him.
As written in Romans chapter 8 verse 28;
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Amen.
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OUR FATHER'S GOOD NEWS OF HIS KINGDOM WAS FIRST PROCLAIMED AMONG THE POOR
Luke chapter 7 verse 19, speaking of John the baptist who was in prison for challenging King Herod for his immoral behaviour, says this;
he sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
In this verse, we see John is trying to come to terms with what was happening to him and to the nation of Israel. He had been given the call to be a forerunner for the Messiah and then to baptize him and announce Jesus to His generation as the awaited Saviour.
He had done these things he was called to do and had the expectation that the Lord he had introduced would ascend to the rulership of Israel displacing king Herod, sit on the throne of David as the scriptures had prophesied and a glorious reign of justice and righteousness would be ushered in
From John's perspective, these things had not happened and this prompted his concern. Herod was still the king over Israel and in fact was the one who had imprisoned him. There was no righteousness because Herod was defiantly acting immorally while he was king of Israel and there was no justice because he, a stringently righteous man of God, was sitting in prison.
To clarify the situation for his own peace of mind, John, from his prison cell, sent two followers to ask the Lord Jesus if he had correctly identified Him as the Messiah at the Jordan river when he baptized Him or if he had made a mistake and should wait for the arrival of the correct Messiah.
When John's message reached the Lord, He was performing many miracles of healing and he told the messengers in Luke chapter 7 verse 22, to report back to John what they had witnessed;
So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.
The Lord was letting John know that he had indeed heralded the Messiah but that his expectations were premature. The sign that the true Messiah had come would be the appearance of miraculous healings, the dead being raised and the good news being preached to the poor.
The glorious kingdom of justice and righteousness would surely follow.
Amen.
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OUR FATHER WHOSE WORD IS A WEAPON AGAINST TEMPTATION
After the Lord Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, He was led out into the wilderness where he fasted for 40 days and then the devil came to tempt Him.
First, the devil tried to induce the Lord Jesus to turn stones into bread as proof that He was the Son of God. He then tried to pursuade Jesus to worship him in exchange for all the kingdoms in the world.
Jesus, having parried the first two temptations, faced the temptation described in Luke chapter 4 verses 9 - 10 which reads this way;
The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully;
Here, the devil again tried to make the Lord Jesus explicitly prove that He was the Son of God as was being said of Him.
After taking Jesus to a high point of the temple, the devil quoted Psalm 91 verse 11;
For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;
The devil said to Jesus that because of this promise in the scripture, He could throw himself down from the height and the angels of God would guard Him and thus He would be prevented from striking the ground.
This attempt to get Jesus to prove that He was the Son of God was met with an irrefutable rebuttal also from scripture found in Deutronomy chapter 8 verse 3 that says;
Do not put the LORD your God to the test as you did at Massah.
To deliberately set up a situation to try to force God's hand to intervene is a test on the Lord and it is forbidden to do so and thus Jesus refused to throw himself down.
The devil, hearing this response, left Jesus to wait for a better time to try again to influence Him.
Amen.
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OUR FATHER WHO IS MIGHTY IN JUDGEMENT AND REDEMPTION
Isaiah chapter 63 verses 4 - 5 says this;
It was for me the day of vengeance; the year for me to redeem had come. I looked, but there was no one to help,
I was appalled that no one gave support; so my own arm achieved salvation for me, and my own wrath sustained me.
The day of the Lord's wrath brought judgement upon the nations of the earth as a winepress, crushing grapes, pours out their juice, so did blood pour out of the nations. The Lord's apparel was stained crimson.
This day of vengeance, bringing judgement as it did, also marked the year of the Lord's redemption of His people.
The Lord, looking for any to Him bring judgement to the nations, was appalled that there was none who could join Him, so He resolved to accomplish His own salvation and to bring the wrath of judgement upon the nations by the power of His own fury.
The Lord is great in judgement against ungodliness and is also mighty to save His redeemed.
Amen.
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OUR FATHER IS THE ONE TRUE GOD
Isaiah chapter 44 verse 13 says this;
The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker; he roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses.
He shapes it in human form, human form in all its glory, that it may dwell in a shrine.
This verse describes the process that a carpenter goes through to create an idol out of wood.
He outlines his design using compasses and markers so that it will look like the human form and then he chisels out the shape he wants.
He plans for it to be gloriously shaped like a human and suitable to be placed in a shrine. The human shape is a shape designed by God and so giving this shape to idols is a usurpation of the form of God after whom men were shaped.
Every aspect of the idol needs a person to plan for it for it can do nothing on its own. Its material, shape and dwelling place are all completed by the carpenter.
In contrast, the God of Israel, the eternal self-existing One, asks any other god to declare himself and proclaim his existence. He calls on such a god to demonstrate that he knows what transpired since He, the God of Israel, established His people and to demonstrate that he knows what is to come. Isaiah chapter 44 verse 7 says it this way;
Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and lay out before me what has happened since I established my ancient people, Aand what is yet to come—yes, let them foretell what will come.
The Lord, in view of these ironsmiths and carpenters making gods by their own hands, declares that there is no other God beside Him because He does not know of any. This is recorded in Isaiah chapter 44 verse 8;
Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago?
You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.”
Amen.
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