Category: uplook

The Lord’s death and resurrection, when viewed in connection with the
Old Testament dispensation, summed it up and brought it to an end. The
Lord remained on earth for forty days after His resurrection to prepare
His disciples for the new age of grace. During these days there were
appearances and disappearances. The appearances were necessary in order
to prove again and again that He was indeed risen from the dead. The
disappearances were necessary in order to school His disciples to live
by faith and not by sight since His bodily presence was soon to be
taken away. In this period there were seven important openings.({{Acts
1:3}})

Here is a matter which is often overlooked at the Lord’s Supper. It is
the Lord’s total destruction of the power of the enemy ({{Colossians
2:15}}). Satan’s power through the sin of his rebellion lay in the
setting up of a kingdom here on earth to forestall the kingdom which
God intended to establish through His beloved Son. This was a challenge
on the part of Satan to the dominion and authority of God, whose throne
is in the heavens and whose “kingdom ruleth over all” ({{Ps. 103:19}}).

It is the blessed habit of the saints to
especially remember our Lord at His own instituted remembrance feast. This
ought to be our hearty resolve each Lord’s Day. Nothing should be allowed to
disturb these moments of quiet and sacred remembrance. Then let us put aside
all worldly care, and all daily business, and all the griefs and sorrows of our
earthly pilgrimage, gathering to Him and with His saints in this feast of love.
({{1 Cor 10:17}})

Bishop Lightfoot has a good word in place of the phrase "evidently set
forth."({{Gal 3:1}}) It is the word placarded. The Lord and His atoning work on the
cross had been placarded before these Galatians. The message of His
Person and work had been clearly demonstrated before them. But now they
were falling back to the legalism of the Old Covenant. “O foolish
Galatians!” What folly is this to leave Christ for Moses—the gospel for
the law—justification by the righteousness of Christ which brings such
solid comfort, for justification by the works of the law which could
only bring their souls into bondage. The apostle was so astonished as
to call them foolish or senseless.

The Medo-Persian Empire rose out of the ashes of the
Babylonian Empire in 536 BC, at which time Cyrus (chart #3) offered the Jews
their liberty ({{Ezra 1:2-4}}). This was directly the result of Daniel’s prayer
(#2) for the restoration of Judah
when he discovered, in what we call {{Jeremiah 29:10}} (#1), that the captivity was
just about complete.