PRAYER FOR ISRAEL AND GAZA

(Adapted from a prayer by Lynn Green, General Secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain)

Lord God,

It is with shock and horror we witness the devastating violence and loss of life in Israel and Gaza over recent days.

We come to you as the source of all comfort, asking that you send your Spirit to surround and uphold

             all those who are grieving,

            all those who are suffering,

            all those in fear,

            and all those in captivity.

May the arms of comfort and compassion, overwhelm the arms of war.

We come to you as the source of all peace, asking that you send your Spirit to

             strengthen and uphold those pursuing an end to violence,

              embolden those with a heart for truth and justice, and

              amplify the voices of wisdom and restraint.

May the light of peace and reconciliation, overwhelm the darkness of destruction.

We come to you as the source of all hope, asking that you send your Spirit to bring about a future, where neighbours embrace despite their differences,

               where love conquers hate,

               humility surpasses pride,

               and where forgiveness is treasured as a fundamental strength.

May the hope of a day when weapons of conflict will be transformed into tools of reconciliation be realized soon, so there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away. Amen

Dear friends

Now that Covid (finally) seems to be under control and declining, I believe that we should try to meet face-to-face once again (while remaining ‘Covid-cautious’).

I therefore propose we discontinue the Zoom-style meetings, and focus on meeting in person, back at the Flinders Street Baptist Church room.

I also think we should ‘scale back’ the frequency of meetings for the time being, and aim to meet just once a month – say, on the first Wednesday of each month.

Therefore, continuing our mini-series of studies in Isaiah focusing on the ‘Servant songs’, which we started late last year, the first two meetings of 2023 will be:

• Wednesday 1 March 2023: Isaiah 50 v 4 to 51 v 6, including the third ‘Servant song’
• Wednesday 5 April 2023 (just before Good Friday and Easter): Isaiah 52 v 13 to 53 v 12, including the fourth ‘Servant song’.

Notes and calendar invitations will be emailed to you nearer the time, but please mark these dates in your diaries – and I hope that many of you will be able to come!

Blessings in Christ, Adrian

Heavenly Father, hear our prayers for our brothers and sisters in Ukraine.

Lord we ask for peace for those who need peace, reconciliation for those who need reconciliation and comfort for all who don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Lord may your Kingdom come, and Your will be done. 

Lord God, we ask for you to be with all – especially children who are suffering as the crisis in Ukraine deteriorates. Lord for those who are anxious and fearful. For those who are bereaved, injured or who have lost their lives. And for those who have lost loved ones. Lord hear our prayers. 

Lord, we ask that decisions makers hear Your voice. Parents protecting their families – deciding whether to stay or leave. Church leaders as they support and comfort people. And Lord we ask for wise actions from global leaders – who have the power not only to start wars, but to stop them too.  

And Father God we cry out for an end to this crisis. For mercy, peace, and truth – because You are light, hope, power, and love. Amen. 

Beloved in Christ, let us at this Christmastide prepare ourselves to hear again the message of the angels, and in heart and mind go to Bethlehem, and see the babe lying in a manger.

Let us read and mark in Holy Scripture the tale of the loving purposes of God, from the first days of our disobedience, to the glorious redemption brought to us by this Holy Child: and let us make this place glad with our prayers and praise.

But first let us pray for the needs of his whole world: for peace and goodwill over all the earth; for unity and brotherhood within the Church he came to build, and especially in this nation of Australia.

And because this of all things would rejoice his heart, let us at this time remember in his name the poor and the helpless, the hungry, and the oppressed; the sick and those who mourn; the lonely and the unloved; the aged and the little children; all those who know not the Lord Jesus, or who love him not, or who by sin have grieved his heart of love.

Lastly, let us remember before God all those who rejoice with us, but upon another shore and in a greater light, that multitude which no man can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, and with whom, in this Lord Jesus, we for evermore are one.

These prayers and praises let us humbly offer up to the throne of heaven, in the words which Christ himself taught us:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.

And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours,

Now and forever, Amen.

Introduction to the book of Joshua:

The book of Joshua tells the story of Israel’s crossing of the Jordan and the conquest of Canaan. The ‘Promised Land’ is not a picture of heaven – Hebrews 3 and 4 shows Canaan as a picture of the rest and victory that can be enjoyed by every Christian believer in this life. Many scholars connect the book of Joshua with Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, which describes a spiritual walk of promise, wealth, and victory that are ours in Christ.

The Greek name Jesus translates the Hebrew name יְהוֹשׁוּעַ (Yehow-shuwa, or Joshua, ‘God saves’). Whatever Israel received in the Promised Land, they received through the hand of Joshua; whatever we receive from God we receive through Jesus Christ, our ‘Joshua’…

The history of Israel from Egypt to Canaan:

• Israel was delivered from Egypt, symbolizing our deliverance from the bondage of sin;
• Israel, led by Moses, wandered in the Sinai wilderness; during that time, Israel experienced supernatural providence such as the supply of manna, water from rocks, the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, and they also received God’s revelation, the Law;
• the land of Canaan (the Promised Land) represents the destination of God’s people after they have been set free from sin’s bondage. See 1 Corinthians 10 v 11.

Joshua’s personal background:

Joshua was the eldest son of Nun – his genealogy is given in 1 Chronicles 7 v 20 to 27 and shows that some of his ancestors were cattle thieves! He first appears fighting the Amalekites just two months after the exodus from Egypt (Exodus 17 v 8 to 16), and he was with Moses on Mount Sinai in the golden calf episode (Exodus 32 v 15 to 20). 

Joshua was one of the 12 sent to spy out the land of Canaan; he and Caleb were the only ones to bring back a good report – and the only ones to enter the Promised Land, after 40 years wandering in the wilderness (for an abridged version of the story, read the attached excerpts from Numbers 13 and 14).

²⁴ “Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. ²⁵ Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. ²⁶ And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing [‘but not for himself’, or ‘but not for his own crimes’]. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. ²⁷ And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”

The seventy ‘weeks’ of years (Hebrew שָׁבוּעַ shabu’im), 490 years, are divided into three periods: (a) 7 weeks (49 years); immediately followed by (b) 62 weeks (434 years); followed some time later by (c) the final 70^th week. Verse 25 refers to the decree of Artaxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem (Nehemiah 2), and to the coming of the ‘anointed one’ (Hebrew: נָגִיד i מָשִׁיח Meshiach negid), Jesus Christ. Verse 26 predicts that the Christ will be ‘cut off’ (Hebrew: יִכָּרֵת karat) or executed, but ‘not for his own crimes’. The “prince who is to come” (verse 26) refers to the Antichrist, and the “people of the prince who is to come” probably refers to the Romans who under Titus Vespasian destroyed both the city and the temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD. “The decreed end” refers to future events, and the “abominations” is a term used by Jesus to describe the end times in Matthew 24 v 15 to 27. The “one week” (verse 27) refers to the seventieth ‘week’ of Daniel, and the last half of that week (3½ years) is the Great Tribulation…

Mathematical Miracle –

Sir Robert Anderson in his book The Coming Prince (published in 1894) showed that the two historical events described in verses 25 and 26 took place on the following dates:  Event A (the decree of Artaxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem): 14 March 445 BC; Event B (Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem): 6 April 32 AD. 

The intervening period was 476 years and 24 days; i.e. 476 x 365 = 173,740 + 24 + 116 days for leap years = 173,880 days. 

Given that the Jewish Prophetic year was 360 days, we have the prophesied time interval between Events A and B as 69 weeks of years = 69 x 7 x 360 = 173,880 days! 

So what was Gabriel’s margin of error? 

Zero…

Many psalms are grouped together, either by a common style or theme, or as a series.  Examples of psalms grouped by themes include: the Creation Psalms (8, 19, 104); the History Psalms (77, 114, 135); the Messianic Psalms, referred to as such in the New Testament (2, 16, 22, 45, 69, 72, 110); the Imprecatory Psalms (5, 6, 11, 12, 35, 37, 40 and others); and the Penitential Psalms (6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 and 143).

Examples of psalms grouped as a series include: the Shepherd Psalms (22 to 24); the Kingdom Psalms (45 to 50); the Royal Psalms (94 to 100); the Hallel Psalms (113 to 118); the Songs of Ascent (120 to 134); and the Hallelujah Psalms (146 to 150).

A psalm has up to four levels of application: (a) past; (b) present; (c) personal; and (d) prophetic. Remember, we need to meditate on the psalms, focusing on devotion, rather than doctrine. This way each psalm becomes a gateway into the very presence of God…

The Book of Psalms is Israel’s hymnbook; indeed many are addressed ‘to the Chief Musician’ – they were intended to be sung. 

The psalms are poetry (laced with some very strong theology). But unlike western poetry, which has a parallelism of sound (rhyme) or tempo (rhythm), Hebrew poetry has a parallelism of ideas – which can be

Comparative (“He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun” Ps 37 v 6);

Contrastive (“For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish” Ps 1 v 6); or

Completive (“The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart; the commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes” Ps 19 v 8). 

We need to learn to meditate on the psalms, so that they become gateways into the presence of God…

Psalms 120 to 134, the ‘Songs of Ascents’ are the songs of the pilgrim caravans. There were three compulsory Jewish feasts in the year, in which every able-bodied man (and his family) was required to travel to the Temple in Jerusalem: the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot), and the Feast of Tabernacles (Deuteronomy 16 v 16). Pilgrims making their way to and from Jerusalem would travel together in caravans, and there were special caravan rallying points (see for example Luke 2 v 41 to 50). ‘Ascents’ may refer to the fact that no matter from what direction you approach Jerusalem, you will always ‘go up’, as the city is surrounded by hills (Psalm 125 v 2).

• Reading Billy Graham’s book on angels, I read from 1 Chronicles 21 v 14 to 17: “14 So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel, and 70,000 men of Israel fell. 15 And God sent the angel to Jerusalem to destroy it, but as he was about to destroy it, the Lord saw, and he relented from the calamity. And he said to the angel who was working destruction, “It is enough; now stay your hand.” And the angel of the Lord was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 16 And David lifted his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord standing between earth and heaven, and in his hand a drawn sword stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces. 17 And David said to God, “Was it not I who gave command to number the people? It is I who have sinned and done great evil. But these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O Lord my God, be against me and against my father’s house. But do not let the plague be on your people.”
• Could this be a key to the pandemic – God’s judgment through angels?