Web Chapel

Serving the Saints

Month: May 2014

  • Lessons from Mothers in Scripture: Eve

    Eve: The Mother of All Living

    Gen 3:20 Now the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living.  (This is where the woman is first named Eve and the first use of “mother”).  God had made for man a helper to serve alongside of man.  The phrase “help meet” (KJV) implies companionship, equality, and perhaps a reference to strength, as one translates this “strong helper”.

    I will make him a help meet for him; עזר כנגדו  ezer kenegdo, a help, a counterpart of himself, one formed from him, and a perfect resemblance of his person. If the word be rendered scrupulously literally, it signifies one like, or as himself, standing opposite to or before him. And this implies that the woman was to be a perfect resemblance of the man, possessing neither inferiority nor superiority, but being in all things like and equal to himself. (Clarke)

    The failure of Adam and Eve resulted in a curse upon the earth and all the lives upon it. (Genesis  3:13-15).  Our loving Creator could not leave man with no hope and with the curse gave a promise of deliverance.  It would be the seed of the woman (a child born of a woman) that would bruise the serpent’s head.  Eve looked for the promise to be fulfilled in her lifetime.

    Lesson One: Expect greatness in your children.

    Eve Looks for the Promise of God in her Children

    Genesis 4:1 Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the LORD.”

    She named her first born Cain: (literally) I have gotten “a man – the LORD”. Her name for this firstborn son indicates her belief in the promise of The Lord and that she would see the promise in her lifetime.   She expected her son to be the promised one and likely told Cain about her audience with The Lord in the Garden.  She shared her faith in the promise to not only Cain but to Abel and again to Seth.

    Mothers, encourage your children to fully follow after The Lord.  Look to them to be the next missionaries and evangelists that will bring the world to Christ.  Tell them about the promises of God and that they have been fulfilled in Christ.  Pass your faith to the next generation.

    Lesson Two: Share your faith and leave the results with the LORD.

    Eve looked for Cain to represent the LORD and to fulfill the promise. However, Cain was not to be the one to break the curse and he failed to offer a sacrifice that was pleasing to The Lord. This was not the fault of his mother.   This is perhaps a reference back to the curse in 3:16 “In pain you will bring forth children”.

    The same mother bore Cain, Abel, and later Seth. Of these three, two were righteous and sought after the LORD but one rejected the LORD to the grief of his mother (see 3:16).  The Lord indicated that Cain knew better when He said, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?” (4:7).  Cain’s failure was not the fault of his teacher-mother, but of his own rejection of the revelation of The Lord.

    It is common in households of believing parents to have some children follow after The Lord and others reject the gospel.  The godly mother may be consistent in her testimony of faith and in training up her children, yet get different results.  Eve looked for the promise, grieved when her son rejected The Lord, but continued to faithfully transmit the Word of God to the next generation of children.

     

    Summary
    Mother’s, look for God’s promise in your children. Perhaps it will be your child that changes the world and does great things for the Kingdom of Heaven, or perhaps they will quietly pass their faith on to the next generation.

    And if you have a child that departs from the way be encouraged that God sees your grief – as he did Eve’s and He will provide them an opportunity to turn back to Him.

     

  • Silent Prayer

    Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, …..  “Isaiah 6:8

    As our nation awakened to the National Day of Prayer I opened my Bible (actually my tablet app) and read this prayer of Isaiah.  The passage begins with “I saw  the Lord.”  We often focus on this chapter as the vision of Isaiah.  However, since my heart was focused on prayer I found a little “treasure hidden in the field” as the old brothers would say.

    We often pray privately just like we pray publicly.  It is how we are taught. By our example we teach this to our children.  We talk to the Lord. We give him a list of things to act upon. Then with the invocation of Jesus Name we conclude our prayer time with “amen” (let it be so).  Imagine if all of our interactions were done this way. Rather than converse, we just tell folks what is on our minds,  say “let it be so”, and walk away.  That sounds silly in the context of human interaction.

    Let’s take a look at this “vision” a little differently.  Read the opening of Isaiah 6 and think of the author sitting in his home meditating on the Word of God and seeking His face.  Suddenly and apparently unexpectedly he sees The Lord!  The first part of this “prayer” is not speaking words, but seeing a vision of the Glory of the Lord. In fact, it is a while before Isaiah speaks.

    This is the recipe for private prayer  that we may glean from Isaiah’s encounter with the Lord.

    1) GET A VISION OF THE LORD (6:1)
    I may not have had my own “vision”, but sitting there reading the Word of God I could see Isaiah’s vision and pictured in my mind what it must have looked like.  God has revealed Himself in His Word and in all that He has created.  Perhaps it could be in a flower “behold the     Lilly of the field“, or a creature of God “behold the ant” that He will show Himself to me on another morning with Him.  This phase of our prayer time is as important as the words that we speak. Get a vision of WHO GOD IS!

    2) TAKE A LOOK YOURSELF (6:5)
    When we see ourselves in light of the Glory of the Lord we should respond like Isaiah, “woe is me”.  We read that all our righteousness is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6) but until we compare all that we think is good in us to His Glory we fail to see just how unworthy we really are.  We need to get to the place of the publican who prayed “Lord be merciful to me, the sinner” (Luke 18:3). When we are humbled in His presence,  when words fail us,  we are finally ready to listen to Him.

    3) LISTEN FOR HIM TO SPEAK (6:8)
    I am not proposing that we pause in public prayer to hear the Lord speak.  However, in our private time of prayer, we need to insert times of “silent prayer” to allow God to speak to us.   We may not be blessed with the audible voice of God that the apostles heard at the Transfiguration (Luke 9:35), but we can hear Him.  Isaiah is recording a “vision” here. This is not a physical encounter, yet the voice of the Lord was clear to him.  “I heard the voice of the Lord”.   God has spoken through His prophets, and now through His Son (Hebrews 1:1ff). When we open His Word we can also hear Him speak if we will just listen.

    4) RESPOND TO GOD’S WORDS (6:8)
    Isaiah responds spontaneously with “Hear am I, send me!”   From my earliest days in the faith I have been touched by missionary slide shows and stories.  I wanted to go and wrote to missionaries and went to nursing school, but He did not send me to the jungles of Africa.  Isaiah’s words went forth to the world through this prophetic book, but there is no record that he himself “went”.   Abraham took Isaac to the mountain and was prepared to sacrifice his own son, but God provided himself a sacrifice. (Genesis 22).  When we respond to the Word of God with willingness and eagerness it pleases Him.  We are thinking like He thinks and feeling like He feels. We now see the world as He sees it.  Our own insufficiency is somewhat forgotten as we gain strength in His presence.

    5) NOW YOU ARE READY TO “PRAY”