Full Service

Teaching Points:

1. Trained and failing (1-3)
2. Calling, and quitting. (4-14)
3. You asked for this (15-17)
4. In the red (Gospel)

Breaking down the Passage

Open your doors- Zechariah 10:10 “I will bring them back from Gilead and Lebanon, and there will not be room enough for them” Sanctuary city or Sheepcote?

Fire and Felled-The judgement of God depicted by burning and cutting down

• Fire may devour (1)
• Cedars have fallen ( 2)
• Forest is cut down (2b)
• Rich pastures destroyed (3b)
• Thicket of the Jordan ruined (3C)

Shepherds- The task of the shepherd was to care for the flock, to find grass and water, to protect it from wild animals (Am 3:12), to look for and restore those that strayed (Ez 34:8; Mt 18:12), to lead the flock out each day going before it and to return the flock at the close of the day to the fold (Jn 10:2–4).

Lions- predators that hunt and devour its prey

Favour is a characteristic of God mentioned in Ps. 27:4 (‘beauty’) and 90:17 (‘favour’). It signifies some sort of protection for God’s people from attacks by the nations (10).

Union is lit. ‘bands’, i.e. that which binds together (Israel and Judah, 14).

Are you in the Red?

PRINT