Culture of the Kingdom
Today’s Topic: Prayer: The King and Prayer
Scripture: Matthew 2:2,10,11; Haggai 2:7
Greetings Kingdom Citizens
In the last message we left off with looking at the type and shadow of prayer in the Old Testament and understanding this important revelation that in Exodus 30 we have these types and realities represented:
The Holy of Holies in the Temple: Heaven and the Throne of God
The rest of the Temple structure. The Earth
Incense Altar (located outside the Holy of Holies): Prayers of the saints from the Earth
Blood of the Sin Offering of Atonement: Jesus Christ, The Lamb of God
Do we see this? Now let's fast forward this to the New Testament and the King, Jesus. I want to start at His birth because we read this all the time at Christmas but the element of prayer is seen here.
When the wise men saw HIS star (Matt. 2:2) it says they came to worship the newborn King. How did the wise men know His star from the millions in the sky? The wise men were astronomers and studied the stars and in a Constellation called Coma Berenices appeared another star that shined so bright. Now this constellation's name is the hint to knowing the star. The word Comah in Hebrew means the The Desired One or the Desired of the Ages. The prophet Haggai said this in Haggai 2:7: "And I will shake all nations and the desire of all nations shall come..". So the Desire of the Nations is Jesus Christ. The Egyptians call this star Shes-nu and that means the The Desired Son. So this is how the wise men knew His star.
Now when the wise men get to the infant or toddler Jesus, the scriptures say this in Matthew 2:10,11:
When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped Him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto Him gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Now we know the gold was for His royalty but we want to look at frankincense. Of course frankincense is a incense and what does the burning of incense symbolize? The prayers of the Saints to the Lord. So the wise men in bringing frankincense was symbolically bringing their prayers to the King and Living God. What a picture.
In the next message we will advance this picture to mature Jesus (post-baptism) and look at how Jesus teaches prayer to the disciples.
At the Father’s Service,
Elder Calvin Calhoun Jr.
