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Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say,
“The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.”
And let no eunuch complain,
“I am only a dry tree.”
For this is what the Lord says:
“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant—
to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever” Isaiah 56:3-8
Eunuchs, of course, were males who had all or part of their genitals removed. If you want to be shocked do a google search on the methods used to create a Eunuch… fascinating and shocking.
In Deuteronomy 23:1 we find that Eunuchs had limitations on their spiritual service…
“No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord”
After the conversions on Pentecost and after Simon the sorcerer and other Samaritans were converted an un-named Ethiopian was baptized and he was a Eunuch. That was no accident.
The Jews did not like Samaritans (foreigners) and Eunuchs carried a social and spiritual stigma among the Jews. And what does God do? He brings them into his fold of beloved sheep to demonstrate that there is a new Law in town.
And on that day and in that moment Isaiah’s prophecy came true.
Thank God that Jews weren’t the decision makers for who God would save… because it wouldn’t be foreigners or Eunuchs.
During the time of the Prophet Jeremiah and the reign of Josiah, King of Judah, a forgotten “Book of the Law” was found.
When it was read to King Josiah it shook him to the core and caused him not only to do away with all the idolatry and evil that had been tolerated and even promoted by previous kings but also to reinstate the Passover celebration… just as God had commanded Moses.
All of these prescribed regulations had been found in the forgotten “Book of the Law” that they accidentally stumbled across in some forgotten room of the Temple.
The text continues that this celebration of the Passover, in the 18th year of Josiah’s reign, had not been observed “like this” since the days of the Prophet Samuel. Samuel was prophet during the reigns of King Saul and King David. Josiah was the 16th King of Judah. That’s a long time not to celebrate the Passover as prescribed in the “Book of the Law” Think about what that means! Even King Solomon (among others) didn’t celebrate the Passover properly.
What would happen if we lost the “Book of Jesus Christ”? Perhaps buried on some shelf with hundreds of other books. Perhaps sitting on our night stands… un-opened, un-read and never fully understood.
What would happen if suddenly we opened the “Book of Jesus Christ” and found in it all the solutions for the problems in our lives and began to make corrections?
And then we stumbled across some directions in the “Book of Jesus Christ” for the New Testament Passover… the Lord’s Supper.
Imagine the turn from unfulfilled and bankrupt lives to lives of being blessed because we took a book off of the shelf and off of the nightstand and put it where it belongs… in our hearts.
Several years ago when I was still doing large animal work I was called out to a place on the Nueces river bottom to pull a dead calf out of a heifer. It was in July and it was pretty hot. The owner and I snubbed the heifer up to a post and I attached my “calf puller” to the calves front feet and gave it a pull. But the heifer too small and the calf too big for it to come out. So I attached the puller to one of the front legs and cut around the skin and pulled the leg off but the calf still wouldn’t come out. So I took the other leg off and attached my puller to the head. This time I got most of the calf out but the calve’s hips wouldn’t pass through the pelvic canal… it was “hip locked” So with the calf under tension I severed the calf so that just the hips and back legs were left in the heifer. So I reached inside and turned the back half around (no easy feat) so I could attach my puller to the back legs… it still wouldn’t pull. So then I pulled off one of the back legs and was able to attach to the remaining leg and deliver the calf out successfully.
I had not only been fighting the dead calf but also 100 degree heat and dust and fire ants. I think we charged less than $100 in those days but I was pretty happy with myself… not only the knowledge part of it but also the physicality part of it. Plus I had saved the heifer. I was the hero.
A couple of months later the rancher came into the clinic with another cow problem and asked to speak about it with the Veterinarian who owned the practice.
I was shocked, I had laid it all out for that guy and figured I had built some kind of loyalty and yet there was none… no loyalty whatsoever.
Here’s what I learned from that… don’t worry about what others think of you… just do your best and move on and let the Lord value and bless you.
I find that as an optimist I am frequently disappointed and only occasionally surprised. But I’ve never been disappointed in the Lord and am frequently pleasantly surprised by Him. Remember that in everything we do we are working for the Lord not some other human being.
“This is my covenant with you… every male among you shall be circumcised… it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you…. any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.” Genesis 17.
Circumcision is not required in the New Covenant. In the New Covenant we are “marked” with the Holy Spirit which is received at baptism. Acts 2:38.
“you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance…” Ephesians 1:13-14.
Circumcison was a physical “mark” performed by men. They marked themselves.
The gift of the Holy Spirit was a “mark” given by God for those believers who chose to be baptized. He did the marking.
Circumcision was only for men… not women… but the Holy Spirit was given to all mankind… men and women equally.
In the Old Testament if you refused to be circumcised you were not part of Gods people.
In the New Testament if you refuse the Holy Spirit… given at baptism… then you also refuse and disrespect God and are not part of his people.
God marks his people today not based on ethnicity but based on belieficity. Let’s all believe and obey!
In Matthew 18, Jesus was teaching his disciples about forgiveness and he told them that if they were forgiving then they would be forgiven but if they were not forgiving then they would not be forgiven.
And then Jesus illustrated that concept with a story. A guy owed the King 10,000 talents of silver (presumably silver) which was such a vast debt that there was no way he could repay. Long story short, the King through his grace forgave the debt because the debtor asked for it to be forgiven.
But then the recently forgiven dude found one of his debtors who owed far less and choked his neck and had him thrown in prison when he could not repay.
Anyway, word (as it often does) got back to the King and the King calls in the dude and says why didn’t you forgive like I forgave you? No answer. The King loses his temper and delivers the dude to be tortured.
The story concludes with Jesus’ admonition to his disciples that the same thing would happen to them if they didn’t give heart felt forgiveness.
Now some might think about the King as being a sort of “Indian Giver”. The King extended grace and forgave but later takes the forgiveness back. It wasn’t permanent, irrevocable forgiveness.
It was a kind of conditional grace… conditioned based on the believers actions.
Get this… God can take his grace back and threatened the 12 disciples with that very thing… they could be delivered to the “torturers”
And if the twelve Disciples could be delivered to the torturers then so could we. Appreciate God’s free gift of grace and live lives worthy of it… be forgiving from your hearts.
“These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught”
God spoke these words through the prophet Isaiah about the people of Israel. It states a premise that is still true today. The premise that Christians would rather follow the teachings of human beings than the teachings of God.
Here’s the problem. The Preachers teaching human-things think they are teaching God-things. And the listeners think the human-things are God-things.
Let me suggest a few clues…
If the message isn’t consistent with the over riding message in God’s word of “love”, i.e. love God with your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself then there might be a problem.
If a congregation is diminishing and dying under a certain brand of teaching and leadership then there might be a problem.
Everyone thinks they are following God’s teaching but many and maybe most are not. So be very circumspect and careful about the teachings you are about to swallow… they may not digest very well.
King Hezekiah of Judah was a great King. It was said of him that no King of Judah was like him either before or after because he trusted in the Lord.
Hezekiah tried to unify Judah and Israel by inviting everyone to celebrate the Passover together. But there were a few problems… they couldn’t celebrate during the prescribed (God ordained) time because the people had not gathered and the Priests were not purified.
So Hezekiah sent out couriers to gather the people. Some of the people ridiculed the message and ridiculed the messengers but others gathered and there was a huge crowd of worshippers.
However there was another problem… not only were the Priests to purify themselves but the people were also supposed to come “purified” and were not.
There was so much that was wrong… the wrong month, Unclean Priests and Unclean Participants. In fact the only thing that was right was the hearts of the people.
Hezekiah could have been angry and condemned the Priests and the People but instead he prayed for them because his bigger mission was “unifying the people” and God heard his prayer.
"There was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the days of Solomon son of David king of Israel there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem. The priests and the Levites stood to bless the people, and God heard them, for their prayer reached heaven, his holy dwelling place”
I’ve got a feeling that under King Hezekiah’s rule that a year later at the next Passover everything was right… the right time, purified Priests and Purified people. Sometimes people need time and some things may have to be temporarily sacrificed to fulfill the greater mission but it all starts with pure hearts and great leaders.
