Tag Archives: David

Acts, Bible Studies

Acts 2 – The Day of Pentecost

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This is the beginning of the Church. The real transition from the Old to New Testament, as we shall see.

The Day of Pentecost

Acts:2-1 Here then are the essential elements the church then and now should be mindful of:

  1.  The day is fully come. The Holy Spirit, God the ply Spirit moves sovereignly as the Father directs. His timing is always precise and on time. We often feel there is nothing happening, a gap, or supposed silence befalls us, as it did for those 120, or the 430 years between Malachi and John the Baptist. Not a half measure, our heavenly Father  is precise in His timing. It is our act of worship/faith to accept this and anticipate something far beyond our own expectation. The word used is meant o be understood filled up completely, or fulfilled.
  2. The word used to describe one accord in the King James and NKJV is the word  ὁμοθυμαδὸν homothymadon, with a single mind. They were all in agreement and single minded about obeying Jesus and awaiting the Holy Spirit. Any thoughts otherwise were not publicly entertained, or subsumed to the unity of the group. This is an imperative for the church. We must seek the Father’s will if the Holy Spirit can work within us unimpeded by pettiness, distractions, or unreigned pride.
  3. They were gathered together in one place. (Can’t think of the meeting together passage. In other words, they were not scattered across in individual places, but come together (as shown in the previous chapter, to pray. Mat 18:20)

 
Acts 2:2-4 This giving of the Holy Spirit is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Mat 3:11 Mark 1:8 & Luke 3:16,  Luke 11:13. John 7:38 & 39 Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as rivers of living water. John 20:22 was an advance of this baptism. We receive the baptism of the Spirit when place our faith in Jesus Christ. It is not now something we wait on, it is an accomplished fact.It differs with having the Spirit come upon us. These occurrences we seek for daily. This amounts to a yielding to the Spirit and asking for his will in our life. Waiting on the Spirit now consists to yielding to His timing, and being in tune with Him not to get ahead or lag behind.

 

Sometimes we can only see this in hindsight. This is the relationship of faith in the believer, to step out, not desiring a “fleece” – some sign that we ask of God as to direction, but rather stepping out KNOWING that if the doors are open we go through. And usually, they do. If not, then we chalk the experience up to a no, or wait, I have something better response from our Heavenly Father.

 
Acts 2:4 Now, having been filled with the Holy Spirit, they begin speaking in tongues, (here languages), as directed by the Spirit. These are not “unknown tongues”, they were known by the people they were speaking to, as the list following showed, they were unknown only to the Disciples!There is a place for unknown tongues. But what is being exercised here is The Holy Spirit “what to speak in that hour, to quote Jesus. Luke 12:12
Acts 2:5-13 Part of the Holy Spirits exquisite timing is the gathering of all Jewish men who were able to Jerusalem for three feasts,  Feast of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, (Shavout), and the Feast Tabernacles (Succot). All faithful Jewish men attended these. And they did so via the excellent roadways of the Roman Empire. So that when the church was born, all the conditions were there to allow it to expand rapidly far & wide, as desired by God.Of course that rapid spread would never be or is now, without scoffers, those who lok for a miraculous sign, obviously one here, or those who see this as foolishness. 1 Cor 1:18-21

 

The countries themselves form a compass around Israel on the Mediterranean.

 

It was common practice of the day at Synagogue, to include a reading of the mighty works of God; the Red Sea crossing, leading out of Egypt, and other victories given the Jews. In fact, it is often our most powerful testimony, to speak of the mighty works of God in our own lives. They may dispute the Bible, or the Gospel, but they cannot refute your personal testimony!

 

Peter’s Potent Portion

 

Acts 2:14-16 He starts the (2nd) greatest sermon ever by dismissing the mocking by refuting the accusation: this was not 21st century America were bars and liquor stores are open at 6 in the morning. It was unheard of to be drinking at 9 in the morning (the third hour).  1 Th 5:7 supports this. Drinking was a nighttime activity for that culture.Rather, he wants to ratchet up this crowd out of the earthy, crowd mentality, to a much higher plane. And he does it the same way we do, appeal to Scripture, appeal to the Bible. Don’t justify it, let it do it’s own work as Isaiah quotes Isa 55:11 and 2 Tim 3:16
Acts 2:16-21 Quoting Joel 2:28-32, Peter shows they assembled that the moment they are witnessing is a direct fulfillment of Scripture, as great as to being a witness to Neil Armstrong’s setting foot on the moon in 1969! To their as yet not believing eyes, they witnessed the power of the Spirit, which needed to be explained to them, as any good pastor should do.Peter ends the opening part with a Biblical call to salvation.
Acts 2:22-28 Now he quotes Psalm 16:8-11 in an apologetic to show how the plan of God was also freely carried out by their own people. They themselves knew Jesus. It also shows very clearly that the sovereignty of God is in no way at odds with the free will of mankind. They are not in opposition, as this passage clearly shows.Authentication:

Authentication is the way we show we are the person we say we are to someone who doesn’t know us. Almost all of us use passwords or scanners, etc. to prove who we are to people who don’t know who we are. This is precisely why Jesus performed the miracles, many unique, restoring vision (John 9:32) to authenticate He was who He claimed to be,  so that if you chose (choose now) to reject that claim, you did(do) so willfully ignoring the facts.

The Scripture Peter quotes he explains:
Acts 2:29-36 Peter sets up that the person David was talking about was not David, but one of his descendants v30, the Messiah V31. Peter shows now that Jesus is that Messiah spoken of by David.He then reiterates that is was not Davis in the passage, but Jesus, and then convicts the crowd of being participants-in-fact of that unjust  murder, to which God turns into His most glorious act, the salvation of the world!
Bible Studies, Jesus

Jesus and the Curse of Jeconiah

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God was fed up with the behavior of the Kings of Judah. Jeconiah was to be the “end of the line” as far  as God was concerned. Jeremiah the prophet, a contemporary of King Jeconiah (also called Coniah), prophesied thus:

“”As I live,” declares the Lord, “even though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were a signet ring on My right hand, yet I would pull you off; and I will give you over into the hand of those who are seeking your life, yes, into the hand of those whom you dread, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of the Chaldeans.””
– Jeremiah 22:24-25

But God wasn’t finished with Jeconiah. He continued:

Michelangelo, lunetta, Josiah - Jechoniah - Shealtiel
Michelangelo, lunetta, Josiah – Jechoniah – Shealtiel

“Thus says the Lord, ‘Write this man down childless, A man who will not prosper in his days; For no man of his descendants will prosper sitting on the throne of David,  or ruling again in Judah.’ ” – Jeremiah 22:30

As Chuck Missler remarked, Satan and his angels must have been howling with delight, for God cursed the very line through which the Messiah would come. How rash could He be? After all, He promised David an eternal house (sometimes called the Davidic Covenant by people with black robes and those funny white collars, but I digress…):

When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom.”

“He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with

michelangelo_david_head

the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you.”
“Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.” -2 Samuel 7:12-16

God had cursed the Davidic line after promising to David an eternal house. The consternation that ensued caused some to believe that his repentance and pious life caused God to relent of the curse:

“Jehoiachin’s sad experiences changed his nature entirely, and as he repented of the sins which he had committed as king he was pardoned by God, who revoked the decree to the effect that none of his descendants should ever become king… It was especially his firmness in fulfilling the Law that restored him to God’s favor.”

-The Jewish Encyclopedia entry for Jehoiachin, available at: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8543-jeconiah

We must certainly respect the Encyclopedia, but respectfully disagree, as there is no Biblical record of God’s relenting of His curse, for we must hold Scripture above human-inspired writings.

Well then we’re still left with a problem, aren’t we?

Yes, God was fed up with the behavior of the Kings of Judah. Jeconiah was to be the “end of the line” as far  as God was concerned.

So, God brought the lineage of the kings of Israel to an end. At the end of the Book of Kings, we read thus:

Now in the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, camped against it and built a siege wall all around it. So the city was under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. Then the city was broken into, and all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls beside the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. And they went by way of the Arabah. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho and all his army was scattered from him. Then they captured the king and brought him to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and he passed sentence on him.  – 2 Kings 25:1-6 (NASB)

Now the Holy Spirit does not mince words, or add unnecessary detail. Pay close attention to the time hack:

…ninth day of the fourth month. In the the Hebrew calendar, the date is significant.

Tisha Bav

Observant Jews observe fast days throughout the year. The Jewish Encyclopedia lists these  twenty six fast days on its site. One of them is the ninth day of the fourth month, Tisha Bav. The reasons stated on the Encyclopedia are:
“…it was decreed that Jews who went out of Egypt should not enter Palestine; the Temple was destroyed for the first and the second time; Bether was conquered (under Bar-Kochba and his unsuccessful 2nd revolt against the Romans in rev, and Jerusalem plowed over with a plowshare.”

So then the date, Tisha Bav, the ninth day of the fourth month is the date of calamity for the Jew. and not just Biblically. The Jews were expelled from Spain on Tisha Bav, the Holocaust is commemorated on Tisha Bav. The Jews also remember several programs under the Crusade on this day.

Back to our story, Jeconiah’s son Zedekiah fared poorly. He was captured, his family slaughtered before his eyes. Worse than that, it was the last thing he ever saw. His eyes were gouged out, he was put in chains, and hauled off to Idol City (aka Babylon), fulfilling a queer prophecy of Ezekiel , prophesied the whole sorry story:

“Say, ‘I am a sign to you. As I have done, so it will be done to them; they will go into exile, into captivity.’

“The prince who is among them will load his baggage on his shoulder in the dark and go out. They will dig a hole through the wall to bring it out. He will cover his face so that he can not see the land with his eyes. I will also spread My net over him, and he will be caught in My snare. And I will bring him to Babylon in the land of the Chaldeans; yet he will not see it, though he will die there.” Ezekiel 12:11b-13

But God

But God promised David (and Solomon) that the Messiah would be through the the line of David:

 “When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom.” 2 Kings 7:12.

See also Psalm 89:20-ff.

End Game

Reading through the lineage of Matthew, we see that Jesus comes through the family line of Joseph, his legal father. That fatherhood goes straight back to David, giving Jesus legal title to the Throne of David. But the curse of Coniah (as God refers to him back in Jeremiah’s prophecy (thanks to Let us Resaon) because God didn’t want the prefix Ja- , (God) abasing Him, the curse is a blood curse, not a family curse.

How can that be? A blood curse but not a family curse? Consider Mary’s genealogy. Her blood goes all the way back to David, but not through Coniah. That line of kings were descendants of Solomon’s son Rehoboam (Mat1:7). Mary’s was through another son of Solomon, Nathan, who was not a part of that curse (Luke 3:31).

And so, there really is only one way to resolve the blood curse placed on Jeconiah, ah Coniah, and yet allow Jesus the legal ad royal bloodline to ascend the Throne of David forever. And we worship.

Why do these things matter? They matter, perhaps, because a lot of times, God doesn’t make sense. If you know God’s telling you something that doesn’t make sense, it could be a matter of perspective, or faith. God will come through on His promises, every last one, in inscrutable detail, although perhaps not the way you or I think they should.