Isaiah 56:6-8 records a prediction of Gentile participation in Israelite worship. The passage tells of foreigners joining the Lord and gives an explicit picture of that participation. I suppose that many will be saying “Not so fast” because we have seen the cessation of the tabernacle services during the Babylonian exile (586-516 BC) and again in AD 70 to the present time.

A crucial issue that we can address is that “the Lord” is not applicable to Messiah. He called the one and only house of prayer – the Jerusalem Temple where he had put his name – a den of thieves and robbers.

The temple was the only place acceptable for offering sacrifices and that fact was verified by the Chronicles episode where the temple was filled with the glory of the Lord at Solomon’s dedication of the house. Further to that, our Lord also called the temple in Jerusalem a desolate house. People joining YHWH since AD 70 have had no place to offer sacrifices.

And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant— these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.

This prophecy lists the specific:

1. burnt offerings
2. sacrifices
3. my altar
4. my house
5. a house for all people

Abuse accompanies every movement that tries to magnify minors, like law and prophets. The Lutherans, Arians, Baptists, and Anabaptists, and the whole army of Christ deserting `ists should be up in Jerusalem now burning animals and eating their flesh for fellowship with God.

For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John… Matthew 11:13

This weekend is another opportunity for people to rub in the tribalism that has been around since Eden and it is equally an opportunity for people to name Christ and show how much we are in the game. Whatever our reason for having a specific to celebrating of our faith on the weekend, we can be sure it will not advance our growth and it most certainly will do nothing that God can approve if we have the minutest attitude of personal responsibility for hitting it off.
🔶Faithful at the exit. All the people who have God’s approval died in faith (Hebrews 11:13).
Noone can claim to have aced anything God demands. A successful journey is determined by safe arrival. Unlike the Egyptian Exodus Generation who perished in the desert, everyone who hits it off with Christ gets an entrance to God’s family plus immortality at the end of the age.

🔶It is God who ensures the safekeeping of what we commit to him. (2 Tim. 1:12)
Both our beginning and our end are not only mysterious, they are intensely personalized experiences and out of the public gaze (John 3:8). The idea that one’s harvest to God is left up to the wheat is as off the wall as the "get circumcised for acces to God the Father" proposition which is still a major obstacle to properly hitting it off with God.

There are superheroes and there are super-conquerors. The first human is by any reckoning a superhero. He is resting in a well-marked grave, and his progeny thrive. We are the living witnesses to that fact. None of us is by any means a superhero like that or like the ones that fly, do not cry, hurt or bleed.  Romans 8:32 is not a convenient fall back position. There is nothing that should alarm us as viable opposition (Romans 8:28 ) We are therefore in an unimpeachable position. Who dares bring a charge against the elect? Romans 8:33

Who can be against us? Romans 8:37 No-one. “What” does not even register. Yet the tribulation, distress, persecution,  famine, nakedness, danger, and violence are the all-consuming concern of Christian leaders (and many of us). The world is important as our home even thought its presents constant hazards to us when we should be in dominion. The world and everything in it – men and their aspirations and fears , plants and animals – are in God’s hands. If we have believed that God gave his Son for our salvation we also believe that the donation comes with all things for our enjoyment.

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Romans 8:32

We do not build our security or happiness on what might happen during the course of our lives because life in Christ is inoculated against whatever life throws our way.  We build on what exists.  Indeed Paul is not saying that
a) life in Christ’s love is a shield from adversity
b) adversity is sinful or useless
c) that there is a life free from oopses and injury

In Christ, as sheep destined for slaughter – death – believers excel.  In all situations, without guilt that their sins have brought on adversity, they own Christ the bank, and certainly all the cash in the vaults.

We know that we learn amazing things about the kingdom of God everyday.  I am referring to things that make us stop and say “what shall I do?”  The short answer is to put Christ first.  Where our story starts and ends matters.

• The story originated with him in eternal counsel to seek and save.

• The story unfolded in previews of his eternal glory

THE CHRIST EVENT

incarnation death and resurrection

• The story proceeds with him incarnate in eternal glory to save and help.

And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

Colossians 1:18