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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.
