Next Meeting
26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
When looking at last week’s reading on the peoples’ response to the gospel of the kingdom, I wondered what their outlook was like, what made them so eager to hear the good news from Jesus?
They were aware our world was created by God as a paradise where everything was perfectly good. But mankind’s unceasing tendency to sin turned every best laid plan astray, the world was full of grief and suffering, under the curse of sin and death. Although they had been given a record of God’s intervention in their history, that didn’t seem to change their plight, and their religious leaders were either joined in league with the harsh rulers, or buried in unhelpful rules and “thou shalt not”s. Where was there any basis for hope?
And their situation was not so different to ours. Our western world now largely ignores the record of God’s intervention in our history, advances in technology don’t seem to have brought peace and contentment, large sections of society seem to have become irrational. And grief and suffering, sin and death, still seem to rule. Where is our source of hope?
But the Old Testament shows that while man’s choice of sin brought despair, God’s promises brought hope, a hope that was ignited when people heard the gospel from Jesus. So, let’s look at God’s Old Testament promises and your response to them.
I have chosen as a key verse Ezekiel 36:26-27, but also listed other verses, and there are many more you could choose to focus upon.
Hope
Ezekiel 36:26-27
26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
Genesis 3:15
And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”
Jeremiah 24:7
Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart.
Genesis 49:10
The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he to whom it belongs shall come and the obedience of the nations shall be his..
Isaiah 42:1
“Behold! My Servant whom I uphold, My Elect One in whom My soul delights! I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.
Isaiah 42:4
He will not fail nor be discouraged, Till He has established justice in the earth; And the coastlands shall wait for His law.”
Micah 5:2
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.”
Isaiah 7:14
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
Isaiah 9:6-7
6 For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
Isaiah 53:3
He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him
Zechariah 9:9
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.
Isaiah 53:5-12
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.
9 And they made His grave with the wicked — But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
11 He shall see the labour of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.
