Bible Commentary: “The Lot” The Days Of Christmas
December 5, 2014 at 2:14 pm | Posted in Bible Commentary | Leave a comment
Tags: Bible Commentary, The Bible
“So it was, that while he was serving as priest before God 
in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. ” (Luke 1:8-9 NKJV))
We are counting the days until Christmas and we here at Word of Encouragement would like to spend this time together reviewing the prophecies and scriptures concerning the birthday of our King and seeing how they might apply to us today and seeing what encouragement we can receive from them.
Zacharias was a priest in the division of Abijah who had a wife named Elizabeth and they had no children though they had been married a long time and they were both past the child birthing years. Now the priests came from the family of Levi and by the time of Zacharias there were thousands of descendants of Levi so to keep order they separated everyone by division. Now a division then is the same as a division now so suppose you are an engineer in the army corps of engineers. Making up our own numbers let us say that there are 10,000 engineers and every 1,000 of them make a division so that we would have 10 divisions. Therefore you would be 1 of a thousand in a division. To give you an assigned number and assigned division you would be engineer 57 in division 8. How often do you think that your division would be called for service? And once your division was called how often do you think that you would be called for service?
Zacharias was just one of many priests in the division of Abijah and the division of Abijah was just one of many divisions in the priesthood of Levi. Now Zacharias was doing his duty as a priest, his daily function day by day when his division was called to minister at the temple in Jerusalem. And when the leaders of the division cast the lots as to who would minister what week it fell to Zacharias to minister at the burning of incense, morning and evening, this one particular week. It has been said that one and the same priest never burned incense twice in all his days (there were such a multitude of them), at least never more than one week so this was a high honor for Zacharias. And this particular day was probably the Sabbath because there was a multitude of people attending, “And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense” (Luke 1:10 NKJV)). Now a multitude of people would not be outside on a weekday; so God put high honor upon his own day.
Child of God – The lot, or the outcome of the throwing of the dice, is in the hands of the Lord. For the child of God there is no such thing as luck or coincidence. All are steps are ordered of the Lord, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way” (Psalm 37:23). God wanted Zacharias to be ministering at the altar of incense, right in front of the veil that separated man from God, on that day. And just like Zacharias we can rest assured that God knows where we are and what we are doing and He has complete control of our situation. Let us give God all the praise that He takes such good care of us that He will order events in our lives to suit His purposes.
Our prayer:
Lord, thank you for the things you have done in my life by guiding my steps. I know that your plans for me are good and that you lovingly prepare the way for me to walk on. I am looking forward to what you have prepared for my future. But there is one thing I ask, that you guide my steps all the time so I don’t miss your perfect will and purpose for my life. Amen.
If you want to have a personal relationship with Jesus as your Lord and Savior pray: “Dear Jesus, I know that I am a sinner and that out of love for me you willingly sacrificed your life so that I may live. I repent of all my sins and open my heart to you as my Lord and Savior. Amen.
If you prayed this prayer for the first time or if you have any questions please contact us. We would love to hear from you
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Bible Commentary: “The Lot” The Days Of Christmas
December 5, 2014 at 2:14 pm | Posted in Bible Commentary | Leave a commentTags: Bible Commentary, The Bible
“So it was, that while he was serving as priest before God
in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. ” (Luke 1:8-9 NKJV))
We are counting the days until Christmas and we here at Word of Encouragement would like to spend this time together reviewing the prophecies and scriptures concerning the birthday of our King and seeing how they might apply to us today and seeing what encouragement we can receive from them.
Zacharias was a priest in the division of Abijah who had a wife named Elizabeth and they had no children though they had been married a long time and they were both past the child birthing years. Now the priests came from the family of Levi and by the time of Zacharias there were thousands of descendants of Levi so to keep order they separated everyone by division. Now a division then is the same as a division now so suppose you are an engineer in the army corps of engineers. Making up our own numbers let us say that there are 10,000 engineers and every 1,000 of them make a division so that we would have 10 divisions. Therefore you would be 1 of a thousand in a division. To give you an assigned number and assigned division you would be engineer 57 in division 8. How often do you think that your division would be called for service? And once your division was called how often do you think that you would be called for service?
Zacharias was just one of many priests in the division of Abijah and the division of Abijah was just one of many divisions in the priesthood of Levi. Now Zacharias was doing his duty as a priest, his daily function day by day when his division was called to minister at the temple in Jerusalem. And when the leaders of the division cast the lots as to who would minister what week it fell to Zacharias to minister at the burning of incense, morning and evening, this one particular week. It has been said that one and the same priest never burned incense twice in all his days (there were such a multitude of them), at least never more than one week so this was a high honor for Zacharias. And this particular day was probably the Sabbath because there was a multitude of people attending, “And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense” (Luke 1:10 NKJV)). Now a multitude of people would not be outside on a weekday; so God put high honor upon his own day.
Child of God – The lot, or the outcome of the throwing of the dice, is in the hands of the Lord. For the child of God there is no such thing as luck or coincidence. All are steps are ordered of the Lord, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way” (Psalm 37:23). God wanted Zacharias to be ministering at the altar of incense, right in front of the veil that separated man from God, on that day. And just like Zacharias we can rest assured that God knows where we are and what we are doing and He has complete control of our situation. Let us give God all the praise that He takes such good care of us that He will order events in our lives to suit His purposes.
Our prayer:
Lord, thank you for the things you have done in my life by guiding my steps. I know that your plans for me are good and that you lovingly prepare the way for me to walk on. I am looking forward to what you have prepared for my future. But there is one thing I ask, that you guide my steps all the time so I don’t miss your perfect will and purpose for my life. Amen.
If you want to have a personal relationship with Jesus as your Lord and Savior pray: “Dear Jesus, I know that I am a sinner and that out of love for me you willingly sacrificed your life so that I may live. I repent of all my sins and open my heart to you as my Lord and Savior. Amen.
If you prayed this prayer for the first time or if you have any questions please contact us. We would love to hear from you
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